Five Random Thoughts

1. Good gracious, it's been cold here in Iowa! I don't remember the last time it got above freezing; the temperatures have chiefly hovered in the single digits, dipping below zero overnight. The weather app is predicting -16 on Sunday! Brrrrrrr! May be a good St. Valentine's Day to stay home with hot drinks and movies instead of going out.

2. Travel Shows. Comfortable winter diversion or torture? I can't decide. I know that travel is bound to eventually get back to normal -- but when is the question! We're anxious to get a chance to go to Germany to see our son, Kevin, and his family. We've not yet met our granddaughter, Sophia! Hopefully by summer things will be getting a little back to normal... But I'm not holding my breath. (insert frowny face) In the meantime, though, I'm getting a kick out of Rick Steves. He's just my kind of dorky and fully of really good information to store up for our next European adventure. We highly recommend his shows! But they definitely add to the wanderlust problem, so watch at your peril.

3. Only five days until Lent! Can you believe it? It was only just Christmas a minute ago! But the Sacrificial Season is hot on the heels of Candlemas Day, and here we are. I'm trying to resist the urge to pig out on everything I'll be giving up come Wednesday. Sometimes I think the Pre-lent over-doing just makes it harder to sacrifice things -- but then I pretty much always follow up that thought with: What the hey! And then I have to start out my Shrove Tuesday by confessing to gluttony, which is never good... (I wonder how often Father hears that word "gluttony" during the Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday confessions. He must just kinda roll his eyes...) That all said, though... It's gotten easier, not harder, to give things up during Lent as I've gotten older. Maybe because there are fewer temptations now that the kids have flown the nest? Or because I've already got a strict diet and I've gotten used to a more spartan lifestyle? I don't know.

4. I was thinking the other day, though -- must have been Tuesday -- how much our perception changes as we get older. Through most of my younger life, I didn't like praying the Sorrowful Mysteries. I know; that's a kooky thing to admit, isn't it? But, honestly, raising a big family and busy for so many years with the workings of so many lives (not just my own!), I think it was more vital to me to focus on positive things -- to just keep going. There's a lot to drag you down if you let it and for years I didn't want to "go there" -- even in the rosary. Meditating on great sorrow of any kind wore me down. Or I thought it would. No doubt my having a somewhat sanguine temperament figured into that. (How could it not, right?) And it's not that I didn't value the importance of Christ's sacrifice, because I think I did as far as an ignorant human being can grasp such a thing -- but I couldn't love the meditation of it. Rather, I felt comfort and inspiration in the Joyful Mysteries. They spoke to where I lived.

Now, though, I've come to love and appreciate the Sorrowful Mysteries. I'm not sure when it happened -- it was probably a slow growing realization -- but having lived through a good sampling of both joy and sorrow for five and a half decades now, I don't see the two so much as a contrast -- one good and the other bad -- but as inextricable puzzle pieces, dependent upon one another. Maybe it's because I've experienced enough to see for myself how cross-bearing isn't hard because it's a love thing, but that it's a love thing because it's hard. Does that make sense? And the bigger the cross toted with love, the bigger the joy that's also connected with it -- or maybe joy is not really the exact word: it's more like satisfaction or rightness; something deeper and more lasting than joy, really. Impossible to explain, but I think finding out for yourself -- often the hard way -- the value of crosses -- is how you bear them.  And how they bear you. Fought and resented they crush you; accepted and loved, they build strength for the long haul.

I wish I'd understood this in more than an academic way when I was younger so I could have born those early crosses more fruitfully -- but I'm not sure that would have been possible. I think some of us more thick-headed sort aren't bound to understand Christianity until at some point we get to the top of Calvary ourselves and managed the courage to point our faces up to see Jesus hanging there-- where His eyes meet ours -- and they are filled only with love -- not dread or regret or disappointment. Only happiness to see us there with Him. That light of love in His eyes. It's always been there in the Sorrowful Mysteries, but I never got past the wounds to see it, I'm afraid. I know to look for it now, though.

5. And finishing on a totally unrelated topic ("random five"): what I'm hoping I can convince my Valentine to make for us Sunday morning with brunch. (Recipe here.)

* This "Random Five" is a take-off on a Blogger linky/listy called "Random 7 Friday" that used to be shared by a blog called Conversion Diaries that is no longer in existence -- though the blogger still has a presence online... in a wholly unexpected way! She's a comedienne! She does tours -- and has a show on Amazon Prime. Like, what? I used to "know this Mom when." Crazy crazy world. Who would ever have thought? (I am shaking my head in wonderment.) In case you wondered, though: not the least bit of envy here -- or covetousness for that kind of life. The kinds of things I feel twinges of envy for are more along the lines of: paved driveways (sigh), really good luggage (swoon), and people who don't need a special diet to be skinny and have energy.... (darn you people) I am very happy just planning out my house to fit in Dominic and his little family this spring -- and looking forward to Irish coffee on Sunday! Woot!