"So tell me, what is it that you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?"
--Mary Oliver

Saturday, February 25, 2012

friday five...a day late (well, a few minutes late!)

Emptiness Friday Five.....

This Friday five comes courtesy of Sally over at RevGalBlogPals! (You don't think I could come up with something like this myself, do you?)

I have been pondering this Friday Five over and over in my mind, but I am coming up with nothing, so I am wondering; what do you do when you feel empty of all creativity and unable to make/do anything? This is a completely open question, the only rule is name 5 things that fill/ inspire you:


Well, this is a tough question for me to answer, given the way I've been feeling physically/emotionally/ spiritually these last few months, so perhaps this is just the time for me to give this a whirl.


1. Being surrounded by my family. Although I'm an only child, my dad was the third eldest of eleven children, so I grew up surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, great-aunts, great-uncles, and at the center of it all, my grandmother, the most warm, generous, and loving woman I've ever known. So then I wound up marrying a man who, amongst his other stellar qualities, just happens to have almost as many cousins as I do! (I have 44.) Not to mention he's the baby of six siblings. Our wedding was huge. and, incidentally, I'm a proud great-auntie myself now, several times over. And now I'm in contact with both sides of my birthparents' families, who, yes, are also part of large extended families. Naturally. I have more family than I know what to do with! And I love it, especially now that my folks are gone, because to me, family is home and love and laughter.


2. Walking, sitting, gazing out on the water of the North Shore of Lake Superior. It soothes me, slows down my mind and body, and fills me with the presence of God.

3. Feeling forgiven, truly forgiven, whether by another human being or by God. It is the only thing that heals the brokenness I feel inside when I know I have wronged someone, whether it be by "what I have done or by what I have failed to do."


4. Going through my parents' old pictures, letters, etc. It never fails to bring back floods of memories, some sad, some happy, most of which make me laugh until I cry. Which reminds me that I HAVE to get my hands on that new set of Laurel and Hardy movies, even if it is astronomically expensive. After all of the hours the three of us spent watching those movies...


5. Doing something for someone else. During the Depression, my Grandma Resch never, ever turned a hobo away when they came by asking for food, despite the family's poverty and all of the mouths she had to feed. She always found something to fix for them, and even something extra to make the plate look nice. My parents carried on this tradition, and one of my biggest frustrations of my current run of migraines is that I'm stuck at home all of the time, which keeps me from doing any of the things I'd normally do to pay it forward, so to speak. After all, I didn't choose the Prayer of St. Francis for both of my parents' remembrance cards for nothing. I chose it as words to live by.



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