Ash Wednesday

 I feel better today. Like, really, truly, solidly better. How long that will last? Who knows, it's a mystery. 

The service at church was really fun. Jordan and I got to help Bingham stuff the palms into the SPECIAL BBQ for burning. We made some new friends at our table. Church is really starting to feel safe and like home. 

I ate sausages and egg casserole and a blueberry pancake with butter. ^_^ I knew I wouldn't be able to really go for a walk after eating (dark, cold, downtown Eugene), so I avoided syrup and juice and ice cream. 

Which feels weird and a bit sad, BUT, I think my blood sugars were a bit more stable through the night, because I didn't have to get up and pee even ONCE!

Which is a thing that can happen when you have a spike or drop in the night, your body knows there's an emergency, and wakes you up, and then you have to pee. 

Apparently. 

That or I was just dehydrated. lol. 

We got our picture taken in the photo booth!

Look how cute we are. SO CUTE! ^_^

And there were beads to wear. I brought mine home. 

I put them around our "alter" and it feels more altery now. Just two pretend candles, and then the candle we got from The Grove at Christmas, and now beads and our picture. When it is Palm Sunday, we will go to the church, and get some palms and fold them into a cross, and that will stay at our alter until NEXT Shrove Tuesday, whereupon, we shall take it to church and BURN IT WITH FIRE! 

I gotta admit, there is SOMETHING about the liturgy that is getting under my skin in a very soothing way. 

Maybe I should say "going ON my skin like a soothing lotion." lol. 

Interestingly, I am going to participate in the fasting for Lent this year. We both are. Maybe it's the novelty, maybe it's spiritual growth, maybe it's healing, maybe it's the church feels SAFE again, in small but very real ways. 

For one thing, the fasting isn't as strict. 

For us, we will be not be eating red meat or poultry on Fridays. BRING ON THE FISHIES!

And we won't be participating in the "GENERALLY EAT LESS" days, because #diabetes

I dunno. Fasting has always been ... presented and practiced in very harmful ways, either with my participation, or done AT me as a method to control me. "Well, I'll just FAST AND PRAY until you [do what I want you to]."

So you can imagine the harm that's done to me around fasting. 

this just feels different somehow. It's hard to explain. 

The other thing I'm going to do is Morning Prayer. 

it's interesting to me, now that I'm out and have a distance perspective, how often I was told - REPEATEDLY, and with great force - that liturgical churches, progressive churches, are "casual" christians, who don't REALLY read the Bible or have any kind of Christian disciplines. 

As opposed to evangelical christians who supposedly had a Great Love of the Bible, and All Kinds Of Disciplines. 

Quiet time, personal Bible reading, etc. 

I have found this to be an error. 

There are TONS of opportunities in the liturgical church for all of those things. 

There are THREE TYPES OF PRAYER TIMES, EVERY DAY, with specific prayers, times and scripture readings in the Episcopalian church. Even more in the Catholic.

Every Sunday, we have chunks of the Bible read from the Psalms, the Jewish scriptures/OT, the NT letters, and my personal favorite: The Gospels. 

It's my favorite, because there's a very large, FANCY book of the gospels that gets waved around importantly, and then pronounced, "THE GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO [Luke/John/Matthew/Mark]" and we all chime in "THANKS BE TO YOU OH CHRIST."

I like it when the book gets waved around. It pleases me. Hee hee!

SO much more corporate, structured Bible reading than I encountered in ANY evangelical church.

And then the church calender is just really good. It's really good. It very much jives with the experience of being human. We need structure and rhythms. I find it very helpful. 

I do want to be clear: 

I don't think one is necessarily better than the other. I do know for ME, liturgical church is way better. What I'm trying to point out, is that the perception that liturgical churches aren't REALLY Christians is ... 

It's just plain silly. 

As the church as a whole, we REALLY need to stop the whole I'm Better garbage. 

Point out the harmful things, hold systems and churches accountable, but nobody is better than anyone else. 

Yeesh. 

I'm working on a project on my Cricut, making labels for our new glass tea jars. 

The letters are so fiddly, I am placing them each BY HAND onto the jars, trying to keep them straight. 

o_o

I'll show you tomorrow, when I'm hopefully done. ^_^

Carey brought Daisy (the dog) to the farm, and she played so happily with Caly and Fairy. I got to go up and pet her and spend some time with her. She's so, SO sweet. 

I can feel my heart starting to lean towards "Yes ... let's do this." 

And yes. I AM going to let that influence my decision. 

That's not to say that feeling IS my decision. 

But I am going to make an emotionally informed decision. 

There's no such thing as a purely rational decision, btw. That's not possible for humans. 

You either acknowledge you have emotions informing and shaping your thoughts, OR you press them down and fool yourself into thinking you're being "rational and unemotional," and your emotions STILL shape your feels, but now it's sneaky, and you don't know how they are impacting you. 

In my opinion, a solid decision is made intentionally, informed with both intellect and emotions. 

Oh, and in alignment with your values. 

For example, my values for this decision are:

1. We still get to live a good life.
2. The cats still get to live a good life. 
3. The dog gets to live a good life. 

If all three of those values can't be met, then the decision is no. 

A great checkmark for those values tho, is that daily doggy daycare is provided. Daisy can go up and be in the barn with Fairy and Caly and be SAFE and play to her hearts content, which will give everyone a break when needed. 

I think I'll talk to Carey and Nathan about dogsitting Daisy if we're spoon-free or need a vacation or something. I'm fairly confident that will be possible, because (1) we take care of their critters when needed and (2) Daisy is living with them rn. lol. 

Jordan isn' really thinking or processing feels about this. Hopefully this weekend we can sit down and really dig in to things together. 

anyway. I must away! It is well past te for work, and I need to have some noms and do morning prayer. <3

Hasta la pasta! 

IT'S NICE WHEN THERE'S GOOD NEWS.