Or reading wonderful books like this:

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135010.Finding_Sanctuary_Monastic_Steps_for_Everyday_Life?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_book"><img alt="Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life" src="

Or writing in my handy dandy notebook about the trite details of my days. My paper journal doesn't expect much from me, which is good, because I've been ruminating about mercy lately as I confront my Wickedness. Perhaps you've had those moments when you've realized that, honestly, you are not a great person. Sure, there are plenty of humans who are worse than you, and if you were to put yourself on a spectrum, perhaps you wouldn't quite be at the gates of hell (presuming it exists), but wow. You could be so much better.

That's why I'm really grateful for mercy, and why I've started praying "the Jesus prayer" as much as I can. If you haven't tried it, I encourage you to plant it into your brain and use it when you start getting frustrated at someone - like in traffic, or at work... or whenever. It's transformative. In itsy-bitsy baby steps, but I'm not sure I could handle anything more than that.

Do you have any "go-to" prayers or meditations that have been fruitful for you in your journey?

It occurred to me after my last post, that I had, in fact, been having a series of Bad Days, much to my consternation. Worse, it felt like I was on a roller coaster, rising and falling in the course of hours. Things would start out well enough in a day, or end up well enough, or even have glimmers of well enough in the middle of the day, but there was no consistency.

This alarmed me, and I spent some time considering what might be contributing to these Bad Days. Last fall, even when I had stressful days, I was Happy. In fact, one of my co-workers mentioned to me that things that used to not bother me very much at all were bothering me Quite A Lot. She asked me what had changed. I couldn't quite pinpoint it until I caught up on my blog reading over the weekend, and saw this wonderful post from Susan Stabile on our need for quiet time, for contemplation...

And that, my friends, was the missing link. More specifically, my prayer life, my time for reading and contemplation had virtually disappeared. Where last fall and early winter I was doing morning prayer as well as compline, recently I had not been doing either very often. I hadn't even updated my ipod with the compline prayers I use to guide my prayer. I hadn't listened to or sung a Taize chant in weeks, and that was normally a daily ritual for me.

There is a common occurrence among people who take medication for mental illness I've noticed. As soon as the patient begins to feel better, she decides she doesn't really need the medication anymore. More often than not, this leads to disaster. (Please note this is a purely anecdotal conclusion, gleaned from my own observations.)  While I didn't consciously decide that I didn't need my prayer rituals, I let them slip away, and as I did, my capacity for handling the daily stresses of my life and the occasional Really Big Stress declined.

So, Monday night I updated all of my podcasts, and uncovered a book I had acquired with enthusiasm some time ago, but never opened:

The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. I've wanted to read Merton for a long while, but I'm lazy, and my soul knew it would challenge me and force me to confront Many Things about my faith, so I avoided it. I'm about 77 pages in, and I wish I could stay home and read it all day until I am done. Perhaps my soul is simply ready for it. Addicts don't make changes until they hit rock bottom and then in recovery, they learn how to not just change, but recognize signs that they are having difficulties. I think spiritual growth is like that; we're addicted to our egos, thinking they are just great and wonderful, until we learn there is a Better Way, and it takes an awful lot of concentration to keep growing. Plants wither without care; so it is with our souls. 

It's time for me to get back to Merton. In the meantime, remember the words of Julian of Norwich:

"…All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well".

I've spent the last two hours trying to write about my day. It was one of those days that makes you wonder if your efforts are in vain, makes you grateful you have a paycheck, but still makes you want to demand a raise or quit and slam the door on your way out. A day when you try to be really proud of what you've accomplished, yet no one shares your enthusiasm. One of those days when it feels really rotten to be at work, but your conscience is saying, "At least you have a job, a paycheck, a roof over your head." And I am grateful. I really am. So rather than try to wax poetic about perspective, I'm just going to share this song with you, because it made me smile while I sang it on the way home from work.

Mr. Bowers, 50, who was ordained as a diocesan priest in 1987, lends a sympathetic ear; he has questions of his own about the church hierarchy.

“Obedience is a two-way street — it involves a great deal of trust, and the trust part is very, very low for me right now,” he said. “You can’t promise obedience when you feel like you can’t trust the person you’re supposed to obey.”

In the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll, released last week, 58 percent of American Catholics said the pope and the Vatican had done a poor job in responding to the reports of abuse. And 77 percent said someone who did not believe in the authority of the pope could still be a good Catholic.

Many more expressed faith in their local priest, and 77 percent said they were just as involved in their local church’s activities as they had been before the latest reports of abuse.

I actively, consciously choose to walk by faith and not by fright.

I choose to stay because “the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” is indeed the goal toward which I’m called to press on.  I know the institutional church is simply an artifact that needs excavation and transformation. I choose to stay because I know God is bigger and the Holy Spirit more powerful than anything humans might muck up. I choose to be a participant observer.  I choose to stay because having been raised Jewish, I know things could always be worse. Indeed, they already have been.

It was good to spend time in the sun, working in dirt. There's a certain joy in digging in and finding plenty of worms, or noting how the soil is gradually improving. Simple things that make me smile. One of my big joys is that these days I have money for my flowers. This year I am focusing on buying a couple of native plants for the yard, growing more sunflowers and I'm hopefully going to do some vegetables using the Square Foot Gardening method. More on that in the coming weeks.

Here's a picture of one of the raised beds in the front of my house before I planted the pansies.

And here's the same spot with some pansies.

 I grouped them around the base of an azalea and this Dicentra or "Bleeding Heart" that I planted last year around the time of my sister's kidney transplant for her. It didn't weather last summer well, and when the landscapers cleaned up the bed late last summer, I thought they had pulled it out and it was gone. Yesterday I came home from work and realized it was very much alive and doing quite all right, thank you!

Here's the "Bleeding Heart" in the bed:

And here's a closeup of the teeny tiny flowers.

I put more pansies at the base of my garden cross.

So the pansies are in, and more annuals will follow in a couple of weeks.

I've been amazed by how quickly the plants are emerging in just a few days. From tree blossoms to hostas, it's just beautiful!!!

Here is the weeping cherry tree in my backyard:

A couple of close-ups of the blooms:

And here is a violet blossom in the lawn. We have a 'no kill' policy for weeds. We don't use fertilizers or weedkillers in our yard. I spend most of the summer barefoot - I don't want those chemicals in my skin. And, I've read a lot lately about how plants we call 'weeds' like clover are vital to bees, birds and butterflies. Plus, some of them are just so pretty.

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Finally, my friend J posted a video tonight that I wanted to share with you. It's a song called "My Home Among the Hills". It's the most beautiful song I know, the most beautiful song I've ever had the honor and pleasure to sing. In fact, I'm actually part of the choir singing this version in the video, recorded in December 2006 at my alma mater, West Virginia Wesleyan College. I'm a native New Jerseyan, but from the first moment I stepped onto WV soil, I felt as if my soul had found its true home. I lived there for four short, relatively sheltered years, but some of the people I love most in this world call WV home, and there is always a part of me that longs to return there. When you listen to this song, I'll bet you'll understand why.

Ordination Barbie