Monday Freewrite

Hiking Fitton Green Yesterday with My Favorite People: George, Michael, and Paul

Well, sometimes it is a blessing that people do not show up for their spiritual direction appointments. One of my directees who is super reliable did not show, but I am burdened right now with Afghanistan. So it is good for me to not meet with her this week. So it is next week at the same time. 

So here I am sitting on a beautiful sunny summer day in Corvallis. I have a lot of work to do today. I am going to devote the rest of the morning to get the podcasts ready for publishing. 

I think I need to walk up to the labyrinth and just release a lot of stuff. I feel so "swirly" right now. The good news is that I am not "squishy" as I used to say. I am not in conflict with anyone, and I feel like I am in a good place with everyone around me. Part of that is that I don't care as much what people think of me. I see the benefit of the Harmony Triad training I received. It was really good for me to do that. I am going a lot more to Type 5 and Type 8 so I am not all caught up in thinking that someone does not like what I am doing. I just am working diligently and know that "that the desire to please God does, in fact, please God" (Merton). There is freedom in that. There is beauty in that. 

So the difference between "swirly" and "squishy" is that I just have so many things going all around me, but I am not emotional about it. I am not going to unhealthy emotional places (Type 4 unhealthy) in the midst of 1) the Afghanistan situation and my friends who are there, and 2) working with someone on a project that can sometimes make things a little bit more complicated than it needs to be. I am a K.I.S.S. kind of person. I have streamlined what I give that person because everything seems to be questioned and sometimes made incorrect in the translation from what I give and what is eventually produced. Surprisingly, I am not at all frustrated, but I think the light is dawning that things are not all there. Maybe it is a distraction from other things or maybe it is just who that person is. I really like that person, and I need to maintain a good relationship with them. So I am praying through it.

All that said, I was needing to pray at 4:30 pm yesterday as a friend made a heroic journey to get out of Afghanistan, but my family wanted to go out to eat and for a hike. SO GOOD FOR MY SOUL. Because these are my two favorite things in all the world: my wonderful family and being out in nature (with my wonderful family). I love our peace. I love our love of similar things. So it was good for me to spend the two hours before 4:30 eating and hiking. Then I got home in time to pray as a family with them and then throughout the time from 4:30-8:00 when I got a message that the attempt was unsuccessful. I was so sad. This meant communicating with a whole group of prayer warriors on the subject. They are so sweet to check, but it meant a lot of time. I need to streamline the process. I have always thought it would be so nice to have an administrator. This is why I have no desire to make a name for myself or have a more public persona. It would mean too many people and eventually, I would not be able to be personal with people. So this is so good for me to just be more one-on-one. 

But someone let the cat out of the bag about doing Enneagram stuff, and now I am getting contacted about that. It is good on the one hand because I had wanted to meet one on one with the small group I am facilitating. But it means more time that is going to dwindle away when I go back to teaching. 

So that is my story for today. When I finish my tea. I will walk and then I will work on the tedious part of my job!