I had a delightful treat today. The best kind because it was unexpected and so appreciated.
I not only discovered a beautiful chapel, but happened upon it during a special period of exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. My participation in a parent education series at the church took me into a new parish in the middle of the morning. I wanted to attend Mass before leaving on an hour commute home, so I resigned myself to a long wait until the next one.
Instead, I settled into an unhurried hour of prayer and reflection in the St. Mary’s Chapel. I loved the vibrant colors of the stained glass window above the altar, the subdued light above the tabernacle, nestled behind a veil, and the soft light from the candles on the altar.
As I gazed upon the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, I noticed the statue of St. Joseph to the right, and the bright image of the Blessed Mother looking down on the scene. I was enveloped by the Holy Family!
This week’s Weekly Photo Challenge, vibrant, reminded me of a recent Christmas present — a coloring book. Not just a coloring book, but a book filled with inspirational quotes, too. I get to relax and enjoy the mindless distraction of coloring, and then I get to ponder the quote in the picture.
Win-Win!
What could be more vibrant that the knowledge that we are all miracles?
Samsung? I have an iPhone. Spontaneous generation?
When I was growing up, the junk drawer in the kitchen was filled with ballpoint pens. Cheap clicky pens with advertising on them. U.S. government skillcraft pens that looked super cheap, but wrote beautifully. And a collection of those orange-yellow Bic pens without their caps. Naturally, there was a collection of caps that didn’t fit any of the pens.
None of them wrote. I know this because I often saw my mother with the telephone nestled into her shoulder while she warmed the tip of a dried up pen with one of my dad’s lighters. My mom had some skills — she often pulled the phone line taut to reach the drawer, so adding just a little more tension would have launched the phone back toward the wall — but it never happened. She managed to keep the caller entertained while holding the pen and paper in one hand, and flipping the cap off the lighter and getting it to ignite without setting fire to the paper or her eyebrows. Miraculously, she’d squeeze a little ink out of that dead pen.
Then she’d put it back in the junk drawer.
I’m convinced the 21st century version of dead ball point pens is the earbud. Or earbuds — I suppose they come as a pair. My junk drawer has a bunch of pairs — with gross metal facing that is rusting (or worse — is that…is that earwax? gross.)
I find buds everywhere. There are half a dozen on my desk, some neatly wound, others in a tangle, a couple still in their pretty little boxes, unused. Pristine.
None of them are the kind I like, and every last one of them will be used, begrudgingly, because the good ones I bought last year have gone missing. I was so annoyed I stopped listening to my podcasts.
I finally got tired of punishing myself. Now I just punish my ear canal with the cheap earbuds. They are everywhere. Especially in the junk drawer.
