November 9, 2009
Monday

In my post yesterday I divulged a health concern that will take up at least some portion of my attention for the next month or so. My doctor assured me that even if the Worst Case Scenario plays out, the condition is eminently curable (although it might be necessary to use draconian measures) and this is not a call to put my affairs in order. Nevertheless, I took it as at least a wake-up call, one of those surprises that makes you look around, take stock, and maybe make some changes.  As I said of last year’s similar episode,

Okay, so for this whole week and a half I’ll eat right (high fiber, low fat, fresh fruit, lean meat, lots of green stuff and maybe even some tofu, because if you eat tofu you are being so righteous) and I’ll exercise and I’ll breathe and meditate and imagine my calcifications as snowflakes surrounded by a golden light that melts them with a gentle heat and sends them, rendered harmless, back into the energy of the universe. Oh, oh, and I’ll call the people I’ve been meaning to call, and I’ll tell the people I love that I love them and I’ll thank them for being a part of my life. And I’ll start clearing the clutter from all the corners of my life, the magazine articles I’m not going to read and the coupons I’m not going to redeem, and I’ll get all my pictures into albums and finish the cross-stitch quilt I started for Lynn before she was born. And I’ll volunteer down at the soup kitchen too! In other words, if I do all the things I’m supposed to be doing anyway, this thing, this shadow, will go away.

In other words, “get back to where you once belonged.” My doctor called on Wednesday. On Thursday or Friday I enrolled for an e-mail course sponsored by Spirituality & Practice, a site operated by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat that offers “resources for spiritual journeys.” This particular course uses the work of Joyce Rupp, a Servite sister whose approach to spirituality always engages me. Each day brings an e-mail with a short reading for reflection and suggestion for a concrete practice to put the reflection into action.

The first lesson arrived today. “Be open to all that shows up in your life,” it counseled. Notice open things: open doors, open windows, open books.

I alternate between two extremes in this present circumstance. On the one hand, I am trying to adopt the attitude of being open to the lessons that illness can teach, of accepting the changes, even temporary, that the need to address this problem might bring about. On the other hand, however, I revert to my natural inclination to fight, to fidget, to deny, to will the thing away.

This morning I reclaimed from a closet a collection of more than two dozen porcelain and ceramic boxes that I began in the 1970s. I used to display them on a table in the foyer. Every Advent I gathered them into a basket and put them away while the crèche was on display and got them out again after Epiphany. About four or five years ago, weary, perhaps, of dusting them (not that I did that all that much), I didn’t put them back.

I brought to mind the reason that I began the collection in the first place. The items are pretty, of course, but they also spoke to me of things hidden or revealed, made public or kept private. Although I have a few pieces with hinged lids, most of my boxes are, by choice, the kind that have a completely removable lid. I wanted boxes that could be completely opened, the contents laid bare.

I arranged the boxes on the hall table, even though I’ll have to move them again in less than three weeks when we put up our tree and our crèche. I took the lids off and propped them against the bottom half. I did this to remind myself to remain open to everything that shows up in my life, especially in these weeks when I will be waiting for news that might require me to open to many  new experiences.

With the lids off, the boxes take up much more space than they do when they are closed, and they wouldn’t all fit on the table as they had before. So I took four of them with me to the Aerie and put them on my desk there. They join one of my representations of the Woman at the Well (John 4:3-30), an important symbol for me, and a blue glass bird, a gift from a friend who chose it to honor both my affinity for blue glass and my love for birds.

All of these talismans remind me of the abundance in my life, of the fact that I have every resource available to meet and make use of anything that comes my way.

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The NaBlos of the Past:

2008: I did not post on this day in November of 2008.

2007: Thirty-Ten Cubed: Although I like order and predictability, I often let household tasks slide in favor of reading, writing, and gallivanting. There’s always food in the refrigerator and clean underwear in the drawers (not necessarily by my doing), but other things tend to pile up. Literally so, sometimes, as when my stack of magazines rises to a height twice the depth of the basket I keep it in.

2006: Fridge Friday II: My description of Ron as a bachelor forager for the next month is actually not accurate, and not fair to him. He is a chef by early training (his family had the most popular Italian restaurant in Hershey, Pennsylvania for more than fifty years) and really does eat well. The shot of the freezer at right shows his only food vice: Turkey Hill no sugar, no fat chocolate “ice cream.” I do not know how they are allowed to call it “ice cream.” It is beaker dust! Frozen beaker dust! But it is high in fiber (again, an exclamation point is called for)!

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