good better best

One of life’s blessings is distracting, annoying minor inconveniences. In the dark, turning on the coffee pot by feel, slipping my PAPA mug into the opening, pressing the middle button, and darting off to the bathroom — returning to find the mug empty and the overflow reservoir full of hot coffee. In the dark I’d positioned the mug just off from the spout. 

For mental discipline, it’s good when a goof is one’s own fault; even better, to recognize that; perhaps best, to be aware that one is facing one's own fault. Years ago I worked with a man who always found someone else to blame for his own mistakes, whose portrait would have made a textbook cover for narcissistic personality disorder. Working around him was an exercise in learning to be self observant.

My Bay is lovely this morning. Flat but not glassy. Light blue, but a shade or two darker than the sky above it. Across, beyond Shell Island and over the Gulf, coasting along just above the horizon, is a long, low cloud that the morning sun is just now casting pink and lavender. What a blessing to be alive here, now. I wish Alfred could see this. I'm seeing it for him.

Exercise in the gym downstairs, then to the office. Draft the 10:30 bulletin for next Sunday, clergy lunch with the bishop-elect, afternoon conference with a happy young couple. Home, tomato sandwich and a glass of something red. Nothing open, so — merlot, cabernet, shiraz, malbec — to sleep, perchance to dream. Perchance to not snore.

+Time: Life Is Good.

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