Tuesday: waiting
Breakfast on 7H porch of a Tuesday morning: caesar salad enriched with red and green bell pepper, half a can of mildly spicy tuna in olive oil, and a tablespoon or two of sauce: ranch dressing that Linda makes, along with a slight pour of the olive oil from the can of tuna. Oh, a handful of pumpkin seeds. On the side, a mug of tap water mixed with the final half-ounce or so of earlier morning's hot & black.
Will I stick with these health breakfasts after my annual weigh-in at my doctor's office on Monday, 4 August? Maybe: I've been crafting them to be unique and really tasty not nasty, so I can stand the month or two of this regimen. Always I start the routine too early, in June, quickly reach my goal, then struggle to keep it there through July. I will admit that our first stop, annually, upon leaving the doctor's office is iHop or Golden C for a festive outrage.
But I do enjoy these imaginative meals, which I allow to wander with something off-course about once a week. A half-pound of 96% lean ground beef, for example, flattened out nearly paper-thin, sear for thirty seconds in a 500°F cast iron skillet, flip, shake parmesan on the crispy seared side while the raw side sears for another thirty seconds. Touch of mustard or mayo on the side and out on 7H porch to feast. That breakfast goes best with a couple of eggs over medium, but I only do that a couple Times a year.
This morning's blogpost is more a diary or journal entry than public posting, eh?
Tuesday POD includes a trip to Habitat for Humanity with several boxes and bags of kitchen things Linda sorted out as never used anymore, prepping for our new kitchen. We're finally on the schedule: the crew is due here tomorrow, Wednesday to do their demo, which is demolition, removing all the old cabinets and countertop. They're on for Thursday and Friday to install the new cabinets, then the countertop people will come out to do their pattern, cut the new countertop, and schedule a return to install it.
After that, the plumber and electrician to finish up.
The Greek name of the Gospel of Mark is κατὰ Μάρκον (kata Markon), which translates to "according to Mark".
Doctor D is scheduling me into his Sunday School class to lead a study of "according to Mark" beginning September 8, the Sunday after Labor Day. I did this last year too, with Revelation and, if he wishes, could do it once a year first thing every Fall as long as life, mobility, and sense hold out. Mark is my favorite Bible book, so this should be fun, I'm already planning and looking forward to it. In my mind, Mark is brilliant and crafty.
Who else is/was "crafty"? Genesis says the serpent was the most crafty of the creatures the Creator made. But Gospel Mark is crafty in a very positive way.
++++++
Reading, I'm back to reading Simone Weil, this Time in a collection of her letters, mainly to Fr Perrin, a Dominican priest, though there is one letter to a mutual friend enclosing material for him to hand to Father Perrin. The book collection is titled "Waiting for God" which is close enough to "Waiting for Godot" which on a theological level is also characters waiting for God (GOD-oh, not guh-DOH) who, as with most of our life experiences, never shows up.
Anyway, Simone Weil, waiting for God. Her wait reminds me of but is not at all like my own wait. My wait is in my search, "Seek the Truth, Come whence it May, Cost what it Will" of which it has proven very costly so far, but shows signs of light the farther I look into the Universe with NASA's space telescopes. Raised in an agnostic Jewish family, Simone Weil has grown very close to the Catholic Church, is comfortable being herself as an outsider until and unless God somehow calls her to be baptized into the sacraments of the Church. The wait is a mental and emotional struggle for her as she lives the outsider status that has been her Way of life, now very sure she's where God wants her to be, and very sure that she'll know if or when God wants her to be baptized; so, she's waiting. Her contemplations extend to the vastness of the Universe, Creation, which gives me an instant sense of relationship with her.
Philosopher, political activist and Saint, Simone led an exemplary Christian sort of life of extreme loving sacrifice, outside but close to the Church. Her life ended at age 34, frankly because in self-mortification she starved herself to death.
Sometimes we think a person might better have served mankind and faith by being more judicious and stretching life out as long as possible. Simone Weil wasn't of that bent. Neither, eh?, was Jesus? Having ridden the overnight bus up from Hell to Heaven, the Ghost in Gaiters (a deceased bishop of the Church of England) in C S Lewis' little book "The Great Divorce" cannot stay in Heaven, ONE because he's not "needed" there and his ego requires that he be needed; TWO because he's got to get back to his little weekly study group in Hell to read his latest paper, which contemplates how much better it would have been if Jesus had not been so impetuous as to let himself be crucified at a young age, and instead had lived out a normal human life.
As well as the lameness of his grand, arrogant intellectualism, the Ghost in Gaiters feels that he's "needed" back in Hell, so he waves goodbye and gets back on the bus for the return trip to Hell. One might say, a revelation of our extreme absurdity, even stupidity. The God of Jesus Christ offers humanity a simple and easy choice that can be confounding to wise theologians who like to make God complicated and incomprehensible.
++++++++
The morning progresses and I must lie down for a few minutes before we drive out 11th Street to Habitat.
RSF&PTL
T89&c
++++++
typed but not edited in order to move along with the morning a big faster