The Week Between

Every so often, I get a reminder of mortality, a reminder that time may be even shorter than I thought.  And what do I do?  Write the great masterpiece that I've put off until now?  Plan a great trip?  Do something that scares me?  Sort through a box of paperwork?

No.  I brew an extra pot of coffee in the morning. 

I used to drink the leftover coffee from the day before.  Then my best friend from high school was diagnosed with the esophageal cancer that would kill her, and I started throwing out the old, bitter coffee.

For the past few months, I've been running another small pot of water across the old coffee grounds when the first pot of coffee ran out.  This morning, I thought, you know, that coffee doesn't really taste good.  Life is short--I'm making fresh coffee.

In a similar vein, today is the beginning of the week between my online classes.  I turned in grades yesterday, after a grading session that was easier than I expected.  Let me not waste this precious week.

Of course, I will still be working my full-time job, which seems to increasingly take more time, both the time spent in the office, and the time that the work takes in my head.  And I need to figure out due dates for the next round of classes and do all the manual labor of entering the dates into the various spots in the course shells.

Still, let me resolve to get some writing done.  Let me also resolve to submit my essay manuscript to Eerdmans. I think I am closer to being able to do that than I realize.

I am beginning my Great Re-Organization Project.  Actually, it's already underway.  My plan:  each day, I will do something that will keep my house on the path towards re-organization.  It may be small, like yesterday; I took 2 shoeboxes to church, where they will be used to mail cookies to college students.  Today I will take a plastic magazine holder (which will hold about a year's worth of monthly magazines in an upright form) to the library at school.

I also want to continue with some discernment processes.  Let me record this moment from the Create in Me retreat before we get further away, and it slides from my memory.  The first night, Pastor Mary introduced the planning team.  I was last, the social media coordinator.  I stood up, and a section of the retreat population clapped.  They hadn't clapped for anyone else.

So, in this time of discernment, let me ponder:  I am good at some types of social media, like creating Facebook posts and e-mails that inspire people.  But here, as in many aspects of my life, I believe that if I'm enjoying it and/or it comes naturally/effortlessly to me, it doesn't count somehow.  Or I think that I must be doing it wrong.

I focus on all the social media stuff that I'm not doing for the Create in Me retreat.  I don't have a smart phone, so I can't make Instagram posts.  I know that all the cool kids left Facebook long ago, and I feel somewhat guilty about not being able to follow them to Instagram.

But before the week gets underway, there's the bread run to be done.  Last week, we got almost all bread and no baked goods.  It was very strange.