temporarily uncentered

If I didn't know that this lifestyle I'm living right now was temporary, I think I'd be going crazy. I'd be trying to find a way to become part of a community, looking for meaning, having a spiritual crisis even, and in general be really frustrated with my life.

I've found that in this urban, independent, work-a-day lifestyle (even though I love my job!), I don't know how to be centered in God. I've been using a Celtic prayer book to do brief morning and nighttime prayers to try and ground myself spiritually at least a little, but ironically, it sometimes makes it harder! Here's why: for the past year I've been living in the woods and the countryside, surrounded by nature, which is where I feel closest to God and most connected to my spirituality, and the prayer book uses a lot of nature imagery and metaphor. But I'm living in the city now! And that language simply doesn't connect with what I'm experiencing. In fact, sometimes it makes me resent what I'm experiencing, which is exactly NOT what prayer is supposed to do. It's supposed to help you connect with your own soul, and to God and to center you spiritually in your reality (among other things). So if I were to stay in the city longer, I would need to find a prayer resource that helps me do that in an urban context, using urban imagery and metaphors to speak of the spiritual experience.

But I'm not frustrated with my life or worried about getting stuck in an unfulfilling rut, because instead, I'm leaving in two weeks!

picture perfect...

Thank you, CVS, for printing my photos correctly! And no thanks to you, Walgreens! At least I didn't have to pay for all of their messed-up prints, but they still set me back a whole 3 days in getting my UK visa application submitted.

Of course I take responsibility for taking so long to get around to getting the photos printed in the first place, but still -- what kind of "Photo Tech" at a photo printing place doesn't recognize when their machine is messing up? No, my original was not out of focus, not even when zoomed in. it was a perfectly good, perfectly clear picture. It was so obvious -wasn't it?- that the blue-red color alignment was off! I'm sure I pointed that out 4 or 5 times. But nobody could seem to figure out why or what to do about it. Hello? Well, I hope the other customers who were having hundreds of prints made this week are happy with how theirs turned out...

Meanwhile, I'll be putting my application in the main tomorrow, so I can go to Northern Ireland in February!