Thank you, Carol, for hosting the monthly Spiritual Journal Thursday this week. Her post is fully of breathing deeply, enjoying and being refreshed by nature’s bounty. Be sure to visit her post to read her reflections and summer joy.
Carol asked us to describe “the art of summering” for this month’s post. I’ve not often been one for artfully summering. I usually have a whole lot of things on my to-do and to-go lists, and I get myself very busy. This summer my list has nowhere to go, but much to do, including:
Teaching
- virtual summer camp with church children
- tutor a new student to help him get ready for next year
Organizing
- begin organizing my digital photos
- organize and transfer ownership of many school Drive documents
- start a regular organize-a-closet-or-cupboard-or-two-each-week schedule
- transfer my teaching credential to California
- finish the portfolio for my long drawn-out TESOL certificate
Learning
- learn some stories and illustrations for two online trainings
- study Spanish lessons on Duolingo
Reading
- read daily, including Clint Smith’s How the Word is Passed and Ashley C. Ford’s Somebody’s Daughter
Writing
- several blog posts a week for the writing groups I’ve joined
- Teacher’s Write, reflecting, writing, renewing with Kate Messner
So, having that list so long and detailed concerns me a bit that I will get too busy or fail; it doesn’t make me think of living artfully. While I wrote that list above, I was reminded of a blog post I wrote last year from a prompt on The Isolation Journals. The prompter reminded us to write a to-feel list first before writing a to-do list, letting the to-feel list guide our to-do list.
I have been neglecting my to-feel list, so I stopped today and considered what I want to feel this summer.
- grateful
- hopeful
- joyful
- respected
- peaceful
- contented
- interested
- empathetic
- revolted at wrongs and injustice
I think that is a good start, and I see that many items on my to-do list can serve these feelings. I took time this week to go outside and write. Even in this really sweltering heat, it can help us feel more deeply, pray more earnestly, and remember what is most important. This small poem was inspired today by the trees.
Consider the flowers and trees
The ones that don’t labor or spin
But live in beauty on the breeze
Here today, then gone again
May these sweet trees inform,
and my faltering faith, transform
~Denise Krebs based on Matthew 6:28-30