86- Affirmations.

I am willing to change

I am willing to release my old patterns and negative beliefs.

The power that has created me has given me power to create my new life.

I choose powerful, fulfilling, new thoughts.

I begin anew right here, right now.

I love my family and my home.

I feel nurtured, warm and safe.

My body takes me everywhere easily and effortlessly.

I bless and prosper others and they in turn bless and prosper me.

I stand in truth and I live in joy.

I love who I am and I love what I do.

Every moment is a new beginning.

My life is so sweet.

I am special and wonderful.

The more I love myself, the less stress I have.

I release the need to blame anyone, including myself.

My heart is receptive and open.

I release any limitations based on old limited thoughts.

I joyfully look forward to the future.

Knowing that friends and lovers were once strangers to me, I welcome new people into my life.

As I love and approve of myself and others, life gets better and better.

I open my home and welcome guests with music and love.

My friends are like a loving family to me.

I go to sleep at night feeling great contentment.

I am at peace.

I respect all the members of my family and they in turn respect me.

I look forward with enthusiasm to the adventures of the day.

I delight in my world and my world delights in me.

I see myself as beautiful, lovable and appreciated.

I am proud to be me.

I love myself exactly the way I am.

My income grows greater and greater every day.

Joy Joy Joy!

I lovingly allow joy to flow through my mind and body and experiences.

Divine wisdom resides in each of my friends and family and they are joyous, safe, and secure, wherever they go.

I love all God's creatures, animals great and small, every creature, every insect, bird and fish has its own special place in life. They are just as important as I am.

I communicate easily and lovingly with all living beings and I know they deserve my love and protection.

My body is flexible.

Keeping my mind flexible and agile is reflected in the flexibility of my body.

I know that I am divinely protected and safe.

I relax and flow with the effortlessness of life.

Healing energy constantly flows through every organ and joint and cell.

I move easily and effortlessly.

I am aware of the wonderfulness of life.

I deserve and willingly accept and abundance of prosperity flowing through my life.

I give and receive joyously and lovingly.

I am connected to divine energy.

There is always an answer to every question, a solution to every bump in the road.

I am always guided in infinite wisdom. I trust it and God and always feel safe.

I am constantly being guided and lead in ways that are for my highest good.

Recovery creates space for miracles to move in.

87- The best laid schemes...

I can't help but think about the future at this stage of my life. I think it's only natural. On the cusp of possibly the second greatest transition period of my life (the time directly after graduating from college being the first) I find myself casting forward for all possible iterations of my life after returning to the States.

As my best friend from college once remarked in the May of our senior year, "I've never been less certain of where I'll end up three months from now." and now I find myself in that place once again. I have plans (loosely laid, of course) dreams, visions, secret hopes and desires. All I can know for sure at this stage of the game ...is that I can't know anything for sure at this stage of the game. And I am learning to be OK with that.

"To A Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest, with the Plough"

Robert Burns.

Small, crafty, cowering, timorous little beast,

O, what a panic is in your little breast!

You need not start away so hasty

With hurrying scamper!

I would be loath to run and chase you,

With murdering plough-staff.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

And justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth born companion

And fellow mortal!

I doubt not, sometimes, but you may steal;

What then? Poor little beast, you must live!

An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves

Is a small request;

I will get a blessing with what is left,

And never miss it.

Your small house, too, in ruin!

Its feeble walls the winds are scattering!

And nothing now, to build a new one,

Of coarse grass green!

And bleak December's winds coming,

Both bitter and keen!

You saw the fields laid bare and wasted,

And weary winter coming fast,

And cozy here, beneath the blast,

You thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel plough past

Out through your cell.

That small bit heap of leaves and stubble,

Has cost you many a weary nibble!

Now you are turned out, for all your trouble,

Without house or holding,

To endure the winter's sleety dribble,

And hoar-frost cold.

But little Mouse, you are not alone,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes of mice and men

Go often askew,

And leave us nothing but grief and pain,

For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me!

The present only touches you:

But oh! I backward cast my eye,

On prospects dreary!

And forward, though I cannot see,

I guess and fear!

88 - Live Water

"Live water heals memories. I look up the creek adn here it comes, the future, being borne aloft as on a winding succession of laden trays. You may wake and look from the window and breathe the real air, and say, with satisfaction or with longing, "'This is it." But if you look up the creek, fi you look up the creek in any weather, your spirt fills, and you are saying , with an exulting rise of the lungs, "Here it comes!"

~Annie Dillard

I found the river today. I knew that it existed; the map said so. I finally found it today.

89- Things You Couldn't Live Without

I recently posed a version of the "desert island" post to my kids:

"What would you take with you on a desert island?"

The answers ranged from:

"'Computer games' or 'Television' to ones like 'My mother, to do cooking'." I tried to impress upon them the gravity of the situation. "Things you need to stay alive." I said. "You are alone on a desert island. What do you need to live?"

One boy raised his hand.

"Air-Con?" he said, timidly.

So in that spirit, I offer you my list of:

7 Things I Couldn't (or wouldn't want to) Live Without

1. Water (well, obviously)

2. Coffee (it keeps me from killing people)

3. Some kind of very large bag to haul things around with

4. Pencil and Paper

5. Good stout walking shoes

6. Skype Convos

7. Community of Faith

All on a desert island.

90- Downpour

I got caught in a sudden rainstorm on my walk earlier today. It was inconvenient at first; I kept thinking about my shoes getting and considered going home, but then I realized that I had the time to stay out and push through. As the clothes grew wetter and heavier on my back, I realized something so freeing about being in a time and place doing something that few people would voluntarily choose to do. I knew that as soon as I got back home, I would throw my clothes in the washer and take a hot shower, with no lasting damage sustained from being out in the rain. My body ended up healthier, my mind ended up clearer, and my shoes ended up cleaner than they were before I started.

Moral of the story: If you're ever caught in the rain... sometimes the best thing to do is keep walking.

91- On this day in (my) history...

July 1, 2009

July 1, 2010

92 - Ulterior Motives

"I have ulterior motives when I write," I confessed to Mordantt one night.

"Everyone does." she said, immediately.

"Really?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah." she answered. "I am a historian and I can safely say that through the ages, people are never writing what they're writing for the reasons they say they're writing it."

"Interesting..." I said.

"The fun part," she said. "Is figuring out why they're actually writing."