The new routines continued today, providing an emerging clarity in and of my daily life.
In previous Lenten seasons I have given up favorite foods or activities, but in recent years I've settled on giving up the radio in the car. Without the driving rhythm of music or the steady drone of NPR news or commentary, I would give myself the time to just think while driving... kind of a random patter of thoughts while I navigate through traffic safely. I would also invariably hear if anything was mechanically wrong with the car.
But this year I'm back to being a mass transit commuter, and the one mile walk to the train station is also without tunes or instructional audio like foreign language lessons.
It's mostly safer by foot (than by car) to let my thoughts drift in silence, and today I noticed that I'm listening to my body just like I listened to the car sans radio. And hearing my body return to brisk walking was good, even the huffing and puffing as I rushed to catch the train.
Today the commute's mental jumble reflected over the past few days, including the visitation, my talk with N, the funeral and my own church's Ash Wednesday service. There is so much I want to reflect on and write about but today's schedule is allowing only a few minutes at the end of the day. (On the other hand, part of this year's Lenten discipline is for me to make the time to write in this blog.) And part of the mental jumble is the fact that I had forgotten that I had tethered this blog to my Facebook page and I'm now getting comments about these entries.
In any case, the stuff I want to write more about is still seared in my brain, reinforced during my walk-commutes... so I'll get to them over the next few days. For now, I'll close with one of the lines echoing in my head from the Ash Wednesday service:
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
It's from Psalm 51, and the entire poem resonated with my pre-Lenten feelings. Here's a link: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2051&version=NIV
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