I meant to get so much accomplished today.
It’s so hard for me to do the kind of work I feel like God is directing me to do.
I intended to spend a good chunk of the day working on my main morning meditation and on the book, but I made pretty much zero progress on anything.
I spent the morning before church at JH Keith Park. I chatted with the Big Guy. I did some thinking.
I ended up late to church because 1. I lost track of time right there at the end, and 2. I jumped up on the gazebo frame to hang for a bit and align my spine, something I’ve done multiple times but not a lot, and this time, when I jumped up, my middle finger on my right hand managed to find a nail that was sticking up out of the wood that I couldn’t see because I’m jumping up to grab the frame, so I stuck myself pretty good when all of my weight came back down and shoved the nail into my middle finger. 🙃
So I spent the next little while squeezing blood out in the hopes that it might reduce chance of infection and whatnot, and then cleaning up the blood that was dripping.
I probably still would have been late, but not as late as I was.
Fortunately, I did at least make it to church before the sacrament portion of the meeting. In fact, I think I made it for the entire Sacrament hymn. 🎉
Church was great today. 😊 Wonderful messages in sacrament meeting, the first talk being most impactful for me.
Sunday School was also really good, great discussion. Good stuff.
After church, we had a branch linger longer, and it was nice to spend time getting to know branch members a bit better.
From there, it was back to JH Keith Park, where I spent pretty much the rest of the day. I was trying to get moving on the meditation and book stuff, but I got distracted both by uplifting YouTube videos and by all the people who came to the park.
I met many wonderful people today, of all walks of life. Some people from Ardmore, with… loose tongues? 🙃 who offered me beer and a blunt 🙃 who were just super kind, wonderful people and hung out for probably a couple hours; some people from Chicago in on vacation with whom I chatted for a good little while; some people from Eastern South Dakota just stopping through briefly, a few late teen/early 20 somethings from Rapid City, Chrissy, a local with her grandson in from Oklahoma, Kelly, a 30-year local who I guess goes there pretty regularly, he’s building a house, and Peggy, who turned out to be a neighbor of ours and knows my sister and brother in law. 😊
Fun stuff.
Lovely meeting lots of nice people. 😊
Pretty much zero progress on things I really want to make progress on.
[sigh]
Watched a cool LDS YouTube podcast video about the connections/similarities between stoicism and the New Testament, watch was extra interesting because I have a family member who finds great meaning and wisdom in the stoic tradition. I learned a lot of really cool things from the video.
I want to say I’ve listened to Meditations (Marcus Aurelius) before? And I think I owned and read “The Obstacle is the Way.” But I can’t say for sure on either, as it’s been a good long time, but that’s mostly the extent of my introduction to stoicism, so it was fun and enlightening to learn more and to see so many beautiful overlaps.
Headed home, eating a dinner of Cheerios and frozen berries.
Hung out a little bit with Heather and Hans when they got home a bit later, and now here I am, late again. 🙃
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful to have the flexibility to have been able to spend pretty much the entire day at JH Keith Park
- I’m grateful for meaningful discussion in our Sunday school class today.
- I’m grateful for the opportunity to meet lovely local people. 😊
- I’m grateful for so many wonderful resources to learn from.
- I’m grateful for alarms on my phone that help remind me of the things I want to keep at the forefront of my mind, like my Gratitude Power Hour alarms.
- I’m grateful that everyone that came to the JH Keith Park cleaned up after themselves. I don’t think a single person left any trash at all, so that was nice.
- I’m grateful that deserts have cool nights, generally.
- I’m grateful that though I felt like I spent way too much time trying to get the screen door set up on Rover, that today I am not fighting with the number of flies inside my van, because… there aren’t really much of any. 🎉
- I’m grateful for David Boice and his unplanned video journey that ended up recording his transition from where he was to being a member of the Church and gospel I love.
Success:
- I gave my sincere and worthy effort today.
- I was able to give the gift of a smile and my attention to those giving talks today.
Improvement:
- One of the visitors to the park today guessed my age as being 46. That was really hard–going from someone who looked 10+ years younger than he was to looking older than he is… I’ve struggled a bit to fend off feelings of undesirability. I’ve continued to feel sorrow for how much I took my body for granted and how little I thought about my body during those years where I was just… surviving from day to day. I feel sorrow for my future spouse, if I ever do get married, as I probably won’t be as attractive to my spouse as I could have been had I taken better care of myself. And consequently, all the more honor and respect to those people, so much better at this than I, who are able to look past the wrapping we come in to see the beauty of the soul underneath and for whom the soul is most attractive. I hope I can be that attractive soul for someone, and I hope to conquer my own superficiality–someday…. some way… so that I can give that gift to someone else.
Thought of the Day:
“We shall never desist from working for the common good, helping one another, and even our enemies, till our helping hand is stricken with age.”
~ Seneca
Hand of God In My Life Today:
I felt the Spirit, according to my understanding of the Spirit, during Sunday school class as I was sharing my perspective on what I’ve described as comfortable and uncomfortable blessings.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 