Lectio Divina

One of the most intimate scenes I've read in a novel happened in Grapes of Wrath. Ma Joad--the pillar of the Joad family in increasingly bleak circumstances--calls her daughter to help her with a task. She calls out the daughter's name "Rose of Sharon" and then repeats it over and over to herself under her breath, "enjoying the feel of it in her mouth." I've often felt a need to read quickly over that passage, as it isn't meant for the 3rd person omniscient narrator, let alone the unworthy reader.

I enjoyed Matt's Lectio Divina lesson at church last night. Lectio Divina is fancy Latin for purposeful meditation of scripture, involving prayer, silence, meditation, and memorization. I've been doing a lot of reciting to myself these days, and this was a way to focus that memorization and meditation on scripture, which I do less often than I do with other writings.

"I love you. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, would be my treasure still."--from Jane Eyre

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, protects all things."--I Corinthians 13:6

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." --Matthew 7:12

"For his withdrawal would have been a flight, his deliverance an accident, his reward dishonor, his future perhaps damnation. Then he would have borne witness, not to his faith or to God's mercy, but to how dreadful was the journey to the mountain in Moriah."--Kierkegaard's Fear & Trembling

Thoughts over Cantaloupe

Using my lunch break to do some blogging, and realizing that my blog is a crazy hodge-podge of this and that. Usually half-articulate and meaningful to no one but myself. Oh, and there is the occasional posting of urban legends that were reported to me as fact. But I think I made a new friend in Pet Snakes--that is, as long as he/she is not offended that I was only slightly miffed at his/her comment. I don't like to be corrected, even when it is totally warranted. Enough of this.

The last three weeks have been very tumultous weeks for me, mentally. I'm starting to feel like...well. Not me, anyway. I do believe my malfunctioning (but inconclusive) thyroid is contributing to this problem. I am looking forward to having it back on track again. New experiences, new problems, old problems, yada yada yada.

I am grateful for two things today, specifically. Room temperature fruit salad. Humans were not meant to eat cold strawberries that don't taste like themselves and make my teeth hurt. And Pandora Radio. The bff could probably clue me into several other internet-based entertainment sources for the indie-hipster crowd, which would be awesome. But there's nothing quite like making up my own station. Right now, White Stripes Radio is playing "Saint John" by the Cold War Kids. I find it interesting but not enough to want to hunt down their other works. I'll just take it as it comes and be thankful when it's done.