Pensive Procrastination

I've kept this stone and English pound in one of my jacket pockets for 7 and 3 years respectively. They have both provided grounding reminders for me throughout the years when I've put my hands into my pockets. The stone, as you might be able to tell, had been polished by water before it was smoothed down further by my fingers. It was soothing to feel the near perfect curve from end to end as I fiddled with it. The pound is weighty, in a nice way, it was a reminder of wonderful time with friends...that I was never alone. The other day when I put that jacket on again and touched the stone I was reminded that it had fallen and broken recently. The smooth curve from end to end is no longer there...it stops abruptly. As I fiddled with it in my pockets watching my boys meander along the side of the road I thought, "There has to be a message here." None came at the time so I tucked the thought away to ponder and pray about later. The next day this thought came as I wa...

The other day as we were driving (because really, other than being in/around your house what else is there to do?) and listening to music I got thinking about the power of music to really draw you back into a moment. Perhaps this is just a personal thing, but there are certain songs and certain music that pulls me back like nothing else can. It brings me back to the emotions, thoughts, situations and sometimes I physically feel how it all felt- which is pretty dang powerful. I would say that my family really values music, particularly on my father's side. There are a lot of incredibly talented people in my family so I grew up surrounded by people who immersed themselves in and loved music. Around Christmas Eve I always have this memory come to mind of my cousins all singing in a choir at the church they went to. I wish that I could import the memory into my computer because the memory is so warm and peaceful and content, but for some reason I am struggling to put it all down. Not f...

I was sitting outside watching my boys play in the sandbox while I pulled my winter jacket tighter around me and I wondered, "How do other people find the time to think?" I'm not sure what part of my personality creates this predicament for me but I find it hard to think, to really think, when I'm in a room full of people. I can do it if I really try, but it generally takes me closing my eyes and really trying to focus and block out all the "noise". I'm not even sure if it's always been that way, I know that I used to get lost in thought often in classes throughout elementary school and high school. However, I think that, generally, when that happened the classroom was generally quiet and we were supposed to be working on something. These days it's hard to find a quiet moment where I am truly alone with no responsibilities or things that I need to be taking care of. I'm not only talking about the quarantine- I've been wondering about this...

There have been a couple of ideas circling around in my head the past few days and I figured I might as well try to work them out on here. In fact, even though these ideas have been more prominent the past week or so they were ideas that were brought to my attention at different times over the past few months. It's funny how something that you found interesting but not particularly applicable at one time suddenly becomes more relevant. I'm feeling a tad nervous to write about this topic as I'm not trying to make a political commentary or pretend that I am a wise theologian. I hope that you can all give me grace. As I had been reading the news lately every once and a while I came across posts about the positives things that were happening around the world (particularly in Wuhan and Italy) because of the social distancing/quarantine. One of the things that stood out again and again was the effect that this was having on the amount of pollution (both noise and air) in the ci...