"3 Cent Blessings" or "I'MNOTPMSINGNOWGETOFFMYBACKANDUNDERSTANDTHATIAMJUSTKINDAPRAYINGGEEZANDWHILEYOURATITGETSOMEICECREAMONYOURWAYHOME!"

I admit it.  I have been pretty emotional lately.  I would be easy to go into default, blaming PMS, but I have never really been impacted emotionally by my menstrual cycle.  Perhaps because I have recently started exercising seriously for the first time since 4th grade, maybe my body is just reacting differently than I am used to. The human body does do strange things.  And then, maybe it's the new relationship-thing in my life: that coupled with the impending September move could be causing the wider and more rapidly changing slew of emotions.

But, I'm pretty sure it's answered prayer.  This year, during Lent, I have given up alcohol (as usual), and started exercising (for a half marathon, and also for a new years resolution; Easter is kind of like
Christian New Years). But as an added discipline (and I need that word, discipline, applied very loosely) I have also renewed a prayer that I forgot I was no longer praying.  It usually goes something like this:

"Father, let me taste and see your goodness.  Open my eyes to all your beauty in the small things.  Let that be my daily bread."

It always seems to be answered too. (Like with the LSD/Holy Spirit incident assisted by Henri Nouwen about this time last year.  See my post about being afflicted by thigmorphilla.)


I had a good friend who was praying the same thing with how he lived his life. We would often end a day talking about all those little surprise revelations, usually over "pint-sized" blessings.  I guess, we would in a way RE'count our blessings', without the cognitive tally.    These conversations were a type of praise, of worship.

My friend moved away, and has ceased to be a daily reminder for me to continue this practice.  I guess I just forgot to pray.  I miss that type of worship, especially when lately, my prayers of relying on God look more and more like a stress relief wish list.  Yesterday, I also saw a friend from back home Chicago had updated his facebook status to "I can think of nothing good, except submitting two scholarships, that happened today."  That made me so sad.

So, in an effort to begin again, as I often do, here is an inexhaustive list of the small blessings from the beginning of to today, waking until getting to work. 

- There was sunshine outside my curtains when I woke up.


- I went for the teapot, and there was already enough water left from the roomies for my oatmeal.


- On my way out I realize that I needed 3 cents more for coffee.  I keep change in a big 5Gal. water jug, that is hard to get change out of once it is in (that's the point).  I found 3 cents in the first alternative place I looked.

- When I walked out my front door, there was a sunshine immediately on my face and an unidentified child walking up the stairs. The first person I talked to/greeted this morning was a child.

- My Deli Guys had my coffee ready (small, no sugar, little bit of milk, napkin please) and I got to skip the line of high school students ordering sandwiches.

- I got a new monthly Metro card at work yesterday, because someone else was grabbing one, not knowing that this morning my current one was not going to have expired.

- The line in the Khrusty Brothers song Every Time A Lie song came on the headphones. "So I was sipping on my whiskey in Kentucky-town, where the top-shelf burboun is a Jim Beam brown", reminding me of my wanderlust, and the beauty in the commonplace and average of most of America, even if it is about liquor at 8:30 in the morning.

- I got a seat on the train while still in Brooklyn.

- There was an article on the NYTimes iPhone app.  called "JFK Condolence Letters Published for 1st Time".  It's about a new book complied of letters Americans write to Jackie after JFK's assassination.  After reading,  I was thinking about human connections, and that what creates the most intense connection (between non-lovers, and even then, maybe lovers, I wouldn't know) is sharing our
purest, most singular revelations. Which all led me to thinking about my pure, singular revelations.  Which reminded me of my forgotten prayer, and led me to sharing this morning.

- Mike bought my Americano for me this morning.


Blessings!

"Bacon!" or "Take & eat; do this in remembrance of Me."

Warning: This is not a kosher post. Literally.

I am a believer in little graces. I think we get little gifts each day, designed especially for us. Spotting them is just a matter of perspective and awareness.

For example, when I go down to the subway to catch a train and it pulls up just after I reach the platform, I like to thank God for that little gift. I remember to do this a lot more in the middle of winter or summer. It's not that I think the trains/ world revolve around me, but rather than feel lucky, I feel thankful.

You may wonder what goes through my mind then when I am stuck with terrible 2 train traffic or construction on the weekend, waiting on a platform for 30 minutes in the freezing cold, at 2am, with a shady fellow pacing 30 yards away. Instead of wondering what I did wrong to deserve this though, I remember that a punishment is not the opposite of a gift. It wouldn't be so special if the train always showed up just as I did, when I had done something particularly nice or moral.

There is no equation for grace. Grace is the inexplicable part of sanctification, little graces included.

I received a special little gift today in church. But first, some background knowledge.

May I present the example of a miraculous scent of roses. For those who don't know, there are many Christians who believe there have been Marian Apparitions, visits from the Blessed Mother, even in the past 50 years. These are usually to children to deliver a warning for peace and the exultation to pray to the Lord for peace. Sights where this has happened often become destinations for religious pilgrims. One of the most often reported experiences by these pilgrims worldwide is an inexplicable smell of roses, Mary's dedicated flower. On person may smell them and the person next to them will not. (In her 70's my Grandmother visited a sight in Bosnia-Hercegovina called Medjugorje, and returned a claimant of the rose scent.) I don't say this to agree or disagree doctrinally, but to give the example of a small grace. Even if it turns out that the woman who wears rose perfume and sits near an air duct in the next building is to blame for the rose scent, it is still a small grace. I think God must use things in the world to talk to us, even when we can explain them. Probably more frequently, even, when we can explain them. He's not sitting in heaven racking his brain trying to find ways to convince people to believe in Him by inventing something that cannot be explained away by science or circumstance; I would think God doesn't really have a whole lot he has to prove to us.

For this reason, I would like to publicly thank the Lord for filling the church with the glorious smell of bacon just as communion began this morning. I did nothing to deserve it, but it made the Eucharist all the more special. Jesus knows I love bacon.

And it was hilarious.

Late Night Thank You Note

So I want to thank you, even though I am not quite sure if the "you" should be the Divine or the pianist.

You took something dismal and redeemed it into one of the most magical things i have witnessed in my entire life.

I had to force myself to go out tonight, and into the city at that. I hate Manhattan at night. Not because of crime or anything like that, but because it is "Manhattan at Night" It is an entity entirely different from myself, that lives on adrenaline, serotonin, and fruity-flavored vodka cocktails. I have very little common ground, and am prejudiced against it anyway from the start.


I like Brooklyn, I love Ditmas. I HATE "manhattan at night", the borough that never sleeps, and never thinks about who it sleeps with or what it says.

I left early, because i have things tomorrow. And I was tired of not wanting to play pool or have another PBR, which is all I can afford, but will not get me anymore buzzed and just make me fatter and tireder. Circumstances foundation enough to give my cross-town-blocks walk in the subfreezing weather without a hat (or bonnet) an air of doom and gloom. And by the time I got to the station, I was fighting myself on why I live in New York when I hate its face so much.



And thats when it happened, the occasion prompting this thank you note. Jolted out of my self-indulgnt why me-isms, full-bodied red-wine notes engulf me. Jumping back and forth from the platforms and hiding in the dark tunnel, but still pi-ah-no enough to be gentle and sweet and real, and still a shy enough sound to know that it is young and has learning to do. The sound from the box gathers information and wisdom as it bounces on the tiles and tracks, and I stop dead. Confronting how I should be allowed to see something so beautiful with such ugliness in my heart.
Suddenly glad that it is not noon. It wouldn't be nearly the same.
And glad that it is not summer. The labor of the player in the cold only adds weight and gravity to the task.
And glad that I am alone on a Saturday night. Not still stuck at a too slick bar taking the money I don't have, meeting the men I don't want.

Because, this? This is magical
and romantic,
and sublime,
and one of the most heart breaking things I have ever seen.

Thank you.

ps: I don't want to take your picture. You seemed like you didn't like me for that thought.