All the Moving Parts

 

“He never became angry with any of his monks or novices and never uttered a sharp word to them. He bore everything with patience and forgave everyone. He placed all of his cares and burdens at the feet of the Lord and confided all his sorrows only to Him. He strove to pass all of this on to the brotherhood of his monastery, and many of them learned how to nurture and apply this all-encompassing and passionless love in their everyday lives.”

Elder Thaddeus of Fr. Ambrose

Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives

‘Why do you fight the good fight when you have no obedience? Whenever you were assigned to serve at a certain place as abbot you complained about it, asking to be excused. You must not do so anymore! Know that you must carry out every obedience with much love, earnestly, and with zeal, without paying any attention to the envy and malice around you.’

Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives

The Holy Fathers tell us to let our attention be on the Lord immediately upon waking, to let our thoughts be united with Him during the entire day, and to remember Him at every moment. The Holy Fathers prayed to be delivered from forgetfulness, for we often get carried away by the things of this world and forget the Lord.... We forget that He is everywhere and that any job we do and any task we perform is His. We think that the job we are doing is for someone else and we often perform our tasks unwillingly. When we perform a task unwillingly, soon resistance and a feeling of disgust are born in us, and then our life becomes filled with resistance and disgust for everything, and we grow old in this manner.

Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives

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Some meditations for the work of my week...maybe yours, too? Peace can be challenging!  The weather has been so bad that we've been inside much of the last month.  The boys have been bouncing around the house like pinballs, and there's been a distinct uptick in all of our activities as we gear up for some performances.  It's hard to keep everything straight!  I frequently need a spiritual nudge toward peace, patience, and obedience.

 I'm rereading this book  and discussing it with a group of women right now, which has been a (much needed) giant push, as opposed to a gentle nudge.  Elder Thaddeus's words have also helped me to welcome and seek out the hiddenness and silence of time away from social media.

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I found my blocking wires in a box after our recent move, which was pretty exciting.  I looked all over for them at our last place, but to no avail!  IT's the first time I've heard of someone finding something in a move.  Anyway, I have been systematically washing and re-blocking all of my shawls with the wires because they work much better for me than pins alone.  There is something so satisfying about turning a dirty, rumpled, shrunken shawl into drapey, open perfection. 

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I finished the pink sweater just in time to block, dry, and wrap it!  It was a delight to give it to the recipient, Little M’s godmother, in person.  My ravelry notes are here.  I don’t usually repeat patterns, but I can’t wait to make one of these for Little M!  Z and I are even talking about making the adult version for ourselves.