Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Mindful chatter

I've felt very uncreative lately. I think it's that summer lull. Not a whole lot going on. Which can be good. I think it's the restful period before the "let's cram everything in before the summer's over" period. I've been getting to read alot. I actually have two books going at the same time right now. I just finished "Messy Spirituality", another book by Mike Yaconelli. We had two copies at our house. Mish took one and finished before I did. I enjoyed it very much. There's so much in the book, but here's a few thoughts that hit home for me.
- Spirituality is a relationship.
- Spirituality is NOT about competency, but about intimacy.
- Spirituality is NOT about perfection, but about connection.
- Spirituality is NOT about being fixed; it is about God's being present in the mess of our
unfixedness.
Anyway...great book.
Today I'm taking Steve and Mish to the airport. They leave, with 11 other people, for their mission trip to Holland. They are very excited and naturally a little nervous. They came over the other night with their packed suitcases. Brought them into the house and asked if we thought the bags were under 50 pounds. Now they knew we've had recent experience with this, as we had a "problem" with my suitcase being over the weight limit on our trip to the UK. They wanted to weight them on a scale. Well, we couldn't find a scale in the house. I know we've had one in the past, but since weighing ourselves isn't something we like to do, I think we may have sold it in a garage sale. So what does my engineer husband do? He disappears into the garage and comes back with two 25 lb. weights (from Steve's old weight bench) and has them tied together on a strap so we could compare the weights. Yea, not something I would have thought to do. Anyway, the consensus was that the bags were okay. Well, we'll see today. Mish asked me to wait at the airport to see if the bags were okay, just in case I needed to take something back home for them. So they're off to Holland for 17 days. I'm very excited for them. I will miss them, but will keep up with them on their Holland blog. Technology can be great.

While Steve and Mish are off to Holland, Becca comes home this Sunday. She's been off at Pine Cove Ranch Camp in Tyler since the end of May. She's been a counselor to 7th grade girls for most of the time and on work crew the last two weeks. She came home briefly last weekend to see Steve and Mish before they took off on their trip. It was great to see her and made me more anxious to have her home for a longer period of time. She's had an awesome time at Pine Cove. Made some wonderful friends. A great experience for her.

And Pam has been in and out of Flower Mound all summer. A very busy time for her. She's got her week at Camp Esperanza as a counselor to children with cancer. Her friend Amy is getting married and Pam's in the wedding. She's up here for parties, showers, and the wedding in August. So we've been able to see her and John, even though it's been for short periods of time.

I'll take any time I can get with my children. They are great people, and alot of fun to be around.