Write31Days2018 • October 13 Talk

"Talk is cheap; you gotta walk that talk—show me!"

Maybe because I've encountered countless individuals whose only topic of discourse is themselves, I don't talk about myself easily or fluently, yet I love to talk in a group or to a larger public and I enjoy talking about myself in a fairly abstract way rather then nattering on about this feeling or that feeling.

I love to say artisanal and Hanoverian. I'll talk about myself right now and tell you I'm finding this series plodding, dull, and not at all enjoyable because none of the topics interest me. Writing for five minutes to a weekly prompt is one thing; trying to say something substantial – or even five minutes' worth – every day for a month is another. Irony, too, that despite last October's Places and Spaces topic fulfilling a long-time dream, that also became very un-fun because my ongoing exhaustion, grief, and inability to find direction had started months earlier and still hasn't quit.

To end for today, I gotta tell you by grace I do whatever I can to walk that talk.

Write 31 Days 2018 • October 12 Praise & FMF

Today I'm playing Five Minute Friday for the first time in half a year or longer... I didn't resonate with either prompt for day 12 from Crystal's lists, but praise meets my current needs. At the FMF site I picked up their list of daily October prompts and may write to a couple of those before the month ends.

Like I used to do in Koreatown after relocating to LA, early mornings I go out to the back yard to enjoy the fresh start of a new day with praise and prayer and hope. In most contemporary worship resources, morning prayer sort of combines Matins, Lauds, and Prime. Historically, Lauds always included the three Hallel / Hallelujah! Psalms 148, 149, and 150; the name of the office comes from the Latin Laudate or praise. Since serendipitously discovering it on a blog, I've been enjoying the PCUSA's daily office app that features four offices from the liturgy of the canonical hours: Morning Prayer, Midday Prayer, Evening Prayer or Vespers, Night Prayer or Compline. True to tradition, we always have a Hallel Psalm with morning prayer; just as I did in Koreatown shortly after moving to Current City, early mornings I go out to the back yard to enjoy the fresh start of a new day with an attitude of praise and hope—and a Hallelujah psalm.

"Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord!" Psalm 150:6

Postscript: theology geek that I am, I have the Company of Pastors (echo of John Calvin!) module addition to the daily office app; it cycles through Book of Confessions, though you can customize that study content and also customize your liturgy to accord with your life currents. The basic prayer app covers the entire NT every year, most of the OT every two years, the psalter every two months.

Write 31 Days 2018 • October 11 Autumn Tradition

Did I ever mention September and October historically have been the hottest months in Southern California? Yes, I have and they have, too. Just as recent mornings have offered a welcome sweater weather chill, sundown's been earlier and I can't chase away the conviction winter's on the way.

The season of falling leaves from deciduous trees means traditions. The entire writing prompt includes "favorite," but why would you keep on with a custom if it weren't fave? Social and cultural obligations? You may not enjoy the tradition itself, but you love the results.

With the start of school and new clothes, new notebooks, new acquaintances that often become new friends, September is my always new year—that's Autumn Tradition No. 1. Fall Trad No. 2 would be the new jobs I've begun in the fall; surprisingly, none of those start times related to recently finishing an academic course of study during June or August. Another tradition's the backdrop for all of our human ones when planet earth grows weary, slows down, cycles into sleep, sometimes into actual death that's pre-req for resurrection.

Write 31 Days 2018 • October 10 Boots • Porch Story

Porch Stories host Kristin writes a long one about her daughter Rachel wanting to do, wanting to get almost everything that occurs to her because... "but I like it!". As Kristin explains, our self-willed impulses generally even out as we grow older, closer to God, and seek to align our actions with what's best for everyone.

When I chose my daily prompt from the lists Crystal provided, it had to be boots for today! Though at times I've enjoyed shorter and taller ones, most days I wear one of my pairs of what they (actually!) call combat boots. They look fun and urban with most skirts, pants, and dresses; they even go okay with shorts, though if I won't be walking much, usually when I wear shorts I rock sandals—either flip-flops or huaraches. In a cityside stroll, boots support my ankles better than tennis shoes/sneakers. Despite the firmness plus the comfort they provide, I don't wear boots because I like them!, but I've discovered a lot of other people really like my boots, so I want to wear boots because other people like them! Yay! I can't count the times people on the street, at an event or meeting venue, on the subway, in the park have complimented me because they like my boots!

On the other side of likes and preferences, I'm currently highly stressed and very distressed; I need to figure out how to regain my life, which means daring not to do optional things I'd rather not do if and/or when they're not essential to my economic or practical survival or that of others. This year's Write31Days is an example... unlike last year's Celebrating Place I'd wanted to do almost forever, I had no series topic in mind. Unlike the previous year of five minute free writes, I had no impulsive desire to illustrate every post. But I like boots, so I'm writing about them for this day 10.

Write 31 Days 2018 • October 07 A Teacher...

...who had a lasting impact on me.

Boys on one side of the classroom, girls on the other side. Rose in front of me, SaraLee to the left. No one on my right—this was the first row. Behind me? I don't remember.

All states of the USA require a year of US History for HS graduation and I dreaded it. Couldn't imagine what it would take to endure it. People who know me now might be surprised to find out I didn't like school as a kid or a teenager, but I didn't detest it, either. I had classmates who loved school, some who hated it. Aside from a few teachers, students, and assignments, what was to hate or to love about school? You literally just did it.

Early September of senior year I took my seat in Mrs. Hartley's honors American History class because the standard classes they usually assigned me to were full. From September through June I learned how to gather, assess, compile, and make decisions about evidence. I learned to write about the process. History became interesting, surprising, an exciting enterprise far distant from memorizing and quickly forgetting a few facts as we'd done in earlier grades.

A way long overdue shoutout and thank you to Mrs. Hartley!

Write 31 Days 2018 • October 06 Saturday

Saturday. Do you know about sorrow? Do you know about loss?

Cornel West reminds us, "We are people of hope! Why do we party on Friday night? Why do we go to church on Sunday?" Saturdays come between all those Fridays and all those Sundays, but there was a particular Saturday inbetween the Friday we call good and the Sunday we know as the day of resurrection. Someone described that Saturday as the day nothing happened and the day everything happened.

The struggle with the expectations that glimmer true for a moment and then fade into another past have exhausted me. I need an agent of resurrection. Will you wait through Saturday with me?

Write 31 Days 2018 • October 05 Gold

In most situations, whoever has the gold (the most valued medium of exchange) holds the key to the most desirable goods and services. Sometimes it's actual metallic gold. Other times, gold refers to whatever a culture, organization, profession or a family values most. With numbers 2 through 6, we can describe gold in terms of how many nines fine; we can talk karats. What gold can I offer? What goods and services do I desire? What ones do I truly need? Is there a way I can borrow more gold to get what I need to start life over?

Despite another lukewarm forecast of rain, it's been another mildly overcast autumn day. Aside from my needs as an individual, southern California seriously needs rain, but no gold I know of can summon that goodness from the sky.