fixing my heart on the good

176) a card with my two very favorite flavors of tea shoved into my oft-empty college mailbox

177) affectionate hugs, inbetween classes, at meals, in the sheer joy of seeing the other..."Such was our love to each other that even the sight of each other filled our hearts with divine consolation"

178) Wilberforce's joy in God, far from erecting a granite wall to prevent incursions by the sea, appointed its bounds by mere grains of sand!

179) resonating oil-well deep with Orthodox ways of 'being'

180) appreciating ever-more Jane Austen's insights into propriety in relationships

181) the burning red-yellow leaves

182) casual chats involving literature and broad philosophical concepts (and possibly many blanket statements--not so good, i think)

183) feeling ever more comfortable in conversing with professors

184) desperately attempting to retrain my mouth muscles to form vowels unused in American English; this typically involves holding my lips down/apart so as not to round the sound

185) the temperature controlled room on the second floor of the library, with its myriad paintings by the Ortlip family

186) learning of the richness of Trinitarian language and prayer

187) being stretched, once again, to the limits of my understanding (both in the mind and the heart), and knowing, somehow, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, will prove Himself as Truth

188) being taught some basic Welsh word fragments by Dr. Pearse

189) the incredible capacities and potential we possess for communication!

190) my London group, and connections with years past and years present and years future

191) the juxtaposed 'sense' of Elinor and 'sensibility' of Marianne; and the hilarity of the extremes of both

192) the rhythms of life, including breath, stillness, words up, down, scrambled, flat, then gratitude, then doubt, and so on

193) the mystics of the Church through the ages, including today

194) the joys of the body; the senses

195) God is closer and at the same time further away than we can imagine

196) the engagement of the body (and reason, and imagination) in worship. not merely our emotional faculties

197) curmudgeonly old men

198) light satire, its object being Scripture

199) the imagery of humanity, or rather, individual human beings being restored to the image, to the Icon of God, to the colors, and form

200) desire for a heart grown calm in the peace of God