Resuming my list of thanks...

237) the prospect of making earl grey cookies

238) singing Christmas carols with my mom and a young Amish girl named Rachel with cerebral palsy, who sings with such joy unto the Lord, treasuring the words in her heart

239) re-discovering the pleasures of crocheting and staying up entirely too late to finish a scarf

240) being knocked off my feet by our enormous Anatolian shepherd while taking her out for a simple walk

241) playing hide and seek with the above-mentioned dog

242) the landscape cloaked in a yellow-orange greyness, the colors themselves heavy and pervading

243) making sugar cookies with my mom, and never quite getting enough flour on the rolling pin/dough

244) replenishing the woodstove, logs ablaze

245) being done with this semester (fall 2009) as of fifteen minutes ago

246) humming hymns; wishing i had an instrument to play the melodies

247) beginning to do the daily office, and reveling in rich liturgy (constant reminders of what God has done and what I am capable of being)

248) the desolateness, bleakness, dryness of the valley (the agony bleaching them to beauty)

249) midnights clear

250) reading my mom a winnie-the-pooh christmas story last night

251) advent services put together by a friend at houghton; visits to orthodox, catholic, and episcopalian services

252) beautiful acapella hymn singing

253) new babies being born; lives preparing to be tied together (hopefully not in that order)

254) fairy tales (George MacDonald)

255) missing london (perhaps almost sehnsucht--profound homesickness/longing, with transcendent)

256) thomas merton and his take on the desert fathers

257) ecclesiology, mariology, etc.

258) anything by gerard manley hopkins

259) learning how to die (to self)

260) hoping, daring, praying, having faith enough to taste God's goodness

261) snatches of joy

262) the rhythms and themes of austen's canon coursing through my brain

263) josh groban, an affair to remember, somewhere, so she dances, ave maria, etc.

264) the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully Kind

265) the lifelines that are the psalms

266) the Welsh language!

267) playful banter

268) the lodge at Mt. Irenaeus

269) beautiful music, of all kinds: classical, celtic, bluegrass, opera, jazz. etc.

270) an indian buffet lunch with a professor, his family, and classmate

271) visiting a halloween-specific costume store; and laughing hysterically at the tackiness of it all

272) reading out loud: poetry, children's stories, anything!

273) playing chess with my mother

274) butterscotch-tinged fudge

275) my mom's home-made breakfast sandwiches

276) tchaikovsky's nutcracker (the music, and the ballet itself)

277) gorecki's third symphony

278) the paintings of Rembrandt and Vermeer (the Dutch realists)

279) becoming acquainted with it's a wonderful life

280) excitement for praxis week following my return to campus

This semester, could, I think, be characterized by the single word of distance. In trying to distance myself from a particular relationship, rather abruptly broken, I distanced myself from myself. I became increasingly less self-aware; increasingly disconnected from the reality of my feelings, often under the cover of mounds and mounds of work to be done. In the process, I've become resentful. My heart has become hard. And I find my patterns of thinking so divorced from the reality I know to be true, in Scripture, and in experience. I find myself as a person I do not like. And by this, I mean, I'm a person whose character, whose soul, is in definite need of correction. But not that correction I so harshly bestow upon myself...but, the correction of the Holy Spirit Not only have I found myself distant from God, but also from relationships I treasure and never stop thanking God for. I construct walls; I make excuses; I isolate myself. And while time for solitary reflection is a very real need of mine, I've not allowed myself to really get the past the threshold of vulnerability. And mostly, because of this distance, I've been lonely. So lonely, sometimes, even, hopeless. Feeling the burden and strain of this particular estranged relationship, my estrangement with my father, 'figuring out what to do next'/teetering on the brink of adulthood, ever bombarded with stretching questions, and arguments, when my soul is starving for the Bread of Life, and thirsting so ardently after the Living Water!
I pray healing is taking place, or will take place, or has taken place, that my hope will not be disappointed.