Halfway Springtime, Halfway Winter

In mid-February, I was feeling stressed out and not stimulated, as if my brain was stagnating and worrying about it all at the same time. Not because I'm not continually learning, immersed as I am in an overwhelming amount of new things at all times, but because I needed more structure. So, what did I do? I created a personal syllabus with readings and learning goals. Surprisingly, or for those of you who know me well, perhaps unsurprisingly, my first couple of weeks have been a very successful trial run.

Books that I have devoured thus far:

Walter Wink The Powers that Be

Barbara Brown Taylor An Altar in the World

I've just started When the Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd, recently recommended to me.

In addition to reading more than our monthly book assignments for DOOR, these books have helped add more structure and new ways of thinking to my sometimes overzealous and perpetual pondering of life, meaning, and purpose (otherwise labeled as impatient worrying, fretting, beating my head against a wall, or thinking myself into a corner). Adding other people's ideas and reflections into the mix helps me get out of my head when I've successfully thought myself downward into the corner of an unproductive pit. It gives me new ways to label my own experiences, and allows me to try out new ways of conceptually carving up reality. The insights I gain through learning seem startlingly vital to my ability to keep on keeping on.

So, while I juggle the day to day of living in East Garfield Park, working in Oak Park, and building community on several levels at once, I'm also reading. And whether or not I'm reading, I'm almost always reflecting and journaling. There's a lot going on under the surface in the past couple of months, and it's all that intangible stuff that makes life interesting. Frustratingly, it's also all that intangible, interesting stuff that seems hardest for me to communicate adequately to other people, especially on a blog. Nonetheless, important things must be attempted.

Also, it has been in the 60s and 70s for the past couple of days. Chicago is a completely different world in the warmth and sunshine.