2006-09-24

The Sabbath dawned with no raindrops falling – a signal blessing after the flooding of the past two days. Kentucky lost eight people to the water. I suppose there is just not enough concern for what water can do on the part of the general public. In each sad story, the people were simply crossing a familiar creek or putting their car through what looked to be a shallow puddle.

Jim’s last two customers from last week both declared their yards underwater, so Jim finally had a free day and could relax!

We do not have Morning Offering on Sundays when there is a public meeting, so after our Krispy Kreme donut treat and the puzzles from the Sunday paper I set off to sing the service at St. Luke’s while Jim cleaned the house, vacuuming and dusting to complement his work in the kitchen last night. I brought back some fast food to complete our Sunday special food treat from Taco Bell.

I came upstairs to work on e-mail but I found that I was still off line up here in my office. I have no internet access. The rest of the house has internet, so I assume it must be my network connection which has gone south. I do not know how to proceed. Tomorrow I will call Ian and ask for his advice. It is unfortunate that with Romi gone, I have no one to ask about this, here in the Louisville area. In the meanwhile I am keeping up with the journal entries and will post them as soon as I can. It is also awkward not to be able to write e-mail letters.

Lynn, our bookkeeper, and I had a talk after lunch. She has gotten full-time work. She wants to quit this job, now, so that she can have her weekends free. I am all for that but we do need a bookkeeper. Lynn agreed to keep doing the books while she trains a replacement.

Carmen, who just moved to Louisville so that she could attend meetings and volunteer here, had come over to work on transcribing my poetry into a digital record, a project she and I had agreed on previously. I asked her if we could chat, and Lynn, Carmen and I sat down to discuss the possibility of Carmen’s learning the books. Fortunately we have a 6-CD tutorial which both Melissa and Vara have used to get up to speed. Carmen took that home with her and will let me know soon if she thinks she can do the job.

We had our meeting at 4 PM, with Tom F joining Lynn, Carmen, Jim and me. It was a silent meditation today, which I love. The session was most refreshing.

After the session was over, Jim brought Sedgie downstairs and throughout the rest of the evening, Sedge lay on my lap, happy as he could be, all curled upside down, sprawling and showing his belly fur. As he gets more and more skeletal, being unable to eat much at all, he expresses more and more clearly his devoted nature. It is as if he is more and more transparent and the light shines through his little being more and more clearly. I hope that when I come upon the season of my own death, I shall shine like that. I recall the story of William Blake on his deathbed, singing his alleluias and conversing with the angels he saw.

Jim placed some support brackets up at the top of the wall in his bedroom, over the long bookshelf on his inside wall, and hung up his vaulting pole. He’ll start training, going very slowly this time instead of starting off with sprints, aiming for next year’s qualifying games. I am sure it was a heartbreak for him that he could not compete this year, but as usual my cowboy kept that to himself. I imagine spring will find him creating a regimen for strengthening his legs to match the great strength in his upper body. We have added to the stretching routine both in length of time for doing certain key stretches and in working more with stretching out the ankles during the routine.

Tom F stayed after the meditation to watch Kill Bill with us. It is a most unusual movie which was on the tube. We also shared some supper. After the Gaia Meditation, Tom left and Jim and I talked to his Mom in Nebraska by telephone and then came upstairs for a last snuggle with the kitties before saying good night around 11 PM.