Random Thoughts

I've been seriously lacking in the ability to take any inspired thought and write it out but I do have quite a lot of thoughts shoved in my head at the moment and so I thought I'd do what I occasionally have done over at BHJ and write a post with those random thoughts.  Perhaps once I unpack what is cluttering up my brain, I can get back to the business of actually writing cohesive posts.

In the meantime, here we go:

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I wrote a post for Substack on Friday.  I had no particular thought at the time I sat down to write but out popped a piece that I titled "The Year of Enough".   It was about how I was mostly foregoing the usual types of resolutions and instead planning to let go of my expectations of going big on goals this year.  

The Year of Enough - TerriCCheney

The word "Enough" has popped up in my life repeatedly since January 1st, and I finally realized that for the first time in many, many years, without any thought or plan on my part, it came to be in the post on Substack.  I realized that I had been given a word to ponder for 2026.

I so often focus on what I lack that I seldom think of what constitutes enough especially when it comes to my expectations of my life, money, goods, and self. 

So there you are.  My word of the year is "Enough."

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I've been receiving daily posts from a priest with a love of art called Christian Art, who posts a short note with a bit of daily scripture and a piece of art that relates to the scripture (or a certain Saint, etc.) and explains the imagery included in the painting and why it's significant.  Frankly, I have always just looked at art as color and movement, possibly emotion and overall content, but the historical values of certain elements in the art pieces really are fascinating added bonuses if there is someone who can explain it all, and Father van der Vorst does so quite capably.  

What he posted on Saturday though really sort of stopped me in my tracks.    Here I thought I'd nailed down what 'Enough' was, but his post put a whole different perspective upon it with one statement:

"Jesus came precisely for those who know they need him. Throughout the Gospels, the ones Jesus find the hardest to cope with, are those who imagine themselves self-sufficient, those convinced they already see clearly and already have enough. But the truth is… only those who hunger can be filled. So we need to keep hungry therefore and always want to know more, love more and give more."

Well, that made me sit up and pay attention...

It's one thing to say that I am enough as I am, but am I really?  Did I mean it in that self-sufficient way Father van der Vorst mentions?  Did I intend to make it sound as though I personally have reached a pinnacle of growth that no longer requires me to be stretched and grown via the Holy Spirit?

I had to ponder that statement of "I am enough" in a whole new light.  And I have to requalify my statement.  

Without Him, I know that I am nothing.  I mean only in this year ahead to acknowledge that what I've been given is not a reason to complain or whine over lack.  That who I am is nothing to do with what I personally can bring to the table this year. 

 I am not enough on my own and never will be.  But I also AM in as much as God has grown and changed me.  Allowing another person to tell me that I am less based upon their own judgement is not a valid reason to alter who I have become, at least not until I've taken time to pray and consider carefully if whatever criticism was stated was God directed, because He does use others to make us stop and examine ourselves at times.

And so I take Father van der Vorst's statement as a caution to myself to recognize that the things I have been given are enough, my God is more than enough, and without God I will never be enough, while with God, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me..." (Phillippians 4:13) 

And it is HE who makes me enough.

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I finally picked up a book this past weekend.  An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott was my choice.  It amused me no end to read it from the perspective of a 66-year-old woman, rather than from the viewpoint of an 8-year-old girl.  Or a 15- or 22-year-old girl for that matter.

For one thing, I am nearer Grandmother's age (70) than Polly's at this point in time.  In the past when I read the book, I was never this old!  Which might seem a most obvious statement to make, but you'd be quite surprised at how often I must remind myself that I am not a girl any longer.   I have granddaughters older than Polly at the start of this book, and older than I was when I read it first.

Second was a very clear memory that has stayed with me for years.  Amie went to her first school dance in Junior High.  She had a lovely dress, a peach crepe de chine with pretty touches of lace.  It was about knee length and appropriately dressy I thought for a dance.  Until we arrived at the school and I saw the other girls.  

30-year-old divorcees...That's what I told John when I got home.  They had on heavy makeup and sequined strapless gowns and hair teased and tortured into up-dos and earrings that dangled to their shoulders.   I couldn't imagine what their mothers had been thinking.  It was a dance for seventh and eighth graders not a high school prom and certainly not a Hollywood red carpet moment!  

I'm so very glad that neither Amie nor Katie ever leaned into thinking they had to look jaded and worn before they'd reached high school.  It wasn't until her senior year that Katie ever donned a strapless dress for a dance, and she still looked nothing like anything but a very lovely 17-year-old girl. 

So, I understand things from both Polly's perspective and Grandmother's at this point in time.  And that's rather interesting.

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Katie was the youngest and frankly the one who sort of hurried along in life, always trying to catch up with the older siblings who were years ahead of her (fourteen between her and JD, twelve between her and Amie, and eight between her and Sam) but she still held on to some form of her proper youth despite all her hurry to grow up.  She drew her own lines, without consulting John and me, as to what was appropriate and what wasn't for a girl her age which I appreciated about her.

None of my children really were over eager to grow up and be grown.  Well, no more than the usual bits, you know.  We all wanted to drive and be independent at 16, which seemed reasonable enough then, and we all tried things that were grown-up, like sneaking a cigarette, or reading books that were above our level of knowledge, but none were all that keen on jumping too far beyond the boundaries of their given age.

I appreciate that about them all.  I see the grandchildren are a little eager to be considered more grown-up perhaps than they are.  I think all kids reach a point where they truly are more grown than their parents realize, but I truly believe it's an age difference that allows me to see their maturity.  However, I think the adults, too are quite right to try and naturally restrain them and hold them to certain ideals of what it is to be a child yet and too tender to take on too many of the adult responsibilities that await them.

Heaven knows we all get there soon enough!

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I got sick last week.  It is just a head cold and not a particularly harsh one.  I suspect had it not come along when it did, I might have been tempted to jump into January and do, but as it was, I have remained in a slow January mode.  Over the years since I have been at home without children, I've learned that rest, (fluids, Vitamin C, Thieves Oil, and just enough Tylenol to keep the harder aches and pains at bay) is the very best at helping one to recover.  

But I wanted to have a right good old whining session.  Why?  Because meals and dishes needed to be tended to, and the bed made!  Why couldn't I have someone take care of me?

Well, I'll tell you the truth.  I do.  I do.  I have me.  

Now, I could ask John to do anything, and he'd have done it, but he doesn't cook and honestly, I was in no mood for fried eggs and peanut butter sandwiches for a week which is about the extent of his cookery.  He will wash the dishes under warm running water, stacking them on the drainboard to dry.   When I am sick, I do not want to risk anyone else being made sick. I prefer the dishwasher to sanitize the dishes well.  As for the bed, he makes it well enough.  I'm just particularly picky about how it is made.  I want it to look 'pretty' even if someone is going to pile into it later on.

So, the bed didn't get made.  I pulled ready prepared foods from the freezer and simply added in sides as needed, and I rinsed, stacked and left the dishes in the sink until I felt recovered enough to deal with them.  

Mostly I sat in my chair and drank lots of water and rested.  So, you see, I can take care of me quite well, if I'm not insistent on being some sort of martyr.  

But I'm not perfect either. I gave in and whined that I didn't feel good, which seems rather reasonable when you are achy and sniffly and sneezy and hoarse.  I just didn't fuss over the things that didn't matter much anyway.

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I'm hearing a lot lately about leading an 'Analog Life'...And I've been contemplating that phrase quite a bit.  Honestly the movement is mostly a lot of 20–40-year-old folks who have grown up with cellphones, tablets, internet, and now streaming subscriptions that are available 24/7 on their devices.  

Being older, I am less prone to spend my time mindlessly scrolling on my phone or computer though I can be guilty of that at times, especially if I feel the need to retreat from 'the world' and I don't have a book that is sufficiently absorbing. But I do not walk about with my phone permanently in hand, nor am I constantly checking email or messages, taking photos or selfies, etc.  Frankly I pretty much live an 'Analog Life' and have always done so.  

I just call it life.

I think that's what people are finally realizing they are missing.  They got so caught up in catching 'moments' that they completely forget it was life as a whole they were missing.  

But it made me wonder what in the past was considered a distraction?  I mean in the medieval times, were books or painting considered a distraction?  Study?  

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'The Simple Life' quest is another thing that I find rather amazing.  Essentially, that's what An Old-Fashioned Girl is all about, a simpler time and way of life, as remembered by Grandmother and as Polly has been taught to live.   Alcott often wrote about such things in her books.  

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote a few times about everyone's desire for simpler times and a simple life.  While she did most of her writing in the 1930's there were those who longed for that simple life right there in the mid-1800s!

So Analog Life, or Simple Life, it's much the same.  Everyone wants the same thing in the end.  They want to appreciate the NOWs of life.  To hear the birds sing, to notice the seasonal changes, to slow down, not hurry, not be so caught up in the unimportant things that they can't see the life overall.

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I was watching the clock earlier today, thinking, "Oh goodness...It's going to be dark soon..." and then I realized that I have a very different mindset in winter than I do in summer.  I would never think my day was over at 6pm in the summer, not with three or so hours of daylight left.  But I feel compelled to hurry and get my tasks done, finished and all wrapped up in the winter.  

I had to remind myself that the days are still 24-hours long in winter just as they are in summer.  

That said, I kind of like a winter paced life.  I don't mind in the least being all done with my work by dark thirty. I don't mind having a whole evening to relax before bed.  I don't mind shutting down to some extent and taking time to enjoy a book or tv program without feeling I'm 'wasting daylight'.

I think I'll just keep my winter hours and enjoy them while I can.

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And with that, I shall end this bit of random thoughts...