Sunday Afternoon

I should never read someone else's blog before I write an entry in mine. That very act has prevented me from writing over and over. My own writing never feel interesting enough. Then I have all these nostalgic pangs as I read blogs of the folks who post and photograph their young children with such delight (while I now photograph my tomatoes or my gourds...). That was such a wonderful time of life. It seems so long in the past, that the kids were always saying the funniest things and we were doing our weird interesting homeschool stuff... before the existence of blogs.

Of course, some people with small children would probably like to be able to do what I often do now after church. I sit on the couch and read and think, listening to the clocks tick. I call friends or family that I haven't seen for a while, and catch up. I often get in a walk with a friend. Then I go fix whatever I want to eat -- like spinach-artichoke dip, or graham-cracker crust eaten in a bowl like cereal -- and I eat it in the living room (Not much done when the kids were itty bitty. They wanted to do it too, but they were too messy.) It makes a wonderful, if not very exciting, day of rest before going back to work on Monday morning. Or sometimes I go get sweaty working in the yard, if that's what I feel like. Digging and planting refreshes my psychi like few other activities. But today, I am recovering from being sick so I will mostly sit on the couch and think.

I liked today's sermon, especially a few tidbits I will record and comment on here:

• Theology from beneath (determining whether I think God is favorable or hostile according to affairs around me) versus theology from above (connecting with what is real through the word of God, the greatest single tool to let us know who He is and who we are). I do too much of the former, and way too little of the latter.
• Alternate translation "God, the joy of my rejoicing" from Psalm 43:4
• The way that music both expresses and enlarges our joy in the Lord, and the fact that the Bible mentions it so often as an appropriate way to praise God. This is certainly something I experience all the time. It is one of the big reasons I am in choir and like to sing with the children. Some weeks, an uplifting anthem or hymn gets stuck in my mind and turns me to worship over and over.
• God is committed to his glory and my joy. He will accomplish all of his intentions. This takes so much pressure off of me, to know that God is at work.

Enough couch time. I need to go look at my little gourd seedlings.