Project ME begins today.
I spent quite a long time last night, Saturday night, thinking about why I had let myself slip into habits I was working, more or less successfully at breaking for months. I came up with several, but when it gets right down to it they all boiled down to feeling rejected and, worse, feeling that I deserved that rejection. I don't deserve it, but that doesn't stop the feelings from creeping in and when that happens I fall back on the addictions I've developed to deaden any unwanted feelings. I watch tv, eat and drink until I become a living zombie. I've been reading about zombies lately and while the no feeling part is pretty enticing, I have to admit the ambling about with no purpose other than to eat part hits just a little too close to home to be comfortable. In response to this train of thought my concious self, the part the zombiness had not yet touched, shouted STOP, but the rest of me answered back "how?" in the meekest, smallest of voices that could just barely be heard under the moans of "piiiiieeeeee". (You didn't really think my zombie self would crave brains did you?) As one part of my brain searched for the answer to that one word question, the rest of me got a piece of pecan pie and sat down to watch Julie and Julia and then to read a book called Rest-Living in Sabbath Simplicity. These two activities, together with the part of me that was still working on how to stop the backward slide, gave me the possible solution to my problem.
Let me start with the book. This is the current selection my Spiritual Renewal group at church is reading. Admittedly, I've fallen way behind. Part of my zombification is to shirk those things I consider important, like becoming closer to God, and replacing the time with things that have no value to me, like watching America's Top Model (which I actually taped yesterday so I wouldn't miss the make-over segment). Still, the book takes a stance that is new to me. It says, at least as far as I've read, that the Sabbath should be a time of rest. That seems like a given, but for me it was a revelation. I have always thought of the Sabbath as a time when one is suppose to be actively worshipping and being all Christian or something amorphous like that. It had never occurred to me that it could be as simple as just being a time of stopping, of saying enough to the world, and enjoying the exquisite freedom God has given us to be able to make that decision. Hell, God even commanded us to do it. This is not as easy as it sounds. How can I say enough when my whole mind set is formed around MORE? It will take intentional practice I think, along with loving, but honest evaluation. I say loving because I believe that God gave us this Commandment out of love, and I doubt God would want anyone, not even me, to beat themselves up trying to fulfill it.
Once I made the committment to the concept of Sabbath and enough, my mind began to work on the idea of evaluation. That's where the movie comes in. Julie and Julia chronicles Julie's year of exploring the mind of Julia Child, one of her personal heroes, but making every one of her dishes from her famous cookbook. In real life, as in the movie, she chronicled her journey in a blog, and as she explored Julia she also explored herself. I have no illusions of being widely read, or even read at all, but the idea struck me as a good one.
The evaluation I use when teaching is to take antedoctal notes on children and then use them to see where they are developmentally, and then, using that measure, I look to see if they are advancing and if I need to change my strategies for that child or the classroom as a whole. The same idea could work for me. Each day I shall write in this blog, chronicalling how the project is going. I shall be looking at myself both objectively as I can, and subjectively. I will record both actions and feelings and thoughts. My intention is to explore the idea of enough and to see if I can master the idea and if, in doing so, there are changes in my life. I fully expect there will times of over-indulgence, and this blog will no doubt contain, extraineous matter that will seem to have nothing to do with the project. I know there will be writing memes as well, which I actually hope will be one outcome.
So, here we go. Project Mastering Eough is now under way!
Let me start with the book. This is the current selection my Spiritual Renewal group at church is reading. Admittedly, I've fallen way behind. Part of my zombification is to shirk those things I consider important, like becoming closer to God, and replacing the time with things that have no value to me, like watching America's Top Model (which I actually taped yesterday so I wouldn't miss the make-over segment). Still, the book takes a stance that is new to me. It says, at least as far as I've read, that the Sabbath should be a time of rest. That seems like a given, but for me it was a revelation. I have always thought of the Sabbath as a time when one is suppose to be actively worshipping and being all Christian or something amorphous like that. It had never occurred to me that it could be as simple as just being a time of stopping, of saying enough to the world, and enjoying the exquisite freedom God has given us to be able to make that decision. Hell, God even commanded us to do it. This is not as easy as it sounds. How can I say enough when my whole mind set is formed around MORE? It will take intentional practice I think, along with loving, but honest evaluation. I say loving because I believe that God gave us this Commandment out of love, and I doubt God would want anyone, not even me, to beat themselves up trying to fulfill it.
Once I made the committment to the concept of Sabbath and enough, my mind began to work on the idea of evaluation. That's where the movie comes in. Julie and Julia chronicles Julie's year of exploring the mind of Julia Child, one of her personal heroes, but making every one of her dishes from her famous cookbook. In real life, as in the movie, she chronicled her journey in a blog, and as she explored Julia she also explored herself. I have no illusions of being widely read, or even read at all, but the idea struck me as a good one.
The evaluation I use when teaching is to take antedoctal notes on children and then use them to see where they are developmentally, and then, using that measure, I look to see if they are advancing and if I need to change my strategies for that child or the classroom as a whole. The same idea could work for me. Each day I shall write in this blog, chronicalling how the project is going. I shall be looking at myself both objectively as I can, and subjectively. I will record both actions and feelings and thoughts. My intention is to explore the idea of enough and to see if I can master the idea and if, in doing so, there are changes in my life. I fully expect there will times of over-indulgence, and this blog will no doubt contain, extraineous matter that will seem to have nothing to do with the project. I know there will be writing memes as well, which I actually hope will be one outcome.
So, here we go. Project Mastering Eough is now under way!