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10/31/2008

the curator ~ edition #9



I spoke with a nurse from my doctor's office yesterday, and she recommended taking our neighborhood walks in the morning, to boost my energy levels and endorphins. So today, we took her advice. I fixed a to-go cup of coffee and we took off at a nice, waking-up pace. 70 degrees and sunshiny, the 'hood abnormally still and peaceful. We saw a Monarch butterfly and I remarked to Johnny, "Orange butterflies have always reminded me of grace. Back when I lived in an apartment with Holly, I took out the trash one day and saw an orange butterfly flit by the dumpster. For whatever reason, I thought to myself, 'The grace of God.'" Johnny said, "Actually, butterflies represent the Resurrection." I replied, "Well, isn't the Resurrection grace personified?" Not too bad for morning thinking, seeing as we were both sleepy.

I'm also thinking, since our front porch can't accommodate a beloved porch swing, we ought to place two rocking chairs on the red bricks. You'd find me out there often in this kind of weather, most likely with a book, being all neighborly and waving to passers-by.

Back inside our casa, Johnny kindly whipped up scrambled eggs and I sipped more coffee, happy that the blue to-go mug kept my beverage just the right, warm temperature. I listened to a little Pandora radio, then two NPR interviews via a facebook friend/fellow high school alumni. One interview discussed John McCain, the other Barack Obama, and I was pleasantly surprised that each conversation was so thought-provoking and interesting since I'm a third party gal. We're eagerly anticipating the arrival of our "Chuck Baldwin | President '08: Uphold the Constitution" yard sign any day now. But the NPR segments piqued my curiosity about Reinhold Niebuhr. Johnny says he was a little off, but did write some good things. Niebuhr's Wikipedia page is fascinating, so I put a book of his on my to-read list. Do any of you dig Niebuhr? Loathe him? Any reading recommendations?

Morning walks will shift my early, indoor rocking chair-time around, but with a nod to the Hourly Offices, I can rock and pray around noon and observe Sext, or even a bit later and practice None (3:00 pm). As I read in Kathleen Norris' Acedia & Me last night in the bathtub:

"There is a good psychological basis for the impulse .... to pray at the hinges of time, at morning, noon, and night, when we might be most open to God but are also susceptible to acedia and its attendant despairs. The psalmist asks us to place our hope in a God who will not grow weary of watching over us at these risky moments, who will 'guard [our] going and coming / both now and for ever' (Psalm 121:8)."

With that, there's a new edition of The Curator today ~ the table of contents:

Doctor Atomic or: How Opera Learned
to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

by Linnea Leonard Kickasola
Thoughts on the Metropolitan Opera’s production of John Adam’s Doctor Atomic.

Pre-School Mayhem in Nursery University
by Sarah Hanssen
If you thought college applications were grueling, wait until you find out about Manhattan’s most competitive nursery schools.

Performance and the Odd Lamb
by Samuel Kho
On becoming co-pilot with The Odd Lamb and the mandatory veering off involved.

Now it's time for me to head upstairs and write my own Curator article about these two lovely ladies and their photography.

P.S. ~ I've been against cosmetic animal testing ever since I wrote a research paper on the topic in high school, so you can imagine my disgust when I read Kerry's blog entry, "A Note on Halloween Candy." Um, do we really need to test chocolate on animals? It's not only cruel, but stupidly ridiculous. So, I'm happy to say that we purchased most of our chocolate for the neighborhood kids from Hershey's (before reading Kerry's post). We'll do better next year and tell Mars to kiss it.

2 comments:

abigail said...

I MUST get Acedia by K Norris..I love her. sounds like another good read from her to us.

jenni said...

It is indeed; very good.