A Spiritual Practice

The house is quiet.  After a week of hibernation, the kids are back in school, Marcus is at work, and I've just completed all the "have to's" on my work list for the day (well for the moment!).  Now I have about 30 minutes before I have to pick up my youngest wild one.  The house is a mess - dishes still in the sink, the floors are dirty, the door knobs are sticky, fingerprints and smears on the windows.  But the sun is out, the birds are singing, it's WARM and I'm outside with coffee, pen and paper.  The messy house is just a sign that we really live here and from the looks of the toys tossed about, we have fun doing it.

Just sitting, with maybe the company of pen and paper, has been a practice I've tried to embrace the last year or so.  I call it..."Shutting the Shoulds Up!" I don't have to allot large amounts of time to this practice, 5 to 10 minutes is fine.  I just haveto do it every now and then.  The world is busy telling us what we should be doing, our churches are very busy "suggesting" what we should be doing, the voices of our mothers and grandmothers even have our "should list"!  I load myself down with too many shoulds and too many expectations that I think others have of me.  My practice of "shutting the shoulds up" reminds me to come back to reality and my rhythm.  When life with 2 little kids can wait...then let it wait! 

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