Kibbles and Bits and Bits and Bits

There's a lot going on in my life in spite of the fact I'm done with school.

Work has been insanely busy; I haven't had an actual weekend in maybe 6 weeks or more now, and I won't have a normal weekend this time around, either.  I can't seem to catch a break!  All I want is 2 days off, together. But no; not an option. Not even feasible! And in the meantime I have a couple volunteers directing a program at work and while they're doing incredible work with their talents, one of them seems to think I am her personal assistant and doesn't seem to grasp I'm juggling 10 different programs and hundreds of people and their own "demands."

Yup. God is helping me to grow in patience. I'm failing miserably, by the way and it's only His grace that has kept me from unleashing all the things I want to say but don't.

I'm looking forward to Memorial Day weekend like you wouldn't believe!

More Bits:

I'm planning a weekend of fun in June, after graduation.

On the discernment-and-supremely-cool front, in early July I'm heading out to visit a monastery where I will be studying iconography for a week and, bonus, living the monastic life while doing so! Given my ongoing discernment, I will be doing a lot of it there, too, even while writing icons in my paint clothes (which for me is my everyday stuff!)

Seriously, if someone is discerning one's vocation, is it even POSSIBLE to turn off the "discern-dar" when in a monastic setting and keeping to the schedule, especially when the community itself is supremely cool?

I'm thinkin' not so much.

No, I won't state where I am going. But I do ask that you keep this community, and me, in your prayers, and God bless their generosity for being willing to put up with me for a week!

Those were the Bits. Here's the Kibbles:

It looks like I'm going to be fostering again.

I received a desperate email from the dog rescue coordinator last night. One of the other coordinators has left the rescue, so she's doing double-duty and has 6 dogs coming in, terrified she won't be able to find foster homes for them in time.  I responded with my situation:  can't afford to do this right now, life is insane and several out-of-town trips coming up. (It's hard enough to find someone to take my dog! My dogsitters have lives, too!)

She guaranteed it would be a short-term emergency-only foster situation to buy her time to find a more permanent foster home, she will provide all food and other necessary expenses (normally foster homes would get the 1st bag with the dog, but all subsequent food is the responsibility of the foster.)

So I gave my conditional "yes" to the terms, and IF she doesn't find a place for the dog, he'll be spending Saturday night and a few days or weeks with my dog and I.

He's a German Shepherd mix, smaller than my dog (mine is pretty small for a Shepherd), he's only 2 and doesn't appear to have the fear/abuse issues my previous foster had. But, being young, I'll have to see which things he has a taste for. Books? Rugs? Furniture? Shoes?  Is he housetrained, kennel-trained, or obedience-trained at all?

Another Bit

For three years, there is a project I have wanted to take on. I asked a few of my professors whether they could explain in further depth a connection I was seeing in scripture, but they couldn't answer. Perhaps they couldn't answer because I couldn't properly formulate my question. As time as progressed, this "question' hasn't left my mind and so I have been waiting until I would finally have the time to pick up the thread and follow where it leads.

I'd rather not reveal the "question" as I have decided I am going to turn it into my first formal work. I am going to delve into scripture in a synthetic study, looking for how the topics are woven through the Bible, how they interrelate, and perhaps bring different disciplines within Theology into play in the final analysis.

Our professors have given us incredible tools for study, especially our scripture professors. I learned how to do synthesis, analysis, and exegesis. In considering this in light of Ecclesiology, of Sacramental theology, moral theology, fundamental theology...everything and more..I look forward to delving into this project.

I have already begun, in fact, to recognize the tools I will need, both practical and theological.

Perhaps this study has already been done. Even so, I think I will do this for perhaps I will still find another connection, another contribution to the study of theology. And if not, if nothing else it will draw me closer to Christ through a study of His Word.

That is always a good thing. Especially if it leads to a deeper conversion and therefore, a growth in holiness.

And boy-howdy, do I have a LOT of growing to do!


P.S:   
Seriously, people if you think you're holy and possess any virtue at all, go to work full-time in a parish. You'll be humbled before you even get a chance to blink and even in your humility you will understand that you aren't humble at all. Not even then.  And no...it never ends.