Being dust

It's Lent, and I suppose I should give something up - but I'm thinking of my trip to Nepal as something of a pilgrimage, so I just plan to continue my preparations. I try to keep to the Glycemic Index diet as much as possible (lots of oatmeal and rice and vegetables, not much sugar or fat) and I'm still working out a fair bit.

I thought it was going to be my turn to do church next week, but it turns out we have a real minister coming to visit so I'm off the hook. It's a lot of work to plan a service and write a sermon that is even vaguely meaningful. I think the church-leading aspect of things is one of the most surprising, in my stay here. I think I went to church maybe twice in the seven years I lived in Nanaimo, although I did do a lot of reading. I did the Ash Wednesday service this week - Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Unfortunately the heat wasn't working, so it was a very quick and chilly service. My breath made clouds in the air and made it hard to read the words.

There's something about this place that makes it seem reasonable to pray. Something about being so much in the quiet of my own mind, and with friends and family, without the constant pressure of cities and roads and malls. I find I'm beginning to accept mortality, because I'm accepting my place in the universe. I am tiny, frail, easily chilled, easily stilled, I will die and it will be as it always has been. It's comforting, in a strange sense. I don't know if I'm explaining it properly. It's more a waking-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night feeling than anything else. I have accepted a lot more things about myself, living here, than I ever did living anywhere else. I can't change who I am.

The dog is sitting on the couch, next to me, he keeps being alarmed by snowmobiles outside. Rachel is in her room, Miguel's gone curling, Ian's at work, and we put Kirsten and Jordan on the plane today, off to the next phase of their lives. It's going to be very quiet without them. They will both be back in the summer, but then Ian and Rachel are likely going to cadet camp. I have just had the last week of family togetherness, with it being reading week, and it was lovely, but it'll be a while until it happens again.

Except for last weekend when we had the church AGM on Sunday, I have worked pretty much every single day since New Years, on various projects for other sections, finished the last one yesterday. Hence the silence here. In a month I'll be leaving for Nepal. So there will likely be more silence then. I've contemplated taking this down, but I still like to think it's here, so I'll leave it.