Thoughts by Rachel
1. Time to think – a relative wrote that she is having a mini breakdown and I sympathized as I’ve spent a lot of my alone time thinking a lot about a lot of life events. The conclusion is that too much time to think has the potential to lead to a breakdown.
2. Reinterpreting history – a neighbor who is becoming friendlier every passing moment was in a deep conversation with me about her three marriages and her children and their fathers and her relationships. She knew some of my history but not all and asked how Steve was doing. I said he is happy in love and has two young children in his life. Her eyes opened wide and she said, “Steve with children?” And I just nodded. She said without hesitation, “That means you weren’t the one.”
3. Nuns, popes, and religion – I watched the nun take chip shots at three golf balls on the bayou and thought about her life. She is always flying somewhere putting out fires in her order and seems to be someone who has a take charge attitude even now nearing her retirement. I cut out the Maureen Dowd article from Sunday’s NYT and gave it to her. She said that Ireland (where’s she’s from) is up in arms about the whole affair, but she was reluctant to actually weigh in. While nuns continue to do their work in silence popes and bishops fuck up left and right.
4. Solace – the soul needs to be alone sometimes to string together grief and joy and to find your own way through your thoughts. I’ve thought more about the Sabbath and how taking a day away from consuming, away from doing, away from electronics is good for your soul not for your religion. I’ve thought too that religion has passed down some incredible life lessons – such as observing the Sabbath – but also about doing unto others as you would want them to do unto you, about love and kindness, about redemption, about humility. These are messages that have been obscured by modern religion’s perversion. Things fall apart in the translation after a while. It would be nice if someone went through all the religions and cull out the best parts and put them together in a book so that Tin could read about the gems that have been turned over and over for the last thousands of years.