Bored, bored, bored

That's my theme of the day. I'm bored. The most exciting things that happened today were (a) TT running into the woods just as carpool needed to leave, necessitating two round trips to the school this morning, and (b) S coming over to borrow my camera and then coming back to download some pictures of morning glories by her apt. I think they were morning glories...here's one of her pics:

I discovered Oprah is also on in the morning, on channel 18 I think. Never knew that.

I made a mandala* for my spiritual director. Last time she and I met, she used the word 'sparkle' in her prayer and this image came to me. It's probably not too easy to see it but if you click on the picture, it should enlarge. The actual mandala is pretty cool and colorful. It has nuances of silver, gold and sparkles.

I checked my email and my friends' blogs too much, fed the fish, and vaccuumed. I started to watch the movie Troy but I thought it was boring so I stopped it. Then, I made of list of things I could do when I'm bored but they all sounded boring or demanded too much time or energy so I didn't do any of them.

Monday, cert school starts. Then I won't be bored. I wonder what it will be like to have a normal person schedule again...

* What is a mandala, you ask? Well, it's kind of a long story. Traditionally they are an ancient Hindu (I think...) circle (usually) with a geometric pattern in it. Here are some examples I found on Google images:



The ones my spiritual director encourages people to do are much more abstract. It's not about being able to draw or making something pretty. It's a process through which a person intentionally seeks the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. I do them a lot as a spiritual practice.** Here's a couple I've drawn before. One was about pondering authenticity and the other is my symbol for friendship. I think if you click on them, you might get a better view. All the colors and lines and intricacies are symbolic for something, usually anyway.



** Just an aside: I like using the term 'spiritual practice' instead of 'spiritual discipline.' It seems much more fitting for how I view a relationship with God. Discipline sounds so, I don't know, full of retribution and punishment...something one must do. It's a loaded term. I don't think God is very into shoulds and oughts and musts. I don't think God is into loaded terms when they hang people up and divert their attention to all kinds of garbage. I think God just hopes we'll try to answer God's calls to us the best that we can in the moment.