day 2

T

Yesterday I went to an Ash Wednesday service at noon. It was packed. I was on the younger side.

I chose to sit in the back second to the last row on the far left.

Minding my own business I find the page with the script to follow and sure enough I am given the opportunity to be refined one more time. A gentleman scoots in behind me. And I start hearing a noise. At first it is subtle and then in my mind it begins to pick up steam and enthusiasm like a train. Darn - here I am ready to pay attention and now all I can hear is this noise. I pretend to adjust my purse and jacket to see what in heck is behind me. And there it is. A portable oxygen just pumping in and out making this somewhat silent (but horrifying loud) noise. I am screwed. I cannot move because that is rude. And I am 100% distracted now.  I try to close my eyes, take deep breaths and concentrate on the words and then I switch to deliberately reading the words to drowned out anything else. Since this was a word mass - no singing was present. Well, 25 minutes later I got in line made my way to receive my smudge and hear the words Mass has ended, go in peace. In which the priest did not say. But everyone understood it was over and we left. 

Later in the evening I head over to a 75 minute Vinyasa flow. We talked about surface level gratitude vs being thankful for things even when things are not great.

I am so thankful and so blessed it is hard to even put it together.

I am not perfect and I have struggles. But God is so so good to me.