In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything,
Desire to have pleasure in nothing.

In order to arrive at possessing everything,
Desire to possess nothing.

In order to arrive at being everything,
Desire to be nothing.

In order to arrive at knowing everything,
Desire to know nothing.

In order to arrive at that wherein thou hast no pleasure,
Thou must go by a way wherein thou hast no pleasure.

In order to arrive at that which thou knowest not,
Thou must go by a way that thou knowest not.

In order to arrive at that which thou possessest not,
Thou must go by a way that thou possessest not.

In order to arrive at that which thou art not,
Thou must go through that which thou art not.

When thy mind dwells upon anything,

Thou art ceasing to cast thyself upon the All.

For, in order to pass from the all to the All,
Thou hast to deny thyself wholly in all.

And, when thou comest to possess it wholly,
Thou must possess it without desiring anything.

For, if thou wilt have anything in having all,
Thou hast not thy treasure purely in God.

In this detachment the spiritual soul finds its quiet and repose; for, since it covets nothing, nothing wearies it when it is lifted up, and nothing oppresses it when it is cast down, because it is in the centre of its humility; but when it covets anything, at that very moment it becomes wearied.

- St. John of the Cross, "The Ascent of Mt. Carmel"

Thank you...

...so much to Mary, for sending me an email to get my off my ass and back to writing.

 

Meet Mary:

http://journals.aol.com/frankandmary/JustMary/

Good Times

I had so much to write about, and then...  I didn't. 

Things started to get crazy and between battling the French at my daughter's school and trying to stop time, my step-dad took a turn for the worst as did my friend Karen.

Karen died 4 days ago.  My step-dad was taken into a psych hospital about 2 weeks ago.  The same day Karen died my mom called because she didn't think my step-dad would make it.  There is a bit of a funny story in there, but I can't really think of it right now.

Derek Jeter was sweaty.  As a matter of fact he was dripping sweat on the field, and although I thought it was fairly disgusting to touch his back and feeling a small puddle I still did it, and told him it didn't bother me at all.  I can't remember who else was in that dream, but I did make faces to the other person, because I was indeed very grossed out.  Then I made the decision to not name our newly put-together baseball team the "California Rainbows" because everyone would think it was a gay thing, so I decided to go for "California Sun Rays." 

I'm going to blame my friend's obsession w/Jeter and baseball for the dream last night, as I would much rather dream about kissing George Clooney.  Patting splashing-sweaty men in the back is not really my sort of thing.

I've been doing mind-numbing things lately, as obvious as it is from my rambling above, but I just got to the point where I chose to stop thinking.  I had to decide what I was going to do about my impending trip to Florida to see my s-dad the same day Karen died, and started to feel the same way I do when I'm at the top of a very high roller-coaster looking straight down.  It was at that point I made the choice to stop thinking.  That and because of my phobia of airplanes and my shortage of time to try driving to Florida.

Since then I've been doing a lot of cataloging (I bought a scanner and some library software), organizing (which in my world means "turn the whole house upside down, feel overwhelmed, take a rest") and trying to help others.  So I'll be trying to help raise a bit of money for Karen's daughter by selling some things.  I was able to get the pink hat that she was wearing the day we met...

And that makes me happy.

G