To soften…

Time left in book: 42 mins

You know when the mid-evening light sometimes makes everything look ethereal… and then it gets dark.

And the church bell tolled… We have time.

It takes half a minute for the church bell to ring 12 o’clock.

This week, I made hot cross buns. The dough took time to prove: mix and knead, wait an hour, add the fruit, wait an hour, form buns, and wait an hour.

Peeling potatoes, pealing bells, it takes time.

When we’re ill or bruised, it can take time to heal.

I don’t know about you, but my usual daily routine and habits have a momentum that does not allow life to ‘steep’. Steep: to extract a flavour or to soften, to surround or fill with a character.

When we have ‘things to do’, it’s hard to notice that we have time…
‘We have time’…
We have time to be…
Time to breathe…

This week we have had a week off work. We are fortunate, circumstances have caused us to use the time to pause and savour, and perhaps steep.

Nothing to be done, as Vladimir and Estragon might have said.

Some recent reading reminded me: to look upon all encounters for value, for opportunity to breathe deeper, and meet with our neighbour at a deeper level than our ‘usual’ fleeting presence of mind allows for…

Rosemerry Trommer writes:
‘What if we assume we belong?
Then we might find we are held by strands of birdsong…
I spent so much time worrying… until recently, real belonging asks nothing of me…
Hold a door, pass the salt, share a sunset…’

Rumi wrote: ‘Be grateful for whoever comes, treat each guest honorably…’

And so back to the bell tolling 12… midnight…

Based on a true story.
Time left in book: …

You know when the morning light sometimes makes everything look ethereal…

Contrary to Nietzsche’s ‘ugly’:
Truth can be beautiful – we possess breath that we might steep in beauty.