Somedays...

For some reason this song has been floating in and out of my head all day long... just parts of it, too so that I wasn't sure what it was until just now.

I like the feel and sentiment of this song, yeah?  Joan Chittister, in her commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict, writes:

If Benedictine spirituality understands anything about life at all, it understands the corrosive effects of constant complaining. Complaining is the acid that shrivels our own souls and the soul of the community around us as well... Complaining, in other words, undermines the hope of a community and smothers possibility in a group.  The whiner, the constant critic, the armchair complainer make an office, a family, a department, a community a polluted place to be.

That's a good word for me - and a good word to share with others in the faith community.  Some days... just are - they can be better or worse than others - but they just are so take them in and then let them go.  Complaining, it would seem, is just as destructive as worrying (which the Wailin' Jennys say is like praying for something you don't want to happen.)

The late Jane Kenyon put it like this in "Otherwise" - a true blessing:

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach.  It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks.  It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

Today I shared time with people at church - my sweetheart did shopping for Istanbul - soon we'll eat and head off to one last band practice before the trip.  I am grateful - it could have been otherwise.

And this just in from Turkey... too kewel for school!  Check it out:  Jazz singers breaking into "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" on a subway in Istanbul.  Man, it REALLY could have been otherwise!

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=jazz-on-board-istanbuls-metro-2011-06-06