Anniversary blog 2025

Dishtowels on the loom. 

I went to my regular Friday morning yoga class today. It's "Hatha Yoga for the Core" which means there will be crunches or boat poses and a period of harder work and held poses in between the careful breathing and stretches and final rest pose. I like the instructor of this class because she finds a nice balance between predictable routine and bringing in new movement or new ideas. 

New to me today was a technique for shutting down the senses and moving into meditation that recalled the three monkeys who "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." We shut our eyes and placed our index and middle fingers softly over our eyelids, ring fingers on the nose, and pinkies on the lips. Our thumbs gently pressed our ears closed and we sat for a minute. Resting. 

I struggle these days to put my phone down or step away from the computer screen and take a break from the awful stuff that continues to rain down from the current presidential administration in Washington DC. So much evil to see! So much to object to! I'm emailing my representatives in Congress regularly, and also sending messages of support to Illinois's governor and attorney general in Springfield. I write mostly about Medicaid, but so many other issues leave me feeling disturbed and depressed: USAID funding, civil servants losing jobs willy-nilly, the betrayal of Ukraine, petty reprisals against political opponents. 

Closing your eyes to it all -- is that a better alternative? Is it even possible? I know people who don't pay much attention to politics, and others who think that the federal government needs a good goosing and choose to ignore the details and possible repercussions of all the upset. 

I can't ignore the issues and actions that I'm upset about. Maybe that's the way I'm wired -- to complain and object and protest. To want things set right. Or maybe it's the type of Christianity I grew up with, the intense discussions we engaged in about race and poverty when I was in eighth grade in a Lutheran school in the spring of 1968. Maybe it's my demographic: college-educated, urban-suburban white woman, voting Democratic most of my life. 

Whatever. 

I do know that I need a rest. It may be time to take up meditation—again. To sit for hours at the loom and listen to a good story instead of political podcasts. To clean closets or choose new colors for the pillows on the couch. To contemplate the smeary blue of today's late-winter sky and start to watch for snowdrops and crocuses. To smile and laugh as the fifth and sixth-graders I'm working with discover the human fun and foibles in their characters in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." 

Sunday is Transfiguration, the last Sunday before Lent, which is when I mark this blog's anniversary. I have been posting for 19 years here at The Perverse Lutheran, through all kinds of times. I just now took a look back and saw posts I remember and posts I don't. Posts that remind me to look for God's grace, to look for the light, and to remember that hope does not disappoint us.

Here's a previous Transfiguration anniversary post. And the Ash Wednesday 2015 post from a few days later has some fun moments. Reminds me why I'm retired.