Lovely! So peaceful, I am glad it was restorative for you.

I know what you mean about struggling with a wish to withdraw, to isolate myself when things start to feel sideways. It always felt safest, somehow, so has been one of the ongoing struggles for me.

And yet, our healing is most often found with the balance between inner silence and community. We need the silence at times, but we also need the mirrors others hold up to us that reassure us that we are not alone in our particular pain or quirk, that we are valued, welcomed, and appreciated with love exactly as we are.

Have you read any of her books? A friend introduced me to her work years ago starting with “Traveling Mercies and Other Thoughts on Faith.”

If you are a staunch Republican you may not like her work as much since there is a very funny thread in the second book in that series involving her wrestling with God over being told she was to love George W. Bush despite not being able to stand him.

Wonderful stuff for all those of us who have realized the call to love one we considered as an enemy includes us! ????

What a treat! I am sure, too, that your helping her with memorializing her kitty will help ease her grief. Acknowledging the siginficance of grief for a child is a very powerful gift. They need to know that they are real, their grief is real and valid, and that it is okay both to feel it and to let go.

I once had an experience at a ballgame with a little boy, maybe five or six. He came up with a group of other children to sit on the ground with me and a bunch of other children who had come to visit the puppy I was watching. At first he was almost angry, disclaiming any wish to even touch the pup. I said, “Okay.”

As time went on and the crowd thinned, he stayed, inching closer to the puppy. He started talking. It turned out he’d had a dog he loved who had run out into the road and been killed. He was understandably upset but had been told not to cry, that he was making something of nothing, that it was “just a dog.” I let him talk until it all spilled out, tears near the surface, then I looked him in the eyes and said, “I am so sorry you lost your dog. That must have been so hard for you.” We talked a little more, as he broke through and patted the pup! Then, his little heart having been seen and heard, he skipped off to join his playmates, all sign of his previous angry demeanor gone.

It was a magical moment for me and a deep honor to have been used as a channel of healing for him.

I am SO beyond thrilled that you get to do this for your granddaughter. This is a Life gift you are giving her, of utmost importance. I am sending you a big hug and will pray that exactly the right words come to your heart as you paint together. ????????????

Oh, yes, the everyday absurd! I love it!

You remind me of something that happened years ago. We were walking through a historic area that had many shops and eateries, a real attraction for locals as well as tourists, always very crowded and hard to park, so lots of people take taxis.

Well, I saw a taxi, and on the side if it was painted very neatly the word “Trashed.”

I thought it very odd, even if it did not look like a new car, to put announce it that way. This tickled me, and I started chuckling.

Then I looked closer and saw the little period that I had missed before — it was located between T and Rashed! I felt like an idiot — it was the name of the driver, not a statement about the taxi’s roadworthiness.

The idea that the taxi driver might have noticed this silly woman standing on the sidewalk laughing at the side of his car tickled me even more! I just stoid there laughing. I bet he thought I was soused to find a taxi so amusing.

When I told my husband, he laughed with me at me, too. ???? I am VERY grateful for the ability to laugh at myself. It takes so much of the sting out of life’s little foibles.

You know, I have never seen anything more of Charlie Chaplin than a clip, now that I think of it. I shall have to rectify that!

We just watched Mel Brooks’ “Silent Movie,” in which the only word spoken is by Marcel Marceau. Lol

Another favorite we watched not long ago is actually a PERFECT visual depiction of how to do Michael Singer’s technique of leaning back into the quiet within and observing what is going on instead of getting immersed in it. It is “Support Your Local Sheriff” with James Garner and the ever hilarious Jack Elam.