grateful

last night i spent a long time at the Jeffries’, eating dinner with them, reveling in their siblingness, and discussing things. as gib did the dishes with his forehead on the cabinet, as ian became increasingly antsy to go shoot BB guns, as nate sat and asked questions and ate the peach peels from dinner. anna had disappeared some time ago to go watch 101 dalmatians.

it’s the strangest thing, and quite delightful: becoming better friends with people you already know.

i am reading a good book. it’s definitely has a love-story-heavy plot, but it’s also interesting because of the different ways women are able to live in the united states and in iran. the only problem is i am reading the copy of the lady i nanny for… and she doesn’t know i am reading it at the same time… so i can only read it while i am nannying there!

one of the things the jeffries’ and i discussed was the rules about when two people in the family are reading a book at once. does the person who picked it up first get to take it from the other person whenever they choose? i believe it works best this way: the person who started it first has permanent dibs on the book until he or she finishes. however, this person should also finish the book in a timely manner, so as not to exasperate the other person…but not hurrying the book too much and ruining the enjoyment of said book. the second person reading the book can always steal the book and read it in the bathroom while the other person is sleeping. we often did that in my family. results in sore bottoms, but very satisfied readers.

dr. jeffries asked me at dinner if i was doing anything fun this summer. i hadn’t the least idea what to say, so i told him i was really enjoying my nanny job, and i was hanging out with my family a lot. i’m not sure that’s what he had in mind. i have stopped thinking of things in the category of “fun.” that doesn’t mean i don’t have fun, just that i don’t really think of it that way.
this is perhaps why sports are hard to enjoy these days. inevitably i start thinking of something serious, like getting in shape or losing a bit of weight or becoming better at that sport.

i agree with augustine that you must be very careful when earthly pleasures become ends, and not means to enjoying God, because that may be an idol.

however, when all earthly pleasures fade into means, nondescript-all-the-same means, existence seems very poor indeed.

then there is no joy in a simple, familiar hymn, in a great frisbee catch by your formerly clumsy little sister, in a spontaneous war whoop.

the hymn becomes a “way in which you compose your mind to worship God,” ultimate frisbee becomes simply a way to become more fit by running around, and a war whoop…. i’m just not sure there’s much of a place for those.

of course a hymn could compose your mind to worship God, and that’s a good thing, but when you must take things so rigidly that you forget that the music stirs your blood for no reason at all, perhaps just because you like it. and frisbee should never be reduced to a means to getting in shape. why not just go the gym for a few hours? it might be more efficient. no, leave frisbee to be itself. some of my fellow bloggers would call frisbee a noble game.

anyhow, here’s to enjoying life. to enjoying the good things that are ruined when they become just a means to an end.