New Month, New Hopes

Fall has arrived. It is cold and gusty and sunny today, the wind sucking any heat or moisture out of my hands and face, but the colours seem more vibrant, as if Autumn were proud to be neither Summer nor Winter but a season fiercely its own, appealing and torturous in its own ways.

I finally used up a gift card for a bookstore downtown that I have been sitting on for years. I have had that gift card longer than I've had an engagement ring; I was lucky the store didn't expire it on me! I bought three books, which totalled about $4 less than the value of the gift card, which is close enough for me :) Cash intact, I left with New Monasticism by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, with whom I have been exchanging emails this week - more on that later! - A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer compiled by someone who has never emailed me, and a blank notebook to stay under my gift card limit, to reward myself for all the beautiful notebooks I haven't bought for the last several months, and to motivate myself to journal more so I fill up my current journal before starting in a new one!

With the start of Fall for real, and in light of things I have been reading and thinking, I am hoping that Matt and I can make space and time to regularly have people over and practice hospitality. It has been months if not a year that we have been saying we should have people over more often or reach out to get to know some people better, but we haven't lived up to those plans very well, and it's mostly because of me. I need a plan much more than Matt does, and I psych myself out over the preparation involved in being good hosts, and it all amounts to a lot of fuss in my mind and not a lot being done. So I am planning to chill out and focus more on my attitude than my performance. I hope that living more hospitably will keep my heart soft to others and help me avoid the trap of thinking how important it is to love people and share life together without actually doing that.