Reading & Writing a Life

Carla Pineda's blog


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Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving blessings everyone!  It is the day after  Turkey Day.  I am still “resting” up from a fabulous meal yesterday cooked by many hands.  They sometimes say that “too many cooks spoil the broth” but that didn’t fit the bill yesterday.  Turkey and ham, broccoli and rice casserole, mashed potatoes (real ones! loaded with sour cream and real butter)….yum.  Braised brussel sprouts and from scratch cranberry sauce…around a table shared with one of my sisters and her family.  What a blessing!  I am so grateful for so much this year.  Four months ago Paul faced bypass surgery and came through it with flying colors.  Another grand baby is on the way in February.  All our children are well.  Even facing and going through an stretch of unemployment has its blessing side.  It has slowed me down and let me look at life through the lens of gratitude and plenty rather than one of scarcity and loss.  I have learned the lesson of God’s math more than one time and am being reminded of it once again.  God’s math is always different than mine.  No matter what the equation the answer is always a positive.  There is always enough, more than enough!  And, now with the holiday season upon us and spend mode everywhere I look I want to re/member to take things slow, breath deeply and stay in gratitude.  Meister Eckhart said, “If the only prayer you ever prayed was “thank you” that would be enough.”  Yes….Thank You!!  It is all good, is it not?

“Always we begin again…”

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“Always we begin again” said St. Benedict in the prologue to his monastic rule.  It’s good to remember this.  I’m beginning to come here again, to see what ends up spilling out on the page.  I want to crawl under a rock, scold myself for not being here for so very long.  Yet, Reading & Writing a Life has been sitting here, waiting for me to “begin again.”  Not that I haven’t been reading and writing since I was last here.  These two practices are part of my daily routine, always, to some degree.  But, coming here to the blog takes a little bit more of a commitment, or a statement that I make to myself, outloud, and to those of you who read this.  Someone once said that it didn’t matter how many times you fell down, what mattered was that you got up. So, I’m up again!  I will not say I’ll be here every day but I will be here.  I will show up and put some words on the page.  I will check in with me and you if you are here and share what the “reading & writing life” has been about at this given time.  Thanks for listening.

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ready to “begin again”….