Some Frustrations for the Day

Sick. My body aches, my nose is dripping, and my lungs are hacking. Most of all, I am just sapped of energy. Not a fan. Sickness makes me cranky about everything else, hence this post. There is still work to do, so I am finalizing mission trip details, writing auction thank-you notes, and trying to reconstruct a sermon I preached in South Africa from my couch. (How is it, by the way, that I can spend so much time writing a sermon, and put so much energy into preaching it, and then immediately forget it? And where on earth is the journal that I wrote the notes in??) I am thankful for the ability to telecommute.

Speaking of the mission trip, if any of you have suggestions of free/cheap things to do in NYC with youth, I would love to hear them.

In the news: I don't really have words for this, except that I can't believe it is considered a legitimate legal defense. Maybe I would if I equated the termination of pregnancies with murdering children. Still, walking into a church and shooting someone - how is that okay?

Quitting. For the umpteenth time but probably the first truly serious time, I am trying to quit a particularly unhealthy vise. It's a good thing, it's the right thing, but I'm sure it's not contributing positively to my mental state at the moment.

Online Dating. For the record, I'm not actually online dating; I'm more....online perusing. Periodically, one of my friends will sign up for an online dating service and convince me that I should do likewise, which generally involves me filling out half of a profile, becoming annoyed and giving up, getting "matched" with a list of people who seem completely arbitrary and mostly unsuitable, and using the list as my comic relief for the day while I proceed to block my profile. That's in the best of times, when I actually want to meet people. Right now, something I thought would work out doesn't seem to be going much of anywhere, and while I'm willing to have some patience and see what might develop, I know it is not good for me to put myself on a shelf in case it actually goes somewhere someday. However, I have zilch interest in meeting anyone new at the moment, although a part of me wishes that I did. But I figured that maybe taking a look at some of the possibilities might help me not to set myself up for the potential of increased jadedness should this not work out, which is looking like the most likely possibility at this point. Yeah....that was delusional. Conservative religious fanatics (funny who you get matched with when you say faith is important in your life, even if you identify yourself as very liberal) and men who can't remember reading a book and who can't construct a grammatically correct sentence don't exactly instill me with hope.

People who cannot have a conversation without pointing out something that is wrong with your behavior or personality. Yes, that entire sentence needed to be in bold.

Disliking people. There is a person I know. Everyone we mutually know assumes we are friends, because we have many interests in common. They also assume that I am very supportive of the ministry this person runs, because it is aligned with many of my interests. Sometimes I think I should like this person, but I just...don't. I feel disrespected and disregarded every time we are in contact. Sometimes I think I should be more involved in this ministry, but then I think, why? My experience in this area has not been valued enough for anyone to actually ask me to get involved. Which goes back to feeling disrespected and disregarded. Part of me says, stop being petty. Part of me reminds me that I don't have time anyway, so I'm not worrying about it after I post this to get it out of my head. And I'm reminded that people like to be appreciated. People like to be asked, and we sometimes feel unvalued if we're not. A good lesson for church matters.

On that note, I'm off to appreciate some church members through more thank-you notes.