I havn't been on this blog for almost two and a half years. Two and a half years... that's a long time. But lately I've been having this feeling of wanting to go back. Back to taking the time to sit and write about it all. What I see and feel and think about each day. Mostly to remind myself of the beauty of my life.
This morning after getting the kids off to school, I was feeling particularly nostalgic. Maybe its the weather finally changing over to spring. Maybe its the warmer morning air, pregnant with the rain that is to come later today. Maybe its the tulips poking out of the ground with their beautiful heads of color. Or the scent of the blossoming trees in the air and the pink, white and purple flowers on them. All of this made me desire to sit on the front porch and open one of my most treasured books. Coffee in hand, I thumbed the pages of "Simple Abundance" until I reached today's date, May 2nd.
Simple Abundance A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, by Sarah Ban Breathnach is a book I started reading in 1997. A woman I babysat for was given it as a gift and she passed it along to me. Asked me if I'd like to read it, to keep it. Always loving to get a good book, I happily took it. The book is comprised of 365 entries, one for each day of the year. It so beautifully goes through each month, each day, each season, with a meditation of how to live each day, each season with fullness. Gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty, and joy are the principles she walks the reader through. It has been one of the most formative books I have ever read, truly helping me to see the beauty and joy of my daily life. I have so many memories of reading this book outside in the morning. All the way back to when I was a college student living in my apartment, I would take my stack of daily reads outside on our deck and begin my mornings with prayer and reading. I've continued that to this day. I like to think back to the different houses I've lived in, each one with their own special spot outside where I read and prayed in the mornings. This book has been a part of that habit. I've read the same entries over and over for the past 20 years. Though there are years when I haven't picked up the book. Seasons of life when this book collects dust on the shelf. I havn't read it probably in the last 5 years and I'm realizing that I miss it. So today I picked it up.
When I started this blog 8 years ago, the task of naming it was daunting for me. What was the title? Why was a writing a blog anyway? I remembered reading something from Simple Abundance that had stuck with me. Ban Breathnach quotes Rumer Godden by saying, "the secret to living an authentic life seems to have been dwelling, no matter where she actually kept house, in the House of Spirit. There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, but unless we go into every room every day, we are not a complete person." That really struck me as so important. How necessary it is for me to do exactly that. To take time each day for myself mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. There it was. The name I had been looking for. If I was going to writing about my life, this fit perfectly. I named my blog, A House With Four Rooms.
And so, here I am this morning sitting on my porch with the dusty Simple Abundance book in hand. I flip to today's date May 2nd, and guess what its about? Rumor Godden's quote on a house with four rooms. Yep. I'll take that as a little nudge to get back here, to this place where I can write and remember and record all the beautiful ways my life is so full.
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