"Lead, Kindly Light."

My Thursday involved back-to-back meetings and I was relieved by lunchtime when I was able to spend part of it in quiet meditation and then mass. The priest quoted part of St. John Henry Newman's poem, and I'm sharing it here below:

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,

Lead Thou me on;

The night is dark, and I am far from home,

Lead Thou me on.

Keep Thou my feet;

I do not ask to see the distant scene;

one step enough for me.

Burnout is imminent. Are you in that zone too? If yes, let us acknowledge our exhaustion and rest our minds for a while from thinking about our bottomless to-do lists. I just had a small bite-sized Cadbury fruit and nut chocolate bar as a treat. That may be my favorite chocolate (or among my topmost), mainly because I remember that my late mother liked it (aside from Nestle Crunch, which I may have written about before). It's delicious, of course, but I like that when I consume it, I'm sort of sending a silent shoutout to my mother. She was intelligent, beautiful, feisty, funny, humble, and a really good mother. I feared her, but I depended on her. I just had my birthday on the Feast of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and I've officially outlived my mother. I realized just how young she was when she passed--a temporal landmark for me. I feel that I'm currently experiencing a milestone in life. I didn't have a huge celebration, but we did get Japanese takeout and a panna cotta cake from this French bakery that I've been curious to try. Unfortunately, said cake taught me that dairy sensitivity can be developed later in life. I digress. Oh, in birthday-related news, my husband and I gifted ourselves with musical instruments during the recent Long & McQuade used equipment sale. My husband's birthday preceded mine by a month and he was really planning on getting that acoustic bass for quite some time. The classical guitar I got is an impulse purchase triggered by midlife crisis. 

That's it for today's rambling about Life. Now that I'm at this temporal landmark, I'm grateful to see as far as the next step. I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me.