Uneventful

 

Hoping for today to be an uneventful day.  We shall see how it goes.

My PCS (Pipe Challenge Scale) today feels at about a level 8.  I am not sure why I am feeling again a cascade of pretty deep yearnings for my pipes and pipe tobaccos.  I do wish I could find a pathway back to them that does feel legitimate, manageable, and appropriate for the 2021-times we are in.  Unfortunately, I have yet to figure out how.  Even thought it is not always my opinion on the matter, today it feels like I am mostly struggling with how to find a path that is manageable for me to maintain without adding extra work or stress to my day-to-day life.  

Because of work related obligations, I needed to get up especially early to run.  Because of the deep darkness of the early morning, and because it was currently quite windy (~23mph (~37kph)), I started on the treadmill and listened to the Capuchin Mass (from Tuesday) while I ran 4 miles.  The Gospel had in part this statement from Matthew:

"Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."

This impacted me deeply.  With my sour, "wrong-side-of-the-bed" feelings through most of the day yesterday, I knew that at least some my emotions were about the person I spoke of who yammered incessantly. My Lenten vow of forgiveness to this person (and the other one as well) NEEDS to be my focus.  I guess it was a bit of a pipe dream to think that my efforts to interact with her more and to talk with her more would end up going hand-in-hand with a washing away of my anger and distrust of her.  But, with listening to the Gospel and Homily in the Mass, it helped me to see that in addition to the external acts of forgiveness (interacting with her more, etc) I have to really work internally within myself to feel that forgiveness towards her more completely in my mind and my body and soul.  The externals alone are not enough to instill that act of forgiveness in my actions.  I seem to have a helluva lot more work to do in this regard, if yesterday was any indication.  I wish I could be better at this.  It *is* hard.

When Mass concluded, there was just enough hint of light being able to be seen through the basement windows, that I decided.... to hell with the wind.... I want to run outside.  So,  I ended up running 5.5 miles outside as  the sun rose.  It *was* awfully damn windy for much of the run, so I feel a bit more tuckered out than usual.  Running into a really strong headwind is no joke.  So, in total I ran 9.4 miles (~15 km) this morning.

When I finally arrived at the U, I ended up gobbling my cereal and blueberries in rapid time.  Not only was I feeling utterly famished, but I only had a few minutes before a meeting started.

PipeTobacco