* I think part of it is I'm just tired, and I didn't love when I took little breaks to relax and Bluesky was down, maybe forever? (it's back now). But any more everything is so dependent on a few services that if those go down (like AWS), we're all in the dark, and given what may happen tomorrow evening in the Iran war, I'm apprehensive.
* A weird little thing; when I got home from school and went to get my mail, this was in the box: a plastic Easter egg and as I took it out I sighed and said "if there's candy in it, I ain't eating it" (Yes, I'm a child of the 70s and I remember the stern warnings on Halloween candy)
but instead, it was this:
A Bible verse. From Psalm 139. Which, I guess, okay, but it's not completely Easterish. And I admit I would have liked a few more words of hope, rather than basically an instruction. Yes, yes, I know the way I should go.
I wonder if the neighbors got them too, and if they were different verses. The handwriting looks like someone older than a small child - either a teen or a young woman (I could not write that neatly as a child) so I'm wondering if someone did it and then had their kids put the eggs out.
Anyway, it was just unexpected.
It's just that there's a lot to do at school. Too many things to juggle and I admit I am TIRED. Saturday was entirely out in the field (Well, "entirely" - 11 am to 2 pm, and I was too tired after to do much).
And Sunday I filled the pulpit. Yes, none of the people who ordinarily to was available so I did it, even though I'm not ordained and not any sort of theologian. I guess it went okay.
But things have been A Lot lately and sometimes I feel like I don't have enough time to do what *I* want or even kind of what I need to do (research stuff). There's just lots of urgent stuff that comes up and takes time from other things and I find myself staying over at work later and later, and then I wind up staying up at home later at night as a sort of revenge for "but I didn't get free time" and I can't continue in what I think of as "bare survival mode"
The world just feels hard, and so even little things make me kind of lose my composure a little bit.
I do think something is going on inside me, I don't know what.
I did see a bit of coverage of the Artemis mission and I watched the liftoff on Wednesday (I had to look that up, I thought it was more recently than that - that's how I feel like my life is out of my control). And I admit, having been around for Challenger and also Columbia (in 2003, I was already living here, in 1986, I was a junior in high school), I said a little prayer as they lifted off and got nervous when the feed briefly went pixelated. But so far everything is good and I hope they can safely land when the mission is over.
And I saw a bit of the coverage of them going into "radio silence' - as they passed around the moon, there was 40 minutes where they couldn't communicate. The part I saw featured was the “To all of you down there on Earth — and around Earth — We love you, from the moon.”
And I admit, that undid me a little, hearing it, this evening. I had taken a break from doing some cleaning/bedmaking in my room to look at things and I saw it posted. And I sat down and just cried.
I *think* part of it is being tired, and just worried all the time now about EVERYTHING. But more: it was just a simple, kind, thoughtful message, and in our culture now that's in such short supply. How often do we hear people saying "I love you" as a general statement to humanity. (I admit it: I cannot love humanity a lot of the time. Or perhaps: I don't LIKE humanity and what it does a lot of the time). But there's so much meanness and upsetting coarseness in what's said now that hearing "we love you" from a man who took on the risk to do something like this....it's disarming, because hearing that kind of language seems so rare now.
And there's actually a longer video than what I saw, and Victor Glover referenced Christ's two Great Commandments, and.....wow. I know, I know, maybe some people didn't like it but I presume Glover is a Christian and feels it and believes it, and it's something that's important to me and in fact I referenced these in the sermon yesterday and it does make me feel like I have something a tiny bit in common with him.
I've read that a lot of people who traveled to space were changed by it - more thoughtful, more cognizant of the fragility of life, perhaps even more spiritual
This link to the video is Instagram but it's the best link I can find quickly.
But I don't know. I need to hear more words of hope, or someone saying something with care and love, and I want to hear fewer people being insulting or bullying or rudely angry, and some days it feels like those attitudes are pushing out the other ones, and it makes me sad. I mean, I can keep trying to be kind, but if all the people around me turn cruel, then *I* never get to hear kindness myself.
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