Skip to main content

wotd: inveterate

inveterate \in-VET-uhr-it\, adjective;
1. Firmly established by long persistence; deep-rooted; of long standing.
2. Fixed in habit by long persistence; confirmed; habitual.


It's these days of Lent that prompted me to attempt a daily blog entry based on dictionary(dot)com's Word of the Day. Lent is a time of examination, repentance, and renewal. I'd found myself devoting a significant amount of time to fruitless endeavors, such as breeding fish in the fb app My Aquarium, and serving dishes on My Cafe. Somehow I always managed to find time to waste, but never time to use wisely. So for Lent I gave up my fb apps and decided to dedicate time to something I always mean to do but never get around to: writing. Writing is an exercise in self-examination, sometimes of repentance, oftentimes of renewal.

At the same time, I find myself serving on the discernment committee at my church. Our rector of 17 years retired last September. The search for a new rector involves two committees: discernment and search. The discernment committee is charged with discovering who we are as a congregation, and where we wish to go. The discernment committee doesn't even get to consider what the new rector might be like: that's the charge of the search committee. The discernment committee gathers data about the church, its congregation and aspirations, and presents this data to the search committee, the members of which will craft a Parish Profile to call a new rector. Serving on the discernment committee is also an exercise in self-examination.

I am an inveterate nonparticipant. I hate meetings. During my employment at Omegatype I never had to attend meetings; the preschool staff meetings are brief affairs held but once a month. I often see myself as the person always present, ears open and mouth shut. I don't like hearing myself contribute, but that doesn't mean I'm not intensely interested. I am dedicated to the work the discernment committee is doing; I am dreading the two-hour weekly meetings. Thankfully, the time frame for our work is finite: the search committee expects our data to be in by mid-April. At that time, our work is done.

The coincidence of these two undertakings---daily writing and discernment duty---no doubt will exhaust me, but when Lent is over I expect to emerge renewed, with a finer sense of who I am and where I'm going.

Comments

Miss Linder said…
When I looked at your list and saw legs on today's and arms tomorrow...I thought you were saying you were going to shave them. :-)
10:03 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

doesn't take much

This afternoon I went to Starbucks. I don't go often because they're spendy and they've monopolized the coffee business and most of the time I just want black coffee. Part of our Thanksgiving tradition, though, is going to Mom's Target and Starbucks on Black Friday. This year we made it to Target but not to Starbucks, nor did we make it to Starbucks on Saturday, as we said we would on the way to the Deer Valley Goodwill. I have a gift card smoldering in my pocket so today, after buying spray paint and water marbles at JoAnn, I pulled up to the drive-thru at Starbucks. Usually I get some kind of blended iced vanilla chai thing. At the orderboard I was distracted by all the holiday drinks and opted for a white chocolate peppermint mocha, grande. One thing I will say for Starbucks: the employees are always uber-friendly. After ordering from the chirpy counterperson I pulled forward slightly, plugged in my ipod, and started a game of solitaire while listening to the White S...
3 comments
Read more

memory

10 comments
Read more

monday melee

Photo credit goes to xeriscapeaz.org On Monday morning Jack woke early and had plenty of time to play with Cassie in the backyard before school. I was inside making Jack's lunch when I heard Cassie's Alert Bark, so I went outside to investigate. She was barking ferociously at the resident herd of javelina, passing through the wash behind the house, trotting on their ridiculously tiny hooves. "Jack! Come see the javelina!" I said. He ran over and leaned against the wall by the lemon tree, where the wall runs shortest. "Here pig pig!" he called. And what the hell? The big ones started coming over, and the little ones followed. "Oh-ho!" Jack was delighted when the entire herd of seven javelina---five adults and two babies---walked over to stand just on the other side of the wall, lifting their round wet snouts and sniffing our air. "Someone's been feeding them," I said, over Cassie's barking, and turned to go inside to get the camera...
3 comments
Read more