Even with the in-laws in town, I find myself twiddling my thumbs a lot and playing a fair number of games of solitaire.  There just isn’t much to do in Qinghai in the winter (at least there isn’t much that I want to do, especially if it involves leaving the warmth of our apartment.)  Less than two weeks till we leave for Thailand (woo-hoo!)

Still making my way slowly through Pilgrim At Tinker Creek.  This paragraph grabbed my attention:

Thomas Merton wrote, in a light passage in one of his Gethsemane journals: "Suggested emendation in the Lord’s Prayer:  Take out ‘Thy Kingdom come’ and substitute ‘Give us time!’"  But time is the one thing we have been given, and we have been given to time.  Time gives us a whirl.  We keep waking from a dream we can’t recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end.  All I want to do is to stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open, with toothpicks, with trees.

Looking back on my own journals over the years, I have noticed this same theme, i.e. wanting to be awake to life while fighting the urge to curl up and doze off.  I find myself jerking awake with a start, only realizing I’ve been asleep as I am jarred from my slumber.  Here in a few days I’ll turn 34 years old…

34!

My goodness where does the time go?  I’m told it gets worse–the speed of life–and I find that VERY disturbing. Gotta watch out for those long naps when the world begins to accelerate faster all around you.  Pop a few No-Doze and make another pot of coffee.  Hobbits evidently don’t hit their adult stride (maturity) until they are into their 50s.  I take great consolation in that little bit of literary trivia.  There’s still time to take it all it in, smell the flowers, rub my tongue over the precious dregs at the bottom of the cup; if I can just stay awa….ZZZZZZZZZZ….