Friday Five: Sequestration Edition

Sister Pat has come up with an interesting Friday Five.  I don't think I know what 'sequestration' means ( I KNOW that the Congress doesn't know what it means either), but I am willing to play.

Well, it's here. For better or for worse, automatic spending cuts in the federal budget are due to go into effect today. It's call "sequestration," which, when I looked it up in the dictionary, seemed to have something to do with "isolation," as in isolating a portion of the budget and making it unavailable. Or something to that effect. 

There are wildly different ideas swirling around about how the cuts will effect the economy, the employment rate, and the services we are accustomed to counting on from the government. Here at the Friday Five, ours is not to prognosticate... let's leave that to the politicians and the pundits. Instead, let's all agree that there are some things that it would be good to have less of, some things that could use a nice trimming.

I invite you to name five of them here! The possibilities are endless, from the pruning required for the health of a tree to the hair cut that makes us feel fabulous. What are you planning to cut in the near future? And in what way will those cuts improve someone's life?

Well, hey! It's Lent and we need to be cutting out stuff anyway.  I am glad she reminded me that I need to get my hair cut today too.

1.  The omnipresent CALORIES, or at least intake of food.  I didn't do very well last night but I will work on it again today.  I finally finished off the biscotti that I have had hanging around for months.  One more plastic container to recycle. Less clutter in the kitchen  But they were still caloric but so would the tasteless cereal alternative.  Sigh!

2.  In Lent I have been trying to deal with ANGER--at least the display of anger that is so readily available to me.  I want to know when I am angry but not be manipulated by my feelings.  This has ever been my issue because it was an issue in my family of origin.  But I have to cut out the bellicosity that is so familiar and find ways of living more calmly.  

3.  I am still cutting 'STUFF' as Geo. Carlin used to put it.  When I get back from my trip next week I need to attack the garage once more to 'sequester' (read: throw out) the junk, trash and the too much of everything that we have gathered over the years.  Besides, I still can't find my office chair since the move!  I live with one who is deathly afraid of losing paper.  She has been part of an incredible part of American and Episcopal history.  And she has the paper to prove it!! but it isn't in any form of organization so that we could find it in a pinch.  I don't think that such material CAN BE organized but I will continue to try.

4.  At this point in my life, I have been 'sequestering' many of the 'HAVE TO'S' that have cluttered my faith for years.  My relationship with God is becoming simpler.  There are lots of things about the Church (universal) that are the accretions of historical eras that no longer serve.  I think I can do without the Athanasian Creed even though it is in the prayer book.  I can do without the various 'buzz words' of theology such as 'salvation', 'redemption', 'theodicy', 'atonement' and the like.  And if I never hear the word 'hermeneutic' again, it will be OK with me.  All that 'seminary speak' may have given me a vocabulary but it was one that the people in the pew didn't know, so it really didn't serve me very well. Now I just want to talk about the friendship I have with the Holy One and share that love.  Trying to develop a new vocabulary to share the unexplainable is hard indeed.

5.  It is time to start putting in the garden.  This is a new house and there are no beds in the back yard, so I have the unenviable task of 'cutting' a new bed for my herbs.  I will have help to turn the soil and will be limited to a 4'x4' plot.  This year there will only be herbs and perhaps a couple of tomato plants.  I don't know if this is a sequestering event or not but it still is WORK.  I used to garden when I was in the DC area and in CA but gardening in TX is a whole different endeavor.  We are mandated by our lease to water the grass so I might as well as have a bit of a garden. Just getting outside is a chore in TX heat though.  There is no shade in our back yard which makes it fairly unfriendly.  Yes, all you Yankees, it is warm enough here to dig but it is still too chilly to plant.