Friday Five: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Sharon has posted her first FF. 

Today we play off of one of my favorite and most memorable Friday Fives to blog from: Decisions, Decisions posted by Songbird last July 23. I went back to that post to make sure I had new choices for you to make. I found out -- again -- that she was then, as I have been recently, in the midst of a discernment process and thinking about what goes into decision making.



A decision from history: There is a chair that still sits in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall). Legend has it that it was George Washington's chair, the back carved with a half sun. Benjamin Franklin would look at it and wonder whether it was a rising or a setting sun. Eventually Franklin decided it was the hopeful symbol of the rising sun, a sign of the future of our new republic.




How do you decide? Check out the following pairs and tell which one of each appeals to you most:

1) Sunrise or Sunset  As you get older the clear distinctions --the either/or's in your life begin to blur.  Before I retired I would have said I was a sunrise sorta gal.  My best working time is still mornings.  But when you don't have to be somewhere in the mornings, it is not surprising that I stay up later.  My companion is really a night person whose best working time is between midnight and 3am.  Now you can understand how we have been so compatable!  We hardly see each other.  8>D.  But I am philosophically more a sunrise person: hopeful, wanting to see what is over the next hill even if I am not going to be able to get to the promised land.

2) To the Mountains or To the Beach  Mountains!  Having grown up in the flatlands of Texas, I find the mountains the place I want to visit. I just can't go too high.  Nothing over 8,000 ft or I get sick.  Also, being a fair-haired and skined Celt, the beach is not fun all greased up to prevent  the lobster-look.  I am not fond of sand.  J, on the other hand, is a beach kind of gal.  She also turns wonderfully nut-brown in the summer.  So we do one or the other. 

3) Coffee or Tea  Depends on the season and how I am feeling.  During the summer I am definitely an iced tea person.  We do sun tea in the afternoons (in this heat it only takes 15 mins).  In the winter I am a coffee person in the mornings and iced tea the rest of the day.  Since I am decaffinated, I do not have to have coffee in the mornings. But I have a hard time here in TX.  None of the churches I have attended make Decaf.  There oughta be a law.... At Starbucks I am a mocha person.

4) Advent or Lent As an Anglican it has to be Advent.  We are just too incarnational to be lentish.  I love the purple/blue of the season.  I love the anticipation, the O Antiphons, the 'stir up' prayers, the greenery in the church but without the red of Christmas. 

5) "Raindrops on Roses" or "Whiskers on Kittens"  I am Both/And on this one.  They tell you on the Meyers-Briggs test that as you age you tend to inhance your weaker side as you get older.  I'd give anything for some 'raindrops on roses' here in TX these days.  Raindrops on anything would be appreciated in this drought!  Whiskers on Kittens are fun.  We have a not-yet one year old cat who is fully grown but still kittenish--in other words she wants to play when our 9 yr old tom does not.  Her whiskers grow a bit funny and she makes funny noises when she finds a bug or something she can jump on.  Cats are a favorite thing.










BONUS: Tell more about one of the pairs. Why did you choose it? Difficult or easy choice? A story from your own experience
 

Sunset:  I am 66 and in my first year of retirement.  I know that I will again have the responsibility for a parish when the court decisions come down from the schism in our diocese.  I have not appreciated 'retirement.'  I am not ready to quit doing what God has called me to do.  I have found retirement to be a restless time, a time of frustrated ideas, some illness and BOREDOM.  I can't just read murder mysteries and watch tv and be happy.  I am not ready for sunsets just yet.  I have been thankful for the rest which I needed.  I am also thankful for having had some chances to supply this summer.  But I can still hear the firebell....