Snow remains on the ground still, on the rooftops, the driveway. It is wet and sloshy now, very frozen earlier in the morn. The breeze is light, a blue sky, with the barest of mist, covers all. With the weather now more amenable, construction begins once more. This morning that is the loud, grating sound of a jackhammer pounding through the asphalt of a neighbor, readying house for gas. Curiously, it does not bother me as much as it had in the past. I am learning to see in physical irritations kinds of spiritual bothers, the noise of my own soul sounds at times as grating as that breaking apart of the street. I learn to be content with one, I learn the contentment with the other. A squirrel eats seed next to my small plastic Yoda on the balcony, easing its way towards where my snowshoes, now dry, sit.

How I start my day affects, oftentimes, how my day is spent. It is like I wake up aware of the items which must be done and faced, both on a practical and spiritual level. Even before total consciousness hits I know. The greats said that this was the time in which one’s real spirituality came out, for it was not blocked by our mental barriers and defenses. One is conscious, usually, before the ego and superego (to use faulty Freudian terms) engage one’s being. They noted that sins of thought and motive are often discovered lying here. We are less culpable for these, however, for much of the spiritual life is founded in learned and controlled discipline rather than the discovery of perfection. In both positive and negative ways it is a sign of our own progress.

So, unlike the disturbances of recent note, I woke this morning with prayer in my mind, seeking peace. I prayed for friends who are facing pressure and weight in their lives, for relief and guidance, for rest. I prayed, in a half conscious state, for a while, drifting in and out, my words in my head, not on my still groggy tongue, thinking even at the time of the theology of that. I assume God can hear our thoughts. Electrical impulses shouldn’t be more elusive than words to one such as he.

I say this because the journey is too often slogging and frustrating. I value those moments in which the positive shines out, saying to me that yes, the mountain is in fact closer these days than in years past. There are many other signs of this, to be sure. Having a positive morning was simply an awaited pleasure. I shall continue in prayer, and study, and writing, moving ever closer to that goal that Christ holds for me.