Today I thought I would vary the menu a little.  We are both getting tired of the same diet of sandwiches – although our guests who come on a Saturday (or any other day of the week for that matter) don’t know that I have a routine.  Boredom was setting in.  Corned beef, ham and tomato and egg mayonnaise. So today we are having salad with the ham – yummy.  Grated cheddar delicately flavouring the egg.  And, wow, this is exciting!!!, smoked salmon and cream cheese!  The trouble is that I am so naturally boring that I have never even made a smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich before – never mind taste one! – so I really didn’t know how to do it.  Fingers crossed that will be a success.

On Thursday I attended our local church worship group.  We are preparing for the morning service which we will lead next Sunday and some joker suggested that we take JOY as our theme.  I horrified myself by realising that I don’t ‘do’ joy!  Serious, caring, concerned, these all come naturally to me.  Worried, anxious, bad-tempered, sad sometimes, downright depressed occasionally, content on a rare day………….  But joy?

I spoke to my Spiritual Director about this a few weeks ago.  I confessed that I don’t often get excited and I keep my life on an even keel as far as possible.  She wondered if I was frightened of emotion. 

  So I have kept a mental note.  Each night at bedtime I look back over the day and try to pinpoint the sparks of excitement or emotion of any positive kind that I can remember feeling.  It has been rather sobering (certainly not a joy) to realise that I just doggedly get on with life, visiting neither the highs not the lows, keeping both sorrow and pleasure at arm’s length.  I am thereby depriving myself of all the good things that God provides on a daily basis to sustain and encourage me. 

This has to change! 

So today, we are having smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches.  How exciting is that!!!  Well, maybe not VERY exciting – but it’s a start.  Variety is the spice of life.  And if I work on it maybe by the time we take the service next Sunday morning I will have some joy in my life!  Hurrah and halleluiah!

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