A day at a time

Yesterday basically sucked, from a health perspective. My glucose level was really high in the morning (130) and went higher than it's been since I've been recording after breakfast (184), so I had a headache and felt like crap. I wonder if it's because I got my period? I guess I will ask the nurse on Thursday. I also had bad cramps for the first time in forever + a lot of digestive issues, so overall BLECH. It was just one of those days when I just wanted to STOP having diabetes--like if it were a physical thing I would have thrown it out the window.

I did, however, keep up with my exercise goals.

I thought about skipping the R.A. inservice because it was optional, but it turned out to be really great. For people who had already done Safe Zone training at least once, they had a panel from our Gender and Sexuality Equity center, two of whom were former students of mine. The most interesting perspective for me came from Adrian, a trans activist, who was really just a fantastic speaker and very inspiring in terms of encouraging people to develop strategies to speak out against injustice. One thing we brainstormed about was creating a LGBTQIA floor or house in one of the residence halls. We talked about the potential ghettoizing effect of that, but all the speakers on the panel thought it would have been lifesaving for them when they were first-year students, and some of them said they would have deliberately chosen Chico just to live in that community. So at least the end of my day didn't suck!

But then all my abdominal pain kept me up half the night, so :-(. One day at a time, I guess.

Lent

I asked for suggestions for spiritual practices on FB, and got some very interesting links. One of them (paintedprayerbook.com) led me to this fantastic poem:

Blessing the Dust
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.