Thirteen Thank You's For Healing Limits It's ahem, Sunday (actually, technically Monday now), but its time for my Thursday Thirteen I'd wanted to do each week. I've actually had this week's thirteen list topic in my head since early in the week but am just now getting around to it. Its about the healing side of limits. And yes I know how ironic that is, seeing as how the limit of Thursday was bypassed, lol. Well...limits. It's a topic that's been mulling around awhile now really. When a limit is a "dead" one--impersonal, meaningless, then it's disconnected and static and really can be stifling. It was that sort of limit I'd bypassed in that bookbinder couple dream mentioned before where they led very traditional lives overall but switched the cultural limit of the men doing the embriodary and the women the book cover weaving, as it just wasnt right for them and didnt feel like one of those archetypal limits. But when the limit is deeper, a caring one, a personal one that is "alive" and grows with you and is involved and in relationship with you, such as connected with a deep faith or loving family or a suited rule of life and the like, then the healing there is deep. But in our culture in general we balk at that. All that is free and expansive and open is glorified, at the expense of what is more closed and structured, the walls of the house of our being, the wombs of our life--- our healing limits. So that is what I'd like to focus on this week, the limits I am grateful for: 1. Our Bodies! Lord I am so greatful for the limits of our bodies. I love that we are here on earth, with our tangible senses, and our bodies that need food and sleep and warmth and love and moon and sun. 2. Time! Thank you Lord for the limit of time. For the division of day and night, waking and sleep, seasons and years, holidays and ordinary time, weekdays and shabbats and sabbaths! 3. Hunger! Thank you Lord for the limit of hunger, the limit that makes our eating a quotidian mystery, something we must do over and over, with healing in the repetiton. 4. Cleaning! Thank you Lord for the limit of cleaning. That our cleaning doesnt last but is a circle we must keep doing, for deep down there is something healing for us there, a way to daily bring order out of the chaos. 5. Sleep! Thank you Lord for the limits of sleep, that we need to recharge and dream each night to wake anew. 6. Need! Thank you Lord for creating us to need you! That we need to pray, need to listen, need to remain in relationship with you. 7. Pain! Thank you Lord for the limit of pain, and its partner tiredness, for the ability of our bodies to tell us when our lives are off balance and bring us back somehow. 8. Circle of Affection! Thank you Lord for the limits of our personal love, that we are designed for the limits of devotion rather than merely the "freedom" of a more abstract love. 9. Commitment! Thank you Lord for the limits of commitment! For promises, for covanents, for loyalty! 10. Homes! Thank you Lord for the limit of our need for homes, for our cozy walls and hearths and doors and loved ones gathered near. 11. Patterns! Thank you Lord for the limits of patterns...of sewing patterns and recipes and prayers and symbols and stories! Though we may be inspired to add to these sometimes, they are still roots that color everything. 12. Warmth and Cold! Thank Lord for the limits of needing warmth in winter and cool in summer and the like, for that so touchable seeking of balance we need! 13. And lastly, thank you yet again for the limits of Love! We tend to think of love as abstract and expansive sometimes, but really it is so full of healing limits--personalness, devotion, commitment, focus, all walls of Love's Home : ) Thank You Lord For Our Healing Limits!

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