Peace returning!

I am grateful for the peace that has returned to my life.

Does anger violate the peace testimony?

I recently "finished" a somewhat dispiriting argument on a blog that went on for some days.

At my end of the thread, after a poster had criticized my argument and suggested that I fix it or STFU, I abruptly said that I would STFU and logged out. I was pretty angry. I have no reason to go back but I have felt guilty ever since about slamming the door and storming off with a curse.

Well, when I put it that way, the question at the top of the page seems to have an obvious answer: yes, I violated the peace testimony, though was it through slamming the door, or cursing? Or even being angry? What do we do with anger?

Quiet inside

I can spend most of a conversation trying to be wittier, or top the stories, of everyone else. Is this a way of not listening? I need to be quiet on the outside, and on the inside. Listening takes me outside, into the fresh air.

Monasticism and doing the dishes

I would like to approach doing the dishes every day with the same kind of attention I imagine a monk using. This is sort of just a useful fantasy - like the SciFi blogger (I can't remember who it was) who approached mundane activities with the fantasy that he was, say, shopping at Target... on Mars! or in a huge undersea mall thousands of feet below the surface!

Though the monk thing is a fantasy on the outside, the inner reality is that the monk is washing the dishes for God, and for others, and *I should be too*. (And that means right now, instead of blogging, naturally! Why do you think I'm thinking about dishes?)