Every woman should have.....

A journal in which she can write her deepest and shallowest thoughts.

This is what I wrote in answer to a writing prompt last night in my "Women Writing for a Change Class."

I have been "keeping a journal" for over 40 years and have the boxes of them stored away for no good reason.  It feels like I have not really grasped until the last few years the total gift it has been for me to keep writing.

It is in the act of reflecting on my own particular, peculiar life that I have been able to remember and sift through the events of my life.  And in that act I find myself awed as I recognize the ways I have been gifted, blessed and protected over the years.  There really is a flow with God's spirit and so often I do not see it until and through the writing about it all.

I am still pondering this whole gift of the "slowdown life"  that I wrote about in my blog yesterday.  The trip to Amish country reminded me of how "slapdash" so much of my time is - as I procrastinate and veer from activity to activity.  But slowing everything down helps me to feel love more deeply and all the other emotions that are part of being human.

I read about someone being with Dallas Willard and heard the same thing I heard about Thich Hnot Han and the Dalai Lama.  They walk slowly.  Just that is a change for me when I consciously take my time.

And the journaling and act of writing is slowing everything down and pondering, wondering, marvelling as the gift of it all.

All because I stopped, thought, and wrote.