...cranked out a slew of home-made earrings for Christmas presents while watching "Millions". If you haven't seen that film, watch it -- it's one of Danny Boyle's lesser-known majesties.
...missed seeing my Gram and Granddad's lit-up Christmas wreath from the bottom of their launchpad driveway.
...realized I am going to miss the way that people are captivated by my blond hair.
...learned the real meaning of the phrase "love unconditionally". It means loving some one no matter what condition they're in. That means when they're homeless, when they're cranky, when they're unequipped, when they're stupid, when they're not paying attention, when they're gossiping, when they're drunk, when they're bragging, when they're annoying, when they're short-tempered, when they've let you down, when they've torn you down, when they haven't bathed, when they've thrown up on you, when they've deliberately disobeyed you, when they're acting like a parent, when they're doing something they'll regret...THAT is when you're supposed to love them. And me, because I've certainly done more than my fair share of those things.
...smiled as I re-read this passage from "Watch for the Light", a book of readings for Advent that my parents left me:
"Contrary to all our fond hopes, you seized upon precisely this human life and made it your own. And you did this not in order to change or abolish it, not so that you could visibly and tangibly transform it, not to divinize it. You didn't even fill it to overflowing with the kind of goods that men are able to wrest from the small, rocky acre of their temporal life, and which they laboriously store away as their meager provision for eternity.
No, you took upon yourself our kind of life, just as it is. You let it slip away from you, just as ours vanishes from us. You held on to it carefully, so that not a single drop of its torments would be spilled. You hoarded its every fleeting moment."
--Karl Rahner
-Hannah
Hey! I'm reading that advent book, too. I got it last year. I like it! :)
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