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Paper III - Joy and Woe are Woven Fine

2/19/2019

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Picture
21 years worth of journals.
Pictured here are over eighty journals representing 21 years of my life. I am going through them as continue to tidy paper, saving important pages and burning the rest. So far I have gone through the first, which is from the year my ex and I were working up to and going through a divorce.  

It all started as a gratitude journal as recommended in Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach.  Mom had given it to me. Each day during that tough year I wrote at least five things for which I was grateful. Some days they were basics like a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food on the table, my son's health, and my own.  

Other days I wrote more than five.  My son was a preschooler at the time so many of my "gratitudes" were about him.  It's delightful to read them.   There is so much that is precious that I had forgotten.  That gratitude journal is part of what helped me through that year. Thanks, Mom.

Joy and woe were the theme of the Easter Service that year.  At that service we sang a hymn with words by the poet and printmaker William Blake.  Those words hit me so hard I remember crying as we sang these truths...

Joy and woe are woven fine,
clothing for the soul divine;
under every grief and pine
runs a joy with silken twine.

It is right it should be so:
We are made for joy and woe;
and when this we rightly know,
safely through the world we go.
- William Blake

Joy and woe are indeed woven fine in my journals and in my life.  I look forward to finding more joy as I read on.
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    Tess Baumberger is a poet, writer and chaplain trying to simplify and clarify her life!

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