How much is enough?

It's good to have friends.

Yesterday I discovered

I did more than enough

Continuing education.

In the name

Of making sure

I had enough,

I did

More than enough

To ensure

Enough-ness.

Oh, Catharine,

I hear one friend say

How much more

Do you need?

Really

How much more

Do you need?

Pussy willows

Years ago now, I would buy "statement" pussy willows, gigantic pussy willows, six feet tall, they barely fit in the car, for the parish I served. That florist eventually closed. I have not seen "statement" pussy willows since. 

Pussy willows have arrived

At the local

Flower stand.

So many of my friends

Ok

And not-so-friends

Are in desperate need

Of pussy willows:

THE sign

Spring always comes.

Place them in water.

Watch them sprout

In February.

I know

This is not soon enough

For some,

Even for many.

I know

It is so hard to wait.

Pussy willows

Have arrived

In January.

There is hope

For February.

Boxes

I remember, as a child, hearing about all the starving children in other parts of the world. It was a ploy to get me to eat my breakfast, my lunch, my dinner. It was a ploy to get me to appreciate what I had: the spinach, the runny eggs, the canned button mushrooms I picked out of every spaghetti sauce my mother made. I am done with ploys, but still admit I have a few of my own. My children are grown. Then there's still me, thinking it is possible to box up my own needs, send them, like breakfast, to the starving children in other parts of the world. No. It's a ploy.

I box what I need

For those in need

On the other side of the world.

It does not help

Either one of us.

Questions and answers

Sometimes I get trapped into thinking there is one right answer. 

Like the child listening to the children's homily preached by her pastor, being asked the question: What's brown and furry and has a long tail, and buries nuts for the winter? 

I know the answer is Jesus, says the child, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me.

Do I have all I want? Do I have all I need?

Sometimes the answer comes the next day.

It's a squirrel.

Sometimes

We ask the right question

And then

Don’t wait

To hear

The answer.

Perhaps it is even

The right answer,

But we have moved on

To other interesting questions

Or figured

There wasn't an answer

Worth considering

To the first.

Sometimes someone else

Asks the question

And if we don’t have an answer

We make it up,

Get stuck in an endless loop

Of words

We wait for the next question

Perhaps we will have an answer,

A real answer,

To that one.

Yesterday I was asked if I had

All I wanted,

All I needed.

A good question.

I got stuck on the difference

Between wants and needs,

Got lost in the fog,

Spun the rest of the day.

This morning I woke up to rain,

Spring, greening, rain

Realized what I have

Is enough.

Therapy is

So many things count as therapy (I think).  I woke up this morning remembering those "Love is..." cartoons.  Therapy is many things.  It depends upon the one asking and the one giving. It means learning to ask the right questions... like "Do I want help?" instead of only "Do I need help?"  Jesus was good at such questions: "Do you want to be healed?"  Me?  Need healing?  You can't be asking me this, really! How could I possibly need anything?  Me.  Do I want to be healed? I think so. Sometimes I even pay.

Therapy is for

The times we want help (really)

Sometimes we even pay.