the scriptorium

Tuesday, September 09, 2003

We had our weekly meeting of VBCC tonight, and it turned out to be just what I needed. I left work today at about 1:30, because I was depressed and worn out all morning, plus being somewhat hormonal and all. It's just getting harder and harder to go into that place and be an effective, vital cog in that wheel. So after lunch I decided I would do about as much good at home, asleep, as I would there, so I went home and slept for about 3 hours. It helped a lot. I was much calmer after waking up.

Anyway, as I was saying, I went to the Creeches' house for the weekly thing, and a very good time was had by all. We started out, as we usually do, hanging out around the table, eating and talking. At one point I looked around the table at what was arrayed there and said, "You know what? This is a truly elegant meal." Liz had made homemade pesto and bruschetta with ingredients from her garden, we had lots of sliced Italian bread, and I brought a brie which we baked, some pears which we sliced, and some turkey "beef sticks", which we called "sticks of meat", much to our own amusement.

After we ate, we moved into the living room and did the Vespers thing and talked about the Scripture reading, which was Romans 12:9-12: "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Somehow, we got onto the subject of "love languages", as in the book. Alan told about how his "love language" is spending quality time with people. He would rather just hang out and talk with someone than just about anything else, as a way of showing love to others. Then he pointed out that my "love language" is giving gifts. And this is true. I'm always subconsciously looking for that perfect thing for someone else. It gives me pleasure to see someone's face light up when I hand them that perfect thing. But I think that sometimes it's more about the pleasure I get, seeing them light up and hearing them say, "Thanks! This is just what I've been wanting!" than it is about showing them my love for them. Does that make sense? Maybe I'm being too introspective and hard on myself because of the mild hormone-induced depression, but I think that my giving of gifts is sometimes not so much my way of showing love, as it is a way of getting love. I guess it's supposed to make us happy to see others being blessed, and most of the time that's truly all it is about for me. But there's that niggling little voice in the back of my head that likes to chime in and say that my motives are wrong. Maybe sometimes that's true. But I think that I'd rather give gifts with possibly wrong motives than not give at all. The love still gets shown.

posted by #Debi at 10:56 PM | permalink | 0 comments