So Many Monks in My Life

At least 4 of them — 3 in my office and 1 here on Medium

Yes, I’ll admit it. I was visiting Facebook the other day. I feel like I’m confessing to Medium that I went and saw an old boyfriend.

While I was there, clicking like as I scrolled down the page trying to ‘like’ and run so I could get back to Medium, I saw this meme that really hit a little too close too home.

You’d understand why it hit so close to home if I shared a picture of my home office with you.

But I am not going to do that!

With all the writing and different projects, mixed in with working part time, spending 10–15 hours a week in different doctors offices with Better Half, and trying to do everything at home since Better Half hasn’t been able to walk for the past year…

Well, let’s just say that my office is a holy mess right now.

Besides all the piles of various writing projects and research, and a few mounds of laundry that needs folded (the only safe place to keep the cats from nestling in and coating the clean laundry with cat fur), and the remnants of the Christmas packing and shipping extravaganza, there are mounds and mounds and mounds of books.

Five book cases in the office and there’s no room left on them for books. So there are additional stacks tucked here and there about the room.

So I decided to start sorting through the books and giving some away. About once a month I take a small bag to our local library for the freebie bookshelves there.

I think I need to bump up that task to either once a week — or take a much larger bag.

Another towering pile is books to pass along to my writer friends. We’ve been meeting for a monthly lunch outside of our writers group and I need to take some books to that group of ladies.

As I was searching through shelves, trying to find more to give away, I was surprised to find that I had three books featuring monks!

And of course, my Medium friend, The Silent Monk, came to mind.

I didn’t remember having these books. I’ve read all three, but it’s been several years since I have. They’d gotten buried on the back of the shelves. As I picked up Think Like a Monk, by Jay Shetty, I saw how many pages I’d dog-eared when I read it before.

No, I am not one of those who proudly admits to never dog-earring a book. I do it all the time. Except for library books, or borrowed books, of course. But my own books — if there’s something special, I turn down a page with no regrets at all.

It seems this book had many special areas marked. I think this is the first one that I’ll re-read, because right now I think I need a large dose of ‘Train your mind for peace and purpose every day’.

And while I’m reading, I know that every time I see a reference to ‘monk’, I’ll be thinking of The Silent Monk and how I’ve enjoyed the many retelling of Aesop’s fables that they’ve posted here on Medium.

And since I’m here talking about monks — at least The Silent Monk answers me back and we’ve had some great conversations. The other three monks in my life….crickets, that’s all I get from them.

If you haven’t connected with The Silent Monk yet, go check out their stories. There’s lots of good ones there. I’ll add a link here to one of my favorites.

Now I’ll get back to my other three monks — the ones that don’t talk to me. Well, at least in interpersonal relations. They do speak through the words they’ve written. And I need to go read the books again and see if any join the ‘library bag’ books, or if they stay on my ‘keeper shelf’. Although I already know that Jay Shetty’s Think Like a Monk will be remaining with me.

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