It is not working
I wrote yesterday's post during my bus ride home. When I got home I saw the weeds were back in force, and my front lawn looked as poor as ever. This doesn't really mean that these writing exercises aren't making me a better person, just that being the good person I want to be is harder than I want it to be. That is probably universally true. These writing exercises do help my garden, however. Instead of being overwhelmed by the large task, I know exactly what I need to do next: pull the new weeds. Of course there were so many before I didn't get them all out by their roots.
I was surprised to find I didn't have time to work in the garden yesterday because of J. Yet I know that Rachel spends much of the evening with J., so there is time, but not when I'm thinking about the garden. I don't know where the time all goes. Today's goal is to catch the time!
There's another, more important way in which I'm not improving as much from these exercises as I should be, and that has to do with my quality of Christianity. I wrote on Sunday about one of Jesus' parables about the Kingdom of HaShem, but the actions that are required are too enormous for me. I am not scattering any 'seeds' with reckless abandon, and I'm trying to ignore my duty to do so. It is scary. Do I not trust my Savior? Looking at my faith makes me uncomfortable. I'm not a great Christian, but I hope to improve.
I also wanted to say that I see my interpretation of Jesus as being mine mostly because of its nuance. In whole, it is very similar to the interpretation offered by Father Robert on Sunday, and even pretty similar to Matthew's Gospel interpretation (although the nuance is much closer to Robert's). My particular shading is in emphasizing the haphazard farming technique as notable, and taking that beyond-reasonable behavior as my guide-post towards Christ.