Amusing? Perhaps ....

In the past weeks, I have been thinking about the title of my blog, Farm Muse. Just to make sure, I looked up the definition of muse: "To be absorbed in one's thoughts; engage in meditation. To consider or say thoughtfully. A state of meditation." I was pretty certain of the meaning of farm, so I didn't look that one up.

I do spend quite a bit of time thinking (meditating?), but that doesn't seem to be reflected in the blog. Most of my posts are "just the facts, ma'am." We did this, here's the field, the kittens are getting bigger, hope your Christmas was wonderful, etc.

What brought this quandary to the forefront of my mind? A friend mentioned a blog that she thought I might enjoy, entitled "A Holy Experience." Guess what? I don't like it much. It's WAY too much musing and meditating for my taste. Pretty music playing in the background (I turn it off); long sentences or fragments thereof with too many adjectives; long, daily posts with scads of pictures. She's a farmer's wife, mother of SIX, an author .... Okay, I admit it - I'm jealous and that's why I hate her and her blog :-)

[insert fabulous photo]

Another friend and I were talking and this friend mentioned that a friend of hers had told her about the above hinted-at book, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. So, when I saw the Kindle edition was on sale for $2.99, I decided to buy it. I haven't started it yet and I probably won't like it, but I bought it.

[if you had the proper plug-in, you could be listening to lovely music right now]

The blogger and author whom I am belittling, Ann Voskamp, admits that life is messy, but that she is writing and trying to live the words of grace and faith. She says it much better than I just did, so click on her name and read it for yourself. She will probably thank me for all the readers who will now find her blog and buy her book :-)

In my younger days, if you had said, "Life is messy," I would have responded, "Not on my watch! Everything neat and in its proper place." But going through a divorce, living on my own for 10 years, and then becoming a farmer's wife at the ripe age of 53 have turned my world upside down. Now if you say, "Life is messy," I will respond by saying "Amen!!" Life is messy, but I'm living it by grace and faith - even when my words don't express that with great conviction or beauty.

I have written this silliness not to put a sweet Christian writer down (I will probably have to eat my words and send her a written apology), but to let you know that I have discovered I am not a muse, at least not first and foremost. Perhaps, more correctly, this blog is not a place where I have let you see into my thoughts and meditations.

A Muse? ... probably not.
Amusant? ... peut-etre.