Quickly taking a short break from the packing and cleaning frenzy she's in - Cyndi tries to blurt the deep inner recesses of her brain into blogsphere in two minutes or less.

At least that's how it feels.

So we're getting ready for our holiday. An actual 2 week vacation that I'm more than ready for. Okay not actually ready for but ready for - if ya know what I mean.

The books I've chosen for my vacation are reflective of the mood I'm in. I've got 2 books on Quakers and another by Henri Nouwen on the Spiritual Life. I'm looking forward to them. And then of course we have the last 3 books of the "Series of Unfortunate Events" that we are all reading together. Can't wait to finish those up and see how the series ends. It's been a great read.

I had coffee the other day with someone who had life described to him as a rectangular frame with a circle inside, with most of us living quite happily within that circle. The place where we are most comfortable. And then every once in a while an event occurs. A big one. One that blasts you out of the circle and you land somewhere in all that white space that surrounds it. And when you look around you see things that you never have seen before, you meet people and witness events that are totally new. When you look back at your circle, you see it from a different perspective and suddenly - you realize that you've changed. You are not who you once were.

I get that. I feel that. I have been given the gift of both life and the brush with my own mortality. My accidents have picked me up and transported me to somewhere in all that white space. I feel different. My outlook is different. My core is still the same. I am a follower of Jesus. I seek to live my faith in a real and tangible way. But I'm still feeling outside my circle of comfort and what for me had become mediocrity, and am living in a new zone. If anything I feel more like my old,old self.

And I like it.