Thank you for you prayers and best wishes for the X-man’s All Star team. They didn’t win the last game as they got behind early and just couldn’t make it up. While there was a lot of disappointment and crankiness exhibited on the way home, I didn’t feel that second place was bad at all.
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Yesterday brought this wonderful quote from Father Thomas’ email list:

St Nil prescribes silence of the mind, and not only does not allow one to think of anything vain or sinful, but what is apparently profitable, or even what is spiritual, is also banned. Instead of all thought he orders one to gaze unceasingly into the depth of one's heart and say, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
--Ignatius Brianchaninov

As those who know me can attest, sometimes I have a habit of being “in my head” too much, and need to learn to get out of it and to focus on more important things. Keeping the quote in mind, I was struck by this morning’s reading:

5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man[d] is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind[e] is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
12Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,
Romans 8:5-13

It’s a good reminder of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, and the fact that each day after Pentecost should be a day of working towards the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. Have mercy on me indeed.