Anita Lewis

Life Update 2025-05-14

Published on: 2025-05-14 • 3 min read

Current status: (~updated 2025-05-14)

  • Changed static website generator from Jekyll to BSSG
  • Bumped up my walking exercise: 30 seconds faster walking/60 seconds at usual speed. After a few sessions this has become enjoyable.
  • Our 20-year-old, large self-defrosting freezer started leaking again and we decided to get a new one. We opted for a small 7 cu-ft freezer without self-defrost. We are loving the quiet, the low energy use, and the way it makes us consider if the food we are buying is what we really need for the next little while. There is a lot less room in this. Hardly any frost in it after 2 months, so I won't have to do that chore as often as I thought I might.
  • We got new windows for the house. The windows were collecting moisture on the inside and we wanted to get safer ones for hurricanes. Immediately after they were in we noticed that the indoor temperature held more steady in the house and it was quiet. Energy use has gone down with the combination of the freezer and windows.
  • Started using 3 Blueland cleaning products to reduce plastic packaging. See my post New Cleaning Products for more detail.

Reading:

  • See My profile on The StoryGraph for more details on the books

  • Read:

    • The Emergent Christ by Ilia Delio
    • The Awakening Call by James Finley- Read this with the Depth and Mysticism reading group
    • Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls. Great True-Life Novel about the author's grandmother
    • Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chödrön
    • Meditations with Meister Eckhart by Matthew Fox
    • The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance by Dorothee Soelle
    • Meister Eckhart from Whom God Hid Nothing by Meister Eckhart
    • Critical Traces by D.L. Keur (#10 in a series)
    • Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine by Alan Lightman
    • Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr.
    • The Sower of Black Field by Katherine Koch (Historical novel. The author came to the archives where I worked to research her relative who was a Passionist priest in Germany in Nazi Germany.)
    • Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber
    • Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet by Matthew Fox
    • Coercive Power by D.L. Keur (#2 in another series)
    • The Mystics Would Like a Word: Six Women Who Met God and Found a Spirituality for Today by Shannon K. Evans - A very different view of 6 mystics. Read this with the Depth and Mysticism reading group

  • Currently Reading:

    • The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage by Richard Rohr
    • The Color Of Abolition: How a Printer, a Prophet, and a Contessa Moved a Nation by Linda Hirshman
    • Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen by Matthew Fox - Current book in Reading group
    • Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman
    • Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism by Vanessa Machado De Oliveira

Podcasts:

  • I'm listing to Season 3 of Everything Belongs where The Tears of Things by Richard Rohr is being discussed by him and others. I'm reading the book along with listening to the podcast. Next issue is Chapter 4.
  • Flora Lichtman has been back on Science Friday for awhile now. She made a 10-episode audio series called "The Leap" profiling scientists who were willing to take big risks. This first one is with biochemist Kati Karikó, who did work on mRNA that was needed to develop early COVID-19 vaccines. Her work was dismissed, but she carried on anyway. Great interview. I'm looking forward to the remaining 9 podcasts.