Gentleness: delicate, easy, gradual, hushed, placid, quiet, serene, soothing versus harsh, jarring, ungracious, jagged, grating. I think of a balm on a sun burn or trying to capture a bird with a broken wing. Petting a cat. There is action, but it is gradual and temperate, with the intent to do what needs to be accomplished but without harm. Jesus said he was gentle in spirit. It doesn't mean you don't tell the truth or skim over a bad situation. But is does mean an intent that soothes and quiets. To dig up a plant, careful of the roots, rather than tearing it out with tight fists. Again, this takes peace, patience, and self-control. I'm beginning to think these things cannot live without each other.

Two days of driving around Southwestern Minnesota--dangerously close to Iowa. This road trip was a good thing to stumble into at this time. Just the action of getting in the car and moving into open spaces was very freeing. The ground is cold and hard, the landscape barren, but with a sense of promise and expectation. I guess that's what Lent is all about. There is a beauty about it. The cool sunlight barely breaks through the heavy rolling clouds with thick transparency, like a vinyl shower curtain. While the roads like Friday curved around the muddy fields, this drive through Slayton and Worthington was straight with angular lines. Highway 60 cuts on a clean diagonal through the state. You can drive with two mindsets. One is to leave something behind, dragging thoughts a circumstances from your bumper as you would with tin cans on your wedding day. The other is to push yourself forward, expecting to go to something. I don't know what that is. And I still feel I am leaving things behind and I am lighter for it.

Thank you, Jean and--what was his name?--he wore black and white fatigues with a grey T-shirt and had that little patch of beard just under his bottom lip. In a cool coffee shop called the Left Back Cafe (www.leftbankcafe.biz) with a mix of old worn wooden booths and Girl grunge music playing in the background. Talking coffee--they roast their own beans, they taste every batch, he just went to a convention where he found some interesting wild rice and spices, taste his curry sauce and the coffee of the day. The Indian beans are the best because of the soil at that place on the equator and they also grow cinnamon. I wish that coffee shop weren't 4 hours away in Slayton (the motel there is a bit Bates-ish, if you know what I mean).