St. Drithelm

St. Drithelm lived in Northumbria in the late 7th century. He was a nobleman with a wife and family. He fell ill and died, but returned to life the next morning having seen hell, purgatory, and heaven. He then gave all his possessions away to his family and to the poor and became a monk in Scotland.

I've taken my inspiration today from his description of Purgatory as related in Bede's Ecclesiastical History: "it was a vast and delightful field, so full of fragrant flowers that the odor of its delightful sweetness immediately dispelled the stink of the dark furnace, which had pierced me through and through. So great was the light in this place, that it seemed to exceed the brightness of the day, or the sun in its meridian height. In this field were innumerable assemblies of men in white, and companies seated together rejoicing" (Book 5, Chapter XII)

This top is another hand-me-down from my friend Erin and fits the Purgatory bill exactly. White and flowery. When I got it, it had a giant ruffle around the collar. I'm not really a giant ruffle kind of girl, so I took it off. This is a huge step for me. Typically, if a piece of clothing is not exactly right as is, I don't wear it. However, I am learning to be more flexible. If I don't like a certain feature, I can change it. And if I still don't like it even after the change, it's no real loss because it's not like I was going to wear it anyway!

I also wanted to make a special mention of the necklace I'm wearing. It was a gift from my father-in-law who got it for me when he was in China last year. It is a very pretty green jade butterfly. Last summer I was having dinner with Erin and another friend Kelly and both were wearing floral prints with necklaces that had bunny pendants on them. They both told funny little stories about how they imagine their bunnies hopping through the flowers on their shirts. That stuck with me, and all day today I've imagined my little jade butterfly flitting through the flowers on my top. But hopefully not through Purgatory, because that would be sad.