Cold Seat

I read about the suffering that some saints go through in trying to discipline their body.  Why?  A good discipline is one that challenges you to stop complaining about some everyday occurrence, that is not destructive.  In the monastery my bodily discipline happens in our bathroom.  We don't heat the bathroom.  When I get out of my warm bed and it is cold everywhere but my room, I walk out into a cold corridor, but I have some warm clothes on.  Then I go sit on the toilet seat.  It is a very cold seat.  It won't kill me, but it will get me to face my grumbling and complaining about the world, in this case, the world of the toilet seat.  It is petty and silly, yes, like a lot of our complaining.  So right away in the not yet dawn of the day, I get a look at my silliness, complaining, whining, and such.  I really want no suffering, inconvenience, discomfort or anything that does not go my way.  I face my hypocrisy that my prayer is I want to follow God's will, but not in the toilet seat world.  So each morning, I grumble, face my silliness and then stop grumbling.  It is a grace to not complain about cold toilet seats, or other inconveniences.  Someone suggested I blow a hairdryer on the seat before I use it.  Sometimes the proposed solutions are sillier than the supposed problem.  Think of this blog the next time you are confronted by a cold toilet seat.  It gets us days off from purgatory.  Offer it up and so on.  Very Irish.