RealGodseekers

vitals

2009-11-05T16:04:00.002-06:00

My heart beats loud and fast. I have been looking at my paperwork all night, going over each little detail in my mind, trying to remember all the important details. My stomach does flip flops, and I cannot silence the thoughts racing through my head. My concerns are many. I recall my comfort zone, I haven't seen it for months.

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Vitals are the basics, they start to give us a picture of how the patient is doing. They were the first thing that we had to show we knew, and they are the first thing that we do with our patients. Temperature, pulse, respirations, and blood pressure. They require close proximity and a degree of intimacy with our patient. We have to work fast when we walk through the door to make introductions, and to get to know this other person.

Temperature is easy, there are thermometers now that can take the temp in 3 secs from the ear. The other three require you to touch and really listen to the patient.

To calm my own heart, to silence my own fears takes effort. I pray that I can focus on my patient. I need to concentrate on what he needs, not on me. Yeah, I'm tired, I should have had the second coffee. I'm overwhelmed with the responsibility. I'm missing my kids and husband like I could never succinctly describe. I have no idea how much studying and homework I need to do in a few hours and I don't want to know.

"Ok, go in and get your vitals and we can start our day."

I feel that to do this to the best of my ability, I have to completely focus on the patient. I see the big blue or brown watery eyes looking at me as soon as I walk in the door. They tell me much more than the "hello, how is your hospital stay?" weakly asks. As I reach for the pulse I don't know if I'm counting their heart beats or mine. I listen to the blood pressure. This is the life flowing through his body. I can hear how it is, if its high and stressed or low and weak.

Can you tell me how you would rate your pain on a scale of 0-10? I can tell its going to be high. I can't do anything about it, I'm just the student. I have to go find the primary nurse and see if we can do anything.
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No one asks me to rate my anxiety on a scale of 0-10. It would probably be high, too. Anxiety of how today is going, how my family is doing without me, and what I need to do on the weekend to make up the days that I wasn't there. My anxiety about what's next. And the anxiety of touching another patient. God let my anxiety be stilled. Please bring it down to a 4/10 I think that would be manageable.
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As the morning progresses, we have our rapport built, we make inquiries, and requests. Does this hurt? Can you cross your arms so we can roll you to the other side? How long have you been in school? Where did you grow up? Do you have many visitors?

Usually there is a story shared about football or baking bread, carving pumpkins, or silence when there isn't any talking. Then the small braid in the hair, the soft feet, silent tears or a tattoo on the arm tells a story without words. A glimpse of the humanity of this person. I think about how You might love them, the laughter and tears that have been shared. Each person is so unique.
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My anxiety is lower, maybe about a 5/10. I don't think about my worries, I am caught up in the patient. Doing the tasks that they aren't able. Asking the primary nurse if we can do this or that. Encourage them to walk the halls to see what's going on. I glance at the clock. The time has flown, just like I wanted it to last night. But I am sad, each second brings me closer to saying goodbye. I won't see this patient again. I will not know the resolution of this hospitalization.

It makes me sad. Other students have said that they have run into a patient months later and they have recognized each other and thanked the student for caring. The patient that I had so much anxiety about touching and listening to their heart has touched mine. I thought that I was doing this to help other people. I didn't realize that nursing would help me.

l'chaim, godseeker!

In the Shadow of History

2009-10-26T18:27:00.003-05:00

I wrote this up a few weeks ago. A friend suggested it might make a nice coffee table picture book. I might look into doing that for my family.

* * *

I grew up on the former property of the "World Famous Tate Springs Resort." Whatever. Some interesting old buildings and some ruins, but mostly for me the property was about tunneling through kudzu vines, picking blackberries and winter sledding.

In high school we researched the property. After that we were so proud of ourselves and our brush with history--you'd have thought we'd created something historical ourselves. But, hey...when a kid starts to respect history, that's progress.

In the 1800's there was this belief in the medical community that mineral spring water had fantastic curative properties. Sick people were always being packed off to them. An entire industry sprang up around exploiting the water that flowed out of underground rock, bearing trace minerals.

There in east Tennessee one of these mineral springs flowed out of rock into this pretty hilly country, and someone bought it and built around it. This particular resort, "Tate Springs," would have had a five star rating by modern standards. At the unheard-of price of twenty-five dollars a day (three meals and amenities included), you could enjoy the nasty-tasting spring water and the healthy could play tennis and golf (eighteen holes, trimmed by a flock of sheep in the Scottish tradition), enjoy the riding stables and grand ballroom. The rich and famous came there and lent their impressive names to the roster. Ford--Rockefeller--Studebaker--among the other famous families to enjoy the pampered setting.

The Great Depression and declining interest in mineral water killed off the profits, and some time in the 1930's the spring, hotel and outbuildings were all sold to a group of people wanting to house a Christian home for kids. So that's where we all came in.

For years the kids were housed, schooled, slept and fed in the grand hotel. Here it is in the 40's.

The grand ballroom, I believe, was turned into a chapel room, where church services were held. My dad worked there through the fifties. Then sometime in the late fifties the grand hotel burned to the ground. It was never rebuilt.

Cottages were built to house the kids, as well as a small school building and eventually a chapel....and that's where my childhood intercepted the history of the place. Most of the outbuildings still stood when I was a kid, many of them still in use.

For instance, we lived in a small cottage behind the hotel--whether it was designed for a family of workers or as a rentable cottage, I don't know. Ironically, it was listed as the "Sadler house."

Sadly, it's crumbling today.

A large Victorian gazebo stood over the original spring. It's still standing, and seems to be in good repair.

I recently visited the campus and took some pictures. I walked around the springhouse--I dared not climb it, because although it looked good, I didn't really know how recently the stairs and upstairs floor had been looked after. To be honest, I was remembering my mom's voice rattling off instructions: "Now, don't go climbing that springhouse. Those stairs'll give way and kill ya."

Sadly, some trees have grown to block the best view.

I stood on a crumbling walkway, irritated by the trees growing up to ruin my view. Then I swung the camera around to capture the rest of the walkway.

Once you get over the hill the walkway becomes impassable--at least it did in my day. But at the other end of the walk is what's left of the grand hotel.

That would be the east end of the basement--gutted out and threatened by encroaching kudzu vines. Another angle of this end shows more kudzu moving in, like a silent, slow-moving herd of elephants.

Hard to imagine the rich and famous enjoying the amenities of the old, fine hotel establishment.

Funny, this hill seemed longer and steeper when we were hauling sleds up and cruising down on the rare snow days.

We got maybe a snow day or two every year. We relished them. Adequate snow clothing would be a luxury down there, though, a whole snow set to be worn twice and outgrown. So we just dressed as warmly as we could and went inside to moan and groan by the coal stove (I'm not kidding about that!) as our frozen appendages thawed out. Then we'd be out again to make the best of the snow while we had it. But take another look at that photo.

See the vine-covered chimney? That, again, is the old hotel. While there was a day when the pampered rich owned the world and took their vacations in front of my sledding hill, this was our time. We "owned" the hill, never giving a thought to the chimney and ruins in whose shadow we played.

In my time, "Miss Dewey" respected the history and regularly cleaned out the spring. She'd scrub the rocks, drain out the dirty water and the little rocky hole would fill back up with fresh, clean water. Looks like nobody does that now. The "spring" part of the springhouse has been boarded over.

Miss Dewey lived in an old, tiny cottage on "Rowdy Row." Back in the day, that's where they put all the drunk, miscreants and general ne'er-do-wells, to keep them from disturbing the Victorian ladies. When I did the history and found out about Rowdy Row, it struck me as deliciously ironic, Miss Dewey living on Rowdy Row, in a cottage built for trouble-makers.

Miss Dewey subscribed to a Christian belief system that said you could reach a state of "sinless perfection," following an act of grace called sanctification. "You might make a 'mistake,'" I remember her saying. But it wasn't a sin. She also believed that each act of sin caused the rest of us--the non-sinlessly perfect--to lose our salvation. I lived in a constant state of fear for my eternal soul. I'd be going along, having my relationship with God, and I'd flub up on something. An unkind word, a bit of gossip--and one glare from Miss Dewey would send me into a tailspin. I was on my way to hell again, and so it went. I'd get back on track, then get knocked off into the depths of fear.

Miss Dewey did not like children. But for all her faults, she cared for the spring and kept the history alive.

If you're driving down the highway there, you'll see two structures in rural Tennessee that seem wholly out of place. One, of course, is that big, beautiful Victorian springhouse. The other is a Tudor-styled building, also part of the old resort.

This was the bath house, built in front of the swimming pool, which has since been paved over. When I was a kid the bath house was used as a storage facility. Now it's been internally renovated to house the children's home offices. Yes, the children's home still owns the property, and houses a number of children. The school building I used is still in use. I wasn't able to take pictures on the "modern" side of campus. While the resident kids are waivered for photographing, day students are not. School was just letting out and day students were getting on the bus to go home, so the nice lady in the bath house office asked me not to take their pictures. Oh, well.

One more flash back. Mr. Tomlinson, who built the resort, built himself a "big house."

I occasionally have a nightmare about that house. I'm not sure why.

When we were walking the half mile to and from school my sister and I used to take a shortcut that took us behind the Tomlinson house. It's been used to house childrens' home workers through the years, so it's been kept up. It's a great house. It has a wonderful giant room on the top floor. A giant, empty, sunny attic, I guess, with wood floors that would make it a fantastic dance studio. All in all, it's a beautiful house, really, but for some reason, the nightmares.

This, really, is my memory. And that's where I grew up--in the shadow of a beautiful, mostly gone, era.

Mammoth Cave

2009-10-25T11:23:00.002-05:00

This is the story of my trip to Mammoth Cave this summer. I jotted down thoughts soon after the trip, but did not officially write a blog. It's time to catch up.

* * *

It really was a whirlwind trip, one day down, a day at the caves and a day to drive back. We met Roger's parents, who drove up from South Carolina. A step back in time for Roger, who used to vacation there with his family when he was a boy.

Mammoth Cave, I found out, is the longest cave system in the world, stretching and curling back on itself, layer upon layer, five layers deep. Three hundred sixty-seven miles of tunnel and cavern have been discovered so far, and more is being explored all the time.

There are a number of tours you can take of Mammoth Cave, ranging from the easiest stroll to the most challenging crawl through tunnels and shafts. We took a moderate three hour tour, the “Snowball Tour,” named for the “Snowball Room,” the deepest spot of our day. More about that later.

The six of us got our tickets and strolled out to where the tour was supposed to start. We sat and waited while forty or fifty others gathered, milling around. A slight older woman in a park ranger's uniform stood up on a bench and informed us she would be our guide. I thought this tour must be easier than I thought. She began asking people where they were from. North Carolina. Germany. Kentucky. She kept saying, “I've been there.” Then she explained that most of the year she's a concert pianist. She's located nearby in Bowling Green, fell in love with the Cave years ago and, although she's 73, she guides tours to keep herself busy during the summer. I immediately liked her.

We boarded an old, rickety bus and rode to the start of our tour, a blasted entrance. From there we descended almost 200 steps to a starting point deep in the cave. I was a little disappointed at first. There were none of the spectacular formations you associate with these deep caves—the stalactites and stalagmites, the sparkling frozen mineral falls. A solid sandstone cap keeps the cave free of the water a cave needs to form those wonders.

Just limestone rocks here. Rocks and rooms and an elliptical tunnel connecting everything. They called it “Cleaveland Avenue,” and the guide bragged about this and that as we went along. Eventually we did come to some gypsum formations. Gypsum is a crystal that forms along the walls and ceiling. It forms throughout the world's caves in lots of different shapes. In Mammoth we saw gypsum growing off the walls and curling back on itself like hag's claws.

From about 4,000 years ago until the time of Christ humans came into the cave and collected the gypsum. Nobody knows what they did with it, but in the shallower parts of the cave there's none left. Then about 2,000 years ago evidence of humans completely disappears from Mammoth. Until it was re-discovered around 1800 or so.

So our tour reached its lowest spot at the “Snowball Room,” named for the odd shape of the gypsum on the ceiling there.

A cafe has been set up in the Snowball Room, and traditionally people take a lunch there. After grabbing a snack I took my camera around and captured some historical graffiti.

I wonder what was in Hoofland's Tonic.

To Nick the Guide. 1857.

“Nick” was a tour guide. He started life as a slave, hired out by an owner for this job. He eventually bought his freedom and by the time this graffiti was scrawled he was a free man, paid for his services as a guide.

Too soon it was time to head back. I had underestimated our tour guide. She stayed ahead of the pack and kept a steady pace the whole way, cool and crisp as others panted and sweated. This was one of two tours she leads every day. Six hours a day underground. I wondered how anyone could endure that.

I was surprised at how different the tour was on the way back. We stopped from time to time to check out this and that, formations and tunnels that maybe weren't quite as visible on the way down. Or maybe we were too intent on getting down to our grotto food, and wouldn't have been so keen to stop for every little thing.

On one stop the guide asked for absolute silence. Unexpectedly, she stomped the hard sandstone floor, and something like an echo was heard. There was a cavern beneath us. It was an amazing sound, a deep, groaning note. Eerie. Then she asked us to all hum the note, and led us in it. We hummed, steadily, until she directed us to stop. We did. We stopped, and the cave kept humming, that deep, groaning note. Not an echo of us, but a harmonic resonance, uniquely belonging to the cave. Like the sound you get when you blow into the second octave of a pennywhistle. Each whistle, to my ears, sounds like what it's made of. An aluminum sounds like metal. Copper sounds like a different metal. PVC always sounds like plastic to me. The cave sounded like—well, it sounded like a cave. The cave's voice.

When she asked for questions on that stop, I could have asked about a dozen, but I just asked if that was the only note the cave did. She said yes, we could hum any note we wanted to, but the cave would answer with that note, which incidentally, she said, was a “C.”

I wish I could take a Bb penny whistle back down with me. I could play “Wayfaring Stranger,” and listen to the cave play the last note, a C, when I finished. I wish I could, but I have no desire to awaken the bats. You know what I mean?

We walked further. From time to time people spontaneously hummed a “C,” hoping to hear the cave's voice, but it's really best at those spots where tunnels branch away into answering caverns. Still, I found myself humming the C, too, just hoping.

After a bit we stopped as she did the obligatory “lights out” you get on any good cave tour. They doused the lights and our eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. It takes a minute, you know. Then we were absolutely quiet and listened to the cave. No hum at this point, but with our visuals gone there was a heightened awareness of a light-hearted splashing of water coming down from a hole drilled years ago for some long-forgotten pipe. It splashed. We listened. Then a click and a hiss, and the light from a single government-issue Bic lighter leaped out and defeated the darkness. To our hungry eyes, a feast. In that moment I realized light is immensely stronger than darkness. A cavern of darkness overcome by a single smallish, flickering flame. No army needed. Just the one.

Then the electric lights went back on, we walked to the end, and the dreaded climb up the 200 steps. Fascinating as it all was, and even though we were leaving behind a comfortable, cool 52 degrees to return to a steamy hot day, the sunlight was a relief to us, the surface dwellers, most at home under the sun. We climbed back into the rickety bus to return to the tour center. My family and I strolled down to the original cave entrance, the beginning of some of the other tours. It was such a nice feeling—that cool geothermal air pouring out to relieve us on a hot day.

There is, of course, a souvenir shop. The kids bought some things, but I didn't. I'll remember the day for something you can't buy there. I find myself haunted by the voice of the cave.

Beneath the cleansing flood

2009-05-23T21:48:00.007-05:00

The following is a dream that I had in May shortly after a friend had passed on. It left quite an impression on me in the weeks afterwards. I've taken quite a while to write it up and its lost some of its vividness... but its still worth sharing
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The brightly colored fabric of the kites twisted in the wind. The sounds of them rippling and popping in the sunshine mixed with the sprays of the ocean waves. Our laughter and joy was strewn across the beach. Feet pushing down into the warm gritty sand.

I look at all the people around me. It was much like church - all happy, many people that I knew well, some that I didn't. There were faces that I expected and that I didn't, but none that I can recall now. They were all fixed upwards towards the sky - full of the bright red, blue, yellow and green kites luminescent with the rays of the midday sun. Each fascinated by their own and they ways that they overlapped with others. Some of us were running down the beach trying to launch, others had theirs out on long strings, watching the looping and soaring captive shape.

I felt warm and loved. I wanted for nothing. But yet I felt a tugging toward the surf. Someone, not missing, but not there. So I ran and dove into the ocean.

I heard an old, old story,
How a Savior came from glory,
How He gave His life on Calvary
To save a wretch like me;
He plunged me to victory,
Beneath the cleansing flood.

As I swum far far out into the sea and below the turmoil of the surf, I didn't know where I was heading, but the pull of something was leading me out beyond. I swam through the opening of a reef, the outside brightly colored by sea anemones, star fish and other creatures. However, through the opening was all white and pearlescent, glowing and there was singing.

Holy, Holy, Holy....

In this place there were many many oysters, all of them open and calling. I recognized the pearls that were floating on there tongues. I could pick out personalities and could recognize characteristics, but I could tell they were fading. Some of them were more familiar than others, like friends recently passed. Others were older memories. Some even I had no recollection of but could pick out inherited traits.

I heard about a mansion
He has built for me in glory.
And I heard about the streets of gold
Beyond the crystal sea;
About the angels singing,
And the old redemption story,
And some sweet day
I'll sing up there
The song of victory.

They were all pleasant. The kind of emotion that is hard to describe when you are used to classifying emotions as happy or sad.... This emotion was more likely completely filled with knowing, no wants or needs, no sadness or malice. Perfect. But not like in a happy I'm smiling ear to ear sort of way. No like a Mona Lisa smile.

I heard about His healing,
Of His cleansing pow'r revealing.
How He made the lame to walk again
And caused the blind to see;

I knew I wanted to be a part of this. I wanted to be a pearl suspended effervescence of the sea. Continuously washed in love. Could I blend in? No not with my bright eyes, pink cheeks, dark hair and human features. How do you become of these?

One of the pearls saw me. It was E. a friend that had recently passed at the time of this dream. She was a new pearl and while she fit in here, not all of her earthly essence had passed. A few other pearls around where other friends that if I concentrated, I could recognize...

"how are you?"

"i found you... i want to stay here... its nice here"

"why?"

"i don't want to be on the land anymore. its crowded, everyone is chasing after the same gust of wind. sometimes our kites get tangled, it's just not worth the hassle. besides, look how wonderful it is here"

"no, its only right that you are chasing after the wind. they need you there. you have to go back. we love you here and are paying attention to what is going on. things are might be difficult, and they will get worse."

"if they are going to get worse, why should i bother?"

"because it was what was meant to happen, its chasing after the wind, but there is a purpose. you have to look within yourself instead of to other people. God is within you. if you feel like the gust is being stifled, you need to push yourselves. go farther, work harder. it will make sense in the end."

"i don't know?"

"this is your lot, this is what you are to do: go back, return to the land, and chase after the wind, do the best you can and go as far as you can - you will be glad you did. it will be worth it, God will bless you. now go, go back before it's too late, chase the wind. Go! Chase the wind!"

He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood;
He loved me ere I knew Him
And all my love is due Him

I swam back to the shore, the colors slowly growing brighter and more vivid. I felt renewed, like I had the energy that I didn't have before. My children were around me. I picked up my kite. "follow me, we are going to do this!" I let out just enough string to start to catch the wind. And I turned and ran from the shore to the cliffs above the sea. I broke away from the crowds wishing that they were neither here nor there. Turning my face towards the sunlight, I ran, letting out the kite's string little by little. My family and friends were noting where I was going and slowly following, but I was in the lead. This is what has to be.

Dear God - sometimes I feel like I'm simply chasing after the wind. I feel like I'm working hard for things that will be gone tomorrow. I don't know if the sacrifices that I make are worth it. I sometimes feel like I'm alone away from the crowds and I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. Please remind me that I'm following you. Remind us all that these are the things that we need to do during this life. Once it is over we will not get the opportunity to chase the wind again. If chasing the wind is what we are meant to do, let us do it with determination and vigor. Love, A.

Enmity

2009-05-18T08:30:00.005-05:00

This afternoon I watched a heart-wrenching bio on Farrah Fawcett. Her struggle with cancer has been unimaginably tough, and the story was left unresolved. She's very sick. But she's alive. There's a thread of human triumph, a beautiful frail woman railing against a battle we've all seen. It's hard to reach my age (which isn't that old) without watching a friend or two fight that battle. Cancer is just way too common.

My friend is Pat. Two bouts with cancer while raising her teenage daughter alone. A scrappy lady, but the second cancer was pretty invasive and she chose not to fight it. Her daughter was nearing graduation and she thought she could hang on for her, at least through that milestone. So she just went on with her life. She worked as long as she could, then she went home. Then hospice came to her house.

There came a time when hospice wasn't enough. She needed personal assistance, people to help her out with everyday things. My church took on the job, taking turns coming to sit with her, helping to fix meals, general house work, that sort of thing. It got hard, though. The best of intentions get interrupted by peoples' own personal lives, and it grew harder and harder to put together a schedule of people to come through the week. You could see it was wearing on her, not knowing how she was going to get the help she needed. Her daughter, of course, was a big help, but she was still overwhelmed and needed the relief.

At the time our state had a program that would provide a personal assistant if your medical situation required that level of care. Not a medical person, just a general helper. Pat qualified for one. Really, it was what we were doing as a church, only for pay.

Since I was on the list of people who were coming over, she asked me if I wanted to do that job. It seemed a little weird, taking pay for something I wanted to do anyway, but you could see she really needed the peace of mind of just knowing somebody would be coming in because it was their job—she needed to be able to quit asking from week to week. She needed to be able to just count on somebody.

I was teaching ballet at the time and my summer schedule was pretty light, so I went to work for the state. I figured her peace of mind was probably more important right then than whatever eternal reward I was deluded enough to think I deserved—so I took the money and provided the peace of mind.

I discovered Pat had the same kind of humor I had. Her daughter had it too. We laughed a lot that summer. She and I became even better friends, and I got to know her daughter on a new level. It really was a heartwarming experience, those first few weeks. Her daughter and I fixed meals. I showed this teen the few tricks I knew about cooking, and she showed me some things I'd never heard of.

I'll never forget one day Pat decided she wanted soup. I knew she liked her soup from a can, the condensed kind, only she liked it with only half the water the instructions call for. So I started the soup to heating, went into the living room where she lived now in her hospital bed, and she asked if I would go ahead and butter the crackers. Butter the crackers!? I looked quizzically around at Pat and her daughter, and they soon realized I'd never heard of buttered soda crackers. They got a good laugh at my expense, which was okay because I like to laugh at myself anyhow. Her daughter went with me to the kitchen to show me what buttered crackers were. Together we chuckled and buttered enough soda crackers to satisfy both of them for the meal. I got to try some. They're not too bad, actually.

The time came when she was too weak to eat. The doctor had promised that adequate pain management would be the only treatment she would receive, as per her own wishes, but she would certainly get that. So she eventually just got too tired from the medicine to eat much. And the doctor said the food wasn't helping her body much anyway, any more.

One day we were eating lunch, and I remember watching her slowly raise her cracker to her mouth. So slowly. She got about three-fourths of the way there, stopped, and dropped her hand. Tried again. Halfway there. Stopped. Dropped her hand. Started again. Gave up. I went over and sat on her bed.

“Pat, do you want to eat?” She nodded slowly. I fed her. It may not have been doing her much good, but she wanted the food and she was fighting for it, and I thought she ought to have it as long as she wanted it and could swallow it. We went on like that for a while. Pat was so sick.

I had planned a trip east to visit a friend in upstate New York, and the time drew near. I wanted to postpone. I wanted to be there as long as she needed help, and really, inside, I wanted to be there for all the life she had. They assured me, though, that she would be fine, that her daughter had learned all she needed to know to take over for awhile, and I should go ahead and go.

The timetable the doctor gave seemed to indicate I had enough time to go for a few days, get back and say goodbye, so I took the chance. I packed my car and drove east. I drove all day and all night and into the next day. A friend was traveling with me, and she took a turn driving, but I was at the wheel when day broke and we got to the New York state line.

That's pretty country, just below the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. My emotions were way too close to the surface, and I remember as I drove into the rolling hills it was like there was healing in them, and I drank in their gentle beauty. I arrived at my friend's house, a good friend who also has the gift to heal, and the days were gentle and sweet. We talked and cooked and hiked and shopped. There came a time when it seemed enough healing had been done, and the hills were just hills again. And then the call came that Pat had passed on. So I got in my car and drove back, arriving with hours to spare. I'd promised to dance a victory dance at her funeral, and I did.

* * *

Personally, I think cancer is a horrendous thing. It's an enemy invasion of nature, not a natural process. It's a result of the fall of man, when nature went horribly awry and became vulnerable to such insidious killers. I resent it when people say it was God's plan. I believe He uses it to make His plans happen, but the fall of creation, which followed the fall of man, is what paved the way for it. And personally, I'd like to see it gone. And also personally, I'm glad we've got chemo and radiation, but I pray for the day when there's a better cure and people remember those treatments the same way they remember leeches and blood-letting.

* * *

Remember the fall of man? It's something little kids hear about in Sunday school. I remember it as a faraway, dreamy myth-like story. Something about the devil in the garden, the woman got deceived and deceived the man. God cursed men. God cursed women. God cursed the devil.

It happened at the dawn of human history, a stark tragedy, a man and woman who listened to a lie, made a horrid choice and changed everything. Thrust into exile, they lost everything they'd ever known and were forced to eek out a life in a fight with a newly fallen, weed-infested earth.

I remember memorizing the curse on Satan. We had to learn it because it was the first mention of Jesus.

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

In the middle of this tragedy, this horrible thing, a promise. Someday, somehow, somebody down the line is going to make it right. The snake will get his. He might put a bruise on the hero, but he'll get a crushed head out of it.

And all the while I'd never really noticed the whole curse, the first part, which pertains to women in general.

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman....” I finally did notice a few years ago, that this whole phrase comes before, and is separate from, the phrase about Jesus. It's a whole separate thing about the serpent and the woman herself. And I thought, first of all, about how women, almost universally, seem to hate snakes. Yup. No doubt. Most people aren't crazy about 'em. Indiana Jones hates 'em. Lotta men do. But even though you'll occasionally come across the rare woman who will tolerate or even like them, for the most part, women just hate snakes.

Then I eventually read a little bit deeper. “....enmity between thee and the woman...” And I suppose you've probably noticed that, through history, women have generally gotten some disgraceful treatment. I think it comes down to that enmity thing. Satan has it in for women in particular. Yeah, I know he has it in for everybody, but there's that verse that says he's going to be a particular enemy of the woman, and in history, I'd say that one's played out pretty much down the line, just like God said it would. And He DID say it. Anytime I've ever said anything about this phrase in the Bible, I've just gotten strange looks, but, I mean, it's a whole thing separate from the Jesus prophecy, and it's about SOMETHING, and it's there for a REASON.

So somehow today I was thinking about that whole curse on nature, curse on the man, curse on the woman, and curse on Satan. Bad day, that one was, with all the curses. It's got to rank up there as one of the worst days in the history of the world. And something else occurred to me, for the first time. Enmity goes both ways.

I think there's something about the way you call a prayer meeting and the women of the church turn up like a small army, ready to do business. You go into any church on any given Wednesday night and you'll probably see ranks of blue-haired ladies, dotted with a sprinkling of men. They're there, and they're ready to pray. And I think that's got to be a scary thing if you're Satan and your time is short.

There's this button I've seen going around on Facebook. You might have seen it. It's a little saying that goes like this: Be the kind of woman that when you wake up in the morning and put your feet on the floor, the devil says, “Oh, crap!”

Women as a gender have been beaten down, told we're nothing, medicated, lulled to sleep by a menial-task only policy, been glass ceilinged, been lied to, been cheated, been cheated on....I could break into a country song right here, but I won't. But even with all that, there's a dirty little secret that Satan doesn't want us to know: we're scary. We tend to be warriors and we tend to give birth to warriors. We're scary. Because enmity goes two ways.

Walter Wink said that history belongs to the people who pray for it. Anybody gets to pray, male or female. Just maybe the women tend to jump on the assignment faster, realizing that here's power that nobody can take from you.

* * *

So I find myself praying again about cancer today. I pray that a better cure for cancer will be found. I pray for that day when the chemo and the radiation will go the way of blood-letting and leeches, making way for new and healthier cures. I pray for people like Farrah who fight and are not willing to die, and for people like my friend Pat who weary of the battle and go gently into that good day. I pray for the day when creation is returned to the way it was supposed to be, an order of things that's almost lost to our race memory, but it was there, nonetheless.

I pray for my family and my church, for my friends, for my kids' school, for our nation and our leaders, and I pray like it matters, because it does, and because I can, and because when I do, I'm scary.

Side Effects May Vary

2009-04-20T14:32:00.001-05:00

Susan Boyle has taken the world by storm this past week. A regular girl with a powerhouse voice—a British reality show sensation who conquered America, too, thanks to YouTube.

She appeared on Britain's Got Talent, the British equivalent of American Idol. She wasn't what you would expect of a talent show performer. Slightly overweight, accessories all wrong, frizzy hair, no makeup. She got up there anyway, in auditions, and listened to the laughter as judges took turns smirking and planting verbal barbs. Witty is the word one uses, and I suppose it's what passes for sophisticated these days. Sophisticated, maybe, but not quite classy.

Anyhow....maybe the lights mercifully hid the rolling eyes and smirks, but when Susan began to sing, laughter turned to cheering as people rose to their feet, acknowledging the talent.

YouTube audio isn't the easiest venue for assessing vocal ability. She seemed to have a lot of it. Would the crowd have reacted the same way if she'd been slim and beautiful? Maybe not. Unfortunately, I think the talent would have been a bit more expected. Part of her appeal was the surprise, I think. Now that she's made her debut, time will tell whether she has what it takes to win on Britain's Got Talent.

The YouTube video treated us to something really nice--a triumph for the regular people. We were reminded that you don't have to be coiffed and made up to possess extraordinary talent. It was good to see the coiffed and made-up acknowledge it. So now the tug-of-war begins. Susan Boyle's public can't get enough of her. She'll be all the talk, I suppose, on this years Britain's Got Talent. A dream come true is a wonderful thing.

* * *

Years ago I took a job at a mediocre FM Christian radio station. I got in just in time to be on the team that would transform the station's sound. We worked hard, tightened up the music. The engineer made the actual audio sound sparkle as we worked to make the programming as professional as possible, while maintaining the ministry's integrity. It was for the sake of ministry, really, that we did it. Quite frankly, we wanted to reach a lot of people. And--we wanted to do a quality job—no reason to give God anything less than our best.

There were a couple of local “competitors,” Christian stations also out there doing their job, and a couple of years into the process we all came together for a shared project: Carman was coming to town. Carman....enormously popular at the time. And why not? Talented, a singer with great charisma, and best of all—his concerts were always free. So we secured a big sports arena and gave away tickets. All of the area Christian stations promoted the concert, and the night of the event, the arena was predictably packed. Huge crowd—lots of noise. We all sat together as a station—you work together, you play together. It was fun. The MC came out to open the concert and started thanking people who'd helped make it all possible. The other two stations were mentioned, with applause. Then our station's call-letters were called, and the place erupted. A giant packed arena, applause, a roaring crowd, and my team was at the center of it.

It was actually kind of startling. You spend four to six hours a day talking to a microphone, pretending it's a friend having coffee with you, you introduce the songs, you take the prayer requests that come in and you have a prayer time....the occasional interview with interesting people....but you don't really see people, and you honestly don't know if anybody's listening. We all slogged through the same challenges, the crew of my station. And now here we were, and suddenly we knew people were listening, because they were roaring at us, cheering and applauding. And honestly—it felt kind of good. We were applauding too, since for the most part people didn't know much about what we looked like (they always seemed to think I was tall and blond). We kind of stared around at the crowd, eyes like saucers, mouths slack. We glanced at each other, checking to see if it was the same surprise for everybody. “I didn't think they'd do that. Did you think they'd do that? No, I didn't think they'd do that.” This unspoken conversation flashing back and forth down our row of seats.

That was the weekend. By Monday the station manager had fashioned a memo dealing with “fame.” And although I don't still have it, I remember it was good.

Apparently, fame should be treated as a side effect. In our case, public acclaim was a side effect of wanting to use radio to minister to people. And it can be a rather nasty side effect, because it can mess with your head, make you think you're important, or more special, than “regular” people. It can also leave you wondering who your real friends are. And you can get way too picky about who you'll choose as friends. People sometimes make the mistake of making fame a goal. But fame is not a goal. Fame is a side effect of pursuing your goal. What you do with this side effect is vastly important, because if you let it, it can make you forget your original goal altogether.

He said we would probably have to live with it, and asked us to please all be in prayer about the choices we would make as a result of it. It was a quality memo, and I never forgot it. Not that I have ever had vast opportunities to use its wisdom. During the course of my working at the station there was the occasional signing of a document, followed by the “Oh, are you C.........from the radio station?” You had to make sure you saw yourself as a regular person, not somehow special because other people often thought we were extra special. We had to be grounded in who we were. That way, when somebody asked you for your autograph or something, you would know you were just so-and-so with the pile of laundry at home. I was occasionally disappointed to find that a friend was not a friend after all, but wanted to be SEEN as a friend of a radio announcer. Not too often, thankfully.

You kind of had to work all that out as you went along. I can't think of any other way to do it. Then when I went to just part time on the weekends, I watched a measure of that fame disappear. Eventually I married and moved away and slipped easily into obscurity. People forget you quickly, which I suppose is mostly okay. It's good to be sure your identity isn't wrapped up in what they think of you. You still have to be you when it's all over.

* * *

Now that people have found Susan Boyle, they're naturally going to try to ruin her. Apparently it's already starting. I've read there are plans not to let her get a makeover for the show. Keep her natural, they say. It's part of her appeal. As IF they have the right to dictate a makeover or not for another person. Patronizing. It might be good to ask her what SHE wants.

Popularity is running high, and only time will tell whether the fame thing will burn itself out for her. She seems like a really nice lady. It's hard, though, to stay really nice and sweetly innocent when people treat you as if you're an international treasure. Maybe she can stay just Susan Boyle. If popularity has its natural effect, then the following that dotes on her today will turn on her like a pack of hyenas if she does something they don't like.

Another thing. The show's “people” are right to understand that her appeal comes from her simplicity--the fact that her identity isn't wrapped up in her looks. But if her identity is wrapped up in her talent, she's only putting off the same rather nasty identity crisis.

But for today it's nice to watch the faces of a crowd that tends to be more sophisticated than classy. It's good to see extraordinary talent wrapped up in a somewhat common package. Kind of reflects my personal taste in art. And it's good to see the sophisticated crowd learning a thing or two. Thanks, YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk

Kids, Prayer and Revival--Making Room

2009-03-02T14:12:00.005-06:00

“Swing Low! Sweet Char-ee-uht!” I was with the kindergarten class, little five-year-old voices singing happily as they swung low, some of them swinging their bodies so low that their voices had this creepy, upside down kind of tone.

I teach music. Each day I cycle through four different age groups, singing, playing penny whistles, discovering music theory. I try to engage each group, making allowances for their ages and individual interests. It's fun for me, no doubt about it. Hopefully it's fun for the students as well.

So this kindergarten class was singing enthusiastically--”I'm sometimes up, sometimes down, but still my soul is heavenly-bound.” That's when I noticed my school principal, armed with a chair. I groaned inwardly as she sat down with a notebook and pen. It was time for observation.

I had known it was coming, but in my random way I'd completely forgotten that she was going to observe this particular class. I was prepared, of course. Standing unprepared in front of a group of five-year-olds—I might as well just jam my hand under a burning log. You just don't. Still, that class was having so much fun. I wasn't prepared for a nervous observation. But, for better or worse, a page in the file was about to be created.

So we sang a few more songs. After the songs we were to play a card game with a deck that has notes and rests instead of numbers, kings and queens. The kids learn the names of notes playing games like this. It's fun and effective.

And yet.......as we sang, I noticed something. I had this one kid who's NEVER blended in. Usually if I asked them to sing out she would yell the words at the top of her lungs. If I asked them to sing quietly she would whisper at the top of her lungs. Sometimes she would sing an octave too high or too low, just for fun. But today—apparently she was having an epiphany. She was not screaming. She was not singing an octave off. She was blending right in.

So with my boss sitting there waiting to hear my lesson plan, I had a choice. This was a breakthrough. I could turn her discoveries into an impromptu lesson on how to blend your voice into a choir, or......we could do the lesson on notes and rests.

So I took a blindfold out of my closet and started a game of “Blind Man's Blend.” One child would turn his back to the group, wearing the blindfold. I started playing a song, and while the music played I quietly chose three students to come up behind the blindfolded kid and sing. Their job was to blend so well that the one with the blindfold couldn't discern their individual voices. After twenty seconds or so he could guess who'd been singing. For every correct guess he'd get a point. Every child who fooled him got a point. Then it would be someone else's turn to guess. The idea, of course, is the better you blend in, the more points you're going to win. We went around until everybody got a chance to guess, and everybody had gotten at least a point or two.

Then we talked about how nice it is to get a solo and sing your very best; but sometimes it's nice to blend in with your friends. It's a good game for teaching blending, and I'm glad I did it that day, because the girl who'd discovered her inner blended voice got some follow-through. She did VERY well at the game that day, got a ton of points, and had fun.

So later the principal commented on the class. I was feeling embarrassed about deviating from the lesson plan, even though I felt it had been a good choice. My boss is a great teacher in her own right, though, and when I explained she totally understood what happened. In fact, later the report came back saying something about flexibility being a strong point.

I don't always get it right. I'm sure sometimes opportunities slip by without my noticing. But I like to pounce on the teachable moments when they come up. It's good to make room for them.

* * *

That was last year. One day a couple of weeks ago I was with a different class—the second and third graders. This group of seven and eight year olds is a great bunch to work with. Those grade levels are almost always the best class for singing. They've developed the skill to sing fairly well, they can usually understand the things I ask them to do, and they aren't self-conscious yet about singing out.

And with this particular class, there's something else, something kind of indefinable. A number of these kids have a working understanding of God's presence. I first noticed it last year when we were singing a worship song and one of the girls said it was like God was hugging her.

So this one day a couple of weeks ago we were singing “You Are My All in All.” Maybe you know the words. “When I fall down you pick me up. When I am dry you fill my cup. You are my all in all.” When we do songs like that I go ahead and worship. It's Christian school, after all. And it kind of makes room for God to be an active part of class. I keep my eye on the kids but keep my attention on God. So this day a couple of weeks ago one of the kids, an eight year old, standing there with arms stretched out, hands up, and eyes closed, looking pretty intense. I thought, she's imitating something he's seen at church. Kids do that sometimes. It was sweet and cute, and I smiled as we kept singing. Then I noticed a few tears.

After the song she raised her hand and told me it was like her feet were on the ground, but God was lifting her up at the same time. I am pretty sure—in fact, I'm almost positive—this one was for real.

* * *

I remember once when I was maybe twelve or so we had this revival at the Christian school I attended. It happened right during choral singing class, which was held in the chapel room. I don't remember anything about how it started—all I remember is that instead of standing around singing, we were kneeling here and there praying and repenting. Kids were in tears. I was all trembly—that's what I used to do instead of crying. We got right with God and got up, all aglow. Then my dad, who was the choral director, told us to go into other classes and get kids and bring them back with us. So Mildred and I went after this kid named Roger.

I don't know how we got in there and got him out without being stopped. Maybe it was the sight of two girls—both glowing, one with tears, the other trembling. Maybe it was the Holy Spirit. Honestly, I'm not sure. But the teacher never questioned us, and neither did Roger. He just took one look at us, sobered right up and let us escort him back to the chapel room.

* * *

It was nice that my dad was willing to make room in our schedule for revival like that. And it was nice the other teachers made room for us to escort their students out without a word. Actually, in retrospect, the oddest part of that whole spontaneous revival day is that the teachers just kind of made room for it.

So all the kids who were repenting and kneeling and sniffling—were their lives all changed? I don't know. I think everyone changed for a while, then most went back to pretty much the way things were. So what was the use of it? Later, after college, I remember something pretty profound I heard a youth leader say. She said you can have an experience with God that's so powerful it knocks you right off your feet. But it'll never do you any good if you don't walk it out. So I guess the value in these revivals is they stop you, turn you around, and give you a good head start. Then it's up to you to keep walking and following God and live out what you got.

So those kids who went through that revival that day. In the big scheme of things, were we better off having gone through it? Well, look at the statistics. Some went on to live for God. They ended up as Christian truckers, restaurant workers, lawyers, regular people. Some even ended up doing full-time Christian work. Then others went on to be non Christian truckers, restaurant workers, lawyers, cops, regular people. Some ended up in crime. A few were killed or died of natural causes. I don't have exact numbers, but I would imagine we average out in a pretty typical way.

So if we came out statistically the same as other schools like ours, then what good did the revival do? We would have been just as well off without that day, right? Well, but then, see, we wouldn't have that powerful memory. We wouldn't remember that God-time.

* * *

For about six months my kids have been praying for Susie. She's a lady in our church who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. She hit the kids' radar when she turned up at church in a wheelchair. Her hip had given out, eaten by the disease, even before she got it properly diagnosed.

My kids are both pretty good about making room on their prayer lists. Sometimes they even ask: "Is there anybody else sick I can pray for?" Even before Susie's diagnosic, then, they saw the wheelchair and got right on it, praying every night, asking regularly how Susie was doing.

So yesterday she turned up in service wearing a spunky red hat and a big smile. It's been a while since she was here, with the immunity problems and all the sickness going around. So after church I went and said hello, talked a minute, and walked to the back of the sanctuary. I ran into my youngest daughter back there and said, “Susie's here!” “REALLY!?” “Yeah! And the doctors gave her the all-clear. No more cancer!”

She peered into the sanctuary and saw Susie. You should have seen my kid's face. You pray every night for six months, and then the answer to your prayer walks into the building for you to see. She was pretty excited. Then my oldest came along, peered in, said, "Susie!" and went over to say hello. The other one followed, and slowly a small pack of kids trickled over.

I looked on, anxious to make sure they didn't tire her out. Then suddenly I choked up. I realized what I was seeing--the next generation of prayer warriors, happily chatting it up with Susie. She smiled her bright smile and talked with them for a while; happy, I suppose, to find such a fearless little army had been covering her.

Then it was time for Susie to go home and rest. She said her goodbyes, and the next generation of prayer warriors ran off for a quick game of hide and seek.

What Do You Want?

2009-01-25T19:26:00.003-06:00

Early this morning I sat down with a steaming coffee. I peered through the blinds and saw—a fresh blanket of snow. A surprise. Light flurries were expected, and here I was looking at a Currier and Ives scene, with fresh, powdery snow still falling. Beautiful it was, and sweet. So here I sit this afternoon. There's a fire in the fireplace, which I've poked a bit to keep it going. I can't wander too far from it before I feel a deep chill, so I'm sitting here close with a laptop and mixed coffee and cocoa (I know—enough with the java).

This past Wednesday was a glorious treat with almost warm temperatures. People traded overcoats for sweatshirts and we all smiled at each other, strangers and friends alike, sharing our comfort and good fortune. Now we're back to extreme cold, having enjoyed the shortest January thaw I think I can remember. So while the beautiful snow scene was nice to wake up to, I miss the sweet foretaste of summer I got this week.

We're into the part of the year when summer seems forever away, and yet these months—January to May—always slip by before you know it. Students live for summer. So do I.

Last summer was like a dream. My family knows I become a rather odd bird come summer. An owl, actually. Nocturnal. I love staying up late. Really late. The hours after midnight are mine--creative hours. I watch them slip by, then I sleep until all hours. I'm never quite sure what will come of my summers. One summer I wrote songs. Another time I arranged a bunch of hymns in neoclassical style. I've learned to just go with the flow and do what seems right to do.

Last summer was different, though. Each night I packed my family off to bed, then I sat up and—spent time with God. I listened to music, prayed, worshiped, sang, played my instruments, but it wasn't about creating stuff this time. Where did it come from? I don't know. Like I said, it was like a dream.

It was the summer I spent praying for my daughter's eyes. I'd lay down in the basement and pray for a while, then come upstairs in the wee hours and lay my hands on her head and pray some more. Incredibly, over the summer, her eyes slowly returned almost to normal.

Toward the end of the summer I would tell friends I just hated to see the summer come to an end. Of course, teachers always get that “oh, you poor thing” look from other working friends. I mean, it's hard to sympathize about a three month vacation coming to a close. It was impossible for me to explain this time, though. It wasn't being lazy I'd miss. I would miss the nocturnal times in God's presence. How would I recoup that kind of time? I couldn't stay up all hours and expect to get up and go to school.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find that although enrollment is up, classes have been arranged in such a way that I only teach four music classes a day. All the classes are taught in the morning. My afternoons are free. All the God-time I spent in the wee hours this summer—that was transferred to the afternoons. I'd teach, eat lunch, grade and plan lessons, then I had precious time to spend with God.

I teach at the Christian school my kids attend. This school meets at my church, and my classes are held just outside the sanctuary. So sometimes I've been going in there to pray. It's like a little vacation every day. A dream time, just like in the summer. And people have been commenting about the presence of God in there. It's not something that's there because I pray in there. It's something I've stumbled on and am happy to enjoy. My pastor sometimes gets drawn in there and goes up front and talks to God and listens to Him. The school principal gets up early just so she can go to school early and walk around in there and pray. And you know, all that prayer doesn't just disappear into the ether or something. Our church is changing. We've gone from a church held back by meaningless ritual to a group of people who arrive Sunday mornings with expectancy.

* * *

This morning before the service I was kind of hanging out in the prayer room by myself, praying and just enjoying that presence of God. I remembered the verse, “Delight thyself also in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” A wonderful verse, but I automatically cringed.

This past summer, the dream summer, I was up in the middle of the night, and I was wondering what I would ask for if God asked me the Solomon question. You know the one. Ask whatever you wish. Wow! What a question. And I was thinking, if I got asked, I would have to be prepared, so I wouldn't blurt out something stupid, like a new car or something. I thought, I should be prepared to ask for wisdom. Wisdom would be good. God really seemed to like it when Solomon asked for wisdom. That's what I would ask for.

So later that summer, unexpectedly, I got the sense one night that the question was on the table. In a cloud of enjoyment of God's presence, there it was: ask what you wish. So I blurted out—I’d like a DSLR camera. Then I cringed and blurted out, no, I want my daughter's eyes to be healed. Then I blurted out, no, wisdom. I want wisdom. Yeah, that's it.

It was a painful fail, and I've regretted the lost opportunity ever since. The God of the universe wrote me a blank check and I asked for a hunk of plastic, glass and metal. And the moment was gone, and I couldn't get it back.

I really had been wanting that DSLR camera. I enjoy taking pictures--the composition, the lighting, the post-processing—all of it. I've been working with a beastly little sub-compact digital for years. I've learned some about composition, and I've learned to trust my eye for things, but when the school bought a new camera last year and I was given the chance to learn it and take charge of it, I immediately saw the advantage of having a better one. Oh, I can think of about a million reasons why I ought to have a DSLR camera, but the bottom line came glaringly through in the midnight test. It was a skewed priority, and my desire to have it told me a lot about myself.

* * *

The camera was a silly thing to ask for anyway. Come fall there would be a little cash income I get each year for extra side work that I do, and I knew I could pick up a camera then. Which I did. I found one used on ebay. I eagerly awaited its arrival, and when it did come in I pulled it out of the box and headed downtown for a memory card and a few accessories, and immediately began snapping pictures. The array of buttons and controls did not intimidate me for long. I'd learned on the school's camera what they all did—f stop, ISO, shutter speed—I was ready to rumble. And rumble I did, snapping hundreds of pictures, posting them for critique, cropping and re-cropping for maximum composition value.

Those free afternoons came in handy, too, and when I wasn't out hunting for subjects to shoot I was scouring the Internet for deals on lenses, filters and other accessories. Life was good, with a fresh burst of enthusiasm for a beloved hobby. And then—I remembered how it had been to spend afternoons with God. I tried to get that back, that drive to connect with Him, that overwhelming sense of His presence, but—something had happened. I tried to tell myself that it was normal, that you couldn't stay on the mountain forever, but—it's no good being hungry and then telling yourself that hunger is normal, you can't stay eating regular meals forever. I think the whole thing about mountaintop experiences being for special times—I just don't believe that anymore. I think you can take the fire of the mountain with you into the valley. I think it can be done. I want the fire of God's presence to go with me always.

Anyhow, I prayed about this. And then I'd go shoot a few pictures, hoping to get some praise pictures or something.

About this time it became clear to me that the problem was on my end. A certain amount of selfishness had crept in, and it would be a good idea to be absolutely ruthless in killing off the flesh. I thought about that, and it seemed the most selfish thing I had done in recent times was – acquire a hunk of plastic, metal and glass. And spend my precious afternoons, my God times, scouring the internet in an effort to feed it and make it a better hunk of metal and glass. My priority had changed. It wasn't God's time anymore.

I thought—fought, actually—for a few days on this. I knew—and still believe—that I could have kept going the way I was going, and I could have led a perfectly Godly life, hung onto my ministries and done a lot of good...but it wasn't the best. There was something better, and it would have been missed. Maybe I'd get another shot at it sometime, someday, but today’s God-time was slipping away.

So the camera is in somebody else's hands now, somebody who isn't an idiot about having shiny new gadgets, somebody who will be served by the camera, rather than serve it. And I—well, the day I handed the camera over I lost what seemed like twenty pounds of useless weight—hanging heavy, right around my heart. I missed it only slightly. That first afternoon I spent a few minutes wondering what to do with my time—no need to scour ebay for a cheap lens and a better eye cup.

That was a couple of months ago. I suppose someday I’ll probably pick up another DSLR, after I’m ready to have it as a servant and not as a master. In the meantime, I’m spending some time reconnecting with God. And started to grow again. And now—I'm learning to cultivate the presence of God in my life, not just in a sanctuary with vaulted ceilings, but between classes, DURING classes, in the car, climbing out of bed in the morning--

This morning, for instance. There I was in the prayer room before service, and there He was, with me. With the verse, the one about delighting in the Lord, unexpectedly, the question was on the table again. What would I ask for? Ask for anything. This time I thought about wisdom, but— God's word tells me I can ask for that one anytime. There's a promise attached to that one. I looked around the little empty—and not so empty—prayer room and realized—God's manifested presence is walking with me these days in ways I've only dreamed. I said, “You've given me the desire of my heart. This is what I want.” With that realization, and with the saying of it, I sensed God's smile.

The Birth of a Child

2008-12-24T17:18:00.002-06:00

A week ago I had the gift of witnessing the birth of my newest niece. It was the first time that I've been a witness to a birth. It was an incredible experience.

The mother pacing the floors, knowing of the pain to come. Uncertain of what awaits in the next hours. But, she also knows of the joy that comes after the pain. She's willing to go through unbearable pain for the gift. The gift of new life. A child that she will hold. She will teach the baby how to eat, how to speak, how to crawl and walk. She will teach the child how to say please and thank you, how to take care of her dolls, and fix her hair, how to read and write.

And so she waits as the pains come more and more intense. And concentrates more and more on her body and the baby within.

Finally, the point comes when the pain is excruciating.

And then baby arrives. There is a moment of silence.

The mother exhales as baby's lungs take in her first breath.

Now there is joy! A cry from the baby, tears and smiles from the mother as she sees her child and the pain disappears. Joy radiates through the room. Exclamations of how adorable this child is. The possibility of what this new life has in store for us is overwhelming.

And as I reflect on it tonight, Christmas eve, again I'm overwhelmed by emotions.

Tomorrow we will be celebrating the birth of another child. A child whose arrival takes away the pain of the whole world. Before He was, we were hopeless and lost. Life was painful. But now that He has arrived there is joy. If you know Jesus you know that the pain of this life is replaced with His Joy and the possibility of new life.

Merry Christmas!

Clarity

2008-11-20T22:26:00.002-06:00

The first round of stuffy heads is making its rounds through my household. The stuffiness set in just in time to cause craziness for me right before the killer chem test. I thought that I would have a whole free day the day before because my anatomy class has already taken break. I had it planned, roast in the crock pot first thing in the morning, do some quick straightening. Start in on teaching B next, as he worked towards his independent work, I would start in on going over chemistry. Work through the practice problems, find some extra study help online to work through. I would know the info forwards and backwards.

And then I woke up yesterday morning. scratchy throat. stuffy head. yech. No need to change plans much, but maybe I'll take a nap instead of working through so many practice problems. Then the kids woke up. They weren't good either. Now many kids do that whole stay in bed and be waited on all day thing. Maybe put in some good old movies and snuggle with hot tea. Nope, not my 3 year old, not this time.

High energy all day, bent on destroying everything in sight. In essence, if he's not feeling well, no one nor anything else will either. 'Please, God just give me some patience with J and some clarity with Chem.' Very little was actually accomplished yesterday.

-----

A couple weeks ago we pulled into the driveway after dark.. The moon was full and bright enough that the light penetrated through the blanket clouds. B noted how nifty that effect was. I explained that the clouds were translucent. Not thick enough to completely block the bright moon and not clear either.

About 30 minutes later I took the dog out for a quick walk. Interestingly enough, in that short of time all the clouds had been swept away and the stars were shining brightly along with the moon. Its breathtaking to see all those lights twinkling on the velvety dark background on the November sky.

Clarity. Please, God, through the muddle that my life is, give me clarity - sweep away the clouds of regret and sadness and distractions - keep me focused. Keep my mind as crisp as this November night. Be the moon and the stars that guide me.
--
The constellation Orion greeted me. Hello old friend. I think I've written about the stars and constellations before, so forgive me. Orion is often striking to me on the nights that are so clear. Of course, in 29 years, clarity isn't always so simple.

Teenagers often challenge their mortality. Living like their immortal, dangerously balancing on the edge of life and death. The first time someone close to you loses their life it is shocking. In fact, I don't believe death ever loses its bite. I ran outside and looked at the stars, concentrating on something that would take my mind off of the pain. Wiping away the tears and trying to remember the formations of the stars. Praying for someone who was gone.

Then again, a couple years later, laying on the frozen ground, sleet stinging on my face, losing the feeling in my hands and feet. Knowing that it was hopeless. The clouds in the sky broke and through them the stars twinkled out at me. Blinking through the ice droplets, I could see Orion peeking at me. I pray that I'll see daylight again. I had to get up and keep going - that much was clear.

So anyway now, my clarity is much crisper now. Maybe a little excessively. But I still appreciate the encouragement that God has written into the sky for me (and well everyone really.)
----

So this morning, I'm feeling stuffy and icky. My phone won't stop ringing and my children weren't being the self starters (not a surprise) I have the chemistry test hanging over my head, but I'm in too much of a rush to review my notes or think chemistry thoughts even. And I don't really care. Just take one thing at a time, right? Sure, whatever...

So I get to class and sit down. The test is handed out right away... here we go. Stuffiness and clouds sweep aside and the next 45 minutes I have clarity that I know could only be grace. Needless to say, I did Ok on the test. It was a difficult one. I wouldn't have been able to do it without clarity.

Superficial

2008-11-09T18:59:00.004-06:00

Superficial. adjective
concerned with or comprehending only what is on the surface or obvious
shallow; not profound or thorough
being at, on, or near the surface

Many political conversations have transpired this week. For me, most noteably, between my 11 year old and whoever will listen and answer his questions. Usually its me because we see a lot of each other, but he has had the valuable opportunity to inquire of others their opinions.

In this the term superficial has become a favorite. Of course, we have to define this adjective for him. He knows the gist of what it means, but because he's a 'grabber' he has to know what precisely this means in the context that we are using it.

Of course we have to seize the opportunity to utilize the self help skills. "You know where the dictionary is kept." "Yes, mom, but what does it mean in this instance."

*that means I have to think* Ummmm.... Another learning opportunity - metaphors and similes are always fun! "Beauty is only skin deep, never judge a book by its cover, still waters run deep - does this answer the question, cuz I can go on all day?"

Slightly sidetracked we start to discuss how accurate these metaphors are. But if someone is beautiful on the outside, can't they be on the inside too? Or what if their outward beauty is only a reflection of their inward self confidence. Can't people who are inwardly ugly possibly be outwardly ugly, too? And mom, don't you still pick out your books by their covers? I never see you actually read the summaries. Yet you still find some really good books.

Hmmmm.... stumped, I think he got me. "Yes, yes, well yes but not necessarily, and I do - why are you spying on me? I also end up with really rotten ones on occasion, but yeah, most of the time I'm pretty good at choosing."

Interesting conversation that we had. Of course I brought it back around and applied it to the political discussion that we were having. Simply put, sometimes you can string together words in such a way that you are speaking a lot and get a lot of positive feedback, but actually not be saying anything of substance.

But back to our rabbit trail. Looks can be deceiving. But are they always?
PSA: Sometimes superficial things (good or bad) could be an overflow of underlying issues.
Yes or no?

PS. A good book with a good cover: "The Book Thief" by Marcus Zusak Its a book that will make you laugh hard, cry harder and love life a little more and fear death a little less.

Anatomy

2008-10-31T15:06:00.002-05:00

I barely mentioned my classes. I love them. Yes, they are hard, and its difficult, but its fun. I really like learning about the world and having a new angle on life. I'm making new friends can't be all bad, right?

Taking science classes is so cool. I keep thinking, wow, God did this. For every level that we dig into chemistry or anatomy it gets more and more complicated and intricate. And I keep thinking that this is not random, someone really smart had to put all this together.

As we are looking at each system of the body, all the different layers working together and interacting in just the right way is amazing. Sometimes we will look at something, break it apart, slowly digest how it's working. And then the teacher will say, but remember this isn't just working in isolation - not this one reaction is happening. For example, the neurons have to have so much stimulation to create an action potential to converse with the other neurons via neurotransmitters. We will look at just one way they do this, and it takes like an hour to explain it all out. But then we think about how it really functions, millions of these reactions happen at the blink of an eye. That's just astonishing!

Don't get me wrong. I've always thought the human body was amazing and intricate. And I know that God created something very special. And I knew it was amazing. But to start to quantify how amazing is mind boggling. Almost akin to looking up into the small portion of the milky way and thinking about how big the universe is. Phenomenal.

And then there's chemistry. In high school, I was really bad at chemistry. I don't know why, but I just didn't get it at all. I wanted to, but I just don't think that it liked me. Or maybe I was distracted.

Anyway, I really didn't know what to expect for this time around in chemistry. Its not easy, but I seem to be understanding it better this time. As applicable as chemistry can be to everyday life, what we are doing seems so far removed. But in anatomy we are actually using a lot of chemistry to describe what happens in our bodies. So I think that's helping. That and being around other people that aren't under the age of 12 is definitely a good thing :)

And I'm now certified to do CPR. There is the potential that I can maybe help save someone's life! Isn't that cool?

So that's school in a nutshell. I can't wait until I get to actually start nursing classes, but that won't be until next fall, so I'll try to keep my excitement in check.

Thoughts on Time Travel

2008-10-26T15:56:00.001-05:00

This morning after church my older daughter handed me a little box of raisins.

“Thanks. Where'd you get these?”

She's been in a rather verbose mood today—even more so than usual. So I waited while she explained that everyone got a box of raisins in junior church today—well, not everybody, because some of the kids didn't want them and so they said no thank you so the teachers didn't give them any. But everybody else got raisins. EXCEPT the teachers didn't give themselves any so everybody got raisins except the teachers and the kids who said no thank you. Except she didn't say no thank you even though she doesn't like raisins because she knew I liked raisins so she went ahead and took the raisins—and said thank you—she remembered to say thank you—because she knew I would like the raisins. No, she didn't say thank you because she knew I'd like the raisins. She accepted them because she knew I'd like the raisins. She just said thank you to be polite. So, here, Mommy, are some raisins.

So I said thank you and tucked away the raisins.

“Just don't eat the ones that I already chewed.”

What!?

“Well, I just wanted to try them, because you never know when your taste buds are going to grow, and I've been in a growth spurt, so my taste buds might have changed.”

A gentleman standing nearby was snickering.

“You....” I shook my head. She'd tried a couple, hadn't liked them, so she'd put them back in the box.

“Well, you could wait eight hours for the germs to die off the ones I chewed, then you could eat them. That way you won't be wasting them. Or......you could just throw them away.”

By this time the gentleman was almost doubled over laughing.

So I handed her the box and explained that some lines I just wouldn't cross, and asked her to please pick out the ones she'd chewed and eat them or dispose of them herself, which she did.

The gentleman, wiping tears, thanked us for the much needed laugh and then he was out the door.

The whole dialog is fairly typical of what goes on between this child and me. Chances are it would pass into the mass of moments you forget—but for the guy who needed a good laugh. He'll remember this one.

* * *

When I was in Bible college one of my most memorable experiences was writing a paper for some theology class on Time and Eternity. I was arguing that if you carefully defined eternity you could reconcile man's free will with God's predestination. If you ever want to hear how I got there send me a private message and I'd be glad to bore you with the details. But in the course of writing this paper I knew I needed a substantive way to wrestle with the concepts swirling around in my mind. So I talked a friend into dialogging with me. We'd come home from school, I'd run up to her apartment (we both had apartments in an old, seedy hotel), maybe she'd come down to mine, and we'd talk for hours about time, how it works, what eternity is, how it works, what it would be like to live without time, all the stuff that makes a good time-warp in a Star Trek episode.

One idea that never found a place in the paper has stuck with me all these years. I think time runs backwards.

* * *

We move forward in the time line, passing from event to event, past, present, then future. We don't think about it, of course. Today slips into tonight, we sleep, wake up to a tomorrow that's now the new today, remembering the past, anticipating the future, but generally just living in time the way we live in air. We don't think about it. It's just there and it's just necessary.

As a kid—a young teen—one big highlight of the year was the regional fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. All my friends looked forward to it. We saved our money and were given tickets for the rides. These were not just typical carnival rides, either. These were the real thing, rides like the big amusement parks have. They had this roller coaster—I think it was called the Galaxy. That thing was awesome—till I rode the Wabash Cannonball in Nashville. But at the time the Galaxy was the biggest thing I'd ever been on, and between that and the loud music and the junk food and running around with your friends, it was definitely an event that was tough to wait for. It would get closer and closer, then it would be almost upon us, then we'd be on the road, then we were caught up in the experience, riding the rides, eating the food—riding more rides and feeling a little sick, eating to feel better then riding more rides—and then it was over.

* * *

So we move forward in the time line, but what about the events? They get their start in the future. We're separated from them by months, a seeming eternity. Then they're close—so close you think you can't bear it—then they're here. We reach out and grasp them, pull them into our past, and then they're behind us—forever a memory. Like two teams passing, shaking hands after a well-fought game, we reach out and grasp a seemingly endless line of events, acknowledging them before we reach out to grasp the next one. Moving always forward as the events we reach for move in the opposite direction—backward.

Less than a month ago my husband, a runner, elected to go to a heart specialist to see if they could do something about these palpitations he sometimes gets when he's out running. They ran him through all these tests, put a 24 hour monitor on him, and then the doctor called and asked him to come in for an office visit so he could show him the results.

Well, that was irritating. This specialist is a two hour drive away, and couldn't he just explain things over the phone? Nonetheless he went in to “discuss” things with the physician.

That day I got a call at school from Roger. He seemed shaken. Said we needed to make arrangements for the kids for a couple of days, because I'd be driving him to the hospital in the morning—to get a pacemaker put in. It all happened fast. The next day I found myself sitting in a cardiac surgery waiting room while Roger had a one-hour simple procedure done. Only as the time slipped by, and the second hour was almost over, I suddenly looked around me and grasped the moment. Here I was alone in this waiting room, no idea why things were taking so long, and why hadn't I thought to bring a friend?

I got up and walked around a bit, found a computer station with internet access, and tried logging on and updating friends. The browser was ancient, but it managed to bring up a favorite message board and I typed an update in the prayer forum. I went and sat down, feeling a bit less alone.

You know, I hadn't seen this one coming. With all the things I look forward to—and the things I dread—sitting in the waiting room while my forty-something-ish husband had a pacemaker put in was not on the list of upcoming events. Yet there he was, groggily enduring, numb but aware that a surgeon who was used to older, softer bodies was even now struggling to push a pacemaker behind his well-built chest muscle.

Things have settled into a new normal now. He's always been so approachable that people are just physical with him. Pounding him on the shoulder, throwing playful punches—he's pretty relaxed and fun to be around. But now he has to be on his guard. There's a spot under his shoulder blade that can't be punched, playfully or not. There's a device there; a device that means he can't fix the car anymore, or use cordless power tools. No more arc welding—well, that, at least, was never an issue. He can't go through electronic security checks at the airport. He'll have to endure hand searches. You know those automatic doors at stores? He has to walk quickly through them. Always aware. Always on guard.

But even with all that, it's better than not having the pacemaker. You see, his tests showed that his heart was stopping at night. Sometimes for as long as ten seconds. Just for fun, stop right now and watch a clock as ten seconds go by. Chilling, huh?

So in God's grace, the problem was found and corrected. So even though we had this unexpected thing come at us—and even though it was not an easy thing—God's grace has seen to it that a worse unexpected event never grasped me by the hand and pulled me into the future. Chances are better now that the kids will grow up with a father, that I'll wake up each morning and my husband will still be there.

So I see time as a two-way road. We travel time in one direction while our events come at us from the other direction. We can reach out and grasp them as they go by or we can take them for granted. I'm a grasper. That's why I like to take pictures and record my music. The moment will always, in a sense, be with me.

We can choose, of course, to ignore the event that's here now while looking ahead to some future thing we don't really have yet. Or we can mull over some past thing that has no right to ruin our present, but could if we let it.

I choose to reach out and grasp the moment. Speaking of which, there's a beautiful fall day outside, I have a camera, and I've been sitting at this keyboard a bit too long...........

perspective

2008-10-10T10:13:00.004-05:00

Its been a few weeks. Not much has been going on. It seems like classes are starting to blend seamlessly with the rest of my life. The boys are adjusting well. I'm adjusting well and love learning all kinds of new things. Good times :)

----

I've never been to hung up on being in the 'in crowd' or not being there. Needless to say since it wasn't important, I was *so* not 'in'. Therefore its never been a concern of mine whether my boys were 'in' or not. After all they are boys and boys seem to be just not concerned about that sort of thing.

Enter the Birthday. We had the birthday party for B last Saturday. B'day parties aren't high on my priority list, but I try to make the day special for the boys. And we celebrate every passing year, in a special way. Some years I'll wake them up extra early and 'make' them eat cake for breakfast. One year we took B to Chicago for the day. Sometimes we will do the party thing.

B has always wanted a mini golf birthday party, but because his b-day is in mid October and we live in the midwest that has never been possible. Too cold and the mini golf place closes at the end of September. Well after much nagging this year, we booked the last available day to have the party, Oct. 4th. I figure, its just to celebrate the passing of time, it doesn't have to be on the day, we will do it.

So we go and invite all the kids that B is friends with. Being that we homeschool - there weren't very many to begin with and then there was a make up football game for 1/2 of them that had been rescheduled to the day. Well, there were just a handful that were able to be at the party. I was dissappointed, but oh well, its just a day and a time for fun for B and whoever can join him.

Like I said - I'm not concerned. Day of the party, we head over to the mini golf place. There was a party ahead of us. Again not a big deal. Until... a kid from the other party came up to B. It was someone he knew from one of the many activities the kids is in. He asked why B was there. B explains and the kids like where are all your friends? Its your party right?

At that moment it dawned on me. The party before ours was for a kid about the same age as B - it was one of those huge knock down drag out blasts of a party that all the kids are wanting to go to because 'everyone' is going. Like think 50 of your best-est friends in the world. (insert eye roll) Ok, then here's B's group, a mixed sort of group, 5 really tight friends, boys his age or younger or older, a girl, and J. Oh and then various older family members that wanted to see the birthday boy.

So there it was... A twinge of jealousy. I think my eye twitched as this boy from the other party asked again, so where are they? I don't remember how B handled it, I'm sure he did fine - despite a rough early start at socialism, his social skills are excellent for his age. Usually just the right mix of humor and a sparkling of wit and sarcasm for tough situations.

And for a few moments I watched the 'in' crowd. I was curious for a bit, what do 'in' people do? I lived vicariously through them, just for a bit. Then I looked back at my boy at his 11th b'day party. His friends were laughing and joking. Mutual acceptance. Everyone was comfortable with each other and with the adults. Relaxed fun. I glanced back at the 'in' crowd. Everyone is glancing at each other. Checking to make sure they were 'ok'. Making sure that that their presents or jokes where the best. Fun, but not quite so relaxed. Actually, if there was a 'how to be the best party attendee' award, a few of these kids would have been winners.

Jealousy cured. I love being ourselves. Take us or leave us just as we are. We aren't popular or perfect, but at least we know that we are liked.

A spin off of "Mommy" from Amy's perspective

2008-09-05T23:38:00.002-05:00

"Mommy" Awwww.......

That's a word that I love to hear. I hear it often. In all sorts of ways, whining, grunted, sing song, mommy come see what I found.

In contrast to you... I have been called Mommy for more than a third my life now. Its a role I'm fairly comfortable with. I didn't know it but its who I am now. It's embarrass slowly wrapped its arms around me, encompassing all I think about and all I do. Not a bad thing. Just how it is. 11 years of being mommy most of the time including the last almost 4 years of being nothing but mommy day in a day out.

One of the things that I love the best is taking the boys places. They are both at the age that they don't have to constantly touch me, but hover around, sometimes running ahead and sometimes lingering behind. Always close though. I never have to remind them of that. They actually like being with me. Anticipating what kind of cool things I'll point out or maybe some spontaneous fun that I'll cook up :)
---

So I started pre-req classes for nursing school last week. I LOVE it! Its interesting and challenging. B is as about as interested in my classes as I am, so I get to come home and tell him about everything I learn. Plus, one of my good friends is watching the boys so instead of catching up every few weeks, I get to chat with her everyday!

But something's different. All of a sudden I'm not 'just a mom' anymore. This thought occurred to me all of a sudden this week. Of course I've found a group of mommy friends - I seem to attract young mom's :D Something about that gives people an instant connection...

People in our classes are getting to know each other. I've been asked what occupation I used to have. Well... way back when I used to have a fun and fulfilling job as a graphic designer. But that wasn't important. In between, spending time connecting with my kids, teaching them, entertaining them. That's what is guiding me. Its interesting because I used to really love graphics. But the less I did graphics the less I wanted to do more. The more I connected with real people, the more I wanted to not spend my life behind a computer screen. The more I wanted to help people. Really help.

So anyway, I'm lost in my retelling... But somehow I was jerked out of my mommy role. Again I am someone besides the boys's mom. (Of course I still am their mom, but ya know) So when I realized that I was kind of shocked. Surprised. So, now I'm not 'just a mom'... ;)

Of course all this while I've been dialoguing with Abba. Please get me through this day... this week... this semester these pre-reqs. Guide me, keep me fresh and compassionate. Heiress used to use this line and I think I should probably, too. God, keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth. Yes, I'm not as shy about things as I was the first time to school. And I think that I need to work on being a little more selective about what I say :)

I think I lost something in translation... but ask me in person & I'll explain it better... Meanwhile, first test is on Monday! Am I ready? :D

On Parenting and Prayer

2008-08-31T16:49:00.002-05:00

The title “Mommy” comes as a mixed blessing. I hear that word spoken a lot these days, and after 35 years of just being “Connie,” the new title still takes me by surprise; even ten years later. “Mommy.”

Several years ago one of my daughters, I forget which one, experimented a time or two with calling me “Connie.” I let her know that it was NOT going to be okay to call me that; I was “Mommy” to her. The name "Mommy" was special between her and me and she was to use it. Now that they’re both getting into their “mid-preteens,” I’ve tried to let them know that “Mom” would be okay with me, but these days they’re the ones who insist on calling me “Mommy.” Mom just doesn’t sound right to either of them. Yet.

I hear the title maybe a hundred times a day or so. Sometimes when I hear “Mommy” I kind of have to grit my teeth and prepare. I hear it whined at the top of somebody’s lungs (I didn’t even know you could whine at the top of your lungs!). “MO-O-O-O me-e-e-e-e!” I know something’s not right in somebody’s world and she's expecting, right or wrong, that I’m to do something about it. Sometimes it feels like a burden. Sometimes it feels like an accusation. Like somebody’s saying, “I’m hungry and YOU’RE not doing anything about it! What’s WRONG with you?” So I sigh, pull myself out of the equation and decide which to address first—the need the child feels, or the tone of the child’s voice. If it’s not an emergency I’ll have her try again, coming to me without a whine. It’s a bit like hitting your head against a brick wall. I’ve been doing it numerous times a day for years. I’m assuming one day they’ll both get it.

And then there’s this other way I hear the title, “Mommy.” It starts with a feeling, little butterfly hands, and arms wrapping themselves softly around my waist (it used to be my thigh), and then the word, sweetly: “Mommy.” When I hear that word, spoken that way, it doesn’t matter what I’m doing. I’m immediately drawn away from my task and that child becomes the focus of my attention.

* * *

This summer we started a nice mommy-daughter ritual. It really started when my sister was here and we went to the library, checked out some books and took them over to a coffee shop. Well, we’ve done that ever since, every Thursday when my husband was at work. Only school is back in session now, and we can’t really go on Thursdays. ‘Sokay, though, Roger works on Saturdays too and so we go every Saturday now—just the three of us. Roger has his own daddy-daughter rituals—hikes and trips to the YMCA; the library is ours.

So this past Saturday a neighbor kid’s dad called and asked if my girls wanted to come over and play. I explained what we were doing and offered to let his daughter come along, which he did. They enjoy playing with this neighbor kid, so a trip up town would be fun, I thought, for the three of them. It was set. We were all getting ready to go, and they were to cross the street to get the neighbor girl. I reminded them to look both ways (mothers!), turning back to the kitchen as the door closed. Then I felt the butterfly hands—arms hugging my waist, and a soft voice said, “Mommy.” I turned to give her a hug and saw her furrowed brow.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?” I asked with a quick squeeze.

“I think I just wanted it to be a Mommy-daughter thing” was her reply. She was asking what no true southern woman—or former southern woman—can give. She was asking that I take back an invitation.

But you know what? The thing she asked for was exactly what I really wanted. A Mommy-daughter day. And the way she asked was extraordinarily sweet. We went ahead and took the neighbor girl along with us, because it was the right thing to do, but from now on it’ll be just the three of us.

* * *

So there’s been a journey going on with me, starting with a quest for healing for my child’s eyes. I heard about some healing revival going on somewhere and suddenly realized it was something I really wanted for her. I’ve prayed quite a bit about it, and seen her eyes progress from very crossed to almost normal. And now, with school starting and a tougher schedule, she’s regressed some and her eyes cross again as she looks back at me. But you know, I’m glad I asked. And I’m still asking, because the prayer has added a sweetness to my life and her crossed eye really is better than it was.

But it’s not just about the eye anymore, much as I’d like to see that resolved. I’ve journeyed through some wild places—spiritually speaking. And even as the healing revival has imploded, just as one would expect where inhumane pressure was placed on the shoulders of a single human to carry the thing—even still, I’ve learned how to pray. When you pray, you don’t put on your whiniest voice and wheedle, “A-A-A-A-A-ba-a-a-a-a! Abbah FA-A-A-A-ther!” “DA-A-A-A-A-de-e-e-e-e! I NE-E-E-E-ED this! You PRO-mised! What’s that ‘by His stripes’ passage about if it’s not about my situation right here!? Huh?”

Uh—no. That’s not the way. Unless you really want God to grit His teeth, sigh, and turn to you and deal with your tone of voice.

There’s a better way. You find your way to His presence, wrap your arms around the sweetness of it, and just enjoy for a while. “Daddy.” And the more time you spend there the more you begin to sense what He wants to do. And those are the things you ask for. And it starts out as a laying down of your own wants, a sacrifice, but then the more time you spend there the more you actually WANT the things that He wants, and the prayers start to change, and the things He wants are the things you ask for, because you feel His big heart and sense His real hurts and you want to see His Heart’s desire be fulfilled. So God’s things are your things.

Today I’m still praying for my child’s healing. It’s not because that’s what I want anymore, although I deeply want that. And to be honest, I’m still not really sure He wants her to be healed in the present. But I am sure of one thing. He wants me to pray it. I sense it when I ask. Maybe because it’s the catalyst that draws me to Him. Maybe it really IS what He wants to do. Maybe it’s about all the fringe benefits—time spent with God, drinking in His sweetness, carrying that back out to the world around me. Maybe there’s some other reason I don’t understand yet. But I know this—if He wants me to ask, I feel no need to whine, and I feel no need to be shy about it. I do feel the need to touch Him, to say His name, to enjoy His presence, and I find in the process I am healed myself.

Birthday Flowers

2008-07-27T18:11:00.003-05:00

It's hard to explain how I viewed beauty as a child. Oddly. Differently. I suppose I stared out the window around six months old or so, just like any child does. But my memories, of course, don't start that early. My memories tend to center around endless stops at scenic overlooks, waiting while my father took snapshots of valleys or flower gardens. If you look through our old photo albums you'll find pictures of my sister and me pointing at flowers, pointing at rock formations, pointing at historical markers, pointing at faraway mountains—all staged. “Point at the tiger lilies.” “Which ones are the tiger lilies?” “The one that looks like tigers.” “Oh, okay.” Snap. Another one for the album.

Those long roadtrips up and down the eastern seaboard have become an blur of endless stretches, my sister and I snoozing and staring out the car window, followed by tedious stops to look at pretty things. You got out of the smelly car, drowsy from heat, shuffled along with my dad. You stopped and looked, you wished it to be over with, looked at more stuff, then got back in the car for another long stretch of staring and snoozing.

As I grew older my appreciation for natural beauty utterly failed to grow. I'd seen it all, staring blearily over guardrails, the backs of my knees tickled by sweat from plastic car seat covers. I found nature sometimes fascinating, but I did not find it beautiful. It was beautiful because everyone said it was.

I lived on the campus of a home for kids with different kinds of problems. My dad was the chaplain there, and we lived near where the teachers were housed, about a half mile from the school house. So it was not uncommon for me to find myself walking to school with a teacher. I remember one evening—I would have been about fourteen-- my sister and I were walking to supper. The cafeteria was also at the school end of campus, and we were walking with my English teacher, whom I admired. There was an unusual cloud formation overhead and my sister and the teacher were commenting on it. Half the sky was covered by clouds. The other half was clear and blue, with a distinct line marking the boundary between the two halves of the sky. I remember thinking, “It's the edge of a cloud front!” and feeling a delicious thrill at the thought of seeing the edge of a cloud front. The teacher said what she thought the clouds looked like. My sister said what she thought the clouds looked like. I said, “It looks like the edge of a cloud front.”

The teacher said, with a chuckle, “Oh, Connie, shut up!” The kind of laugh you would share with a smart alecky peer, but I wasn't a peer and I wasn't being smart alecky (not this time, anyway). Her comment stung, but I laughed to cover. My sister said later, “Your mouth laughed but your eyes definitely didn't laugh.”

I saw some beauty, but not in the traditional places you look for it. My mother would set me to washing the dishes and there I'd be, an hour later, holding a handful of foam up to a window, watching soap bubbles slide down my hand. I don't know if you know this, but if the sun shines through a soap bubble it creates a prism. And a handful of bubbles was like a fairyland of globes, each one shining with its own little rainbow. I admit it. I was an odd child.

Later on, when I started dating, the flowers started rolling in. I didn't get it, but I pretended I did. I mimicked the way other girls exclaimed over flowers. I learned you could put a corsage in the refrigerator and make it last a week, so I dutifully put corsages in the fridge and threw them away when they turned brown. Woo hoo.

* * *

Ironically I went to Toccoa Falls College, one of the most beautiful college campuses anywhere. I was told I ought to go enjoy the falls all I could, so I took my homework up there a time or two. My homework got damp. After that I studied in my room or the library.

I enjoyed hiking with friends. There were cookouts above the falls and campfires with guitars, so I certainly recognized that nature had its benefits. And while I did not always appreciate nature's beauty, I was utterly fascinated with its wildness.

Near the end of my college career I moved off campus, away from the college scene. I slowed down on classes so I could work more hours. At the slowed-down pace my friends began to graduate and move away. I developed new friends; friends with lives apart from school and its social life.

Then came the Birthday; the birthday nobody remembered. I went through classes as usual that day, then stopped by the snack bar to visit with a friend—my best friend at the time. We talked for a while, and I don't know how it came out, but I remember she suddenly exclaimed, “It's your birthday, isn't it? Oh, Connie, I forgot completely!” I graciously accepted the apology, but then the day continued just like any other. Not that I expected anything. Well......

--most of that day went unmarked.

I got back to the house where I was living alone at the time and settled into some serious self-pity. “Well, buck up, kiddo,” I said to myself. “There are just going to be times in your life when you're going to be alone.”

Then this scripture popped into my head. Funny how that happens. The verse was, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

“I know, Lord,” I said, sniffling. “And it's not that I don't appreciate your being here all the time, forever. It's just that—well, sometimes you just need that human touch—just to be told you're special.” I summed it up-- “You can't send me flowers.”

Petulant youth. He knew as well as I did how much (or how little) I appreciated flowers.

I was hungry, so I pulled myself together and fixed a little something for supper. I pouted over the dishes. I looked out the window into the back yard and saw a miracle.

A bed of daffodils had apparently been planted by someone along the middle of the yard, and the gardener had mowed around them, and they were budding now. Today—the unmarked day—the daffodils had all gone from bud to bloom. Not staggered out over a week, but all in one day. I quickly dried my hands and rushed out to handpick my own bouquet. I hadn't known there were so many varieties of daffodils! All in bloom right on my birthday! And you know what? They were beautiful. Each one a little marvel, and proof that God loved me and marked my birthday.

I set my bouquet from God on a counter in the kitchen. That evening every time I walked by them, the fresh aroma was a sweet reminder of the miracle, like a little smile between God and me. I've never again had a birthday that no one remembered. But no birthday stands out as being more precious.

I love flowers these days! I can't get enough of them. I look for them everywhere I go. And I'll travel a long way to look at scenery, and I love to take pictures (although I don't make my kids point at things). It's all a marvel, and I view beauty in nature as a gift from God.

So last night my family visited a retired co-worker of Roger's. She gardens avidly now, and loves to share her hobby with company. She showed me around her garden, and I wished I had brought a camera. Later we sat and talked outdoors for a while, then she made us go stand around these little plants—evening primrose, she said they were, and they bloomed at dusk. There was one pretty little yellow blossom, which I admired, but she said, just wait. We stood there and talked for a while, then—I kid you not--a bud bloomed right there as I watched. Then another. Each bud, in turn, bloomed. It's one of the most moving experiences I've had.

On the drive home it occurred to me that this experience was a gift. I mean, an actual, planned, thought-out gift. Yesterday I found myself thinking of that long-ago birthday bouquet, then the primrose show followed that very evening. I said to God, “YOU planned that, didn't You?” Does God smile at us? If He does, He did right then.

L'Chaim

2008-07-20T16:49:00.003-05:00

This past week I found myself in the most rare of privileged positions. My sister was in the house. My family had to behave to a relative degree. They had company. My sister had to behave—she was a guest. I, on the other hand—it was my sister, against whom I had faced off in the most competitive of burping contests. My sister will never be quite company to me, and therefore I could pretty much behave as I pleased.

She's all filled up with life. When we were teens she was the boy-magnet, all blond and blue-eyed, spending her babysitting money on pretty things, make-up to enhance her natural good looks and Tiger Beat magazines. I was the auburn, freckled Celt, no big fan of babysitting or little kids in general. My money was made walking dogs and spent on model cars and airplanes.

She once made a rather prophetic comment. She said, “I won't have kids. I'll be the eccentric aunt who comes bubbling in to spice up YOUR kids' life, and then swoops off to live her own life some more.” At the time it seemed far-fetched and I laughed. Today, she is indeed that aunt—sweeping in on a cloud of charismatic personality, showing my girls a good time and leaving behind a trail of fun memories.

She came alone this time, flying to a nearby city and coming in on the train. I picked her up at the depot and drove her home. The train schedules aren't good here in the Midwest, so to get to my town's station would have involved a long day on the train with a rather long layover in Chicago. I opted to pick her up halfway between St. Louis and Chicago and drive her the two hours to my house, a drive that gave us sisters a rare opportunity to chat. She had brought a treasure with her, and she drove so I could pull it out of her laptop case. It was pages and pages of stories.

My aunt, my mother's oldest sister, lost her husband a couple of years ago and is living with her daughter, my cousin. Luckiest of old ladies, her stories are being written down and preserved by her daughter; family lore, stories of my sweet grandaddy and feisty, scary grandmother. And those stories now sat in my lap, over 100 pages photocopied, for me to keep.

I couldn't help but glance at the treasures in my lap as we chatted on the way home. There was so much there to remember, and even more to read and absorb for the very first time.

* * *

Some of this stuff I had already heard from other relatives. My cousin Sammy, for instance. Sammy and I have struck up a friendship over the years based on a mutual interest in family history. When Sammy was a kid he and his brother were sent to live with our grandparents, about the time my mother was in her teens. They were there because his family was struggling, pretty hard. Sammy's mom, my aunt, had gone away to “rest.” She had been run ragged, you see, worrying over her husband's gambling addiction. Life was rough on that family, and the kids were at the grandparents' so she could do her thing; and then they sorted things out and came together as a family again.

Things didn't really pull together for Sammy's dad, though, not until he was saved and swept into what was then the new Charismatic movement. He was never the same after that. Never went back to the old stuff. Much later, after the kids were grown, Sammy's mom and dad did a lot of things with my family for a while.

I will always remember the excitement we felt, my sister and I, when Aunt Sally and Uncle Sam pulled into our driveway. Aunt Sally was a true Southern eccentric lady with her big floppy hats, classy southern drawl and peculiar ways. Uncle Sam stood in stark contrast. A Brooklyn-raised Italian, thick with an accent that made him sound somehow important to our southern ears. He was a believer, of course, by then, full of stories of his ministry to drug addicts, his work with troubled youth, and his relationship with God. He would tell a story in the way that leaves you clinging, white-knuckled, to the edge of your seat.

We went to Opryland in Nashville one year, my family and Aunt Sally and Uncle Sam. Back then there was this roller coaster there called the “Wabash Cannonball.” I'd never been on an upside-down roller coaster before, and I gulped nervously, staring up wide-eyed as this one loomed over us. I loved a good roller coaster, though, and it didn't take any convincing to get me in line with my sister and Uncle Sam. My parents hung back with Aunt Sally, happy to wait until we got through the half-hour line for two minutes of insanity.

We finally did get through the line and rode the coaster. I remember screaming and raising my hands and my long hair dangling over the ground as we were thrown upside down in the corkscrew turn. Uncle Sam went white under his dark brown skin and he lost all the change from his pockets. Too soon it was over and we rounded the last turn and pulled into the station. My sister and I were laughing weakly as we were walking away when Uncle Sam cried, “Let's do it AGAIN!” and we got in line and waited a half hour to do it again. Uncle Sam was an adult who knew how to play, and this was an amazing thing for us to see, like a gift. And we loved him for it.

He was so full of life that it came as an extra hard shock weeks later when Aunt Sally called and said he had died of a massive heart attack. My dad took the call, told us the news and then retreated into himself. We all retreated, walking around the house as though lost, like strangers, not making eye contact. I didn't know why I couldn't talk about it. I guess I was embarrassed to see my pain mirrored in my family's faces; and there was my fragile mother to protect and shield, and you couldn't shield her from this one. So she kept to herself so I wouldn't feel bad, and I kept to myself so she wouldn't feel bad, and we all kept to ourselves and felt bad anyway.

* * *

So this time it was my sister pulling up to a house, and this time it was MY house, and she was swept in to smothery hugs from two excited little girls, another set of sisters, MY daughters.

But on that two-hour drive she had dropped a seed that found a nagging spot in my thoughts. She says that these days she takes anti-depressants to cope. And she says that often they don't seem to be enough and she entertains thoughts of ending her life. We talked of depression and what it's like to be middle-aged women, of medical things and such.

The week moved on as if nothing had been said. As usual I entertained hopes that this was the visit where the tide turns and she comes to know God as her friend. But again this wasn't to be the time. She remains ensconced in the belief that what she would give up is greater than what she would gain. She spent her days entertaining my family while we entertained her, and then the two of us talked late into the nights. We talked of family and laughed uproariously over the dysfunctions of our childhood years. It was all good and fun.

My family of origin is, of course, very different from my husband's family. His is much more healthy in many ways. He and his parents tend to travel through life, though, not stopping along the way, a constant making of plans and carrying them out and moving on quickly to the next set of plans. Even an evening slide show at Roger's parents' house is an event to be planned, carried through and then you move on, planning the events of the next day. I, on the other hand, like the stops. I view life as a series of snapshots, where you collect remembrances from each stop on the timeline.

We built lovely snapshots, remembrances, this week. Thursday Roger went off to spend the day in the Quad Cities working, so it was just us girls. The four of us went to the library, then we marched, armed with books, across the street to spend time at a local coffee shop. My daughters dove into their books, while my sister and I pulled out laptops and spent some time surfing the net. It's a wonderful little coffee shop owned by Christians. The internet is free, kids are welcome (there's even a little play area), the coffee is good and the chocolate-laced desserts are delicious.

We spent much of the afternoon there, then my sister walked up the street to scout out a new Italian bistro in town. She made them photocopy their menu for her and brought it back for me. The menu looked good, so we packed up our things and relocated.

There was an indoor balcony, which of course piqued the kids' interest. We were told it was kind of warm up there but we climbed up to check it out anyway. It was comfortable, with fans gently blowing the air in cross breezes. We stayed. The small balcony was empty except for us, with a quaint view of the town square through filtered blinds on one side and the bustling downstairs on the other. There was a sofa and overstuffed chairs to which we could retire after our meal if we wanted.

The evening was like a gift. The two sisters and the two sisters, out together, we raised our glasses in a toast—a lemonade, an apple juice, a raspberry tea and a glass of fine wine. With the view of the town on the one side and the lively little restaurant on the other, the toast that came to mind was, “L’Chaim.” To life. And my sister's laugh rang out, that appreciative laugh you give when “L’Chaim” is invoked in a toast. But there was something more I wanted to say with the toast, so I cast about for the right words. “To quote the one good line from that unremarkable Lionel Richie song,

'Life is good, wild and sweet.'”

And we connected. I could tell because her brows raised and she nodded appreciatively as our glasses clinked and we toasted the evening, with the balcony to ourselves, the view, the cross breezes and the “sisters squared” and all of life.

Friday my sister and I wandered the house, restless, the last day of a lovely visit. We quarreled over nothing and made up with tears and sweetness. On the way back to the train depot, just the two of us again, I asked her to call the next time she entertained thoughts of suicide. I laughingly threatened to put one of the kids on the phone when she did. It was an ignorant thing to say and of course I would never do that, but I do want her to call; and I wanted to drop my own seed, a remembrance of the ones who would be hurt the most.

Sometimes when you entertain such self-driven thoughts you forget those who would be hurt the most by the action. Feelings overwhelm and loom larger than life, urging you to snuff it out. But the world left behind by someone who voluntarily checks out leaves the biggest of holes, and as hard as it is to imagine going on with life, it's harder to imagine the hole that the memory of your stolen life would leave.

Saturday I found myself avoiding God, wandering the house, restless for I don't know what. My sister's absence from the table was keenly felt. I wonder if my feeling of loss found a mirror in God's sense of loss. She's also absent from HIS family table. Life is so fragile. Time is so fleeting. I'm never quite comfortable with the fact that she's not safely enfolded in God's family yet. Maybe say a prayer for my sister today.

Time is now fleeting; the moments are passing,

Passing from you and from me.

Shadows are gathering; death's night is coming,

Coming for you and for me.

Come home; come.

You who are weary, come home.

Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling,

Calling, “O sinner, come home!”

* * *

Saturday night as I was getting the kids ready for bed, I asked my youngest to say her prayers. She opened her mouth and burst into tears. I wrapped my arms around her and she molded herself against me. We ached together for a bit. She has a hard time saying goodbye, you see, and hasn't learned any skills for hiding her emotions. I keep hoping she'll never have to learn them, but she probably will anyway.

We stayed together for a while like that, then I tucked her in and went in to say good night to her older sister. I laid down by this one's side and we talked about things, facing them without fear, staring at the ceiling while we talked. Life is a wonder, but it's also a shadowy, rocky road. It's much better if you face it together.

Calling For a Flood

2008-06-20T11:50:00.005-05:00

So the summer has begun in earnest. I stay up late, just because I can. My family and I spend the days together, I tuck the kids into bed, my husband stays up as late as he can, kisses me goodnight and goes to bed, and then the house is mine.

Not that I'm going to turn the music up loud and dance till I drop. Nothing like that. I enjoy being alone, because in the alone times, especially the late-night alone times, this creative groove kicks in and I find words and music to express the stuff that goes on inside.

There's a price to pay for this lifestyle, of course. Sleep patterns get disrupted, I wake up late, and it's incredibly hard to go to bed early on Saturday night, Sunday being the one day a week when early-morning things are required. Recently, oddly, I've been waking up around 5:30 am, unable to get back to sleep. I'll sit up until maybe 7 or 7:30, then I go back to bed and sleep a few more hours. This morning, for instance. I woke up, looked at the clock: 5:42. Well, good grief. I tried to get back to sleep, couldn't, so I hauled myself out of bed for a while.

The flooding situation here in the Midwest has reached the point of obsession, so I turned on the 6:00 news. Our local television channels come from Mississippi River cities, so I watched an entire news broadcast, story after story on the historic flooding. Up and down the river, town after town, levees were broken and towns were flooding, or levees being shored up by armies of sand baggers. I saw a piece of footage where prison inmates were working alongside farmers, and a clip of Amish working alongside English (that's what Amish people call us), all working together to throw sandbags on the levees. In some places the work is in vain and the river had already burst through. In others, the herculean effort was paying off. Ironically, the only people who seemed relaxed and at peace were the folks of one town that has no levee at all. “We just move out for a few days, then we'll clean up,” with a shrug. “It's a river. It happens.” Happened in '93 and a little in '01. So they move out for a few days. Another story I've seen shows a stretch of levee where the water started to seep through the sandbags, the workers knew what was at stake, so they got up on top of the levee and squished the sandbags down, stopping the water.

I watched for a while, then hovered somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. I saw visions of levees and sandbags—thousands of sandbags, and a river flinging itself forcefully against them. The river was made, not of water, but of people; people tired of man-made barricades holding them back, tamed by levees, straining to return to a natural ebb and flow, the pulse that would fertilize a soil without artificial sprays and chemicals. It was jumbled, like dreams are, and it seemed absolutely normal that this river of people should be striving to breach the levees and flood the earth.

I startled awake and turned off the television. The clock told me it was close to seven. The basement invited me, cool and dark, so I laid down there on the bed, drifted off and slept. I woke up close to ten, feeling strangely refreshed.

* * *

In the 1990s the late Fuchsia Pickett came to the church I attended at that time. She talked at great length about how the Holy Spirit, when He fills a place, or when He sends a great outpouring, does not necessarily have to fall down upon us. He is meant to rise from within us. Her message irritated me somehow. Falling down on me seemed so much better than rising from within me. What was within me seemed measurable and limited, somehow. Surely all the action was from what comes to me from above. We've always sung songs and prayed prayers to God, asking Him to fall upon us. That has always been my understanding of revival.

When I was young we would have revival once a year or so. A traveling evangelist would come and preach at church for a week, and unsaved people would turn up and get saved, or churched kids who weren't saved yet would go forward and make their decision. If you were already saved, you didn't have to feel left out in the cold for long. Eventually he would call for those Christians who'd grown cold to rededicate their lives. If the altars weren't filling up fast enough, he might call on those who felt the call to full-time ministry. Eventually he might call for those who yearned for more of God. There was an altar experience for anyone and everyone. But you waited all year for the big man of God to come to your church, and you would have your outpouring, and he would move on to the next church.

Or there might be the odd Sunday when the LORD would fall upon the place and the pastor would open up the altar and it would fill up. But always there was the sense that God, the mighty Yahweh Himself, was falling or raining down upon us, and the pastor, the man of God, was facilitating. For me and others like me, there was not much I could add to the drama. I could receive what the LORD was pouring out. I could then be strengthened to go out and live my Christian life and lead others to God, but in the ongoing drama of the outpouring I was almost always on the receiving end.

A few Sundays ago when I asked God for an outpouring, He said okay. That day wasn't to be a pouring out from above, but a flowing out from within, and I didn't even know it until it all started pouring out of me into our congregation. I guess what I was asking for was for God to fall on the place or send something big from outside myself. I don't know; maybe He did all that stuff. But to me the wonder was that instead of pouring down on my receptive heart, He poured OUT of my willing heart. Just like Dr. Pickett used to say. The mighty Yahweh Himself. Not pouring through the great man of God, but pouring out through a nameless, faceless mom, a Godseeker.

See, I think my daughter's eye situation has made me hungry. Hungry, first, to see her get healed. Then, hungry to know why some times and places get special treatment. Then, hungry to have God pour out His Spirit here, too. In THIS time and in THIS place. This hunger, I think, is good. Scary, but good.

* * *

The flooding continues here in the Midwest. The rains have stopped, but it's too late to stop the river from cresting. Engineers know that, and, of course, no effort is made to slow the flow, just to keep it in. The river will crest, even though the rain has stopped and inland gardeners like me are getting ready to start irrigating again. The rains have slowed down. They even stopped for a while, but it's too late. All the water upstream from us, the rivers and the brooks and even the drainage ditches are already swollen and rising and even cresting as they join the mighty Mississippi and flow on till they reach us down here in the heartland. And by the time it all gets here the river rages as it strains against the manmade levees topped with sandbags thrown on in desperation. That's how on a beautiful, sunshiny day you have a river breaching levees in a dozen spots, pouring out into the floodplain. The water isn't coming from above now. The rains have come, the rivers are full and the levees can't contain the water. The river is full of it, and it's pouring itself out.

And God is pouring Himself out there in Florida. It's still going on, and people are going down there and catching hold of something and taking it back to wherever they came from And other people are watching on GodTV or on the Internet, and God is bringing an Awakening, like we've prayed for all these years. Is this a big Awakening? I don't know. People say it is. It could be. I think I hear an undercurrent of worry from people involved in that outpouring. Will it stop? How can we keep it from stopping too early? If this is the Big One, will we somehow fail God with our polluted humanity?

Honestly, I'm not sure it matters too much. Because back at the headwaters the rains have already fallen. Up and down the river, many rains have fallen. Every revival, every Awakening, every outpouring, every tent meeting, has brought rain to saturate the earth and fill the brooks, streams and rivers. Rains may continue to fall, or they may stop or slow for a while. But at some point, maybe even at this point, it's too late to stop the swell of the river of God's people. And all the denominational levees, built to contain us and keep us safe and neat and tidy, won't be able to stop the flood that's set to pour out on the earth and wash and fertilize it.

* * *

Almost since the beginning of the Church, there have been schisms and splits and differences. Like it or not, we're divided now, and set into neat streams of God's family, with walls built to hold us in. Levees. And like it or not, those things are there, and so firmly ingrained that I can't personally even imagine a world without denominations and the four walls of church buildings glaring at each other from across the street.

But, see, if the Holy Spirit really catches hold of people like He caught hold of me that one Sunday, then there wouldn't be any of these movements where everyone looked to one man to carry the day. We would look to Jesus within us, Jesus seeking to reach out in love through us, and I can see a great river of us—people who strive to reach out past the neatly built floodgates, the walls of our churches and denominations, flinging ourselves against the floodgates, battering the boundaries until the levees are breached—and we pour God's love out into the streets, and the walking dead, the hungry, the unsaved, will stand open-mouthed as we pour ourselves out into the streets, not seeking somebody's agenda, not making names for ourselves, but sweeping out over the levees into a desolate world. Doing it the natural way—not relying on door-to-door, planned outreaches and Personal Evangelism programs, but soaring from place to place, sharing God's love wherever we go, wherever we find ourselves. And there would be no squishing down the levees, for the flood would sweep over and the levees would be breached, unable to contain the epic flood.

And I know this would be disturbing to our civil engineers, our levee-builders, the ones who truck themselves off to Seminary to school themselves on key doctrines, not only of the Faith, but also of denominations. I know, because honestly, this all disturbs me too. Deeply frightens me, because there's no game plan and there's no clear exit strategy. There's just trust. Not trust in me, thankfully. Not trust in the guy through whom the latest rainstorm started. There's trust in God. God made the river that flowed before people came along and built levees. He made the Church before we built the denominations that hold us in and make us feel safe. He was there before us, and He will be there after us, and He wishes to flow through us and flood the earth.

“Hear me now. I'm calling for a flood.” (John Waller, Calling for a Flood)

The Sunday outflow:

http://realgodseekers.blogspot.com/2008/05/angels-outpourings-and-such.html

Mud, a Wet Wipe, and a Healing Touch

2008-06-16T16:17:00.002-05:00

This past week was Vacation Bible School at church. The kids all got a chance to get out of the house every night for a week and do some really fun crafts and games. The church got a chance to pull together and do a project that has lasting meaning in young lives. And parents got a chance to have a break every evening for a week.

Everybody wins. Oh, wait. Everybody, that is, except me. Yeah, I signed up to do Vacation Bible School. I wasn't going to. I get so burned out from teaching. This was a really hard year for behavioral issues, and with added responsibilities on the church praise team I was ready to do nothing for a while once school was out.

However, I did agree to a fairly non-involved job. I was simply to take kids around from one station to the next. Crafts, snacks, games, a short movie, a teaching time. All I had to do was herd the crowd. Right? So I said, if I can have that simple job, I'll do it. I'll be a crew leader.

So began a week of keeping kids from pounding on each other and doing permanent damage to church property. Oh, and there were a few “extra”responsibilities this year. At some stations we actually had to round up the kids afterward and help them process what they learned there. Ask questions. Have group discussions. Help them find ways to apply what they've learned. Sigh. I just wanted an easy job.

Yeah, you know, it's funny. I noticed I'm the only teacher who signed up to help out with VBS. Most of them know their limits. All of this and more came to mind as I was grouching after the first evening.

The second night was pretty rough, too. They've split kids up into multi-age groups this year, so that you might have 5 year olds all the way up to 12 year olds. The idea, I think, was that the older kids wouldn't be jostling into cliques and acting obnoxious and smart-alecky, but would instinctively help with the younger kids. And you wouldn't have a herd of five-year-olds all trying to beat each other up. Nice theory. Here's how it worked out. We had a couple of younger kids in my group, and one of them was always trying to beat up on the other one. We had a couple of older kids, and they jostled around and acted smart-alecky and obnoxious. And we had one kid in the middle who clung to me all week—my oldest daughter. This was my little VBS family of five kids for the week.

Tuesday night they were learning a lesson on helping others. The Bible story was the one where Jesus healed a blind man using mud and spit. When we got to the Bible story station the kids were herded into the room. They were given these athletic headbands to put over their eyes, and the lights were turned off. Once they were “blind” we crew leaders were each given a bowl of oatmeal, which was to be the “mud.” We were supposed to put some mud—not IN their eyes, of course, but ABOVE their eyes. So I was going around smearing a little oatmeal just above each. One girl, not on my crew, was a little freaked out. She did NOT want mud touching her body. Her crew leader let it go. Of course you don't want to traumatize the kids. I know this girl, so I went over to her, leaned over and whispered in her ear, “It's oatmeal.” She heard my voice, realized it wasn't going to be icky mud, and let me smear a little above each eye.

Unexpectedly, something changed inside me during that little exchange of trust. There was a welling up of compassion--caring for these kids, here to have a good time, instead finding themselves blinded with smears of “mud” on their faces. So as we went around the room with wet wipes (hey, we don't have a real pool of Siloam), and washed the “icky mud” off their faces, I found it had become an act of caring help, a kind of compassionate “service.” There was a hush in the room as we moved from child to child with those wipes. I don't know if you realize how unnatural the quiet was, given this rowdy group. One of my crew, a big, burly, clown-around eleven-year-old, was sitting quiet, waiting, his smooth child-brow marked with worried furrows. I wiped his face and whispered, “It's okay,” and watched his wrinkled brow relax and smooth out again. Then we were done, they counted to three, and all the kids took their headbands off, the lights went on, and kids blinked and squinted and laughed with relief.

After that things went back to normal; and yet, things weren't the same at all. Somehow after that the whole week seemed to go better. Kids weren't quite as obnoxious. Little boys weren't pounding on each other QUITE as much. And the older ones started helping out with the younger ones.

AND I got to see that healing at the pool of Siloam from a little bit of Jesus' point of view. And all the other healings He did. Yes, they were “signs” pointing to something important. But they were something else, too. I walked the room, clearing “mud” from eyebrows, whispering encouragement, having compassion on these little furrowed brows that were too young for furrows. Do you realize the depth of God's love for you?

* * *

I remember studying Jesus' miracles in Bible college. We had whole classes on the gospels—I remember Matthew—the class that covered the book. We went through chapter by chapter, discussing the miracles, explaining how they were “signs,” what they pointed to, the theological implications, etc. We knew any theological implication could appear on a test, so he would pause after a point, and you heard a roomful of pens scratching feverishly across paper as you scrambled to write everything down before he dove into the next point.

I wonder how Jesus felt about that? I mean, He was there in that room, wasn't He? We were given lectures on His miracles, His artwork, but all the compassion seemed drained out like liquid from a sieve, leaving a dry pile of theology--did He long for us to understand His heart, His motives? And all the while we were feverishly scratching out facts on blank notebook paper. Later, over supper, the hardcore theology students would debate facts for our entertainment, batting around God's love like a toy ball. I wonder how God felt as His heart was tossed back and forth casually over soup and salad.

* * *

People give and receive love in all kinds of ways. It's amazing how different we are. Some people go out of their way to show others they care by doing stuff they know somebody will like. Other people give gifts. There are people who love to hear the words, “I love you.” For others, it's touch. For a few, time spent together means everything. For me, it's always been appreciation.

When school ended we teachers were given a gift certificate for a trip to a day spa. A little pampering, they thought, would be just the thing for a hard-working bunch of teachers.

You can't imagine how grossed out I was. The thought of being touched by a stranger does NOT equal an afternoon of relaxation for me. A sentiment, I find, that few share or understand. And yet I would not be touched.

I whispered my heresy to a fellow teacher I trusted, who assured me that a manicure or pedicure would be nice. Or I could get a nice facial massage. Are you KIDDING? Don't TOUCH my FACE! But...the school board really appreciated us as teachers. I knew they did. And for the sake of being appreciated I went for a morning with the rest of the ladies and got my hands and feet buffed, dipped in paraffin wax, and a sissy pink shade of polish was applied to each finger and toe.

For me, see, appreciation is almost the same as caring. I really care about those farmers on the school board, trying to figure out how to appreciate a bunch of women teachers. I appreciate them. So I let them send me to a spa to get “purtied up,” showed my nails around everywhere, then a few days later I discreetly took polish remover to my fingernails.

* * *

When I first sent my oldest daughter to school, she would come home at night singing these nifty Bible songs to the rhythm of the backyard swing. I really appreciated that. I appreciated the fact that Bible was her first lesson of the day, and she was telling me Bible stories I hadn't gotten around to telling her yet. I know Christian school isn't for everybody but it was for us, and I saw great value in what they were giving my daughter.

So the next year on parent orientation night I found out my school was going to have to end its music program. The music teacher was retiring. I prayed and thought about it a few days and then offered my services. I would teach my daughter's class music every day. I don't think they heard the part about me offering it for just her class, because before I knew it I was swept into the entire music program, kindergarten through 8^th grade. They seemed a little apologetic when they asked if I could organize a couple of musicals a year. Well, why not? I said. I've done dance recitals and stuff like that. All righty then. And so I've been at it, now, just finishing up my fourth year. See, for me it's not that I really dig serving. It's that I really appreciate the school that teaches my kids the Bible, and helping with music is pretty much the least I could do. When you care about my kids you care about me. And I appreciate that, and I've come to care deeply about these people and their kids.

* * *

Have you ever been broken? We come to Christ broken, hurting and helpless to save ourselves. He cleans us up, sets us on the right path, because He already did what was necessary to save us. He wipes the mud from our eyes, whispers, “It's okay,” and then the light comes on and we blink, look around with delight, the spell of darkness broken. Then we spend the rest of our lives learning what He's given us.

I prefer to remain broken. I don't mean the pain, or the sin that caused it. I like the remembrance, because in the remembrance there's thankfulness and for me, thankfulness is love. It's why my eyes tear up sometimes at communion. It's why I'm at my best when I stay close to the fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins. It's what makes my writing, music and art such an enjoyment to me. It's because my life, when it's at its best, has become a thank you note to God.

So today, miraculously, my daughter's eyes are almost matched up. It's happened quickly in the last couple of days. It's a wonder to me, like living in the best kind of dream, and not wanting to wake up. I know what God is doing in my family is not just a sterile “sign,” although it may well point to something. When I first started this journey I thought of the faraway Lakeland miracles, and how God was doing some kind of strategic thing, and I thought it could never be for us. Or I thought of the long ago signs of the Gospels, and how they were a strategic thing that could never be for today.

What I didn't know was the compassion, the caring that went into each miracle. “Do you want to be healed?” He would say. Then, “Get up! Pick up your mat. Walk! That's right. Walk!” And people would do it, because He cared. A burdened sigh as He said, “Be opened.” Wept tears for their pain as He healed their dead.

I cry as I write this, partly because I was up late in the night, keyed up about the miracle that's happening in my daughter's eyes. I'm sleep deprived now, you see. But partly I cry because He is gently wiping the mud from my eyes, healing my daughter, saying, “It's okay,” and He cares. And I appreciate that.

Rainbows

2008-06-07T13:05:00.002-05:00

Just a short reflection that I started a month or so ago... And now I have the rest of the story to complete it :D

The other day (way back in May) we were driving back into town from the East, looking to the West. We never drive in that way, in fact we rarely get the chance to leave town anymore because of various commitments and involvements. And lack of time off.

Anyway, it hadn't been raining, but there was a lot of humidity in the air. Likely story for our part of the world :) Above us there was bit of a rainbow sticking out of the clouds. I looked around and saw some more pieces of the rainbow scattered through the sky, peeking in and out of the clouds.

A long time ago, LOL, when I was a girl living on the prairie. My mother called this event - a rainbow without rain - a sun dog.

Excitement thrilled through me. What a pleasant surprise - a gift from God, something to make me smile. He promised Noah with a rainbow. While it was meant for Noah, I felt an inkling of a promise to me too.

You see, here's how its been. Godseeker, do you remember way way back at bible study. You described a desert, parched dry, not much left to give. And then a well (our bible study) sprung up in the middle of that landscape. Well obviously over the course of a few years, that well has continued to flow and sprouted a few more and well now, you're practically living in the fertile crescent. LOL

Me on the other hand... Not quite so much. I've slowly been drying up. I mentioned last summer was an emotionally trying time. On top of that I was in several ministries/volunteering that I was in the constant, give give give cycle. I've had to slowly pull back, cuz there just ain't anything there to give! This is new, I'd never felt like this before. And I remembered your description of the desert, I was confused a little how anyone could know God and feel that. Now its clear.

So I went about stabilizing myself, cutting this, adding that, adjusting expectations. So through the winter and this spring I've been stable, things have been ok. I'm producing, not a lot. Overall, while not quite in the desert place, I feel mellow. Ok. not mellow - about two steps less than mellow - numb.

So I was asked to be on the church's softball team. Ok I'll pause for all the laughter.

Anyone who knows me... And yes my real name is attached to this, so I know that there are actually people who know me who might read this blog. {Hi, y'all! drop me a line!} Well, you know that I'm not athletic, I'm not even an athletic wannabe, I'm not even big on watching from the stadium. Read this as I have never touched a softball, nor do I have the foggiest on how to throw or hit or whatever anyone does with those things.

"So, are you in?" she asks...
"Absolutely," I'm crazy.

So I worked really hard this spring/early summer figuring it out. I played a few games. I hit the ball! I threw a ball that someone caught! I caught a ball! I got bruised! AND! I scored!!! :D I was so proud of myself!

Then it happened... all the voices started creeping in. "you're not a jock" "you can't do it" "they're just letting you feel good" "why are you doing this to yourself" "You surely can't be enjoying yourself" "Amy, This isn't safe"

Various people in my life were discouraging to me about this. And you know what. I liked playing! I really wanted to do it. But all of a sudden I couldn't. I couldn't go, I couldn't throw in front of anyone. Couldn't hit a ball.

I went through a lot of soul searching. Talking with God. Trying to figure it out.

So here's my sun dog. All the different colors arched across the sky. I tried to separate them. Where does one color let off and the next begin. They don't actually its such a gradual even shift in colors. Here's red. Bright clear, it keeps on being red. Then it's slightly tinged with orange. Just a little, but still clearly red. Then red and orange are both there together. Then its a little more orange and then red isn't there. They're side by side. And then yellow enters the picture. And all the way across the rainbow. Until you get to blue, which most certainly isn't red!

Sometimes changes happen so slowly and subtly that we don't notice. Until all of a sudden they are different. So God showed me this rainbow. The rain wasn't falling but the was a lot of moisture promising a change in weather soon. Well as circumstances would have it...

I think I figured things out (for about the billionth time) I went to the local CC and registered for "one" class this fall. Just one. The first one. The start of many. The beginning of a new color.

In about 3-4 years, I will no longer be Amy the SAHM who does graphic design also. I will be Amy, the nurse (who now has a lot of deep and rich life experiences to bring to this new profession). I am getting ready to add the next color to my rainbow :) Thank you, God for showing me the colors & helping me to rejoice with them!

Another Step in the Journey

2008-05-27T10:24:00.003-05:00

Sunday morning as we wrapped up praise team practice, it was time for Sunday school and the seniors were starting to trickle in for their class in the sanctuary. Last Sunday I remember going over to Carol and asking her how she was. Found out she was scheduled for this heart cathaterization last Wednesday, and was scared half out of her mind.

This morning was such a different picture. Carol had come in, put her Bible down, and hobbled to the front in fast motion. She was on a mission, and that mission was ME. She came up to me and said, “I want to THANK you for praying for me,” which is what I had done. Others prayed, too, not just me. That way nobody gets credit but God, eh?

So Carol said while she was getting this cathaterization she felt the prayers of all these people. She also said she had prepared for her ordeal by getting together a list of scripture she could say from memory while it was going on. As they started the procedure she started her scriptures. They finished before she did. “We're all done.” She said, “It's over? I'm not finished!”

But the really cool part is this: when they checked her out a while back she had a 45% blockage. Wednesday she had NO blockage. None. She went home with a clean bill of health, at least on her heart. Now she's going to be able to get her knee replaced, which is why they were checking the health of her heart. No more hobbling ANYWHERE on a mission. So we'll be praying for Carol June 18th, which is when her knee replacement surgery is scheduled. I'm also praying, BTW, that knee replacement will be rendered unnecessary.

As I went out into the entryway to go downstairs, I gasped. Kenny was there, greeting people at the door just like he always does. Kenny loves to welcome people in, hand them a bulletin, shake their hand, be the first to give them a smile on a Sunday morning. But, see, we buried Kenny's wife Thursday. Nobody would have thought any less of him if he'd stayed home today. Here he was, giving me my bulletin, and even mustering a smile, and I looked him in the eye, not to pry, but to connect with him today.

It happened really unexpectedly. Last Sunday after church, after that glorious service where I soared on wings from person to person, I got a prayer chain email that Marilyn was in trouble, that her colon had shut down, and she needed urgent prayer. I prayed for her. I know a lot of people did, but Monday she was gone.

This morning there was a big hole in the church. It was right there next to Kenny, where Marilyn always sat. His door job done, he stood through the songs, looking different than I've ever seen him. He looked a lot older today, and sad. It's not that I was staring at him or anything, I just kept looking for Marilyn.

Later we went around for our greetings, and I went and spoke to Carol's husband. We rejoiced for his wife's good news. Then I crossed the aisle and hugged Kenny. He got a lot of hugs today. It's hard to say whether they helped or not. I remember when my dad died hugs helped a lot.

* * *

Almost two years ago we started realizing my daughter was not crossing her eyes on purpose, just for fun. It had gone from the occasional crossing to a pretty steady thing, and it was severe and scary in an older child like that.

Ever had deja vu? My daughter told me way back then that she felt like something that had just happened had happened before. I explained deja vu to her, and said maybe that's what she'd had. She had the experience again a few days later. Then she was experiencing it every day, then several times a day. One time I remember she'd just experienced it, and she said, “I guess I'm just the deja vu kid.” I had to hold it together for her, but I was terrified and I wondered what was going on in her brain that was causing the constant stream of deja vu and a severely crossed eye. I hugged her a lot during those days. I remember hugging her and thinking no amount of hugs today would make up for the lack of them if they ended tomorrow; but I hugged her anyway.

Then an MRI ruled out anything neurological and we went from terrified to practically dancing in the street. My rabid medical goggling produced some hits regarding the deja vu. You see, in those days both eyes were still trying to work. When our eyes focus, they focus together. In a kid like my daughter, when one eye focuses and then the second, the first eye causes the brain to register that something happened. Before the brain has a chance to “time-stamp” the event, the second eye focuses on it. With no time reference, her brain just tells her this has happened before—sometime. Deja vu.

So then a time came when she wasn't experiencing deja vu anymore. We just forgot about it; but recently it's started up again. Which is good news, because now her eyes are both trying to work again. Her weak eye is fighting its way back. Tough little eye; tough little kid. It's an uphill struggle. She has to do her exercises, she has to patch, she has to get plenty of sleep. We go one day without any one of those elements, and there's a huge slide backward. But we slug on, and I pray every night, and I can't think of anything I've wanted so badly. I've chosen my battle and the hill I'm fighting on is my daughter's healing.

So two weeks ago when I pulled a muscle in my back, I asked for prayer and went to bed. My friends prayed for me while I slept and in the morning the pain was gone. Dude, it was amazing. I'm thankful to God. No fuss, no muss; somebody prayed, God healed me, and I got up the next day and did 17 minutes of mime routine. This old mime was putting a little postscript on things, resurrecting a career that ended years ago. That's all. But God healed me and graced me like Samson to minister one last time. And yet this little kid who wants to dance, but can't be trusted in a roomful of dancers not to bump into somebody, that little kid struggles for her healing.

It's a trust thing, really. Some people take up their beds and walk. Others struggle with pain. I don't pretend to understand it, and the story isn't all written out yet. I guess if God healed us all every time the earth would be populated with the elect from the beginning of time on. What a pile of mess THAT would be. I think for each of us there has to be the one healing that doesn't happen—for now.

But does God tell us to pray for our sick? Yup, right there in the Bible. So that's what I'm gonna do. Whatever He wants to do, I'll leave to Him to sort out. For the stuff that's yet to happen, and for the stuff that HAS happened, I lean heavy on grace.

'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

* * *

In a sense this journey that I'm on is about nothing bigger than seeing my daughter healed. In another sense it's way bigger than that. Unexpectedly, I'm changing.

I led worship at a little tiny church in the mid 1980's. That was my first experience at it. When I started I led like some anointed cheerleader, trying to get everybody on the bandwagon; we were worshiping God, and everybody better fall in line. God's grace was on me and I wasn't booted from my job. There came a time of epiphany when I realized that if I wanted to lead worship, then all I really had to do was worship. Like a train leaving the station, all I had to do was say, “All aboard,” and anybody wanting to join me on our “day trip to the throne room” was welcome to join. Just go and they'll go too. It was wonderful and freeing and so refreshing as I just worshiped, and lots of people worshiped too.

Yesterday as I led worship I realized the model has changed again, and I didn't even know it. As I led yesterday I started singing without a word, began to connect with God, and yet I was connecting with people in front of me. I'm falling in love with this group. There was Kenny, of course, and a big hole there next to him. And as we sang “Glory to His Name!” I saw Carol all glowing as she sang from her heart. On Amazing Love I saw O., this guy who came back to the church after a failed attempt at suicide. “Amazing Love, how can it be that You my King should die for me?” O. was tearing up with the perpetual headache for which we pray, and his wife was crying with her head on his shoulder, connecting with God as we sang about the amazing Love that drove them both back to church. Their whole family is struggling, and I found myself praying as I connected with God there. And around the room I was tiptoeing in spirit, not intruding on peoples' time with God, but praying over them as I connected with God and the good words and music—and with people.

So I'm reconnecting with people in worship, not as a cheerleader, but with this new element of compassion. And I don't know whether that element of compassion is changing the way this congregation worships, or if the change was already there and I just didn't notice. People really are connecting with God, just the way we pray they will, and we will. We've gone from being those upstarts who brought in those newfangled choruses—to the people who worship with them. We sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, and we tell God how much we love Him, and we beam at each other as we share our communal experience.

“And as I wait I'll rise up like the eagle. And I will soar with You. Your Spirit leads me on by the power of Your Love.”

* * *

Sunday afternoon scores of us converged on Deborah's house, armed with our invitations to the annual Deborah G. Memorial Day fish fry. I've been trying for a long time, now, to capture in photograph what it is about that place that's healing. This time I think I got just a little taste of it.

After visiting and eating too much I went around some of her property, armed with nothing more than my little hp camera.

It's really hard to capture, and I know I didn't get all of it. It's more than just the trees and the pond.

There's something indefinable here. Deborah has been praying here for a long time, and she has a true gift of hospitality. She entertains armies of people, giving of herself, cooking huge main dishes and relying on the rest of us to bring a veggie or dessert dish to pass. She mingles and enjoys every person there. Then she lets you go on your own, no pressure, no self-absorption, just go on and have a good time with my little slice of heaven here on earth.

So I went off on my own, quietly scoping the perimeter of the house, looking at the flowers she's planted, the landscaping, the parts she's left wild. Coming around to the front porch, I captured the rockers.

I've been to Deborah's parties where these were filled with people relaxing and chatting while watching the kids play on the front lawn. Today, despite the gorgeous temperature, the rockers were strangely empty. At that moment I heard a faint sound of music—harmonies rising and falling in waves from far away, and I remembered.

Years ago I was singing one Sunday and envisioning heaven. In my imagination I pictured myself walking outdoors in heaven, drawn to the door of a gathering place. There was a faint sound of singing coming from in there, and I cracked open the door quietly and went in. I was in the back of a church-like meeting, and people looked around and smiled at me. Puritan costuming, down in time to hoop skirts, right on down to the Great Depression-era clothing my grandparents used to wear. These were my mom's ancestors, and mine. All drawn together to praise God, with one thing in common—these were the seed of the righteous who had been mighty on the earth.

Centuries ago one righteous puritan came over to America – a puritan before the puritan movement went so horribly bad. He undoubtedly shared the odd belief of many of those old puritans—that all their descendants would be Christians forever. Right or wrong, one good thing came out of this strange belief. They prayed for us. Centuries ago this Puritan stranger was praying for me, that I would know God. And not all of us did, but every generation there was a remnant who believed.

There's this church down in south Georgia that's been standing there since colonial times, and many of this righteous puritan's descendants ended up there after leaving New England in the aftermath of the witch trials. They built the little Midway church, settled in as a community, and out of that tiny church came the mighty on the earth. Signers of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Senator, numerous state-level officials, pastors, missionaries, an unusual percentage of Godly leaders. Theodore Roosevelt had ancestors that came from that church. Today the little church stands empty most of the year, and the descendants are scattered all over the country: scientists, internet pioneers, pastors, missionaries, moms and dads like me. Once a year they have a reunion at that church, and many of the sons and daughters go back. I've never been. The internet connects us now in many ways, though.

So here I was in my heavenly imagination, all those years ago, at the back of this meeting, and these heavenly people turned and smiled and I, wayfaring stranger on earth, felt welcomed and a part of this imaginary group. And it was over in a flash, and I was back in my own congregation singing I forget what song. (I have a vivid imagination sometimes. I'd like to be a writer someday.)

But as I stood looking at those rockers on this porch, I was drawn again by singing, and it was “Amazing Love,” the song we sang that morning in church. I went looking for the source of the music, and found a happy group singing and playing in Deborah's basement.

I was absorbed into the group. I found a spot on the sofa and added my harmonies to the ones already floating up out of the underground room.

And I, wayfaring stranger here on earth, I felt welcomed and a part of this group. I kept choking up as I sang, living the experience on two levels:

Amazing love, how can it be that You, my King, should die for me? I was singing to God at the Deborah G. Fish Fry.

And on a second level, I was with this group, singing together, sitting next to a lady who is going through a heartbreaking divorce, but for today her face was beaming, she was experiencing a refreshing she'd JUST told me she needed, and we were together celebrating God's love that died for us and made us better.

And that, I think, is another part of how God works on earth. We share His outpouring as a community. We are not separate. We are welcomed and part of God's family.

Angels, Outpourings and Such

2008-05-27T10:01:00.006-05:00

(Note: I originally wrote this blog a week ago. I didn't plan to post it, but it turns out it's part of a larger story, so here it is.)

In recent weeks I've been drawn to faces. Faces in places where I usually make a point of avoiding them. In the grocery store—I usually go there to get what I need, look around, check out, look the cashier in the face, maybe chat with him or her, check out the face of the person who runs a cart in front of me—we may interact a bit. Here in the Midwest those kinds of encounters are usually fairly cordial--”Oh, I'm sorry.” “It's okay, no problem.” And people know how to put on their “cordial” mask.

So here lately I've been sneaking a peek at faces when people don't expect you to be looking at them. And let me tell you, it's left me aware that the human race has settled for living with a tolerable level of misery. Faces are generally sad, or angry, maybe bored, grouchy—these are the norm. The cheerful face is the exception.

I'm sad for people—and at the same time, they must think I'm absolutely off my nut when I go in there. It's hard not to glow sometimes. I feel like I kind of owe it to God to not try to hide what He's doing in my heart. It's just going to show on my face sometimes. So I go wander around at Walmart, and look at stuff and smile and look at faces and pray that God will bring revival or something so that fewer people will have to walk around with misery etched on their faces.

* * *

Here's an update on the prayer for my daughter's eyes. They do continue to improve, I think. Every night we do eye exercises. AND every night we pray for her eyes.

I've heard there's a healing revival thing in Florida. First response is to try to figure out how to get down there with my daughter to get her in a healing line, just in case it's the real thing. Second response is, what's that all about? Is it real? And if so, why does God choose to heal in one spot—a city in Florida? So I check scripture and find that the idea of healing in one spot has biblical precedent. Remember the story about the guy who was stuck by the healing pool? Every now and then an angel would come along and stir the water and the first person to jump in would get healed. The Bible doesn't say they BELIEVED an angel came along...it says an angel came along—it's more than an old legend. For some reason God had an angel assigned to this pool and the sick people that came there.

But with Jesus came a more blanketing grace for healing. I mean, it seemed everyone who came to Him got healed. In fact, He went to that pool and healed a man who couldn't get into the water fast enough. So at that point all you had to do was get to Jesus and you could count on a healing. That was during Jesus' lifetime. During the apostolic times there were many healings, too. Then things tapered off. So nowadays—what about it? If scripture says, by His stripes we are healed, how come physical healing is not as automatic as forgiveness of sins? I suppose the answer is probably complicated by details about the spiritual world that we don't know.

So I can't get to this healing revival thing, but then I hear about people being healed while watching the services on GODTV. Well, I don't get GODTV. But with the internet being what it is, it doesn't take too much Googling to find bits of services on Youtube, and then there's a podcast you can subscribe to....so I downloaded a few things to listen to, and maybe understand more about why God heals more quickly in some situations than in others—and maybe there's healing for my little girl.

I listened to a bit of a podcast. There was talk of angels assigned for healing, and cities with healing angels waiting to be assigned to them. And I thought, well, that's it. My little town isn't worth assigning a whole angel to it. It's not strategically where you would want to assign such a thing. And all this talk of angels with jobs and healings and heavenly strategiesies has started to seem overwhelming. Really, I want my little girl to be healed. Could I possibly get some runoff while God runs the strategy room? And among all the things that were making my head spin was one question: “God, why DO You heal?”

I was thinking all these things on my way to church Sunday morning. I remember asking Him, “God, You do great things, things that don't make sense, when people pray and ask for them. How about a big dose of You for my church, too?” And God said, I kid you not, “Okay. Let's try it this morning.”

Well, that shut my mouth. I was quiet for that last couple of blocks to church. I was going in early to pick out music and get ready for the song service. I just drove on, dumbfounded. When I got there I noticed the van of one of my dearest friends, Deborah, the prayer warrior. What was she doing here this early? The door was unlocked, so I went in. All was dark. Was she here or not? Had the door been left unlocked? That wouldn't be good. I was relieved to see my guitar had not been stolen; I grabbed it and headed for the front of the sanctuary, where I'd last seen my book of songs. I heard a quiet voice...”Hello.” And there she was. The Lord had sent her in early to pray, she said. My heart skipped a beat. Was this a heavenly plan coming together? “I'm SO glad you obeyed God on this,” I said, and explained just a little bit about why. We shared our amazement for a moment, then I went to look for my book. Couldn't find it. What I DID find was a medley we do sometimes, a medley of songs specifically about honoring God. Well, I thought THAT might be appropriate, dontcha think? God's showing up and we might want to honor Him.

There was a spot between songs, and as the group practiced before church, I knew I was going to say something in that spot. And here's the talking point:

“We have a special guest here this morning. I just wanted to let you know, because I'm SURE you're going to want to get around to greet him and talk with him. I'm sure he's going to want to talk with you as well. It's Jesus Christ. And every time we gather, that's exactly how it should be. The next few songs that we do we're going to specifically honor God.......”

So as practice ended and Sunday School was set to begin, the seniors class was gathering in the sanctuary, and it was time for us to head to our classes. There's tension between me and these seniors. No offense to the senior readers of this blog, but I know there's tension because, even though we sing hymns, we've introduced choruses and an active seeking of God's presence and it's left many of the seniors sometimes tense and suspicious.

I scanned the room as I was getting ready to go downstairs. My eyes lit on Carol. Now, Carol is a sweet lady. She keeps up with every birthday in the church, and sends each one of us a card. Quite a gift, and it's not always appreciated like it should be, I think. I smiled and greeted her and she smiled and greeted me, looking no different than usual. But instead of moving on I stopped, looked her in the eyes, and that's when something remarkable happened. I asked her how she was doing--and I really meant it. She must have somehow known I meant it, because she told me. Turns out Carol's scheduled for a heart catheterization Wednesday. She was pretty scared. So I let her talk about it for a minute and let her know I cared, would be praying, and then went downstairs. And you know, the funny thing is, I really cared. Not like we care in a general way a lot of times, but I wanted to cry for her and her family and the fear they must be feeling for her.

After Sunday school I went back upstairs and started this weird thing, walking from person to person, scanning faces, looking past the smiling church masks, really looking them in the eye and asking how they're doing. I usually tend to be pretty wrapped up in my task, praying, seeking God's presence, and maybe kind of greeting people, but this morning my official greeting mask was down and I was connecting with people. And people were responding differently. It was a most enjoyable experience. I was greeting a lot of the seniors that way. The tension just wasn't mattering. I went over to some people who come from a group home for disabilities. We have about three different groups like that who come (I always find it a positive sign in a church, when they attract people who are “different”). So I went over and greeted them, not just saying hi and shaking hands. I asked names, looked them in the eye if they looked back; we were talking about their names, my name, and I just stood and chatted a minute. Then it was off to more seniors—I kept coming back to the seniors for some reason. And as I swept past the doorway into the sanctuary I saw a face I hadn't ever seen before. I said, “I don't think we've met—I'm Connie,” looking her in the eye in a way that, I think, told her I wish we HAD met—I wanted to know her. She responded like a friend instead of an uncertain stranger. She was Jamie, she was new to the area and was looking at churches. So we chatted a bit and I welcomed her in and helped her find a seat.

And so it went. Now, you have to understand, I am no social butterfly. I hold my own, but I'm about average when it comes to the social scene, and it took some work to get to average. But it was as if Someone with a better handle on social propriety had come along behind me, wrapped His arms around my arms, and was doing the work with me. My feet were propelling me from person to person, my mouth was opening to speak, but Someone else was looking at them with compassion, and was speaking to them, asking them all the right things, and they couldn't help but respond. It was such an effortless, exhilarating experience.

We sang our set, I said my thing about Jesus, and it was time to go around and greet people with a handshake. Yippee! I was soaring around the room again, having some fun. It was kind of like flying.

The pastor came by and asked if I could go greet someone new. Her name was "Jamie"....(already on it, pastor)..... and she was the wife of the new town planner....(Well, I won't hold it against her--having spent more than twenty years in the media, I've come to find celebrity to be a little irritating)....and she was Lutheran (Now I was impressed. We're a Baptist church. What was a big-time Lutheran doing on this side of the spiritual tracks?). Oh, well. Whatever her reasons for being here, I'm glad she showed up the one Sunday I would not be scared of a stranger.

So that's about it. No heavy sense of the presence of God that drove us to our knees or to the floor. Healing? Maybe. I don't know. Nobody shouted or anything. Not even a testimony. So was God's presence there? I put the question to Him, and rather than a word for word answer, I got this impression. God is within me. I went to church. I allowed Him to move in me and through me. And yes, since I was there and obedient, He was there. And He was there in the heart of each individual in the room who knew Him. And as we allow Him access to us, He delivers compassion where compassion is needed, comfort where comfort is needed, hospitality where hospitality is needed. Yes, He was there.

On the way out to my car I found myself walking along with my friend Deborah again. She said, “Why have I never seen those scriptures in Galatians (from the sermon) before?” (Deborah has read Galatians more times than I have, probably.) So out of my mouth popped this response: “Because the Holy Spirit was tapping you on the shoulder, saying, 'Your Teacher is here.'” After an affirming pause I asked, “So do you think God showed up this morning?”

“I'll say,” I think, was her reply.

This morning Deborah needed a teacher. Carol needed reassurance. "Jamie" needed to be welcomed to a new place. We each needed something, and God was there to help us each find the thing that we needed. And you know, while I was busy saying hello to people, I think I got a piece of an answer to my question, “Why does God heal?”. When He was here physically He healed because He had compassion on the multitude. He heals today and meets our needs because He has compassion. He just cares. Sunday He walked the room, touching this one, speaking to that one, teaching Deborah, welcoming Jamie, and teaching me how to care about people.

Did He show up? I'll say.

A Bruised Reed

2008-05-11T18:11:00.001-05:00

Breakfast in bed—that staple of Mother's Day, the inconvenience we endure to show our kids we appreciate their appreciating us. So far I've escaped. First the kids were to young to think of it. Then they just hadn't thought of it yet; but yesterday my youngest child informed me I was to stay in bed. It had come to this. I was overhearing tall tales of the fabulous breakfast to be prepared for me. Unfortunately, I know how late this child likes to sleep; and on Sunday I prefer to get up early and read a little Scripture with a cup of coffee. Knowing how late she likes to sleep I took my Bible to bed with me. I set my one-cup coffee maker ready to go nearby and went to bed. I awoke to the sound of....nothing. No alarm. In fact, no time showed on the clock at all. Electricity was out. So I went in search of a battery-operated clock. There was plenty of time for a chapter of Scripture. Coffeemaker wouldn't work, so I boiled water for tea on the gas stove. Couldn't go back to bed. I needed daylight with which to read, so I found a window, settled in with tea and some good reading and waited.

One thing I'm pleased my daughter is learning is to relish a good day. The thing she hasn't learned yet is that things don't have to be perfect for you to have a great day. She woke up with an awful sense of a day gone awry. She wailed on about how it was a terrible, bad day. How can you make toast without a toaster? And toast, practically speaking, is really the extent of her culinary skills when she's on her own. And furthermore, what's breakfast in bed without bed? So I laid back on the sofa and told her that what I could really use is a granola bar. I mean, what's in granola if it's not oatmeal (porridge for the British readers)? And how about a banana and an orange to go with my granola bar and tea? So she scurried around, happily fetching items for a makeshift breakfast.

How did the tradition of breakfast in bed for Mother's Day get started? I don't know, although I suppose I could Google it. I remember feeble attempts to create a feast for my own mom, and maybe she made breakfast for HER mom. I don't know. Funny how traditions grow and change, sweeping us along as a generation marches through its allotted time, departing and making room for the next.

* * *

Lately I've gotten on this weird kick—odd facts from the Bible. There really is some interesting stuff in there that people overlook. For instance, anybody who's spent much time around the Bible knows that people lived almost a thousand years before the great flood; and even after the flood people were living a good deal longer than we live. Five hundred years Shem lived after the flood. And they kept living that way, five hundred years or so apiece, until this guy named Peleg came along and at that point lifespans were cut down to a trifling 200 years. Don't know what that's all about. But it's there for anybody to read, and people read it all the time as they go through Genesis. The thing is, though (and this is where it REALLY gets weird), we tend to read this stuff as the short-lived vapor people we are. Most of us will probably get to see our grandkids. Some lucky people will see great-grandkids, but it's very unlikely that you will see your great-great grandkids.

But if you get to live 500 years and you have your first child at around 30 (which seems to have been the norm back then), then when your great-great grandson comes along, you get to be there to celebrate. In fact, you'll be there when HIS son comes along, which is exactly what happened to Shem. In fact, Shem's great-great-great grandson Peleg started the trend for a shorter life, living a mere 200 years and then dying. After that Shem lived a bunch of years celebrating the births of his descendants and mourning their deaths, because he lived on and on, a relic of the pre-flood times enduring in a broken world.

So it was a whole different kind of world right after the flood. The patriarchs, as we call them, Abraham and Isaac, happened to be on earth at the same time as a guy who was here before the flood. People wonder where the Jewish people would have learned the story of the world's origins, but the answer is right there in scripture if you do the math. Going by the time line you read in Genesis 11, Noah himself would have been around about 50 years after his righteous descendant, our own Father Abraham, was born. Did they know each other? We don't know. Could they speak the same language after the tower of Babel? In fact, since apparently Noah and Shem were probably around in the time of the tower of Babel, what language did they come out speaking? If Noah spoke the language of the line of Shem, he could have passed on some good life lessons and Godly heritage to Abraham and his family. What a weird world to have lived in, where Abraham shared the earth with many of his post-flood ancestors.

I've also been reading bits of the Apocryphal books. My church tradition does not view them as inspired Word of God. Neither do I, but I'm reading them to know what people were reading and being influenced by when they were writing down scripture. I imagine there were some very good and some very bad non-inspired books out there, just like there are today.

Jude quoted the apocryphal book of Enoch, by the way. Doesn't mean Enoch is inspired, although the particular passage Jude quoted is apparently inspired, just by virtue of the fact that it's in the Bible now.

Still, I was surprised when our pastor quoted an apocryphal book last week. Something about a physical description of Paul. He explained that this particular piece of literature was written early in the 2nd century AD, so it's quite possible that this was an accurate description of somebody's memory of what Paul actually looked like. Well, that was interesting. Maybe it was an accurate description and maybe it was not. The “maybe it was” made it worth a listen, so I listened.

According to this writer, Paul was short. (Hmmm. I can relate to that.) Hair was scanty. (So is my husband's.) Legs were a little crooked. (Bowlegged guy, sounds like.) Knees projecting. (Bummer—bowlegged and knock-kneed. Makes you wonder if he got through rabbinical school without having “kick me” scrolls taped to his back.) Large eyes. Okay. His eyebrows met. (EWWWW....unibrow! Guess razors weren't in fashion yet.)

But one thing he had going for him in this – um – “challenging” description was this: “full of grace.”
So this is the guy who tried to kill all the Christians until he got knocked down and found Christ—and found a purpose. He was constantly getting beat up and thrown in prison. In spite of all this he started churches all over most of the known world. He also had some kind of “thorn in the flesh,” which every theologian has tried to decipher. What was it? A bad joint? Walking from town to town with knee problems could have been his thorn. I've even heard people suggest a nagging wife. Something bothered him enough that he kept asking God to remove it. And instead of taking it away, God said, “My grace is sufficient.” Not exactly the happy ending one looks for in a good story.

It's plausible that the thorn might have been his looks. I mean, it can be hard to have a commanding presence with a strong handicap in the looks department. It's unfortunate but it's true. So if that's the thorn, here's a cool scenario my pastor played out:

You have a guy starting out life short, bowlegged, knock-kneed, bulgy eyes and with one big eyebrow. He finds Christ. He proceeds to change the world, because that was his destiny and his calling, to drive right through the personal challenge he faced.

So after he finds Christ, what do you have? A guy short, bowlegged, knock-kneed, bulgy eyes, now he's gone bald, unibrow.......and FULL OF GRACE. And it was enough. It was enough to change the world, to expand Christianity into the Gentile world, and write many of the books of the New Testament.

While this sermon was going on, I was relating in all kinds of ways. Wow. Thorn in the flesh. Needing something. Asking God for that something. That something is not here. So what do I have? GRACE. I was so into the message that I didn't stop to think about what my thorn in the flesh was. But at some point I stopped to wonder why this particular message was hitting me so profoundly. What was that thorn? OH Yeeees.....my daughter's crossed eye.

I have asked and asked. I have asked from the bottom of my heart. I have asked in effectual, fervent prayer. I have asked regularly. It improves slowly, but still when I get up in the morning and wake her up, she looks at me—and it's still there.

This is not my thorn, I know. It's hers. But since I'm asking in faith, and I haven't received my answer yet, in a way this IS my thorn. And I do ask in faith when I ask. I believe He plans to heal her.

In the meantime, “full of grace.” What is the good that is here, and might NOT be here were it not for the crossed eyes? Hmmm.

When my daughter was in kindergarten she was quite possibly the most popular child in her class. She was the only one who could turn a real cartwheel and do a back flip. She was the only girl who could hand-walk the monkey bars from one end of the play equipment to the other. She could run faster than the boys, and at that age they all loved her for it.

You know those snapshot memories you have that stay with you? Well, I have a memory of walking past the lunchroom during lunch hour the day every child in class got an invitation to her birthday party. The class was abuzz with the upcoming social event, and she was surrounded by red-faced, excited five year olds, one little girl holding court in a fog of popularity. The words floated out into the hall where I was walking by: “I invited ALL my best friends.” And the kindergarten class cheered.

Then at the beginning of her next school year the eye started to cross. We got her under an eye doctor's care and found glasses to be completely ineffective. Surgery was suggested. We've settled into a plan of eye exercises combined with diet and rest, and in the end if she still needs it she'll get the surgery. In the meantime we pray every day and wait for God to reach past the doctors and touch her wandering eye. She never does cartwheels on the playground anymore. She has no depth perception and is prone to falling. She sometimes sees double, and because her eye turns in she has almost no peripheral vision on that side. And, of course, she's fallen out of favor with her class.

As I've said, we have her do these eye exercises. In one of them she puts on these 3D glasses, one lens red and the other green. Then she is supposed to color with a red crayon. If she only uses her strong eye (covered by a red lens), she can't see what she's coloring at all. If she switches and uses her wandering eye she will see what she's coloring, but it will be black. If she uses both eyes together she will see red. This exercise seems to be the most effective one the doctor gave her and so she does this one every day. At first she thought it was great fun to color every day, but it didn't take too long for her to tire of it. So a battle of the wills ensued. Then I realized—hey! Every computer has a paint program. Why don't we let her color on the computer? That made all the difference—for a while. Then she tired of THAT game and the fight was on again.

That was before I got the bright idea of reading to her. So now every day she paints for a while and I read to her from an interesting story book. Then when I finish a chapter I try to get her to stop painting while she begs me to keep reading. Sometimes I comply. Sometimes instead we talk about what's going on in her eight year old life. We've come into some nice bonding times talking while she paints red on the computer.

I've watched her deepen as a person while we talk about the playground politics which plague the lives of little girls. She's fallen out of favor, of course. It happened quickly and without much fanfare when she turned up at school with glasses and a crossed eye. Kids just kind of gravitated to the next girl on the totem pole. But you know, I've watched her deepen as a person while she learns to navigate life from ground level. Some of the politics are pretty tough this year and she watches her friends fall into and out of favor with the popular girl. And my daughter is just kind of quietly there for them when they fall out of favor. Part of me says she would never have been that mean if she had stayed popular, but who knows? I'm glad she's been spared that possibility.

So she's been graced to deepen as a person, and her mom...

I never knew anything but an adversarial relationship with my own mom. We make peace when we visit these days, but there were some hate-filled years when I was young. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. So part of me has waited for the day when my girls turn on me and start the hate cycle for another generation. I've tried to make things better for them by being reasonable but firm, and by being a friend, but part of me waits for the rejection I heaped on my own mom.

Fortunately, there's grace. Grace for my mom and for me as we rebuild things, and grace for my own girls. Sometimes my older daughter joins us and we sit on the floor and all talk while the youngest does her exercises, and we're building something special. Maybe it will last. Maybe it won't, but they'll remember and cherish it, I hope. It's a grace. A grace that maybe would not have been there if my daughter had not been tied to a computer doing boring eye exercises.

So this morning I laid back on the sofa, playing the part of the mom of leisure while the little one scurried about bringing me fruit and granola. I looked at her eye and it still turned in. I will still pray. Firmly, insistently, and with faith I will pray. But for today she's still a little clumsy, sometimes sees double and the poor kid has no peripheral vision. And for today, we are full of grace.

“Isa 42:3 A bruised reed will he not break, and a dimly burning wick will he not quench...”

Breathe

2008-03-30T17:56:00.005-05:00

My daughters have recently become ballet fans. Or rather, fanatics. Since they acquired “Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses” (the DVD) there's been no living with them. You call them to the table and they glide lightly in, feet pointed gracefully. They do dainty little traveling turns from room to room, moving around the house like a corps de ballet. What can one say?

So I was surprised recently when I found the Bolshoi Nutcracker on TV and got loud, instant complaints from the little ladies. “BOR-ing!” “When can WE watch something?” “What's on Noggin?” I kept saying, “Just wait. It gets better,” but it never seemed to. I could have just made them watch it, or at least made them do something else while I watched it, but instinct told me if I forced the issue I could accelerate the inevitable time (it's coming) when they'll tire of ballet. So instead I said, “Let's not watch this. I've got something better.” And I pulled out an old “Ballet Magnificat” video cassette, ready to pull that one too if they got bored. To my surprise, they loved it! They couldn't get enough of the premier Christian ballet company going through their 1994 repertoire.

Of course, I was enjoying it too. I haven't seen this one in years. It's so old I'm lucky I didn't damage the heads on my VCR. On this video you can enjoy several really nice suites. The first one is set to some of Integrity's Hosannah music, all classically styled. I was enjoying one of the first few songs, “I Will Sing of the Mercies of the Lord” with the girls. The song starts with a couple of ladies coming out with tambourines. They do some middle eastern folk style moves, in the way that ballerinas often do folk steps—with almost superhuman grace. But then when they got to one particular part of the song, I did a double take. Hey! I recognized that set of moves! I knew it really well, in fact. It was mine! And I was transported back to 1993, a year before the video came out.

That was the year I went to a Jerusalem Worship Dance seminar. My dance company had told me numerous times I should go to one of those things. Rich gatherings of worshipers who also happened to be dancers. It was designed for church dancers like me. The bigwigs in the world of worship dance were brought in to teach us, and they would pool their creativity, and teacher and student alike would come away with ideas to enrich the next year of choreography. This particular year I went for the first time. I did not know what to expect, so when the brochure said there would be a chance to bring a piece you were working on and they would help you with it, I didn't know enough to be self-conscious about it. I picked out a song I was indeed working on and brought along a cassette.

I flew into Washington DC full of excitement, dance shoes packed away carefully. I was swept into a world of visual extravagance, where there were so many beautiful things to see that one was almost overwhelmed. Sondance was there, a duo I had admired since the beginning of my dance experience. That alone would have been enough to draw me. And there was Ballet Magnificat, Liz Dimmel, and many others with far more experience than I had. We sweated through rigorous master classes, and I felt like I held my own, not the best dancer by any means, but a respectable student at this level.

When the evening came for us to get help with our pieces, I was good and scared. I felt a little like a kindergarten crayon artist showing fridge art to Rembrandt. But, I'd signed up, and I really wanted some input on this piece. So I danced it. I forget the singer, but the song was called “Clap Your Hands.” It was done in that neoclassical style that used to be popular, combining synth with classical chord structures. The lyrics went something like this:

Clap your hand, all ye people.
Shout to God for joy.
For He is King over all the earth.
His throne is established in righteousness.
And now He comes, His people to bless.
Clap your hands! Clap your hands!
Shout to God for joy!

I didn't want to go clapping through the whole song. The sound of my palms smacking together jangled one's nerves and fought with the sound of the music, so I devised this nifty Semitic-looking move where your hands didn't actually meet, but you mimed a clap. And in that second-to-the-last line you did a little traveling turn in one direction, did your mime clap, traveled back the other way, and clapped again. When I got to that part and did my little move, I heard this voice, “I LIKE that!” and my worship dancer's heart rejoiced, because you were always were looking for ways to praise God and you derived your ministry from encouraging people to worship with you. And I had high hopes that what I was doing was translating into praise for them, so I redoubled my efforts and put everything into it. Probably way too much into it, and when the song ended, I sat down, puffing and sweating, to get my critique.

The dance was well received, especially the one move. There was room for improvement, of course. Although I honestly can't remember what they said (probably to straighten out my arabesques or something), I appreciated that the one move got communicated to them. If they GOT it, then it must be clear, and it would hopefully minister at my own church, too.

But while I sat there with my mouth hanging open, panting, my lungs filled with the cold, dry air from the hotel and my bronchial tubes started to swell. Never having experienced that before, I wasn't concerned about the fact that it was getting harder to breathe. I mean, who hasn't been out of breath before? And I'd danced pretty hard.

Then it was time for the next dancer, and I got up and went back to my seat. Breathing got harder and I got up to go to the ladies' room so I wouldn't disturb anybody. Things went from bad to worse. I couldn't exhale. I coughed hard, got the air out, then I couldn't inhale. I kept trying, getting more and more desperate. This lady came in there, not with the conference, but somebody staying in the hotel. I tried not to disturb her, but at this point I was absolutely fighting to breathe. She asked if she could help, so I pointed to the double doors behind which the conference was still going on and choked out something about getting somebody from in there. A moment later in rushed the Sondance duo, as well as Liz Dimmel. So much for not wanting to be a bother.

Somebody handed me a paper bag, thinking maybe I was hyperventilating. I wasn't, but the bag was helpful in that the warm, moist air from inside my lungs was sent back down, relaxing the bronchials. I sucked greedily on that paper bag, then looked up in relief. They stayed for a minute or two, talking nicely, and then went back to the workshop. Embarrassed, I got in my sister's car and drove back to her house, where I was staying there in DC. I felt much better the next day and enjoyed the rest of the conference.

Over the next few years I would go to a conference when I needed refreshing, and I might meet up with Liz or Yvonne or somebody, and we always laughed over the paper bag incident. I had a few more incidences like that, and eventually was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma. It's pretty manageable these days. In fact, I haven't had an episode since I got too old to dance; but I'll probably always remember and hate the feeling of desperation you get when you can't seem to get that all-important next breath.

You know what's kind of cool? I didn't realize it at the time, but my little clapping move found its way into the pool of creativity that seemed to follow those conferences. I used to pick up Christian dance videos from here and there, and for a year or so I saw that move done over and over. The JWD dancers did it. Sondance did it at the next Jerusalem Worship Dance conference. And although I missed it at the time, Ballet Magnificat adapted it to tambourines and put it on their video. So that's my little contribution to the Christian dance world.

This week I went to ask our pastor what his Sunday sermon was going to be about (I was picking out music), and he mentioned something about being desperate for God. Immediately my mind went to the song, “Breathe.” I can resonate to that song.

“This is the air I breathe, Your Holy presence living in me. And I—I'm desperate for you.”

You see, I know what it is to be desperate for the next breath, to fight and scratch and long to breathe one more time. I sit here clicking away on a sunny day, enjoying the warmth of the evening sun, drinking in deep, calm breaths. But I happen to know that, calm as I am, I have a desperate need for that next breath.

Did you know that in the Greek language the words “Spirit” and “breath” are the same? Pneuma means “Spirit,” “breath,” and also “wind.” Are you comfortable in the place God has you? Good. Are you in a hungry time? Good, too. Whether you realize it or not, you and I share one thing in common: a desperate need. I'm desperate for the next thing God's Holy Spirit is going to do in my life. He's my Breath. He keeps me alive.

Refiner's Fire, recorded Friday night (3-28-08)
Breathe_3-28-08.mp3

You don't have to be beautiful....

2008-03-30T17:46:00.001-05:00

...to be fearfully and wonderfully made.

I was out tromping in back a few days ago and pulled back some bark on a fallen tree, looking for something to photograph. This little wonder was there. You can see its fearfully and wonderfully made insides.

I suspect this is one of the many varieties of immature insects tended by wood ants. There was fresh evidence of wood ant activity nearby, and you can see the honeydew droplets on this fellow, waiting to be harvested by hungry ants.

How did an insect with no creativity or intelligence learn how to harvest honeydew from larvae? Which ant thought of it first? How did she teach the others her lore? Who told the ant that to keep a steady supply nearby, one must tend to the needs of the larva, defend it from predators, and bring it the correct variety of leafy plant to eat? Could it be that there is a God who wrote these things into the ant's DNA?

From this photograph I learned that sometimes it's good to use a longer focal length. It would have been nice to have the back of the larva in focus too.

Constellations

2008-03-25T21:37:00.002-05:00

As the emotions were building up inside, I was struggling to find an exit strategy. Somehow to quickly and painlessly remove myself from the conversation. Every word that I said, though, ensnared me deeper into the argument. Yes, I could just let them win, but I couldn't, not until they understood me. Emotions were cut and oozing - I didn't feel like I could contain myself any longer.

Finally, saved, I burst out into the inky black night. The coldness of the air searing my lungs, freezing the tears to my face. Throwing up my arms, I look to the stars. My lovely stars. And everything fell back into perspective. I was small and my troubles insignificant. As wide as I could stretch out my arms, the night sky was much bigger. and prettier.

The autumns and springs of my life are marked off with the rising and setting of Orion and the filling up and pouring out of the big and little dippers. They felt like my closest friends, seeing all and knowing the secrets that I whispered to them. They centered me.

When I learned about how God set the stars in the sky in the beginning and every night calls them out by name, my heart shown bright with tears. Before I even was, he was tending to the stars so one day they might comfort someone. Guide someone home in the cold darkness. The wind, snow and sleet whirling around can get me confused at where to put me feet. I might trip and fall. But if I'm patient and look up sometimes there is a hole in the clouds and the stars are shining through. And soon the storm will clear.

Rising and setting, they never change. Sometimes my view is obscured, but they are still there. Like God. There are times when we can't see what he is doing, but he is still working.

This Is His Blood

2008-03-02T18:53:00.003-06:00

If ever there was a week when a person got beaten up emotionally, this would be the one for me. Can't put my finger on any one thing, just a bunch of things all converging to make it Connie's “Get Beat Up Week.”

First was the hearing which brought home to us all that my friends are really going through divorce—the point at which people begin to lose hope that it could all go away and things could get better. For weeks now every time I go to pray, or connect with God, I feel that pressure behind the eyes that tells you you're on the verge of tears. Friends' pain can be a heavy burden.

Then there was the brochure photography job, which at another time might have been great fun, but coming at my yearly peak of burnout (the school year is coming to a close, but there's a Spring Program yet to do), it's with mixed feelings that I take on anything.

Then two students near and dear to me left in a clash of two cultures. Two of our Korean students skipped out this past week and may not come back. I was in the process of ordering nice pennywhistles for them to take back to Korea, but now they're unexpectedly gone. I invested a great deal of my week trying to explain what I know of Asian culture to the school administrators, but I don't think I made much headway.

And on Friday another of our students left because her mom can't afford private school any more. They live too far away to be able to afford the gasoline it takes to get here. This student is also my daughter's best friend. My daughter, who has never grasped how to make friends, finally got it, and had a good friend—who is gone now.

After school on Friday my kids went swimming with some friends, leaving me cleaning up my classroom and then choosing songs for Sunday. When I got done I took my heaviness down to the office. I knew I needed a good “sliver of time,” I needed to rejuvenate, and I had some time to myself. I asked the office personnel for ideas. The secretary suggested a haircut, but my stylist is busy and doesn't do walk ins. The pastor suggested I go turn on the sound system and play my guitar too loud—that's what he would do. That sounded like the best advice yet, but I amended it by grabbing a penny whistle instead. I also left the sound system off. The vaulted ceiling in there makes it a VERY nice place to whistle. I played for about an hour or so. You know, though, I'm frustrated with my playing right now. Life is too busy and I don't take enough time to practice, so when I DO practice I beat myself up for not being better. Still, a penny whistle played under a vaulted church ceiling is healing, even if played imperfectly. It helped some.

Friday nights I don't set my alarm. I relish sleeping until my body feels like waking up. At this point I had no hope that it would help, but it's my thing, so I didn't set my alarm. But sleep wasn't meant to happen that night. One of my kids was sick all night, and I was up with her, running back and forth with buckets and doing the mom thing.

All of this converged Saturday into one exhausted, burnt out human mother. I ran my healthy child to knitting class, picked around online here and there, and did little else. I did not nap. I don't know why.

Last night, then, I made a deliberate decision. I would not set my alarm to go to church. Roger could run the kids to church. I was playing hookey. I had no crucial part in any song the praise team was doing. They would be fine if I didn't make it.

So I woke up this morning at 6:22, my normal time. I sighed heavily and turned over. I woke up again at 6:30. I sighed and turned over again. I woke up again at 6:40. This time I realized God wasn't letting me off the hook. If I was playing hookey, it would NOT be because I failed to wake up. Almost like He was saying, “You're awake. What are you going to do?”

Well, I felt rested and fine, so I got up and got ready and went in early, just like always, to practice with the team. Oddly, my body was rested but my mind was numb. I told God, “I hope You have a good reason for my being here.”

After practice the pastor approached me. He had this look in his eye that I've come to recognize. You see, I'd almost call him a victim of abuse. For more than 20 years he's been stuck at this church, running scared and fulfilling legalistic demands. He's told me that he asked God over and over to release him from this church and let him go somewhere he could really help people. Because for 20 years God has been giving him ideas for helping to release people from their legalistic bondage and for 20 years people have been shooting down his ideas.

Four years ago I started going to this church—it's about the time he started saying, “I don't care. If God's giving me ideas, I'm going for it.” And our church has been changing into a much more dynamic, fluid place. But you can still see the victimization when he comes up with an idea and he's afraid you're going to shoot it down.

So he had this idea. He said he was really sorry he just came up with it yesterday, and he knew we hadn't had time to prepare, but could we do this dramatic reading of scripture, and if we couldn't that was fine, and.....

Well, his idea was really doable, and I presented it to the first praise team member I ran into and we did this reading and it turned out really well. In fact, it turned out to be a real “God thing,” and, I suppose, gave me a purpose for showing up at church this morning. If nothing else, our pastor has a little more courage to step out next time God gives him an idea and there's no time to plan for it.

So it was communion Sunday. Ah, communion. That last pocket of resistance where legalism and meaningless ritual retains a tight grip. I know communion, or mass, is a ritual fraught with meaning, but as with all ritual it can lose its meaning if you never remind yourself of that meaning. And there's this tight “deacon” hold on communion. I mean it. Once a month our Baptist church puts on a liturgical dance. The same one every month. First all the deacons line up on the front row wearing their best suits. They all kind of glance at each other so they can sit down simultaneously. The pastor says a few words over the elements—first the bread, or mini-crackers, and then they stand up as a unit. They pass a sliver of bread to every person in the church. We wait quietly, examining our lives to ferret out any stray sins that need to be turned over to God. The deacons return to the front. They put down the bread. They sit as a unit. We eat the bread. Then we start over with the wine—or juice, I should say. In Baptist church you use juice.

Now I have to say, once they've passed the bread out to all those people, most of those who are going to examine their lives already have. And believe me, this morning I had plenty of badness to examine—my heart was still playing hooky, even if my body had made it to church. Honestly I did confess as best I could during the bread part. But--we must go through with the ritual a second time for the “juice,” eyes closed, looking like we're examining ourselves again, while all the time we're thinking of sports or lesson plans or of not spilling juice on our clothes. This time I decided to nix the meaningless hypocrisy and open my eyes and just wait, so I did. I was up front with the praise team, and so while I tried to respect peoples' privacy, my eyes wandered around the room.

There was my friend, here at church, even though she was in the midst of divorce—a life crisis that puts my bad week in perspective. And back there on the fifth row back was “O.” with his family. A few weeks ago that family turned up at our church, all with eyes as big as saucers, looking shell-shocked and in pain. It turns out O. recently tried to shoot himself. He survived, but the shock and trauma drove him and his family back to church. And so O. is trying to re-learn the skills that a bullet took from his brain. His speech is slow but good now and his short-term memory is coming back, and he'll probably be getting surgery soon to mend the torn rotator cuff in his shoulder. But O. and his wife are back with God now, and thankful that he survived even as he deals with the aftermath.

And there in the back were my beloved Korean students with their mom, here at church in spite of the sting of their experience, here to find some healing—here together with a larger family that tries our best to transcend cultures. And as I looked at my “juice” in a little cup, I realized that the one thing that pulls us all together in this imperfect building full of imperfect people, besides the need for healing, is a thread of blood. A thread that binds the hurting, the displaced, the tired, the misunderstood. What pulls us all together and heals us is the blood of Christ that we celebrate in a ritual. A ritual that has meaning when we reach out and allow Him to cover our badnesses with His blood.

So when the deacons returned, glanced furtively at one another and sat down as a unit, the pastor said his words over the cup and we all drank together. And this time I think I got it.

missing you

2008-02-08T15:13:00.000-06:00

Well ladies- I have to say that enough time has gone by that I really have started to miss each of you. I am always amazed that God gives me what and WHO I need right when I need it. Even if I don't kow He does. This should not amaze me, because he is well...GOD but it does.
I am glad He gave me each of you. I do miss you all.
(Yes- A. I know I will see you today!) I think I miss the feeling of all of us sitting around the table with cups of tea. Chatting and praying and eating God's word, bite by delicious bite.

A New Year

2008-01-04T22:49:00.000-06:00

A new start.

God in his graciousness makes life interesting. For that I am thankful! I love change and different things and new things. I get grouchy when I'm doing the same things over and over. I'm a type B person. Organization eludes and frustrates me. The first thing that usually happens when I walk into a clean room is a mess!

In my previous posts I noted how I was freakishly organizing and cleaning and straightening. Weird. For me. I was keeping myself busy. Just FYI, for me that's a sign of all isn't well.

At any rate enough is enough.

On New Year's Eve we had friends over. We weren't planning on staying up until midnight... But we started playing a game and time flew. As we finished the game and started saying our good byes, we noticed that it was 11:53... 7 more minutes and we could spend Midnight together. Sure, why not? So as we were passing the last 7 minutes of the New Year, we started talking and we were discussing next week's Sunday School lesson that they were teaching.

As luck (actually God) would have it, we needed to consult the Bible about which verses for sure. I went and grabbed the handiest Bible off the book shelf.

So at Midnight, the four of us were sitting around the table pouring over the word of God. How cool is that?

Cold chills flew through me as I realized that this was the first bible I owned. It was given to me by Vanessa, the friend who invited me to Youth Group. At Youth Group, I met Katie who explained who Jesus was and what he did. I didn't open that Bible until a couple months later when I accepted Christ into my heart because of those 2 friends (and some more). I read through the whole thing in about 6 months, before I moved back home. I used it for several years And then it started falling apart and got retired. That bible was replaced by another given to me by a dear friend, Jo-Mama, who gave me a more adequate understand of His Word. She is the friend that baptized me. I love her dearly! So I could probably go on and on telling you all the 'lineage' and stories of my bibles, but I'll spare you :)

So here I am. Reading in Genesis 24, the story of Isaac and Rebekah. Out of my first Bible, in the First Book, Right at straight up New Year's. God was calling me back to him. Start this year off with Me, I am the First, Through Me - you have life. Simple as that, A., simple as that. Really.

So right now I'm anxiously awaiting our friends' lesson.

Christmas 2007

2007-12-28T15:43:00.001-06:00

Remember when you were a kid and Christmas was about ending the torment of wrapped gifts under that tree? You know—the ones with your name on them? The oddly-shaped one, the nice, neat cube, the long, skinny one—they all made you curious, and they all teased you. If your family was like mine, they sat under there for weeks, calling your name.

Christmas has actually been a little disjointed for me, most years. Our family, like many, did not have a lot, so you knew there was probably goiong to be a lot of nothing under there, but still there was that hope. Hmmm.

One Christmas when I was ten or eleven my dad actually asked us what we wanted. I'd never been asked that before. I was stumped for a minute; but I'd always wanted a guitar, so I asked for a guitar. I knew, of course, that the question was rhetorical, but it was fun just to ask for something totally outrageous.

So the oddly shaped package turned up under the tree that year, but there was no name tag. Later claims have been that the tag fell off. I just assumed it was something really nice from my dad to my mom. And on Christmas, when we were winding up the gift-opening thing, my dad told me to hurry up and open that thing. I was genuinely surprised. It was the guitar. A twenty dollar classical guitar, but it was a guitar. I played that thing all the way through college before I finally got myself a better one.

Later on there were the years when I could not make it home, so I was the awkward guest that you invite to your family gathering—the one that knows he or she doesn't quite belong there. That was me. Now, though, I have a family of my own, and Christmas is about long road trips to grandparents' homes, to participate in grandparents' traditions. Which, I guess, is better than being the awkward outsider, but somehow the whole thing of making traditions of your own is still missing.

And then there are the Christmas carols. Nice pieces of tradition that remind you of Christmas past, but never quite reaching me on a spiritual level. I've always resented the fact that the whole rest of the church seems willing to give up worship for a month or so, enjoying bright, cheery carols that don't quite reach the part of your heart where your relationship with God dwells.

This Christmas, though, has been different on every level. It started when we were batting around the idea of staying home. The problem with that has always been that my kids are the only grandkids on both sides of the family, so everyone always wants a shot at seeing the grandkids. For my husband's parents, that's not a problem. They're hearty and hale and they love to travel. My mother, on the other hand, is disabled and no longer drives. That would leave her limping through a Christmas day with my sister in attendance, and my conscience level doesn't allow for that. To my surprise, though, Roger's parents agreed to stop in at my mom's house and pick her up for the eleven hour drive up here. Wow! We accepted, and my mother did too.

Even before company arrived there was something different about this Christmas. The carols were hitting me on a new spiritual level. O Holy Night, for instance. “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn” was hitting me as it never has before, and I was worshipping as I played the arpeggios on guitar.

Then before I knew it the house was full (my sister flew in too), and we were into the full holiday season. I've never entertained on this level and for such an extended period before, and it took some adjustment, but before I knew it I was cooking big meals and baking desserts and having a great time making the house a welcoming place.

Which brings me to what Christmas is to me this year. I know for my kids it was opening the presents, in spite of all my efforts to instill the real Christmas story. There's only so much you can do with a husband whose idea of a good time is to go running through the garden with a handful of sleigh bells just to excite little girls who ought to be asleep. They'll have to find a more mature meaning someday, I suppose. I can't venture to guess what Christmas was this year for anyone else in my house. But for me Christmas came on Christmas eve.

A very dear friend with a very large family had invited me to bring my clan out to their clan gathering on Christmas Eve. She couldn't bear the thought of another dead Christmas Eve, and rightly thought that the intermingling of two clans would liven the party. Besides, all of her children have sung together in my praise band, I sing with them, and the blend has always worked in the most remarkable way. They all knew my sister and I blend like “butter” and would probably blend with them too. And being the harmony hounds that we all are, it looked to be a great musical evening around the piano.

So Sunday night when my voice slowly began to disappear, I fished through the medicine cabinet for every remedy I could find. I gargled strong salt water every hour or so. I desperately tried to suppress every voice-damaging cough, but nothing worked. If you've heard my Christmas greeting in TPE, you've heard what was happening. It got worse than that. My sister kept trying to get me to stop talking, but.....

Monday evening I packed up my share of the cooking, and then I grimly packed up my guitar and pennywhistles, determined to make some kind of good music anyhow. Driving was slow with snow and ice on the roads, and they live about twenty miles out in the country. The air was cold, but crisp. Upon arrival we were all welcomed into the warmth of a generously decorated lodge-style home, and all of my company immediately felt at home. None of my singing friends were too happy to hear my voice, but everyone was determined to make the best of it, so we put away our wraps and headed right for the piano.

First, my fiddling friend and I played whistle and fiddle together for a while. Then I pulled out my guitar and the singing began. My sister spent a few songs being shy, then I urged her over and she joined in. It was SO-O-O nice to sit there surrounded by such nice harmonies, and the blend was as good as I imagined. And when I heard a hole in the harmony, I fell back on the instinct of a child-trained alto, and attempted to fill the hole. I squeaked out a note. Then I pushed harder, and realized if I pushed hard enough, I could push past the squeaks and airiness and hit a rough bit of Bonnie Raitt-type voice. So I pushed hard and filled that harmony hole. My throat creaked and groaned, but the voice held. I was in heaven.

We sped happily through Rocky Top, lingered deliciously over Wayfaring Stranger, and then got to Uncloudy Day. Singing that song, I felt the reality of a better place, where a full view of my Lord was waiting for me. And my little mother (she's very short), who is not always completely with us (she's heavily medicated), got up and came over closer to the music, which is her way of telling us that it's very go-o-od. And right there, pushing my voice out into that room, surrounded by my family and like-family, singing of God and heaven, that was Christmas to me. That in one long-ago night our world was taken from a savage place with a pocket of godliness in the Middle East to a promise of peace on earth, for the WHOLE earth; that we all sit in peace on Christmas Eve, celebrating the night that history was split, enjoying Christian fellowship and caringly blanketing our pagan family members with compassion—that night in Bethlehem is worth celebrating. A birthday so special that most of the civilized world showers one another with gifts. A birthday party celebrated each year the world over.

And when the song was over my little mother applauded vigorously , we all applauded each other, and then we sat down to a lovely dinner.

2007-12-09T16:52:00.000-06:00

I'm clumsy.

Did you know that? I think that you might have. I'm not graceful on my feet like Godseeker, I'm not graceful with my spoken words like Heiress. I trip over my feet when I walk... My words either spill out of my mouth before I can capture them Or the "cat gets my tongue" so to speak and when I should speak up, I can't force the words out.

That said, I had an awful bruise on my shoulder blade. Right at that spot where you always have the itch you can't reach? Yep. My shoulder was tight and it hurt to move. That was the day of the monthly roller skating party that one my organizations has. Yes, I had to take the kids. Usually the older kid gets the chance to go play with his friends and I take young kid duty. This day I told him flat out, he was in charge of his brother. He must have seen the pain in my eyes. He didn't argue, he took over, very adequately taking charge of the little one.

So I was left to talk to the Mom's... Usually thats a joy! Adult conversation! Not this day. As some one who talks best with her hands flying, every sentence was whinced through. God apparently guided me to the right table to sit down. Or maybe I just plunked myself down at the nearest one ;) Anyway, One of my friends that I don't get to see much shared the table with me. We chatted a little bit. I'm sure she knew my heart wasn't completely in it. So I finally confessed I was hurting. She perked up. She had something that I could try. I wasn't so sure... I had taken some painkillers and it didn't even touch the pain I was in.

She dug around in her purse and pulled out a tube of something and handed it to me. Shrugging her shoulders she said, "its Arnica, who knows whats in it, but it works." I promptly went to the bathroom to contort myself into a pretzel to apply it. Oh well. At least I tried. I walked back out. And by the time I sat down relief spread across my shoulder and it relaxed. I was so grateful for my friend's generosity! We had a nice time afterwards. The older child still took care of the younger one :) My shoulder felt lots better for a long time afterwards... A couple days later I bought my own tube of Arnica. Its great stuff!

Sometime we just need a little bit of friendship to get us through the tough spots.

Tuck and Roll

2007-11-25T18:24:00.000-06:00

This morning I behaved badly in church. That’s difficult for an old preacher’s kid to admit, but there it is. I got kind of huffy with a “difficult” person in Sunday School. You may know the kind—the one who wants to hijack the group discussion and allow no opinions to be aired that disagree with theirs. Now, normally I do not roll my eyes at people—not visibly, but –well, to make a long story short, I made sure my opinion WAS heard.

Then service started, with my praise team singing a few hymns. Then the pastor came up to make a few announcements, and we were just standing there behind him. I was all for going and sitting down. I was tired, we looked silly, etc. But the other singer said something about waiting until after the announcements, when we would be doing greetings, then we could get down discreetly when attention would be elsewhere. FINE. Stand here and look silly, leave the platform discreetly. As you can see, my mood was a little off. Plus, I’ve been rethinking church anyway. Why does it have to be this big production? Does everything HAVE to be perfect and smooth? Can’t we just leave the platform when we’re done singing? Can it just be about believers getting together to learn from each other so we have steam to go out and be salt and light for the rest of the week? Yes, I was actually thinking all that while the pastor was talking about upcoming donut sales and such.

So then it was time for greetings. Our church has this greeting thing—lots of churches do it. It’s where you go around and shake hands with everyone around you. The “shake and howdy.” My church’s shake & howdy used to be this stilted affair where you shook hands with someone close by, mumbled something polite, then moved on to the next person. A few people later and your duty was done and you could sit down. Nowadays we hug, laugh, chat a little, and it’s hard to get us to stop. We’ve come a long way. Still not exactly meaningful relationship, but at least we loosen up, enjoy each other, the single people get a hug to help out with that touch deprivation problem, and it’s really a good thing.

So it came time to go shake some hands. I warmly greeted my fellow praise teamers, and headed for the rest of the flock.

Maybe it’s because I was really tired this morning. Maybe I was anxious to go say howdy to some fellow believers. For whatever reason, I stepped to the edge of the platform, fully expecting another step before I got to the stairs. I was quite wrong. I stepped out with full confidence and planted my feet firmly on—air.

In that split second I had a decision to make. The most dignified route would be to catch myself as quickly as possible, maybe turn an ankle in the catching, risk an injury but the service would receive only the very mildest of interruptions.

The other choice was to put dignity behind me, tuck and roll into the fall. And that’s what I did. I tucked my head in, curled up and took all four steps completely without the benefit of feet. At the bottom I landed on my shoulder, rolled through my back, rear, and came to a stop (finally) in this fetal position type thing. Not a dignified choice, but a necessary choice, since another injury to the cartilage-torn ankle could have been devastating.

I slowly stood up, surprised to be okay, and got a good laugh out of it. It was one ridiculous little tumble, and somewhere between my shoulder and the final roll to a stop, I decided that church wasn’t meant to be a big show. It’s meant to be us together, encouraging each other, teaching, exhorting, and really getting charged up before we head out there into a tough world. If a singer wants to go sit down, go sit down. If he/she wants to go pray, maybe that’s okay too. If you fall, don’t worry about what you look like. Extricate yourself as necessary.

Most of my life I’ve been stuck thinking that church is supposed to be this big production every week, where somebody has planned everything out, and somebody executes the plan, people are entertained, or learn something, or whatever, then everybody goes home and discusses the service over fried chicken. Right now I’m trying to figure out if that’s what we’re supposed to do. I mean, it brings a degree of order, right?

But maybe we need to make room for the people there who are going through a messy fall. Maybe we don’t need to be glossing over those kinds of things for the sake of a smooth service. Maybe if you’re in a bad situation, your fellow believers should have the grace to let you tuck and roll.

Organizing & Costumes

2007-11-04T10:03:00.000-06:00

This last week I have embarked on a massive cleaning and organizing spree. Last Friday one of my friends came over to chat and I mentioned how I have been wanting to reorganize the playroom, someday. My friend said, "let's get started!" Ummmm... OK. As previously mentioned I am not that good with cleaning. Or more accurately, I just don't like to do it. So it took a little cajoling, but we got started and a few hours of sorting, tossing and putting away later we had a clean playroom.

So when my friend left, I brushed off my hands and decided that I was done with that. phew. Ummmmm..... no not quite. A week later here I am sitting in a clean office the boys are playing in a clean playroom and not only can I see the carpet, but it is freshly vacuumed. (Thank you to another friend who gave us a vacuum that she wasn't using. - Everything in our house is in the process of breaking, but that's another story) Not perfect, but a lot better than it used to be.

Sometimes it takes a little encouragement from a friend to get where you should be going. Whether it is a massive (yes) cleaning and reorganizing. Or completely overhauling your life. I wouldn't have been able to do either without my friends.

This week was Halloween. We were invited to a couple of costume parties. This was the first time since jr high that I actually dressed up. It was fun to pretend to be someone else for a couple hours. At the first party I was a nurse and at the second I was Becky Sawyer - overalls, freckles and straw hat.

Sometimes as a Christian I feel like I'm at a costume party. Some of us are pretending to be someone. In high school, when I was a new Christian, there were so many things that I turned from, that it really was like pretending that I was someone I was not. A lot of people were confused. Twelve years later, I feel like I've really grown and changed a lot. Jesus is continuing to work on making me more like him.

My husband and I lead a young married couples class, and a comment that I've heard twice this fall is "I don't know how seriously you will take us as new Christians." What? I feel like a new Christian a lot of the time myself. Don't they know the struggles I went through to be here? I guess all the cleaning and reorganizing that I've done has disguised who I was. I need to let the real me peek through a little more.

Happy Feet

2007-10-27T23:18:00.000-05:00

Okay, so for a very long time now, I’ve had this dance that I’ve wanted to do. It’s not a dance I’ve ever seen anywhere—well, not quite. It’s a step dance, and I started wanting to do this dance when I was a kid in Tennessee and the old timers would do their buck dances and their clogging, and it was all totally hokey and corney to me. And yet….. they were having so much fun. I wished for the fun.

Then when I grew up and moved to the Midwest I studied for a long time at this dance studio run by these Christian African American ladies. I learned some of the roots steps, and it started to mix inside of me with what I remembered. I kind of wished I could put it together and just dance it. I wished.

I’ve been in church services where they had cleared a big area for people to go dance, and that seemed like a great idea, but as soon as you got out there somebodywould look at you, and you’d get all self-conscious, and that would ruin it.

It’s not that I was a rotten dancer. I spent a lot of time and money studying ballet, mime, jazz and modern, and it was exhilarating to grow and do my best to excel in those disciplines. And I would sometimes dance up a storm in a choreographed frenzy, and it almost felt like flying.

And yet there was this other dance inside of me; a very free dance. It kind of grew as I grew. It’s a step dance, that much I knew; maybe a little Irish, a little southern, more than a little African. All floating around in there; and sometimes I would hear just the right kind of music, and I wanted so badly to dance it. Once I went to this outdoor African American gospel music festival. At one point in one song, my feet were really itching to do that dance. I almost did it, too. But, I mean, you would have to get up out of your seat, and people would see you, and that self-conscious thing would mess you up, and…..I still wish I had done that dance that day.

I couldn’t really capture it when I was alone at home, either. It’s one of those things where you had to be in the moment, with the right people, with the right energy, and together you would be creating something. I do wish I had known how to capture it at home.

Then I came back to my Baptist roots, which pretty much ended the whole dance thing. And even while I was dreaming of still finding a way to dance some more, I totally trashed my ankle. I mean, torn ligaments, torn cartilage, and a healing process measured, not in weeks, but in months and even years. And that pretty much ended the whole thing with that dance inside me. I do wish I had done it just once before I did my ankle job. I wish.

That brings me to this week, and the frustration of near-burnout. See, I’m producing this musical at the school where I teach music. Next Friday is the big performance, and here I am trying to pull all this stuff out of my kids that’s not quite there yet. I’m busy, tired and frustrated, and yesterday I never left the building after school. I stayed and painted the set, grabbed supper in the lunchroom and went upstairs to the sanctuary to practice with my praise team for church Sunday.

And they were all burned out too. The other guitarist was a mess of spiritual warfare. One of the vocalists didn’t even want to be there. The pianist was exhausted from her harvest. We were a mess, and it didn’t bode well.

Practice went HORRIBLY. The bassist and drummer were missing, the pennywhistler looked tired, and at one point two of the singers were arguing over who sang what part. The guitarists (including me) were making mistakes all over the place.

On inspiration I pulled out these stovepipe top hats we’re using for the musical, and gave everybody one. So we were all wearing top hats, playing our songs. We relaxed, laughed at ourselves and tried again, and the air started to clear. This time the set felt really good. God’s presence could be felt.

Then we were pretty much done. We were sitting around in top hats, singing and talking a little. Then the other guitarist started to play, just for fun, the jazz percussion he likes to do. Something was clicking with him, and there he was, sitting there with his top hat on, playing like a house a’fire. And you know…I felt that dance again. I wished my ankle—

And then I snapped; and I was tired of just WISHING. I put down my guitar and hat and started to dance. Part of me knew that people were noticing, but mostly I didn’t care. It was me and God and that dance, and the music. The singers started tapping these water bottle caps on their chairs, and the rhythm was incredible! And the dance came out just like I thought, a step dance with a little Irish, a little southern, a lot of African American roots, and – surprise – some stomp.

So there’s another one down on my list of dreams to fulfill before I die. I keep listening to the audio recording over and over. I can still feel the dance, and for the first time, feeling it is enough. For now.

And the ankle? Nothing a little ice and ibuprofen couldn’t take down. It was well worth the cost.

Now! Here's a link to the song. Listen. YOU tell ME how you could listen to that music and not have happy feet.

Dons Happy Feet Music.mp3

Free file hosting from File Den

It is what it is

2007-10-26T09:25:00.001-05:00

I have a saying I coined in high school when I went through a particularly bad part of my life. It's "what a difference a day makes" and that is so true. Most things, if you wait 24 short hours, will change. Or they seem to change.
Unfortunately, my YEAR has been a series of days upon days upon days. I, like A., can only stand back and say "unbelievable" I have seen the highest of highs and had no idea I could be this low. I have always found writing very therapeutic and have posted several things on my friend Lon's blog. He has been kind enough to tolerate my ramblings and allow this kind of pseudo-anonymous group therapy.
To see it go here http://dailybuildup.blogspot.com/
I apparently also like bumper sticker type sayings to help me through some rough spots. Where A. has latched on to "unbelievable", I have grabbed "It is what it is"
You see, I am the complete opposite of A. in many regards. The anti-A if you would. I love neatness, order and purpose. I thrive off of schedules, graphs and charts. Not only does everything have a place but everyone has a particular way they are to behave in that place. Except for this year they didn't.
Nothing is where it should be and it seems no one is acting or reacting in the way in which I think (and expect) them to. It's very hard for me. Sad even. But I am slowly learning this inflexible attitude hurts me as much as it helps. Yes, I set tons of goals and reach them all (before deadline) but I also have a tendency to loose sight of the people and the joy.
In no long flowery definition, no veiled attempt at hiding it, I am hurting and searching for joy. All of a sudden I find myself where everything is out of place and there is no clear cut purpose or goal set before me. At first I was reeling, trying to scramble for a new project or goal or just to put things back in order. Then I stopped.
Simply stopped.
Sometimes to do nothing is to accomplish a great thing.
I know we have a lot of work to do. I know it is good work and that God is with us. I just don't think He wants us to forget to be with each other while the work is being done. I have missed the connection with friends , the laughter, the joy of working together to serve and the caring follow ups when one of us has something go wrong. It is truly the connections to each other that make the work worth doing and not seem like, well, work. As we move forward to accomplish our plans, let us not forget each other.

http://www.stservicemovie.com/

unraveled sweater

2007-10-25T22:32:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't have much to say right now, obviously. Nothing too insightful. Nothing too deep and leering about my life or events around me. Life is interesting though. you never know what kinds of twists and turns you will take. This last year has been -borrowing the statement from LaRae Roth - "Unbelievable!" Unbelievable in so many different aspects. Unbelievably amazing. Unbelievably sad. Unbelievably frustrating. Unbelievably exciting. Unbelievably inspiring. Unbelievably unbelievable! Its unbelievable how God has been with me through it all.

He knows what we all need. I needed a period of reflection and testing and then growth. I needed direction. I've been floating through life waiting for something to catch up with me. Unfortunately it did.

It was like wearing your favorite bulky, cuddly sweater. Then noticing a piece of yarn is sticking out awkwardly. You quickly try to tuck it in and hide it. I'm painfully self conscious and will spend a lot of time trying to discreetly tuck away loose threads. This thread was not going to be tucked away. So going against my better judgment, I just pulled it, and pulled and pulled, and pulled....

So suddenly this summer I realized that I had completely undone everything. I was naked and there was a whole mess of yarn around me. Figuratively, not literally, don't worry no indecent exposure. I just realized that I needed to focus my life. I had things and stuff scattered everywhere. I had no goals. And I was unbelievably sad. Luckily, some of our selah sisters where there for me. Thank you.

So I've been reflecting on where I've been and where I'm going. I know what I want to do with my life. Trying to focus on rebuilding things that have come unraveled. Only hopefully better and not leaving the loose threads. So during the process of tearing down and rebuilding I've realized that some really incredible things have happened. I don't want to itemize them here. But things are unbelievable. I can't say that things are great. Or even good. But I think that they are going in the right direction. And I know what God has called me to do. :)

Selah.

Hey, and pray for us - the selah sisters. To be a little bold about it: I don't know what's going on, but there is a rift between some of us. I think we have all been in the process of tearing apart and rebuilding, whether we wanted to or not. God has lead us to this place. But we are all feeling a little disconnected with each other. It seems like when we are wrapped up in reflecting and redefining we lose track of those around us. So Pray for us. I think that as individuals and as a group we need it.

a.

Back In Time

2007-09-15T18:49:00.000-05:00

If you make it as far as my profile, you'll learn that one of my favorite movies of all time is "Trip to Bountiful." It's an independent film done on a low budget with wonderful acting, directing and horrible editing.

In that movie an older lady is trying to get back to her childhood home, a town called Bountiful. Her mean daughter-in-law prevents her, forcing the poor woman to stay home with her and her husband in a cramped, two-room apartment. But she escapes--buys a bus ticket, and the rest of the movie revolves around the trip back.

She gets to her beloved hometown to find it dead. No one is left. She looks through her house, and you can feel the eerie feeling you get when you walk through an abandoned homeplace--the memories are there, but the trappings are gone. Cobwebs and dust cover everything. No voices--just crickets, birds and memories.

So that's what it was like when I revisited this old blog. It's been years since I could get on -- I had forgotten my password, even. So -- I ran into A. last week, we talked of the old blog, and I determined to get back. Of course, it had that old, abandoned house feeling. The memories we shared, the voices -- and some rather nasty cobwebs.

In Bountiful, the woman entertains the idea of fixing the old place up and living there, but she knows she's too old and her heart is in bad shape, and so it's a pipe dream. It'll never happen. Well, I have entertained that thought here. I cleaned out the cobwebs--spam by the dozens--and even fixed up the place with a new template, and here I am blogging. Who knows? I haven't given up the idea. I may stay and blog. Ladies, if you still have your emails set to receive notice of a new blog, and if you've made your way here, would you care to join me? We no longer share a Bible study as we did, but we share many of the same things we always shared.

We've all done the things Mamaladybug said we'd do. She warned us that we'd grow up and fly the coop. I think maybe she thought we'd start Bible studies of our own, but instead we've followed our giftings and done some extroardinary things. I think it must have been hard for Mamaladybug to see us go, and yet she's got to be proud when she remembers where we all started. Hey, Mama--good job! Kudos! I'd have never done some of this stuff without the confidence you inspired and the grounding you provided.

If you guys want to report in, maybe we could start it like a family reunion. Where are you in your life? What's going on? How have the Selah Sisters affected you in the ministry you now do? Then, maybe we can take it from there.

I'll do my report in an upcoming blog, but first I'd like to say something to the cobwebs: :~?

Yes, we know we've got a great blog going here. Weird how you came back with such consistency, saying the same things over and over. No, we do not wish to participate in your home-based spamming pyramids. No, we don't want to purchase the various unwholesome products you've touted. And, no, we do not wish to grow back our hairlines. Not at this time, thank you. However, you won't see this little notice. Thanks to new settings you won't make your way in here, and good riddance. Have a nice day.

Okay, back to the Selah Sisters. My apologies to some of the nice blogs we linked to. The new template erased those settings, but I plan to get links back up for the best of them.

Homesick

2005-08-10T08:22:00.000-05:00

Here we are again at the end of summer. Sometimes I think that this is the best and the saddest time of the year all wrapped up into one exhilaratingly quick blink of an eye; and then its fall. This is the time of year that we've all spent so much time outside that the outdoors feels like home. You are so used to the emerald greens that when they start to fade you continually tell yourself that it isn't true, your eyesight must be getting bad.

"Poor little booger," my oldest is playing with the baby when suddenly starts lamenting. I inquire about this statement. To which he responds, "he has got to be sooo homesick now." What we are at home. Doing our familiar bedtime routines. How could you get more "at home" than that? Well let me tell you, through the eyes of a child. B just pointed up to the ceiling. I look up and the realization of what he meant poured over me like honey - sweet, yet the implications were sticky. I often forget where my true home is. Yet my children who haven't graced this earth as long as I have, haven't taken their eyes from their true home. Some days they are a blessing to me, the unrestrained happiness only a child can know. Their eyes and hearts are still mostly pure and untainted by the world. Yet I know that there will be a time soon when they too will have to have their sins washed away. To regain this purity that is so natural to them now.

Yes, now that you mention it, I'm homesick, too. We all are. Maybe we don't all know it because we fill the void with something else, but all of our hearts are yearning to be clean and pure and for our home in the sky.

This year we are keeping my oldest home to school him here. After long deliberations, we have decided that, for now, this is the best that we can do. We are looking forward to this year, many neat things planned. I do believe that God has lead us to this path for a reason. What exactly I'm not sure yet. It seems like my path in life is meandering, but I know that He leads me down the straight and narrow.

Love,
A.

2005-07-27T16:18:00.000-05:00

It has been hot.... real hot. We have all had cabin fever. And have been cranky. Some days the little window air conditioner we have could barely keep up with itself let alone the room it was in. Outside has been worse. But lets not talk about unpleasant things.

Yesterday afternoon the rain came. I don't think that it has rained since June (I can be proven wrong on technicality, but it hasn't rained like it needs to rain.) Today, the coolness of the morning greeted us in such a way that I knew today would be a good day. Not to cool. And thank you God not to hot. Today has been a day for doing things.

However, I had an appointment to keep, well a morning one and then an afternoon one. I took my boys with me. Yup, a little disgruntled about the situation. So afterwards I surprised them by taking them to play and walk around the park and then to get sno cones. Its amazing how one day of great weather soothes the soul. Mends hurt feelings. In the same way reading His word does. I need to work on spending more time outside and with Him.

SELAH SISTERS

2005-07-26T22:54:00.000-05:00

To all my wonderful Selah Sisters... Grace and peace to you! I have missed you! Yes, school is finally over. Yes, I have graduated (with honors no less!). Yes, I am ready to get back into digging in the Word!

I will once again be hosting a Bible Study for ladies in my home on Monday nights, beginning September 12th. I hope that you will all be here with bells on and a heart for learning! The study will begin promptly at 7:00 and end 9:00-ish. If you want to fix yourself a cup of coffee/tea, please come a few minutes early so we can begin promptly at 7:00!

Our topic starting this September will be the Journey of Paul. It is an indepth look at his spiritual journey from a persecutor of Christians to one who was later persecuted and martyred for Jesus Christ. There is much we will learn about and from Paul and his journey of sanctification.

Please join me, and bring a sister along with you. I'll put a few leaves in the dining room table and set some extra chairs. So here's to a great study with God - Grace and peace to you all! love, mamaladybug

2005-07-05T11:31:00.000-05:00

A look at the head joint.

2005-07-04T20:11:00.000-05:00

Any idea what this is? Someone gave it to me last night. It has six tone holes like a pennywhistle. It holds like a flute, but with a strange little mouthpiece so you don't have to worry about embrouchure. A fife, maybe?

So much to do, so little...

2005-07-02T13:57:00.000-05:00

It's been way too long since my last post. I guess we've all found ourselves in over our heads as far as business. A., I think of you often, even though I don't get to see you so much during the summer.

I've been so busy since I started teaching. And the church I go to has been eagerly creating opportunities for me to use what musical skills I have. Not that they're suffering for musical talent. They have wonderful singers and musicians, great guitarists, and the pianists and organists are topnotch. It's just that they're always looking to plug in new musicians any way they can.

I've rediscovered tin whistle, which is a little-recognized, but much-heard instrument. Most people who enjoy movies have probably heard it played. It's the instrument that makes the theme to Titanic so haunting. Most people think it's a flute played very expressively. It's not. It's a Celtic instrument, kind of an end-blown flute. I played whistle right after I graduated from college, put it away for a long time when I was busy with ballet, then raising a family, and now I'm back at it. I use it as a devotional tool. Sometimes I play to God. Sometimes I laugh or weep with it. And sometimes I play it in church. Our scheduler has put my whistle on the offeratory list. Not long ago we put together an arrangement of "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" with violin, tin whistle and piano. I hope it was as devotional to listen to as it was to play.

Only thing is, now I have three instruments (whistle, guitar, keyboard), plus voice, to keep up with and practice each day and still be conscientious about raising the kids and being a good wife and mom. This could never have happened when the kids were younger. And it's my feeble excuse for not keeping up with the blog.

A., I'm praying for you during the busiest part of raising your new boy. You and your family are on my heart often.

I know many of our two or three regular readers are out of the habit of checking back, but if you ever check this way again, please drop a line in the comments. I'd love to hear from you. And I'll try to get busy and write regularly again.

Certain Paths

2005-05-13T14:46:00.000-05:00

God never fails to surprise. Certain paths that I thought I was choosing by my own free will. I now know that He was leading me. And for a purpose.

I've been blessed with the birth and 9 1/2 weeks of raising my second son. This is so much more than what I imagined. Yes, different. No, not what I would have chosen. But I do know that All things God works together for His good.

I have spent the last several years developing myself spiritually and mentally. Challenging myself to know God more. To read more. To live more. To cook more. To garden more. To be healthier. To be more frugal. God was actually challenging me, not I challenging myself. Its fairly clear now. He knew that in order to raise my next son, that I needed to know many new skills for the challenge ahead. I'm glad I've already stored up that information, because learning on the job would have been a bit harder.

My first son has been his own challenge to raise. And I'm continually learning. I trust that God is steering me in the right directions with him. But, I can't believe how different my second son is. With his own set of challenges already. We have had many dietary issues with him, and after weeks of trial and error, my diet is restricted to meet my sons needs. I now have to read all labels. If I cook from scratch that is best. Which I now know how to do fairly well. I can eat whatever I raise in the garden, so out come the well worn gardening gloves. But most importantly I need to draw from my knowledge of God's love for me to make it through my days. The verses that I have memorized are honey to my soul when I need to be nourished. No I don't have time to dig and ponder over the word. But, I have a wellspring in my soul that will not run dry in times of need.

Follow your heart down the path that God leads it. And surely He will care for you all of your days.

Love,
A.

World Water Day but No Water for Terri

2005-03-23T10:52:00.000-06:00

I'm bumping Allthings2All to headline status today. Catez expresses it well on Terri Schaivo's situation.
Allthings2all

Terri to Appear before Senate Health Committee

2005-03-18T10:50:00.000-06:00

Will the hospice remove the tube anyway? To do so would mean being held in contempt of Congress.

My Way News: "The Senate Health Committee has requested that Terri Schiavo and her
husband, Michael, appear at an official committee hearing on March 28.
Earlier Friday, a House committee was issuing congressional subpoenas
to stop doctors from disconnecting the tube."

Pray Hard!!

2005-03-18T10:14:00.000-06:00

U.S. Congress steps in for Terri Schiavo. Pray that they will succeed in saving her life. Wonder if Michael Schiavo realized what a firestorm he would shake up.
My Way News

Today I found God in....

2005-02-24T15:05:00.000-06:00

…..a random act of kindness.

This morning I was really too tired to be a good Godseeker, although I did manage a chapter from Scripture. Good reading, but I found Him elsewhere today. Unexpectedly, I found Him in this "random act of kindness." And the person managed to leave the impression that I was the one doing the favor. Better explain this one, I think.

It really started last night as I tossed, fidgeted and raised my head from time to time to check the clock. From about 10:30 to close to 3:30 I did this--knowing I would have to be up by 5:30.

But I guess I should really go back two weeks to the day I first realized I was coming down with the flu that's been dogging a lot of us around here. And it's been with me for lo these two long, dreary weeks. After about four days on my back, I was able to drag back to work and get on with my life, but it's really still there. Every day I've awakened tired and gone to bed exhausted. Not to complain, but you have to understand how precious my sleep is right now.

Back to last night. After falling asleep around 3:30, I hauled out of bed at the usual time and went in to work. The voice was a bit better, so I downed a disgustingly strong cup of coffee as I prepared and started working on the voice stuff. Oh, did I ever mention that I work part time at a local radio station? Just an hour in the morning. I record some voice liners, weather and public service announcements, as well as a bit of trivia about old 60's tunes. I get done by seven am, hurry home to get the kids ready for school and we all pile in the car and head out. My guy teaches college, I teach music K through high school, and the kids, of course, learn. A bit challenging under normal circumstances, it's been gruelling these past few weeks, and this morning--all I can say is, I was glad to be a coffee drinker.

I went home, this morning, wrestled the kids into their clothes, thrust some breakfast into their hands, and shoved everyone out the door. We got to school, I got my preschooler settled into her classroom, and raced down to my first class. I opened my briefcase, only to find--all my music was back home.

I stared at row upon row of 4th through 6th grade students, realizing that if any one of them had forgotten his or her homework, I would have docked the grade 10%. And here I was with nothing prepared--at least nothing prepared at school.

I grabbed my guitar and we sang a song, talked about phrasing and the structure of songs, then I let them try their hand at composing. I redeemed the situation by turning it into a learning experience.

Next class went better. The jr.-sr. class was having band day. Instruments and voices--they were pretty well self-contained.

I went downstairs for a short break, knowing that for the youngest classes I had nothing. Nothing. I shared my quandry with a couple of teachers. One even offered to let me use her car to go get my stuff, but I knew with two hours of sleep under my belt, I had no business behind the wheel of her car.

Then the church/school secretary offered to drive me home. Well, I hate to inconvenience anyone--I always have--but I had no choice, really. So I took her up on it.

Here's the part where she left me feeling she was the one receiving the favor. In the course of the trip, she mentioned she had prayed that morning that God would send someone her way who needed help. Well, now, I know from experience that when you make God an offer like that, He could send you someone with a really big, really inconvenient problem just to see what you would do with it. So I guess my coming along wasn't so bad. I don't live that far from school. I guess it got her out of the building for a few minutes. And for me it was kind of nice just to be someone's answer to prayer. Know what I mean?

It got me thinking. You know, since we've started this RealGodseekers blog, we've found God in all kinds of places. In the garden, in big, neat opportunities, in sweet morning walks. And today--well, today I found God in the kindness of a friend.

What about ash Wednesday for the Christian?

2005-02-09T08:49:00.000-06:00

Ok ladies- I have been quiet but not forgotten (I hope) Things are my normal crazy busy and God is good. Even in some hard times (and they have really gotten stinky at work) I am given some good. I'm reminder that the Lord gives and takes away. My playground fundraising has paid off and we will see some new equiptment going in this Spring. The ladies Sunday school class idea has taken hold and we will soon see how this progresses. And lastly (for now) the Performing Arts Ministry book study idea has begun with several participating. The best news of all is that I am not leading everything. People are getting plugged in to use their gifts and strengths. I am merely been coreographing. (Which after another class I have been in may be my spiritual gift- administration). Oh I almost forgot, the I- team. Or passion team or whatever we called it. The recommendations were made to the elders. I had a HUGE concern that no one would see the impact. That we would only be successfully at making the I-team more passionately spiritual. Well, wrong. God laid it in the hearts of the men from the team to step up into leadership positions. As a result, all of the men are now elders/deacons or staff members. The women of course continue to be strong supporters. But having the men that went through with us and understand the recommendations be leaders is a big plus.

OK what does this have to do with Ash Wednesday?? Nothing. I was just up dating you before I got to my question. So what about it? I know it signifies the beginning of Lent. But is it biblical?? I tend to think a lot of the Catholic traditions stem from strong politics. So is Ash Wednesday biblical or political?? Can anyone give my reference and verse??

Quiet

2005-01-25T10:35:00.000-06:00

God always seems bigger to me in the morning when I take the dog out , and its quiet & cold. On winter mornings, everything is pale and pastel, the pinks and yellows of the sun rising. There is more evidence of God, then of man. On these dreaded winter mornings God always seems to be all around me. I breath fogs up in front of my face, the snow or frost crunches under my feet. Everyone else is still inside sleeping. Sometimes I hear birds singing and squirrels chattering, The dogs tags jingle. But mostly its quiet. Just me (& the dog) and God. This is when I like to pray.

This winter that I was not looking forward to, is passing swiftly. There is still a lot of cold days left. But not many. And there are only 5 weeks until the new baby comes. I am sad and joyous because this time has gone by so fast. I still have lots to get ready, but many things are getting checked off the list.

Love,
A.

Inaugural thoughts

2005-01-21T08:53:00.000-06:00

I caught just a bit of the inauguration yesterday. A television played all day in the lunchroom at school and classes were herded in to hear the President's swearing in, speech, and a few musical pieces.

It was nice, I guess. The music was a bit boring. It all seemed subdued for the grandness of the occasion. The President's speech left me uneasy, somehow. He seemed promise us some things that are outside the realm of human possibility. Claims were made about the power of democracy that left me feeling that this concept was almost deified. Democracy will conquer tyranny. Not just in a few countries where we can make a real difference--but worldwide. Ushering in peace on earth everywhere.

Democracy can do great things, and has, but it is not God. I get uneasy when people start talking about achieving peace on earth, since Christian Scripture warns us to beware when we hear such talk. Only Christ is able to achieve some of the goals the President has aspired to reach. The speech seemed to me to be sprinkled generously with humanly unachievable goals. Which is the core of what left me uneasy. Is this what the President really believes? Why?

Now, I'm a Bush supporter. I voted for him, support him, and have committed to praying daily for him. The speech has inspired me to redouble those prayers. Which may be a hidden blessing. If others are similarly inspired, that can only be a good thing.

Often when I see President Bush, I see an incongruous face. Often the Bush detractors mistake it as an unintelligent one. No--just incongruous. The eyes, steely and determined. The mouth--embarrassed. That's right. He's not quite comfortable in his own skin.

Understand that although he is from a political family, he was raised as a young boy in a small town, with middle class kids as friends. Leaving him with the impression that he's just a regular guy. And a regular guy that finds himself the leader of the free world might be a bit embarrassed by the success. Hence the incongruous face. And the speech. It does not sync with the regular guy part of him that makes people trust him.

Here's a link to a Peggy Noonan column which is pretty good, especially since she agrees with me. ;-) Also, scroll down half the page to a carricature by Ismael Roldan that captures that incongruous face better than any I've ever seen.
OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan
BTW, to somewhat offset the criticism, I DID appreciate the way the President referred to God throughout the speech. And thank God the prayer of invocation was not taken away from us this year.

-Godseeker

The Ordinary and the Extroardinary

2005-01-15T15:12:00.000-06:00

Getting away for the holidays was wonderful. First, though, I had to get over the guilt of spending time playing instead of developing curriculum. I guess it runs with the territory of being a first-year teacher.

Vacation at our parents' houses is always a break from news "junkiehood." First we go to my mom's house, who up until this year didn't have a television. Now she has a TV, but no cable, so we were woefully dependent on network TV for our news. I found I'd just as soon do without.

Then we got to my guy's parents' house, where there's cable, but you just find yourself watching less TV after going without at my mom's. So we felt somewhat sheltered from news from around the world.

The Sunday after Christmas, there was a big ice storm in South Carolina. This in a part of the country where a single snowflake has the power to shut down entire school systems. Lest anyone think I'm making fun, remember, I grew up in that part of the country. We kids lived for the single snowflake.

So that Sunday morning we awoke to the sight of glistening twigs, grass blades and clinging leaves seemingly encased in glass. Beautiful. We channel-surfed to find out if there would be church. My mother-in-law was anxious to show off the girls. As she surfed with annoying speed through channel after channel, switching just as I thought we might be getting to the church closings, I caught a breaking news story about a large earthquake in the Indian Ocean--8.0, I think they said. I remember thinking that this was pretty big, but maybe since it was supposedly out at sea, it wouldn't do too much damage to human structures.

At church we played open chimes and did a Christmas service and generally sheltered ourselves from the world around us. At least that's how I remember it when I look back now, because as we contentedly celebrated Jesus' birth, reports were apparently rolling in of tsunami waves fanning out to devastate an entire region, wiping out a third of the people there. It reminded me of the book of Revelation, and how a third of the earth is going to be wiped out. We just got a glimpse of the caliber of event that would kill a third of the earth, and what it would be like to experience it.

The Tuesday after Christmas we went down to Myrtle Beach on a cold, crisp day. The girls frolicked in their heavy coats and we walked along the beach as I imagined the horror of a thirty foot wave driving in from the sea.

So here we are, back from a relaxing vacation, and I'm already sleep-deprived and fighting a head cold. It's three degrees out as I write. But God continues to do new things in my life. Imagine!

Our first Sunday back, the choir director asked if I would sub for her directing choir. After assuring her I had never done such a thing (at least not for adults), I said sure, I would be glad to do my best, for what it was worth. So now she's taken on the task of teaching me choral conducting! It's already helping with the kids at school, and I've led the church choir once so far, and it's an exciting new thing. Who would have guessed such a neat thing would happen to me?

I don't know why I'm sharing all this. The original idea for the blog was to show ordinary Christian ladies finding God in ordinary things. It seems to have evolved into ordinary Christian ladies facing extraordinary things in their lives. A. with her baby. Heiress seeking new ministry opportunities. Jomama will graduate from Bible college soon. Although this is extraordinary in itself, I'll bet it leads to extraordinary things in her life, too.

I guess I'm finding that extraordinary things can happen in anyone's life if she'll let them. But life happens in seasons, and there are times of ordinariness, such as finding God in your garden, and times for the extraordinary. So if you're going to get a full picture of a Christian woman's life, you might as well see it all. Because when God is allowed to be in it all, it's all extraordinary.

2005-01-15T14:56:00.000-06:00

Christmas frolicking at the Beach

2004-12-02T10:21:00.000-06:00

My darling son looked up at me, his eyes were moist and his face was troubled. I leaned in close and asked what was wrong. "Junior will never know Aunt Margaret. She was such a great lady." We were at a memorial service for a great aunt who had passed on. She was a Christian lady who was known for her hard work and many good deeds in her church, many of which her family and friends were reflecting. My son was very moved by this outpouring of gratitude for the life that this lady had lead.

Everyday we have a choice to be a great person or not. We have the choice to go out of our way and make a difference for others. Yes, Aunt Margaret is passed on, and so have many other great people, but we don't have to miss out on the great people that are still here. And we can be a great person ourselves. And we will never forget those great people that have brought us here.

By the way Junior is officially a BOY!!!

Love, A.!

Bible study

2004-12-01T23:50:00.000-06:00

Okay, dear Selah sisters. I wanted to write to you and ask you to think about what topic, book, Biblical character, etc. you want to study starting in January. I would like to continue the Feasts and Festivals, as we have Passover, Purim, Firstfruits and Pentecost coming up in the spring, but other than those, is there anything in particular you would like to study?

You had mentioned at one time about teaching others the Word of God. Or perhaps we could do a study on witnessing - you tell me.

Leave your suggestions on the blog sight and I will decide from your suggestions. By the way - the dreidels are in! You will have to stop by and get your dreidel! Selah!

Grace and Peace
Mamaladybug

Grace and Salt and Love

2004-11-22T22:30:00.000-06:00

The face glanced in my direction. For a split second that has been etched in my mind, the pain and worry was apparent. The wrinkled forehead and sad eyes that met mine. I realized that although I did not know her troubles nor she mine, we shared the same facial expression. Darling Spouse and I were deep in a conversation on the ride home from church on Sunday, when we passed the lady and her companion. My heart immediately felt for her, and then I examined my own expression. Not much better. How was I supposed to shine forth Christ's love with such a painful and worried expression?

I see this look on people's faces more and more. Anxious, not knowing what the future holds. Fear of the unknown. The look of someone who does not know the heavenly Father, who deeply loves and cherishes us. Who does not know the Son who is this very minute in heaven preparing a room for us in a place that has no weeping, or fear. Who does not know the peace that comes with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Someone who doesn't know grace or mercy, or salvation. Why do we need to worry about our external trappings? Houses, cars, clothes..... Clothes?.... Why do you worry about these things? Does He not clothe the lilies of the field which are here today and frostbit tomorrow? Does He not cherish His children much more then lilies?

I feel the need to reach out to people. I want to share the Truth so they can be set free. But who would listen to me with my face just as worried as theirs? I need to fix my heart and mind on my eternal home and leave behind the pains and fears. They are not mine, I have given them away.

We are to speak with grace seasoned with salt and love. But what comes from the mouth is an outpouring of the heart. If my heart is wrapped up in the things of this world how can it? My thoughts need to be changed to thoughts of Grace and Salt and Love. I need to read and study and memorize the scriptures more and more. Thank you MamaLadyBug, for knowing what we need. : )

A.

what is it???

2004-11-17T15:10:00.000-06:00

OK It's driving me nuts. We were talking at work about Christmas and symbols and what they mean. So wow here is my chance to talk about Jesus being the light, the lamb, pure as snow and all the other things. So one gal and I are explaining the candy cane and the jingle bell. THEN some one says there is a legend of a cardinal. Well, I've never heard this. We did a web search and are coming up empty the best I found was at a Christian gift site abbeypress.com it says something about doves watching Jesus. SO...how do we get to a cardinal?? Anyone know? It's bugging me.

Marines turn to God

2004-11-08T16:35:00.000-06:00

Pray for our men and women in Iraq. Here's one report of revival going on among the ranks. : D

Marines turn to God: "'I just wanted to make sure I did this before I headed into the fight,'
he said on the military base not far from the city of Fallujah."

Bless 'em, Lord!

it's been a while

2004-11-08T13:46:00.000-06:00

It has been a while since i posted. I can say i have had some ups and downs. Tears and smiles. The Lord gives and takes. If you can adjust to that prinicipal then you can accept life. I have had some dark what is my purpose days and some bright God is gret days. They balance.
I will say I am spiritually hungry for some meat. Lately I have been getting crusts of bread. But I want the meat. So ladies you are missed. My spiritual stomach is grumbling like a baby who has been switched to solid food and then all of a sudden placed back on milk.
Soon I need fed.

Savor

2004-11-04T14:15:00.000-06:00

This afternoon, having come home exhausted, I napped a few minutes, got up and made some coffee, sat down and read this article. Peggy Noonan is a favorite writer of mine. She was a speechwriter for Reagan, and has opined conservatively (and beautifully) for the Wall Street Journal for years. So go grab a cup of tea or coffee (peach tea, Mamaladybug), settle down and follow the link.
OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan

And after you've read the article, here's one more thing to savor: In the past few weeks, more believers have found their way to their knees to pray for the country than we've seen since post September 11th. Many prayed for a Bush victory, some prayed for a Kerry victory, most prayed for God's will for America. But the point is, many of Christ's people, who are called by His name, humbled themselves, prayed, and sought God's face, and in the process found themselves changed--finding the faults and turning away from them. Haven't I heard that somewhere? What's the rest of the verse? Oh, ye-a-h--IF they do that, "...then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and heal their land." Savor.

And Selah.

(II Chronicles 7:14)

Voting Day

2004-11-02T13:49:00.000-06:00

It's about 2:00 US central time as I write this, and my day started early. I got out to the poll as soon as it opened, since I go to work about that time anyway. To my (pleasant) surprise, there was no line waiting. I walked right in and voted. There was no nastiness at the poll, although I had to drive around quite a number of signs that had been ripped up and thrown in the road (mostly Republican, I might say).

People at the poll were quite pleasant. I was the first to vote in my district. : ) I was offered the traditional "I voted" sticker, and I accepted. I've turned it down in the past, thinking it just a little ostentatious. This time, though, I thought of Afghan voters who proudly displayed their stained thumbs. Voting is a good thing. Democracy, I think, is a gift from God. So I proudly wore my sticker this year.

When I got to school, I was asked in EVERY class who I voted for. I explained to the kids that part of the political process was the right to not have to say who you voted for. But then I told them I voted for the issues important to me--morality and security. I got a lot of smiles.

My 2nd-3rd grade class is quite active politically. And quite conservative, I might add. Most of them had homemade Bush bumper stickers taped to their desks. And taped to their lockers. And taped to their tummies and rear ends. I felt a little sorry for the Democratic intern from the local University who came in to help out with their reading. She told them who she voted for. As I was leaving, I think their homeroom teacher was heading off a riot. Anyhow--they may need some help with appropriate response to differing opinions, but I'm glad they're engaged politically.

Am anxiously praying. My hubbie struggles to understand God's place in the political process, and thus tends to wonder, "Why pray?" Is God on one side and not on the other? Probably not, actually. But I think of Joshua in the run-up to the big battle of Jericho. He ran into an angel in the night, standing there with a drawn sword. He asked the angel whose side he was on--ours or theirs. The angel said, "Neither. I'm commander of God's army." With all the help God gave the Israelites you would have thought He was on their side. But I guess God thinks about things more accurately than we do. THEY were on GOD's side. HE was not automatically on THEIR side. And so it is with the political process. HE is not affiliated with the Republicans or the Democrats. HE is not exclusively on the side of the football player who kneels and prays in the end zone after a touchdown. But HE sees when WE are on HIS side. And so He blesses us. So I think it's important to be looking carefully at which side aligns itself more closely with God. And that's why I'm confident that my prayers matter today.

Whatever happens--God is with us. Emmanuel.

Beauty and the Blood

2004-11-01T09:23:00.000-06:00

This is a strange time in my life. In some ways this is a dry time--very little sense of the personal presence of God. Fortunately, I have learned not to depend on feelings. Fickle things, those feelings. Like children needing to be herded and controlled as best we can.

Here's another way to look at our feelings about God. Think of a train with one engine, one car and one caboose. The engine that runs the train is "fact." The second car is "faith." And finally, at the end of the train, "feelings." The fact is, I'm blood-bought, and Christ paid the price to redeem me. As previously posted, my "self" is now the temple of the living God. He is with me. Period. So the second part, the car of the train, is "faith." The reason faith is not the engine is that you can have faith in all sorts of silly things. Bambino curses--that sort of thing. A rabbit's foot in the pocket, the need for a certain team to win their last home game in order for the incumbent to win the election--I actually heard that one this weekend. So you have to have your faith following a factual thing. The fact--I'm blood-bought. God is present in my life. I have faith in the presence of God, and one of these days, that "feeling" caboose will catch up.

Anyway, here's the thing. Although there's no measurable sense of the presence of God in my life, I see the evidence in profound ways. Like the way my church and my outside-of-church Bible study keep saying the same things.

Last week at Bible study we were talking about the tabernacle and the Holy of holies. I remember last year we were working on some artsy things at church and were struck by how God annointed the artists who built the furniture in the tabernacle.

When I was little my dad, a pastor, bought and built a little paper model of the tabernace. It was fascinating to me. He used model airplane paint to coat the bronze altar bronze and the Ark of the Covenant gold. I remember being especially taken with the glittery gold Ark, with the little angels facing one another, their wings touching overhead. It seemed such a beautiful thing. So all my life I've held this image of a sparkling gold Ark of the Covenant, where somehow the Spirit of God lived, and once a year a high priest would go in and perform some sort of duty which was vague in my mind, but he got to see that beautiful thing that had been built by some annointed artisan.

Then last week we were talking about that ritual the high priest performed. Get this! He splattered the pretty ark with blood. Seven times. Every year. Think about it. Year after year, splatter after splatter, the layer of dried blood built up, until the beutiful Ark became a grim spectacle. Imagine the High Priest. Every year the big Day of Atonement would get here, a day of dread, because every time you entered that room you took your life into your own hands. Or into God's hands. Because if you touched the altar, you died. If you went in without washing properly, you died. So in the back of his mind, there had to be a certain amount of dread associated with that task. With the scene set by an undercurrent of dread, you tiptoed in to be faced with the image of two blood-covered angels standing guard over the Presence of God. Because who would dare go in there and clean the Ark? Forty years of blood covered it, transforming it from a thing of beauty to a grim place of slaughter. Like a forty-year-old crime scene.

Then they talked about the VERY same thing in Sunday School. It has to mean something. But what? Why would God go to all the trouble to instruct the artists to make a thing of such beauty when He knew what would happen to it?

Hmm. One clue was brought out both at Bible study and Sunday school. God sees sin as a grim thing. And He had to find a way to teach us how He felt about sin. The picture of blood was a way to do that. As sad and hard as it is to slaughter the best of your herd in sacrifices, God considered the act of reconciling us to Himself to be more important than the life of good sheep, goats and bulls. Not that He didn't value that life. But given the choice of allowing bulls to live and keeping us out of hell, He chose our eternal souls. We had to know the awfulness of sin. And that blood-spattered altar, and the continuous sacrifice of burning flesh going on outside on the brass altar, with its own blood-spatters and the stench of the whole place of slaughter, gave us a picture of the awfulness of sin to Him.

Maybe the beauty of the Ark of the Covenant showed how we were meant to be. And maybe the blood helps us to see the defacement that sin wreaks upon us. And so this whole picture of a travelling slaughter house that went with the Isrealites wherever they went. They were followed around by a giant object lesson of what a grim mess their lives were.

You know, when I was a kid I remember reading a piece of fiction (?) in which a dog killed a chicken. And in order to keep it from becoming a chicken killer, they tied the chicken to his collar in such a way that he could not remove it. The chicken rotted on the back of his neck, and nobody could stand to go near him, and eventually even the dog himself couldn't stand the stench of that defilement back there. After a couple of weeks of misery, the dog never touched a chicken again as long as he lived.

In a way, the dog has a better memory than we do. My sin caused the slaughter of the living Christ. Did you see the Passion of the Christ? Afterwards, I felt I could never sin again, knowing what my sin caused. So how long did that last? Not long, I can tell you. But Christ chose to buy us with His precious, grim sacrifice anyway, and still the Holy Spirit chooses to tabernacle with us, even when we defile the temple (our selves) with our sin. God is most generous with us.

Oredombay

2004-10-27T13:57:00.000-05:00

Some of the folks at Google must have been a little bored.
Google in Piglatin
Remember when we had time to get bored?

God in His Temple

2004-10-16T15:56:00.000-05:00

Lately our Sunday School class has been all about worship. Very cool stuff.

The teacher has been coming at it from the angle of the Temple of God. One Sunday he talked about the first meeting place of God and man--the garden of Eden, in the cool of the day. Then, after that was spoiled, later God established a meeting place at the Tabernacle. A place where God could not only meet with people, but teach them more about who He is. He's holy, someone to be reverenced, but someone who will go to great lengths to meet with his people. Then when Jesus came to earth, He was Emmanuel--God with us. Jesus was the ultimate provision of a "meeting place"--God walking among us. When you saw him, you saw God. He was also to teach about God. And He was to manifest God fellowshipping with man. Then when he returned to heaven the Holy Spirit would come to dwell within us, thus marking each of US as the temple of God. I Corinthians 6:19 says we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. The word "naos," translated temple, was one of two words for "temple" used in the New Testament. The other one referred to the temple as a whole structure. This word "naos" refers more specifically to the "holy of holies," the place where God dwelled, above the ark of the covenant, the one place in all of earth God designated as his official home on earth, the one place we could be assured of God meeting with humanity. A place so holy only one priest a year could go in there. And even then, he wore bells, and a string that led back out to someone outside the room. They would listen to the bells. If somehow the priest displeased God, the silence of the bells would signal that he was dead and must be dragged out by the string. It was that holy. Now we are the "holy of holies" of God--the designated earthly meeting place of God with humanity. Kind of blows your mind when you think of it that way. And next time I'm tempted to do, say, or even think something that would dishonor God, hopefully this thought will draw me up short before I dishonor God in His temple.
Allthings2all
Another blog that's worth reading. All interesting, but scroll down to "Brokenness and Beauty" to read more on "treasure in earthen vessels."

Getting caught up

2004-10-09T09:38:00.000-05:00

I wrote this a week or so ago, I need to get back in the routine of posting because I keep on getting more things that I have to share. If I don't share them, I'll forget them forever!

about 9-15-2004

Well yes, the year has gotten off to a busy start! Technically, I did pray for this in one way or another, so I'm not complaining. I've been improving on my bible reading, too! It's so good to get back into it. Reading the bible always surprises me with neat stuff. I wish that I could devote a lot more time to it, and study and to writing too, but that's not my current calling. I've been enjoying my work, both at home and at the Photography studio, although there are whisperings from deep down inside me wanting to be back at home only. There is a sadness about coming home to a messy house and knowing that it will just have to be that way, because there is so much more work to do.

--
about 9-1-2004

Darling Husband and I were out picking apples from the tree. We got an amazing crop! It was so pretty out there that late afternoon with the golden sunlight streaming through the tree's branches. Like a Maxfield Parrish illustration. How bittersweet this time of year seems. I love the weather and the bounty of the harvest, but everything sings of the leaving of summer and coming of winter, the crickets, the birds, the thump of apples to anxious to leave their home, even the air feels like the passing of time. This year I'm looking forward even more so to next spring ;)

As we were picking apples, I noticed a branch that I'm familiar with, as with most of the tree's branches. This particular one is one that used to be two, but over many such autumns, has twisted together and grown sometimes as 2, many times as 1, always never far. That day I immediately thought of that old story about the footprints in the sand. This tree branch is like my Christian life. Close to Jesus, at times more so than others, maybe someday we will be so fused we are inseparable! It's my turn to make a twist again and start growing closer because I'm starting to feel to much myself.

about 9-7-2004

Just one week after we had picked apples, my "d-buddy" - accountability partner - quoted the scripture that he had memorized for the week. Of the several verses Psalm 1:3 "He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers."

My mind was immediately refocused on my apple tree, which season has come and is bearing 3 fold what it did last season. I pray that I will drink the living water - God's word and prepare myself for when my fruits will be in season again, yet more bountiful. Winter although it may appear dead and lifeless on the outside is a period of storing up energy and contemplating the burst of growth in the spring, its the slumber that is needed for the next growing season.

10-5-2004

My darling son was wanting to play basketball with his dad. But like so many nights this harvest season, my darling husband was working late. The sun was already disappear and dusk was upon us. I said, 'come on, lets go out and play before it gets too dark.' We went outside in the cold night, we could almost see our breath. Both of us in our jackets and sandals, in our rush to get outside. Oh well, we are just going to play to 15 baskets between us, it won't take long. How good my son has been getting with getting the ball up into the hoop! Before we knew it our fingers and toes were warm with the exercise and we had made it to 15. Still his father wasn't home. He wanted to practice with the kickball. So we head out to the back yard in the dark of the night, illuminated by the house's lights, we practiced until he got 20 good kicks. OK, its time, we've got to go on inside. As soon as we got inside and got our feet cozy in our slippers, we heard the familiar sound of my darling husbands truck pulling in. Before I knew it my son's sandals were back on, stocking cap pulled down over his ears and was out the door. Honey, we already practiced basketball, its dark and cold, and close to bedtime. His reply was, yea we did, but I haven't practiced with Dad.

While they were outside shooting baskets and talking about the day, I started heating up the cocoa. I need to remember to be as determined to spend that 15 minutes with my spiritual Father.

-------

I hope I didn't overwhelm you!
Selah!
A.

A Gem of a Blog

2004-10-06T13:50:00.000-05:00

I stumbled across this wonderful blog some time back. She's visited our blog and commented, but her comment seems to have disappeared (at least I can't bring it up). Anyhow, here's proof that Selah sisterhood (and brotherhood) is an international phenomenon. A Philipino Bible college student finds time to Selah and blog.

Kleronomos

BTW, her username is "heiress." Could be a technical conflict with our own "heiress" prevented her comment from appearing.

Pray for the Hostages

2004-09-25T09:45:00.000-05:00

I don't agree politically with everything this article says, but it did remind me this morning of the situation over in Iraq. I'm weary of hearing about the latest person being beheaded just for being in the country to help out. Christians, Jews, Muslims, non-religious people, there seems to be no discrimination. The only common denominator seems to be--they were there to help. Barbaric.

Anyhow, when Hensley was beheaded this past week, it hit me even harder than the others. When I was little I went to school in Georgia with some Hensley boys. They would be in their early forties now. I wonder if they are related to the latest victim? And I was really convicted. Have I prayed for the hostages like I should?

Sometimes I think we don't pray as much as we should, because we're afraid if God won't grant our request. And then it might make God look weak to us, or to others. And so, to protect God's reputation we don't pray--or we pray apologetically, with little faith.

Well, I think God can handle His own reputation. He told us to pray. We just do it. God, I pray for the rescue or release of Kenneth Bigley. Please intervene on his behalf. Bring him home to Great Britain. Enable him to see his new grandchild. Thank You.

Muslim Envoys Off to Baghdad

School's in Session

2004-09-23T13:48:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess I should blog a little more often, huh? Suddenly life is busier than it has been in years.

When my family was just getting started I used to chomp at the bit, wishing I had more to be busy at, feeling guilty for doing nothing other than nourishing and changing babies. Not that that doesn't keep you plenty busy, but I was going through a big adjustment, and it was time to be less busy for a while. During that era I had an epiphany which helped me to settle into that homey life. It was this: Someday I'll be busy again, and I'll miss the idyllic life of caring for babies, garden and hubby.

Well, it's here. I'm busy again, and I DO miss the idyllic life, but I'm relishing the challenge of teaching music--not just sight reading and vocal coaching, but of passing along a love of music--and of God. It is, after all, a Christian school, and it's okay for me to do that.

Tuesday night before I went to bed I was working on a guitar arrangement of some of Jomama's music from the cantata. Well, the guitar session turned into a worship session, as I listened to all the music from the cantata, sang and cried, and talked to God about all the feelings that went into that project. I got to bed around midnight. The alarm was set for 5:15 am. Bummer. But I was going on some advice I gleaned from a dream A. had a long time ago, and since it was obviously God-orchestrated, I trusted Him for strength for the next day. Miraculously, I had even more energy than usual. Go figure.

Then last night I saw a bunch of the Selah sisters! There was this cool group hug, and when Heiress asked about the new job, I commented that now I put together two programs a year, without the help I used to get.

To backtrack, last year we all worked together to produce this incredible cantata experience. It was a team effort like I've never seen. Like the Body of Christ, each part, catching the same vision all at the same time. Thus, the comment, two programs instead of one, and without the help.

Later I thought, no, not without the help. I've unconsciously adopted the model, and have been using it freely. The Jr. high-high school age kids are working to help mentor the younger ones. Kids have been bringing in CD's to help me pick out music. They bring in instruments they know how to play. A couple of technical minds are working with the sound tech, shadowing him. And I've got these two third graders with incredible gifts in movement, who have pretty nearly choreographed the whole thing.

I think in the fall I may use the model even more overtly. Someday these ruffians will be leaders in their churches, and even more than reading music, I'd like for them to have had the experience of the body of Christ working together. Hands doing the hand stuff, noses doing the nose stuff, toes doing the toes stuff--you know.

Selah
-Godseeker

Guess What?

2004-09-01T21:43:00.000-05:00

OK, so Heiress already guessed, cheater :)

There will be a new addition in March :) Yep thats right.

That might explain any weird behavior out of me this summer. Anyway, we've already got pictures, and I do have to say, s/he is quite a cutie. Of course I might be biased.

Meanwhile, I had been very disciplined this Spring with bible study and prayer. This summer I've let it slip, due to tiredness and nausea and excuses. So, I've got to get back to work, now that I'm running out of excuses, tiredness and nausea have subsided. So Selah Sisters, can you help keep me accountable?

Much Love and Joy,
A.

Selah Sisters

2004-08-25T00:28:00.000-05:00

Hey - I am so ready for Selah Sisters to start! How does Monday, September 13th sound to everyone? I have been so excited reading, studying and preparing the lessons on the Feasts and Festivals of Israel. The levels one can take these Feasts is phenomenal (you know me - depth, depth, depth!) Anyway, I am ready to go and needing to see you all. Please contact Myra Lo Arntzen about this, as she expressed an interest in our Bible study, also let Judy and Debbie know. Perhaps now that Tiffany is a Sadie, Sadie, married lady she might be interested in coming. I think my neighbor down the street will join us this year. I hope you come too heiress, but I sure understand if you don't (tears, tears). Let me know if this starting date is ok. We'll plan on 7:00-9:00 (ha ha!). Until then, Grace and Peace - love, mama

You Won't Believe This!

2004-08-24T09:58:00.000-05:00

Well, things sure happen fast for me, lately. Get this.

Last week, at Parent Orientation for my daughter's Christian School, her teacher mentioned that the music teacher would no longer be doing music. And she put out a request that if anyone would like to help out--

Well, my other daughter is still at home, so of course I dismissed it. Still, I thought it a shame. She loves music and the program has been so strong.

I mentioned it Saturday to a fellow parent, with the "It's a shame" part, and she said, "You know, if you produced the cantata (last year's Easter cantata at church), you could do this." She was talking about the whole SCHOOL'S music program. And she mentioned that preschool was not yet full at the school. Unusual--they usually fill up first.

So, long story short, I called the principal yesterday, got a call today that I have the job, and my younger daughter goes to preschool--financially, it's free, in trade for my help.

Pray for me!! That's two big school programs a year, which have always been top-rated in the past. And a whole school of kids who need vocal coaching.

Today I'm scouring the internet for curriculum.

Pretty neat, huh?

-Godseeker

New Things, Old Issues

2004-08-21T11:24:00.000-05:00

8-17

It's been way too long since I wrote anything down here. A great deal has happened, and I don't even know where to start. As I've done before, I'm making this a two-parter. First, the organic, animal-plant related incident, and second, the human experience.

* * *

Last Sunday. I really struggled through the hymns last week.
There was nothing there to sink my teeth into. Maybe someone else would have been edified by them, but this wasn't my Sunday. And it's not like I hadn't prepared my heart. It just wasn't working for me. On the other hand, the teaching was good--deep, meaty stuff, like the Selah sisters are spoiled on.

Anyway, I did wish for more inspiring music. My heart wanted to soar, to commune with God, and the best I could do was to try to create some pretty harmony.

And so I was ready to empathize with my garden visitor that evening. I was out with the dogs behind the vegetable garden, waiting for them to take care of "things," when a commotion came out of nowhere, seemingly from everywhere at once.

There were suddenly four or five robins in the mulberry tree, screaming and flying from branch to branch. At the same time, my little dog was straining against the rabbit fencing, trying to get into the garden, growling and barking. Meanwhile a fledgling robin was scurrying around the garden, trying to find a way out. He had apparently flown in, and did not know how to get enough lift to clear the top.

First of all, I put the dogs in the house. No sense riling up these angry robins (Why so many?). Next, I went and got a towel. A large, thick towel. The baby was still there, so I quickly dropped the towel onto him. This quieted him down, and the other birds quieted down, too. I reached to gently pick up the little lump, but he escaped and flew to one of the bottom rungs of the fence--behind a tomato plant. There he was, straining his way through the wiring, but getting caught at the shoulders. He tried this over and over, in different spots, making the same mistake again and again. He was straining so hard, I was afraid he would hurt himself.

I finally lunged through the twine tomato cage, breaking a steak, but I got my towel-covered hands around the little fellow. Of course, he made a lot of noise, and immediately the parents, aunts and uncles (or whoever they all were) began to scream and carry on again, but I did what I had to do. I lifted him to the point where he could clear the fence and soar--or whatever equivalent of soaring a fledgling robin is capable of.

As I said, I could empathize with this scared little bird. While I have a little mileage behind me, I didn't seem to have the "lift" I needed to soar past the fencing of unfamiliar music in an unfamiliar service. I tried every way I knew--trying to get through, around, everywhere but over, to get to God. Ironic, isn't it? Worship is supposed to be all about God, and here I was, all focused on the worship minister, the music, the organist, every direction but the right one. All I needed to do was look up, but I did not. Did I look to God? Did I pray for the hands of God to lift me up so I could soar? I wish I had. It would be a neat, triumphant blog, wouldn't it?

The good news is, a baby robin came along and taught me a simple lesson. It's the Hand of God, not my own striving, that even makes me capable of worship. So a little change of focus could make this new church experience much more meaningful.

Life is what Happens when you are busy making other plans

2004-08-10T08:37:00.000-05:00

Funny how the time travels at such an accelerated rate in the summer. I realized it has been a while since I posted. I have read a little here and there and kept up with you all. But with vacations and family and committees and fun I just haven't posted.
On the topic of change- I have always viewed change as neither good nor bad, it just is what it is. I view all change as a metamorphosis. A coming into being, whether gradual or rapid all things change. I think the question is when do we notice the change. If I understand my mama bible teacher, each of us are in the process of santification. Where God will prune us and cut back and help us to change. Change to be more like Him. What a great thing!
In reading back over some struggles I have had this summer I know that they are God's ways of saying, "hey heiress, time to grow. Now I know this one may hurt a bit, but hang in there, I know what it'll be like when I'm done." The church I attend is changing. The people are really trying to grow. The thing I have a hard time remembering is everyone is at a different place. So it's hard to meet all of those individual needs. But I think that's where we as Christians stumble. I think how can the church possibly be everything to everyone?? The answer is so simple. All things are possible with God. It's not the church that will be the answer, but God will the do the work through the people if we are wiling and open to him.
I'm not sure if I will be joining my Selah sisters or not this fall. It hurts me to have to say those words. But I have been feeling a pushing to do something for a while. I have tried to ignore it, but I don't think God will let me. Don't count me out yet! But there are 3 or 4 different ideas floating around in my head and tugging on my heart. I keep praying to know clearly the path that uses my spiritual gifts (not entirely sure I know what all of mine are) and that I choose as the Lord would have me. That said I ask for your prayers.
I love each of you.

New Things

2004-08-04T12:24:00.000-05:00

I have to repent.

Through those early blogs I seemed to complain so much about all the rain, and how the veggies in the garden couldn't ripen without a little sun. Seems like the rainiest summer I've ever seen.

Well, things have a way of balancing out, and the sun came back, and the veggies ripened. And because of all the RAIN I was so busy complaining about, most gardeners I know have the biggest, best quality vegetables in memory. And tons of them!! I'm harvesting about 50 little red grape tomatoes every day. We can't eat more than 15-20 in a day, so I've given away a lot, and still have pints of 'em bagged up and in the deep freeze. The full-sized tomato plants have produced not only ripe, sweet slicers, but nice, tart Celebrities to salsify, and bland but prolific Jet Stars for stewing. And the beans--bush bean. All the experts, and the seed packets, promise one good crop, then you pull the plant. Well, I didn't. And with all the rain and a little extra TLC, these little plants are into their second crops, and some of the earliest plants are putting out flowers for a third crop!!

So God lets the rains come. And these were good, steady rains, most of them. Not the violent gully-washers that strip the soil and flood the fields, leaving the farmers with nothing. These rains were strong but steady, leaving us all dreary. But with the sun came a bumper crop.

* * *

By now my Selah sisters all know that I have changed churches. This is a move I´ve made for the sake of the spiritual growth of my guy, who I love enough to change churches for. I'm not a natural church-changer. I love change in general, but a church is like a family.

In our town, and given the dynamics of our family, there were a couple of churches we looked at as being viable options. I kind of favored one church, and my guy favored the other. And because I go to such a dynamic Bible study, I gave him the final choice. I figured I could grow at either one, since I have the Bible study and the Selah sisters to teach me. So, he chose the one he favors.

It's a nice church. It's Baptist. I grew up Baptist and never thought I'd go back. The long skirts, the hymns--it had all grown kind of tedious for me when I left. My dad was a Baptist preacher, and a pretty good one, I guess, but I didn't really listen much. I spent a great deal of time daydreaming, fidgeting in itchy clothes, and all the time my stomach would rumble, reminding me of the feast of fried chicken that was my reward for enduring this tedium. To this day it's hard for me to be engaged by preaching. I was oversaturated early on. I go, these days, more for good teaching and good worship music.

So we go to the Baptist church and I wear the long skirts and sing the hymns and listen to the sermon. The Sunday school is nice. The people laugh and enjoy one another, and seem to enjoy being there to learn together. They're friendly, but they're not my people yet.

We trust the kids with their Sunday school teacher, because she's taught them for years in their Bible club. And she teaches a large, immensely popular Christian preschool class at this church's private school. Her class always has a waiting list. And kids love her with that kind of early childhood adoration that they´ll always remember.

So I think the kids are okay there. I think my guy is okay there. He's already responding to the teaching, to the church community, and I think he's going to be okay, now. And I guess eventually I´ll be okay there too.

Bible Study starts in a few weeks. I am SO-O-O ready. It's a place where I can go and be okay.

A lost tooth

2004-07-27T09:50:00.000-05:00

My sweet son lost his 3rd tooth this week. It was one of the front top two, so now he has been exhibiting a huge toothy grin :) Babies aside, I think this is one of the cutest milestones young children go through. Whose momma heart doesn't melt with a toothy grin from any child, let alone your own. I few months ago I thought that I wouldn't see much more of my son's smile. He had such a rough year at school, that I was starting to wonder if he was just starting to show the melancholy part of his personality. Fortunately he has recovered as the outgoing, bubbly, clown of a sanguine that I've always known him to be. And this new smile seems to fit superbly. Its also a reminder that he is slowly starting to outgrow childish things. While it may be quite a while until he is an adult, or even a teenager, the time is passing. My first child is growing!

As Christians, I think that God also marks the milestones of our faith. From baptism to heaven, God is watching our accomplishments. I can just imagine an omniscient grin as we stop stumbling over our words when we pray, as we learn how to dig deeper, and ask harder questions. As our faith grows and strengthens. I can also imagine how bittersweet it must be when we pass that childlike stage where he teaches and guides you and pass into the "grown-up" role of being an instrument utilized by Him to reach others. Godseeker, I'm praying that as you increase your influence, and increase your ability for your mission (really I see so much potential now), and I pray that your dh will be by your side the whole time. Jomama, I thought about you as I was stocking up on binders and paper last night ;)

Love, Hugs and Selah,
A.

Hug From a President

2004-07-24T10:22:00.000-05:00

I received this as a forward. Thought you all might like to see it.

It started out as a fluke. Lynn Faulkner had been
> offered an extra ticket to a Bush campaign event by
> his neighbor Linda Prince. Mr. Faulkner decided to
> offer it to his 15-year old daughter Ashley who he
> expected would decline, as she would have to miss
> some school to attend. But his daughter surprised
> him. Ashley reminded her dad how four years ago
> they attended a similar event when then Texas
> Governor George W. Bush visited the same spot on the
> campaign trail.
>
> Ashley remembered attending that event with both her
> father and her mother Wendy Faulkner. It was
> raining that day and they all stood in the rain
> awaiting Governor Bush "eating Triscuit crackers"
> enjoying the time together and hoping to get a
> glimpse of the would-be president. Ashley recalled
> holding her mothers hand as they waited. So she
> decided to go again this year, but this time her
> mother could not attend. Wendy Faulkner was
> murdered on 9/11/01 in the south tower of the World
> Trade Center. She was there on the 104th floor for
> a one-day meeting. Ashley decided to miss school in
> honor and remembrance of her mother and attend the
> event.
>
> So the trip was on. Linda Prince, along with Lynn
> and Ashley Faulkner, were off to the Golden Lamb Inn
> in Lebanon, Ohio for the event. The group arrived
> early and got a spot close to the front. As the
> event wound down, the president worked the line in
> full campaign mode shaking hands and signing
> autographs. As the president passed the group, Mr.
> Faulkner got an autograph, and the president
> continued on until Linda Prince spoke up, "This girl
> lost her mother on 9/11," Prince told the president.

> Then everything changed.
>
> "The president's entire expression transformed," Mr.
> Faulkner told me on Sunday. "He turned and came
> back against the flow and his eyes locked on
> Ashley's. His face showed a man who was no longer
> the president, he was a father and a husband."
> President Bush made his way back to Ashley and he
> embraced the 15-yeal old young woman. "She snuggled
> in with the president just like she did when she was
> a little girl with her dad," Mr. Faulkner said. "I
> know it's hard," Mr. Faulkner heard the president
> tell his daughter. "I'm okay," Ashley told the
> president. The embrace continued.
>
> Mr. Faulkner had his Kodak digital camera with him
> and debated on invading this very private moment
> between his daughter and the leader of the free
> world. "For 20-30 seconds the president belonged
> exclusively to Ashley," Lynn Faulkner told me. So
> he decided to capture the moment without invading
> Ashley and the president's privacy. He held up his
> digital camera, not even aiming with his eye and
> with one click snapped just one picture. It showed
> in detail the face of a compassionate man who just
> happens to be the president comforting a young woman
> who lost her mother in the 9/11 attacks on America.
>
> Mr. Faulkner told me that he saw tears in his
> daughter's eyes, and saw emotion that he hadn't seen
> from his daughter in 2 ½ years. Ashley told her
> dad, "The way he was holding me, with my head
> against his chest, it felt like he was trying to
> protect me, he wanted to make sure that I was safe."
> That feeling is captured in a very clear way in
> this moving unscripted photo. It's the only photo
> of this special embrace as the press corps had
> already been ushered back on the bus. And the photo
> was never meant for publication. All Mr. Faulkner
> did when he returned home from the event was e-mail
> it to 15 friends and family. But by the middle of
> last week, I had received the photo from eight
> different people. Others were also receiving the
> photo and forwarding it along. It became an
> Internet phenomenon, as it was e-mailed around
> America.
>
> Mr. Faulkner called the embrace "President Bush's
> precious gift to my daughter." And with his small
> act of e-mailing that photo to friends and family,
> the picture can now become a gift to the American
> people.
>
> And as sad as the story is the release and
> publication is a good thing. Disgusting photos
> coming out of Iraq for the past 10 days have shocked
> Americans, as they should have. But no longer are
> the terrible images of 9/11 shown. While the Iraq
> prison photos have been picked up by the elite media
> and shown time and again, this touching photo has
> gone largely ignored by the mainstream media. But
> the alternative media has made this touching
> powerful photo one of the most e-mailed photos of
> last week. The Internet once again took over where
> the elite media failed. Matt Drudge ran it on May
> 7th, as did the Page 2 Politics journal, and
> hundreds of other blogs. Millions have now seen it,
> but millions more need to. It gives a stark
> reminder why America is at war with radical Islam
> and other terrorists around the world that are
> determined to cause this kind of pain to other
> American families.
>
> The images of 9/11 have faded in the minds of far
> too many Americans. This picture and this family's
> riveting story give a stark reminder of why America
> is at war. Each day around the globe our soldiers
> are fighting in an attempt to prevent any other
> event as terrible as the murders that took place on
> 9/11. Look hard at this picture. See the
> compassion and sadness on the president's face.
> Look at this young woman, see her grief and listen
> to her father's words. Ashley and her sister Loren
> just spent their third Mother's Day without their
> mother, as did thousands of other children who lost
> their mothers on 9/11 at the hands of ruthless
> uncaring terrorists. Imagine yourself in that
> position.
>

Another Death and a Tribute

2004-07-19T12:54:00.000-05:00

I'm not quite ready to talk about my new decision. That will come in the next day or so. In the meantime, Heiress' blog brought up some thoughts I've struggled with since the loss of a friend this spring. A college friend. As a sort of catharsis, I wrote a tribute for her. At the time, A. and I had been talking about the importance of writing down your testimony and being proud of it (Jomama, I believe, gave us the Hebrew word for such a thing, but it slips my mind).

Anyhoo, here's the tribute I wrote. It raises tough issues on the fairness (or unfairness) of life, and has given me a whole bunch of stuff to grapple with. Maybe one or all of you have some comments that could help with wisdom and perspective.

Thea's Story

I've been mulling over the thought that we should write down our testimony and be proud of it. A friend suggested it. I think it's a wonderful idea and I'm going to do it. In the meantime, I'm pretty sure Thea's story isn't written down anywhere, as she was notoriously self-deprecating. She wouldn't be proud of her story, or anything about herself, but I'm pretty sure she was proud of the part God had in her life. So I'm writing as much of her story as I know, which isn't much. We walked side by side for a time, and both moved on. That's the way it is with college friends. Some you stay in touch with. Some you don't. Some you forget, and some you remember quite well. Some feel like friends, even after you lose touch, and some just feel like memories.

Thea always felt like a friend. As if, had I ever seen her again, we would have taken up where we left off, talking about things, about God, and laughing. A lot. Thea loved to joke about things. She wasn't pretty, which probably contributed to her self-image problems. She would joke about herself, about her looks, in such a way that you couldn't help but laugh. She wanted you to laugh. The hurt would have been if you didn't laugh. But there was something about the way her friends laughed. You laughed and cared at the same time. And I think that's why she joked so much about herself. She didn't so much want to hear you laugh. She wanted to hear you care.

Thea, I guess, had an exceptionally rotten childhood. Not that she talked about it. She didn't have to. You just knew. Last week when my friend called, she alluded to the fact that Thea had finally revealed some things to her, and it was no surprise to me. Thea never married, although she had been proposed to at some point. She said no and broke a man's heart. I don't think she would have been capable of receiving love from a husband. Her "emotional ears" just didn't work that way.

At Bible college, we were required to work in some area of Christian service. My favorite was choir. I would have stayed in choir the whole time, but you could only get "Christian Service credit" one semester, then you had to do something else. So I moved on to nursing home, which I loved, and did various other things. The one service I hated, but got roped into, was "street ministry." We were supposed to go out there and talk to the teens who congregated and bought drugs downtown. Can you imagine? I remember complaining to Thea about it one time. My contention was that people just don't come to Christ because one person meets them on the street and presents Him. You have to establish a relationship. I made it sound really good, and I thought I was being spiritual and caring. My real problem, though, was fear. It smacked of salesmanship, which was the last thing I wanted to do with God or anything else. My presentation, I thought, made good sense, and I was so self-absorbed that it took a moment notice the hurt, slightly angry look on Thea's face.

"I did."

"You did what?" I asked.

"I came to Christ the first time somebody told me--on the street." She told me she had been on the street, and somebody told her, and that was all she needed to hear. She told me she KNEW she needed God. She didn't need to be told twice. Thea eagerly fulfilled her Christian service credit in street ministry, and then after she had to move on to something else, she would still go do street ministry. Even after she graduated from college, she would be out there on Friday nights, a Bible under one arm, telling teens and roughnecks about God. I don't know if she ever led anybody to Him that way. Maybe she did. But she sure was giving back to God for what He did for her.

Thea always had close friends. She attracted people with her sense of humor, and kept them--somehow. Her friends were always intensely loyal. I've heard somewhere that you can always tell the quality of a person by the people who love them. Well, Thea was intensely loved, and always seemed a bit confused by it. Those "emotional ears" again.

There's a story in the book of Mark about a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. Someone brought this man to Jesus, and there's a story there which is really neat, and easy to miss. The story reeks of Jesus' compassion, but you have to read it with your imagination wide open. He had a crowd with Him, but He took this man aside, away from the crowd. This was a miracle, but perhaps not a sign. This one was not for the crowd. It was just for the man. Anyhow, He put His fingers in his ears, then did something--odd. He spat, and touched the man's tongue. But it's what He said that always gets to me. He sighed (why?) and He said, "Ephphatha." It's an Aramaic word. It means "Be opened." And his ears were opened.

The story always stikes me. Why did they include the Aramaic word? They never did that anywhere else. Was it because that's an important word, and I need to have my attention flagged to it? Sometimes, people have a spiritual "speech impediment." You know--maybe they say the wrong thing, maybe they're caustic, maybe they're contentious, or whatever. But God gets to the heart of the matter. It's about what they're not able to hear. "God loves you." "God has a> purpose for you." "Your life matters." Some people cannot hear that. Perhaps they need their own miracle, away from the crowd, away from the limelight. They need God to touch their spiritual ears, say "Be opened." Maybe they're stuffed so full of the earwax from their horrible childhoods or bad experiences that they couldn't hear a thing if God stood next to them and yelled His love to them. Maybe we all need to have God sigh and say, "Ephphatha." "Be opened."

As far as I know, Thea never received that miracle. She never understood the fact that people cared about her, in spite of the fact that she always had loyal friends around her. So it's only natural that she did not stay in touch with her old friends. She would have been surprised to find that anyone wanted to be in contact. Friends would find her, and lose her again, as she would move somewhere else.

Thea had a walking stick and a little 110 camera, with which she would take the most amazing photographs. Her work could have won awards, and she took her pictures with that 110 camera that most serious photographers would never have used. One day a few years ago she was out hiking and got herself injured and stranded in a remote location. I don't have more details than that. I just know her injuries immobilized her. When she was rescued, she had extreme frostbite. Between her frostbite and her injuries, she was disabled and unable to work. She was indigent in her last few years. Her friends were helpless to help her. My friend expressed to me that she would have had her come live with her, but she had kids and Thea couldn't stand even a minimal noise level. At least she was unable to move to another location. You could keep in touch with her. Then she disconnected her phone. You couldn't even email her anymore.

Then last week I learned she had died in November. None of us even knew until last week, graduation week at my old college. She died alone, and was found a couple of days later. I'm still stunned by the way she died and the last few years of misery. But from what I hear, she found solace in the Lord, although she said she was mystified by the fact that He kept her around when she couldn't do a thing for Him. I like to think about Thea running around heaven with her sparkling clean ears, following Jesus around, listening to everything He has to say. Really listening.

(The story of Ephphatha is from Mark 7:31-35.)

Three deaths and a baby

2004-07-15T21:32:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about life and death lately. Nothing morbid, just comes with what has been going on. Several things. First as my Selah sisters know we have a cat that I have had for 10 years. Now this cat has gotten to be not so nice. In fact he started to bite and has taken to relieving himself on my children's toys. Well, I have combated this for 7 years. Yes 7, I checked with the vet. Long story short, I obviously love the cat or would not have put up with it this long. It was a pretty good cat. Plus I am one of those people that beliefs pet as a cute kitten, pet for life. My kids also love the cat. Even though the cat wants nothing to do with the kids. Well, the other day the vet called and my husband and I had to decide to put the cat down. This is not an easy decision. I really turmoiled with the guilt, fairness, and all aspects of the issue. It was best, overall, for the family and the cat that his life end.
And so that night we had the championship little league game. We waited and said nothing to the children. It was a tight game. I found my self screaming and cheering more than I ever have. Praying for a win. Hoping that would make the news a little less painful. We lost. I got home with my oldest son and was waiting for my husband and youngest boy to break the news as a family. Then he did it. My oldest son went running through the house calling, "kitty kitty kitty". I about lost it. "Mom, where is the cat?" came the question. "At the vet" was all I could muster. His body was, in fact, at the vet. "When's he coming home?" Well, how do I answer that? "Uhm...err...ya see...hey sorry about the game...I mean...well your dad..." Ok even to a 7 year old I sounded like an idiot. "When is he coming home, mom?" More direct this time. I had it at this point I had to tell him. "He's not." was all I could say. Then I lost it.
We both cried. My husband got home, we told our littlest one. We all cried. My 3 year old looked up and said "kitty died for our sins." Which gave us all a chuckle. And we followed up explaining no Jesus died for our sins. My older son had a memorial service the next day. I was very impressed with how he handled it. We had family over and he played a Michael W. Smith song I think it's "Friends Forever" and he prayed.
A few weeks have passed now. I still miss the cat. The oldest one still cries every now and then. The little one wants a dog. And I keep thinking about how we mourn with hope. That we know we will see our loved ones again. The oldest wanted to know if there are cats in heaven. I told him I don't see why not. The bible talks about other animals. So there could be cats.

We were getting ready to go visit some family in St. Louis the other day. My kids were very excited to see their second cousins. Then we got a phone call that my husbands aunt died. Plans changed. This was the grandma of those cousins my kids were going to visit. Our hearts broke a little that day. She died unexpectedly in her sleep. She ws a wonderful woman and role model. I really enjoyed her company. I can't help but feel a little joy for her. I know (as did she) that she is now with Jesus. I know she is hearing those words, "well done my good and faithful servant." I know the plan is Gods and not my own. He knows why she had to go now. And I also know I will see her on the day Jesus comes in on the clouds.

My oldest son has a school friend, J. that had a grandma die this week as well. He asked to send her a get well card. (The friend not the grandma) and so we did. I think loosing his cat has made him think about how his friend must feel. He picked a card with a verse from proverbs, "A friend loves at all times". In it he wrote "J. you're grandma died. I hope you feel better soon." When we sent a plant to the funeral home we requested that J. receive it after services. This was my son's idea. He wanted her to have something to care for and remind her of her grandma. Just like we have a little cat memorial area in our sun room now. Funny how kids adapt and learn very quickly.

Lastly, one of our Selah sisters had a baby. A beautiful girl. What a thing of God both life and death. He decides when and where we come into this world. He stays with us through it all and He is there to great us when our work here is done.

Decision Time

2004-07-15T18:32:00.000-05:00

Okay, as per my earlier post on choices, I suddenly find myself facing a big decision. Unfortunately, I can't go into details right now. I sure could use prayers from all of you!! For WISDOM.

Thanks,

-Godseeker

Thoughts on tomatoes and the spirit

2004-07-15T10:23:00.000-05:00

Tomatoes are the longest of all fruits to ripen, I've determined. My mystery plant, which has stated that he is definitely a pumpkin, already has pumkins turning orange. The cucumbers are burning out, much to my appreciation, I mean really how many pickles does a family need? The peas and lettuces are long gone, the peppers have already given us quite the harvest. Even the sweet corn is ready.

I go out to look in upon my tomatoes nearly every day, if not three times a day. I finally have 1, that's right one, tomato that is slowly making the dramatic change. First she was swirled with pink, almost the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. Then slowly orange took over, and that orange just keeps deepening, and hopefully next time I go out to check she'll be bright red,and then we can break out the blt fixins! The rest of the tomatoes must be under the impression that fashionably late is the way to go. The are at the most getting the pale green/chartreuse color that comes before the blush.

Do you think God awaits for us as Christians to ripen? Does he look in on us everyday, or more often, just to see if its happening yet? Does he examine our hearts thoroughly to see if there is any hint of the lightening of the green or perhaps, Joy of all Joys the blush? Does he take pictures,and call the angels over to have a peek? Does get all proud and anticipate our impending ripeness? Does he make plans for our ministries once we reach that maturity. Is it with great joy that he dances out to the garden on the day that its time for the harvest? Singing a new song designed specially for his bounty? And imagine the immense joy following the harvest of the first very precious fruits, that He can come out with a pail and reap the abundant harvest when the fashionable late finally turn?

Selah,
A.

new blog!

2004-07-14T14:29:00.000-05:00

Hello friends! Thanks to the help of Godseeker, I was able to make my own blog - "Check it Out!" This blog site is designed for the Christian college student to filter the non-Christian worldviews heard in the classroom through the Word of God. They were able to post thoughts, ideas, or ask questions about what they hear "out there" with the Word of God.

I hope you will visit my blog - you can reach it through Google-more-blogger-check it out, or go directly to http://www.basicchristianity.blogspot.com

See you there, until then,
grace and peace,
jomama

Praise Him!

2004-07-13T13:44:00.000-05:00

I drove for 4 hours with my two small children out of town and I loved it. My kids have a TV and were thus pretty zoned out. (So no, this was not an educational moment for my kids) I had the cd player and some worship cd’s and just spent 3 hours singing praises. I am not a singer. In fact most people would probably prefer NOT to hear me sing. But to sit in my own car and belt out with all my heart love to Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit was cool. The trip went by in a blink. I found myself pulling into my destination and reluctantly turning off the music. There was something very moving about an extended one on one time thanking and worshipping. And to think there will come a day when all we do is worship Him. I can’t wait!

2004-07-10T10:49:00.000-05:00

The goat

A Goat and a Dream

2004-07-09T20:12:00.000-05:00

It's amazing how you can go from nothing to say to not knowing which of several things you want to narrate.

Okay, I'll start with the bizarre.

First, you have to understand that we live in a basic, suburban-type neighborhood. Although the neighborhood is surrounded by a small strip of woods, it's mostly just houses and yards. So yesterday when my 4-year-old daughter, who was looking out of the front window, mentioned a deer, she got my attention. I looked out, expecting to see a big dog. It was big all right, but it wasn't a dog. It was a large nanny goat, looking to be in need of milking. She was headed for my open garage. And behind her cruised three police cars.

Well, this was better than O'Reilly on TV, so there we were--a family of four, hanging our heads out the windows, watching the show. The first thing I noticed was that the police didn't seem quite equipped to handle the situation. Just a bunch of officers glancing nervously at one another as they walked gingerly toward the goat. I don't know what they thought they would do if they caught her. The goat moved on pretty quickly, but the police force set up headquarters in front of our house and headed out after her, so I knew the show would be back. Eventually an animal control truck turned up, and those people seemed a bit better prepared, with a couple of those poles with loops on them--you know what I mean.

The show went on for a while. It was never really resolved. Everybody just sort of came back here, got in their cars and went back to their respective headquarters. Last night my husband was kind of scared to go running.

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I've been reading Deuteronomy lately. In fact, I just finished it up. The last few chapters relate how Moses, who knew he was going to die, pulled together the nation of Israel and gave them his last message from God. The basic message was this: choose. They could choose God, and choose to live--to live well, live abundantly, and there were specific things God would bless if they chose Him. But they could choose to not choose God. That would be to choose to die, and they would spiritually die, and many of them would die physically, because God's special favor would be lifted from them, and they would be exposed for the weak humans they really were without God's help.

So I've let that sift around inside me for a couple of days, and this morning I had one of those "God speaking to me" kind of experiences. What I'm about to tell you--it's absolutely true. But I can't prove it, since I'm the only one who experienced it. So you'll have to choose whether you want to believe it or not.

I dreamed that I was getting ready to do some sodbusting in my backyard, creating some more garden. But then I noticed that there were some wild onions growing among the grass. Now, where I grew up in the south, wild onions came up everywhere, the bane of homeowners trying to keep attractive yards. But when I saw it, I thought how cool it would be if I just let the onions grow up. Who knew--maybe you could even eat them. I'd have to find out. And even if you couldn't, I would still have something nostalgic to remind me of when I was growing up. So I was getting ready to choose not to cultivate a productive garden. I was going to let these weeds grow here, just to remind me of the "old country."

Then I woke up, one minute before the radio alarm was set to go. And I must not have been quite awake, because I remember thinking, "Oh, they're going to play, 'Choose Life (a Christian song based on that passage in Deuteronomy.)'" In my twilight dream state, it didn't seem strange that I would know what was going to come on. Then the music started, and it was "Choose Life." How weird is that?

I don't know what choices or decisions are coming my way, but I'm kind of excited and kind of scared.

I know this was God speaking to me about something, but I wanted to pass it on, just in case anyone else needs a reminder.

"I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love GOD, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that GOD, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." (Deuteronomy 30:19, 20, The Message)

Judging a book by its cover

2004-07-01T08:05:00.000-05:00

I think we are all guilty of doing what we ought not do. Librarians and teachers probably enjoy this line, "don't judge a book by its cover". I am especially guilty of this, I always look for a pretty cover with good art on it or an old one with fraying edges and a simple design impressed into its hard cover. At a book sale recently I was going through the childrens books. There was a certain book there with a lot of copies, I ended up picking the hard bound one with the dust jacket still intact and a cute picture of a raccoon on it, Godseeker :) I've been meaning to write this blog for almost 2 weeks now, I'm glad I waited because God has added a few things to this.

So a couple of weeks ago, at the library the kids were doing an art project for the summer reading program. Once they got started I headed upstairs to walk through the "Mom books." The books are divided out into sections, fiction, biographies, Sci Fi, non-fiction, and classic literature. As I was wondering through the sections and checking out the covers, I noticed that each section has its unique personality because of the types of covers that are chosen to represent the books. For example, the biographies seem boastful because all the pictures of the important people whose lives were incased inside these volumes. The fiction had a daydreamy feel, and so on.

I had trouble finding the classic lit section because of recent book shifting and the fact that this library is older and architecturally rich, which unfortunately leads to darker corners. When I finally found it. This overwhelming feeling of wisdom and experience oozed from the old fraying covers. Like a long chat with a good friend, or after a night of Selah study. This is where I first noticed each section having its personality. Elizabeth George says about reading books in her book Life Management for Busy Women "The greatest writers and theologians and teachers in the world are sharing the fruits of their decades of study. They are distilling their knowledge down ... to people like you and me." She goes on to encourage us all to seek out the wisdom in the books out there.

The lamp of the LORD searches the spirit of a man; it searches out his inmost being. Proverbs 20:27 I imagine God as an older sage like man sitting in a comfy armchair, with a lamp shinign over his shoulder. He has an open book on his lap. The pages are tattered from much use and bookmarked and postit noted, very much like I see the bibles that people have been carrying for a long time. When I step closer in I see my name, A., as the title of this volume, and I see on his shelves, many other volumes, with Godseeker, Jomama, and heiress among others on their covers. You see as we are seeking Him out through His Book, He is seeking us out too.

Our church had a float in a parade recently. We decided to hand out pocket size Gospels of Mark. These small books had the neatest covers on them. I wasn't sure how they would be received, but people were taking them happily, and we even had some people ask for them! I pray that as these people are reading the Word of God, God will be seeking out them, and creating additional opportunities for people surrounding them to be a witness.

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Update on the mystery squash. Its setting fruit on, and it is appearing to be a pie pumpkin! I hope everyone likes pumpkin pie, because there is going to be a lot of it this fall from the looks of things :) My tomatoes are still green, but there are a lot of those too. I'm going to have to buy more jars soon for my canning.