Quick and dirty: Sometimes we make decisions and we know they will be expensive, but we decide it's a cost we can bear. Sometimes we don't have to pay the cost for a while and we forget how expensive things are going to be. Sometimes we finally get the bill and the reality of the cost we have taken on sinks us.
Sometimes, it's hard to imagine we will ever unsink.
We are not being asked to pay more than we agreed to, we are not being asked to pay for more than we've received.
But holy fuck, this is expensive.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Friday, April 26, 2013
The Outsiders
The girl is doing her some ballet. It's sweet rec centre ballet. There is a nice, willowy, girl-loving woman who lets them come in whatever they like wearing and dance however their heart leads and treats them all like they're the beautiful young artists they are.
We are late to the ballet game. We didn't register when she was 3 or 4 or even this September when all these things begin. We've started in March. Third semester in the rec centre guide.
This is in no way sad for the young dancers - the emphasis here is on "I'm great as just me". For this young dancer's mother, it's terrible. Because in my heart, I am still 7. Still all too aware of who belongs and who doesn't. I don't feel great as just me at all. I feel late, behind, outside.
The ouch of this is all too familiar of course. And maybe I'm super-weird and no one else ever feels terrible and on the outs because they had a ballet teacher who told them they were great just as them when they were 5 and they've believed it ever since. Maybe there are people like that.
I'm not one. And I guess it's on my list of reasons I like Jesus. Because Jesus, even when he was surrounded by thousands, felt a bit outsidery. Because Jesus, when he went through a town, kept his eyes open for the guys hiding up in trees. Because Jesus was pretty sure he was great just the way he was most of the time, but still in the end felt the ouch of being left out in that great cosmic terrible when he weeps, My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me? Why am I alone on the outside??
Hilariously, I know several women there from other spots in this small world. One is one of my secret people, one of my Now what?! email friends. We chat the whole time, and I'm hardly ever alone. But knowing there are other, more "in" people still stings. I don't love this about myself, but I am deciding to embrace the part where it kindles a kinship with the One in whom there are only insiders.
We are late to the ballet game. We didn't register when she was 3 or 4 or even this September when all these things begin. We've started in March. Third semester in the rec centre guide.
This is in no way sad for the young dancers - the emphasis here is on "I'm great as just me". For this young dancer's mother, it's terrible. Because in my heart, I am still 7. Still all too aware of who belongs and who doesn't. I don't feel great as just me at all. I feel late, behind, outside.
The ouch of this is all too familiar of course. And maybe I'm super-weird and no one else ever feels terrible and on the outs because they had a ballet teacher who told them they were great just as them when they were 5 and they've believed it ever since. Maybe there are people like that.
I'm not one. And I guess it's on my list of reasons I like Jesus. Because Jesus, even when he was surrounded by thousands, felt a bit outsidery. Because Jesus, when he went through a town, kept his eyes open for the guys hiding up in trees. Because Jesus was pretty sure he was great just the way he was most of the time, but still in the end felt the ouch of being left out in that great cosmic terrible when he weeps, My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me? Why am I alone on the outside??
Hilariously, I know several women there from other spots in this small world. One is one of my secret people, one of my Now what?! email friends. We chat the whole time, and I'm hardly ever alone. But knowing there are other, more "in" people still stings. I don't love this about myself, but I am deciding to embrace the part where it kindles a kinship with the One in whom there are only insiders.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Not By Fire
We are away this weekend.
Being away from our home is a freedom that I don't fully understand. Not a freedom I think I want to indulge too often, but a freedom that I notice myself enjoying more and more deeply. Our home is a sweet, warm, safe place and I can't think of anything better for small people. But it is also a small space, physically and in most other ways. I feel the walls of it all too closely sometimes - who we are allowed to be, how we're allowing to live and play and think and pray - the smallness of it can be more oppresion than cozy some days.
Away, we are some of our favourite selves. The alchemy of it is all mystery, but it is sweet goodness and I'm thankful for it.
We are with friends who love us, and that of course helps. We are with friends who tend to us and feed us and that helps too. Our kids are enjoyed and included and we are enjoyed and included and that feels like all kinds of rich.
So we are away and we can be more of a part of ourselves we don't get to be all the time and we feel rich and really, is it any surprise that I like Away?
This blog is named after a collection of correspondence between myself and a friend Darla, written in our 20s when we were Away. We were away from our childhood selves, away from our parents, away from home. And we were enjoying a freedom to figure out who we might turn out to be. We are both lovers of words and Words, of ideas and thinking and God. We both love good penmenship and good pens. We wrote longhand epistles to each other over the course of a few years that were so, so deep and so, so shallow, as only 20something women can be. We of course had to name the collection: what other than The Shallow Abyss?
Today I joined her and the people who are her church to celebrate the baptism of her son. She leads this group of sweet wonder in weekly togetherness - her church was full of Jesus bumping into Jesus. There are not hundreds of people and narry a computer or Power Point slide. There was just a collection of folk who thought togetherness was a good way to experience God With Us on a Sunday morning and on this particular morning they wanted to especially let sweet Felix know that God was With Him too.
In a happy turn of happenstance a co-friend from our heady missionary-seminary days was also there, and I got to sit with one who knows me and knew us and feels like home when I'm Away. And we listened to yet another woman's reflection on the Word and it was short and right and good and full of True and my heart did one of those drops from a height that lands in my belly and leaves me breathless with All Is Well.
Between the baptism and the celebration of the baptism, I wandered through town with Katie the co-friend and she asked the right questions while I puzzled about the gap this time Away reflects in my Home.
The woman who spoke this morning, Gretchen, said so many words my heart said yes to and part of it was that Christianity isn't meant to work (she was quoting from the Reluctant Christian blog). It offers us a lens to see, but not a tool to use. Jesus is asked to just say who he is, and he says Watch who I Am but we can't see it because we're waiting to see something else altogether. But there is a grace that lets us see that in fact Jesus is. And today we believed together that Felix could receive that grace as a still-frustrated-not-crawling-baby and grow up to see not What Fixes Everything but our God who shows up in faith and service and hope.
Somehow, going Away brought me home.
Being away from our home is a freedom that I don't fully understand. Not a freedom I think I want to indulge too often, but a freedom that I notice myself enjoying more and more deeply. Our home is a sweet, warm, safe place and I can't think of anything better for small people. But it is also a small space, physically and in most other ways. I feel the walls of it all too closely sometimes - who we are allowed to be, how we're allowing to live and play and think and pray - the smallness of it can be more oppresion than cozy some days.
Away, we are some of our favourite selves. The alchemy of it is all mystery, but it is sweet goodness and I'm thankful for it.
We are with friends who love us, and that of course helps. We are with friends who tend to us and feed us and that helps too. Our kids are enjoyed and included and we are enjoyed and included and that feels like all kinds of rich.
So we are away and we can be more of a part of ourselves we don't get to be all the time and we feel rich and really, is it any surprise that I like Away?
This blog is named after a collection of correspondence between myself and a friend Darla, written in our 20s when we were Away. We were away from our childhood selves, away from our parents, away from home. And we were enjoying a freedom to figure out who we might turn out to be. We are both lovers of words and Words, of ideas and thinking and God. We both love good penmenship and good pens. We wrote longhand epistles to each other over the course of a few years that were so, so deep and so, so shallow, as only 20something women can be. We of course had to name the collection: what other than The Shallow Abyss?
Today I joined her and the people who are her church to celebrate the baptism of her son. She leads this group of sweet wonder in weekly togetherness - her church was full of Jesus bumping into Jesus. There are not hundreds of people and narry a computer or Power Point slide. There was just a collection of folk who thought togetherness was a good way to experience God With Us on a Sunday morning and on this particular morning they wanted to especially let sweet Felix know that God was With Him too.
In a happy turn of happenstance a co-friend from our heady missionary-seminary days was also there, and I got to sit with one who knows me and knew us and feels like home when I'm Away. And we listened to yet another woman's reflection on the Word and it was short and right and good and full of True and my heart did one of those drops from a height that lands in my belly and leaves me breathless with All Is Well.
Between the baptism and the celebration of the baptism, I wandered through town with Katie the co-friend and she asked the right questions while I puzzled about the gap this time Away reflects in my Home.
The woman who spoke this morning, Gretchen, said so many words my heart said yes to and part of it was that Christianity isn't meant to work (she was quoting from the Reluctant Christian blog). It offers us a lens to see, but not a tool to use. Jesus is asked to just say who he is, and he says Watch who I Am but we can't see it because we're waiting to see something else altogether. But there is a grace that lets us see that in fact Jesus is. And today we believed together that Felix could receive that grace as a still-frustrated-not-crawling-baby and grow up to see not What Fixes Everything but our God who shows up in faith and service and hope.
Somehow, going Away brought me home.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
My Bad
I have several great groups of women to check in with when parenting becomes too tricky for me. And parenting becomes too tricky for me several times a week. Well, not get-help tricky that often, but maybe quarterly I stumble over a new terribleness that makes me want to quit and let the kids raise themselves somewhere else, far, far, away.
Yesterday was one of those days, when their father and I (doesn't that sound so serious?!) finally agreed at the same moment in the same way with the same commitment that we were done. D. O. N. E. done with a particular behaviour in both of our children. There was quiet rage out in public, a deafening ragey silence on the car ride home, and then the controlled whispered promise of everything changing as of now and this will not be and we are dead serious.
Probably not everything was different this morning. But I was. I enforced boundaries and repeated expectations and just generally didn't take any shit. It was a rough go. But I got both people off to school and got home with enough time to track down my people before having to go pick them up and start it all up again.
This time I chose my online people at Moxie. If you've ever asked me anything about parenting ever, you've been given the link to her site (www.askmoxie.org). There is a facebook page too, and so I posted there my query about this quarter's dilemma. Paricularly I asked, what do we do when we realized that we have done or not done things that have resulted in undesireable consequences and now need to change everything because it can not be and damnit, we're dead serious about it?! when this isn't "just a stage" but actually just what happens when we do something poorly?
Almost every single response included some version of, "But it's probably just a stage." Several mentioned having limits and boundaries to enforce even within the phase ("Just because your brain is doing something new doesn't mean you can just flip the fuck out when your socks feel funny. When things don't feel right we can say with our words, these socks feel funny, but we can not punch mummy in the eye."). None mentioned admitting a mistake and trying to learn something new. No one said anything about how sometimes kids' grossness is directly attributable to something their parents have done.
Maybe it's my Lent hangover talking, but sometimes we're sinful folk, you know? Sometimes we get shit wrong. And when we do, there are, in the words of every touchy-feely parenting book you'll ever read, natural consequences. And sometimes those consequences are super-duper awful behaviours in the people you're doing wrong by.
I'm not beating myself up over this. Eighty percent of the time, we're doing an amazing job of parenting. My kids are often lovely and hilarious and well-mannered and bright and kind and all manner of other good things. But 20% of the time? Holy shit! What a mess!
Self-loathing is not good or right. Admission of sin and confession of errors is kind of awesome. It makes room for some growing to happen, and it makes room for things to change. Because if it's my fault my children can't ask for milk without whining and crying Every. Single. Time. that means it's probable that I can do something that will change that.
My fault. My mistake. My bad.
Yesterday was one of those days, when their father and I (doesn't that sound so serious?!) finally agreed at the same moment in the same way with the same commitment that we were done. D. O. N. E. done with a particular behaviour in both of our children. There was quiet rage out in public, a deafening ragey silence on the car ride home, and then the controlled whispered promise of everything changing as of now and this will not be and we are dead serious.
Probably not everything was different this morning. But I was. I enforced boundaries and repeated expectations and just generally didn't take any shit. It was a rough go. But I got both people off to school and got home with enough time to track down my people before having to go pick them up and start it all up again.
This time I chose my online people at Moxie. If you've ever asked me anything about parenting ever, you've been given the link to her site (www.askmoxie.org). There is a facebook page too, and so I posted there my query about this quarter's dilemma. Paricularly I asked, what do we do when we realized that we have done or not done things that have resulted in undesireable consequences and now need to change everything because it can not be and damnit, we're dead serious about it?! when this isn't "just a stage" but actually just what happens when we do something poorly?
Almost every single response included some version of, "But it's probably just a stage." Several mentioned having limits and boundaries to enforce even within the phase ("Just because your brain is doing something new doesn't mean you can just flip the fuck out when your socks feel funny. When things don't feel right we can say with our words, these socks feel funny, but we can not punch mummy in the eye."). None mentioned admitting a mistake and trying to learn something new. No one said anything about how sometimes kids' grossness is directly attributable to something their parents have done.
Maybe it's my Lent hangover talking, but sometimes we're sinful folk, you know? Sometimes we get shit wrong. And when we do, there are, in the words of every touchy-feely parenting book you'll ever read, natural consequences. And sometimes those consequences are super-duper awful behaviours in the people you're doing wrong by.
I'm not beating myself up over this. Eighty percent of the time, we're doing an amazing job of parenting. My kids are often lovely and hilarious and well-mannered and bright and kind and all manner of other good things. But 20% of the time? Holy shit! What a mess!
Self-loathing is not good or right. Admission of sin and confession of errors is kind of awesome. It makes room for some growing to happen, and it makes room for things to change. Because if it's my fault my children can't ask for milk without whining and crying Every. Single. Time. that means it's probable that I can do something that will change that.
My fault. My mistake. My bad.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Marathon
When extra terrible happens, we all want to be each others neighbours, don't we? Every local news network tries to track down someone from here who was all the way over there, so that we can connect ourselves to it. I have been cynically down on this for a long time, believing it's borne of an egoism that requires each self to be at the centre of the world's attention at all time.
Today, I'm wondering more about the neighbour part. I'm wondering more about how we are born, created by the Creator, knit together in our mothers' wombs, designed to love our neighbours as ourselves. We are built to do the Let Me Carry That kind of love for each other, and when we know that people have suddenly been asked to bear the unbearable, we want to pick some of it up.
Strangers in Boston got their world blown up today, and their fear is one we are afraid of knowing first-hand. But their suffering is televised for us all to see and our created selves long to ease it, to ease by picking part of it up and making it our own.
Kind of like Jesus did.
Maybe we're not all self-centered assholes afterall.
Today, I'm wondering more about the neighbour part. I'm wondering more about how we are born, created by the Creator, knit together in our mothers' wombs, designed to love our neighbours as ourselves. We are built to do the Let Me Carry That kind of love for each other, and when we know that people have suddenly been asked to bear the unbearable, we want to pick some of it up.
Strangers in Boston got their world blown up today, and their fear is one we are afraid of knowing first-hand. But their suffering is televised for us all to see and our created selves long to ease it, to ease by picking part of it up and making it our own.
Kind of like Jesus did.
Maybe we're not all self-centered assholes afterall.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Simple
I read this post about simple living earlier this week. It has lingered so now I have to get it out of my system.
The idea that living simply isn't simply living with less on less, but is a state of heart really grabbed this complicated heart.
It may not have escaped your attention that this brain likes to travel in long, lingery, meandering, crossing-over-themselves circles. Kind of a sweet, complicated pattern with lots of winding diversions and mixed up metaphors. I am hard-pressed to think of a single thing I approach in a straight line. Or simply.
I'm not convinced that a person can reshape a brain or a heart. But if a person can, this person would consider choosing a simpler shape. Maybe a Venn diagram with only 3 circles instead of 17.
Here's what I think sounds lovely, or simpler:
With regards to parenting: I love my kids and they love me and we can find a way to do whatever is required in this life.
With regards to marriage: I love that boy down to my soul/sole and we're better together than we ever were or would be apart.
With regards to faith: There is a God who loves me and knows what I need.
With regards to a good life: Love God. Love my neighbours. Nothing else matters.
With regards to money: I don't know about this one. It's still complicated because I can't live how I want there. Yet. I'm open to submissions on this one.
With regards to work: I'll do my best when I'm doing it and lay it down when I'm not.
If I was arty, I'd turn this into a wall-hanging or something. Something simple like that.
The idea that living simply isn't simply living with less on less, but is a state of heart really grabbed this complicated heart.
It may not have escaped your attention that this brain likes to travel in long, lingery, meandering, crossing-over-themselves circles. Kind of a sweet, complicated pattern with lots of winding diversions and mixed up metaphors. I am hard-pressed to think of a single thing I approach in a straight line. Or simply.
I'm not convinced that a person can reshape a brain or a heart. But if a person can, this person would consider choosing a simpler shape. Maybe a Venn diagram with only 3 circles instead of 17.
Here's what I think sounds lovely, or simpler:
With regards to parenting: I love my kids and they love me and we can find a way to do whatever is required in this life.
With regards to marriage: I love that boy down to my soul/sole and we're better together than we ever were or would be apart.
With regards to faith: There is a God who loves me and knows what I need.
With regards to a good life: Love God. Love my neighbours. Nothing else matters.
With regards to money: I don't know about this one. It's still complicated because I can't live how I want there. Yet. I'm open to submissions on this one.
With regards to work: I'll do my best when I'm doing it and lay it down when I'm not.
If I was arty, I'd turn this into a wall-hanging or something. Something simple like that.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
iWitness
I wonder if the Lord knew about the internet coming all those years ago?
I posted a wondering about Jesus on facebook this week. I wondered about whether Jesus had actually prayed for something in John 17 (the unity of all believers) and if God had actually said, "Nope."
I don't see lots of unity when I listen to some of the all believers that I know. Check out the comments section of any Christian magazine or blog, to say nothing of the minutes of an elders meeting, and tell me if you're seeing a lot of unity. How many times have I written here (or here) this year, about people pretty eager to be Right, even if it means treating other people like shit. And by 'people' of course, I still mean me.
This failure to unite might tempt an over-thinking, Lent-recovering, Jesus-loving person to wonder if maybe God's not-uniting-of-all was actually God's way of saying, "No, you're not the One" to the crazy guy washing everybody's feet and asking lame people if they actually want to be well.
Happily, I'm a big fan of my own self and my own wonderings and not-surenesses, and so there was no fear about confessing said temptation to the many. Even though, of the many who have befriended me on facebook over the years, only a portion are Jesus-loving, Life-sharing, Light-living folk. The rest are work colleagues and high school rememberances and atheist neighbours. It's possible the only time they trip across Jesus is when I'm suggesting that God didn't listen to him.
God help them.
And God help me too I guess. Because I am witness only to my not-certainty that we get to call faith. I am witness to a willingness to believe that God is bigger than my question marks. I am witness to a deep love for a Creator of I know-not-what altogether.
God help us all.
I posted a wondering about Jesus on facebook this week. I wondered about whether Jesus had actually prayed for something in John 17 (the unity of all believers) and if God had actually said, "Nope."
I don't see lots of unity when I listen to some of the all believers that I know. Check out the comments section of any Christian magazine or blog, to say nothing of the minutes of an elders meeting, and tell me if you're seeing a lot of unity. How many times have I written here (or here) this year, about people pretty eager to be Right, even if it means treating other people like shit. And by 'people' of course, I still mean me.
This failure to unite might tempt an over-thinking, Lent-recovering, Jesus-loving person to wonder if maybe God's not-uniting-of-all was actually God's way of saying, "No, you're not the One" to the crazy guy washing everybody's feet and asking lame people if they actually want to be well.
Happily, I'm a big fan of my own self and my own wonderings and not-surenesses, and so there was no fear about confessing said temptation to the many. Even though, of the many who have befriended me on facebook over the years, only a portion are Jesus-loving, Life-sharing, Light-living folk. The rest are work colleagues and high school rememberances and atheist neighbours. It's possible the only time they trip across Jesus is when I'm suggesting that God didn't listen to him.
God help them.
And God help me too I guess. Because I am witness only to my not-certainty that we get to call faith. I am witness to a willingness to believe that God is bigger than my question marks. I am witness to a deep love for a Creator of I know-not-what altogether.
God help us all.
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Blind
I bump into Jesus everywhere. I'm not sure if it's actually Jesus, but when I trip across goodness, I always find myself labeling it "Jesus". I guess that's what my faith is: that all that is Light and Good to this heart is in fact Jesus. It could be terrible religion.
Today Jesus was hanging out in RG's kitchen. I guess the fellowship promised in that last reading was delivered, and there I sat with a woman I like a great deal, listening to her loneliness as she realizes that she is a Light Person, and spending time with people who live in the Dark hurts her heart. She doesn't always identify as a person of the Light, and probably not as a Jesus-y person (although I've never directly asked, now that I think of it), but her spirit carries Light everywhere she goes, and my spirit is Light-ed everytime I'm with her.
All that Light is Jesus to me. And here's the thing: the Light so often is the confession of suffering. Isn't that weird? I think we assume the light that comes is just all sunshine and giggles. But it rarely is - the Light is saying out loud that life is difficult and then being able to say, But it will not break me. There is yet Life in the midst of all this Hard and Terrible. That is Light. Jesus is the Light because he showed up in the middle of the Darkest Dark and said, "I'll hang out here with you so that you can see what's true: you're not alone." Jesus suffered. His friends suffered. And still there was Light.
One thing that may be true too, is that the darkest dark is the dark that believes itself to be light. If we find ourselves believing that our stuff and our successes and our victories are the light... well, we're blind. We do not know where we are going because the darkness has blinded us, as John might say (1 Jn, 11).
Today Jesus was hanging out in RG's kitchen. I guess the fellowship promised in that last reading was delivered, and there I sat with a woman I like a great deal, listening to her loneliness as she realizes that she is a Light Person, and spending time with people who live in the Dark hurts her heart. She doesn't always identify as a person of the Light, and probably not as a Jesus-y person (although I've never directly asked, now that I think of it), but her spirit carries Light everywhere she goes, and my spirit is Light-ed everytime I'm with her.
All that Light is Jesus to me. And here's the thing: the Light so often is the confession of suffering. Isn't that weird? I think we assume the light that comes is just all sunshine and giggles. But it rarely is - the Light is saying out loud that life is difficult and then being able to say, But it will not break me. There is yet Life in the midst of all this Hard and Terrible. That is Light. Jesus is the Light because he showed up in the middle of the Darkest Dark and said, "I'll hang out here with you so that you can see what's true: you're not alone." Jesus suffered. His friends suffered. And still there was Light.
One thing that may be true too, is that the darkest dark is the dark that believes itself to be light. If we find ourselves believing that our stuff and our successes and our victories are the light... well, we're blind. We do not know where we are going because the darkness has blinded us, as John might say (1 Jn, 11).
Monday, April 08, 2013
Wattage
"God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 Jn: 5 - 7).
I think I need a live-in Bible teacher. Someone to just run a few things by: Was Jesus really alive? Like is there historical proof of this guy beyond what's written in the Bible? or What exactly is 'darkness' again? Because while I clearly have a fine time making up answers to these questions on my own, I do also recognize that there are researched, based-in-fact answers available that might do me some good. Apparently the Pastor Next Door isn't handy enough.
This morning, I feel like I'm wandering through some darkness, but it's more of the I-know-I-shouldn't-worry-but-worry-feels-necessary variety. Is that the opposite of God's light? Am I lying about my fellowship with God if I find myself lingering in the This Could Go Horribly Wrong aisle a bit longer? I don't know.
This worry doesn't feel sinful, as much as it feels silly. I know all about not being anxious and in everything praying and being full of thanksgiving. And eventually, I'm likely to get there. But in the immediate right now, I'm not quite ready to live by the truth if the truth means I have to stop worrying.
Oh my word. That's obviously the dumbest thing ever as soon as I see it written down! Good grief.
You know what I like? I like the part where walking in the light means having fellowship with one another. I like that a lot. So maybe I'll try turning down the volume on my worry and try tracking down some of that fellowship. I'll let you know how it works out.
I think I need a live-in Bible teacher. Someone to just run a few things by: Was Jesus really alive? Like is there historical proof of this guy beyond what's written in the Bible? or What exactly is 'darkness' again? Because while I clearly have a fine time making up answers to these questions on my own, I do also recognize that there are researched, based-in-fact answers available that might do me some good. Apparently the Pastor Next Door isn't handy enough.
This morning, I feel like I'm wandering through some darkness, but it's more of the I-know-I-shouldn't-worry-but-worry-feels-necessary variety. Is that the opposite of God's light? Am I lying about my fellowship with God if I find myself lingering in the This Could Go Horribly Wrong aisle a bit longer? I don't know.
This worry doesn't feel sinful, as much as it feels silly. I know all about not being anxious and in everything praying and being full of thanksgiving. And eventually, I'm likely to get there. But in the immediate right now, I'm not quite ready to live by the truth if the truth means I have to stop worrying.
Oh my word. That's obviously the dumbest thing ever as soon as I see it written down! Good grief.
You know what I like? I like the part where walking in the light means having fellowship with one another. I like that a lot. So maybe I'll try turning down the volume on my worry and try tracking down some of that fellowship. I'll let you know how it works out.
Friday, April 05, 2013
Not Daniel
I am trying and trying to write a super-meaningful Jesus post because that always seems like a good idea, and probably what with the internet and all, we're going to be Googled by the Lord to get into heaven and I'd kind of like to have something decent to point to, you know? I may have had a dark, judgey heart, but look how I thought about You all the time! See? I wrote about all kinds of Bible verses!
But I don't have anything to say about today's reading in Daniel (Daniel! Have you read that? oh my word. Chapter 12 in the book of Daniel leaves me wondering what the difference is between the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Holy Jeez, the stuff we keep in our pile. Fingers crossed, Jesus doesn't read this part I guess...).
Instead, I want to write about how this week, three different people in my life confessed that they are poor. Poorer than they've ever been. And how that made me feel less alone. About how I thought we'd always be tracking up ye olde socio-economic ladder, but how it feels like we're just sliding all the way down a chute instead. About how sliding backwards in one part of life ends up making me feel like my whole life is sliding backwards. Even though it's not. I want to write about how much I hate giving money the time of day, but how money still ends up being in the mix of every conversation I have with myself. About how I can't dream about marriage or family or work or play or God without money sneaking up behind me and giggling in my ear, mocking those dreams. I want to write to the bottom of that.
I want to write about marriage, about how I want to put up posters everywhere, "LOVE YOUR HUSBAND!" because I am seeing over and over again women being terrible wives. And about how I feel like I can't say anything to anyone because a) speck of dust/log in eye and b) it's somehow not okay for women to tell other women what to do and c) marriage isn't all that cool anymore, is it? I want to write about how it *is* important though, about how women are being idiots, doing it all and leaving nothing for their partner to do that has meaning that isn't criticized because women are certain they can do it better. And by women, of course I include me, but jiminy cricket, I wonder what women are doing to leave their spouses feeling loved and worthy because I *know* this is important and I suck at it and most of my closest people know it's important and they're only a little better at it than I am. When did we all get so mean?
I want to write about parenting, and about how I keep catching myself saying, Well just as long as they're kind/polite/responsible/generous/(insert other reasonable hope for possible outcome), that will be enough. And then about how I realize that probably the secret to happy parenting is letting go of even that just one thing because even that isn't a sure thing. And then about how tricky it is to balance hope for who these small people may turn out to be against the radical acceptance of who they currently are.
That's what I want to write about.
But I don't have anything to say about today's reading in Daniel (Daniel! Have you read that? oh my word. Chapter 12 in the book of Daniel leaves me wondering what the difference is between the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Holy Jeez, the stuff we keep in our pile. Fingers crossed, Jesus doesn't read this part I guess...).
Instead, I want to write about how this week, three different people in my life confessed that they are poor. Poorer than they've ever been. And how that made me feel less alone. About how I thought we'd always be tracking up ye olde socio-economic ladder, but how it feels like we're just sliding all the way down a chute instead. About how sliding backwards in one part of life ends up making me feel like my whole life is sliding backwards. Even though it's not. I want to write about how much I hate giving money the time of day, but how money still ends up being in the mix of every conversation I have with myself. About how I can't dream about marriage or family or work or play or God without money sneaking up behind me and giggling in my ear, mocking those dreams. I want to write to the bottom of that.
I want to write about marriage, about how I want to put up posters everywhere, "LOVE YOUR HUSBAND!" because I am seeing over and over again women being terrible wives. And about how I feel like I can't say anything to anyone because a) speck of dust/log in eye and b) it's somehow not okay for women to tell other women what to do and c) marriage isn't all that cool anymore, is it? I want to write about how it *is* important though, about how women are being idiots, doing it all and leaving nothing for their partner to do that has meaning that isn't criticized because women are certain they can do it better. And by women, of course I include me, but jiminy cricket, I wonder what women are doing to leave their spouses feeling loved and worthy because I *know* this is important and I suck at it and most of my closest people know it's important and they're only a little better at it than I am. When did we all get so mean?
I want to write about parenting, and about how I keep catching myself saying, Well just as long as they're kind/polite/responsible/generous/(insert other reasonable hope for possible outcome), that will be enough. And then about how I realize that probably the secret to happy parenting is letting go of even that just one thing because even that isn't a sure thing. And then about how tricky it is to balance hope for who these small people may turn out to be against the radical acceptance of who they currently are.
That's what I want to write about.
Thursday, April 04, 2013
Manicure
My nails are too long. This is not a difficult problem to solve, and yet, here I am at least three days bothered, having done nothing to change this troublesome state of affairs.
The metaphor is a bit too obvious, isn't it?
Sometimes in this life, the lazy is just bigger than the problem, you know? This week, I think almost everything in my life falls under this category. Happily, I read on my twitter feed that Bill Gates gets lazy people to do the hardest jobs because they will find the easiest ways to do them. I'm not sure if it's true (I'm too lazy to fact-check) but I'm going to spend the day believing it. Finding the good hiding in the not-so-great is one of life's sweetest things, right?
And with that, I'm off to make a list of things to do when my lazy eases. I'll put "write a bit" on the list, just so that I can cross it off.
I'm like that.
The metaphor is a bit too obvious, isn't it?
Sometimes in this life, the lazy is just bigger than the problem, you know? This week, I think almost everything in my life falls under this category. Happily, I read on my twitter feed that Bill Gates gets lazy people to do the hardest jobs because they will find the easiest ways to do them. I'm not sure if it's true (I'm too lazy to fact-check) but I'm going to spend the day believing it. Finding the good hiding in the not-so-great is one of life's sweetest things, right?
And with that, I'm off to make a list of things to do when my lazy eases. I'll put "write a bit" on the list, just so that I can cross it off.
I'm like that.
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Silver and Gold Have I None
But such as I have give I thee.
I'm still reading along with the readings, now here. Not all of them, and not every day, but I like having them there and not just pointing blindly at a verse in the middle of the page.
Today I had a not-expected conversation with a not-quite-friend. There are about a billion reasons why I wouldn't have her on my list of people to compare woes with - our acquaintance is most certainly of the Keep It Awesome variety. And yet there we were in Starbucks, laughing and crying about how hard it is to feel the Not Enoughness of this life. How even our $4 Starbucks drinks felt too expensive today (I used a coupon, she asked them to blend the juice with ice to make it last longer). How tiring it is to live this life half-way well.
God is a funny dude, always talking I think if I can make enough space to hear.
When we get Jesus, we get given maybe, eyes to see what another needs that we have to give. Silver and gold are rarely offered, but Not Aloneness is, all the time. Being reminded that we are not alone in this life is surely one of the better gifts out there. And today I was given and maybe even gave that gift. Such as I have.
I'm still reading along with the readings, now here. Not all of them, and not every day, but I like having them there and not just pointing blindly at a verse in the middle of the page.
Today I had a not-expected conversation with a not-quite-friend. There are about a billion reasons why I wouldn't have her on my list of people to compare woes with - our acquaintance is most certainly of the Keep It Awesome variety. And yet there we were in Starbucks, laughing and crying about how hard it is to feel the Not Enoughness of this life. How even our $4 Starbucks drinks felt too expensive today (I used a coupon, she asked them to blend the juice with ice to make it last longer). How tiring it is to live this life half-way well.
God is a funny dude, always talking I think if I can make enough space to hear.
When we get Jesus, we get given maybe, eyes to see what another needs that we have to give. Silver and gold are rarely offered, but Not Aloneness is, all the time. Being reminded that we are not alone in this life is surely one of the better gifts out there. And today I was given and maybe even gave that gift. Such as I have.
Acts 3:1-10
Peter Heals a Lame Beggar
3 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.
6 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. 9 When all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
After Easter
Life Wins.
That's the Easter story for me. Forty-five days of writing and readng and remembering who Jesus is and who I am and why who I am needs who Jesus is... that was good for my soul. I'm not sure that it was as much of an emotional diet as I needed - I certainly indulged every feeling I tripped across I think - but it was a journey worth journeying, bringing me all the way through dark to Light, through sin to Forgiveness, through death to Life.
I like the post-Easter story, as Jesus keeps sneaking up on his friends and sharing meals with them and reminding them that they've got him With Them forever now, thanks to the Spirit. I like how he lets them know they weren't crazy or wrong, and lets them poke holes in his story, only to find Life right there in those holes too. I like how he doesn't tell Peter, "I told you you would betray me." How he doesn't sit around gossiping about how he always knew Judas was a bad apple.
Jesus is With Them, making himself known in the breaking of bread together.
I spent Easter Sunday in line at the liquor store 10am, then on my boat with The Atheists Whom I Love. There was glorious sunshine and happy children and happy parents and deep, deep gratitude in this heart. As I shared our not-organic, not-grass fed burgers and on-my-word-I-don't-even-want-to-know hotdogs with this family, and handed out bottles of beer and shared our favourite thing, our family's best spot, I like to think I was loving a la Jesus. Maybe it's a stretch, but my heart was rejoicing, and there was Goodness in our midst.
Life Wins.
I'm so glad.
That's the Easter story for me. Forty-five days of writing and readng and remembering who Jesus is and who I am and why who I am needs who Jesus is... that was good for my soul. I'm not sure that it was as much of an emotional diet as I needed - I certainly indulged every feeling I tripped across I think - but it was a journey worth journeying, bringing me all the way through dark to Light, through sin to Forgiveness, through death to Life.
I like the post-Easter story, as Jesus keeps sneaking up on his friends and sharing meals with them and reminding them that they've got him With Them forever now, thanks to the Spirit. I like how he lets them know they weren't crazy or wrong, and lets them poke holes in his story, only to find Life right there in those holes too. I like how he doesn't tell Peter, "I told you you would betray me." How he doesn't sit around gossiping about how he always knew Judas was a bad apple.
Jesus is With Them, making himself known in the breaking of bread together.
I spent Easter Sunday in line at the liquor store 10am, then on my boat with The Atheists Whom I Love. There was glorious sunshine and happy children and happy parents and deep, deep gratitude in this heart. As I shared our not-organic, not-grass fed burgers and on-my-word-I-don't-even-want-to-know hotdogs with this family, and handed out bottles of beer and shared our favourite thing, our family's best spot, I like to think I was loving a la Jesus. Maybe it's a stretch, but my heart was rejoicing, and there was Goodness in our midst.
Life Wins.
I'm so glad.
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