Release the Good

Seeing Shapes Moving Around

2012-01-19T10:32:00.000-08:00

I carried a question to Hutchmoot. It was aimed at the Square Peg Alliance and The Inklings. The question was fraught with desire and demand. It was heavy with discouragement and fear. I was tired of holding it and wanted to put it down; but I couldn't. It would not go away; it dogged my steps.

My question was, "how." I cannot, even now, punctuate it correctly because it was heavy to lift. It was flat and frustrated.

Most deeply this question had been aimed at God all along.

In the queer silence of living, the question has changed. It has turned into something that is beginning to sing in my hands, to vibrate and speak back. Quietly, I have noticed little thoughts within that seem deeper, truer and wiser than my own thinking. I've begun to pay attention.

These thoughts turn the question. They expand it, adding words like: "What if what the Inklings did in that room at the pub was just hang out and talk about what they love and what they were doing and thinking?", "What if they did not write up a purpose statement crafted from group consensus to make sure they did what they agreed to do when they were there?", (Please, taste the sarcasm here -- revealing what a truly overly productively focused American I am.) "What if your community is already around you; waiting to be recognized?", "What if you already have much of what you're looking for?"

Matt Conner, a presenter at Hutchmoot, named what I think was going on in his recent Rabbit Room article. On one level, I was looking for 'Chia Community.' (Great name, Matt!) I did and I didn't want to be told what to do so that I could make what The Inklings had happen in my life. I say did and didn't because there was an authentic, true desire at the root of my question; it just got muddled and twisted because I feared my eyes were not seeing and my ears were not hearing so my hands might not be receiving.

But, like the blind man gaining new sight from Christ, I think I'm beginning to see shapes moving around.

Last Monday I shared a room at St. John's Abbey with my friend Kirsten. I'd let the women at church know that I was going up once a month to spend the night; so if anyone was looking for a little cheaper monastery retreat; they could join me. Kirsten is an artist who's just beginning to hope there might be art after motherhood.

We spent the day enjoying the beauty of the space. We basked in the glow of traditionally prepared Japanese tea and conversation about art with master potter Richard Bresnahan while sitting around the pottery studio's Irori. (Practically a pint before a pub fire????)

After praying Vespers with the monks, we headed back to our room. Throughout the day, Kirsten and I'd been sharing our desires and struggles around our artistic endeavors with one another. I'd told her about my anxiety that I didn't know how the book I'm writing was supposed to end.

As we entered our room, Kirsten offered me a gift; she asked if I would read what I had written so far to her while she inked some drawings.

This was so great to me on so many levels. I was stuck outside my story because of the interruption of the holidays. I was trying to find my way back in; and hadn't found it yet. I instinctively knew this was the way; I was thankful for the space, time and gracious listener to do it all in one go.

It was also the first time I would be there in person while someone received my story who was not married to me.

It was magical.

I saw, firsthand, the effect my words had on her. I was stunned by the feedback and greatly encouraged. There was something there, living, in my story. She was laughing, enjoying and connecting with it. Certain characters made her think of people she knew. I had moments where I felt an odd objectivity come over me; like I was not the writer, but was reading it for the first time -- and had a reader's opinion of it.

Then the most quietly wonderful thing happened. Nearing the end of what I'd written, I gasped and exclaimed to Kirsten, "I know how it ends!" Just like that. A sweet little surprise twist of an ending arose and presented itself to me; and I knew it for what it was. Kirsten agreed. It was perfectly true to the story. I was so amazed to see tracks laid out before me again. I know my way forward and know when to stop; the end of the line is so much closer than I thought!

So, in the Winter dark of a Minnesota evening, I recognized how a mutually-beneficial, creatively supportive artistic life can be shared; simply by giving and receiving.

If frangrances were songs, that question I've carried so long has become an opening flower in my hands; I can tuck it behind my ear and keep going.

Profligacy

2012-01-17T11:51:00.000-08:00

What extravagance --
this day time
roaring fire

Not needed
for light
and not much
for warmth

And only for me.

The Kingdom is...

2012-01-04T09:24:00.001-08:00

Such a little mustard
seed of a pearl –
a treasure so small –

But it is a kingdom
in disguise
with the power of yeast
to multiply –
to capture –
like a fisherman’s net,
fish of every size.

Perspective

2011-12-22T14:16:00.000-08:00

Some days my sight is too particulate
Stark and sharp
a million waving green swords
and floods to drown me.

My mind blankens
and I am powerless.

Those are the days
I need to be lifted
high
onto the shoulders of the Shepherd

Then, silly me,
I see the view
of quiet waters
and green pastures.

You Only Gain When You Read to Your Kids

2011-12-15T11:38:00.000-08:00

I picked up the paper waiting in the printer; a poem was printed on it and I read the title: “The Road Less Traveled” by Robert Frost. Curiosity and excitement rising within I called out, “Whose poem is this?”

My 14 year-old son replied, “Mine.”

When he came to claim it, I asked him, “Is that for school?”

“Yup,” he replied “we’re doing Poetry Out Loud in class. I have to memorize and perform it.”

Forcing myself to play it cool, I responded with, “Cool!”

I then watched him, through the night, work on memorizing that poem. His teacher had made an audio file of herself performing it and he went everywhere connected to his Ipod headphones; mumbling to himself.

When we were driving home from being out that night he asked the family, “Hey, could we be quiet in the car so I can concentrate on this?” What a refreshing change!

Before bed, he was in his room mumbling away again. I came in talking to him and he jumped up, “Mooooom!! Now I have to start over again!” He was recording himself, working on his performance.

A little later we collided as he came out of his room. “Mom!” he said, “I’ve got it! Can I do it for you?”

“Sure, but come in our room, please.” I answered.

As we headed into our room he was falling all over himself telling me how he could try out for regional’s and if he made that maybe eventually get to state or nationals in the Poetry Out Loud tournaments and maybe win $20,000.00. I hadn’t seen him this excited in a long time.

He calmed himself down and proceeded to perform his piece for his dad and me.

He had done it. In one night he had memorized the poem and was already trying to pause and bring inflections and tone into the way he said it. I was so excited; I was having a hard time remaining calm – then he did something that just about blew my coolness cover.

After we applauded his performance I went right over to my desk and picked up my book of Robert Frost poems. “Look, Hon,” I invited.

He took the book and said – in the way only teenagers can that I was so not getting it– “I know Mom! You read it to me when I was little and I remembered liking it so I asked to perform it.”

Really.

My work is done.

I have nothing more to say, except that my life is complete and your time is never wasted when you read to your kids.

To Have Time

2011-12-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

I can not breathe
for the sheer
permission of
my life.

My life --
that which I --
live in
speak in
breathe in
touch.

At this moment
warming green tea
in hand
as I look out
at coldly blue skies
with softly dancing
down snow.

Snow. that my
daughter and I
walked among
this morning
to school

listening to her thoughts
random and swirling
softly dancing
down.

And then,

The Good-bye

A clasping of intensity
A wishing to remain

together.

And her brave
straight back
as she continued
through the snow

alone -- without me

into the building.

And I can not breathe
choked by gratitude
to be there
and an ache
for her small
determined bravery.

I see it, love,
I see it.

Unconsciously Lovely.

2011-11-17T10:45:00.000-08:00

It's a little hard to see, but the blue leaf facing says, "God" "~Solomon" written in a young child's hand.

What a beautifully quiet Word at the Ortho's office.

Experience leads to Doxology: a Gracious Plenty

2011-09-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

Dr. Clyde S. Kilby, well known scholar of The Inklings, used to teach his students at Wheaton College that one of the effects of the Enlightenment is the separation between living in one's head and living from one's heart. He used to explain that we are to live from the heart and allow the head to follow our experiences, bringing understanding. The Enlightenment has taught us moderns to lead with our heads (knowledge) and hope it will sink into the heart. The problem with that is that when we lead with our heads we lose a ton of sensory knowledge and mystery of living (being).

The way Dr. Kilby would quite humorously help his students understand his point was to tell them, "A fella can't kiss his girl and think about it at the same time."

This past weekend I went to a gathering of people who love and enjoy making or talking about all things art. What was so amazing, to me, about this gathering of Rabbit Roomers -- Hutchmoot 2011 -- was the pouring out, the giving among, the interest in each other. To me, it seemed people were there to get to know one another and enjoy what people were thinking and doing. The conference began on Thursday night and went until Sunday night; so it became something that we soaked in. There was so much available to think about, explore and do and the time and space to do it within.

What I received from the weekend were these words; through the mouths of those around me, speaking God's Truth into me; "Do not be afraid! You have permission -- you are welcome and even wanted in what God is doing!" God did a mighty work in my heart washing away the lies and scaffolding of doubt that I had accumulated throughout my life. Things like, "don't bother other people, who do you think you are to _____, they think you're just trying to get attention, they think you're using them, you're not nearly smart enough to ______." You know, things like that.

On Sunday I could not get out of my head the image from LOTR of the flooding of the Tower of Orthanc in Isengard; and I began to realize that God was opening me up to new and deeper levels of my baptism. I was being flooded and washed and stripped of those structures that had supported those lies within me for years.

The second to the last thing we did before the conference ended was listen to each other. We heard what was happening in and among us that weekend; and a palpable sense of wonder and awe grew, for me, in the room -- then Andrew Peterson stepped forward to lead us in our last experience together: to sing the Doxology. What followed was something I was not prepared for. For me, it was a resurrection, a gathering up in Power. We, God's people, together: out of overflowing hearts let ourselves go and sang His praises and our thankfulnesses for what we had been given from His hand. It was amazing; and words can not form it's description.

So then, I head home. Wonder and amazement following me every step. When I got there I found out Walter Brueggemann was speaking at Augsburg College; so, I went! And from stepping out of one experience with God's people, I stepped into another. Dr. Brueggemann brought some understanding to me of what I was a part of this weekend. He taught me that Doxology is the "exuberant abandonment of God's people to what God has done." It happens when His people sing His praises for His active Presence and Care in their lives. He also told us that when God's people speak the Gospel and sing His praises the structures of scarcity and fear crumble.

This knowledge felt like whipped cream and a cherry on top of my amazing Hutchmoot time and I found I even knew exactly what to call it; thanks to a woman from Texas who shared the term with us Hutchmooters Sunday afternoon: a gracious plenty. God is a God of a gracious plenty: what we need plus a little more -- like a cherry on top.

All thanks and praise be to God.

The Threat of Overcast

2011-03-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

The threat of overcast

gunmetal day

the cold steel

of it

pressedagainst

my head.

There is not

enough

light, color,

or birdsong

to keep the bullet

at bay.

Kids? What is the church?

2010-04-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

The Church is the people who are baptized in Jesus' name from every tribe, language, nation and race who gather together in God's love and grace; to live that love and grace into the world.

This is the definition I came up with for this week's lesson looking at 'what' the church is for the Kids at Abbey Way Covenant Church.

Any thoughts?

Skyscraper Praise

2010-02-09T09:51:00.000-08:00

I was afraid
that with their blocks of concrete
the skyscrapers might wound the dawn.

But you out to see
how sensitive they are
to the morning light,
how they disarm
and lose their cutting edge
and steely soul!

They too are caught
in the irresistible spell
of the holy hour
when the whole natural world
in rapture chants
creation's hymn of praise.

~Dom Helder Camara

Love...

2010-02-09T09:38:00.001-08:00

Love wash over a multitude of things
Love wash over a multitude of things,
Jesus save us from a multitude of things...
Make us whole~
Make us whole~

~Sara Groves "Add to the Beauty" cd

The Sun

2010-01-22T09:55:00.000-08:00

Even after all this time,
The sun never says to the earth,
You owe me!

Look what happens with
a love like that,
It lights the whole sky!

Hafiz

"Listen carefully, child, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart" Prologue, Rule of Benedict

2010-01-21T10:22:00.001-08:00

Listen!
Sit back
on the heels of your mind
take time
slowly
calmly

let thoughts
string themselves together
click
click
click

slip them
through
mindful fingers
leading you to
connection
union
joining

a new creation
tickle whispering
its birthening possibilities
on your heart's ear...
what
might
yes
mean?

1/21/10
Jaime R. Gjerdingen

poem inspired by Fr. Stanislaus Maudlin, O.S.B. "Wisdom of the Benedictine Elders" by Mark W. McGinnis; and the Prologue of the Rule of Benedict.

A Poem that Gives Me Chills

2010-01-16T12:28:00.000-08:00

Creation Myth
Wendell Berry

This is a story handed down.
It is about the old days when Bill
and Florence and a lot of their kin
lived in the little tin-roofed house
beside the woods, below the hill.
Mornings, they went up the hill to work,
Florence to the house,
the men and boys to the field.
Evenings, they all came home again.
There would be talk then and laughter
and taking of ease around the porch
while the summer night closed.
But one night, McKinley, Bill's young brother,
stayed away late, and it was dark
when he started down the hill.
Not a star shone, not a window.
What he was going down into was the dark,
only his footsteps sounding
to prove he trod the ground. And Bill
who had got up to cool himself,
thinking and smoking, leaning on
the jamb of the open front door,
heard McKinley coming down,
and heard his steps beat faster
as he came, for McKinley felt the pasture's
darkess joined to all the rest
of darkness everywhere. It touched
the depths of the woods and sky and grave.
In that huge dark, things that usually
stayed put might get around, as fish
in pond or slue get loose in flood.
Oh, the things could be coming close
that never had come close before.
He missed the house and went on down
and crossed the draw and pounded on
where the pasture widened on the other side,
lost then for sure. Propped in the door,
Bill heard him circling, a dark star
in the dark, breathing hard, his feet
blind on the little reality
that was left. Amused, Bill smoked
his smoke, and listened. He knew where
McKinley was, though McKinley didn't.
Billed smiled in the darkness to himself,
and let McKinley run until his steps
approached something really to fear:
the quarry pool. Bill quit his pipe
then, opened the screen, and stepped out,
barefoot, on the warm boards. "McKinley!"
he said, and laid the field out clear
under McKinley's feet, and placed
the map of it is his head.

Knitting a Mitten

2009-12-14T10:50:00.000-08:00

Lead me
From
Strength to strength,
Loop to loop,
Connected and carried,
Until I hand you
My piece...

Finished.

11:10:07
Jaime Gjerdingen

Vainglory

2009-11-24T12:44:00.000-08:00

A word has come to my attention lately: vainglory.

This word used to be quite commonly used; but I don't know that I have ever heard it used in 'normal' conversation. I am familiar with it through literature, especially literature dealing with character or morals.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "vainglory" as: inordinate or unwarranted pride in one's accomplishments or qualities; disposition or tendency to exhalt oneself unduly.

Ouch. This word has become a thorn in my side. I have begun to notice how constantly my thoughts revolve around situations that I can now call vainglorious. I have also begun to notice that 'attached' to 'feelings' of envy or inferiority or 'left outedness' is: vainglory... that is in someway the deeper, motivating 'feeder' of those feelings.

I can say that at this point, I am glad that I am recognizing the pull to act on those thoughts and am learning to resist them. So far, the discipline I am bringing to bear on them is to name their motivation: vainglory, and then to take action that is opposite: face the truth about myself in the moment and seek an action of humility. Which is tending to mean that I shut up a lot.

But it is hard.

Speech to the Young

2009-11-06T09:08:00.000-08:00

Say to them,
Say to the down-keepers,
the sun slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

Gwendolyn Brooks 1991

From The Midday Office

2009-10-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

Lord, my God, King of heaven and of earth, for this day please direct and sanctify, set right and govern my heart and my body, my sentiments, my words and my actions in conformity with Your law and Your commandments. thus i shall be able to attain salvation and deliverance, in time and in eternity, by Your help, O Savior of the world, who lives and reigns forever. Amen.

adapted by Phyllis Tickle from the Divine office, 2.

A Poem For My Musical Instrument Practicing Kids!

2009-10-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

How Long Have I Been Practicing?

How long have I been practicing?
I'm sure it's least a million years!
The evidence I submit
are my fosselized tears!

I was sure, by now, I'd be a pro..
But I just can't seem
to get the knack
of "Row, Row, Row"!

What? Five minutes!
You haven't a clue!
Time must move awfully slow for you,
Cause I've been working here,
At least an hour...

Would you like some of my
time moving power?

Who Kissed You Through the Dark...

2009-05-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

A Child's Thought of God
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

They say that God lives very high!
But if you look above the pines
You cannot see our God. And why?

And if you dig down in the mines
You never see Him in the gold,
Though from Him all that's glory shines.

God is so good, He wears a fold
Of heaven and earth across His face --
Like secrets kept, for love untold.

But still I feel that His embrace
Slides down by thrills, through all things made,
Through sight and sound of every place:

As if my tender mother laid
On my shut lids her kisses' pressure,
Half-waking me at night and said,
"Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?"

Scaffold or palace?

2009-03-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

Last week my lovely pastor, Jan Bros, passed on a resource to me of a talk that Tony Campolo recently gave at North Park University in Chicago, IL. Tony challenged his listeners to use this economic crisis to re-evaluate where they are investing their lives: in the falling powers of this earth, or the eternal Kingdom of God.

Then today, in my lectio reading, I came across these words of George MacDonald's. It struck me that George gives a picture of what those investments look like, eternally. Here are George's words, exerpted from The Vicar's Daughter:

Suppose God were building a palace for you, and had set up a scaffold, upon which he wanted you to help him; would it be resaonable in you to complain that you didn't find the scaffold at all a comfortable place to live in? that it was drafty and cold? This world is that scaffold; and if you were busy carrying stones and mortar for the palace, you would be glad of all the cold to cool the glow of your labor. (...)But what will all the labor of a workman come to if he does not fall in line with the design of the builder? (...) ...will you go on tacking bits of matting and old carpet about the corners of the scaffold to keep the wind off, while that same wind keeps tearing them away and scattering them?

Primed from listening to Tony's speech last week and meditating all weekend on where the investment of my (and my family and church's) life lies; this image of George's fell on extremely fertile ground in my heart. I hope and pray that I will become sensitive to realize when I am 'tacking bits of matting and old carpet' around me and will stop immediately and begin again the work of building the palace with my Father. This, for me, is the desire of my life... to work along side Him until I realize we are done.

As I finish, I cannot help but ask, "where do your investments lie?"

Bailouts and the Rule of Benedict...

2009-02-11T10:16:00.000-08:00

The other day, I was ranting to some trusted friends about how angry I was when I came across a Facebook ad that promoted getting 'bailout' money that was not being claimed. When I clicked on the ad it went to a blog where someone was telling about how they got $12,000.00 in unclaimed government grant money and then they paid off $10,000.00 in credit debt and took a family vacation. Then they went on to tell people how to get their own chunk of money, for themselves.

I was furious.

When I told my friends, one of them replied, "Welcome to the Republican party."

Their comment caused me to think...

My problem is not about Republican or Democratic approaches to policy; but about the responsibility of we citizens have in the state of our nation. If the Republican or the Democratic party makes money available to help others; it is not my right as a citizen to take that money to save myself while others who are in more dire straights than I am sink. That is the opposite behavior that is needed to help this nation to rise up honorably from our mistakes.

I felt that the person in the blog was promoting the same irresponsible choices that have helped this nation towards the mess we are in; and then turning and taking more from their national brothers and sisters to help themselves. They put themselves first and the rest of us, last.

Today, I read in "The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages" by Joan Chittister O.S.B., words that underscored these thoughts for me (italics mine):

"...if the preservation of the globe in the twenty-first century requires anything of the past at all, it may well be the commitment of the Rule of Benedict to humility.

The Roman empire in which Benedict of Nursia wrote his alternative rule of life was civilization in a decline not unlike our own. The economy was deteriorating, the helpless were being destroyed by the warlike, the rich lived on the backs of the poor, the powerful few made decisions that profited them but plunged the powerless many into continual chaos, the empire expended more and more of its resouces on militarism designed to maintain a system that, strained from within and threatened from without, was already long dead.

It is an environment like that into which Benedict of Nursia flung a rule for privileged Roman citizens calling for humility, a proper sense of self in a universe of wonders. When we make ourselves God, no one in the world is safe in our presence. Humility, in other words, is the basis for right relationships in life."

I am struck, quite forcibly, by the state America is in today and what Rome was like in Benedict's time. And, quite oddly, I take comfort in the fact that Rome is still there -- but it is not exactly as it was. I hope that we, as a nation, may begin to learn and explore the concept of humility that, to borrow Joan's words, "directs us to begin (...) by knowing our place in the universe, our connectedness, our dependence on God for the little greatness we have."

May we 'begin (together) again.'

A ramble back in...

2009-02-09T10:25:00.000-08:00

In September, I wrote that I thought I would be able to post here more often.

Well. Life is full of surprises and I have been seeing how my intentions do not always form my life. (Whew!)

All that said, I noticed a shift in myself last week where I wanted to begin here again. And, as far as I am able to see at this moment, I think I will be able to be more consistent again. I have, for the past few weeks, become more 'disciplined' and intentional in my writing pursuits. There is something opening and expanding there and I think it wants to grow into this space as well.

What is interesting to me -- and would take too long to explain -- is that I want to begin to use this space to talk about the economic crisis and how I experience it's impact upon America and me. There are so many things shifting... and even though they are scary, I think they are healthy shifts. I think we have a HUGE opportunity before us.

I have listened to NPR and all the experts talking for quite some time on this issue, but the other week I came across Speaking of Faith's series: Repossessing Virtue. I think it is wonderful and rather 'holistic' and it is causing me to see and experience things in new ways.

For me, this economic crisis began a long time ago. I have personally been walking away from the 'craziness' of consumerism that has been prevalent in America since before 'Y2K'. Not knowing what would happen and anticipating the potential crisis of Y2K caused me to look at how our family lived. It made me search for the historically consistent, sustainable 'ways' in which to live. That search broght me to look for ways of connection and helping/serving that would strengthen the way our family lives within our community. A lot of the changes that came about were very 'small' or 'unassuming'; yet they have brought about a level of peace that I am grateful for. A quick example is walking or biking to the grocery store near me instead of driving into a suburb to try to get the 'lowest' prices on something. When I walk to the store, I take the dog -- and I usually bribe my children with truffles if they will come with. The dog gets his exercise, as do I and the kids, and people often greet us and we meet interesting people. I have consistently noticed that I usually have a sense of happiness and joy after these times. It is good to be together and to nuture the places of healthy connection in our communities; it pays off.

I feel like the economic crisis, if we will allow it, will help us to re-discover these ways of being together again in America... and I do not mean in just 'pie-in-the-sky' ways. I had to deny myself things in my turning from consumeristic and isolated ways of living -- I had to overcome tremendous 'fears' that were keeping me isolated -- but as I did it, I began to taste something so much more authentic and real and sustainable that it began to 'grease the wheels' and make it easier to turn.

My hope is that I may find others onthis journey and that we are beginning to turn in our individual ways to discover and learn help each other.

Dedicated to my "wander-thirst" friend, Tonya

2008-09-11T19:13:00.000-07:00

The Sea Gypsy
Richard Hovey

I am fevered with the sunset,
I am fretful with the bay,
For the wander-thirst is on me
And my soul is in Cathay.

There's a schooner in the offing,
With her topsails shot with fire,
And my heart has gone aboard her
For the Islands of Desire.

I must forth again to-morrow!
With the sunset I must be
Hull down on the trail of rapture
In the wonder of the sea.

Potential!

2008-09-10T07:14:00.000-07:00

So! This is it. I am home alone for the first time in 11 years! The kids are all in school and I am looking at having a lot of my own time, daily, until next summer. Wow!

I am speechless with awe and wonder at the possibilities before me.

And so, A Writer's Group Begins...

2008-09-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked if I wanted to be part of a writer's group. I was enthusiastic, to say the least. I actually have some hope that I may settle down and write something because for the first time in 11 years, I will be home alone during the daytime. All the kidlets have grown up enough so they are in school.

Our group had their first meeting last night. Even though I am excited about the potential of what may happen through meeting together; I was full of fear and trepidation. It is very frightening to think of sharing the things I write with people who will actually talk back... and I may even have to see their reactions! Everything within me cringes at the thought, because, of course, I want everyone to like what I write and to say how wonderful and meaningful and life-changing it is to them.

But last night was more real than that. I listened to others as they gave feedback to the brave first presenter of work. I saw her scribble down lots of helpful notes and get excited by what we were sharing... I began to see how, really, it was sharing! My friend, the presenter, had something viable in what she wrote and we came around and helped clear some dust away to make what it was come forth into possibility.

I was encouraged. I also realized how narcissistic it is to just write; gorging out stuff without any consideration as to who would receive it. I am intrigued that the act of writing could become a discipline that would combat narcissism and strengthen me in consideration of others. There is a level of responsibility and beauty to it that I feel invited into, if I care to do the hard work.

I was also pleasantly surprised, when we got to the part in the meeting where we decided how we would like to structure what we write and bring to group, that I have quite a few things simmering around inside me -- some that have been waiting quite awhile to come out.

So, today, the first day after the first meeting of our Writer's Group... I am optimistic and hopeful... now, check in with me in two weeks, when I will be getting ready to present what I have written and you may find different words coming out of my keyboard!!

Peace.

Out of Great Silence

2008-08-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

I have been silent, here, for a long time. The last few months, I have noticed myself moving towards being able to pick this part of my life up again, but I have found it intimidating to come out of the silence. I never thought it would be harder to come out of silence than to go into it.

So, this is my "breaking the silence" blog post. I hope to be able to begin posting on a more regular basis.

I have learned so much during the time I have been silent and there are many things forming within me that I would like to share. One of the biggest places for me is looking at how being a part of an intentionally forming church community shapes me and my family and those around me.

So, I hope to re-connect with old blogger friends here -- if anyone even notices I am back :) -- and I hope to find new friends.

See you soon,
~Jaime

!?

2007-09-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

What happens when you suck the Holy Water bottle up with the vacuum?

The Prayer Appointed for this Week...

2007-08-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

"Grant to us, (myself and my family and the Body of Christ) Lord, I pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you beenabled to live according to you will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and riegns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

AMEN.

"Prayer Appointed for the Week: Monday -- Nearest to August 10
The Divine Hours
Phyllis Tickle

Pentecost

2007-05-29T18:59:00.001-07:00

Pentecost Sunday morning I felt God say the words to me, "you should be dead". They were not threatening words, but words that held immense and great awe for me. It is true. I should be dead. I "was" dead. On many levels these words are true; and yet I am not dead... and yet I am alive and I am becoming more and more alive and it is terrible and it is good.

Because of Christ, God can touch me and it brings life, not death. I have to allow the touch... but it is now possible... to me. A regular human being... I do not have to be a prophet or a recognised saint... and I am brought more and more into life.

I truly used to be quite dead. I could not feel... literally... I could not feel. My heart was paralyzed, numb, stone. For many years God has had me in a pressure cooker to transform my heart and make me sensitive and responsive to Him... and others. This has not been all fun. It is extremely painful. The best analogy I have heard about it was told by Dan Allender who said it is like healing from frostbite. You have to warm up slowly, and as you do you will feel extreme pain... to the point of wanting desperately to numb yourself again by diving into the snow... but if you do, you will never heal... and you may actually lose your limb altogether.

When the pain, sin, anger, sorrow that was/is locked in my heart comes up... oh, man. I want to dive right back into the numbness... anything to not feel it. But I have found ways, to allow the pain, or whatever it is at the moment, to come up... for me to look at it, name it, hold it with Christ... forgive the people involved, ask for forgiveness... whatever is needed... and then to give it to Him, because He paid for it, not me.

So those words "you should be dead" are glorious to me. Glorious. Yes. I should be dead and I would love to shout it from the rooftops! "I should be dead!! But I am not!!" I am not. I am alive. I can feel my children, and more importantly... my husband!! Things are worse than ever and so heartbreakingly better than ever... my joy was paid for with a price. Yes, Christ paid it, but so did I. My joy is not fluff. It is not the froth on a cappuccino... it is espresso... it is Turkish coffee... and I don't even know how to handle it yet.

You Have Redeemed My Soul
by Don Chaffer

You have redeemed my soul
From the pit of emptiness
You have redeemed my soul
From death

I was a hungry child
A dried up river
I was a burned out forest
And no one could do anything for me

But you put food in my body
Water in my dry bed
And to my blackened branches you brought the Springtime rain of new life
And nothing is impossible for you

One of My Favorite People

2007-05-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

O.k. One of my favorite people, whom I have never met, is about to give birth to a book! And he is a man... so giving birth is even more miraculous for him!! (Italics added in case you don't "get it".)

Andrew Peterson is writing (hopefully) an adventure series for young adults: The Wingfeather Saga (Go to #5 on the page). I am very excited about this because he is so completely spot on in terms of his heart for God and how he is able to convey that... yet he is real as well... not off in the clouds somewhere where things only go "so deep". He also, at least in his songs, conveys a wonderful, masculine boy life... and as the mother of a 10-year-old boy... I can tell you resources are few and far between (that are not already dead).

So, I trust him that his books will be good and will hopefully bring living stories to kids and they might not even know it!! That's the best kind; where you have to wonder if the writer loves God because he did not hit you over the head with Jesus every second, yet your hope wakes up that maybe there is a "place" where things are (will be) as they were meant to be.

Andrew, you will probably never read this, but I am rooting for you and praying for you and as a fellow lover of words and music; I bless the gift God has given you and pray he sustains you and yours as you pour out that gift.

~J

Mother's Day

2007-05-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

My dad sent on to me, via email, the following story which won the MSN writing contest for stories about Motherhood. It made me laugh, so I wanted to share it... it is scary how many moments there are like this!

Enjoy!

" Why my lips stayed chapped on Mother's Day "

So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just
recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him
around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.

Well we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were
4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli
really loves Chapstick. LOVES it. He kept asking to use my Chapstick
and then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where in the
bathroom I keep my Chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush
around and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and
carrying on. My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box.
I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood.

We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car
and I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally
round the corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was
applying my Chapstick very carefully to Jack's . . . rear end. Eli
looked right into my eyes and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat,
you know that he is right--their little butts do look pretty chapped.
And, frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind.

And the only question to really ask at that point was
whether it w as the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat's behind or
the hundredth.

And THAT is my favorite Mother's Day moment ever because it
reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious
little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize
they've been using your Chapstick on the cat's butt.

A New Take...

2007-05-10T12:56:00.000-07:00

So, I have been listening over and over (because my kids have been listening, over and over) to a new cd by Andrew Peterson and Randall Goodgame called "Slugs and Bugs and Lullabyes". On the song, "You Can Always Come Home", Andrew Peterson sings, "There once was a man who found him a treasure/ Buried out under a tree/ He sold all he had just to own it forever/ The treasure is you, you see... "

Well. I have grown up hearing the parable of the Hidden Treasure; but I had never thought of the man as Christ and the treasure as me! I fought Andrew inside, while my point-of-view slid from me being the man seeking the treasure of the Kingdom of God (that that is what I am supposed to do)... to me being the treasure and Christ giving all He had just to own me... and you... and my husband... and my kids... and all of us... forever.

This is still working on me. A fresh drink of Christ's love is in this song for me.

The song is great. I highly encourage everyone to buy this cd, even if you don't have children. I think it is a good cd for everyone who has ever been a child too. You can get it here.

Here are the entire lyrics for "You Can Always Come Home" in case you're interested!

You Can Always Come Home

I love you today and I love you tomorrow
I love you as deep as the sea
I love you in joy, and I love you in sorrow
You can always come home to me

There once was a man who found him a treasure
Buried out under a tree
He sold all he had just to own it forever
The treasure is you, you see

I love you today and I love you tomorrow
I love you as deep as the sea
I love you in joy, and I love you in sorrow
You can always come home to me

There once was some sheep safe on the farm
And one little lamb got loose
The shepherd went out and carried it home
That little lamb was you

I love you today and I love you tomorrow
I love you as deep as the sea
I love you in joy, and I love you in sorrow
You can always come home to me

The Prayer Appointed for the Week...

2007-04-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

"O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that (we), who have been raised with him, may abide in his presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory; through Jesus Christ my Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be dominion and praise for ever and ever. Amen."

Week nearest to April 20
Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime
Phillis Tickle

Here's Another one...

2007-04-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

Zion was watching Curious George on TPT today, and George was digging up bones, thinking they were dinosaur bones. Zion got all excited about this and told me that she was going to dig up dinosaur bones when she got as old as me. Then she felt our dogs backbone, leg bones... then she let me feel her bones and then she felt my bones...

Then, she looked at me, COMPLETELY EXCITED and said, "Mom!! When you are dead, I am going to dig up YOUR bones!!!!"

Honey Zion, I think the city would have something to say about that!

Favorite Author Notice!!

2007-04-12T05:24:00.000-07:00

A favorite author of mine, Anne Lamott, was broadcast on Mpr's Midmorning, yesterday...
Talking about, "The Elusive Gift of Grace"...
I have not had a chance to listen yet! I hope it is good!

I Love this!

2007-03-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

I love this George Bernard Shaw quote that Inward/Outward sent today! I have so often in my life felt myself changing and then felt confined by others' thoughts of who I had been and should be...

Enjoy the quote!

Making Assumptions
George Bernard Shaw

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

Lovely Holy Spirit

2007-03-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

Today's selection from our friends at Inward/Outward (the link is not working, so you'll have to check it out yourself if you want!)

Holy Spirit
Hildegard of Bingen

Holy Spirit,
giving life to all life,
moving all creatures,
root of all things,
washing them clean,
wiping out their mistakes,
healing their wounds,
you are our true life,
luminous, wonderful,
awakening the heart
from its ancient sleep.

Divine Invitation

2007-03-19T08:35:00.000-07:00

Divine Invitation

You have been invited to meet

The Friend.

No one can resist a Divine Invitation.

That narrows down all our choices

To just two:

We can come to God

Dressed for Dancing,

Be carried on a stretcher

To God's Ward.

~Hafiz

Missional Beauty...

2007-03-16T05:21:00.000-07:00

Emergent Self wrote a post recently about whether or not beauty is missional. When I read that post, my response was immediate and quite passionate... "of course it's missional!" And I immediately remembered a time in my life, a very quietly important time in my life where beauty was missional for me and it clearly made a difference...

At an extremely low point in my journey, sort of the point where I had just hit bottom and was coming to my senses enough to sit up and dust myself off and look around me at the pit I was in; I came across an art gallery on the Uof MN campus...

One of the artists had made a path in the middle of the gallery, completely out of things from nature. There were little stick "mile-markers" with leaf "flags" attached... I was curious about the piece so I went over and read the write up from the artist. And this is what the write up was: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones." (Proverbs 3:5-8)

And I was gripped, right then and there. I received the promises and I asked God to show me how to trust him and not lean on my understanding...

This was the hand of God reaching into the pit and giving me a "hold" and then (as I think about what has happened since) he patiently has kept his hand there as I have been climbing out of the pit... he is always present, always patient... like a parent's hand helping a toddler to walk...

After remembering this, I starting thinking of all the times when God has touched me and it has "turned" me (to me that is the definition of "missional": to cause to turn)... beauty was always involved.

I can not imagine experienceing God without beauty... I think it is as Emergent Self quoted Sr. Catherine Michaud, "Without beauty religion becomes moralistic, flat." That is how I have tasted it when God has been served up without beauty.

To me, beauty is the ultimate feminine expression of God... not being beautiful... but the way in which God offers his beauty -- constantly for any who may notice -- and his humility in offering without demanding breaks my heart.

Mommy...

2007-03-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

Zion (4 years-old): Mommy, when I walk on my tippy-toes I want you to call me "Magic Tippy-Toes".
Mom: "Oh! O.k., Magic Tippy-Toes!!"

*Smile*

Kindness Etched in Stone...

2007-03-09T05:30:00.000-08:00

This was printed in Turtle River Press by a reader, but the source is unknown:

Two friends were walking through a desert. Along the way they had an argument and one of the friends slapped the other in the face. The one who was slapped was hurt, but without saying anything wrote in the sand, "Today my best friend slapped me."

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him.

After recovering from the near drowning, he chiseled on a stone, "Today my best friend saved my life."

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now you etched in a stone. Why?"

The other friend replied, "When someone hurts us we should record the injury in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it. But when someone does something good for us we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."

I like this story for the intentionality with which the offended person looked at what happened and wrote it in intentional places... preserving the relationship... also, to me, it pointed out that these two things (hurting and helping) happen in relationship and how we deal with them hurts or preserves the relationship.

I have had a most powerful experience, lately, of how to forgive. To prayerfully "speak" to the person that I need to forgive and write a letter to them telling them exactly what is the debt that they owe me and then choosing for Christ (who has already paid that debt, and mine) to have it, not me. I wrote "I cancel this debt against you, and I will give Christ all my pain, bitterness, revenge and anger. I trust Christ to lead me to true forgiveness." Then those letters were nailed to a cross and eventually burned.

This was a powerful act for me. Instead of hiding my face from my anger, denying it, saying "I'm fine!" I was given words to legitimately accept that someone does owe me a debt, yet I knew/felt how Christ had already paid the price and that if I receive his forgiveness for myself, I can not demand to hold onto revenge for other people.

I am so grateful for the tools that Christ has purchased for us. Because we are still in a time where things happen and we need to forgive, but it is one of the hardest things to do: body, soul and spirit.

Amazing Kids...

2007-03-06T17:23:00.000-08:00

On Abbey Way's first Guesthouse Sunday, the children made a Psalm in Children's Chapel.

We were discussing "trust"; particularly how we can trust God because of who he is and how that is more reliable than trusting anyone or thing else.

We looked at tools that remind us of who God is and why we can then trust him. Tools like: music (worship), the cross (he gives everything), the Bible (he is the Word), the candle on the altar (light), the prayer tree (he is always present to our prayers) and Psalms... to name a few...

We focused in on how Psalms help us. How they help us to express our feelings, what is in our heart, and to remember who God is.

We grouped everyone up and I passed out strips of paper. I asked the kids to compose a line of a Psalm, telling me "why (they) can trust God because of who he is." We then took the strips of paper and put them in order and we had a Psalm.

It was amazing to read that Psalm to them. We were all seated back in our circle and I could just feel the electricity and excitment in the them and in the room! The Psalm was a wonderful declaration!! I am so proud of them. The adults that helped had been instructed to not change spelling or word order... we let it be the kids' own language.

Then a wonderful artist in our community took the Psalm and made it into a poster so that we can put it in our chapels at Abbey Way.

Check it out! Jan posted it on her blog!!

Things coming together...

2007-02-28T04:46:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I had a "noticing" experience. I am reading a book called "The White Witch" by Elizabeth Goudge. It is a historical story based in England during the time of Charles 1 and Oliver Cromwell... the English Civil War... when the Puritan/Parliamentarians were fighting against the Catholic sympathetic King/Royalists.

I am also reading a daily prayer book compiled by Elizabeth Goudge entitled, "A Diary of Prayer".

So, I read the prayer for Feb. 27th and it was this, "O Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget thee, do not forget me." by Jacob Astley before the battle of Edgehill... The prayer made an impression on me being having been prayed before battle...

Then, later in the day, I was reading The White Witch and right before the battle of Edgehill, Mr. Astley was quoted as saying that... it may be a small thing, or a coicidence, but I am someone who believes coicidences are for paying attention to... to see if there is something at work there.

The White Witch has seemed very significant. I can relate a lot of similarities to the religious and political environment in America in recent years to what is happening in the book. There are fanatics on both side of the coin and they have strong effect. I am still reading the book, so I do not know what I think yet...

We shall see...

I'm Back...

2007-02-28T04:42:00.000-08:00

I had a rebellious bit of time there, not wanting to create a Google Account to be able to blog again. So I was sitting in the sand in front of the bulldozer of progress... refusing to have more privacy taken from me...

Then my computer genius husband said they already have it anyway...

*Sigh*

Diamonds and Cells

2007-01-16T05:03:00.000-08:00

Well. I have been noticing, over the past year, something new to me. I think it has to do with the place of transition I have been in for awhile. We still go to Open Door, but we are not "of it" like we used to be. I work at Abbey Way, and we (as a family) are planning on becoming part "of it"; but the time is not yet. So, I feel myself, lately, in the increasing tension of straddling two worlds of church life. It has been getting increasingly difficult. They are each, in the words of Dallas Willard, a "row of the garden" in God's Kingdom, and I am noticing how difficult it is to let them "be" the rows that they are.

This actually points to a bigger process that I have noticed happening within me as I have been walking in this place of threshold. I come out of a legalistic, rigid evangelical background. This is not to say that all evangelicals are rigid and legalistic, this is just to say that I come from that environment... where faith was fed with a lot of fear. I have been "waking up" from this "condition" for awhile... and it has been really weird! I have been amazed at how narrow my life has been and how wide and inclusive it is becoming... I feel like I am learning to breathe... to breathe with my whole body/being.

Well, one of the things I have been noticing, thinking about in this process is the diversity of God's Voice... the voice of His Body... us; the Church. I will be somewhere and hear something and I will think, that is another strand of his voice... Because I am so pictorially oriented, I began to think of the church (the church broader than walls) as a diamond with many facets cut into it. The core of the diamond is the same and yet each facet is an expression of that core. I started to see how each cut of the diamond makes it more beautiful... so, my Benedictine friends at St. Ben's are one facet, Matt Patrick/Ashley Mallette/Joel Hanson songs at Open Door are another, Abbey Way worship is another, Bono another, J. Philip Newell another, Krisa Tippet of Speaking of Faith... and on and on.

I received, growing up, the impression that multiplicity is bad, wrong, even evil... that the fact that there are so many denominations and churches is not a good thing... But now, that view is changing.

Recently, the diamond picture shifted for me. I was meditating on these things and I felt like God shifted the scene for me. It was like he said to me, "Jaime. Cells divide! It is right and good that what started as a single cell is divided and divided into more and more specialized cells. That is how I made the human body!! Each cell has it's own 'row of the garden' to attend to to keep the whole body healthy. It is when a cell turns and tries to make other cells become like it's self that things fall apart. Those cells are called cancer."

From that I now feel that it is the devisiveness between churches that the scriptures admonish us against.

So, in this place I am in today, in this week, I am asking God to help me to learn how to let each cell be it's own special being in His body... and to glory in the abundance and multiplicity of God's creation.

A New Year's Contemplation...

2007-01-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

After writing my previous post, I sat down to "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" by Annie Dillard... I found the following quote within...

Here is my invitation into a New Year's contemplation:

"Have we rowed out to the thick darkness, or are we all playing pinocle in the bottom of the boat?"

Been A Year of...

2007-01-01T09:28:00.000-08:00

This last year has been, for me, a year of learning to go into the darkness. In various ways, I felt God showing me, teaching me that Christ goes into the darkness, heads towards the "muck" of life... he does not lift his skirts and go away... he dives into it and brings us through it.

So, the year was a year of turning my inmost self. Becoming sensitive to when I am "lifting my skirts", backing away from something difficult and instead moving towards it and trying to remain present while I do it.

Today I found this on Inward/Outward. Really, it is getting embarrassing how much I am putting their stuff on this blog. But what they have been sharing has been speaking to me... the poem reminds me of the story of a person asking Mother Teresa to pray for them that they may have clarity in their situation -- to which she replied, "I will not pray for clarity, but that you may trust God." So, here you go.

Better Than Light
M. Louise Haskins

And I said to the man
who stood at the gate of the year,
'Give me a light that I may
tread safely into the unknown.'

And he replied,
'Go out into the darkness,
and put your hand into
the hand of God.
That shall be to you better
than light,
and safer than
the known way."

Source: Unknown

Lord, may I learn to trust your hand in the dark. ~J

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone...

2006-12-26T08:09:00.000-08:00

Once again, something I want to share that was shared with me from Inward/Outward...

The Work of Christmas
Howard Thurman
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

Source: The Mood of Christmas

May you all have a comforting and joyous holiday season...
May our Father's "Fear Not" be gripping and steadying you...

Christian/Christ-follower Mac Parody...

2006-12-08T05:37:00.000-08:00

My husband found this on the internet today... a parody of the Mac ads with Christian - Christ-follower... check it out!

Overheard in our home today...

2006-12-05T11:32:00.000-08:00

"Abracadabra! I turn you (a shepherd) into a sheep!", said the Playmobile angel in the hand of my 4 year old.

This is what you get for giving angels wands!

Communion

2006-11-23T06:20:00.000-08:00

Communion
Daniel Berrigan, SJ

Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought it or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little even.

Posted on Inward/Outward today. I hope to give bread...

On the brink of Advent...

2006-11-17T05:22:00.000-08:00

I have been writing up a preparatory lesson to teach the kids of Abbey Way about Advent; which begins in a few weeks...

(by the way... I have been hired to teach the Children's Chapel at Abbey Way Covenant Church... I can't remember if I told Blog world, yet, or not!! That is a lot of why I have been so quiet... it is a bit of a learning curve for me...) (It's been amazing, though!)

So. I got done writing my lesson and then I read my daily "Inward Outward" email. Very apropos!

What to Do in the Darkness
Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

Go slowly
Consent to it
But don't wallow in it
Know it as a place of germination
And growth
Remember the light
Take an outstretched hand if you find one
Exercise unused senses
Find the path by walking it
Practice trust
Watch for dawn

The Narrow Way

2006-11-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

The term "the narrow way" has changed for me today.

In my past I have thought of that term in regards to a path, a journey, following Christ.

Today it is about denying the false self within me; but not killing the true self within me. Not killing the desires and dreams that God is putting within me; yet being patient to act in His time, not mine.

This is a very, narrow, knife edge of living for me. I am finding it takes an awakeness, an attention to within and without at the same time. Not throwing what is placed in my hand, and not grasping it either. This is a very narrow space in which to move... yet I hope the fruit of it will be wider than the horizons.

I hope it is a practice that I will be able to mature in and will become more and more natural to me. I hope I find the way to dance here...

Interesting...

2006-11-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

An interesting read that I have not had time to finish yet, but wanted to pass along...

Newsweek article, "An Evangelical Identity Crisis".

Thoughts...

2006-11-06T12:23:00.000-08:00

Thoughts so big
my mouth is
too small to
speak.

~Jaime

To Insure or Not to Insure... That is the Question!

2006-11-02T05:13:00.000-08:00

Innward/Outward posted an article by Rick Zemlin yesterday that intrigued me. I am grateful for his laying out his thinking on the issue of carrying health insurance or not.

I have had thoughts similar to his... but I have yet to act on them... (having a family attached to this issue makes it much more complicated).

When I have expressed my desire to live "insurance-less" I have received the same reaction that he had. Anxiety and fear from people and people looking at me like an crazy idealist who can't live that way.

For me, one complication also, is that I have my ear problems. The would be a major medical upkeep and at anytime I could be sent in to surgery if they get worse... which is really only a matter of time... that is why my husband and I opted out of what Rick is presenting, for the time being...

Sometimes we have been without health insurance and we found it better... my brother also spent time without it and he definitely experienced things like Doctors helping out by giving samples of medicines and other things to help with no insurance.

I want to look into some of the alternative solutions that he has engaged in this issue and see if they are viable in our case...

I think insurance cripples us more than we know...

What do you guys think?

Your Body Has Been Faithful to Live...

2006-10-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

So, to continue with the break of my silence...

Tonight I found myself listening to Matthew Sanford and Krista Tippett speaking about the connection between our minds and our bodies on the MPR show, Speaking of Faith. This is going to take me somewhere for awhile. I can taste the future in this connection, I am anticipating things opening, shifting, breathing in an anciently new way.

Matthew has written a book called, "Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence". I have not been paralyzed as he has been, but parts of me have... parts that maybe can't be mapped physically. He talks about learning to listen to the silence inside... to spaces that we can't hear within ourselves. The peace and grace of his speech, the obvious breaking through suffering to be able to bless where before were curses... I am hungry for that.

He has such affection and grace for the body... where my past has been to curse my body and want to be out of it... and I am just waking up, myself, to how much harm that has done.

He talked of grace. He talked of healing stories. He talked of how our bodies do not fail us, they are incredibly faithful to live for us. In those times when we lose consciousness or disaccociate (to survive!) our bodies keep us alive and they store the impressions/memories of what is happening without us. Alone.

That is what I am tasting that is new from hearing this interview. I am tasting my body's "aloneness" and I am sad. I am sorry.

I am in a time of going back. I am in a time of learning to listen to my body and to learn to cherish it, grieve for it and befriend it. I can feel, even from listening to this interview, gratefulness for my body.

It is similar to how I was startled to find that when I got my hearing aides, instead of feeling clunky or awkward or ashamed (basically to feel them as enemy or separate from me), they felt to me like two intimate friends who were completely there to help me... I can not believe how "accomodating" (thanks to technology) they are! I am able to work with a woman at the hearing aid office and she programs them to suit me and my needs. If they are too "sensitive" (they adjust noise too often) then she can make them less so... they automatically sense if there is a lot of background noise and they "compress" the noise from the back and focus on the noise in front of me... lots of things like that. It is truely amazing.

I am hungry to read Matthew's book.

I live with a baby elephant...

2006-10-17T16:47:00.000-07:00

So. It has been so long since I have posted (in my own voice). I have wanted to update everyone on the happenings here.. but they have been so fast and furious that I have not had words for it... until today.

One of the major changes in our lives this fall is that we are a homeschool family that sends their kids to school! Our two eldest started this year at the local schools. That has been quite an adjustment! It has been good. I have enjoyed meeting both their teachers so much. I am excited to get to know them better by helping in the rooms. I have been so impressed by their commitment to the children.

Well, another of the changes that has taken place is that Elijah is learning to play the trumpet. One day, I was picking him up from school and a boy in his class handed me this huge, black object. Elijah quickly said, "Oh, mom. I'll carry that!! It's my trumpet!" I gave it to him and we started to leave, walking down the hall... Elijah and Zion were in front of me and I heard him tell her, "Now Zion. You may not go near this!! You must stay away from it. I will show it to you, you want to see it? But you CAN'T touch it!!" Then, the second we were in the car, the case was open and he was telling me... "Look mom!! It is GOLD!! The mouthpiece is SILVER!! That's why it costs so much!!" The poor boy could not even buckle himself... I had to reach around and buckle for him...

Then the other day, Saturday, I had to tell him to "put his hands in the air and step away from the instument" when he was about to "wake" his sisters up at 7:30 a.m.... this morning, he finally committed his crime. Before school, he "blatted" his horn (repeatedly!! Playing "hot-cross-buns") while I was in the shower and his sisters were grumpily waking up. He has not learned yet to not poke dragons...

From the shower, it sounded like I had a little baby elephant in the house... so fun...

My prayer as a bee...

2006-10-08T17:19:00.000-07:00

The Prayer of the Bee
From: Prayers from the Ark by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold

Lord,
I am not one to despise Your gifts.
May You be blessed
Who spread the riches of Your sweetness
for my zeal…
Let my small span of ardent life
melt into our great communal task;
to lift up to Your glory
this temple of sweetness,
a citadel of incense,
a holy candle, myriad-celled,
moulded of Your graces
and of my hidden work.

Lord! Today, this is the prayer of my heart. Teach me to revel in hidden work!

It's been awhile...

2006-09-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile since I have posted, obviously... but I came across an article on MSNBC and I have to share...

There is a man who is making two portraits a day to give to families of fallen servicepeople from the "War on Terror". He gives them free to the family and they are amazing...

Here is his home page...

Here is a gallery of the portraits...

Please. If you want to, send support.
Please. Pray for him and his family.

This is a beautiful thing.

Oh love wash over a multitude of things
love wash over a multitude of things
love wash over a multitude of things
Make us whole

There is a love that never fails
There is a healing that always prevails
There is a hope that whispers a vow
A promise to wait while we're working it out
So come with your love and wash over us.

Sara Groves
"When It Was Over"

I hope to begin posting again, and to share with people the changes happening in our lives here... things have been changing fast and furiously... it is terribly good... but it is hard to get into words.

Peace to you and yours...

I am so grateful...

2006-08-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

I am so grateful.

I am so grateful for kind neighbors:

- A girl of 10 who came over to play today and took my three-year-old girl outside to play together. She held her hand crossing the street and kept her arms protectively near the little one as they played. It was beautiful. My three-year-old came home ten feet tall.

- A woman who left a bag of candy and note on the doorstep for this children of this house. The note read, "Thanks! To the wonderful kids that always say hello to me." I will never throw that note away. (moms need encouragement some days, you know!!)

- A friend who came over to play and ended up watching all the kids alone because I had to go to the doctor suddenly. Then she took them out so that I could rest when I came back.

- My brother, who is giving me such gifts from his heart.

I am so grateful.

Security

2006-08-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

Security

If I put myself in Christ's lap,
and my child puts herself in my lap,

then my child is in Christ's lap...

don't you see?

But if I neglect to rest
upon Christ's beating breast,

then the lap my child rests in

is empty me...

Jaime Gjerdingen
8/7/06

Lousy At Math...

2006-07-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

Lousy At Math

Once a group of thieves stole a rare diamond
larger than two goose eggs.

Its value could have easily bought three hundred thousand horses
and three thousand acres of the most
fertile land in
Shiraz.

The thieves got drunk that night to celebrate their great haul,
but during the course of the evening the effects of the liquor,
and their mistrust of each other grew
to such an extent

they decided to divide the stone into pieces.
Of course then the Priceless became lost.

Most eveyone is lousy at math and does that to God --
dissects the Indivisible One,

by thinking, by saying,
"This is my Beloved, he looks like this and acts like that,
how could that moron over there
really
be

God?"

Poem by: Hafiz
Found in: "Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West" by, Daniel Ladinsky

Happy Day!

2006-07-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

For Uncle Eggert!!

i thank you God for most this amazing
day: for leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any -- lifted from the no
of all nothing -- human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

We celebrate with you!

A "Summer-ary"

2006-07-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

What a summer we've had, so far. Here are a few "snapshots"...

~ Two little girls sitting in the orange-glow of afternoon, hunting for "jewels" (beads that are faceted and shaped like diamonds) out of a trinket box of beads. Over them, Alison Krauss singing "Jewels"... "Like the stars of the morning, His bright crown adorning, they will shine in their beauty, bright gems for His crown..."

~ After days of riding bikes through Wisconsin, we are in a restaurant called, The Angry Minnow (I completely recommend it) in Hayward; listening to the accomplishments of the various riders. One boy of nine rode 71 miles one day, our boy of nine rode 41 miles one day, our six-year-old rode 15 miles one day on her own bike, and our three-year-old rode 20 miles on a trail-a-bike -- each child honored for their accomplishment. Children and adults all together laughing, talking, enjoying each other.

~ I went to Cub Scout Camp, Akela, with my nine-year-old boy. I was invited. I was amazed that I was invited and we had such fun. There were SO many holy moments that weekend, but the one that stays with me is on the way home, I told my nine-year-old that I felt very honored that he asked me to go and I thanked him for sharing that with me. He looked at me and said, "I was honored that you went with me. Will you go with me next year?"

~ Sitting on the phone with a friend and realizing that God is moving in both our lives in the same way; calling us away from hurtful ways of being. We committed to watching each other's backs, to encourageing each other to press through. I am amazed at God's grace to give companions in the journey.

~ The kids being up at Grandma's and Grandpa's farm, I spent a day literally lying on the couch with the dog. We rested, read, prayed, wrote, listened, rested, slept, ate... it was amazing. He was so happy!

~ Finding, "Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and the West" by Daniel Ladinsky, for sale at the Library. Bought it for a dollar and... my heart is still trying to unpack it personally...

~ My husband getting Fareignheight 9/11 and us watching it until 1 in the morning. My heart is still trying to unpack it personally...

~ Listening to Steve Hanson of Open Door speak about Gulu and what God is doing there with Open Door. My heart is still trying to upack it personally...

These are a few of the moments that I have tasted this summer. It has been, amidst the hard times, very precious.

City-House E-Newsletter...

2006-07-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

I found a gem of a poem on the City-House E-Newsletter today.

DEAF GOD* By Edwina Gateley (Written during her 5 years of doing work with street people in Chicago)

I am suddenly angry with God!
I’ve been thinking of the streets and all its misery and degradation,
thinking of our faith, and our hope, thinking of God’s promise –
to heal, transform, listen to her people..
and I wondered perhaps, if God had gone a little deaf of late?
Wondered why she did not answer, when her people believed and called.
I told her she was slow, and needed, perhaps, to get moving, to answer her people!
………

Ah, We have to feel God in our lives.
We have to run with him, sleep with her, eat with her, cry with him…
It is the Great Reckoning, the mindless, passionate, rendezvous,
during which we can say to the Creator,
“Dammit! – what are you up to?”
And still know that we will end up together,
rolling and laughing on the forest floor
.………

Yes, We have within us the given power
to make God stir, and the whole court of heaven
rise, startled, to hear us.

I Bet God

2006-06-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

If He

let go of my hand, I would

weep so loudly,

I would petition with all my might, I would cause

so much trouble

that I bet God would come to His senses

and never do that

again.

Meister Eckhart

A Treat

2006-06-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

Monet Refuses the Operation

Doctor, you say there are no halos
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don’t know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and change our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

Lisel Mueller

Found in the opening pages of Anne Lamott's, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.

Freedom...

2006-06-14T13:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is just so good to bike and bike and bike...

until my sweat runs clean.

I did that today, biking from home to the U of MN to have lunch with my husband. The kids are at Grandma's and Grandpa's till the weekend. So, I said good-bye to the dog and took off. Oh, how I need days like this every once-in-awhile... where I am free. I am free to stop and talk to a stranger, free to go to a new coffee shop someone mentioned to me... free.

It was lovely to eat at St. Martin's Table with Craig, again. That was actually the site of our first date. Then we biked over the Washington bridge ( and I remember biking with him that first day over that bridge). It feels so amazing to flow in the present in those memories and still be connected to that time and place. We were students then, but now he works there... and loves it. I felt like even though we now have three kids and a dog, we still fit in... we have not lost our youth... He really is lucky to be able to enjoy the college campus as his work place.

We saw our neighbor, who is a student there now, and she directed us to a new coffeeshop on frat. row. The "OX" frat was kicked out and their house has been turned into a WONDERFUL coffeeshop. It was so great to sit in a beautiful house on overstuffed, buttery soft leather chairs by a fireplace and sip GOOD coffee. It is the sort of house you would find in England, and it is beautiful! I am impressed and will go there as often as I can. I think the name of it was, "Bordertown Coffee". It was such a cozy, relaxing atmosphere that I could actually snuggle in a stare at the wood work and rest. It was great.

I can't wait to take my kids there... they will love it!

Jealous of a Pond

2006-06-07T05:34:00.000-07:00

Jealous of a Pond

When God said, "My hands are yours," I saw that I could heal any

creature in this world;

I saw that the divine beauty in each heart

is the root of all time

and space.

I was once a sleeping ocean

and in a dream became

jealous of a

pond.

A penny can be eyed in the street

and a war can break out

over it amongst

the poor.

Until we know that God lives in us

and we can see Him

there,

a great poverty

we suffer.

Rabia of Basra (c.717-801)

Speech to the Young

2006-05-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

(I found this on a professor's door at the College of St. Catherine)

Speech to the Young

Say to them,
Say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"Even if you are not ready for day
It cannot always be night."
You will be right
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

Gwendolyn Brooks
1991

George MacDonald and Don Miller

2006-05-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

I have been reading The Back of the North Wind, by George MacDonald, to my kids lately. While the main character, Diamond, is in the land at the back of the north wind; MacDonald starts to interrupt the story with song/poetry to describe what the river that flows there, sings.

I have been reading, for myself, Searching for God Knows What, by Don Miller. He has been talking about a dynamic he learned while taking a class from Dr. John Sailhamer. Dr. Sailhamer showed the class how Moses used poetry in his writing. He would be writing narrative and then suddenly break into poetry. Dr. Sailhamer said that "the way Moses wrote wasn't unlike the way people who write musicals stop the story every once in a while to break into song." Don Miller explains that poetry is used as a literary tool to help express the "emotions and situations and tensions that a human being feels in his life but can't explain."

I thought of George MacDonald. And then I remembered how the poetry he wrote in the story helped me to feel his meaning even though the words of poetry were like "nonsense" if my mind tried to understand them.

This is what George MacDonald writes through the voice of his narrator about these songs...

"Here Diamond became aware that his mother had stopped reading.
'Why don't you go on, mother dear?' he asked.
'It's such nonsense!' said his mother. 'I believe it would go on for ever.'
'That's just what it did,' said Diamond.
'What did?' she asked.
'Why, the river. That's almost the very tune it used to sing.'
His mother was frightened, for she thought the fever was coming on again. So she did not contradict him.
'Who made that poem?' asked Diamond.
'I don't know,' she answered. 'Some silly woman for her children, I suppose - and then thought it good enough to print.'
'She must have been at the back of the north wind some time or other, anyhow,' said Diamond. 'She couldn't have got a hold of it anywhere else. That's just how it went.' And he began to chant bits of it here and there; but his mother said nothing for fear of making him worse; and she was very glad indeed when she saw her brother-in-law jogging along in his little cart. They lifted Diamond in, and got up themselves, and away they went, 'home again, home again, home again,' as Diamond sang. But he soon grew quiet, and before they reached Sandwich he was fast asleep and dreaming of the country at the back of the north wind."

Diamond goes on to sing the song to help and comfort babies and people and help sustain their hope as things get harder in the story. It makes me think of how incredibly old Moses' words are and how his "song" is still reverberating and repeating to help sustain our hope to this day...

May we all listen and sing and fall fast asleep and dream of the country at the back of the north wind.

Hearing...

2006-05-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

Man!! Have I been struggling lately. I don't know what the deal is, but it has been hard just to accomplish life lately.

One thing I have noticed is that I am having a very hard time hearing my children. I used to boast that I could negotiate peace treaties for the UN, but not so, lately. I was talking to a friend and I realized that I think it is because of my hearing. I am not able to distinguish the intensity of conversations until they are boiling over. I am not able to tell where sound is coming from, so sometimes I am not aware something is happening. I am also having a hard time discerning who is telling the truth, who is lying, and who is just plain confused.

So, I am beginning to look into hearing aides. This is actually a big step for me, because I have been on a journey with God where I felt Him leading me and I have been vulnerably asking Him to heal my ears; give me my hearing. I get twisted up in the faith issue of is it not faithful to that journey with Him, if I go and get hearing aids.

I am pretty settled with it now. I now see it as loving to my children to not make it more difficult for them to have my hearing issues.

Anyway. I was wanting to ask people to pray for me around this, if God puts me on your heart. I am asking God to provide hearing aides for me that we are able to get.

Thank you.

Learning to fly...

2006-05-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

We did it. We declared Sunday our last day at Open Door; and we were so blessed! I could not believe how people responded in love to us. It started, here, on this blog. I began to receive responses from fellow "Open Doorers" and I began, before Sunday, to sense that this leaving was going to be different from my past. I began to feel that just because we will not physically be there Sunday's does not mean we are not "part of the family".

On Sunday, we had the overwhelming surprise in the community we minister in with, coming around us and praying for our family. They blessed us and sent us. People also shared that they feel we would still be connected in heart and spirit.

Then, driving home, Craig prayed for our family... acknowledging to God that we were now "churchless" in terms of a physical community to worship with. Asking our Shepherd to guide us to the pasture He wants us in... He then prayed the picture that stays with me, and encapsulates what I think, through people, God was/is saying to us. Craig said that we are like kids who have grown up and are leaving home. We are still part of the family, but we just don't live in the house with mom and dad anymore. We are out of the nest and learning to fly.

That says it, I think.

Thank you for all the love and support you all showed us and we know your hearts go with us. We will keep you posted on this blog. I am thankful for this technology!!

Announcement...

2006-05-05T06:16:00.000-07:00

I have been writing this post, in my heart, all week... it is time... I must post it. I am amazed at how difficult it is to write it. To "announce" it. Then, we have to follow through... First, the announcement... then the rest...

This is our last "official" Sunday at Open Door. For about a year, we knew that we were being "weaned" and "called" to live fully in the community we live in. About two weeks ago, we felt the sense that in a few weeks, we would be "done". The gas prices will finally help us sever the umbilical cord.

I am shocked by the depths of my feelings around this. Shocked? Let me explain. I have been a person who has "moved around" alot. I was born in Peoria, IL and then we moved to Tokyo, Japan. Then we moved back to Illinois, then I went to finish high school in Minnesota, then I went to college in Minnesota... Moorhead State... then finishing up at U of MN in the Twin Cities. So. I am used to making changes and leaving; but I leave and cut off my heart as I go.

Last night I was meditating on this and feeling it and I realized that I really want it to be noticed that we are not at Open Door anymore. But how will that happen? It is a huge church. There is no way to "announce"... "Hey... we are just people who have gone here for at least 13 years... and God is moving us out... hello?? Anyone???" I don't want to disappear without a trace again.

I have noticed that I have felt like a "ghost" all my life... through all these "movings". I have felt like I show up somewhere and everyone is more "solid", "real", "connected" than me. I feel shadowy and vague and like I really don't have a place. I may begin to get more "form" as I am there, but I feel like when I leave, I don't leave a "void", a "lack". I don't know if anyone noticed that we left Japan... Susie Camarata... do you remember playing with me? Jaime Vorvick? (I am trying to not get melodromatic... but this is fresh for me...)

So. I am living in the hurt. I am allowing my heart to hurt and grieve over leaving this place that has been such a blessing and that I allowed my heart to pour into. A place that was used immensely by God to show me that I had a heart! And I am allowing my heart to grieve over how I have handled the pain of these changes in my past. I have been wrong to not invest myself in each place and to keep my heart closed so I don't hurt each time we moved. I have imagined that the "communities" I have come into didn't let me be solid... but maybe I wasn't connecting myself... giving myself to make solid relationships...

I am not even sure if people read my blog anymore... it's been so long since I have been a reliable "poster". This was the only place where I felt I could gather a group of Open Door friends together to say... "good-bye".

I will still be here at "release the good". We may still be active in Open Door's Tuesday morning groups... but we are out and searching for our church home...

p.s. Jan, my heart is more empathetic to what you have probably been going through...

Help us remember...

2006-05-03T05:07:00.000-07:00

"The heart at the centre of the human body represents the beauty that is at the heart of life. We often define ourselves in terms of the ugliness of what we have done or become rather than in terms of the essence of our life. We are made in the image of God, in the image of the One who is Beauty.

Think of a beautiful plant suffering from blight. If botanists were shown such a plant, even if they had never seen that particular type of plant before, they would define it in terms of its essential features and life-force. They would not define it in terms of its blight. Rather, the blight would be described as foreign to the plant, as attacking its essence. This may seem an obvious point botanically, but perhaps it is such an obvious point that we have missed the point when it comes to defining what is deepest within us. In our Western Christian tradition we have tended to understand human nature in terms of its blight. The doctrine of original sin defines us as essentially sinful rather than seeing that sin is attacking the essence of our being. What is deepest in us is the beauty of our origins." J. Philip Newell, Echo of the Soul

!Lord! Help me to walk out of such a 'western' mindset and help me to remember...

To a Contemporary Bunkshooter...

2006-04-14T07:10:00.000-07:00

A friend shared this great Carl Sandberg poem via email with me and it was so good I wanted to share it with you all...

It's a bit long, but good. Enjoy...

TO A CONTEMPORARY BUNKSHOOTER
You come along. . . tearing your shirt. . . yelling About Jesus.
Where do you get that stuff?
What do you know about Jesus?
Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem everybody liked to have this Jesus around because he never made any fake passes and everything he said went and he helped the sick and gave the people hope.
You come along squirting words at us, shaking your Fist and calling us all damn fools so fierce the froth Slobbers over your lips. . . always blabbing we're all going to hell straight off and you know all about it.
I've read Jesus' words. I know what he said. You don't throw any scare into me. I've got your number.
I know how much you know about Jesus.
He never came near clean people or dirty people but they felt cleaner because he came along. It was your crowd of bankers and business men and lawyers hired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus out of the running.
I say the same bunch backing you nailed the nails into
the hands of this Jesus of Nazareth. He had lined
up against him the same crooks and strong-arm men
now lined up with you paying your way.
This Jesus was good to look at, smelled good, listened
good. He threw out something fresh and beautiful
from the skin of his body and the touch of his
hands wherever he passed along.
You slimy bunkshooter, you put a smut on every human
blossom in reach of your rotten breath belching
about hell-fire and hiccupping about this Man who
lived a clean life in Galilee.
When are you going to quit making the carpenters build
emergency hospitals for women and girls driven
crazy with wrecked nerves from your gibberish
about Jesus--I put it to you again: Where do you get
that stuff; what do you know about Jesus?
Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash
a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance.
Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your nutty head.
If it wasn't for the way you scare the women and kids
I'd feel sorry for you and pass the hat.
I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when
he starts people puking and calling for the doctors.

I like a man that's got nerve and can pull off a great
original performance, but you--you're only a bug-
house peddler of second-hand gospel--you're only
shoving out a phoney imitation of the goods this
Jesus wanted free as air and sunlight.
You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to
fix it up all right with them by giving them mansions
in the skies after they're dead and the worms have
eaten 'em.
You tell $6 a week department store girls all they
Need is Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead
Without having lived, gray and shrunken at forty years
Of age, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the
Cross and he'll be all right.

You tell poor people they don't need any more money
on pay day and even if it's fierce to be out of a
job, Jesus'll fix that up all right, all right--all
they gotta do is take Jesus the way you say.
I'm telling you Jesus wouldn't stand for the stuff
you're handing out. Jesus played it different. The
bankers and lawyers of Jerusalem got their sluggers and
murderers to go after Jesus just because Jesus wouldn't
play their game. He didn't sit in with the big thieves.
I don't want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my
religion. I won't take my religion from any man who never
works except with his mouth and never cherishes any
memory except the face of the woman on the American
silver dollar.
I ask you to come through and show me where you're
pouring out the blood of your life.
I've been to this suburb of Jerusalem they call
Golgotha, where they nailed Him, and I know if the story
is straight it was real blood ran from His hands and
the nail-holes, and it was real blood spurted in red
drops where the spear of the Roman soldier rammed
in between the ribs of this Jesus of Nazareth.

--Carl Sandburg

Dreaming my dreams...

2006-04-13T20:24:00.000-07:00

"Man dreams and desires, God broods and wills and quickens.
When a man dreams his own dream, he is the sport of his dream; when Another gives it him, that Other is able to fulfil it."

George MacDonald
Lilith

A Great Birthday...

2006-04-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

I had a great surprise birthday gift today. My brother took me to see Etta James at the O'Shaughnessey (sp?) theatre at St. Kate's.

Wow! That was great! Kevin Bo (sp?) opened for her and he was really good too.

It was incredible to listen to her. Her band was great too... their sound was so fuid. She would belt out singing and you would expect it to hurt and it never did. She got so excited in the music she could not sit still. It was fun to watch.

What a fun birthday! What a great time with my brother.

Patience...

2006-04-05T17:50:00.000-07:00

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be
given you because you would not be able
to live them. And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then
gradually, without noticing it, live along some
distant day into the answers.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Letter to a Young Poet

Bumper Sticker...

2006-03-28T04:15:00.000-08:00

I saw a great bumper sticker yesterday...

"I am for the separation of Church and Hate."

Yes!!

Meditating on...

2006-03-19T10:25:00.000-08:00

"With a listening heart that is both supple and receptive be open (daughter) to the words of an experienced father who lovingly offers you the wisdom gained throughout many years.

This Lord has Himself given us the time and space necessary to learn and put into practice the service of love that He continues to teach us. In this school of His let us hope that following faithfully His instructions nothing distasteful nor burdensome will be demanded of us, but if it has to be so in order to overcome our egoism and lead us into the depths of true love, let us not become disheartened, nor frightened and so ignore the narrow path in spite of its tight entrance -- that path which leads directly to the fullness of life."

The Prologue, Rule of St. Benedict
quoted in "Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict" by Esther De Waal

My heart is chewing on these words... chewing and wondering...

Threads in my hands...

2006-02-28T20:59:00.000-08:00

Two threads that have been in my hands lately, look different, but have a similar flavor to me...

1. From: Echo of the Soul by Philip J. Newell

"The arms of the human body represent strength. The left arm is associated with the strength of power and the right arm with the strength of love. The greatest of strengths is love, greater than any power. ("love wins...!" message of the cross... recent Open Door sermons. www.thedoor.org has them to listen to on the internet. Select "two weeks ago" sermon.) To be made in the image of God is to be 'endowed with strength like God's own', as Ecclesiasticus says. Do we know the energy for life that is deep within the mystery of our beings, or have we forgotten the strength that resides within us? The Prophecy of Isaiah says, 'Awake, awake, put on your strength.'

(...)

To be made in the image of God is to say that such strength is at the core of our being. Just as the mystery of our identity is found in the name of God, 'I am who I am', so the strength of our being is derived from the power and love of God. In the Prophecy of Isaiah, God says to Israel, 'I surname you, even though you do not know me.' Similarly, God says, 'I arm you, even though you do not recognise me.' The more aware we become of our deepest identity the more alert we will be to the strength that is within us. We also, of course, will become more aware of the ways in which we have neglected or abused our strength in the relationships of our lives and in the injustices of the world."

2. Sara Groves (co-written by Bronleewe) song from her cd entitled, Add to the Beauty (wonderful cd!!)

Add to the Beauty
We come with beautiful secrets
We come with purposes written on our hearts, written on our souls

We come to every new morning
With possibilties only we can hold, that only we can hold

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we are
And add to the beauty, To tell a better story
I want to shine with light
That's burning up inside

It comes in small inspirations
It brings redemption to life and work
To our lives and our work

It comes in loving community
It comes in helping a soul find it's worth
A soul find it's worth

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we are
And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside

This is grace, an invitation to be beautiful
This is grace an invitation

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out our best
And I want to add to the beauty
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside.

This all leaves me wondering and noticing... Lord, each moment... where is my strength? What am I doing with it? Where am I spending it? Am I adding to beauty? Am I using my strength to bring beauty to each moment? Or am I still asleep.

Lord, wake me up where I am asleep and sustain me where I am awake... deliver and sustain me.

Amen.

Childhood...

2006-02-19T15:32:00.000-08:00

Is There A Lost Child In You?

What pains me most
these days
is my inability
to reach back into my years
and touch the child I was.

And yet,
loving
living
stirring
deep within my soul
that child lives on.

There are days
when
my adult ways
turn tasteless in my mouth
and the child of long ago
starts
pressing on my soul.

On days like that
I long to touch that child again
and let her take me by the hand
and lead me down
a path that has a heart
and show me all the things
that
I've stopped seeing
because I've grown
too tall.

"The spirituality of my childhood is the one I would most like to have restored. It was pure and fresh and honest. I read God everywhere! It was Divine Reading at its best. The forest was my place of solitude. The trees, like gods and goddesses, bent down to hear my prayers. I trusted them with all the secrets of my heart, and I was never disappointed. In their presence I felt safe. Looking back at the poverty and the wealth of my childhood, my memory becomes a ray of hope and pain. I have become too complicated in my prayer. Yet under the eye of God all shall be restored."

Macrina Wiederkehr
"A Tree Full of Angels"

Please, Lord. Amen.

Healed Heart Afresh Catch Up...

2006-02-15T11:37:00.000-08:00

Fifteen

Therefore I make provision, ere I begin
To do the thing thou givest me to do,
Praying: Lord, wake me oftener, lest I sin.
Amidst my work, open thine eyes on me,
That I may wake and laugh, and know and see
Then with healed heart afresh catch up the clue,
And singing drop into my work anew.

February Fifteen
"Diary of an Old Soul"
George MacDonald

Walking Tall

2006-01-23T13:17:00.000-08:00

I go forth today
in the might of heaven,
in the brightness of the sun,
in the whiteness of snow,
in the splendour of fire,
in the speed of lightning,
in the swiftness of wind,
in the firmness of rock.
I go forth today
in the hand of God.

Eighth-century Irish prayer

Holy Melancholy

2006-01-18T12:58:00.000-08:00

Last week I experienced a new space of worship within myself. As I was journeling and praying about the experience, I noticed the word "holy" at the end of the word "melancholy" and I decided to name this space within me "holy melancholy."

When I began to write this blog I thought I had better look up the word "melancholy" so that I am not somehow making an ass of myself. (There are a lot of English majors who blog!!) So. I looked it up and, of course, things grew bigger. I definitely sense God's hand in this little adventure!

Melancholy means: 1. an abnormal state attributed to an excess of black bile and characterized by irascibility or depression (o.k. I have NO COMMENT! What the HECK is "black bile" anyway? I feel like I may be about to drop over dead with The Plague! When was this dictionary published anyway?) 2. a: depression of spirits : depression (o.k. I will own up to this part. I have tended to be a depressed person most of my life) b: a pensive mood. (Now, that feels like it might lead somewhere... so I look up "pensive")

Pensive means: 1. musingly or dreamily thoughtful (yes, I like that!) 2. suggestive of sad thoughtfulness. (YES! I can live with that and that is descriptive of the place I was experiencing.)

Here is what happened. I was home alone one day last week (which was necessary to get me into my contemplitive state!) and I watched the movie Dancing at Lugnasa. It was one of those movies that holds the glory and the grit of our lives and does not tidy things up into neat packages in the end.

I was in the place where I was groaning out to God because it hurts to be human and I was falling in love with the beauty of raw humanity. It is the taste that I found in the slave lullabies that my daughter Zion has fallen in love with. It is the taste of fairytales.

One lullaby, particularly, strikes me here:

Watch and Pray

Mama's marster gwine sell us tomorrow,
Yes, yes --
Mama's marster gwine sell us tomorrow,
Yes, my child, watch and pray.

Mama's marster gwine sell us tomorrow,
Yes, yes --
Mama's marster gwine sell us tomorrow,
Yes, my child, watch and pray.

Yes, my child, watch and pray.

To me, this song captures the tension of the feeling of holy melancholy. The horrible truth of the words is sung in a lullaby. It breaks your heart. Melancholy becomes holy, breaking down hard and ugly places and softening our hearts to receive God's heart and to begin to SEE and CARE. (If you are interested in hearing these slave lullabies, we found them at the Ridgedale Library. The book is called "In the Hollow of Your Hand: Slave Lullabies" by Alice McGill. It has a tape with it and it really is wonderful... it helped me to come more "alive" to the insanity of slavery in this country.)

Last night I was in holy melancholy again. This time, it happened after I was helping to take care of kids in a shelter for homeless mothers and children. The beauty of the children and the ache of their situation tore at my heart. All I could do was look to God and tell him, "I KNOW you are big enough for this. I KNOW You will make ALL this right, SOMEHOW." I showed Him how beautiful each child was... "look at this one, God. Look at that one, God." That is all I could do.

So. After writing this blog and looking at these changes in my heart I am thinking that God has redeemed a section of my being. What was once a place where I went to depression and introspection has become untwisted and I am able to be in it in a holy way. Looking at the reality of now and not tidying up the bits or depressing out in hopelessness. It has become a place of prayer and worship.

Funny!

2006-01-09T06:57:00.000-08:00

So, I was reading Brennan Manning's book, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, when I came across the following quote. Manning is talking about the time Christ was in the temple and cleared it with His righteous rage and whips...

"The magnanimous Jesus who said, 'Forgive your neighbor seventy times seven,' the meek Lamb of God who said, 'Learn from Me for I am gentle and humble of heart,' has fashioned a homemade whip and is tearing through the Temple overturning stalls and showcases, thrashing the merchants and roaring, 'Get out of here! This isn't Winn Dixie! You will not turn sacred space into a supermarket!' "

That struck me as funny, obviously, because of the book/movie "Because of Winn-Dixie" and how they actually had their church in a former convenient store.

I still resonate with what Brennan was saying -- do not use the sacred for your mundane selfishness -- but I find it holy to take the mundane and annoying (convenient stores are very annoying to me) and make it sacred!

I think that is part of the charm that I love about the story, "Because of Winn-Dixie".

Anyway, I thought it was funny and wanted to share it with you all.

Hey! Alert!

2006-01-08T16:07:00.000-08:00

Hey Twin Cities blogger friends,

Sunday nights, tonight and the next two, tpt channel 23 (or 2) is presenting a series: Walking Through the Bible.

Looks like it should/might be good. I am pretty sure there will be an archeological focus.

Enjoy!

We are Tooks (too - ks)

2006-01-05T15:08:00.000-08:00

Today the children and I went walking in the woods to see what birds we could find. It was a lovely walk near the Mississippi river. We saw tons of robins. They were all over a hillside and they were eating berries off a tree. In one tree we counted fourteen robins.

The kids were so excited.

So. On the way home, we were walking up a snowy, icy huge hill; and my son Elijah calls for my attention. I turn around and he is below me. He has a yellow, red and black winter coat on. He has a green "mad bomber" hat with brown rabbit fir on his head, with the flaps open and "flapping" in the wind. He is using a huge stick that has a kink at the top, like an unfinished shepherd's crook. His cheeks are rosy, and there is an excitement and aliveness all over his face.

He says to me, "Mom! I think we are 'Tooks'!"

"What?"

"Tooks! You know, what Bilbo and Frodo were! We look for adventures!"

I marveled at him and agreed with him. But the moment kept living with me through the day.

So.

I looked up "Took" in The Hobbit:

"As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit -- Bilbo Baggins, that is -- was the famous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill. It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while a member of the Took-clan would go and have adventures. Thy discreetly disappered, and the family hushed it up; but the fact remained that the Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses, though they were undoubtably richer."

When I read that, I turned to Elijah (who was right there, since I borrowed his hobbit book to look it up in) and completely agreed with him. "YES!, I said, "we are Tooks!" Later, we were talking about this again, and Elijah clarified that he meant that he and I were Tooks. That he does not see the others in the family as Tooks.

I am blown away by his insight into me. I realized that in my whole life, so far, I could not STAND walking on the path. I always HAD to go off the path because it was more interesting. I hate biking on paved bike trails, give me dirt with knobs and stones and some Adventure to it!!

I was struck by how I was named in community, (see H.Jane's blog here) the community of my own little, intimate family. I think it is an AMAZING blessing from God that He turns the hearts of the parents to the children and the hearts of the children to the parents (if we let Him!).

So. Today I was named. By my son. And he was named by God. And we found kinship. It really is a sweet and full-of-wonder thing to my soul.

Traveling Mercies...

2005-12-26T06:08:00.000-08:00

Happy trails and traveling mercies for Tonya! God's Presence with you and yours at this time of journeying and searching.

A Prayer Before a Christmas Crib.

2005-12-25T18:01:00.000-08:00

A Prayer Before a Christmas Crib

I open the stable door;
I kneel before the infant;
I worship with the shepherds;
I adore the Christ child.
I give my love with Mary and Joseph;
I wonder at the 'Word made flesh'.
I am aware of the love of God;
I sing glory with the angels;
I offer my gifts with the wise men.
I receive the living Lord;
I hold Him in my hands;
I go on my wy rejoincing,
glorifying and praising God.

David Adam
Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings From the Northumbria Community

A Merry and blessed Christmas and Hanukkah to everyone!

11:30 p.m. Christmas Eve...

2005-12-24T21:28:00.000-08:00

As it was in the stillness of the morning
so may it be in the silence of the night.
As it was in the hidden vitality of the womb
so may it be at our birth into eternity.
As it was in the beginning, O God,
so in the end may your gift be born
so in the end may your gift of life be born.

Saturday Opening Prayer
J. Philip Newell
Celtic Benediction: Morning and Night Prayer

Bethlehem Town

2005-12-23T20:09:00.000-08:00

Oh, Mary, Joseph, rest your eyes
Try not to think of the ending
World full of empty , He will die
But tonight he is still just a child

The silent night drifts all away
And the angels are dancing around you
There's the joy of knowing He'll save the world
Overshadowing the pain that He'll go through

Have you cursed at the wind?
Have you cried to the heavens?
Have you fought with this mercy that you don't understand?
When the wise men kneel down
To kiss the hand of this king they found
In Bethlehem town...

Will you hold back the years awhile
Will you dream that this man could always be a child
And never carry all the weight
Of the dirt and the distance and the company we keep

And did the stars shine much brighter that night
You gave birth to the death that would bring us to life
And did the mystery keep you awake
Was the sound of His little heart too much to take

Oh, I don't understand
When the wise men kneel down
To kiss the hand of this king they found

Have you cursed at the wind...

By Dan Haseltine, Charlie Lowell, Steve Mason, & Matt Odmark
City on a Hill: It's Christmas Time cd

Thank you. Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Thank you.

Please Pray...

2005-12-22T11:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog Friends,

God is working with us, our little family, to bring us somewhere. I have in my heart a need to ask that you pray for us. Pray for our strength, discernment, faithfulness...

Something (I am not sure what) is going on... but I sense labor pains and the need for support.

Thank you,
And God bless you and yours this Sacred Season.

An Invitation...

2005-12-21T06:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the kids and I went to the library. We have made a habit of looking through the books that the library is selling. I picked up this book, bought it, read it this morning, and was surprised by an invitation. The book is: Baboushka and the Three Kings by Ruth Robbins. It is a small, children's book, so I am going to quote some of it...

"Long ago and far away, on a winter's evening, the wind blew hard and cold around a small hut. Inside the hut Baboushka was sweeping and scrubbing, and feeding wood to the stove. The old woman took pride in the clean comfort of her meager home. The swirling snow drifted and deepened outside. Baboushka's hut felt snug around her; her warm stove was the center of a cold world.

As day turned into night, a trumpet call sounded on the wind. A train of travelers was approaching. Leading the procession was a magnificent sleigh drawn by three white horses. In the sleigh rode three men, splendid figures, wearing jeweled crowns and cloaks of crimson and ermine. Men on horseback followed the sleigh and behind them trudged men on foot.

The procession stopped at the door of Baboushka's hut. Baboushka heard a knock. When she lifted the latch, the three strangers stood in the doorway. The poor woman looked in wonder at their elegant dress, their frosted beards, their kind eyes. What manner of men were these?

In answer to her thought, one of the three smiled and said, 'We have been following a bright star to a place where a Babe is born. Now we have lost our way in the snow. Come with us, Baboushka. Help us to find the Child, to offer Him gifts, and to rejoice in His birth.'

Baboushak shivered in the cold. She hugged a shawl tightly around her thin shoulders. 'Good sirs, come in and warm yourselves by the stove. I've not yet finished my day's work. And I shudder to go out on such a cruel night. Morning is wiser than evening. Rest here this night and I will go with you in the dawn.'

'There is not time to linger, Baboushka,' answered the stangers. 'If you cannot come with us now, we must continue our journey.'

They turned and disappeared into the storm.

The rest of the book finds Baboushka spending the rest of her life (to this day.. it is a fairytale you know) journeying... trying to find the king's path and the Child.

It made me stop and think.

Is there an invitation being quietly asked of me, today? And I am too content with a warm house and peaceful surroundings to venture out into the cold and storm to follow? Am I holding onto those things too tightly?

I have seen a sojourner, recently. I have seen my pastor and friend, Jan, venture out of the warm community of Open Door, to follow the journey to seek the Child. She has gone into the storm.

Lord. Keep me awake. Help me to live, enjoying your gifts and blessings, but ready to leave at a moment's notice. Keep me from taking your invitation lightly. Help me to be sensitive and responsive to Your Will.

Lord I ask for your traveling mercies to be on all who are journeying today.

Reality of Mary...

2005-12-16T05:15:00.000-08:00

Labor of Love

It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyway that night
On the streets of David's town

And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl
on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

Noble Joseph by her side
Calloused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
On the streets of David's town
In the middle of the night

So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl
on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

For little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love...

Andrew Peterson
Behold the Lamb of God

It Comes Around Again...

2005-12-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

I remember sitting in my school desk in the First Grade at Northmoor Elementary School in Peoria, Illinois, (yes! People really do live there!) listening to Mrs. Syrup (that really was her name, poor lady!) read "The Boxcar Children" to our class. The moment is vivid in my memory. I loved the story. I was absolutely captivated by the idea of making a home in a boxcar. I wanted to do it SO bad.

Now-a-days, I teach my kids at our house. We were at the library, and I found an anniversary edition of "The Boxcar Children". Last week, on Wednesday, we opened it up and I began to read. The kids kept me reading it (with many breaks in between) and at 9:30 or 10 that night we finished it. We had read the whole book in one day. I love the freedom of homeschool!

It was amazing to see how my kids loved the story like I had. How they loved to imagine living from nature and trying to make a home in it.

Now we are listening to "Tree Castle Island" by Gene Craighead George (She wrote "My Side of the Mountain", "Far Side of the Mountain" and "Frightful's Mountain"). It is about a boy paddling off into the swamps in Georgia and living off nature for a summer.

I am, as I type this, realizing that that is a theme in our family. On that same Wednesday night, we "happened" upon a show on public television called "Alone in the Wilderness". It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. It was about a man who, at 51 years of age, walked into the Alaska wilderness and decided to live alone for a year. He brought a tri-pod and camera and filmed his experience. Incredible. He ended up staying for 30 years. He left when he was in his eighties and donated all his cabin and things to the national parks.

He was amazing. He walked into the wilderness with a backpack. When he got there, one of the first things he did was make handles for all the tools he brought. He had just brought the iron parts of the tools because they are lighter to carry. Then he proceeded to build a log cabin. We got to see each detail!! Close up! We watched him figure and measure and then cut out by hand the grooves for the logs to fit over eachother -- Lincoln Log style! We watched him shave the tops of the logs so that they were flat and other logs could rest on them. Then he stuffed between the logs with a kind of moss. We even watched him cut and put a moss roof on top and build a fireplace!! It was amazing. It was so beautiful to see him work so intelligently, simply and well.

My kids were electrified!! They kept insisting they want to live like that. They even told us that they want tools for Christmas. Real tools and they want all the scrap wood from building our fence this year. I told them we are wanting to get a farm to be able to begin to learn to live more like that.

When I was young, I yearned to live on a farm. We did not. That desire still lives in me (it goes down DEEP within me) and I see the desire in my kids. We are pursuing and praying about this dream, but it is frightening to me, because I am not equipped. I have not learned the skills necessary to do it. I am praying God provides them and that we may be able to give our children the tools they are asking for.

Oh God, please hold us and hold these dreams and may Your Will be be done.