I was kissed by Hugh Jackman

I was kissed by Hugh Jackman!   I can't believe it was almost a month ago and I am just now writing about it.  I was working on a local show and my main responsibility was to set up the dressing rooms and supply what the artists needed.  This involved preparing a private tour bus for Mr. Jackman, getting his dinner from a local restaurant, and arranging everything for his arrival.  I happened to still be in the bus when he arrived, he greeted me, initiated conversation, and gave me a very sweet kiss on the cheek.  I've had the opportunity to meet many celebrities, and none has been more gracious.  The very wonderful thing was that in those hours of preparation that day, for all the artists, my desire was to bless them, and provide what they needed to do the job they were there to do.

That the attitude of my heart that day was to serve was a much bigger miracle than getting kissed by Hugh Jackman.  This fall has been a difficult season for me.  I have been struggling greatly with a number of things including the implications of Joes cancer diagnosis, and the practical impact it has had on our life, not the least of these being financial.  The week before the show had been one of those  weeks of "if it can go wrong it will".  In the midst of Joe traveling and my trying to work while caring for two kids at home, we had car trouble.  Our truck clearly needed brakes, we had put if off as long as possible and finally broke down and took it in.  Well over the course of two days a $300 brake job turned into $1200 worth of repairs that were needed.  The day I picked it up I had to head right up to Nashville to work, the beginning of several 12 hour days.  When I got to the dealership they couldn't get the truck started.  They finally gave it a boost and it turned over.  The mechanic wasn't sure the battery was bad (it could have just gotten drained if something was left on) so I didn't really want to spend another $150 bucks on a battery.  So I got in the truck and drove around to try and charge it on my way to work.  The further I drove the more frustrated and angry I felt.  I went to work, came out that evening, and thankfully the truck started.  The next couple of days were a series of small frustrations.  Joe was home long enough to replace the truck battery (after getting stuck at Publics because it wouldn't start).  He had to fly out of town again and took the truck to the airport, so I was driving my car back and forth to Nashville.  In the meantime the show I was working on was awesome, but it was long days of physically exhausting work.  Work that on other shows I would have hired someone else to do.  In the midst of fatigue, and frustration my heart became more resentful and angry.  And although I worked hard, wanting to do a good job, it ended up being for all the wrong reasons.  By Tuesday, the day before the show I was in the pits.  It was Sams 16th birthday and I would not be home at all that day.  I had not made him a cake and would not be there for dinner, it sucked.  On my way home that night I wanted to stop and at least get him a cupcake or something to say Happy Birthday.  I stopped in Cool Springs to go to the store.  I walked up to the door of the store and realized it was closed.  When I got back in my car it wouldn't start.  I sat there, cried, and called AAA.  Joe was in Vegas doing a show so I couldn't even call him for support.  The AAA guys came in about 45 minutes, started the car, and were very nice.  I think they knew they were dealing with a women on the edge : )  I couldn't go to another store to get Sam cake, because I couldn't turn the car off, so I drove through Dunkin Donuts and took him donuts for his birthday.  So finally at 10:30 that night I got home and he got his birthday donuts.  

I had to be back at work at 8 am the next day.  Amazingly when I went out to get in the car it started up, with a little hesitation, but it started.  During the 30 minute drive to work I cried out to God, first in anger, finally in surrender.  By the time I arrived at work the prayer I uttered ended with "Please just incline my heart to want to serve the people I am working with today."

So despite needing to rearrange very heavy furniture in  a number of dressing rooms because of last minute changes, and continuing to run all day long, getting stuff people needed.  It was a good day.  I was happy to be there.  I was even content in what no longer seemed like such menial tasks.  I had the opportunity to literally make dozens of people more comfortable that day.  And it felt good.  It felt good because I remembered I am loved by God, and that fact  determines who I am, not the work I do.  God mercifully reminded me of that and in so doing changed my heart.  

So the really significant kiss that day, was the kiss of God reminding me I am His beloved.

Sweetly followed by a kiss of greeting from a very gracious man.

Life is...

I was rereading an old post and came across the one about our bird feeders.  I had to laugh.  Those bird feeders are now sitting empty on their hooks on the deck.  They have been empty for almost a month.  Not because we can't afford bird feed, or forget to buy it, or got tired of the bullying black birds chasing everyone else away.  No, they sit empty cause we got tired of bird poop all over our deck.  Joe scrubbed it all down, and we haven't filled the bird feeders since.

At the moment I am in one of those cynical moods I rarely allow myself (too many other cynics in the household).  But the bird feeders seem a pretty accurate picture of the way life goes much of the time.  I intend something good, giving, compassionate, peaceful, and it all ends up poop.  I know that the truth is that all things work together for good, that there is a purpose, and an end which I rarely see.  But at the moment if feels like poop.

Thankfully there is a hope inside me, that even I can't suppress.   I have bought a large bag of bird seed.  I've figured out an alternate location for the feeders. Somewhere where they can poop away and it will just end up in the grass. I may even get them up and filled in the next day or two and we'll be back to our endless amusement watching birds come and go.

As far as the other, more bothersome poop in my life.  I'm clueless.  The solutions don't seem nearly so accessible or easy.  So I pray.  Sometimes thats all I can do.

I am a Grandparent

Wow!  I had no idea.  I had no idea what it would be like for my child to have a child.  It is awesome.  It is heart enlarging.  It is so much like having another child of my own.  It is good.

Little Olive was born last Thursday at 3:30 am.

 A bit overdue, her birth was much anticipated.  From the benefit of hindsight I encouraged Megan to relax and enjoy the last moments before Olives arrival, her world would never be the same again.  Well that was a purely pragmatic perspective.  Thinking in terms of never being alone again, always having someone else to also  get ready when you leave the house,  having to put someone else first in a way you don't necessarily even do with your spouse.  But I had lost sight of the explosion of love that takes place in your heart when your baby emerges in this world.  Now I remember.

Olive and Megan were amazing during the birth.  Megan worked harder than she ever has (which is something as she is naturally industrious).  She persevered through long, continuous contractions, working with her body to birth Olive.  Olive endured it well.

I am so proud of Megan.  She started labor knowing it would be the most painful, exhausting event of her life, completely focused on how God designed her body to birth this child and preparing herself to work with it; researching what would be the safest, best birth experience for Olive and choosing that.  That is the definition of a Mother.

So now I have to figure out what it means to be a Grandmother.  This is uncharted territory.  I feel  a love for her that rivals what I feel for my own children.  But I realize she is not my daughter, she is Megan and Joshs, they are her parents, they will care for her in the way that I feel inclined to.  So my relationship with her will be something different.  I just don't know what that different is.  I guess I will follow my heart, listen well, and be mindful of how I can best love them as a family.  A unique family, within my own.  

Lars and the Real Girl

I finally watched the movie Lars and The Real Girl last night.  A friend has been asking me for months if I've seen it.  I thought it looked interesting, but much of my motivation in watching it was to say yes next time he asked.  I think it was an incredibly fine film.  Full of warm emotion, not sappy, but moving and inspiring, a beautiful picture of a family, a community loving a hurting individual very, very well.  Wonderful performances by everyone in it.

Love to say much more about what a fine example of living well as a community it is, or what a great illustration it is for Arlins sermons about the purpose of the church, but I've got a 10 year old demanding a bagel, and since its 10 am I think I should feed him.  See the movie for yourself, you'll see.

Life Gets in the Way

I had hoped when I started blogging that it would become a daily habit, that abundant words and wisdom would flow out of me, a wealth of good reading.  How is it that everyday life so frequently gets in the way of this?  I guess the solution may be to get up early before anyone else, before the list of to do's needs to be started, before my mind is racing making it difficult to sit and focus on the computer screen and words that aren't quite flowing.   But its summer time, and summer time for me is staying up late and watching movies and sleeping in, in the morning.  Used to be the most urgent thing was getting up to feed the kids breakfast and to get to the pool before it got too crowded.   We have yet to go swimming this summer.  Each day I say tomorrow will be the day, and life gets in the way.  This summer has been many, many days spent at the hospital with my dad, then home trying to catch up on a months worth of things undone.  All of this is not a complaint, just an acknowledgement that the best laid plans are usually interrupted.  I am not in control of my days, thankfully the One who is is faithful and good.

So today I hope to finish a few more things for Olives room, organize my piles of stuff someplace other than the dining room table, and maybe even clean my bedroom.   Good stuff, though not very exciting.  But as I've gotten older I've learned to appreciate these simple things, things that bring a bit of order to the chaos, things that communicate to those around me that I care for them, things that slow me down and give me room to pray and ponder as I work at them.  So off I go to finally get dressed, clean off the kitchen counter, and start, maybe even finish a project or two here at home.  But its more than likely that something will pop up to interrupt, life getting in the way, and thats okay.

Lily of the Valley

I love Lily of the Valley.  I'm not quite sure why.  I remember as a young child wandering out to the shed behind our house.  The shed was full of gardening tools, and the lawn mower, and it was dark and smelled of damp earth, and to a four year old was kind of scary.  But outside of the shed there was a beautiful patch of lily of the valley, surrounding it, continuing on, running long the old wire fence line.  There was something magical and mysterious about them.  So tiny and delicate, yet such a sweet and powerful fragrance.

I believe my mom had quite an affection for them.  Maybe even wearing lily of the valley perfume.

I took this photo when I was on retreat a few weeks ago.  I want to enlarge it for Olive's room.  Her room has kind of a whimsical feel, and to me that is Lily of the Valley.  So I was sitting with my dad in his hospital room last week and was showing him some of the pictures on my computer.  We came to this one.    I was much relieved when he commented that it reminded him of the flowers by the shed behind our house in Pennsylvania.  Most of my memories from that house are vague.  We moved from their when I was five.  So I've always kind of questioned my memories, and wondered if this romantic vision of flowers by the shed was just made up.  Or if it was rooted in reality.  Maybe thats why these flowers hold a special place in my heart.  Isn't it true that somehow things from our childhood seem sweeter, more full of color, and scent and flavor?  Most of my childhood memories contain a smell or taste or vibrant color that I long to experience again.  And there was that fleeting sense of it the day I snapped this picture.  Somehow these small flowers hundreds of miles away from my childhood home, transported me back in time, for just a second, to a place where I was small and curious and delighted in the precious bloom hid among the deep cool green leaves by my shed.

Birds of a feather

Last night we had a time of prayer out on the land our church owns.   It is a beautiful 10 acre plot, quiet and serene, a whispering creek running across it, a majestic giant of a tree in the middle of it.  An absolutely beautiful, sunny, blue skied, gentle breeze kind of an evening.  A perfect place for prayer, we were awestruck from the start by the spectacular artistry of our creator.  If this is the fallen world, what will heaven be like?

The smallest of things has been a reminder of Gods beautiful creation this last week.  We have a new, actually 2, new bird feeders on our back deck.  Without a doubt this is the most entertaining addition to our home in a long time.  The whole family, even a too cool, jaded teenager,  can be found sitting looking out the back window watching the birds come and go.  The first bird to visit was a morning dove that has been a fixture at our house for years.  She would come and walk along the deck rail each morning even without the promise of a meal.  She was incredibly interested in the feeders from the moment she caught site (or smell) of them.  I watched as she paced up and down the rail, not quite sure how to get to them.  (We have them hanging on hooks extended off the side of the deck).  She finally kind of leaped to the roof of one, turning around and around trying to figure out how to get to the food below her.  She bounced back and forth from one feeder to the other completely perplexed.  She hopped back to the deck rail, tentatively perched on the edge, trying to talk herself into trying it again.  Apparently the little bar on the side intended for the birds to stand on while eating was too small or too close to the feeder for her.  I couldn't watch her anxious attempts any longer.  I went out to the deck took the feeder off the hook and set it on the corner of the deck rail itself.  As soon as I was back inside, she flew back, curiously looked at the now accessible feeder and skipped up and started breakfast.  She spent so long there eating I was afraid she would be so stuffed her little wings wouldn't be able to lift her back to the trees.

My ingenious husband has made the feeder easier to get to by attaching a copper pipe to the bottom for her and her friends to perch on while they eat.  We now have many daily visitors, cardinals and finches, blackbirds and blue jays, even the huge red headed wood pecker that visits our chimney every morning.  We watch them eat, we observe their flight paths from tree to deck, to feeder.  Sometimes if we are out on the deck, they'll swoop in for a meal, realize at the last minute that there is danger (us), and abort the landing and fly under the deck and back around to a neighboring tree.  One night as we sat on the deck eating dinner, our friendly wood pecker planted himself on a tree across the way and played peek a boo with us.  We could see his body, and he would back his head around, peek at us from behind the tree, then hide himself again for a few seconds, before starting all over again.  This went on for about five hilarious minutes before he finally gave up and flew away until later when we were safely back inside.

Who would have thought that a little cedar bird feeder would have provided such a hypnotizing show and brought us all together, away from our video games and computer screens and cell phones?  And in the process reminded us how amazing is the beauty of Gods creation around us.

Grateful

Wow, its been sooooo long since I've sat down to do this.  So much running through my head and heart I'm not quite sure where to start.  Its been a crazy month filled with lots of work.  Work of the paying kind is done for now.  So its been time to refocus on my family, and house, and friends.

I was vacuuming this morning and noticed a book I have propped up on my piano.  In large letters it says GRATEFUL.  Its title is Grateful, voices from our Katrina Kids.  I keep it sitting their mainly because I often walk by there and see the word grateful and it reminds me that I should daily feel that for the life I've been given.

I'm being reminded again by a book I'm reading for our church book club.  It's "All Over but the Shoutin" by Rick Bragg.  Written over 10 years ago I'm sorry its taken me this long to pick it up.  It is his memoir, the story of growing up in the south.  Not the romantic, entitled south.  But the dirt poor, struggle to stay alive south.  But alive it is.  Ricks Mama gives every bit of her being for her children.  She works her fingers to the bone and does without, so that they can have something to eat, and clothes on their backs.  His Mamas extended family is their safety net, there to pitch in when his mothers efforts just couldn't be enough, though they themselves didn't have much more.

Rick says " There is a notion, a badly mistaken one among comfortable people, that you do not miss what you never had.  I have written that line myself, which is shameful to me now.  I, of all people, should know better, should know that being poor does not make you blind to the riches around you; that living in other folks' houses for a lifetime does not mean a person does not dream of a house of his or her own, even if it is just a little one.  My mother ached for a house, for a patch of ground, for something.  When I was a young man and we would take drives through town, she stared at the home of others with a longing so strong you could feel it.  She stared and she hoped and she dreamed until she finally just got too tired of wanting.

The only thing poverty does is grind down your nerve endings to a point that you can work harder and stoop lower than most people are willing to do.  It chips away a person's dreams to the point that the hopelessness shows through, and the dreamer accepts that hard work and borrowed houses are all this life will ever be.  While my mother will stare you  dead in the eye and say she never thought of herself as poor, do not believe for one second that she did not see the rest of the world, the better world, spinning around her, out of reach."

And reading that makes me grateful.  Grateful that his words open up to me a world I've not lived in, helped me to understand more of the culture I now call home.  Grateful that even in the depths of poverty he and his family were provided for.  Grateful that somehow his mother believed in Jesus even with year after year of adversity.  I'm not sure my faith is that strong.  Grateful that I am not left in my comfortable life, thinking my biggest problem is what TV will we use in the living room if we move the one thats there to the bonus room so the boys and all their friends can hang out there.  Aaaaargh and that is the place I so easily go to, taking what I have for granted and even wanting more.  Grateful when I'm reminded that I have more than enough and I see the opportunity to share it with others.  Grateful that I am so incredibly blessed  in so many wonderful ways.

Women's work

I was sitting here getting ready to write and looked out my front window.  My neighbor was getting into her car with her daughter, leaving at 6:50 am to drop her off at the school childcare program before she heads on to work.  A scene being repeated all over Spring Hill, all over our country this morning.

I am feeling a mix of sadness and guilt.  Sadness cause that little girl could have been in her own bed for another 30 minutes yet before she had to get up to catch the bus.  Sadness cause Moms going off to work all day, mean they're not here in the neighborhood, making it more difficult to get to know each other.  Sad cause I think the mom really would like to be at home, but feels the financial pressure to add another income.

Guilty cause I'm sitting here in my pajamas, with 20 minutes before I have to get my youngest up and an hour and a half before I have to leave the house.  Leaving the house meaning, meeting a friend in Franklin for coffee, before I head to work (the first day in a month) to work for several hours, then come home.  Guilty cause if I knew the family better, was consistently home in the morning ( some mornings I have to actually be to work at 7 am), the daughter could come here in the morning relax, eat breakfast, catch the bus with L.  Guilty cause as much as I am home during the day, I really don't know the other moms who are home in my neighborhood very well.

And I guess I ponder this cause at 50 I'm still trying to figure out my role.  I have been blessed to be an at home mom most of my life.  As much as I loved being with my kids, and even like cleaning and doing house stuff, I felt like something was missing.  Given the opportunity to do some fun work the last 10 or 12 years I've wondered if work is what I missed.  But the cost is so great to my family, to relationships with friends and neighbors.  So I'm rethinking this all.  Talking to friends, reading books, most importantly reading the Word.  I havn't figured it all out by a longshot, but I am seeing that much that is important, that is clearly spoken of in the Word, I don't have time for when I work.

It's pretty clear in Titus 2:  Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine.  They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

So what will my daily life look like if this is my priority.  Probably a lot different than it has for a while.  And the reality is, if I'm a good manager of my household, we probably don't need my income.  And the creativity and fellowship I experience at work are easily found right here at home, right here in my church and neighborhood.

So I will pray some more, and maybe even talk about it with my husband : )  And see where this will lead...   But for now I'm going to get L up and off to school and get dressed go to work.

Spring

It has turned into a rainy afternoon.  The green of new life bursting from every tree, every blade of grass looks all the brighter against the backdrop of a gray sky.  It is a quiet rain unlike the downpour that woke up my youngest very early this morning.

I love rainy days.  It's as though it gives me permission to stay in bed a little longer in the morning.  To stay cuddled up in pajamas reading, instead of starting on the long list to be accomplished today.  To slow down my pace a bit, to be quiet.

I know tomorrow when the sun breaks through, the shrubs and trees that drank in todays rain will appear to open up before my very eyes.  Celebrating the sunlight, the warm air, spring.

I am awestruck at the beauty of God's creation.  I wonder at the possibility of a world more beautiful more perfect, as it must have been before the fall.  Perhaps that is the virtue of spring, it gives us hope, it reminds us of redemption, of resurrection.

Count the cost...

As most of you know my daughter is pregnant.  With my youngest 10 years old, its been awhile since I've given much thought to pregnancy and childbirth.  But my daughter approaches new things just like her mom, researching every possibility, and then excitedly sharing that information with everyone in close proximity.  It is good, it has been good for me.  I hadn't realized how radically the landscape of childbirth had changed in the last 10 years.  And not for the better!  So I could take pages to lecture and inform you about needless intervention versus the beauty and impact of a natural birth.  But I've found others have done that well, there is alot of really good information out there if you just look for it.

What concerns me more is that we as a society have allowed this to happen.  How did we get to this place?  I think there are alot of factors including fear, apathy and isolation.  In an attempt to be politically correct or open minded we have stopped speaking truth.  We have decided its easier to not get involved, not speak out.  We have forgotten that we are part of a family, a community, that is responsible for each other.  We are too caught up in our own little kingdoms.  We have bought the lie that we can do it all.  I'm preaching to myself here too!

I got a great email from a friend of mine yesterday.  In the subject line was "lock down".  My first thought was "Oh no, some crazy sniper was at her kids school and then went into lock down".  But not even close.  She has put herself in "lock down".  Canceling all dates to stay at home for a week or two.  She'd been on vacation at the beach for a week and came home determined to prolong the fellowship, connection with family.  She's also compelled to order her life (including her house) so that she is freed up to spend time with friends.  These are her priorities (God first of course with out saying)  her family and her friends.  Being with them, loving them, spending time with them.  She has realized what we tend to forget, relationships are important and we cannot nurture them without a cost.

Our families, our churches, our communities are the way they are because we have allowed them to be.  They are a reflection of what we value.  They will not thrive if we are only out for our own interests.  As believers we cannot justify isolation.  Jesus  tells us to love God with our whole hearts and our neighbors as ourselves.  We are to look out for the interest of others, not our own.  We are a body, connected, interdependent.  It is our privledge and our responsibility.

March 26

Yesterday was one of those days where I found myself pulled from the present to thoughts of the past, kind of a mental time traveler.  It was 28 years ago yesterday that my eldest child was born.  I was barely more than a child myself.  And although it was the longest, hardest, loneliest labor I have ever experienced, my thoughts were not of the pain and exhaustion, but of that perfect little boy that miracleously came from my body.  In that moment I passed from daughter and wife to mom, and life has never been the same.

Joey was a sweet baby, a funny and precocious toddler.  He was beautiful with his shining eyes and blonde wavy hair.  Seeming older than his years, one of those kids with an "old soul".  He has always been very thoughtful, and thought full.  He is a good friend, having friendships that have lasted since his childhood.  He is smart and funny, creative and artistic, and a man of integrity.  He is an inspiration as I watch him pursue his passion, working collaboratively with friends.  I thank God every day for him.

And for his brothers and sister.

I have been blessed.

The Church

I frequently have conversations with one of my children about why we go to church.  Too often it disintegrates into "You live in our house, we go to church as a family, so you go to church with us".  A valid reason, yet it doesn't really reach his heart.  

It seems that there is a wave of apathy when it comes to church.  I know numerous professing Christians who seem to think regular church attendance is optional.  I can outline a dozen reasons why we should gather together to worship and fellowship.  But I don't think this is an argument of the mind, it's of the heart.

We, the church are described as the Bride of Christ. In Revelation 19 all of history will culminate with the marriage supper of the Lamb when Christ takes his Bride: " Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready."  Brian Habig & Les Newsom in The Enduring Community say Christians typically think that the moral of this story (the wedding analogy) goes something like this: "So we need to love Jesus just as this young man loved his bride..."

But

"The point is this: When we begin in our hearts to look down the aisle of our own salvation and see Christ, standing there with anticipation, knees buckling under the weight of the beauty that He has created and sustained, with tears flowing at the thought of the delight that He takes in us - only then will we begin corporately to be the Church that God designed for His Son, the Groom.  Only then will we find the courage to sacrifice for our churches in the way in which we are called to sacrifice. Only then will we find the patience to put up with each other with grace and forgiveness.  Only then will we find the humility to accept into our fellowship the poor, the hurting, the downtrodden, and the broken."

What greater delight can we have than gathering with the beloved of God, and rejoicing together, praising together, acknowledging together that we are loved and treasured by our Creator and Savior?  Thats what we do on Sunday morning. And if we really get it, our hearts are so full that they can't but overflow, moving us to love well those around us.  Whether in our church, our community, or the world beyond.

Yes we do have a personal relationship with God, yes I can know His delight in me and worship Him individually.  My own little voice raised to glorify Him may be sweet, but my voice raised with my church body is powerful.  And this is where God has placed us, in His Body - the Bride of Christ.

What do we do with evil?

Last night I watched the film "No Country for Old Men".  It was one of those movies I wasn't sure I wanted to see.  I think Tommy Lee Jones is a fine actor. It won a number of Oscars, so my interest was piqued.  But apart from O, Brother Where Art Thou, I've never been a huge fan of the Coen Brothers.  I confess I just don't get them.  But Sam, who's 15 wanted to see it, and I thought it would be good for us to watch it together.  I'm sure that is the only reason I made it through to the end of the movie.  I suspected from the start it wasn't going to end the way I wanted it to.

My family makes fun of me.  I like movies with happy endings.  I like movies where justice wins, the bad guy is defeated.  I like movies where the hero lives, and even lives happily ever after with his heroine.  At the very least there needs to be a clear point to the suffering, a lesson learned, an evil exposed.  Many would argue that life just isn't that way.  That evil wins, that suffering is meaningless, that there just isn't any point. 

Os Guinness says in his book Unspeakable that "A basic fact of life is that any of us may suffer and all of us will die.... far more people in the world suffer today under the heel of grinding evils that are numbingly ordinary and will never make the newspaper headlines or the television news.  Few of us, for instance, give serious thought to the millions of young girls forced into prostitution, to the women abused by their husbands, to the widows driven from their homes and their rightful lands, to the men convicted and imprisoned without justice, or to the millions of families kept for a lifetime in bonded slavery".   He goes on to contend that there are four challenges to rethinking evil and suffering in our times:

1) The scale and scope of evil has increased in the modern world.

2) Modern people have demonstrated a consistently poor response to modern evil.

3) Modern people have shown a chronic inability to name and judge evil and to respond effectively.

4) The worst modern atrocities were perpetrated by secularist regimes, led by secularist intellectuals and in the name of secularist beliefs.

So are we, modern people, less able, less willing to acknowledge evil, address evil, combat evil?  I don't know if historically we are more so inclined.  But I do think now, in this day and age we ignore, avoid, and dismiss the evil around us.   Albert Einstein said "The world is too dangerous to live in - not because of people who do evil, but because of people who sit and let it happen."  So if there seems to be an increase in evil, is it because evil is really on the rise, or is it just that we are less willing to oppose it?  I guess I agree with Os Guinness, it is both.

Even those of us who set out to make a difference, to fight the bad guy, end up like Tommy Lee Jone's character in the movie; making an honest effort yet overwhelmed by the seemingly impossible task before us.  So we choose instead to retire from the world, sit "safely" in our homes.

So I guess "No Country for Old Men" is more pragmatic, than the movie I want to see.  But is it more true?

Thank God, there is a reality that we do not see.  There are forces at work we are unaware of.  There are purposes being accomplished we do not understand.  How does the unspeakable evil of the world fit into that.  I confess I do not know, even though I do struggle to understand.  But I do know that good does win in the end.  There will be a time when Gods redemption of this world will be complete.  And evil that is now defeated, will be banished for good.

I guess this is the story of Easter.  There was suffering, there was death.  But now there is resurrection and life.  This is the story my heart yearns for.  And we already know what the end will be.

"Behold the dwelling place of God is with man.  He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."  Revelation 21:3-4

Finding my voice

Finding my voice...

This has been a topic of a number of conversations in the last couple of weeks.  I think we all struggle with the desire to be heard, we all struggle with finding a way to articulate what we are thinking and feeling.  I don't think this is unique to our time and culture.  Frequently in the Bible the cry of "Hear my" is found

Psalm 39:12  

   Hear my prayer, O Lord,

and give ear to my cry;

hold not your peace at my tears!

For I am a sojourner with you, 

a guest, like all my fathers.

Psalm 130:2  

   O Lord, hear my voice! 

Let your ears be attentive 

to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

We want to be heard by those around us.  We want to be heard by God.  Sometimes we want affirmation that what we have to say is important.  Sometimes we just want our existence acknowledged.  When we feel like we are not being heard, haven't been heard for a looooong time, we say "I have to find my voice".  But I think we are born with a voice.  And yes, we have a life long struggle of learning how to use it, but it is there.  So the problem isn't finding your voice.  The problem is that others aren't responding to your voice.  You're not dumb, they are deaf.  We can't control that, we can't change that.  We are responsible for what we say, how we say it.  For me verbal communication has always been difficult.  I struggle to slow the stream of thoughts to be able to articulate it well.  But when I sit to write or type, the words flow.  It may have something to do with my being a visual person.  So when something is important to me, to most effectively communicate it, I tend to use the written word.  Finding the way I can most clearly share what is in my head and heart and doing it, is all I can do.  It ends there.  I cannot make others listen.  

Thankfully we each have people in our lives who do listen, who can hear us.

And God always hears us.

Micah 7:7   

   But as for me,

I will look to the Lord;

I will wait for the God of my salvation;

my God will hear me.  

One of my favorite songs right now is on the new Indelible Grace IV CD;  Wake Thy Slumbering Children.  Its called "Hear Our Prayer".  The words are the cry of my heart, the music is powerful.

Hear Our Prayer (The Litany Song) Verse 1

When we come O Christ to Thee,

when we bow adoring knee

Hear our prayer, hear our cry!

By the victory and strife, 

by the merits of your life

Hear our prayer, hear our cry!

Oh by all the pains and woe, 

suffered once for man below

Listen to our cry -- hear our sacred litany!

To listen to the whole song go to  www.igracemusic.com/ig5/

So I think more than "finding our voice" we need to practice using our voice.  AND we need to give to others what we desire most, listen to their voice.

Second thoughts

Ok, am I the only one who has second thoughts about every decision I make?  It occurred to me this morning that I probably should have checked to see if there was another lamp oil blog out there, and sure enough there is, right here on blogger.  You get to it a bit differently, but the title is the same.  No new postings for about a year now, so may not be anyone looking for it, but if you stumble on to mine by mistake, sorry.  I may not offer the same spiritual insight you are looking for.  

So I continued on and thought, okay maybe apple pie was an inspired thought. But, there is an apple pie blog, and a mom and apple pie blog, and even a humble pie blog.  So I give up.  I started here, here I'll stay.

This is so typical of my life!

I am an expert procrastinator.   I put off starting things, I put off finishing things.  I put off making decisions.  Perhaps its because things usually don't turn out the way I expected or wanted.  Or there is the deeper reasoning of "If I choose or do one thing, then that eliminates all the other choices".  Thankfully I have lived long enough to realize that most of those other choices are usually still there, waiting for you, after you've made the one you are dissatisfied with.  So you can start the whole process again.  Of course, then again, there are the situations as described in the previous paragraph, where all other choices are taken.  I guess this all leads to the fact that I am ___ years old and still not quite sure what I want to be when I grow up.  One could say in not making a choice I have actually made the choice.  And this is true.  And I guess subconsciously (fyi it took 4 tries to get the spelling on that correct), ok back to ... I guess subconsciously I figure if I didn't actually choose to do something or be something I have an excuse if I don't do it well.  Hey I'm just doing the best I can in a situation I didn't choose! Aaaaargh!  How is it so much time and energy is wasted on being in a position to have an excuse?  Fear.

Sad to say I know I am not the only one daily confronting my fear.  And I can feel pretty good about myself cause at least I recognize and acknowledge it.  But too often I think fear is still in control. I can come up with all sorts of psycho babble about how my fear comes from this trauma, or that lack of love and support, and I know it is helpful to figure out why you are the way you are.  But my understanding is limited, my discernment flawed.  And ultimately even if i figure it out, I on my own am still powerless to deal with it.  Praise be to God, with Him, in Him I need not fear.  I guess even Timothy in the Bible needed to be reminded of this.  Listen to what Paul has to say to him in Second Timothy; " I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.  As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.  I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which in in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control".  Then John reminds us in First John;" Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God... There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear...".

The love of God is the antidote for fear. 

I remember years ago at the church we went to, one of the pastors preached about fear. I don't remember most of what he said, but this one question pierced my heart and sticks with me still...

"What are you afraid of ?"  

As he continued to speak I pondered, I think everyone in the room pondered, what personally was our greatest fear, the worst thing that could possibly happen to us.  Then he reminded us that Christ is there, Christ is sufficient.  So if you know Jesus, there is NOTHING to be afraid of.  If you don't know Jesus, fear is probably a big part of your life.  The good news is Jesus knows you and he wants you to know Him.  Just ask...

Still daily I inventory my fear.  Like this morning I guess it was "What if someone thinks that other Lamp Oil blog is mine?" Or "Did I make a dumb spontaneous choice about blogging?"  The list goes on, and I push them away.  Cause even though fear is there, calling to me... Today I will not live in it.

Hmmm, apple pie or lamp oil?

Wow!  I can't quite believe I'm doing this... putting down thoughts for the whole world to see (at least my whole world).  Thanks Bethany, you've given me the courage... may this be as satisfying as one of your brownie cookies.

Which now that I've used the food analogy I'm wishing this was named something different, like apple pie.  Food for the soul.  Something familiar and comfortable.  Something I'm comfortable producing, creating, because I know it is good.  Enough people through the years have told me so.  My children will pronounce "Mom makes the best apple pie".  And apple pie is humble.

Instead I chose to call this lamp oil.  Given all of 45 seconds of thought as I sit here half awake wanting, more than I've wanted anything in a long time, to get started to write down some of the the gizillion thoughts that are in my head.  So obviously not something profound I've been chewing on for a while.  It was just kind of at the end of the rabbit trail that started out as "what do I want this to be?".  In my group of creative champions (not as in we are champions - winners, accomplished, etc, but champions - as in they champion my cause, the cause of art, my art) we have been talking about the parable of the oil, and pondered what this oil is. And although we've  a number of thoughts two in particular stand out.  Oil creates light, and as a follower of Christ, light has such import and meaning.  Another thought is that perhaps the oil represents what our hearts will worship, and my hope is that this blog will illuminate Jesus.  That although much will be personal; what is going on in my life, my heart, it will always lead to my light and my hope, the one I worship, Jesus.  

So at this moment I would have preferred the humility of apple pie, rather than the lofty goal of being a conduit of light, light that will expose my human condition, light that might break into your darkness, hopefully the light of the gospel of Christ.  But you know apple pie smells good, and tastes good, and makes me happy.  Light draws me in. Pulling in my driveway late last night it welcomed me home, illuminated what was inside, gave me peace and hope.  So a happy tummy or a hopeful heart?  I guess I'll go for the hopeful heart, at least this time.