Go Ahead and Boast

We can all lack a bit of humility sometimes.  I’ve never considered myself as pompous or cocky ever much, but lately I can see where a bit of boasting has come into play in my life.  In fact, I used to beat myself up for being or feeling confident in anything I did as part of my former spiritual brow beating I performed regularly on myself and also permitted other similarly convoluted people to do to me.  Being proud of myself openly or the things I achieved felt in conflict with my path with God somehow.  How dare I?  I would write in my journal and talk to God begging Him to forgive me for how absolutely sinful I had been for committing my pride to action.

Yes, Him, not him, because He is not the HE I used to know before but the real He now for me.

Yes, for me.

Maybe it was just me or I was being fueled in some way.  It was both, but I believe mostly the latter than the former.  How does a young child withdraw from a path she was forced to tread, nose down, dragging at first and slowly walking straight into her own spiritual death willingly.  I can’t help it any more, some of this boasting.  I spent so many years putting myself down that now I feel like I have something to cheer and scream hey look at me about in my life, my self.  I could make a list, but I’ll spare you.  

I’ve since been free to be inspired by people, music, life, love and a whole different world of ideas and life and love and pain and pulling and twisting and hammering it all out now and again and then again.  I’ve been knocked down but I get up again. And I gotta’ say that I’m up again.  Up.  I’m up not because life isn’t hard sometimes because it still is and for many reasons.  My life is up right now because my point of view is located in a different direction, a new perspective on the same beautiful landscape that never failed me, a back drop ever present.  Life has knocked the wind right out of my sails again and again and again.  People have tried to strip me down and lock me up and shut me up and knock me down and then on the other end I’ve found people who have stuck by me no matter what and they are few and far between and they and God, and my kids and husband...they are all I need.

But if you take all of that away.  My view of self, what I think of myself and the proper thought of God in the mix of my life, if I had no one and nothing this would take me off the luxurious understanding of how He and me and things really are in the heart of hearts and soul of souls of me.   

But I see me.  It took many years for me to see myself.  I was in a cult of religion and personality that only the men, the appointed leaders were the achievers and succeeders and rise-abovers out in the open, giving and receiving proper credence.  Women were subservient and to be quiet and lowly.  It’s over and done with, that life to many degrees.  Those bad voices, whispers, nudges, judgments with each year inside my head become ever dimmer.  I can see people fresh, and more fresh as I have pulled myself farther away each year from that old long much programmed life, old self, old beat self down ways.  

Humility?  Yes, to humility, but what version or who’s version do we follow?  I go by a new credo.  Love self, love God and love your neighbor.  Be proud of yourself, your God and your love and zest for life.  Dream of things you will and can be and how and when you will succeed and boast within yourself and cheer your fellows on around you to do the same.  There is so much freedom and way more than you think!  Soak it up and soak it in and spread the wealth.  Ah, it’s so damn good.  This life.  It’s hard to leave damn out.  It’s just none other than damn good.

The God of All Comfort

Sometimes things change.  Sometimes, all the time people change, life changes.  It’s nothing but profound, this changing, it’s an inevitable part of life and it’s clarity in happening doesn’t make it any less easy or exciting or sad or glorious when it occurs.  It’s the wheel of unrelenting dice that get thrown or spun and you never know which number will spin right side up even when things, the change itself is the wrong side down.  Changing of size, place, spirit, mindset, level of love, rank, color, emotion, human forms find themselves slowed and then stopped, willingness becomes refusal.  

I blinked and my kids are half of them grown beyond what I ever thought they would.  I mean, how, how does it happen?  They were just the size of my forearm and would nuzzle there for hours and months and years at a time.  I just thought they’d stay little forever because in the moment, when they were little that’s what it felt like, that it would take a million moments for them to grow up.  At the time life was a mysterious mix of glorious light and dark drudgery, monotony, long nights, tedious days and euphoric bursts of joy, too.  But they did, they grew up amazingly and half of them are teenagers.  Overnight they became teenagers and how?  Did the "make them long and lanky" fairy visit them in the night or did they eat the wrong half of the cookie that makes them grow big?  The how never and completely gets logically answered for me.   

 My father's life was cut short by cancer and I visited a whittled body and wonder how can he die this way and why?  It was a horrible death and it shook my world.  Change had come and it blew strong and hard in the moment and for many reasons.  The cascade of pain and sorrow came with it and knocked the wind right out of me, a strong fist, unexpected fist in my back and more than one blow.   

We live expecting and knowing change comes, but then when that expectancy of anything becomes fulfilled we are in a state of wonder and awe and sometimes despair, for not all that we expected comes.  Not all that we hoped comes to fruition and sometimes what we knew would come to pass does just a little too frighteningly soon. 

This morning we read an excerpt of the life of Amy Carmichael about how she longed to have blue eyes as a child because hers were brown.  A sweet prayer from a small child just simply believing.  Her mother had taught her that God always answers prayer and with child-like faith she would pray fervently each day to God to please make her eyes blue.  He never gave her those blue eyes that she wanted and she wondered to herself if God could give the answer and that maybe it would be no sometimes.  She figured that would be the case and that God would know what is best.  And many know the story of how those brown eyes kept her safe while she was a missionary in India.  There was a reason God had made her eyes brown and not blue.  Things happen for reasons and maybe none of them seem good at the time it is, change is happening and maybe that is naïve thinking to many as well, that God plans things for certain reasons or maybe He does not intervene for a certain reason, but I think things are set in a certain order for unforeseen and just as many unending reasons.  How can we know the mind of God?  I don’t know and I’m certainly not sure of all of His plans for my life, for my family, what changes may come quickly to heap themselves upon us without warning or seemingly no good cause or unexpected blessings that come, too, that surprise and delight us.  Who knows?  And we can rack ourselves weary with trying to find out. 

What I do believe and feel I know deep within my own soul and for myself is that there is a benevolent Father God in existence who looks on the whole of His creation with a complete and pulsating love that never withdraws from its throb of duty to press on in perfection, never wavering, always thriving and ever aching for you, you, you who enjoys and suffers change.  You, the one that longs for someone or something and feels the sting of a hope deferred.  You, the one who has seen your loved one slowly perish from this earth.  You that lost something or someone you could always count on, a friend, faithful and true now suddenly gone.  Uncertainty that ragged edge knife thrown at us many times could drop us to our knees in bleeding fear and stabbing pain.  And for that and through that and in that and above that, around and marinating with this process of change, He, the comforter is there, has and is and always will be there for you, dear one, part of the whole world He loves.  You.  Yes, you.  Take note, take a deep breath and believe with the faith of a little child.  He is the God of all comfort. 

^“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God.”  II Corinthians 1:3-4

 

The Bigger Picture

So, we have been visiting churches.  A total of two or three so far since moving here and I’m already feeling daunted.  So many choices, flavors and kinds are available.  Expectations are certainly overrated, too.  People are just people.  And so I are, too.  The search continues.  Either way, the journey with God never ends.  

And we’ve been at home a lot due to the second car being on its last leg.  My husband spent every spare moment to try to fix it and now it’s been figured out that it can’t be salvaged.  Oh, well.  Eight people, several directions, one car...no problem.  We’ll figure it out.  We can’t really afford a car payment right now and it will be okay, right?  And we live so far out and away from everything, everyone and the job site.  Being home constantly has its draw backs and I am still trying to find the blessings, they are here somewhere most definitely.  There are many I am sure but being caged up for weeks and days makes us all crazy, especially me and the teenagers.  I need people.  I need to be out doing, being, living somewhere else some of the time.  Or?  I’ll actually get something done around here for once and have dinner on the table proper some nights and not be running like a hamster.  That about sums it up, well, maybe if your thinking is short sighted or one sided, which mine can be too much of the time.  I’m good at creating black and white scenarios where grey prevails.  I gotta’ stop that.  

Well, we were sitting here conflicted Sunday morning.  Do we try and visit another church?  Do we go and have a family fun day, the last day before we are without a car for a week?  Indecision seems like such a problem, feeling listless and disappointed with the choices we make after they are made.  We finally decided to head out to the little church that some relatives attend and then visit my husband’s mother nearby.  At church we saw some family and prayed together for another family member who is dealing with cancer...again.  It was worth making it to church to corporately pray together for others, the sharing of burdens, hopefully lightening the load for others.  It was helpful and refreshing and needful.  

We headed over to Mimi’s house and found her doing not so well with horrible pack pain.  She was in bed resting and having a hard time fulfilling her basic needs.  It felt great to step in and help her.  So much of our lives are spent trying to meet our own family’s needs and desires and that is just life, but it does make you feel good when you can help others, too.  The miniature horse got out of the fence and needed to be corralled, the fence needed mending, the flowers needed to be watered and all the animals fed, the pool needed some help, the house needed a little tlc and we were there.  Who knew?  She doesn’t like for anyone to know that she’s feeling unwell.  We had no idea.  We asked if we could come over and she said come on.  Going there began to open our eyes to the needs of others and what to do with our day suddenly became clear for all of us.  And this is church, too, fulfilling the needs of others.  Sometimes we are so busy that we miss this point, busy being bored, busy thinking about self or our own family much of the time, busy trying to find a place, a church that will make us happy that we don’t see the big picture of serving and helping others.  We live this way.  Not always but much of the time.  It’d do us well to reroute.   

  

There will always be time to feel disgruntled about our situations and equally as much time to be available to take focus off self because there will always be someone needing help, a heavy burden to lift and making an offering of self to others on any level, financial, emotional, spiritual.  The moment we feel empty or discontent is probably the best time to step in and help someone else.  I’m learning, I’m learning.  

And in this process of trying to see more than self, we stumbled on a car that we asked to buy from a family member, a pay as we can, take the car home now experience.  An answer to prayer on this journey we travel.  Indecision leads to decisions that leads to a need met.  Coincidence?  Maybe not.      

Lessons from the Walking Dead

I don't watch horror flicks of any kind.  No, really, not at all.  I don't mind violence in a film to prove a point, etc., but I don't do scary films.  When I was a small child I was exposed to one too many bad decisions when it came to television viewing.  I saw a lot of gore, horror and and violence on screen before I could even write a sentence or read a paragraph.  I had nightmares all the time and hid under my blankets for so long it would get stiflingly hot and I could hardly breathe.  I didn't care, I wasn't pulling the cover off for nothing.  I would beg my sister to let me sleep with her and put her arm around me.  Falling asleep seemed like a terrifying prospect and that was really a time in my life I don't wish to repeat for multiple reasons and maybe the nightmares were a result of more than one thing. 

I had heard of the television series the Walking Dead for some time and decided to give watching it a try one evening.  I couldn't get through the first ten minutes before I needed to turn it off because it scared me that bad.  Then here recently I gave it another chance and made myself watch it.  After the first few episodes watching the show became rightfully addicting. 

I'm glad I watched it.  Yes, all five seasons.  It took a few weeks, but I got through them. 

I am amazed that such a show could open my eyes up to so much.  I mean I know it is just tv, but I think it paints a very accurate picture about how people work, who the good and bad guys really are and what it means to truly survive in a world that seems to be falling apart.  I hardly ever watch tv but I was deeply drawn into this one.  Why?  Is it the zombies?  For me, no, not at all.  If you watch the show you realize that it almost has nothing intrinsically important to do with the zombies themselves and after a while they simply fall into the shadows of thought and become the background music to the real struggle at hand. 

Zombies are  mindless and weak.  They act upon instinct alone and have no cold blood in their dead bodies.  Their necessity to their own survival is completely thoughtless.  But the people?  The characters themselves?  Well, now that is a whole other story, meaning, purpose in part and comprehension.  Who's going to gain a self sustained moment and lose their souls in this apocalyptic struggle and who can blame them?  Oh, and many do.  They give up their souls for momentary comfort or simple survival.  Then there are some that despite the mind numbing battles ahead and behind they are hanging on to their sense of soul, their body of principle.  And sometimes no matter how right or how wrong you must go about it the greater good must prevail as a whole to save the largest number of people or resources.  The rules change constantly and some lose their way out of sheer momentary insanity and others lose it forever never to gain back their sense of duty to fight evil and protect the innocent.  The good. 

And I have to say this.  I'm not afraid of the zombies.  After a while they didn't scare me in the slightest bit.  It's just white noise compared with the people, what they can do, what they are capable of doing.  Good should prevail, but how?  Conscience that's how.  Listening to the soul of man speak to itself and coming up with the power to follow through.  And where does that power come from?  Some say God.  I would say God.  Listening to that small voice.  People do good things every day and how do they do that under these soul crushing circumstances?  By being human. 

Let the Preacher Woman Die

Have you ever been in line at the checkout of the grocery store, department store, giant box store and had someone remark?

You know...about your shoes, what’s in your basket, how nice the weather is, what lovely eyes you have, how the world’s gone crazy and my, have you seen the news today or when in doubt, eat a banana?

Remark, remark, remark.

I love chatting with people. They can typically talk to me about anything they’d like.  Go ahead.  I am totally fair game for a good grocery aisle checkout convo.  Throw in a few props for effect and it’s a win/win situation all around.  You know those carts that get shoved up your rear end when you’re not pay attention because you were talking too much to the cashier?  That’s happened more than once.  To me, to you, to them.  It’s okay.  No biggie.  Some other person’s cart pushed in front of the pay system from behind is always a kicker, too.  Excuse me ma’am, I still need to pay for my groceries before you get yours scanned and paid for.   One day I’ll just start pushing my cart away before being allowed to pay and just see what happens.  Something that occurs that is just comical and also of little consequence.

And in between the cart pushing, people just have their opinions.  All the time.  And what of it? The more we realized how unimportant an average opinion should be the better off we all would be, indeed, the better off I would be because caring about what people think too much has been a long term bad habit of mine.  I’m not sure what’s worse...being an alcoholic or being constantly drunk on the opinions of others.  And what’s an opinion?

I know this is well covered territory.  Hearing and giving opinions.

And drama is what drama does so avoid it.  Just avoid it.  And keep the push back to yourself, smile and move on.  Push on.  Push on out those lovely, electric, burgeoning, sliding glass doors right to that trunk of your very old, new, beautiful, beat up, dirty, ugly, just refreshing car.  It’s easy.  Or it should be that easy. 
There are remarkers, opinion makers and then there are stand up on yer soap box and preachers.  And sometimes that is absolutely necessary, hopefully while abstaining from all abnoxious tendencies in tone and manner.  Preaching is just so vital on today’s streets, ya’ know?  I mean...we’ve got trouble!  Right here in River City!  It starts with a capital “T” and that rhymes with “P” and stands for pool.

Pool as in pool table in the pool hall and in this character for The Music Man’s opinion was adding up to a whole lot of possible trouble stirring up in the small Iowan town.  He was a’preaching! 
Butcha’ know it ain’t a’fitting to preach as in preach your life away. 
And I grew up with and by and from a preacher.  I was preached at, with, among, around, upon, for against, behind, below, above and beyond.  In letters, from the pulpit and in full fledge face to face contact.  Then I heard the preaching from day to day.  Usually against something, somebody.  Preaching against.  Hearing preaching against daily. 
The example took hold of me.  I felt off, always did, but the example took hold, complete and total hold over my childhood.

 Hearing, seeing, witnessing, filtering, wait I didn’t know much about filtering, I was just a kid, preaching, all the time, every day in some way, fashion or ‘nother.  It’s inbred.  Kinda’ like my blue eyes and wavy hair.

Remarks are unremarkable and should be in most cases.

Preaching has a droning sense of duty to its hearers no matter the seemingly urgent cause and it’s effect can shut down the soul of any unwilling spirit to listen.  Shuts out, shuts down, closes in the hapless mind of those who briefly witness its many utterances.

Preaching has its place.  I’m sick of injustice and intolerance.  I’d like to stand up in the middle of a crowd and scream nicely, can we just love each other?!  Kids who are bullied right in front of you...it’s time for preaching.  It should be done.

Remarking was fine about the weather, your shoes, your hair, your kids...oh, you have how many?  Just a remark.  Statements made in passing, off the top of the head passing statements, not well thought out usually. 
Preaching has a strategic scope to its logic.  It knows and has known what it wants and what it thinks for some time and in effort to coerce unwittingly it has edged its way into a conversation, a situation.  Correcting, pointing out, rising to the forefront your thoughts, brought to the attention of intended audience of one or many.

It’s fine if someone asked for it.  Hey...what do you think about doulas?  Well, then.  A little preaching might slip out.  But a target of uninterested folks?  Nah.

All that to say...I’ve preached, I am preaching, I do preach.  It’s inbred.  Don’t wanna’ do it no more unless I have to.   

Sleeping and waking
Should bring a pot full of purpose
And yet my hands remain tied
Behind the same back that is flat
I'm unable to grab the elements
To bring about this fruitful mix
The day in day out thing
What on earth is it supposed to bring?
Apathy, mediocrity
Let me be!
You've plagued me long enough
I'll find my way, I'll get ahead
Alas, until I'm dead
And when my feet work no more
I'll claw my way upon the floor
And overcome you I will
Until my breath is not steady but still
Then my new body will gently rise
And meet my maker in the skies
You will be defeated
Freeing forevermore
Perfect purpose from its bolted door

Later May Never Come

There’s a never ending merry go round of thought stuck inside my brain.  Every time there is enough courage to know I can do something and the peaceful quiet within my soul to conjure a few lines on a page, I spit up the first paragraph about the fact that I don’t write enough or it’s been a long while since writing and oh, I have thoughts people, I have thoughts.  

Who cares?  I care.  Maybe you'll care, too.  Something will resonate and be helpful.  Maybe.  

These are the last things people want to hear or read, rather, and rightfully so. 

The baby dumped out the beans in a furious cascade of defiance.  She proceeded to pee on my beloved piano, yes, she literally peed on my *electric* Roland piano to the point of it dripping through holes on the underside.  My heart hit the floor(can the mom of the family have and keep anything for herself?!) while she proceeded to hit someone in the head, my life of days is a stop and start event, pretty much every five to ten minutes of telling her no and it was a Jonah day for me yesterday.  I cleaned all day and dealt with a toddler who is clearly from Mars or some planet designed to dole out absolutely no mercy to its creators.  I cried.  My kids hugged me after I cried and not before.  I made my accusing rant slash case against them and they were unmoved.  Smart kids...they know baloney when they smell it.  

Accusations never work by the way for anyone, the giver, the receiver, no matter how convinced you are that you are right in your accusing.  Don't worry.  I told them I was sorry.  Always say sorry when you're wrong.  That's a hard one to do but one of the most rewarding things you can do especially when done faithfully.

There are other things that caused such an overwhelming reaction on my part, some worries plaguing my mind about one of my other children and also...what if the baby wakes up before I finish writing this?  Big, honking deal, right? 

But, no, really.

Everyone is fast asleep on this rare occasion and it feels like heaven and that's the big whoop for me.  A few chores in on my part and typically, they (meaning her first) are up and running and this morning I got those chores in, coffee brewed and the sitting in silence to write.  I felt like I had conquered Mt. Olympus, Mt. Rushmore, oh, what's that dang mountain...Everest, I conquered with those beautiful elements of joy colliding!  Minus the dog fidgeting next to me, well, and now the extra reasoning of a seven year old trying to make sense of the stories she is reading out loud, things were set up for perfection.  Mom, how can they ride dolphins in the ocean without being eaten by sharks and stung by box jelly fish?  Good question, kid.  I’ll talk about it with you later.

And as always with her usual radar perception the toddler knows when I wake up in the morning and comes crying to find me with such accurate and concise precision, she knows no bounds, well, this morning she does.  But how does she do that?  You know...the part where she knows when I am up and that she needs to find me asap?

And I worry about that never stopping.  Then when it stops I worry about it never beginning again...this need for me, for mom in her life.  But reality predicts something else and it always does.  Our fears versus reality...it's a huge struggle, isn't it? 

Never having the ability to pursue all the things I was made for and not just some of those things.  I do fear this.  The whole mothering thing is my life.  Am I ungrateful right now?  Am I whiny?  Am I just down right annoying?  And, hey, these were my choices, right?  Nobody held me at gun point to have all these kids.  I wanted everyone of them.  I would have more if my body would let me.  Yeah, you heard right.  I know...I am good and crazy. 

Maybe, maybe not.  

It occurs to me in any event that the ability to pursue one’s dreams, aspirations and goals while having so many children is an ebb and flow experience.  I have peaks of time where I can peruse my singing, my playing, my writing, my, well, and my how about making money curiosities.  So there is hope in the midst of the bellowing chaos that walks before me each day in the form of demands, my children’s education, their well-being, my availability to them all when they need me most and knowing who needs that first at the top of the other heap of priorities, my relationship to their dad and myself and God?  Well, that good old time for me is in there somewhere.  

Some people say...you should love yourself first, put yourself first, and pay yourself first.  I don’t know what they are talking about.  If I get a special something for me...I feel bad and immediately want to give it to my children.  If I sit down and there is a take care of self or them question, it is usually them I choose.  This is my life.  Is it the better choice and always?  I sure don’t think so necessarily or I wouldn’t be writing all this. 

This.  

Maybe I need to make some changes and maybe I don’t.  I’m not solidified in that choice.  It just is what it is.  I do feel resentment at times, but I never want to resent them, my kids, full of life and love and crazy and chaos, so maybe some changes need to be sought when the toddler grows up.  The number three has had a record of bringing a little more maturity in this home.  I have had five others turn three and that magic number always brought a sigh of relief and the number four even more until one day you wonder how they were ever as crazy as they were, maybe not as a complete rule but for some part of the whole.  I am a bit crazy even now as such an older person than they, so crazy can’t possibly be all bad, right? 

I remember being a happy go lucky child despite my circumstances.  I was told by my brother that I was tough, but happy.  I would dance and put on shows for people and crack every one up.  I was a ham.  What I was like as a toddler?  Hmmm...I don’t know.  I will have to ask my mom or siblings.  

“Goooood morrrnnniiiing!” 

Wow, is that my son?  And the questions are coming already again.  

He says and I quote, “Here’s what I don’t understand...why does my hair stand straight up when I get up in the morning when I can’t even get it to do that during the day with hairspray?”  

Good question, kid. We’ll talk about it later.  Later is almost here.  Later is almost gone.  Later may never come.  Later is a bad word maybe.

And why in the world is he up so early?   You don’t even see, smell or hear the man child until after lunch during the summer.  

And she is up.  The she from Mars or wherever ya’ call it, that planet place she comes from.

If she gets up, we’ll all get up and it’ll be total anarchy.  

Well, hopefully not.