The Captivating Presence

My spirit has been in turmoil for the past 24 hours. Honestly, it's been longer than that, but I'll say 24 hours for now. This morning for my devotional, I read this by Albert Edward Day and I wanted to share it.

I came to a new understanding why Jesus passed up the religious establishment of his day, the economically secure, the socially prestigious, and sought out the poor, the outcast, the sinner, the broken, the sick, the lonely. He felt as we so often do not feel, their sorrow. He was acquainted, as we too seldom are, with their grief. On Calvary he died of a broken heart.But that heart was broken long before Black Friday, by the desolation of the common people. "In all their afflictions he was afflicted."

Most of the time we are not. We seem to have quite a different conception of life. We avoid as much as possible the unpleasant. We shun the suffering of others. We shrink from any burdens except those which life itself inescapably thrusts upon us. We seek arduously the wealth and power that will enable us to secure ourselves against the possibility of being involved with another's affliction. Lazarus sometimes makes his way to our door step. We toss him a coin and go on our way. We give our charities but we do not give ourselves. We build our charitable institutions but we do not build ourselves into other's lives.

I saw this a lot when I was running the soup kitchen, so that was part of what I told people, give me your money, so I can help them! 

This presence of mind that the economically secure and socially prestigious had in Jesus' time, is alive and well in our time, in our churches, and in our country.

If this slaps you in the face, pokes you in the eye, or makes you want to call me up and give me a piece of your mind...all I can say is take it up with Jesus. 

Fear

Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart.

It shrinks up our capacity to love.

It freezes up our power to give ourselves.

~ Thomas Merton

Fear is the show stopper! Think about it, what keeps us from being all we can be? We're afraid! We fear failing, not being liked or loved, not being enough or being too much. It paralyzes us from doing what God is calling us to do. One of the worst things about fear is it's contagious! We are able to spread fear faster than hope! That my friends, is flat out sad!

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hate leads to suffering.
Yoda

At times, I feel fear is the main tool of satan. I know he has more, but fear works so well with us. I want to share a story I read the other day from Sabbath Moment's.

There is a well-known experiment involving a group of monkeys, a ladder and bananas suspended from the ceiling. When the first monkey touched the ladder, the researchers hosed all the monkeys with cold water. (Let it be known right off the bat, I hate these experiments!) Soaked and confused, the monkeys tried to reach the bananas again, but whenever any one of them touched the ladder, all were punished. Soon enough, the monkeys learned the lesson: the ladder is taboo. The researcher then exchanged one of the experienced monkeys for a new one. As soon as he entered the room, the new monkey started towards the ladder. Before he could touch it, the other monkeys pulled him away. After enough thwarted attempts, the monkey abandoned his efforts.

The researchers then exchanged another monkey. After time, not one of the original monkeys remained. Yet the lesson endured: No monkey ever climbed the ladder. (Incidentally, if any of the monkeys had tried the ladder, they would have succeeded. Researchers did away with the water hose early on in the experiment.)

WOW! There are many things we don't try.

There are many ladders we don't climb. For any number of reasons.

Or we try for a while; and then we quit.

Or, we have been told, Don't try. You don't have what it takes.

That may put the kibosh on any enthusiasm in a world of never enough - be it beauty or faith or courage or success or passion. 

What have you been told not to try? What puts a kibosh on your enthusiasm? Does it all go back to fear? How do you feel about that?   

Happiness!

Lent. What does it mean anyway? What are we suppose to be doing? Well, it's the time before Easter where I should be making space in my life for Jesus. It's a time of preparation, it's a time to repent, to change the direction in which I am looking for happiness. The call to repentance is the invitation to take stock of our emotional programs for happiness and to change them. They have been instinctual, they need to change to spiritual. 

You know the liturgy for Lent begins with the temptation of Christ in the desert. The three instinctual needs that we all experience in growing up; security, esteem and power. Security in changing stones to bread, esteem in making a name for himself by jumping off a building, and power in having absolute power over the nations of the world. We are tempted to find easy, fast answers. Here's a story I found to help.

A master had lost his keys to his house and was looking for it on the lawn outside, running his fingers through each blade of grass. His disciples came along and asked the master what had happened. "I have lost the key to my house", he said. "Can we help you find it?" they asked. "I'd be delighted!" he replied. With that the disciples got down on their hands and knees beside him and started running their fingers through the grass too. After some time, one of them asked, "Master, have you any idea where you might have lost the key?" He answered, "Yes, of course. I lost it in the house." The disciples looked at one another in astonishment. "Then why are we looking for it out here?" they exclaimed. The master replied, "Because there is more light here!"

This is the human condition. We have all lost the key to happiness and are looking for it outside ourselves where it cannot possibly be found. We search outside because it is easier or more pleasant; there's more light out there. There is also more company. "If we look for happiness in emotional programs that promise happiness through symbols of security/survival, affection/esteem, or power/control, we can find plenty of help, because everyone else is trying to do the same thing." (Thomas Keating) When we look for the key where it can be found, we may find ourselves along, abandoned by friends and relatives who feel threatened by our search. 

Lent is about looking inside.  

Ladders and Walls!

I spent the better part of three hours reconnecting with a friend yesterday and it opened my eyes to a ton of things I had either forgotten, or dismissed. One of which is how women need to remember how to be women.

It's really pretty funny, cuz I was a huge feminist growing up. Trying to prove all the time that I could do anything a guy could do! After I found out in climbing the ladder to success, my ladder was leaning up against the wrong wall, I fell rather fast to the ground and had to start rethinking my live and what I was really after. So many of us just stay on the ladder, even when we see that it's not working out the way we had dreamed. I'm thankful for my fall, now, not so much when it was happening.

I started to learn something about the way we women are made and don't think I've shared this before so here we go with a few things we know as women, but might have forgotten!

We were made as caregivers! It is something that comes as easy as breathing. Now, some of us are better at it than others and that's fine. We are social and want to connect everyone to everything and in the process we care about others. When I fell off my ladder and started getting real with myself and God, I found out I was pretty dang good at this caregiver stuff. I found this out very quickly after I started working at the soup kitchen. I got to looking and low and behold, 95% of my volunteers that came in and cooked and cared for the people, were women. The 5% that were men, were my board leaders, food pick up and maintenance.

Another case in point story. I was completely blown away one day when I had cleaned the parsonage, played in the yard, and had dinner ready for Preacher man when he got home. The look on his face when he walked through the house and smelled dinner, was worth an amount that I still can't put a price on! I had shown care for him by doing what was becoming my job. In all honestly, it has always been my job. I had balked against it for so many years, cuz I was a woman with more education than you could shake a stick at! Anyone could take care of a house, I wanted to climb that dang ladder that was leaning up against the wrong wall! 

This has been part of my wake up call from God. My job is to care for my husband, AKA Preacher man! Because I am saying ok to this God given design, He is blessing me with a ministry! I am freed up enough to be able to sit down with others and listen to where they are on their spiritual journey and walk beside them. Just in the past week, I have shared in tears of joy, calmness that has come straight from God, frustration that has been self made, and rekindled a relationship that I believe will turn into something so much bigger than either of us can get our heads around right now! All I really did was be available to listen, which is a God given gift (those of you who know me, have seem the change!). 

To think it all started when I fell off the ladder that was leaning up against the wrong wall and I allowed God to reshape me into the woman he had planned all along! 

Different Place!

I'm in a really different place than I've ever been in before and I can tell I'll be here until I learn the lesson. What's the lesson you may ask, well if I knew, I'd be moving on now wouldn't I? 

Haven't you ever been someplace like this before? Where you know your way around, yet nothing is happening like it use to? You look in the mirror and know that person, but the things that are going on inside your head are a little on the right side of center. Then again, it wouldn't surprise me if I really was out here on the edge, alone!

I found myself sitting in a room with some people who are trying to learn more about the Bible, or at least 3 of us are. Some words were spoken that really have given me cause to think long and hard about what I stand for, or won't stand for. 

I will not stand with the world on it's views! I am called to be in the world not of the world! I want to be different than the world. When you look at me and line me up with the world, I want to stick out like a sore thumb! While I am human that doesn't give me the excuse to be like everybody else! 

I get that you don't want to judge! I have a news flash for you though...every time you get into your car, you judge. Or maybe you don't and that's why you don't have a car! 

I have written about the whole God is love, Jesus loves you thing before but I feel compelled to say once again... This is a great place to start, but they are so much more than just love! You can't just stop there and hope we will all love each other and get along. I mean, how's that working for you? Jesus didn't come so we would all get along, in fact, he said he came to cause a ruckus, paraphrasing by me!

Here's the deal, for me and maybe you. If you can't stand up for Jesus now, do you think when it's get's bad and we're persecuted, it's going to be easier? If you don't take the opportunity to study and grow deeper and wider now, do you think when stuff starts hitting the fan, your going to have lots of time to do that?

We need to love each other and call each other into account for our actions. We need to stand up for Jesus, spend time with Jesus and walk in the shadow of His cross. It's not the easy way of going about doing things but for me, it's the only way!   

Saved

I'm trying hard to remain full of joy and hope. Tomorrow is a big day with the election and all. But in the world I live in there are saints to bury and people to love, no matter how they vote. I have BBQ sauce to make and label, a house to clean, people to hug and a Preacher man to support, so forgive me if I don't stop everything to bitch and moan. I will vote tomorrow and I will do it as a right of living in this country and I will listen to how God is calling me to fill in the blank. I found this today and thought it might be nice to share! 

           Before I vote, I'll remind myself of Daniel Berrigan's "Credo."

I can only tell you what I believe; I believe:
I cannot be saved by foreign policies.
I cannot be saved by the sexual revolution.
I cannot be saved by the gross national product.
I cannot be saved by nuclear deterrents.
I cannot be saved by aldermen, priests, artists,
plumbers, city planners, social engineers,
nor by the Vatican,
nor by the World Buddhist Association,
nor by Hitler, nor by Joan of Arc,
nor by angels and archangels,
nor by powers and dominions,
I can be saved only by Jesus Christ.

So, Yeah Jesus!

Your Daily Sack!

I really am trying to post more often! I don't know what my problem is, I have all these great idea's, sit down to start typing, and poof, they disappear. Plus, I have books I gotta read for class, Christmas cards to order, Bible study to get ready for, and the house needs to be cleaned! So while I'm waiting for the rain to stop, cuz I am not climbing up my ladder to change the church sign in the rain, I'll jot down a post!

We had a great time at church yesterday! I can only speak for me, myself and I, but I think Preacher man had a good time too. It was a 5th Sunday, and he took that opportunity to turn the service on it's head. It was great to see the reactions, which were for the most part very positive. We started out with the sermon and them sang a few songs, followed by the offering and a time of greeting right before the benediction! It really was fun! Then something that this church does is have a pot luck on the 5th Sunday, so we ate!

Something that kept running through my mind was how hard it is for people to change, or to sit through something that should look at certain way and all of a sudden, the bulletin is upside down, the music is not where it should be and we didn't even get to the prayers of the people! The good part is, no one died, or was rushed to the hospital because we did something different. We came together and set our sacks down and had to pay attention, cuz things were not what they seemed and Shelby didn't know when it was safe to close his eyes!

So, what's in your sack? You didn't know you had a sack? Oh, sorry, let me tell you what might be in someone else's sack:
anxiety from our day,
woundedness,
preoccupation with our busyness,
an unfair life,
relationships,
self-righteousness,
our need to impress.
Whatever is in your sack keeps you from living in the presence and steals your joy. How heavy is it? You can find out when you set it down, it's like a burden has been...laid down or something! The problem is, we have a hard time of letting it laying there, while we look around to see what we've been missing out on.

Here's the ticket friends, find a safe place, a sanctuary so to speak, to place your sack down. One of the definitions of sanctuary: a tract of land where birds and wildlife, especially those hunted for sport, can take refuge in safety from hunters. 
I love this! This sanctuary could be your garden, your work room, church, the library, your car... somewhere that the hunters can't get to you. It's a place where you allow your heart beat to slow, where you take time to smell the air, to go within and be with the presence! I live for moments like this.

So today, while I put up this weeks new church signage, I'm reminded that I don't have to carry my sack with me, not today or tomorrow or ever. The sad part is I will look down and somehow the thing jumps back into my hand, but seeing it there, reminds me to lay it down, daily!

Silence

Silence. What does that look like in your life? Is it something that you create each day, or run from each night, or don't even know about cuz life is in control of you? It might be something that you had before the kids came along, and something that you have too much of now that they are gone. 

Silence to me, has changed as I have and I'm not sure if I'm always ok with it. I mean, I'm an extrovert and we get our energy from being with other people, not from being alone and in silence! That's crazy talk! What I have been finding though, is that as God grows me deeper into who He wants me to be, I'm changing and seeing that silence really is a gift!

Our spiritual goal is to be able to come before God as we are, with no titles, merit, shame, or guilt, just as we are! Naked, so to speak, of our walls that we have erected to protect ourselves from life. All we can offer God, and all that He wants, is who we really are. Which by the way, we never feel is good enough. So we make noise and build those walls and become the person we have always thought we were. 

The truth of the matter is we have created our false self. I know this because I was queen of falseselfness for a very long time, and I might add I was very good at it! As I started finding out about Jesus and what he did for me, how he would go off and be alone with God, I got to thinking, there must be something good about all that.

Silence is the language of God, it's all around if you listen for it! It is what we crave if we take the time to follow it's lead. Silence is the only language that is deep enough to absorb our false self. God loves us silently and He waits in the silence for us.

Ladders and Letting Go!

I am finding that in the mist of the heat, hassle and hair left on the carpet, that I am just about settled into the parsonage on Reeves Road! The hard part is left...where to stick this stuff I don't want out! But it's coming together and I see another yard sell in the future!


Sunday service was yet again an experience in true old fashioned love. I find myself asking; Can these people be for real? How can it be this easy to be with a group of strangers? This church is the real deal and they are blessing our socks off. We got two notes yesterday telling us how glad they were we were here. I told Preacher man, They have no idea how glad we are to be here! It's just the way it should be. Sure, there's a honeymoon period and it will come to an end. But I am liven large in this moment for as long as it lasts!

I've come to the conclusion that it's about letting go for me. I really don't have a problem being around people and having a good time. But to let go and let them see me for who I really am, well that's something that I'm learning. When you've been burned, you don't stick your neck out there as fast. Thomas Merton said we spend our whole life climbing up the ladder of supposed success, and when we get to the top, we find the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall and there is nothing at the top. He says the spiritual life is about letting go for the false agendas and the unreal goals. It's more about unlearning than learning.


I think when we unlearn our idea of prayer and see that it can be as easy as sitting and being, that's when God enlarges our boundaries. That's when we get freed up to be who God is calling us to be. I get that we have lived a long time with the false idea of what worship should be, prayer should be and how we should act in church. My prayer is that God frees us from ourselves so that we can really be! To just be in His presence, that's what I'm after!


   

Dread!

I can not remember it being this hot, this early, in a long time. If it has been this hot I was living at a pool and just didn't care. I'm all about staying inside to be cool, but this long term, no outsideness is making me crazy. I don't want to open another box! I have no where to put the boxes I've unloaded, the paper that everything is wrapped in, nor do I want to find one. So I shall retreat to blogging!

I'm getting ready to be at Mount Eagle this weekend to finish up the 2 year program on Spiritual Direction. There's a part of me excited about it and a part that's dreading it. I keep holding onto the dreading part for some reason. Why do we do that? We just don't drop the dread! For me, if I drop it and the worst happens, it will hit me unexpectedly and I will burst into flames and cry in front of everyone! Isn't that silly? But it's true, we hold on to the dread cuz we don't want to be surprised. Now being surprised in the good way, well that's a horse of a different color.


It all comes down to trust and control. It always does in some shade or fashion for some reason. We want control, because surly God doesn't know what's best for me like I know what's best for me! Until we let go of always needing to be in control, we are stuck on the merry go round, when we should be on the trapeze! 

There we are, just swinging. Comfortable with the speed, height and view. In order to grow, do anything new, we have to let go of that bar and wait, our feet firmly planted in mid air, for the other bar or other person to come into our grasp. What if they aren't there? What if something happened to the bar and I let go and ...nothing! We have to trust that God has a plan and this is part of it. We have to let go of trying to control our life and live it. He would not bring me this far just to let me fall! I must trust in the process and know that bar will be there and I will grab ahold of it!


     

Are you filled?

My thoughts seem to be consumed with water lately! Did I water the dogs? Have I drank enough water today? Is it cool enough to water the yard? Just lots of water thoughts. I have the bird bath set up in the back yard, but it doesn't seem to have any takers as yet. I've been putting ice in it towards the end of the day. If I were a bird, I'd come sit in an ice bath!

We think about water more in the summer, I'm sure we use more in the summer too. I'm doing my part with as few showers as possible. My folks live by a lake, heck, I hear tell there's a river in Little Rock, I just haven't seen it yet. I love water! I'm going to bet that 98.3% of all people love water of some sort. Either lake, river, creek, ocean or pond there is a love affair with our souls and water.


I've been thinking lately, that God calls us to pour ourselves out for others. We love to be a source of filling don't we? When someone needs us to do something, that's when we love to jump into action and say things like Why of course I will come and help serve sandwiches to the hungry, and them I will mow my neighbors yard with a push mower and after that I will visit the folks at the hospital. Jesus was all about helping people in their time of need and we should be too, but my thoughts go to being filled right now. How are you being filled? Or are you even bothering? 


Something I have to watch is getting all consumed with who needs what and how I can get everything on that list done. I forget to take time to walk up to the water and just look at it. To stick my toe in and check the temp. To close my eye's and feel the water wash over me and to jump up and scream at the top of my lungs THIS IS AWESOME! To stand in the presence of the source with hands turned up and empty. To whisper fill me Lord and wait. Is there anyone in your life to show you to the source of the water? To remind you, Hey! You look and act like a desert dude, go get some water!


Letting go of what they will think, brings you to the edge of the water. Letting go of who you think you should be, brings you to the edge. Letting go is all about vulnerability! But we are afraid to be vulnerable. 


Fear tells you I'll make you safe. Love says You are safe! 


Somewhere along the way, I pray someone helps you see the beauty that comes with vulnerability. I get being scared of it, I was for a really long time. My vulnerability was a place of shame, of fear and a huge struggle with worthiness. What's so cool is in that place I also say the birth of joy, belonging, creativity, wholeness and love. 


Now, I've become somewhat passionate about vulnerability, about living into my true self, not who I created, to keep myself safe. I am all about being real. I want to jump in with both feet. But we have to take time to go to the source and get filled up. God is waiting, can you hear Him calling you? 

Busy?

Preacher man got home yesterday. I'm pretty happy that I didn't go to Annual Conference, cuz I would be sitting there thinking about what I could be getting done here. This is an example of what I've been getting done. I am starting to wonder, maybe I should have put this off a week? Naw! 


Went and got more boxes at The Creek and delivered some pesto to Nancy, who was pretty excited about it. I hate to get rid of all of it, but I don't think it's going to stay frozen after we unplug the freezer.


I'm washing everything I can get my hands on. The washer and dryer will be leaving tomorrow. I'm coming to a point where I feel like everything we have collected during our marriage has been sold off. You don't think you have attachment issues, get rid of some of your stuff and then talk to me!


The vet called yesterday to let us know that Yazi's remains were ready to be picked up. Some of you might think we're strange, but when you don't have kids, your animals mean the world to you. Sam and Gracie are still in every room I'm in. I walk out of the shower and Sam is laying outside the door. Gracie even wants to go out in the garage with me. 


The excitement of a new place is getting bigger in my sights, and the sadness that comes at leaving a place you've called home is also getting real. I find that I have an awesome peace about all of this every so often. Yet, at the same time, my heart is heavy with missed opportunities and friendships. God calls us to live in the moment, to be here and now. We are so good at running ahead, or falling behind, that we can forget to just be. It's hard to stand here and be ok with being right here, right now. We came here with such high hopes, so much excitement to be out of seminary and in ministry. It was all about what we were going to do. In the end, we didn't do a thing. God did to us a number though that won't soon be forgotten! Isaiah 66:2 says, But this is the one to whom I will look, to the humble and contrite in spirit who trembles at my word. It's been a long two years, but I think I get it now. It's about what we allow God to do in us, even if we aren't in a great and wonderful place, what we are willing to die to so that we can live fuller in Christ. Dying can be a messing thing, it has been for me, but the fullness of Christ living in my now, well, you can't beat that with a stick!  

17 Days!

17 day's! That's it! I act like the end of the world will come, or maybe things will change in the United States and someone will shoot Obama, but alas, only the last day to be living in this house, on this street, in this town. That's all, and that's enough.


We had it all lined out, really we did. Mom and Dad were going to show up, load their ride with stuff, load the UHaul with motorcycle and plants. Preacher man in Chevy, loaded with strange long, don't fit anywhere else things. Me in Ford with back  full, and off we would go early Friday morning to Sherwood to unload and leave said Bike and Chevy. It was really a great plan. It had all the makings of something to be remembered in the annuals of history, really, it did. As it is with some many things in life, you better have a plan B and, unlike the General Conference of the UM church, this one better be voted in!

Yazi on heater vent in Wilmore

I went to Fort Smith for supervision from Sister Rachel on Thursday. This was the day that Preacher man and I had decided to have Yazi put out of his prolong ill heath. It was not something either of us wanted to happen, but we had kept Shy (our 1st dog) alive for over a year after she should have been allowed to pass on and I swore than, I would never do that to another animal, ever again! All I can say about that is Shy and Fred were waiting for him and I'm sure they are having a blast! 


Also, on Thursday, the beloved Chevy of 25 years, starting making strange noises that Preacher man couldn't figure out, and it started stopping when it shouldn't. Long story short, alternator was dead, along with a oil gauge line thingy. We pick her up today. Needless to say the Chevy is still in Rogers. I have told Preacher man, that while my skills are great, I don't know, nor do I want to try, to drive two trucks at the same time to Sherwood.

Yazi loved Sam!

So here's my question: How come when it starts going bad, everything in the world wants to jump on that wagon and ride it to it's firey death? It's one of those, what else is going to happen, kinda times for us right now. Things are looking good down the road, but we can't even get out of the driveway with out getting flattened! This may not seem like a lot to you, but there is other stuff going on behind the scenes that I'm not going to bore you with. Things like annual conference, spiritual direction cohort issues, people, money and by the way, it's starting to get hot!


This is about the time that I really expect the heavens to open and God to start smiting, but instead, He shows me the Poverty of Spirit book by Metz and I open it and read. 
Becoming a human being involves more than conception and birth. It is a mandate and a mission, a command and a decision. We each have an open-ended relationship to ourselves. We do not possess our being unchallenged: we cannot take our being for granted as God does. Nor do we possess it in the same way as other creatures around us. We are challenged and questioned from the depths of our boundless spirit. Being is entrusted to us as a summons, which we are each to accept and consciously acknowledge. We are never simply a being that is "there" and "ready-made," just for the asking. From the very start we are something that can Be, a being who must win selfhood and decide what it is to be. We must fully become what we are - a human being. To become human through the exercise of our freedom - that is the law of out Being.

Yazi loves his fly swater!

To become, is what it's about. God is always wooing us to Himself to become what we were put here to become, fully human, in the moment, living now and present! We are hit from every side in order to pull us off this course of being, to muffle the sound of God's voice so that we react in self pity and anger. I'm right there! This pity party is rocking the house and I'm the only one that's shown up. So today, I stop it and I get back to the business at hand, Being!


That's not to say I won't be packing boxes, cleaning toilets, brushing dogs, feeding Preacher man, yelling at squirrels and going to baseball games! I still gotta be me, but I can do it with poverty of spirit. I can be as God is calling me to be.          

In-between

For those of you who have been following this blog for awhile, are my friends or just read to creep me, thanks for yesterday! Every now and then I snap! God is well aware of it and has dealt with me about it. I'm good and ready for something different to talk about today! In other words, it's safe to read on, you won't get anything on you! Maybe.

• Preacher man is heading home as I write. 
• The American Idol final party was fun times! Made even better that Philip Phillips won! Called that one! 
• Baby birds are starting to fly into the window, shutting blinds down some.
• Went for a run today and didn't die!

Found something interesting today and thought about it for awhile. I want to share it with you. Carl Jung said, If you get rid of the pain before you have answered its questions, you get rid of the self along with it. We all have to walk through pain. In this day and age, we are so over medicated for everything that we are popping a pill and watching as we float down the preverbal river. Why are we doing that? For me as a runner, when I feel pain, something is wrong and I need to check it out. I need to stop, survey, assess the situation and do what needs to be done. If I pop a pill to get rid of the pain, is it really gone? But I have changed, I have gotten rid of part of myself, the self that can learn from the pain.


We are so afraid to be in pain! When I pulled my hip flexor, I knew pain! A pain I couldn't get to in order to make it feel better. I remember when I played co-ed softball, I was a hell-of-a third baseman! Could use my body and glove to stop almost anything that came at me. Running though, I'm in it for the long haul, not the fast finish! WHEN I made it to first base, I was always so surprised! Preacher man use to call me Little Wheels, cuz I look like those charters that move their legs real fast, but never get anywhere. Anyway, I never wanted to go to second base. I didn't have the faith in my ability to get me there safely.


How often does this happen in our faith journey? We get safely to first and don't want to step out and run to second. We're safe and happy right where we are. To step out might cause us pain, or we could get thrown out! Yet, faith happens in the in-betweens, the interruptions, the thresholds, the pain. You've let go of one thing and haven't yet latched onto the other.


This is where Preacher man and I are living right now. This is also where some of my friends find themselves, in the in-between. If you aren't there right now, some pain or personal loss, even humiliation, will come across your path sooner or later. Will you justify staying on first base? Do you see what a surrender it is to step out there and head towards second? Only God can lead you on that path! If it's up to us, we are staying on first!


We need to, heck, we must listen to the questions that pain offers us. Then we can move through the pain, into truth and onto second base, with more faith that we left home with!


  

Ranting!

The alarm went off way too early this morning! 4 am! Preacher man has a meeting with the Bishop about the first 100 day's in your new church! He's not the only one, everyone going to a new church as the Sr. Pastor has to go. So we got up at 4, I fixed him Bulls eye's, and off he went. Yesterday, we filled the truck with our second load of belongings to be deposited at the parsonage in Sherwood. Squatted that baby down, which is hard to do on a 4x4.


So you may be asking, What are you going to do today with Preacher man gone, and the whole day ahead of you? Well, I'll tell ya. I know for sure that I'm going to lunch with Anne and Vickie and having dinner at Tammy's, watching American Idol to see who wins. Other than that, shower, pack, read, blog maybe.


I do want to comment on GC2012 (General Conference 2012), you knew it was coming, you just didn't know when huh? Well, I said a while back, that the only thing that was going to save the Methodist church was the African church. I need to correct that by adding the Filipino church to it! I want to thank them for voting the way they did! I also would like for Adam Hamilton and Bishop Minerva Carcano to stop speaking for me!  


There very well may not be a middle ground here. What has to happen is that the church, that's you and me, has to make up it's mind which side of the fence we're going to stand on. There is no fence standing, aka luke warm church. I do foresee a split in the UM church. When that happens, what are you going to do? How are you going to get people into your church? Don't tell me that's the Preacher job either, WE are the Body of Christ, the church! 


See, part of the problem is we have tried to become everything to everybody and it's just not working. Your contemporary service may be growing, but they aren't giving cuz the Pastor doesn't want to scare them off by preaching about tithing. The lights in your church may be great at showing off your "stage" but how come the people aren't singing? You may take pride in the amount of food you give to the pantry, but when that 28 year old comes into your church on Sunday morning and tells you that her 3 month old baby just died last night at Children's hospital, and she needs to get down there, what do you do? Give her a box of noodles? Tell her you don't have any money available until Thursday? Push her off on someone who isn't as busy as you are?


It is not about entertaining people! It is about teaching the truth, no matter how it hurts, calling for repentances, a turning away from and going the other direction. It's about calling sin, sin and teaching people about grace. We, as the church, have got to get our act together and remember that Jesus was the same yesterday, as he is today, as he will be tomorrow! When I hear big name preacher say things about the Bible being written in a time that doesn't understand the time we live in, I want to scream. Just look at Rome. Super power, everybody having sex with everybody and everything they could. Moral decay at it's best, right there! 


Time is drawing short. You better know what you believe or they'll tell you. Then they will give you that stamp.     

No Time!

Let nothing upset you,

Let nothing startle you.

All things pass;

God does not change.

Patience wins all it seeks.

Whoever has God lacks nothing:

God alone is enough

~Teresa of Avila

How come we can't go through our day's living this out? Or can we? What does it take to live out this short passage from Saint Teresa? After hearing some of the things going on at General Conference, I believe that the only thing for certain is God!

Most of us live in a state of upheaval that goes from one crisis to the next without taking time to rest! We don't take time to sit down and look over what has been happening in our life, cuz there isn't time for some reason and we don't understand why. I hear it often...I would love to change but I don't have the time...There aren't enough hours in the day for... To this I say Horse poop!

God has given us enough hours in the day, we are the ones who cram too much into them. I'm just as guilty as you, or I should say I use to be. OK, I am, but I'm working on it. Why do we think we have to do all that stuff? Who said we did? And where are those people that invented the list?

We are scared to death to slow down aren't we? We're afraid that someone will get ahead of us or have more cute clothes or a better hair style, or their children will be smarter. Have you heard that parents are holding their kids back from starting kindergarden so they will be older in their class and smarter? These are the same vein of parents that don't make their kids work in the summer and then can't figure out why they have no work ethic. We want ever advantage we can get in order to compete with the world.

I'm done with it! I really am! My life is so much better now that I'm out of the rat race! I got to thinking what God had in mind when he made me, and while I can do whatever I set my mind to, my mind was not thinking on what it should have been thinking on. I want beauty and the sound of water in my life. I want to dry people tears and show them the real hope in their life. I have walked their path and I'm so glad I jumped off and decided to play in the flowers!

We don't have to live like this, really we don't! All things pass! I promise! Take that cup of coffee, or glass of wine out on the porch and just listen. The baby birds are learning to fly right now! Can you hear them? God does not change! Slow down, hear what the creator of the world has to say to you! Your the one that's too busy to hear, He's speaking!  

Narrow Road

Wow! I really get blown away by God when I sit down and think about it. He, like, so has it all together and I so like, don't! I am rolling on the floor amazed at God today that is for sure! 

I'm thinking back on my life as it was, say about 20 yeas ago. For those of you who didn't know me than, just know that God was protecting you. For those of you who did, Bless you hearts! I bought into the lie that more was better! By golly, if it was out there, I needed it, or at least wanted it! I had rooms full of the stuff I had to have, the stuff that made my life complete! When it came time to move, I just moved it all with me. 


The problem is, we can't grow in our spiritual walk if our hands are already full! When we hold on for dear life to our stuff, God can't gifted us with what He wants to give us. Well, He can, but we don't get it, or can't take it cuz we have too much we are holding on to. Let me tell you from experience, it all can be justified too! I might get back into those size 6 pants! Those tee shirts from 1983 still mean a lot to me! I am holding onto those grudges and hurt feelings because if I let them go, who will remember? 


Bottom line, God is not going to rip that stuff out of our hands, it's not how he operates. For me, He showed me the narrow road. I looked at my stuff, and than at the road... it was not going to fit. So slowly, I started to drop a few things, and I didn't die! In fact it started to feel pretty good. As I was getting room in my hands, God dropped a blessing or two and I was able to hold on to it! Then He asked me if He could have the grudges and hurt feelings! What!? What are you going to do with them? Rain down fire burning hail on the people that caused them? Can I watch? I'm going to take it away so you can heal. What? I'm fine! Won't you give that to me? 


That's when it started really happening for me, the narrow way became the way of choice! My burden and my load is so much lighter than it was. My healing and recovery is so much bigger than I thought it ever could be, and the coolest part is I can walk beside you and show you it can be done in your life too. There is a light heartedness to my life now. I have an emptiness in my hands, a ego that has shrunk down to a proper size and a humble receptiveness to my heart! It's awesome, and there is so much less to move!    

Narrative

Do you wake up everyday like it's a new one? Or is it a repeat of what yesterday held part 643? I think on a whole, the world wants us to be on repeat mode. Something like, today is Friday, I will eat, x,y and z, get paid, see "them" and drink too much it hopes that it will change what tomorrow will be. So how's that working for you so far?


So much of the time we get up holding onto the same things we went to sleep with. The attitudes, grudges, and pre-formed idea's of what the day will hold. Is that really all there is? Marketers have been holding this idea for a long time and bank on our feelings and grudges. It's how they sell us that new car, these cool clothes and that bottle of happiness. 


I get the point, if you go to sleep as a middle management team player, you will most likely wake up the same, but is that helpful? Think about it for a minute, is that all you want from life right now? Is that all your willing to give? You take you 1.6 vacations a year, you eat at the same places with the same people, you do the narrative of your life so well that it's boring! Isn't it?


But doing something different is scary! What if I fail? What if I get rejected or humiliated? I could loose everything I've worked so hard for, then what? No that's just too out of the box for me!


The truth is, if you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting! That my friend is the bottom line! The question might be, Is this part of my long-told story narrative, or is it a good decision? Is it what I do out of default, or is this something that I've been called to do.


See, this is what makes ministry so insanely cool! You know where you've been, you heard that voice calling you to the more, and you took a risk! The greatest part of this... The voice calls us all! Yet, the narrative of your life, the safety, the everyday knowing, it calls you too.


I'm not saying it can be done in one day, heck, I've been at this crazy ministry stuff for well on 13 years now. Yet, when I got started, it was scary. Dang, it's still scary! We did have a lot, according to the world. But that voice, that calling, it just didn't give up. 


See, you make a decision for Christ and you think it stops there. For some people, it does. They are the ones who are happy with going to church once a week and maybe Sunday school, if there isn't a game on. But, he asks you to make another decision, a decision for more. Jesus will ask you, your whole life to give him more, Every time to give him more, there he is, asking for more again. The groovy part is, the more you give, the more you get. It's the whole paradox of Jesus and his teaching.


I was done with middle and upper management a long time ago. I'm here to say it can be done and it can be done with gusto! I wake up in a new world everyday! I repeated yesterday long enough! I don't need that new car, cuz the truck still runs. I love wearing my old clothes, cuz they are comfortable. That bottle of happiness, well it ran dry a long time ago. I'm changing my narrative, cuz I'm listening to the call. 


How bout you? Did you hear that?
             

Fear Based!

Had a great weekend with my Spiritual Director class at Mount Eagle. We are a hodge-podge group, but we get-her done! Having the time change while your at a retreat sucks. It's hard enough to get everything done without losing an hour. We are now charged with the rubber hitting the road by doing verbatim's, two of them. We find a directee and have a session and write it down and send it in. Then we get our feed back and we do it all again, hopefully better. When we show up again in July, we will know if we passed or not.


Something that I found interesting this weekend is how we all think we are the only ones that have any fear! We speak about it like no one would have any idea what fear is! I mean think about this; How do you scare yourself? Here's my example and see if you have thought about something similar.


I must work! If I don't work, I won't have any money. If I don't have any money, how will I pay the bills? How will I buy gas to put in the truck? How will I eat? I will get thrown out of the house, and have to live in the truck. I won't be able to move the truck because I won't have any gas and it will get towed away and I'll have to find a bush to live under or  a bridge! I won't be able to have enough clothes or have any clean clothes cuz I can't afford to wash them! I'll have to walk back to Durango, cuz that's the best soup kitchen in the world and surly they would fed me!


See how that works? It's a fast downward spiral that leads to the very pit of hell! BUT, it keeps us in jobs that we hate, in relationships that need to change, and in a state of fear that always has us looking behind to see what's following us. We all have it, fear based stuff.  


So how do you stop yourself? Do you? The question that I want to ask is: What are you willing to do? Me? I was willing and really have been willing for years to quit jobs and do something else. However, that has always been from job to job. What I've done lately is listen to what Jesus wants me to do. I have been able to, and willing to, quit my job and not fill it with another one. I have been willing to wait on Jesus, and to seek out what he wants me to be doing. Is it scary? Yeah! Am I out of control? Sometimes. But I'm willing to do it. 


That's how a Spiritual Director can help you, they help you hear the fear and Jesus calling. They can walk beside you in your spiritual life and ask the true director what's up. This weekend, I learned that I'm made for this! That I'm enough and that God made me this way so he could use me this way! I have always thought I needed to change before God could use me! That was a fear based thought! Now that I've gotten that out of my way, look out!          

Disappointment

So what do we do when we're disappointed? I am painfully aware of what I use to do and how I want that to change, like right now. Seems that old habits or ways of reacting are hard to change. What makes it even harder, is that I deal better with my own disappointed, than with someone else's. I'm at a loss of how to deal with that. 


For my stuff, I run and talk to God. I listen for what He's telling me in the small and big things of life. I always hear Him saying, I got this! I got you! But when it's a disappointment that effects, say Preacher man, I feel like I've donned my Wonder Woman out fit and I'm flying out the door headed towards all the bad guys that have caused this issue! I vent and foam at the mouth and really make a rather ugly scene, even if it really is all in my mind. I grab hold of the control stick and I go after it.


That's when it hits me smack in the face and I cock my head to the side a little, squint my eyes and look to the heavens asking, Is there a lesson here? Are you teaching me something, yet again? And that's when I see Jesus smile at me and hear God laugh, not so much at me, as with Jesus.


We all go through Disappointments, it's how we respond and react to them that's the rubber hitting the road. I got the ole' way down pat, it's this new way that I'm reaching for. Mainly cuz the ole' way doesn't do much good, and the fact that Jesus is calling me to a new way of doing things. He's calling me to be Preacher man's help mate, supporter and lifter upper. I have the awesome job of being the under pinning of a man that is listening to God and following His lead. It's not my job to fix the problems, that would be between Jesus and Preacher man. My job is to love him even when I want to shake him. To follow him, even when I think I know better where we are headed. To listen, instead of talk, even when he doesn't talk about it.


My heart is overwhelmed God! Lead me to the rock that is higher than I! Put your arm around my shoulder and cover my mouth with your hand. Help me stay out of the Wonder Woman out fit and be the help mate you made me to be.