Bloom

This is one of my air plants. I use to have more than I do now, which is something a Master Gardener doesn't like to admit. This crazy thing is blooming. As I think about it, it's bloomed every year since I got it. It just sits in this window day in and day out and then BAM! It blooms.

This is something that sustains me. Blooms in the dead of winter. Just when I was looking for another reason to be upset about something, God let's this very small plant bloom right in front of me to remind me...

There is beauty if I but look.

In order for me to see, while I'm looking, I need to be open to what God has for me. If I make my mind up before hand that all is not right in my world, this gift of a flower might be missed.

I'm having a hard time with things not being right in my world right now. Things have not gone as I had hoped and dreamed. 

But God...

He gives me just enough to keep on keeping' on. 

How about you? What sustains you? Are you looking for them? If you aren't looking, are you at least being open?

This is Fat Tuesday! Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the start of the season of Lent. I am preparing to walk with Jesus from the mountain to the cross. 

Lord, give me eyes to see and ears to hear!

Strange

Something strange is happening. This is Holy Saturday. It's the day of Holy week that we really don't know what to do with ourselves! Should we be sad, happy, expectant...

This is the time when the funeral has happened, the dishes have been cleaned, the food put away and we look around and say Now What? We are left alone in our aloneness. This day lacks a precise meaning and I for one find it difficult to know what to do. It's like I keep waiting for someone to say something, or start whistling, or singing. Something!

This is the time between the knowing and the unknowing. It is filled with a promise, but it brings such emptiness to my heart. 

I have spent this Lent with Jesus in his suffering. That might sound strange to you, but suffering has become a known companion to me. In dealing with rejection, guilt, and failure I have begun to get a small glimpse of what Jesus might have felt. In being excused as unimportant, or even just a bump in the road, I have become friends with suffering.

Something strange is happening and all I can do is stand firm on the promise...

I will never leave or forsake you!

Come Lord Jesus!

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday. Carnival is Latin for Farewell to the Flesh. So today is the big farewell to the flesh day that ends very sharply at midnight as we prepare for the 40 days of Lent.

I'm going to bet the further away from Louisiana you get, the less you know about Mardi Gras. I'm also going to bet if you know when Mardi Gras is and what it means, you might just know why we are celebrating at carnival. We are preparing for Lent.

This year is light years away from last year. With us being out of the church, I'm finding that this season is more personal than it has been in a long time. I'm not saying I've got it all figured out, I'm saying that Jesus is calling me to a different way of being in this season.

It's about waiting, listening, and walking with Jesus as he prepares to go through the passion on his way to the cross. For me, it's about being with Jesus through his suffering. The suffering that he chose to take on for me.

I read a post by JD Walt that was titled Can we please not tell each other what we are giving up for Lent? I have to agree with JD, I really don't want to know what you are giving up, or taking on, for your journey through Lent. 

Lent is about prayer, fasting, and giving to the poor. It's about preparing yourself for the walk to the cross with Jesus. To be with Jesus in his suffering. When I really think about Jesus suffering for me, I am overcome with grief. There is a part of me that wants to comfort Jesus, that wants to try and make everything better for him. I can't figure out if it's just me being human or trying to control the situation.

But I will have 40 day's to sit with that and listen. Today is Mardi Gras aka Fat Tuesday! The Carnival day that allows me to say farewell to the flesh. I probably won't be apart of any real celebration, but knowing that I could be sorta helps.     

Wore out?

I've been blown away by the effect Easter has had on me. As a PW (Preacher's Wife) more things get on me than your normal non-PW, you know...the wife's out there. We have to be that support that comes from a deep place so that the Preacher Man can wear clean underwear, eat enough protein to keep up that smile, and brush the demon's off his back when he comes home for breaks. It really is a never ending cycle of strange demands that was not taught in seminary!

For some strange reason, I thought Christmas was going to be the big demanding Holy holiday that would pull me to the edge of the cliff and call me to jump in order to save myself. I was wrong. It was Easter.

I think it has to do with the preparation during Lent. No, that can't be it, we had Advent before Christmas. Maybe it was the lack of the church knowing how to prepare that wore me out. I found myself saying, a lot to other's, Spend time with Jesus, just be with him on his way to the cross. I believe in the mist of this time, I did spend that time just being with Jesus.

I feel like that was what he craved, and no one would really do it. He asked them to stay awake while he prayed, sleep over came them. He was denied by Peter, left alone in chains, beat to the point of death, and the one person who did struggle to get to him, wasn't allowed to comfort her child.

So I spent time just being with Jesus and it was hard. It pulled my life right to the surface of my being and it hung there, raw and open. It literally wore me out, physically, emotionally and mentally. So I'm done, stick a fork in me kinda done! Lay on the floor and not shower for a few days kinda done!

Preacher man, being a man of secret smartness, that remains hidden from me, even after 20 years, has planned this vacation to commence after church this Sunday and last for ruffly two weeks. So now, preparing for said vacation is wearing me out... More to come....  

Double-bind

I went to my centering prayer group on Monday and before prayer, we read from a book. What we're on right now is Thomas Keating's The Mystery of Christ. This is a deep read that I can only take a small bite at a time, mainly cuz it's packed with info. We read over the Passion in Mark 15:22-38 and then over some of the thing Keating says about it. What really struck me and still strikes me every Lenten season, is what is being called the double-bind. I'm sure we all experience it on our spiritual journey at some point, but no one ever experienced it to the degree that Jesus did. The double-bind is a crisis of principle that brings about an overwhelming problem of conscience. Two apparent duties that call out for total adherence seem to be in complete opposition to each other. 

A classic example is in the book of Job. Job struggles with the problem of innocent suffering. He knows he is innocent, yet everything has been taken from him. His buddies keep telling him to admit that he has sinned, so God will forgive and take away his suffering. His double-bind consisted of trying to avoid accusing God of injustice and at the same time remaining faithful to his conscience which told him that he had done nothing wrong. 

No one ever knew God the way Jesus knew him. Jesus knew it was all about relationship: a community of persons sharing infinite life and love. Jesus had that relationship with God and tried to transmit it to his disciples. Jesus never suffered from the feeling of separation from God that is our experience as we come to rational consciousness. This feeling of separation is the source of our deep sense of incompletion, guilt and alienation. 

Jesus took this on himself. As Paul writes, "He who knew no sin was made sin for our salvation." Jesus' double-bind is the choice: "Am I to become sin and thus renounce my personal relationship with Abba?" Or "Am I to become sin and thus experience separation from the One who is my whole life?"

Something to think about as we wait with Jesus this week is what his dread was. Not so much the prospect of physical suffering but the impending loss of his personal relationship with the One who meant everything to him.

I'm telling you Keating makes you think.

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.  

Long Lent!

I was looking at my calendar today and it looks like I'm busy, than openish, than the doors get blown off in June. However, I seem to be walking into this time with a little more gentleness than normal and while it's new, I like it!


I had a day of striking yesterday on the packing front! I just spent time in the back yard with Sam and did some reading. I told Preacher man I was resting and he asked, From what!? SO I'm thinking in order to keep up with my 2-3 boxes per day quota, I need to do between 10 and 15 today. Dang, how does this happen?


I wanted to share an insight I had this morning, cuz maybe it will hit you in just the right spot too. 


I am so grateful that Lent is over! I have no idea if that's the right thing to say but, Hallelujah! Amen! For me, it was one long Lent, one long walk with Jesus to the cross, and one deep place that I'm truly glad I went to. A friend on the east coast told me, One long Lent = more space and time for the desert to bloom! It's true and I love it! I believe that I did what Jesus was calling me to do this Lent. (and Sister Rachel, who got orders from St. Ignatius) It was hard at times, but being on this side of it, makes it look easier than it was.


I walking a little softer now, breathing a little deeper, and I pray, ready for the next few month. I could very easily change into my custom that you see at the top of this page, but I'm just not feeling it, so I'm not going to go there. If I pack it up today I won't be able to put it one until we get to Sherwood!


The cool thing is I feel like I'm right where I'm suppose to be, doing what I should be doing and I'm not freaking out about not having a job, or all that stuff that goes with it. 


Oh, I found this button in a drawer! It made me laugh!

Holy Week - Forgiveness

I think as a general rule, we find Holy Week a little difficult to understand. The Catholics seem to have it down, but I think it's more like we as human's just have a hard time with suffering and not running from it.


The thing I'm doing this week is just being with Jesus on the way to the cross. To stand when he stands and fall when he falls. To have sorrow with Jesus in sorrow, tears and deep grief because of the great affliction that Jesus endures for me. To support Jesus through this week and just be with him. What I want to do is act like Peter and cut off an ear, or the rest of them, to just disappear when the hard part comes.


Why do you think that is? Am I the only one that wants to avoid pain at all cost? We are so quick to dish it out, yet taking it and standing there, well that's another story all together. I really want to lash out as this week goes by, it's my nature. I want to protect Jesus, make excuses for the way these people were acting, take the hammer away before it strikes the nail! Just make them stop!


Then I read the seven last words of Jesus... The first of which are Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. The first words from the cross are about forgiveness, can you even get your head around that? To forgive those that rejected him, those who inflicted the pain on him, those who turned away and did nothing to rescue him. Me. You. Us.


His very purpose was to bring forgiveness to us, for us. That is something I think we forget about God, we know that God is love, but he is more Holy. Holy can not be around sin. We are full of sin. So even though God loves us and is love, we can't be with Him because we are sinful. Our whole relationship is about forgiveness! The Father sent Jesus to be the word of compassion and forgiveness; and now, as his Church, we are to be that same compassion and forgiveness in our world.


Dude! This is so hard! I've been struggling with this for more than this week, and it is just flat out hard. Know why? I believe it's because we don't really have it in us to do it. Jesus has to do it through us. I have been praying for the grace to want to forgive. I do want to, really I do, now anyway. Now I'm praying that Jesus give me his compassion and his forgiveness to do the work that needs to be done!


What I think is important to remember is that everyday, I wake up and I remember the things Jesus has forgive me for. That humbles my heart and makes it easier to forgive others. Is it done in a moment? You bet it is! However, the evil ones keeps helping me remember the wrongs that have been done against me. So I have to lay it down again. Maybe everyday, for a while. 


But you see, I want to forgive. It gives chances for new beginnings. It allows me the honor to walk with Jesus to the cross. To comfort him in His pain. To support him in His calling to save me!       

Last Week of Lent!

This is the last week of Lent. Sunday is Palm Sunday and we go with Jesus into the city of Jerusalem, are you ready? I was reading one of the many things I get on email and I was struck by how this dudes life was pretty much running the same course as mine right now. This is the time of Lent that really starts blowing my mind because so much is going on. The crowds are getting huge that follow our King, the miracles are coming one after the next and the people are thinking that this Jesus is going to save them, save them from Rome. Yet here I am, working the Master Gardener Hotline this morning, cleaning up the 2 van's that Preacher man took to Mexico, thinking about what to fix for supper and maybe going for a run. Does any of that have anything to do with Lent?   


This Lent has been so different for me and I can't put my finger on it except to say intense. I'm sure that the Spiritual Exercises has something to do with it. I mean when Sister tells you to lay down your anger and follow Jesus to the cross, and you go, Who? Me? It has been intense!


There is that feeling of dread that overshadows this wonderful spring. There is my heavy heart that feels bigger than normal. Am I the only one who feels like they are walking through thick paint? Everything takes such effort for some reason. I think knowing the whole story is part of it. I know Easter is just around the corner, but I also know what we have to go through to get there. It's just a hard time for me spiritually right now. 


I heard about an idea I'm going to share with you. After Palm Sunday we walk right into Holy Week. Time should be different for Holy Week, so I'm going to take off my watch. I'm going to get in tune with God's time for a week to see if things don't change for me. I'm going to let Him take me through the week, on His time.


Should be interesting to say the least! 


   

Echo of Ashes

Preacher man made it down to South Texas late last night and they are well on their way into Mexico by now. Me and the herd... well... we're working on a plan, yeah that's it, a big plan! 


I planted basil and dill in pots this morning, in fact, I beat the rain that's moving in as I write. Putting them in pots will allow a fork lift to be placed under them so they can be transported to our next location. I also took the dogs for a short walk and I had a protein shake. Got my study done and had some really awesome God time so now I guess I have to get busy with something that needs to be done. Posting a blog!


I found this is a Joyce Rupp book that I have. I know we are already pass Ash Wednesday, but I felt the need to share this with you. For me, it draws me to a deeper place, a more mindful place. I hope it does the same for you.

The Echo of Ashes

"Remember you are dust 

and to dust you shall return."

the large brown bowl

rests on a purple cloth

its roundness holding ashes

freshly burned

black and ready for wearing.

blackened thumbs

press the ancient sign

upon the waiting foreheads.

I hear the message repeated

until it haunts and hunts me down:

remember, remember, remember

you are dust, dust, only dust

someday only dust will remain.

the echo of the Lent-stained ashes

speaks the truth of my humanity:

the humbleness of my beginning,

the simplicity of my departure.

A few wise words

echoing through Ash Wednesday

urge me to deeper things:

renewed dedication,

constant compassion,

and mindful awareness.

I leave marveling

at how simple and sublime

is this envelope of the soul,

which one day returns

to dust, dust, only dust.

~Joyce Rupp~  

Busy

Preacher man had me watch a YouTube where a priest was talking about how they had cancelled all the activities in the church, cuz no one was showing up! People were just too busy to learn how to pray, see what Jesus had to say, or anything else for that matter. I find that very true, and I also find it very sad. Some churches have what they think is success during the week as they offer food and something for the kids to do, but how many of the parent's or for that matter, folks with no kids involved, are even there? If they are there, are they involved? 


Let me ask this question: Does your church have a men's ministry? If you say yes, do you know what it looks like? When we were in Durango, we had two men's groups. The United Methodist Men and The Promise Keepers. The UMM made a hot breakfast each week for themselves and chatted during the whole thing, but I don't know that they "did" any learning, just eating. The PK had cold cereal so they could spend the time going over a study that 1 or 2 main men always taught. They tried, but did they grow men stronger for Christ? Did they encourage each other to be courageous men for Jesus? I don't really know, cuz I really couldn't tell. 


Preacher man has tried to start a men's group for 2 years now. They don't eat, they just pick a book of the Bible and they read it and talk about it. There's no other book that they go off of, except the guys that can't think without the Bible commentaries. I think he's trying to show them that God can talk to you without anything but the Bible, and he can't get more than 12 at the most to come. You know the sad thing, when he goes, so will the group. 


People just don't and won't make time anymore. I had a Bible study when we first got here and 2 people showed up! I thought they would at least want to come see what this new Preacher's wife had to say... Nope! 


Someone has us so busy being busy that we don't really have time for God. We give him Sunday and isn't that enough?!! We have retirement to enjoy, and kids to raise and money to make and stuff to horde, you name it, we gotta make time for that before we make time for Jesus. 


This has been part of my road to the cross this Lent. I have been someone who has been very good at being too busy. Yet, I'm seeing that the more time I make for God, the more time I have. I'm sensing that the old way of doing things, were not so bad! A lot can be learned from the Desert Father's and Mother's, from the Saints and even from Wesley! You will never once see one of them EVER say something about getting busy! I dare you to look!


My heart hurts because we don't really understand Lent anymore, no one is teaching us about it! We read where we should deny ourselves, but no one is teaching what that looks like, so we give up sweets for 40 days. 


As I look out my window, I see the flower pedals from the Bartlett Pear tree falling like snow, I can almost sense Jesus crying in these pedals. He is weeping because we have forgotten Him. We have become to busy to even seek.   

Calling

Getting ready to be at Mount Eagle for the weekend! I really do enjoy going to these spiritual direction classes. It's all about to come to an end as we have our last class session in July. It's hard to believe it's been 2 years already and yet, I thought it would never get here! 


That brings to mind Lent once again! Is it not the longest 40 days ever? Probably because it's 40 days not counting the Sunday's that fall in there. Sunday's are feasting days, it's like saying; You've worked hard at giving up stuff for Lent this week, so you can rest and have something to eat! What we need to think about, or maybe I should be saying it more like, what I need to be thinking about is what did Jesus give up for me. That's what Lent is about, remembering what Jesus did.


My Spiritual Director reminded me the other day about the price of discipleship by retelling me a story about Peter. When Nero was burning up Christians, Peter was leaving Rome and he saw Jesus in a vision walking into Rome. Peter asked The Lord what he was doing. Jesus said I'm going to Rome to die. Peter turned around, and went back to Rome and was killed by Nero. Peter could have kept on going out of Rome, but was that what Jesus was calling him to do?


When you make a decision to follow Christ, do you think that's it? I use to too. What I'm seeing is that Jesus continually calls us to more. The Disciples followed Christ and had choices to make as they followed those 3 years and after Jesus was crucified. Most of them left when the going got tuff, but the 12 stuck it out. Even they had a hard time at the end, but came around. We have the same choice to make. 


We can play it safe and do our Sunday 2 hours, maybe take on a Bible study, sing in the choir, bring food for the pantry and greet folks when they come into church. This is all good stuff, and for me it was a great place to start. I don't know when it started, maybe after an Emmaus Walk, but I started to want more. I started to ask harder questions and Jesus started to answer them!


So, is Jesus calling you to more? Have you been listening?


You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress. ~ Saint Athanasuis

Darkness of Lent

I don't know about you, but this Lent has been hard! The crazy thing about it is I didn't give anything specifically up for Lent, not unless you call giving your life up to God giving up something.


I've been doing this Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius for 23 weeks now and I'm just now wondering why the course doesn't come with a warning: DUDE! Run for your life if your not ready to lay it down! Don't go a step forward if you think this is a make you feel good kinda learning! If you think you've been stretched before, you ain't seem nothin' yet!!! Why is there no warning?!


I was talking with my Spiritual Director yesterday about this and wanted to know why I didn't know this to start with. He told me that St. Ignatius, (before he was Saint and was still just Dude Ignatius) came up with the exercises for the men who were thinking about joining the Jesuit Order to make sure the decision was of God and not of them. I believe this is a good thing he came up with, however I think modern folks should get a warning. I did find this in paragraph 21 this morning: The structure of these exercises has the purpose of leading a person to a true spiritual freedom. We grow into this freedom by gradually bringing an order of values into our lives so that we find at the moment of choice or decision we are not swayed by any disordered love.


So I sit here, looking out my window at the beginning of life that's happening in nature, I feel the call to the cross of Lent. What's it really about? Have we forgotten about the darkness of Lent? I think we have. This is the time to prepare to go to the cross with Jesus. We hear half flippantly, to lay down our lives, pick up our cross and follow Jesus. Is anyone really doing that? Or do we just "get through" this time so we can be all happy about Easter? 


This is the way I see it, candles should not be lit, black clothes should be draped over them. The cross should be covered, pastors should not be wearing white, and no happy or alleluia songs should be sung. This is Lent! 


So I do feel like I'm giving up for Lent, even if I'm doing it outside of  the church. It looks like they are trying to soften the blow once again of what Jesus did during his life and on the cross. It was death and it was messy! These are the days leading to the cross and we are afraid. Not wanting discomfort, we hide from the mess, doing ourselves a disservice in the process. 


Jesus is calling us all to get real with him in one way or another and we keep putting it off. I'm thinkin' that if Jesus hadn't gone to the cross, and we were waiting on us to do it, we'd still be waiting.      

Map or Compass?

This is one of my favorite times of the year. Maybe favorite isn't the right word to use, but I do look to Lent as time to grow into who God is calling me to be. It's a time to look at the compass more than the map. 


Think about this for a minute. How many of you have a smart phone that has a GPS in it? That a map in some sort of a way isn't it. Have you ever gotten off of what it considers to be the map and been off road? I have! Part of the trail that I run is not part of the GPS mapping system in my phone, so I look like a die hard runner of off road. Map's are changing all the time and I'm sure this is one of the many reasons Preacher man feels the need to stop at every state we pass through to get a new map, yearly!


But how often does the compass change? Not so much huh? So why do we spend so much time learning how to read the map and not how to read the compass? Maybe if we were to learn more about the compass, we would point in the right direction even if the map said to go another way. 


My compass is Jesus and even when the worldly map says it's pro-choice, I know my compass says all life is beautiful. When the map says marriage can be whatever you want it to be, my compass says one man with one woman. 


So for Lent, I'm going to spend time with my compass.