So, I thought I was dying early Saturday morning. I had gone to bed with chest pain that radiated down my right arm. It hurt to swallow, but it wasn't indigestion. I had eaten catfish for dinner, but didn't think it was any of that. So at 3 AM, I'm awake, worrying about having this heart attach that seems to be lasting for way too long!
After racking my brain trying to figure out what I had done, what Preacher man said to me earlier came back to me: Maybe you pulled something!
That's when the light came on and I remembered hauling around a 12 foot ladder at work! I had pulled some of my chest muscle, on the right side! One of the first things my sister says to me is You know, your not 21 anymore! To be totally honest, she was more right than I wanted her to be.
Yes, I do think I can do the same physical stuff that I've always been able to do. I mean think about it, if I stop moving 12 foot ladders around, #1 who's going to do it? #2 look at what I miss out on!
That brought to mind, living in the now, the presence. God wants us living in the right now, so that we can see His blessings and lessons and jobs. Yes, He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, but all WE have is right now. So I encourage you to live today to the fullest.
My heart aches over the death of Ed Greenwood. Art teacher, dad, friend, cut up. It causes me to want to live more in the present.
My sister and brother-in-law were in town for the weekend. It was great to able to spend time with them and my folks. I'm sun burnt, my right wing is not at 100% but I'm just grateful right now. It's hard to explain when you live in this gap. This place that is no longer and not yet. But here we will be until God says so.
Remember, today is all you really have!
I've been thinking about what it means to live simply or to simply live. They go hand in hand now that I've been thinking about it. So what does that look like? Have you ever thought about reducing your carbon foot print? Do you even care?
Here's some things I've either done or I'm trying to work into our lives.
I'm hanging our clothes out to dry. I know there are people out there that don't like the feel of line dried towels on their soft supple skin, but I personally think there is nothing better than a thirsty towel. Not to mention, that I'm drying my clothes with the help of nature. They smell good, iron up awesome, and it just makes me feel good to do it.
Something else is recycling our trash. The city helps with this by providing awesome yellow trash cans and picking our stuff up every other week. I enjoy the fact that I have more recycle than trash and feel they should pick up recycle more often than trash! One things has really opened my eye's while we've been doing this recycling, it's how much we package stuff that is just silly and wasteful. If producers would cut down on packaging, we wouldn't have so much recycle to deal with.
These are just some things we've been doing to live simply, which helped us to see how important it is to simply live. To slow down and tune off the world and just be. It's hard to do when you work for a church and live beside small children, but it's the kids that help me see it's all about running as fast as you can, finding that turtle, being pushed on a swing, and eating blackberries. It's sitting on the back porch, watching the birds at the feeder and the ones that are living in the cucumber plants. It's about making enough dinner to last for a few more meals so you just heat it up. It's simple, everyday stuff that I'm doing to help us live in The presence.
It's all we really have and all we've been promised. Yesterday is gone and we pray we learned those lessons. Tomorrow might not ever get here, so what are you waiting on?
We're heading out today for some R&R. Just want to sit around and watch birds and eat good food and talk a slow story. Don't want no drama, or excitement, or other peoples issues. Just wanna be in the moment and simply live into it with all I've got!
I talk a lot about living in the present. I got to thinking the other day, well, if your not living in the present, where are you living? My thinking on this, is either in the past or the future. One of which is gone and you can't do anything about it, and the other might never get here. It's living in grief and regret or the land of 'what if.'
Dr. Fred say's it this way: From the vantage point of Christian spiritual practice, being present is about being present in the moment to the presence of the triune God. In that way, and in that way alone, is the meaning of any moment made clear to us.
It's not just about paying attention to what's going on around you. It's not just about living in this moment, as opposed to any other moment. It's about THE presence of the triune God. Paying attention to what God is saying through the things that surround you. Living in this moment so you can see and hear what God has for you right now, cuz that's all you've really got anyway. No promises of tomorrow.
To me, it's about making time, not finding time, to spend in THE presence of God. Starting my day with Him, always re-calabrates me. In this way, any moment is made clear.
Boy, am I glad I announced I was going to be posting more! I don't know what I was thinking, oh wait, I'm sure I wasn't thinking and I wanted to share that with you!
I went to Fort Smith on Friday in order to be at the monastery bright and early for class on Saturday morning. Had to drive through a horrific storm in order to get there and came to the conclusion that I prefer driving 80 in hard rain in a truck! The Mini did just fine, I on the other hand, was offered a scotch upon arrival.
While I was gone, Preacher man had a visit from a man that we have been waiting on all summer long, the tree take-her down dude! Both of the very old, planted too close to the house, pine trees, are now down. They are down all over the back yard and the dogs have no idea where to go potty, but they are down.
I have been buzzed by Humming birds that don't know where to land in order to wait for other Hummers to buzz! Every black flying bug that lived in the trees are swarming and in a really bad mood. It smells like Christmas in the back yard and now we have to start cleaning up and there are not enough hours in the day!
Do you find that your day is too short too? That all you do is run from one thing to the next? Without taking time to slow down and just breathe? Do you find that every time you do sit down to breathe, you get buzzed? I am with you, but the really cool part is, God is with you too.
I found yesterday, I just had to do some physical work in the yard. I now have close to 200 iris' ready to be replanted somewhere. The cool part is they aren't under my Crape's anymore! However, every muscle in my body is now buzzing me!
There is just something that calms down in me when I pull things out of the ground. That ripping sound of roots being pulled from the earth, the smell of the damp dirt... it puts me smack dab in a Holy place. So yesterday, I got to play with God in the dirt and he showed me how even the worms are something he's proud of. When the day was done and I was cleaning up, I looked over what I had done. It didn't seem like a huge amount had been changed. Then I noticed, something in me had shifted. I was calmer and stiller than I had been in a long time. I don't know how long this shift will last, but when I start to get crazy again, I will go see about pulling something else out of the ground and allow myself to re-center on what really is important.
We need to remember that the evil one is out there ready to steal our joy, every day. When we don't take time or crave out time, to just sit and be with the Holy One, well, we end up being the ones being ripped from our ground! So take 20 minutes today to sit somewhere that you enjoy, and ask God to speak to you, then watch and listen. When you make time for Him, he shows up!
I'm finding that I'm being pulled to move my place of solitude. That sounds kinda funny doesn't it. I really miss my big over stuffed chair that we had to sell before we moved to Sherwood. I could get all comfy in that big ole' chair and just spend my time with God.
I found that last year, I was needing more of a structured place where I could place a candle, have some cards/icons around me. So I set up an alter on a tea table, got a great old rocker to sit in and gathered my things I would need to be with God for an hour. This has worked just fine for over a year, but the other day, after Preacher man had gone to work and the neighborhood had calmed down, I took my things and went to the back porch and me and the birds spent some awesome time with God!
I know as the weather changes from summer into fall, I am lovin' hanging outside, but that will change on day's like today that are hovering around 48 degrees. The point I'm trying to make is find you a place, set apart, where you can be alone with God. It will look different for every person, but it should be a place where you can just be with God for around an hour. Now don't freak out about the time, you have to start somewhere, but you also have to shoot for something. Start with 15 minutes. You will find as you grow in your comfort with God, you will want to spend more time in His presence. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said Spend one hour a day in adoration of your Lord and never do anything you know is wrong, and you will be all right.
Solitude is where the changes happen in us. It's the place where Christ remodels us in his image and frees us from our false self. If you are in ministry, and we are all in ministry whether we know it or not, you need to have this time of solitude. I see it almost like plugging my phone up at night. If I don't plug it up, the next day it's running slow and shutting down. If I don't take time to plug into God, to spend time alone with him, well... you can tell!
Compassion is the fruit of solitude. We may just have to look at that next.
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!
Preacher man and I set up for our Bible study last night around 5, came home, got it together and went back to church about 6:15. The women had been in the sanctuary last week and the men had taken the fellowship hall. We had around 20 women and 11 guys, so we thought we'd get a little closer and put the gal's in the hall and the guys in the conference room. Mind you, I set up for 24 women, cuz a few had told me they couldn't be at the first one, but would make it to the rest. We began at 6:30, after adding 2 more tables and a total of 30 chairs, which were all full! I have never in my life had 30 women show up for a Bible study, ever! There's a part of me that wants to break them down into smaller groups so we can have sharing going on, and there's a part of me that say's keep it one group.
It blew my mind! I told them so too! I did most of the talking and I felt like that's what they wanted and needed right now. I was talking about how precious they were and that they were worthy to have God's Holy Presence live in them and it was like God smacked me up side the head. I sensed Him saying; Look at them, I love them so much and I think it surprises them. They are my sweet girls. Just look at them. Who wouldn't love them? That's when it hit me... no one has told them that before.
My heart was breaking and I really couldn't talk fast enough to get the words out. I told them again of their worth and that God had a plan for each of them. A few had expressions that showed shock, but I had to confess, I knew how hard it was to believe. How could God love me, for me? The answer is, I don't know, but I do know he does.
See, I think we as women have been tying for so long to be just as good as men that we have forgotten how to be women. We want the power and the prestige, to climb that corporate ladder and be all that we can be. But then we see that the ladder we've been climbing is leaned against the wrong wall, our power and prestige has gotten us heart attacks at 50, and we are flat out miserable!
That my friends, is when we can be molded and formed by the master. When we come to the end of ourselves and all we can do is look up, that's when God say's My Turn!!!
So we have started on this journey of seeing our spiritual life as a cup, ready to be filled with the Divine! I am beside myself with excitement and can't wait to share with each one of these lovely ladies, just how much God loves them and to see what He has planned for each of them!
Yeah God!!! Get em!!
I sit here and look at the two books and one article that I should be writing a paper on and I want to scream! Compare what you find in the 3 sources! They are all three about the Spiritual Exercises only they are a little different because they were written by 3 different people. Only problem, that sentence doesn't make a paper.
I also need to be re-reading my journal notes from last years exercise and I can't find one of the journals. How is that even possible? It's the red one with my name written across it in two different directions. The only reason I remember that is because I was staring off into some of my pictures today and I say it in a picture. Great! But what did I do with it after the picture was taken?
Preacher man is at a meeting and I just can't bring myself to write a paper that would make much sense right now.
I leave Friday afternoon to travel to Fort Smith, to stay at St. Scholastica, which almost feels like a home away from home. Funny thing is, it only feels that way when I start to leave. It's not that I want to be a Nun, even though I've told Preacher man if anything happens to him, I'm gone. It also isn't because the food is awesome, even though I have a new love for soft boiled eggs. It's because when I'm in the monastery, I feel The Presence like a thick blanket of fog that you can't run through, you can only walk slowly into it!
It's not that The Presence is only at the monastery, it's just easier to pick up on there. You are forced to slow down, invited to walk the labyrinth, the gardens, check out the small book store, sit in swings or just stay in your room, which by the way has no TV. As you go through the grounds you continually ask yourself if you could live there, like they do, in a community. I feel like that would be the easy part for me, what would be hard would be the solitude.
Come to think of it, solitude is becoming something I rather enjoy as of late. Strange, this extrovert of all extroverts likes to be alone sometimes. I'm not very good at it yet, but feel I'll keep at it to see where it goes. It's just easier to be around people and to get energy from them so that I can do whatever it is I need to do. I like to blame being alone on why I can't get anything done around the house, I'm tired of doing it alone.
Yet, in the quiet of being alone, there is a certain stillness that grabs my attention and calls to me. It could be the deep calling to deep. I don't want to miss God's presence, and if I don't take time to be in solitude, I just might miss it.
I have been away for far too long. It will be good to be back among the Sisters and The Presence.
