Run for Rwanda Take 2

It's here again! Last years race was overwhelmingly successful and everyone hopes for an even greater participation this year.

Through last years race we were able to contribute enough money to complete the maternity and HIV wings of the hospital. This year they will start work on the pharmacy and hospitalization wings to complete the project.

I'm excited to be running again having gotten my foot issues resolved with different shoes. I'm planning on running even faster this year ; ) Watch out.

If you would like to sponsor me or even participate in the run you can visit http://runforrwanda.org/. It's the First of August.

Myself a river

A friend of mine prayed for me the other day and as she was leaning in and trying to listen to what God was saying she saw a picture.

Something like a river or ribbons of different shades of blue, moving and turbulent, yet with a rhythm. When she asked God what it meant she perceived that it was something like contained chaos and, even more, perceived that the river was headed somewhere.

In that image my heart hears that all the elements all the misdirections of my life, all the dead ends are accounted for and are the many shades of blue in the stream. I feel many shaded in my make up with inclinations and abilities that don’t coalesce, but the picture would say that who I am and the events of my life are all flowing together to one destination.

That is a great comfort to know that my life is contained in God’s sight, in his desire for my redemption and his desire for a kingdom of people that is his own. Nothing about me has got him stumped. He is not wondering what to do with me.

Thanks be to God.

The Mean Time

I've been over optimistic and will have to retract on my said plans for going to massage school. The very plain truth is that there is just not money to do this and there is just no way I am willing to dig myself a larger pit of debt to climb out of later.

In all honesty it hurts. Initially I cried, then I was hopeful and peaceful, and now I'm back to stuck and waiting. I am no longer feeling relieved of the what should I do question? So I've embarked on trying to be thriftier and to save something so that I might have more when the opportunity comes around again.

What do I do in the mean time so I don't go crazy? I confess that I tire of waiting for these far out on the horizon hopes. I also confess that I have this strange hope that what I find in the meantime may actually become more meaningful than the destination.

The whole situation though, begs larger questions. Larger questions about the ordinary of life. There is so much waiting, at least my life has had a lot of that. I think so often that the only thing that matters is arriving, is doing the thing you where made to do or having something or finding someone, then the real life starts, then you will be satisfied.

That way of thinking sets up this sort of rightness or wrongness of things. I tend to think that while I am not being or doing the "thing" I am wrong. When the truth is that I am merely on my way. I think that this might be the most liberating truth I could take hold of and yet it has been the most difficult to receive. It's a truth that I constantly bat away because if I can't believe in arrival than what should I believe in?

You know what I really want, and want to believe is that I'm fine, that I will move through my life in time, that I will move through my life near to God and not opposed to him. That the nearness will be enough, that it will satisfy all the time and that the doings of my life will be free from carrying the weight of my happiness. And that ordinary will be just as lovely as all the rest.

A radical thing

Last night I was at a small gathering of folks who wanted to worship. There were eight of us who came together with just two guitars and our voices.

The Spirit of God was with us, to my delight. With us just as much as when I'm in a big gathering with a whole band and a whole congregation. There was something sweeter though.

I could pick out each persons unique voice and sense each persons particular delight in God. Though each of us agreed at some point in the evening that to delight in him is a paradox and a strange thing.

I spoke something aloud that I want to remember. It's a radical thing to be in the presence of God. He has done wonders and miracles to restore us to Him. God could have made a much tamer world, a much less dangerous or painful world, but he didn't. He is quite serious about rectifying what went off the rails, but even the going off the rails was not a surprise to him. He's not scrambling to get things fix. On the one hand that makes me feel very safe and secure on the other I wonder what else he will have to let happen in order to have us back in his Kingdom. But getting us back to the Kingdom is what I believe everything is about. It matters to be with God and it's radical. Just making it through this life is not enough, jobs and homes and families and all that stuff is not the point. Returning to living in the presence of God Most High is the point. And then from that all the other stuff flows and much better than with out him too.

"No eye has seen, no mind had conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."

The luck returns

Did I forget to mention that the plant survived. About a week or so after whacking off all the dead stuff it started shooting out new leaves. At the same time it started shooting out blooms.

It's lush and full again, fuller than it ever was, in fact. The leaves are a dark green with a burgundy hue underneath and more vibrant than when I bought it.

Maybe I have to thank the mystery bad do-gooder who desecrated it in the first place.

Is this like how God used the Babylonians to judge Israel or how Jesus took hold of what every farmer knew, the seed has to die before it can live.

God uses everything, everything. Doesn't matter what. He is more confounding and wonderful than I think I will ever understand. Even when we get to heaven, I think there will still be things to wonder at and not quiet understand, but there will be love, lots and lots of love, Oh and some lush green plants too.

Bring me your naked muscles

I've embarked on a whole new thing. After swallowing my pride about acquiring yet more education, I've decided to go back to school. This time I'm nearly %100 sure that what I'm doing will be something that I will like, maybe even love. I am leaning toward love.

After how many years of disliking one's work, I am going to risk that there is actually something out there that fits me. I honestly think I'll be good at it. No more sitting all day in a chair, answering the phone or staring mindlessly at a computer screen.

I might have more time, more money for the things I really do enjoy and want to do. Write, take a trip once in a while, ride horses (not just clean up after them). Oh yeah and pay off all the debt from the what am I doing, things will get better years.

The next year won't be the easiest. I'll be working full time while I attempt to go to classes, study and complete the necessary practice hours for certification. That's where your naked muscles come in. I'm sure if your lucky I'll be kneading some sacrificial volunteers.

So get in line right behind my mother. You will have to wait till sometime in later July or August before I actually start using guinea pigs. Classes don't start till June. Hallelujah it's a new day.

The luck runs out

Well after being out of work, due to a voice stealing cold, I've returned to find that some concerned citizen watered my Shamrock while I was gone. Unfortunately it looks as if they have watered it to death.

After a whole year of keeping it alive, actually green and healthy it's foliage has now been reduced by half. I don't think I want to know who it was. That way I don't have to feel personally angry with someone. I can just be mildly grumpy at the universe. I just don't know that I can handle looking at such a scragly looking thing for another year before it decides it's time to shoot out new leaves. This is where I give up on plants.

Hmm. . . hope you all had a better Monday.

Keeping Track

So yesterday evening I was totally exhausted when I drove to the store for some essentials. On the way at lest two people pulled out in front of me, didn't accelerate and drove five miles below the speed limit. I tried not to be frustrated, but felt personally slighted anyway. I zoomed around them, not above the speed limit
being so careful as to not break the law myself.

I parked, shopped then headed to the check out. The express lane, 10 items or less, was looking wide open. Another woman gets there first, with a cart. I start counting her items, sure that I am I being slighted again for the third time on this trip?

Then suddenly very quietly I hear, "love keeps no record of wrongs." Oh busted? I stop counting, have a little giggle and drive slow all the way home.

Things I'm thinking about

In no particular order

1. Oatmeal

2. Ted Haggard

3. Getting off coffee

4. Green Tea

5. Guitar lessons

6. When I'll get to sing again.

7. Spending less money on food.

In the Open

So I said goodbye to the boy and in simultaneous joy and relief I've said goodbye to another thing. It was a sort of fantasy I've harbored for way to long. You know the kind, shameful and inappropriate and the sort that threatens to ruin every joy that you've managed to acquire. That's the silver lining in it all. The boy helped me get over the fake thing while I was faced with the possibility of a real thing.

So I find myself in the open unnameable, where I don't know anything, but am asked to hope. I'm taking up a cross again and it hurts. I wonder if I can hold on to my own revelation that Jesus is in this insufferable open with me, the place where his heart resides. The fantasy took a lot of time and space to navigate, to keep it from actually poking its head into reality. But now I'm again in the space of total dependence, in total need of mercy for a real and holy thing to show up.

I know my track record for filling in that open space for latching on to something that I can name and handle and settle for. I find my heart pleading with myself and with God, "not again, not this time, not another few years of misguided, tainted hopes."

Last night I was naively hopeful that something holy and new would come along, but it was all thwarting and strain and me looking around asking "what's going on?" The words of the Pharisees I read yesterday, in that book I carry around with me, came to mind. "Didn't this man come from Galilee? Isn't the Christ suppose to come from David's family and from Bethlehem." They knew all about what was suppose to happen, they where so sure and in that sureness they where actually blinded to the real thing when it did come. I wonder if I am so sure I know that I am set up to keep missing it.

This morning I tried to relay the tension I was feeling to a friend. Someone who has never handled me in a way I like, but when you start to feel desperate even a smile your way can lead you into folly. I tried to relay that I had an odd and disappointing evening, that there was so much expectation on my end and then it was stopped over and over.

She came through the way she always does."Well we don't always get what we want," she said then left me there, as if that was the greatest truth in life. Momentarily I spiraled back into a lonely isolated feeling, still looking around for a commiserate companion, for some one who knows that the "valley of trouble is the door of hope," someone who knows that it's the same place where the devastated "will sing" again.

Apparently

I think I've used and heard this word so much lately in a certain context, that I had to say something about it.

Apparently

It’s become obvious
that I’m about to make a
clever observation,

and am drawing notice as I
tip my head up and glance my eyes down,
to explain what you have not seen before.

I am working very hard at impressing you
with my steel trap,
nothing gets by me mind.

I am not giving it up
even though it rings in my ears so much now
as a cheap, nonchalant way to thrill,

Apparently.

All Together

There is a certain moment in the Sunday morning liturgy that captures me every time. Pastor Ken takes the bread in his hands, raises it up and breaks it in two saying,

“We break this bread to share in the body of Christ.”

And all together we respond,

“Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread.”

What I’ve just heard is that I am no longer an outcast. No one can trump any one with their suffering, or with their success, with their goodness or with their badness. Christ has united all in their suffering and sin and need for redemption. In this act and with these words we humble ourselves to share in the one bread.

All together we share the bread of suffering. Lately I’ve been thinking of the suffering of waiting. There are many things that we wait for. We wait for clarity, or health, for a place to rest or a direction to travel, for a loved one to return or for justice to be done.

But the deepest waiting we do is for the unnamable, as John says, “what we will be has not yet been made known.” And it is here in the open unnamable that we are called to be. To remain open to what the Lord hasn’t yet made known is also to remain empty and inherent in emptiness is pain. Emptiness is unnatural. The soul, as nature, abhors a vacuum and so it aches in the emptiness. Everything in me and you wants to avoid the ache, to be full, sated and at rest. We are willing to fill it with anything and even God has said to us that “your desire will be for . . . and . . . will rule over you.”

So, to remain open is to chose suffering, but it is a holy suffering and one we share with Christ. As he groans for his return we share his groan and that draws us into his very heart. There is the cost though of those often compelling, but lesser desires, but when we are drawn into his heart we know the exchange of the rule of desires for the presence and rule of his love. This is the kind of suffering that the faithful of Hebrews chose for “none of them received what had been promised” before they died, and yet God loved them and celebrated them for continuing to want and wait on God’s fulfillment.

And so we also share in the bread of redemption. Redemption now, but also in the end. It’s striking what Hebrews says in the next breath. “God had planned something better” than the faithful getting what they desired in their time. God’s plan is that “only together with us would they be made perfect.”

All together we will share in the final redemption. That is something better. I don’t know what you expect when the Lord returns, in the moment that we “see him as he is” and in the split second it takes for us to be transformed into his likeness. I expect to be stunned upon seeing him and exclaim, “It’s him!” and then turning around to tell someone else, only to be stunned again, “It’s you!” and then the dawning realization “oh my, it’s me too!” I can’t wait to see Abraham’s face or Jacob’s face or David’s face as they finally see, finally receive what they have always longed for. I can’t wait to celebrate all your dear faces, having known your specific pains and longings, having endured the openness together, in that moment of you and everything becoming what it truly is.

Number Three

I just returned from date number three. I've heard it's suppose to be the magical number. Unfortunately there wasn't any magic in this one. I'm just not feeling it. I'm sure he will be baffled. I smiled, I laughed, I told sympathetic reciprocating stories. But on the inside I was bored, and uninterested and didn't want to share one special thing about myself with him. I didn't want to get him to ponder beautiful things with me or find myself imagining any kind of a future with him.

On the way home I sang in the car. I thought, usually when I want to show someone how I care about them or I want them to like me, I think about singing them a song. I haven't thought about singing him a song.

Now it's public right here on the web. I hope he's not terribly offended and Lord willing he won't find this little blog. Any ideas about how to let him down humanely and fairly. I'm sure I can't go on one more date with out telling him how I'm really feeling.

A Flower Shoot!

There's a flower shoot on the plant that sits on my desk at work. Could it be a miracle of spring already? I think it truly is, since I usually manage to kill plants. It's almost been a year of just green leaves on this one, but it's actually going to bloom again. Some how it inspires trust in the seasons to return and if I just keep watering it it will do what it's suppose to. Yeah!

For this brief moment today I am not sad that the fun part of winter is over and the enduring part is here. Yesterday I actually looked up to see when I'd be able to run outdoors in the daylight after work. It'll be March, March 8th to be precise. Guess it's the gym until then.

Falling in Love?

What does it take to fall in love? What does it take to fall in love with the right person?

Everything looks right. You ask the right questions, you're curious, you respond accordingly, you call when you say you will, you bring flowers, you don't presume that you can just touch me or kiss me. I see that you are very interested in me. You don't back away even when I don't respond. All this and I am not moved.

I think if you can make me laugh, honestly and not just a sympathetic chuckle at your attempt to make a joke, I might start to swoon.

Fun, I've always imagined that I would like to be with someone a little more fun than me. Someone who is more willing than I am to get into trouble. I play it close to home and the vest unless I really know the risk will pay off. I don't know how that more fun person would feel about having to drag me into things though.

I could love a person who helped me to get unstuck and didn't mind wading through.

I could love a person who had a common purpose in life. If only I could figure out what mine is.

Profession, I never thought that there would be objections in my mind to what his profession was, as long as he had one, but does my family really need another engineer in it? This is probably unfair, but I can't ignore that there is a wall that goes up when I hear that.

I wish, though it isn't necessary, that he was here close by so that I wouldn't have to leave this life that I already have, the friends and church I love and the opportunities I have to sing. Could there be a love worth leaving for?