Setbacks

March 3, 2013 By

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We are a culture of moving forward.  When tragedy strikes, you ask for prayers and nights out and oversized glasses of wine.  You sob and wail and girl, you let that mascara run.  But then, after the shockwave hits, you want to be that person who picks herself up and dusts herself off, bopping and smiling into the future.  You don’t want to be that number who shows up on caller ID and people think “Oh no.  There she goes again with the same sob story.  Move on, already.”

But you can’t.  You need to repeat the hurt and say the same lines over again and hear words of affirmation.  You are strong.  It will be okay.  This too shall pass. It may take months of re-living the same hurt over and over again just to purge it from your system.  It just takes as long as it takes, and not one day less.

The bottom line is that you are strong.  You are healing.  Your future is bright.  But all of a sudden out of freaking nowhere you catch yourself moving backwards, or spinning in circles, and dwelling on some stupid tiny detail over and over.  You just want to crawl in a hole and hide, or put on a good face and shut the hell up.   And yet deep down, you know you need to get the ugly out.

Get it out, friend.  Pick a few very close confidants and a therapist you trust and just keep repeating yourself.  It’s 2 steps forward, 1.75 steps back.  But you’re still moving forward.  It’s just slower than you expected.  Like the tortoise, one day you’ll cross that finish line and not have a clue how you made it so far.

Setbacks are discouraging.  You want to think you’re tough and all that pain is helping establish perseverance. And yet we all relapse.  We have moments that we need to vent and monopolize the conversation and suck the energy out of a phone call.  There are times we just need to relive the hurt and lock ourselves in our closets for three minutes for a best friend to tell us we are going to be okay.  I recently had such a conversation.  It went like this:

“Talk to me,” my friend said. We’re so over hellos these days, because when I call at dinner time there must be a problem.

“Oh man.  The kids’ show is almost over and they need to get in the bath and I’m such a wreck,” I say before inhaling a large anguish-filled breath.  “The pain, it just won’t stop.” I don’t wait for an answer, like respectful people do.  I just launch into a tirade and wait for words of affirmation to come out like a vending machine on the other end.  Which is completely selfish.  And so totally vain.  And yet I need it like a drug fix so I long ago quit apologizing.  Because if the tables were turned I would do the same for her.

“You are strong,” she says.  “And you will get through this.”  And she means it.  She tells me I deserve more than I actually do, and that I’m more incredible that I actually am, and that God’s got this, and I nod and wipe my face and smile through the tears when my son comes busting in the closet.  I sing a bath song and we hold hands and I somehow make it through the next three hours with a half-smile on my face.  It’s a victory when I walk into the kitchen after the kids are down.  I’m miraculously still alive.

Everyone has setbacks.  I’m told they are normal, albeit annoying as hell, but each time they are a tiny bit easier to get over and I can rebound a little faster.  And in the end, I think I am developing perseverance.  I think God is working in the silence.  But being refined by His fire is hot, and it sometimes hurts, and it’s never easy.

Stay in the heat.  Grit your teeth and read the Word and keep burning.  Talk to God when he doesn’t seem to be listening. Because someday the impurities will be gone, and God will restore, and you’ll find yourself thankful for the process. Like down-on-your knees-in-praise thankful. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.

Setbacks happen.  Keep moving forward.

Photo:

Sad beauty

Filed Under: Inspirational, My life, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Odd and Curious Thoughts, Downton Abby Edition

February 20, 2013 By

(1) I’m fairly certain that no matter what time period we’re floating around in, Miss O’Brien should not have hair curls that resemble horns.

(2) That Cora.  Always smiling with her head turned like she was just handed a newborn kitty that smelled like baby powder wrapped in a bed of roses.  I was just getting to like her in that angry, I’ll-never-forgive-you-for-killing-my-daughter way, but now we’re back to the eerie smiling.

(3) How in the world did all those people find outfits in shades of cream?  Can you not play cricket in sage or pale yellow?  It looked like a Martha Stewart wedding for crying out loud.

(4) Speaking of color, the ladies were all matchy-matchy at Sybil’s Christening, like they all went to David’s Bridal the day prior and made off with clearance bridesmaid’s dresses.  Cream for cricket, breezy lavender dresses for events at churches that involve your dead sister’s child being brought up in a way you don’t approve of.

(5) I’m so bitter that we are left with blood dribbling down Matthew’s sweet face.  But all this “I’ll love you til I die, you’re really a nice little Mary” foreshadowing business was getting a bit dull.

(6) So Molesly gets drunk and starts shrieking like a banchee, which is good fun, but don’t we all get tired of seeing him played the fool?  One of these days he’s going to rip off his clothes and he’ll have washboard abs and tattoos.  Then who’s laughing?

(7) At least Edith is working and Mary’s mothering it up and we don’t have to just watch these women’s dreadful boring days of getting up, eating, changing clothes, and eating again.  With all that sitting and eating I’m shocked they aren’t all chubby little cherubs.

(8) I like to say Lord Grantham.  It’s so prestigious and elegant.  I think I’ll start referring to my father as Lord Franklin and see if he can conjure me up a butler, some tea, and an estate worth millions.  See also: Being a Countess should get you free Starbucks

(9) Lady Rose looks like she’s taking meth or perhaps has a nonstop Red Bull habit.  Why is she always giggling?

(10)               Daisy, quit wearing that dumpy hat.  Seriously.  You’re about to own a farm and you’re young.  Pull yourself together and tease up some bangs.

Filed Under: Humor Tagged With: , ,

Battle Scars

February 20, 2013 By

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I walked to the ring with a swagger, silk brushing against my skin as my ego staggered before me, a blur of crowd voices and cigarettes and the smell of sweat.  Before me fighters had come and gone, but this one was mine.

Let’s do this life thing because I am young and I am fierce.  

But I got sucker punched in the gut, and kicked in the face, and a string of a hits I didn’t expect.  I tried to remember all the training and practice rounds, and yet my coach’s words were grey and hazy.  All I could see coming was a left hook, a little too late it seems, and I found myself falling and slipping and heading for the mat with greasy sweat streaming from my pores. I lay face down while the crowds grew, my left eye swollen shut and my chest managing to heave in and out despite the blows.  I shut my eyes hard.

Please Lord, no.  I can’t bear to lose.

But the referee declared it, and the victor was announced, and all I could do was lay there in all that deafening noise.  The mouthpiece held my lips ajar and I could hear my own labored breaths.  I couldn’t break the pattern, for my body was surviving on oxygen alone.  I stared at the side of the ring for a long while, unable to move. My eyelids shut like curtains and I thought it was over.

I’d failed so miserably, and I’ll never be able to stand again.

But after a while I drew my legs close. I turned and raised up my back like a Halloween cat and hoisted myself to a knee.  I felt the drool and sweat and blood dripping, and when I raised my head I just saw the janitor in the stands, sweeping cigarette butts and popcorn kernels and picking up sticky beer cans.  We were alone, he and I, nothing but leftover smoke and spoils. I managed to stand on my shaky knees.  Fearful of the damage that had been caused.  Of the wounds that remained.

But somehow, miraculously, my legs found their footing.  I planted my feet apart and I raised my head.  I was alive and tall, and tears mixed with sweat as I raised my right arm above my head. The janitor stopped his sweeping and stared at the display, the loser standing in the middle of the ring, one arm raised, fist-pumping the sky with a crooked, bleeding smile.

I might have broken lips and battle scars.  I may nurse bruises and broken bones.  And yet I rose.  I stood.  I won.

It’s not the one who shows off for the crowds, or who drinks champagne at midnight, or who gets to display the trophy that counts.  It’s the one who rises, and regains footing, and manages to lift their head.  It’s the ability to make it out alive and fist-pump the dirty, rotten air.

This fight did not define me.  It did not break me.  And through the tears I walked off the rink, and past the janitor, who had laid down his broom.  He clapped, and I smiled, and I knew I wasn’t ruined.

Victory, as it turned out, was mine. 

—

Tough

Filed Under: Inspirational, My life, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Joy in suffering

February 10, 2013 By

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We were sitting there at the diner, she and I, with tortilla soup and migas and glasses of tea lodged between us. “I just lost faith,” she told me as her hands shook. “I can’t see a God in all this.” I shook my head in understanding, because I get it. There’s no judgment or trying to change hearts. There were no words left. All I could see was the soup spoon brought to my own lips by an unwilling arm, and her precious face before me. My dear friend who is suffering. My own heart that was breaking.

Everywhere I look these days, it’s heavy. Strokes and seizures and pain that never ends. Marriages suffering and children suffering and hearts suffering. I just want to say to God, enough already. It’s spinning out of control. Can’t we just wash it all away and see nothing but rainbows? Isn’t God bigger than darkness? But then the check came, and the heavy remained.

“Consider it pure joy. . . whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
James 1:2-12

I’m not real big on lumping trials and suffering in the same basket with joy, because it sounds pretty disingenuous to me. It’s not joyful when relationships rip apart and your heart aches until you throw up. You don’t jump up and down giggling when people disappoint and abandon you and your sleep is taken over by nightmares. There’s no giving thanks when the car breaks down and sex hurts and relationships rip open. You know what I want to say to those people who tell me things will work out and we’ll all be singing Alleluia in the end? That there’s joy in the suffering?

Shut up and get me some Advil.

So I’ve been thinking lately about perseverance. Adhering to a certain belief or purpose with an incredible persistence. In Psalm 22, the author pleads to God with a clinched fist. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, and hearing the words of my groaning? I cry by day, and you do not answer, and by night but I find no rest.

Yet you are Holy.

That sentence whispers and screams and crawls inside my head. It rings with persistence. And when I curl up in a puddle of tears, or I sit before friends who ache with no words of encouragement, I remember. Like a refrain that can’t be stopped. Like a bedrock that cannot be shaken. Through all the many, many trials. Sometimes all I can do is raise the soup spoon to my lips. I can’t fix it or control it or make someone see the world like I do. It’s all so taken over by hate, and our hearts are consumed. And so I sit with my hands folded, enveloped inside myself, and know that the light will someday come. That God is true.  Even when life is never, ever fair.

It is in these moments that I start to get it. Believing when it doesn’t makes sense to believe. Knowing God exists despite all the darkness. And I understand what James is saying about being tested, and being persistent, and how blessed that awareness can be.

Spiritual maturity comes from suffering. And in that growth we find joy after all.

—

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/4416263785/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Odd and Curious Thoughts of the Week

January 20, 2013 By

(1) I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about bank names.  I’m sure people pick their bank in terms of location, or online service, but what if we based it on names?  I’d be petrified that Wells Fargo would take my paycheck, transfer it into gold coins, lock it up in a ricky wooden box, and bounce it along on a stagecoach to Dallas.  There are robbers out there, people.  And who is Chase chasing, really?  I kinda like the image of Frost, where their people are cold and rigid and won’t let some stranger sign my name on a check without peering at them over wire-rimmed glasses and asking for seventeen forms of ID.  But it crosses a line somehow with all the I Heart America banks, like adding Federal or National or America to the title gives it automatic credibility.  Would you switch brands of applesauce if it said Applesauce of Liberty?  

(2) My daughter was staring forlorn out the window the other day on her way to school.  I was worried she was harboring some vengeful and growing hate toward me since I yelled at her earlier about putting on her shoes.  “I’m just thinking of a castle playground where there are many sparkling pools that transfer you into a mermaid and you can travel through special tunnels.”  Sweet.  All the while I thought you were mad.

(3) This Saturday, I took my children to the Stock Show in my hometown.  I might have been wearing a pair of Seven jeans and fancy boots from Dillards, but I really felt that I fit in.  As we walked around looking at pigs and cows ready for auction, my children said the following things: (a) What’s that awful poo smell? (b) Oh my gosh! A cow! (c) why does that goat have so much fur? (d) can we leave for lunch soon? and (e) where’s the antibacterial gel?  Oh wait.  That last one was me.  Maybe I am a city girl after all. 

(4) I was watching Martha Stewart on Television the other day, where she spent like ten total hours preparing beef broth out of bones and vegetables.  It involved sauteeing, deglazing, simmering, checking, and straining. In the end, it made like one container of broth.  Girl, if I’m spending my precious Saturday worried that much over future soup, it better make enough to last me until retirement.  

(5) I think it’s funny that my husband and father refuse to speak Starbuck’s little language and just say “I’ll have a small coffee please.”  I wonder how many men walk in there all bow-legged and manly asking for a medium cup of joe.  The baristas just roll their eyes, like “would it have been so hard for you to just say grande?  Couldn’t you have gone to McDonalds if you hate our fancy code words?”

(6) I made an entire pan of roasted brussel sprouts the other day.  My daughter acted like I was asking her to eat battery acid, but there was ice cream for dessert and she was determined to prevail.  Finally, after plenty of mock gagging and loads of whining, she peeled off the layers of half a sprout and dramatically put each layer on her tongue like a Listerine Breath Strip.  Oh the drama in our home. 

(7) And finally, don’t make an entire pan of roasted brussel sprouts.  You have lots of leftovers no one will eat, you can’t throw it into a quiche, and they make your house smell like used socks.

Filed Under: Humor Tagged With: , ,

Was Jesus Beautiful?

January 18, 2013 By

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One of Chris Bohjalian’s characters in Midwives dressed two-clicks above.  You can wear wrinkled slacks and smell like used cigarettes if you want, but I’m showing up in heels, my blond highlights blowing past you in the dust. Being beautiful is the closest thing we know to power.  And in this world, power is life.  So yeah, I get it.  I understood the urge to hide what’s inside and cover it all up with a jacket.  Our insides are dark and insecure, and the meek don’t live long in this bitter place.  You can say all day that beauty is skin deep and only comes from the inside, but when you want a job on 11th Avenue, you shed that fallacy and get with the program.  Bust out the Bergdorf suit.  The black one that makes you look slim and intimidates the competition.  Because you only have one shot and one first impression. Wear quelques fleurs.  Buy Burberry. Make it count.

So it makes total sense that Jim Caviezel got the part of Jesus in The Passion of the Christ.  He’s stunning, really.   Just peer into those brown eyes and neatly-trimmed beard and tell me you wouldn’t want to listen to that man talk just to see his mouth move.  Who wouldn’t want to see Jesus with straight teeth and soft skin and strong biceps?  It makes us cry quicker and weep more deeply and feel more connected with a man who is attractive. It’s more tragic to see Marilyn Monroe die than some prostitute from the Fifth Ward. Because Marilyn was beautiful, which to us means she was more worthy.

And yet Jesus was not beautiful.   “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces,
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” Isaiah 53:2

I thought of the Sermon on the Mount, where the poor in spirit inherit the Kingdom of Heaven and the meek prevail.  Where we should be less attuned to beauty and its false sense of security. Jesus turned the whole world on its head, and suddenly all we ever saw as value just fades like blood from a cut that bleeds in a bathtub with a champagne glass and a handful of pills.  What a waste of a beautiful life. 

And I stop in my tracks, with my expensive blond hair and a diamond burning a hole in my finger.  I rip the pearls from my neck and they spray around the living room like popcorn in a movie theatre, dirty and scattered.  I stand with my head thrown back and scream at darkness, this dying and rotting skin holding up my broken heart.  Beauty can’t be trusted.  We gravitate like animals to what we believe will breed more cleanly, and will produce a more perfect fruit.  Yet as we click toward this devil, who lures us so strongly in the name of self-preservation, Jesus stands.

He looks at all that caged-in ugly, and we are suddenly free.  And I am filled with awe.  Because I have never before been faced with such raw power.  Something that grips my insides and holds still my heart and quiets my rage. A power to raise the dead and clean wounds and move mountains.  I’m not worthy, as all this darkness pours out at his feet, from my blond roots to my trembling fingers to the buttons on my Bergdorf suit, and there surrounded in pearls on the floor I lay all my shit bare.

I just lay it all out bare at his feet and weep.

We should all strive for “the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”  1 Peter 3:3-4.  Past the skin and the suit and the jacket of insecurity, there is great peace.  I want that peace to penetrate through these blue damaged eyes, two-clicks above this world, walking tall.  As it turns out, beauty is not power.  But God’s power is so exceedingly beautiful.

—-

Photo Credit:

The Passion of The Christ: Philippe Antonello

Filed Under: Inspirational, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

A letter from the babysitter

January 13, 2013 By

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Note on my kitchen counter when I came home last night:

Tonight’s Babysitting Experience

  1. Your son fed the dog half his dinner
  2. I should have brought my bathing suit for bath time because your kids are freaking WILD
  3. No one went to bed on time
  4. I let them watch a movie and eat life savers.  I hope you’re cool with that.
  5. Pete’s Dragon is such a lame movie.  And old.
  6. Your son cried for his pacifier, but we couldn’t find it so I massaged his face until he could no longer resist my charms and he fell asleep.
  7. We watched Miss America.  But only the talent portion where the girls played the piano, sang musicals, and performed terrible dance routines. Your daughter clapped for them all.
  8. Miss New York won.
  9. Basically, I’m the worst babysitter ever.

Love (followed by a lot of puffy hearts),

J

My reaction?  You’re a rock star.

When my son woke up, he went searching the house in hopes that this sitter was now living with us, like a dear friend who came to stay for the Winter.  Which confirms my belief that parents have an obligation to hire very young, hip people to watch their children so that offspring get a glimpse of what cool looks like.

Here’s to another night out very soon. . .

—

Photo Credit:

IMGP4364 - cooking jackrabbit

Filed Under: Humor Tagged With:

Laugh Until Life Makes Sense

January 10, 2013 By

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I’m not a big fan of bumper stickers.  I find it odd that people want to display their political sentiments on a used Honda for the world to see.  I find it annoying to have to stare at hateful words about our President at the stoplight in front of the grocery store.  And I’m amazed so many people put stick-figure families on their mini-vans to display how many people and pets live in their households.  Yes, yes. Michael plays soccer.  You have a cat.  Riveting stuff.

My own daughter asked that her school name be displayed on the back of our Chevy Tahoe.  But do you think given my poor driving and bad texting habit I want to announce what school we’re affiliated with and have people stare into the car from afar to see if they know me? You don’t know me.  I’m likely to run into you from the rear by accident or be smirking unpleasantly at your family of stick people.

So it might surprise you that I slapped a bumper sticker on the back of my car.  Yes I did. The very woman who is constantly shaking her head at the stupid Jesus Fish / Darwin Fish debacle.  It’s on there, firmly planted square in the middle.

Laugh until life makes sense.

It’s one of my life mottos.  So when I saw this sticker a year ago, I immediately went home, created a (very often unseen) circle of clean with a paper towel and Windex, and stuck this saying on my back window.

Sometimes I check my rear-view mirror and see my daughter lip-syncing to Katy Perry, or notice that my son has used his squeezable yogurt to finger-paint on the back glass.  But quite often I simply catch the word – laugh. It’s written not only for the cars behind me, but for me to see when I need it most.  There are times I don’t feel like laughing. Times when I’m gripping the wheel in prayer that I’ll make it until lunch.  And yet somewhere in there, there’s a silver lining.

Given enough space and distance from pain, life can be funny.  What other attitude is really worth having? Who wants to hang out with people who scowl all day, eat fiber, and gripe about the lack of comfortable pants?  My oncologist said that people who laugh a lot really do live longer.  From one who’s made it through some rough health patches, I can use all the help I can get.

When my own life gets hard, I lose weight.  I end up putting the coffee creamer in the pantry and buy multiple cartons of eggs.  My dentist tells me that I might need a root canal and I realize my sobbing cry face looks like a hollowed out whale. So I go to the mall to invest in a quart of face cream but catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  How did a homeless woman end up at Neiman’s? Don’t they have security in this place?  Oh, wait.  That’s me, wearing a sweatshirt from high school that says Coca-Cola Classic.

And just like that, on my way to the YMCA to choke out a run on the treadmill, I smile.  It bobbles up and down into a chuckle, which erupts into a real belly shaker, and a few cackles later I’m in full-on snort mode.   Did I really go to Neiman’s wearing sweat pants with a hole in the knee?  Am I seriously going to need a root canal?  Why in the world do I have all these freaking eggs?

This life we live doesn’t make sense.  There is so much killing and suicide and death and mental illness.  There’s chaos and disarray and a dusty, cursed earth.  And yet we are made for more than this.  We are not in this place forever.  The righteous will not be moved, and you can only do what you can do in a day’s time.  And when the really hard stuff hits,  you’ll be prepared.  After a night of no sleep, you’ll wake up to discover you’re out of coffee, your kid’s school uniform is dirty, it’s snack day at your kid’s preschool and all you have is raisins, and some wild animal has knocked over your trash can in the night, strewing trash all over your front lawn.  You  have to fight demons and hurt with friends and heal from grief and now this? Yeah, it happens.  And it’s a tiny bit funny.

Ecclesiastes says there is a time for everything.  A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.  3:4.  So mourn and sob and weep and sigh.  Take Advil and Zanax and buy more coffee.  But in the end, realize that you have enough eggs to make quiche for the tri-county area, and that’s just downright weird.

As for me and my Chevy Tahoe, we’re dwelling in this season of laughter as long as we both can, puffing and choking and driving toward the bitter end.

—-

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/philliecasablanca/2578387623/

Quote “until life makes sense” credit:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Laugh-Until-Life-Makes-Sense/202930039805662?group_id=0

Filed Under: Humor, Inspirational, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

Life isn’t fair

December 28, 2012 By

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Sometimes life’s a turncoat. If I had a sling shot I’d just shoot life right between the eyes because I’m David and small and yet this big old Goliath-life barges around like a bully.  I might have little value in this world but I’m a fighter, so someone please hand me a rock because my hands are shaking and I need to throw something.  Patience is a virtue, the Bible says.  It also says the meek inherit the earth and all kinds of other proverbs that are right and true but I’m so mad I could spit. Because the wicked win and the good folks lose and there is nothing I hate more than losing.

I’m not sure where I get the notion that fairness is a virtue, that we should all be getting halfzies and year-end bonuses and that our lives should always bear fruit.  Sometimes we water and tend and earn and then life just rips the apple from our hands before it touches our lips.  We lay down our life and praise Jesus and make tuna casseroles.  We light candles and light up the room and nurse our babies in the thin lamp of morning. We make love and war and fight for what’s right but in the end life turns on you like a liar.  Children are shot.  Marriages crumble.  Cancer invades.

So excuse me, patience, but you are weak and all I want to do is throw hard. 

In Psalm 73, Asaph believed that God surely loved the people of Israel.  But how come they were all sitting around starving and hurting while the wicked suffered no pain? Why are the bodies of the shooters and the sinners and the money launderers strong and well fed and immune from trouble when mommas are losing their babies to sick-headed teenagers with guns?  Why are some women abused and raped and the men get to drink whiskey and disappear? For the wicked do not suffer as other men do.  Asaph tells God, “Take a good look! This is what the wicked are like, those who always have it so easy and get richer and richer” as if God’s busy taking out the trash and can’t see that Donald Trump is eating caviar while the poor kid from Detroit has to sell crack to feed his own brothers. I could feel Asaph’s hand clasp around the rock.

Life is so not fair.

Asaph said that if he were to be honest and publicize his thoughts – if he were to admit that his own feet almost stumbled and he was envious of the wicked and that his “insides felt sharp pain” at this obvious disparity, that he would have betrayed his flock.  And yet we have the benefit of reading his blog entry from thousands of years ago where he wrestled with the same questions we are facing about fairness and justice and why bad things happen to good people.

But then, Asaph entered into God’s temple, and “understood the destiny of the wicked.”  It’s hard to explain this feeling, that God holds our right hand. That His presence is comforting and earthy pain isn’t forever.  “But as for me,” Asaph says, “God’s presence is all I need.  I have made the sovereign Lord my shelter.”  And just like that the grip is loosened.  The rock falls.  And fairness becomes just a whistling in the wind, insignificant and transitory.

Fairness is never guaranteed.  If you pray and give money to the poor and eat your vegetables, things should work out like magic and sparkles and you’d end up in castles with weddings.  At least that’s what my daughter thinks.  And yet it’s not.  Everywhere I look I’m struck with the unfairness of things.  People who did nothing wrong are struck with fate.  Hit by death.  Ravished with cancer.  Eaten away by evil and left broken and lost with shattered hearts and tear-stained faces.  It seems like the bad get the gold and the good are left with sheet metal.

And yet in the middle of the rubble, we rise.  We step over piles of hurt and pain and heartache, and through our shrieks of loss we keep on moving.  We drop our rocks and loosen our anger and instead cling to the hand of the Father.  Mother Teresa once said that “we cannot do great things on this earth, only small things with great love.”

Life isn’t fair.  Love anyway.

—

photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toolmantim/3308320306/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Filed Under: Inspirational, Love, My life, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

The man who saved the world

December 15, 2012 By

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News flash: some people smell.  They are dirty and have bad yellow rotten teeth and are downright creepy.  There is mental illness and instability and greed and lust and all kinds of nasty in the world.  People hurt.  People harm.  People leave damage in their wake.  Others cover up their scent by brushing their teeth and shopping at Nordstrom.  But on some level and in different ways, we all have dark sins raging.  We fail to trust and wait and submit. We are told to give up all our wealth and follow Jesus, and yet we balk and twitch.  No Superbowl Sunday?  Nuh-uh.  Crazy fool.

Even way back in Jesus’ day, there were men lying in fields who didn’t choose to lay with their wives and bounce children on their knees like respectable people.  They smelled the same as sheep because they lived with them.  They never cleaned behind their ears or washed out their mouths with soap and chose a dirty profession like animal wrangling over jail to escape the reality of doom that befell them in the real world.  There are always broken people that don’t fit well in the real world.

These people.  These shepherds.  These men without hope and women who sold their bodies and slaves who bore deep red marks of shame?

Jesus came for them.  On a dark night thousands of years ago, he came.  Jesus came for the f*#k-ups. 

Don’t be fooled that you have some sort of special place in line.  That by churching it up and having monogrammed napkins you earned a place.  You are just one of these dirty huddled masses.  God looks at the soul not the skin, so you can skip brushing your hair for Christmas Eve Service because it doesn’t much matter in the long run. Jesus wasn’t born in Upper-Middle-Class Suburbia, in a garden tub surrounded by the glow of an Orange-Vanilla Yankee candle.  I think it’s harder for us middle-class, brushing-teeth types to fall on our knees.  To drop it all and follow.  To hear the heavenly chorus.  We have surround sound, and microwaves, and our hearts are too plugged up to ache.  We have pills for that these days.

Shepherds didn’t ask for Jesus.  They didn’t pay for tickets.  They certainly didn’t earn the right to see him face-to-face.  And yet as they were lying by a smoking fire in the middle of nowhere, angels appeared.  Legions of them shrouded in golden light.  And these dirty travelers?  These jail dodgers and broken hearts? They dropped everything and ran to the child.  They followed the brilliant light to feel peace in the mere shadow of the prince.

Jesus came for the blind and deaf and weak.  The man who hates himself and loathes what he has done and feels inadequate with his life.  The screwed-up mess of a woman who is ripped and addicted and empty.  Jesus came in the night, piercing through clothes and expensive perfume and black mascara straight to broken, aching hearts.  He came for you.  And all at once, it all falls away.  A calm beyond words.  A peace beyond understanding.  The wings of angels cover, and you know.  Sweet Jesus.  There in the street and in the wallpapered hospital room and in the bathroom stall.  He comes to you where you are, smelly or not.

We don’t deserve such love.  And yet God reaches to the farthest corners of the world for us.  There is no field dark enough or prison wall thick enough.  He peers into the very essence of death and pulls out life.  All we have to do is leave the old and follow.  The light is blinding.  The angels are calling.  Jesus is whispering in the night, in dreams and visions and is saying our name right there in front of our bloody faces.  He is born!  Come, and follow.

Merry Christmas.  From one f*#k-up to another.  

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photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/khrawlings/3805370725/sizes/m/in/photostream/

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