Misfits

July 23, 2013 By

 

Enjoying the nature

I hope that my children turn out to be misfits.  Geeks.  Nerds of the worst sort.  I hope they don’t fit snugly into a world of perfect hair and football uniforms where things come easy.  Because self-esteem comes from knowing you’re worth more than the stereotypes.  Because failing miserably over and over builds up deep reserves of character.  I want my children to fail because I love them so.  And loving them means I want them to develop a strong moral fiber, and a confidence that only comes after the breaking.  And when they hear the words “you are not of this world,” I want them to feel the words seared into their very own scars.

In 6th grade, I had a deep crush on some boy with glasses.  Everyone knew it, and the mean girls would write notes and slide them under my desk as if coming from him.  Letters covered with hearts and cheap men’s cologne that I believed for a solid four days, telling me to wait by his locker for a kiss.  It was a lie, as I soon discovered.  And when the history teacher wasn’t looking, someone threw gum in my hair that stuck and my mom ended up cutting it out and wedging stray strands free with Vaseline.  Let’s be honest: school sucked.  Especially when I fell over backwards and broke both wrists at the same time, waddling around in high tops and matching arm casts. Try and top that, fellow nerds of the world.

One day at recess in the 7th grade, before the days of school shootings and metal detectors, someone lit up and threw a smoke bomb at me, the red ball singing with pent-up explosive authority, causing me to topple off a ledge and break my ankle.  And there was the time I was so desperate to wear Guess jeans that I sewed one of those triangle labels on the back pocket of an old worn-out pair of Levis. And for a blissful few hours, I felt special.  Until the label started to unravel in English class and I stood in front of an entire room of kids pointing and staring, practically curled over in raucous laughter.  The feeling in my gut sunk deep, and I can still feel its weight after all these years.  I was so hungry to fit in.  I ached to belong. I just wanted time to rush by so I could enter the seductive world of adulthood.  But children, you aren’t ready.  These lessons have to simmer slow.

Growing up is hard.  It should be, because this world is hard, and it can at times be filled with pain.  You have to learn these lessons at a time when you can still run home to the loving and accepting arms of family.  Many times we would take weekend trips to the city, because mom could tell my sister or I had quite enough. The defenses were tearing loose at the seams, and we just needed to breathe.  That’s what true family is – it’s a space where you can let out the air and take off the mask and learn who you really are.  Loved regardless of what you do or what you say or what you wear.  A fierce love.  An elegant love.  A love that stands next to you, so that no matter how far you run, you can’t ever overtake it. We’d order pizza and flop around in the hotel pool and just be our glorious, goofy, nerdy selves.

I will die running to tell my children how they can never disappoint me.  How the lives that they see as silly and disjoined are like masterpieces to me, patching their father and their grandparents and their own twisted strands of cells into a pride in me that swells.  Oh my loves.  The flesh of my flesh.  You will never do anything too vast or too dark to create a chasm in my heart.  And if I can wrap my heart around you like this, you can only imagine how much more God can love.

There are times I wish my childhood was different.  I wish I had cooler stories or adventures across the globe or wild weekends of desire. I cringe at my own feelings of inadequacy, feeling stupid for being tall and clumsy instead of whimsical and witty. I didn’t go to fancy camps.  I didn’t join a sorority.  I wasn’t in cheerleading or wear name-brand clothes and I only made All-State Choir as an alternate.

But I was so deeply loved.  And now I’m so grateful now for the trials, because they only get harder, and your strength is tested, and it’s the ability to rise above them that matters.  After all these years, I laugh more.  I judge less.  I have learned that great courage is found in the vulnerable places and to succeed you first have to feel the sting of failure.  I rise up and arch my back against the blazing sun with tears drying on my cheeks.  I throw my hands up to the heavens and say thank you to parents that always believed, and ran along side of me until their sides heaved with hurt, and never let go. Because I know that no matter what happens, I will be okay.  I will rise again.  I will be loved.

That’s what it’s like to be a misfit. And it’s beautiful.

 

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photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenlightforgirls/5166535531/sizes/m/in/photolist-8SxR1P-akdfhX-bMgu1F-bMgtWe-bMgtQZ-6phQVs-7agAHq-8dy5h6-7dyoo5-5D41Ga-8N68Bk-aYX5zR-a5PVqk-8ym3ak-9ftAoV-bniUuu-5PgEkR-dJz2TD-bDRPuS-6KrCDn-ciN23Q-bzd1GD-qnqgQ-f8deek-9atX92-6qeVfb-4JZYzo-f8sozW-9suffB-8MdBUz-dwCCjH-a7bmkR-brfbii-f8stCs-6vqzMb-f8smkQ-cWwwTW-f8d68t-f8ddu2-ewXdoz-7Ac25r-c7qyRs-9MtrPv-apyTJg-f8ssFA-f8d6Tz-cchaMu-aQNtkH-2kDHYR-f8sqwW-joeUC/

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Love, Motherhood, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How to Raise Children of Integrity

June 24, 2013 By

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Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.

-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Today, my son told me he was going to put me in jail, he ate a brownie behind my back, disobeyed me twice before breakfast, and my daughter likes to yell at him for being in her general vicinity.  I believe twice in the last week I’ve gripped my son’s arms a little too hard, raised my voice too many times, used the the phrases “spoiled brat” and “deal with it,” and drank wine in their presence followed by the phrase “FINE.  Don’t take a nap. Run around like a crazy maniac and see if I care.”

None of us are perfect.  If that was the standard, we’d quit wasting time trying.  But we all want our boys to someday be men of great worth, growing up tall and strong, kind to strangers and old women, perhaps playing a fiddle under the stars.  And we desire our girls to be leaders in the world, not useless bleating goats, always truthful and fiercely passionate about the talents they have been entrusted.  I lie in my son’s bed and cup my hand to his little cheek, the grime scoured off in a hot bath, and wonder how to help shape him into the man he is destined to be.  And I catch myself staring at my daughter while she is curled up reading a book wondering how in the world I’ll help her understand that mean girls are just insecure little souls, starving for attention.

And a single word popped up over and over again in my mind.  Like a smooth stone I turned it over in my mouth, rolling it around on my tongue. Integrity.

It comes from the Latin adjective “integar,” which means whole or complete. It’s a combination of honesty and consistency of character.  To act in a way that is in accordance with the values and principles a person claims to hold.  It’s the opposite of a hypocrite, who says one thing and does another.  So what does it mean to really have it?  To act it out? To model it to our children?

I don’t think you can teach it from afar. You can’t pray your kids open it up for Christmas.  They are smart little devils. They figure it out if you’ve got a forked tongue. You have to live it.  You don’t have an option to compromise if you want to raise children of integrity.  It is you that they look to for an example of how to live in this fallen world.  There are times I want to slack off and think my kids are too young to notice. But they are more valuable to me than diamonds, and I don’t have the luxury of time.  And trust me – they always notice.

Here are 5 ways I’m trying strengthen my own integrity:

(1) Maintaining a tight inner circle.  I’ve learned that while having a large group of friends is great for dinner parties, it’s the very small group of honest friends who make all the difference.  The love they have for you is established and they want you to grow as a person. Is there anything I need to work on that I don’t see?  Can I open up to this circle about my fears and insecurities? These people love me enough to be honest, whether it’s telling me I need to forgive or affirming me that I actually did something right for a change. And in return I do the same for them. Every single time, without fail.

(2) Honoring God, not People. You can’t possibly still be friends with him or hang out with her or do this or eat that after what’s happened, can you?  How can you deal with the gossip? What about your own pride? What would people say?  That’s crap, all that pride and shame talking.  Tune it out.  Ask yourself if you are honoring God, and whether you are respecting yourself, and how whatever “it” is furthers your own journey.  Open up to your inner circle and pray often.  Then follow your heart and let people say what they will

(3) Admitting when I’m wrong, and making amends.  Whether this is apologizing to my three-year-old when I lose it completely or returning that errant pack of gum I didn’t notice slipped into my grocery cart until I’m at my car– these moments matter.  My kids are watching how I handle the small stuff.  If I’ve developed a pattern of bad choices, I can always clear the deck and begin again. As scary as it is to walk into someone’s office and say “Hey – I was wrong.  I snapped at you and it was uncalled for,” it’s worth it.

(4) Refueling my Soul.  It’s not selfish to need time alone to recharge, or to go off alone to pray.  It’s not self-seeking to get away from your family in order to study the Bible, go for a walk, write, see a therapist, or cultivate friendships.  You can give only as much as you have to give, and the more whole you are, the better you can serve and give to others.  The only question is whether these activities are really supporting your family or whether they are a way for you to run from your problems.  If they are the latter, it’s not refueling but depleting.

(5) Not Hardening My Heart: This one’s been the toughest. When tragedy strikes, people disappoint me so vastly, and when life’s so amazingly unfair, it’s easy to try and build a shell around myself and not let the pain in.  One can lose faith, and stop trusting, and begin to be hardened to joy.  Let your prayer be that your heart remains soft and open at all times:  open to forgive, open to love, open to hear, and open to change.  This openness is where real beauty happens.

Living a life of integrity is hard work.  And yet we are responsible for raising up lives.  Are we not the soil and sun and water in which these little people see what a moral fiber looks like?  Do they see us on our knees, in humility and obedience to God?  You can’t change the world – only the way your children live within it.

Let’s be the medium for which our children can flourish.  Worry less about plucking the weeds from their midst and let them bloom in all their radiance right where they are planted, rising above and choking out hate with their consistent approach to love.

 

photo:

Purple Wild Flowers

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

Blogging the Bible: Daniel and the Lion’s Den

May 28, 2013 By

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Okay, folks.  Let’s set the stage.  King Nebuchadnezzar was King of Babylon in 605 A.D., and was a powerful ruler.  Whenever he raided a country, he took the most talented and useful people back with him to Babylon. He ripped off the young, flawless, handsome, winsome, and well-informed. Then he gave them food and training and groomed them to enter the King’s service.

 

Now I don’t know about you, but if I saw my nation overtaken, was taken captive and held in a strange land, and had to watch the king’s court suck down wine in sacred goblets, my heart would burn with anger.  I’d be like “no thanks for the astronomy lesson, my dear chaps” and develop an elaborate plan to escape, or try and overtake this evil reign of power, or maybe even drink too much wine and do something stupid and end up scrubbing toilets.

 

And yet when Daniel was offered royal food and drink that went against his own religious culture, he asked for permission to not partake.  He didn’t hold his hands up in dramatic protest or throw himself on the ground in some religious frenzy. He simply asked if he could refrain.  When the guard scratched his head about it, Daniel said to just observe him for ten days and see if he looked just as strong and healthy eating salads from Whole Foods.  So the guard just shrugged it off, and Daniel and his companions were given knowledge and understanding and studied literature whilst eating healthy vegetarian meals from the royal kitchen.  Daniel sounds remarkably calm and serene to me, like a true celebrity of the Bible with apparently good working kidneys.

 

So then there were the King’s dreams, which no one could interpret, and the King was so pissed off that he’d been training all these young handsome people, all the while giving them good food, providing them interesting scrolls to read, teaching them to recognize constellations, and speak in persuasive sentences, and when he has one freaking dream, no one can help.  All he hears is scratching and burping in the distance.  What’s the use of all these people, anyway?

 

Kill them all, he shouts.

 

I envision him retiring to his chambers with handmaidens and fans.  So a decree was sent out for all the wise men to die, and people naturally looked for Daniel to help, and Daniel went to talk with the commander of the guard “with wisdom and tact.”  He sought out his three best friends and started an all-night prayer vigil, basically saying “we best figure this out, dudes, or our heads will literally roll.”  So Daniel praised God for a while and then asked if He could just please show them the dream of the king so we can all live to eat our spinach lasagna tomorrow?

 

And God did. And Daniel ran to the temple all sweaty and out of breath asked the King to give him a chance to interpret it, and he was spot on, and the king placed him in a high position and was impressed with this God that Daniel so often prayed to. And again if it were me, I’d be like “thanks a ton God – I owe you” and then just sit back and get fat in my purple robe and cheese nachos, backsliding in my newfound Kingdom love, but Daniel was always consistent in his praise to God and humility in all things, and his powerful witness changed the heart of the King himself.

 

So fast forward a few kings, more vision interpretations, a few more grey hairs, and we get to King Darius the Mede.  Jealousy abounded in his kingdom due to Daniel’s position of power and he was envied, so the administrators set a trap for the King to kill any man who worshipped someone other than the King. And of course Daniel was a man of God, as we well know by now, and prayed three times a day on his arthritic knees, and was brought to this new King for violating the law.  King Darius actually liked Daniel and tried to find a loophole to save him but was unsuccessful, so he begrudgingly threw him in a den of hungry lions.  Why the King didn’t just hang him and thought having ferocious animals gnaw him to death like Sunday chicken is beyond me, but it makes for a great story so let’s just go with it.

 

I like what the King says next – he says “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you.”  I got a sense that this King knew somewhere deep inside that the God of Daniel was true and powerful, and the next day the King ran to the den (that was sealed with a huge stone, because the Bible is so into foreshadowing) and called out in an anguished tone, as if there was hope Daniel might still be alive.  And he was, probably wishing he could brush his dentures and have a pillow because this nasty smelly floor gives an old man a backache. Daniel told the King that God sent an angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions, and they did not hurt him because he was innocent and had done no wrong.

 

Let’s pause here.  Why did God sent an angel to shut the lion’s mouths?  If God is all powerful, which he is, and has dominion over all the earth, which he does, it seems to me he could have simply ordered the lions in whatever language lions speak to stay away from Daniel, and they would have purred like kitties and rolled their bodies down at Daniel’s feet for a belly scratch.  I think there is a lesson in even this.  I find God to be infinitely more creative than we can imagine and uses all forms and methods to fulfill His ultimate purpose.  And what we ask for in prayer doesn’t always end up in the way we expect. I sat wondering if the lions were filled with hunger, and had angry faces, and wanted to devour Daniel but couldn’t because of their closed mouths, and this forced Daniel to continue and rely on God for his strength throughout the night.  It reminds me of the verse in Matthew when the disciples were filled with fear during a raging storm at sea.  I mean, they were there with Jesus, for goodness sakes, and they were still scared.  “Save us, Lord; we are perishing,” they pled.  And Jesus responded with, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”

 

But Daniel, oh Daniel. You and Job were kindred spirits and loved God through the hard nights.

 

So Daniel was steadfast, and sure, and took the sins of Jerusalem upon himself and begged for forgiveness, even though later when faced with an angel he admitted that his strength was gone and he could hardly breathe.  And even after he saw the hand of God shut the mouths of the lions, Daniel was visited by the angel Gabriel himself, who said “as soon as you began to pray, an answer was given. . . for you are highly esteemed.”

 

The thing that strikes me most about the book of Daniel is the notion of steadfast allegiance.  A determination to serve God at all costs, without a single doubt. I honestly don’t know if I would have the power to serve so blindly – so unequivocally – so assuredly, especially at such a young age away from the comfort and security of my family.  I’d be sobbing and looking around for help and rocking back and forth.  But maybe Daniel did some of that too?  Maybe his young bravado spirit was also interlaced with shreds of doubt and fear? Maybe even decades later, Daniel sat there all night watching the fierce hungry eyes, shaking in his own sandals.  Even if the beasts couldn’t rip his loins apart with their teeth, they might scratch out his eyes with their claws, no?  And when he said the next morning, “they have not hurt me,” it might have followed a very long night of constant prayer just in case.

 

Let Daniel’s story be a reminder to us that if he could make it through dictators and death threats and drooling fierce lions, we can make it through cancer and death and divorce and all kinds of other modern-day peril.  It’s okay to be scared, and the lions don’t magically disappear, but their jaws are clenched shut and we shall make it until dawn.  The God of Daniel is the God of us, and He hears our very first plea-fueled prayer on the subject of what’s desperately plaguing our hearts.  In the end, God reveals to Daniel that the wicked will always be wicked, and yet the wise will understand.  And he was told to close up and seal the words of the scroll.

 

The time is coming near, my dear friends, that God will separate the weed from the wheat, and this story needs to be saved and sealed and retold to give us all hope.  We need to be reminded that being steadfast and sure is the only way through a night of hungry eyes.  God’s path will prevail, and His love will lead us through the dark night, and in the end all we can hope for is to rest, and rise, and be steadfast in the morning.  For the Lord gives what we do not deserve, and loves when we have no reason to be lovable, and sends angels to protect us when we need protecting.

 

The story of Daniel is one of great hope and safety, even when we are standing, screaming, sobbing in a den thick as thieves, with claws and hungry eyes.  But alas – an angel is with us, shutting mouths.

 

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photo:

Young lion, Kruger Park, South Africa

Filed Under: Blog the Bible, Inspirational, Love, Religion Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Be still, my soul

May 22, 2013 By

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(The Long Center / Blue Lapis Light Production)

I am blessed to know creative people. People who understand the need to create, and honor their gifts, and offer sacrifices with a brush or a song or a poem. So a few nights ago I spread out a blanket in front of the sweeping Austin skyline to watch one of my friends dance, thirty feet off the ground, like an eagle taking flight.  The choreography was amazing, with dancers zip-lining off the roof and prancing on suspended platforms and circling large pillars on harnesses that reflected their every move on the outdoor ceiling.  Through the red light it resembled devils at war, prancing and leaping and crouching low.

And the silks, oh the silks.  Without a harness at all, these incredible species of human beings climbed and bowed and swayed and made love to dangling ribbons from the sky, their bodies covered in nude bodysuits adorned with dazzling crystals, and they were the most perfect renditions of angels I’ve ever seen.  The daring moves made me gasp and draw in my breath tight as salt ran down my cheeks.  Sometimes it was too much, like pictures of children being pulled from wreckage and placed in their mother’s arms or soldiers returning from war.  I could scarcely take it in.

And then the duet began, man and woman both dangling in the sky.  She was holding onto him as he swung her free and they twirled and climbed and she trusted his grasp, her back arching and his legs splitting strong and they were so deliciously intertwined. And the concept of the marital union pulsed through my veins, remembering St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians about how two are forged into one.

A new-age voice came pulsing through the speakers, and though the rendition was new the lyrics were penned in 1752, and I’ve sung it since childhood, and I knew that God was there and is and forever will be, even through storms and death and the rubble of tornado tears.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake


To guide the future, as He has the past.


Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;


All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Because sometimes it’s not enough to express love in words.  You have to open your eyes and see it, and shut out the world to hear it, and open your heart and feel it.  Sometimes you just have to acknowledge that it’s all too mysterious to explain, and there’s no reason to trust, except you know you must, and you do, and you somehow survive.  God is not simply my friend, or my teacher, or level-headed adversary.  He is not just a crutch for my weakness or a pillow I grasp up in the long nights.

My God is the creator of the universe in which I stand.  He displays love in ways I cannot understand, mercy in a way that I do not deserve, and tears for the lost that is deeper than I can fathom.  And I accept this love, and the creative spirit, and the sweat that flows out of the pores of his children.   I applaud loud, and stand, and bow my head in thanks.

After the dancers swept across the stage and said their goodbyes, I pointed my car toward home.  In that dark and quiet night, I was thankful for the ability to accept mystery through the loud cacophony of life.  Love was born into the world at night with a star blazing, and mystery abounded.  Such love prayed for the cup to pass in the hours which we comfortably slept, but God bled out our sin into darkness once again.  Against the backdrop of the world then, and now, and what is to be.  But the rising, it was revealed.  The son, He rose. And the beauty that resulted was blinding.

Be still, my soul.  At least long enough to take it all in.   

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

Things I Tell My Six-Year-Old

May 14, 2013 By
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(1) Yes, I realize that feeding the dog one scoop of food is something we have to do every single day, and this chore is extremely onerous.  But somehow, I know you’ll overcome.

(2) Yes, you have lovely teeth. No, they don’t at all look large, protruding like boulders out of your very small mouth.

(3) Please stop squirting room spray on your pillow to help you fall asleep.  Your hair will smell nothing like ocean breezes.  This stuff is swill.

(4) No, you can’t have a Chai tea.  What are you, like 27? Have I ever ordered you that at Starbucks?  You can have an apple juice and a healthy dose of normal childhood, thank-you-very-much.

(5) I’m sorry I ironed on the Daisy pedals in the wrong order but in like five minutes you go through a transition bridging ceremony and you’ll be an official Brownie and won’t need this Daisy vest anyway so please get up off the floor for heaven’s sakes.

(6) It’s not a cartwheel when you land on both feet.  Is that a round-off?  Oh sweetie – did you just fall over?  Oh I see.  It’s your made-up gymnastics move.  Clever.

(7) Please stop eating all the gruyere.  They make icky American cheese for you children of the world who don’t really give a rip.

(8) Yes, take your purse.  You never know when you might need sparkling lip gloss, a bar of soap, and an empty wallet with fake money in it when we go to the grocery store.

(9) Why is there a bar of soap in your purse?

(10)               It’s really just eggs and potatoes and onions with herbs but instead of all that let’s call it Fancy French Eggs.  Au Revoir!

(11)               You will play piano because I said so, and it will increase your skills in all areas of life, and will provide you a ticket into the “I used to play piano when I was little but I hated all that practice but I gave it up and now all I can play is chopsticks” world of adulthood.  You’re welcome.  It’s better than “we sang opera in our underwear.”  At least I’m giving you something you can actually use.

(12)               No, we cannot plant corn in the front flowerbed.  I know that would be “so awesome” but so is the Batmobile and you don’t see me rocking that in the carpool line.

(13)               It’s true that I love you more than the entire world combined.  Because God shines through your veins like a flashlight, illuminating the world with good.  Please don’t stop accepting my love, even when I’m old and stinky.

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photo:

piano

Filed Under: Humor Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

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: , , , , ,

Rose-colored dreams

November 5, 2012 By

Sometimes I dream about silly things, meaningless combinations of people and daily routines and journeys to nowhere.  It’s like my brain can’t handle all the data and throws it together in perverted ways, going shopping for shoes while eating broccoli and meeting my husband for drinks without wearing pants.

Occasionally there is a peace that washes over my soul like blue waves.  I wake up softly, like on the shores of Maine, and flip over on the pillow with a sigh.  I thank God for coffee and warmth and softness, and it’s these moments I reach for him, lying beside me, to feel his touch.  These dreams are rich in color.  Green soothes my tattered nerves and Red rises up live lava from the underbelly of some great unknown.  Yellow bursts from clouds and Dark Violet erupts from the blackest of darkness.   Color is opera and it flows through my subconscious like a rich aria, and all I can do is be present in it, wallowing inside, basking in the glory.

And then the nightmares come.  Images that stain and bleed and cut so deeply I wake up gasping for breath.  I can’t shed the pictures and I end up churning and weeping and praying for my brain to un-pixilate the data.  It’s after these restless nights I wake alone in an empty bed with a dusty heart.  I want to shake these dreams free, angry at myself for conjuring up unwelcome images.  And yet they are all part of me, the waking and the sleeping and the living and the dead.  The sweet and the wholesome and the angry burning fire that consumes.

They all have their place, really.  The silly and the rich and the dark are all woven together to show what our minds are thinking while our bodies rest.  I had a dream once that a bomb landed in our home but didn’t detonate, and I went to the attic and clung to what I loved the most.  The very next day my life totally changed.  The bomb went off.  Pieces scattered.  I saw it coming.

I often lay in bed at night, wanting to find truth.  I pray and I read and mull over the day.  But truth is never evident in the twilight.  It’s only revealed after my subconscious repeats the day’s pattern a few thousand times.  When my body stops moving long enough to let God in.  And in the morning, things are clearer.  Not always more beautiful, mind you, but clearer.  Like a direction has been forged.

I don’t like the terror: I want to cling to the aria.  And yet we don’t get to choose these things.  We dream what we need to see in order to process life around us, and this is one thing we can’t control.  It’s a lesson to pay more attention to what your internal soul is trying to say.  To allow God a venue.  To hear the hard stuff.  Because it’s through the hard stuff that you grow, and change, and become stronger.

Dreams are not always rose-colored glasses.  Sometimes the rose turns dead and glasses break and we wake up hurting.  And yet there is hope that someday in the future we’ll wake up in Maine again.  That love will be there to hold onto.  That in time, the colors will return in waves, and we’ll smile in the knowledge that our souls are happy.  That we listened to truth.  And we’ll all dream about going to dinner without any pants while eating asparagus ice cream.

Oh my dear soul.  Let the silly come. 

—

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zigazou76/6855067667/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Filed Under: Love, My life Tagged With: , , , , ,

Why Does God Demand Praise?

July 18, 2012 By

Lately, something has been tugging at my heart.  It’s the simple question of why God seeks out his own praise. The very idea that the ultimate creator, healer, and master of our souls has a need for his own people to fall down on their feet for His glory seems a bit preposterous.  Why the demand for it?  I understand that we should desire to worship God, but shouldn’t it just naturally flow from our hearts, like giving Christmas gifts or thrusting a dollar bill out our window to the homeless guy?

This singular thought, along with the absurdity that donuts come with sprinkles (they add no flavor/they are a distraction/what’s the point) have been taking over my brain.  Actually, the donut deal just entered into my head once, while praising God is a constant, in case you think I give God and donuts the same amount of mental energy.

But I needed to dive deeper into the issue of forced praise.  I wanted to bounce the logic around in my brain and get my fingers around the words.  Words that could be strung together into thoughts I could relate to and believe in. I don’t want to just pick the answer that sounds most logical.  I desire to seek truth.  So I went to Google, which is my go-to when trying to determine if a battery is still good or how to get my son to take a nap.

As it turns out, CS Lewis already addressed this issue.  But of course.  He creates magical worlds in closets where children eat Turkish delight and get conned by ice queens.  It’s only natural that he would have tackled this perplexity as well, and better than I could ever do.  But back to my own mental brainstorming, because we are on the topic of arrogance and all.

I devised the following possible reasons for why God demands praise.  They are:

(1)  He’s God, so let’s just not question things.  Wear your best bonnet to church and eat the fried chicken, for heaven’s sake.  K?  We’re good?

(2)  It’s like gravity – we can’t help but be drawn to worship (But why is God asking for it?)

(3)  Praise is pleasing to a parent’s ear (“I love you mommy!”  “This is the greatest beach vacation ever!”) because it shows that the child is living in joy, so God demands praise because He has a desire for us to live in joy (very close)

(4)  We need to submit our own ego and by praising God it’s the ultimate expression of humility. God knows this and thus demands praise for our own good.  (This just sounds patronizing)

(5)   “Demand” is a bit old fashioned.  It’s more like “God desires it.”  (Now I just feel like I’m making things up)

God doesn’t need to prove to anyone else his own self-worth.  Who would he need to prove it to?  There are no other gods, or deities, or higher powers greater than God himself.   But God is completely God-centered.  First he says you shall have no other gods before Him (Exodus).  Then Jesus walks in and says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John).  Dude.  Every time you turn around you’re reading about how God wants to be recognized, respected, worshiped, honored, and revered.  Doesn’t he get enough praise?  I would like for my children to tell me I make the best meatloaf, but sometimes you just love them anyway without such high expectations.

We tend to align praise with compliments, such as “you sure are beautiful,” or “I really think you are a wonderful housekeeper,” or “I sure wish I could be more like you.”  These are praising statements, and no one should really ask for them because that’s just plain rude.  But if you tell me these things, I won’t exactly throw you out on the street.  I might just pour you more coffee and invite you over more often.

Think about the things you really love.  Praise comes escaping from your lips before you can even think about it.  As Lewis puts it, “the world rings with praise.”  Think about a book you recently read you just loved.  The words fell off the page like brilliant jewels, and the story captured you from the first page to the last.  You can’t wait to sing its praises.  You can barely stand not to talk about it, and refer your friends to it. “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy,” Lewis continues, “because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come . . .upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent . . . to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . .”

God is self-centered.  He has nothing to hide.  He has no errors to overcome or blemishes to patch.  He truly the center of the universe.  And God knows that not only do we come into communion with him through worship, but that the consummation of our relationship with Christ requires such praise.  Not if we want to.  Not if we have time, but all the time, every day, when the sun rises and the oak tree branches sway.  This is something God expects because he loves us so extremely, and so passionately, that he will seek us out through the cold depths of unbelief and sin.

Only by diving in full throttle, with our souls open, can we begin to comprehend such a love.  Such a bitter ache.  Such a bleed that did not come rushing out, but dripped out one drop at a time while salt was thrown on the wound.  Because through the sting, we begin to see what’s coming.  We feel the salve of his glory.  He is inviting us into his kingdom, and that is the very opposite of selfish.

I’m not sure why donuts have sprinkles, or why my children don’t stay in their own beds at night.  I don’t know what God’s ultimate plan is for my life or why I stay up until the wee morning hours pondering such things.  I only know that God is so glorious that it makes my heart want to rip apart in little shreds. I want for people to know of Him, and sing to the rafters, and dance with joy. I feel complete and full and happy. I suppose this is me, praising Him.

That God.  He’s a sneaky one.

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

brown paper stories

May 16, 2012 By

I hate to use the word artist to describe myself.  I’m not covered in tattoos and don’t work a night shift at IHOP.  I’m not struggling to make ends meet, recovering from a drug habit, or walking around with paint on my elbows.  I’m a lawyer, for goodness sakes.  The amount of artistry it takes to craft a well-rounded, persuasive argument is only appreciated by a select few.  To everyone else, lawyers are just suits whose mouths open and shut and money comes funneling into their pockets every time they answer the phone.  As if.

But even now that I’ve made a conscience decision to walk away from practicing law, it’s hard.  Hard to call myself a writer.  Hard to create things simply for the pleasure of creating them.  I feel a need to aim that ambition, the same one that fueled me through honors classes and bar exam courses and clerkships, directly into the heart of the creative process.  It’s not good enough just to write.  Any fool with a laptop can do that. I need to be validated.  I need to be paid.  I need for this to mean something.

But art is subjective.  What makes one person laugh or cry or want to call their mother might be pure drivel to another.   My husband read a blog post once that I found particularly emotional and decided to point out an inverted quotation mark.   Thanks, dude.  Glad that hit you right there in the ticker.

When I was writing my novel, I stayed up into wee hours of the night pouring my heart into the story.  I went away for writing weekends.  I traveled to Upstate New York and rode cabs alone in Manhattan and hired babysitters in the stale Texas heat just to finish.  It took almost four years of painstaking rewrites and hundreds of deleted pages.  An editor helped me comb out the background narrative and useless rookie mistakes.  But then, I expected my hard work to pay off.  I would find an agent.  I would get published.  My words would matter.  

And yet here I sit, after putting two children to bed and wiping off kitchen counters and throwing in yet another load of whites.  I don’t have the look of an artist, sitting here in black-rimmed glasses and an oversized t-shirt, with a box of triscuits and a jar of peanut butter by my side.  I instead resemble a slightly-crazy person, ignoring reality and doing what I didn’t think possible:  I’m giving in to my instincts. I’m not published.  I don’t have tangible validation.  And yet I keep on going because I simply cannot imagine a world in which I have to stop.  I put my hands over my ears when that small little voice starts screaming in my head.  No one cares.  Quit while you’re ahead.  You’ll never make it as a writer.  Damn you, little voice.  You are meaningless.

I thought perhaps I’ve not been praying enough, or listening enough, or being present enough in this writing process.  I stopped myself tonight, standing right in front of the microwave, and prayed that God would reveal to me the best path.  How I should be reaching people.  Or perhaps learning not to care so much about what those people think.  After all, I can’t move mountains.  My name might not be in marquee lights. But I can certainly speak with passion – words driven straight from the heart that was formed and blessed by God in my mother’s womb.  My heart is ravenous with emotion.  My soul is aching to be heard.  My hands tremble at the thought of writing about sadness and joy in a way that has never been done before.

And then it comes to me: God’s listening.  I create simply for the joy of creating.  My words are an offering and a sacrifice, and I can imagine no other audience that matters more.

I am an artist. I offer up these small gifts, my brown-paper stories filled with sparkling words.  And that matters, even if no one else is paying attention.

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

What makes up a life?

May 3, 2012 By

I’ve heard it at least a hundred times.  Whether it is coming from a contestant on a reality show, an artist I’ve known, a musician I’ve sung with, or a fellow mom in book club – it’s always the same.

This is what I love.  This is what I was meant to do. This is my life.

It’s an innocuous phrase, meant to place emphasis on a particular thing as important.  I get it.  Others might wander aimlessly around, trying to find their footing on the tall and slippery ladder of life, but you?  Well you’ve got all that figured out.  No more soul searching. You have passion, my friend.  A calling that few others have.  [Art/kids/music/comedy/writing/cooking/acting] is your life and you just don’t think you could continue to draw a breath if that particular thing wasn’t in it.

You can.

I’ve been amazed at how many people put their life’s worth into things that don’t last.  Fame is fleeting.  Inspiration comes and goes.  Our senses dull over time and sometimes we lose them altogether.  You will lose friends and even the strongest earthly bonds can crumble or be taken in a moment’s notice.  Children you devote your entire life to – all those waffle and banana sandwiches, for goodness sakes – can turn and just walk away.

The value of your life cannot be measured by these things.  Even though it’s tempting.  Even when these things bring you great joy or tremendous success.  Rachmaninoff gives you goose bumps.  Playing your guitar in front of a crowd is the best drug in the world. Writing makes you feel normal instead of a crazy person with ribbons of words spinning around and tying knots in your brain.  You finally made it. These are gifts that have been entrusted to you alone, to polish like fine silver and use for a higher calling. That much is true.  But it’s still not your life.

Your life is a soul, housed in a ruff-hewn body whose organs and tissues break down with time.  A body that is complete with a mouth that says stupid things, and a stomach that consumes more stupid things, and feet that rest and stay clean more often than they get dirty.  And this soul has a decision to make.  It has to choose its master.  It can dedicate its life’s work toward fleeting fame, or something that does not disappear into dust.  Music, art, writing – these do not make up your life.  But forgiveness.  Grace.  The unconditional love from God, the Father.  And Jesus Christ, his only son. This is life. 

I was raised in the church since birth.  I was sheltered and kept in a small, clean box where truth was easy and evil was dark and avoidable.  I cringe now at the judgment I placed on others who chose different lifestyles than me, or who took long, meandering paths to express themselves.  People call themselves believers and yet go home to beat their wives, cheat on their spouses, make their children feel like pond scum, or feel absolutely nothing at all. There are horrific things done in the name of God, and going to church on Sunday means nothing, really, to sanctify one’s heart.

 I’m not saying this to be righteous.  God knows I don’t have that right.  But through the course of my life’s many misadventures, I’ve grown to realize that everyone finds truth in their own time.  In their own crazy, soulful, serpentine way.   It’s not our place to judge or tell people what to believe or how or when or why.  Last I checked, we aren’t the savior police.  But when it comes to my own soul, it has been filled with love that has no human replication, warming my brittle bones and washing clean what I used to think was white, but later realized was stained and broken.

I used to think that tangible things mattered.  Like if I wasn’t here to raise my children or be my husband’s partner that their lives might possibly end.  But people will go on without you.  Someone else can sing or write or love just as easily.  These things are not the foundation upon which your soul is supported.  You cannot place your trust in these.

But the purity of God – a light so bright that you cannot view it head-on and emotion so strong it fills you with something stronger than fear itself– this is not something found in a cheesy Christian bookstore.  It is not limited to those wearing pink silk dresses and sitting in pews.  It is not reserved for those who say the right things or look the part or tug at your heartstrings or lack all intellect.  It is simply for the soul who seeks it, and accepts it with grace.

So as it turns out, the pure, unabashed, accepting love of God is my life.  My screwed up, messy, inadequate human life.

That’s all I really have.  It’s all that matters.

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

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