From Friday to Friday, Birthday Extra

1. Birthday Breakfast with my Besties

2. Birthday Walk

 

3. Birthday Massage 

 (whereupon I realize it is the 21st birthday
of this difficult-to-photograph guy...)

4. Birthday Reflection, with Empanadas

 5. Birthday Run-Home-to-find-Florist-in-Driveway

6. Birthday Sweet Frog with Friends/Piano People: 

Becky and Anne and all of the Children

7. Birthday Dinner (Really, Margaritas):

with Joan and Letitia and Linda

8. Birthday Life Counseling, 

followed by Reflection in My Yard

From Friday to Friday, 11

[When whatever ends up on my phone, ends up here.]

Today I am Writing: On Books, Everywhere

Recently my friend arrived back in the country and, walking through my house, said, "There are so many more books!"

She seemed pleased by this.
(Her exclamation of "I love it!" gave her away.)

And she is right. I look around my house and notice that practically every surface that could hold a book does hold a book. There are books on the shelves of the bookshelves as well as along the top. There are books under the plants by the front door and there are books stacked on the radiator in the kitchen. There are books on the tiny table I bought to hold my herbs and there are books on the stools that sit next to the chairs. Sometimes books even get left out on the porch, next to all the bug-away supplies. Upstairs there's more, on the desk, on the night stand, in the basket on the floor. During the day when I'm working, the bed is strewn with them too. Stacks and not-quite-so-tidy. There are books. Everywhere. On many different topics.

There's the book on systems thinking, and the book on the nature of shame. There's the book on making a home and the book on what it looks like to think about "respect." There's the book on thinking musically across cultures and the book on growing up black in white America. There's the book of poetry and the biography of the poet. There's the book on finding God in everyday things and the book on finding Him in the dark. There are many more than these, on the subject of many more things.

I take a mid-day location break and I take two of them with me. I'm only going to be at the cafe for an hour or so, but one book does not suffice. I need them to talk to each other. I need them to fill each other in. Neither is complete, and neither one is entirely me. But both have things to offer.

Sure enough, I read, "We never say exactly what we mean when we write."* And I think that this is why I collect these voices, lining my house with words. We never can say it all enough exactly, but still, I want to find it.

I want to find what we mean.

*The Art of Teaching Music, Estelle R. Jorgensen, p. 11

From Friday to Friday, 10

[When whatever ends up on my phone, ends up here.]

Today I am Writing: On Making it Right

I am on my way home from the store when I see her, the woman standing at the stop sign. She holds a board that I can't fully read, but I make out enough: She has a family, they need food, gas, money. The intersection is a bad one, and my schedule is tight; I don't stop, but I think of her for the rest of the night. I think: Even if I'd stopped, would the 20 I had in my wallet be enough? Where the need is great, it would take more than this to make it right. (I think: I wish though, that I were the kind of person who simply stopped.)

A few days later we pray with a man who is in so much pain he has lashed out and hurt others, badly. I see Jesus standing next to me the whole time, on a white horse. He closes the ranks; He's not going to let this young one leave until we get to the bottom of some things. When we do, I see Him rejoice. I see Him ready and raring to go, holding out a sword to this young warrior, turning His horse with so much to show him. Forgiveness occurs, the young man's entire countenance lightens. Still, I think; the hurts have happened. Nothing can take them away completely, nothing can make them right.

I drive home and tell Jesus just how much I love Him. I see Him swing me up behind Him on the back of that horse. He unclenches my fist of "I am so angry, so untrusting," places my palm over the warmth of His heart. In these days where my anger is seething over all of the things that no one can make right, I see that He is navigating the crowds to get me where He wants me to go. I am grateful for His commitment to this, because on my own I see that I would never make it.

I see in myself that word so over-used it is difficult to feel its reality, the sin that misses the mark of all that could and should be. Like parasites that draw strength from my very own muscles, draining me of all I want to be, do, give, I see the shortcoming, the twisting and turning that draws out a boundary. I feel it deeply, my need that is great, my own inability to stand in the love that calls for integrity. There is nothing that I can do to truly make this right.

This Jesus on His horse, fighting so fiercely for a new day, a new way;
They say He has the Victory,
That one day every knee will bow and every tongue rejoice,
As we see Him coming, on the clouds.

In the meantime though,
He's doing it, you know?
He's making it Right.

(Listen to the whispers; Ask for eyes to see.)

Today I am Writing: On Cleaning

I am not one of those people you would call a "cleaner."

My friend and I talk about our weekend plans, and hers includes her weekly cleaning time. Mine includes reading by my pond and listening for life direction. (My all-time favorite activity.) (I am only sort-of kidding.)

But listen; sometimes your life can not get directed until your house has been deep-cleaned. So, this was a holiday weekend, and I thought surely I could get some good things done. So, I made a list:

1. Sweep. Everything.
2. Scrub the shower. (Remove every type of mold, not just the surface ones.)
3. Vacuum. Be sure to move things in your way.
4. Mop. (MOP!!!)

There was more, but I think you get my point. 

(There were things to do.)

Saturday hit, and I sat by my pond. Sunday hit, and I sat there again. Monday hit and I thought surely it was my day, but I was taken down by a headache and overall blargh, and so, that was out.

By Tuesday I was thinking, "Ok, let's approach it this way: 

How much can you get done in an hour? (!!!!)"

And that proved a very successful plan.

The morning saw a sparkling shower, coming to fruition. I took a break for lunch with the cleaning friend's family, but returned home all hyped up. I strung lights across the yard. I re-potted the basil. I swept every surface and vacuumed and mopped. (MOPPED!) I even had time before evening festivities to sit out by my pond, while the kitchen floor dried. 

And when I returned inside, I took off my shoes and thought:
Walking barefoot on a newly mopped floor is on my top ten list of things to experience in life.

That, in and of itself, might be some life-direction.

Today I am Writing: On Changing the Response

Have you ever seen how your life brings you around time and time again to the same question, and every time, you respond to it out of some level of fear and some level of unsurety and some level of massive distrust that there is a One who knows your name and has proclaimed his truth over you?

And then there is the day that He says: No more.

This weekend I was faced with one of those moments. I got in my car, fully intending to let myself spin in all of my crazy (because at least then I can continue to believe that I am in control), when He said, loudly, in that don't even try to pretend you didn't hear Me way: "Thank me for what was GOOD."

And I said: Oh.

Right.

And then all week, I watch myself, come up against the questions. And every time I see myself stop myself and say: Choose this day how thou shalt respond.

And instead of the fear and the unsurety and the massive distrust, I simply look Him in the eye and say: Thank you.

Because when I stop and I thank Him, I see--as if lit by the backdrop of the sun and the moon and the stars in their place--that all that feels yucky is actually so beautifully beautifully Good.

This morning I read, "It is one thing to say 'fret not,' but a very different thing to have such a disposition that you find yourself able not to fret...This 'don't' [fret] must work in days of perplexity as well as in days of peace, or it never will work...Resting in the Lord does not depend on external circumstances at all, but on your relationship to God Himself."*

And I remember how He showed me the wall in my own heart, the one that held pain and anger and fear/unsurety/massive distrust so closely, as if it belonged to me and not to Us, and He said "You will never go where I want you to go, if you keep holding on to this."

And then there was the clincher: the "and, by the way, it stands between Us--will you really choose to continue to allow it?"

When my relationship with God Himself is interfered with by my choices, I come up for air and say: "I do really want to respond another way--will you help?"

And I read about transformation, how it is the losing of the self that Jesus calls us to, how "the salvation of the psyche begins with its own demise."** And I think of how we have forgotten the cost and even the reward when we evade stepping into that place where He has gone before, so that we might know ourselves, and know the One who Knew us before time even began.

"If you lose your life you will find it,"*** Jesus said. When to this I respond with, "But I want what I think should rightfully be mine," He looks me sadly in my eye, and holds out His hand, again and again, until I say: Oh.

Right.

Until I accept that there was a Day when He Proclaimed to every heavenly earthly place: No More.

Until I learn to change my response, and Live.

*My Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers, July 4
**Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor, p. 88
***Luke 17:33