it's time for a vacation. patience levels are rapidly falling. energy and desire to fulfill necessary tasks are disappearing.
"carolina, one day i'll, some day i'll come home" [the avett brothers]
until monday, springtime!
Friday, May 20, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
understanding
I generally want to be understood.
If I don't feel that someone understands me well, or that they don't agree with me, it's like I NEED to explain myself. And often the things I feel most strongly about are the most difficult to explain (add a second language to the mix, and the complication multiplies).
Like the time in my DTS when I tried to briefly explain how I felt about the tolerance zone (part of the city where prostitution is overlooked, though not legal)... all I could say was how angry it made me that the police just drive by and LOOK at the women and men who are selling themselves in every doorway.
But what I meant was it boils my blood to see humans stripped of their God-given dignity!
Our eleven-year-old has a school activity on Thursday. They sent a note home that she needs to bring "a shirt that shows her belly button and a very short skirt" as her costume for a dance that her class is going to perform. The dance itself is extremely inappropriate, even if they are doing a toned-down version.
I wrote a letter to the teacher, to say that we didn't feel it was suitable and asking for an alternative activity for her to participate in that day. They are respecting our decision, thankfully, but I know that they don't understand why.
And that they won't understand.
How do you talk about the spiritual impact of an overly sexual dance on children, to someone who doesn't see the spiritual realm as equally real as the physical?
How do you convince him that these kids have experienced too much, too soon, and that dancing this, or even watching others, will only serve to open more doors in their lives and further awaken what should be left dormant for a longer time?
How do you explain that the problem isn't with studying culture, but rather with which elements of that culture are age-appropriate, and also that as Christians, we aren't to conform to any culture other than God's.
You can't explain that. So you listen to his disappointment on the phone, but thank him for respecting your decision as her caretaker. Then you disappoint her by telling her she can't participate, knowing that she doesn't understand, but praying that she will know it's in love.
If I don't feel that someone understands me well, or that they don't agree with me, it's like I NEED to explain myself. And often the things I feel most strongly about are the most difficult to explain (add a second language to the mix, and the complication multiplies).
Like the time in my DTS when I tried to briefly explain how I felt about the tolerance zone (part of the city where prostitution is overlooked, though not legal)... all I could say was how angry it made me that the police just drive by and LOOK at the women and men who are selling themselves in every doorway.
But what I meant was it boils my blood to see humans stripped of their God-given dignity!
Our eleven-year-old has a school activity on Thursday. They sent a note home that she needs to bring "a shirt that shows her belly button and a very short skirt" as her costume for a dance that her class is going to perform. The dance itself is extremely inappropriate, even if they are doing a toned-down version.
I wrote a letter to the teacher, to say that we didn't feel it was suitable and asking for an alternative activity for her to participate in that day. They are respecting our decision, thankfully, but I know that they don't understand why.
And that they won't understand.
How do you talk about the spiritual impact of an overly sexual dance on children, to someone who doesn't see the spiritual realm as equally real as the physical?
How do you convince him that these kids have experienced too much, too soon, and that dancing this, or even watching others, will only serve to open more doors in their lives and further awaken what should be left dormant for a longer time?
How do you explain that the problem isn't with studying culture, but rather with which elements of that culture are age-appropriate, and also that as Christians, we aren't to conform to any culture other than God's.
You can't explain that. So you listen to his disappointment on the phone, but thank him for respecting your decision as her caretaker. Then you disappoint her by telling her she can't participate, knowing that she doesn't understand, but praying that she will know it's in love.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
this too...
Lately I've been listening to the long list of sermons that are set to automatically download via podcast and then sit, unheard, in iTunes. At Mars Hill Bible Church, they did a series on the book of Ecclesiastes.
Sermon number 1: "lessons in vapor managment"
Turns out that the word "meaningless" is actually better-translated "vapor" or "mist," which isn't nothing and isn't without meaning, it's just passing. And that the book's author is showing that EVERYTHING in the realm of the created is temporary. And the ONLY permanent, non-vapor thing, is the uncreated: God and the spiritual realm.
But we end up spending a lot of time and energy and emotion on what Rob Bell calls "vapor management" -- not that it's all bad, but we do need to remember that all these things, like the early morning fog that creeps up the side of these green mountains, will vanish.
Sermon number 2, which I heard today while working in the garden: "a time"
Yeah, we all know the passage... there is a time for [a long list of contrasting actions]. Shane Hipps points out that most of the time we think of this as a list of things we should do at different points in our lives, but that it's really a list of a whole bunch of circumstances that we will experience between birth and death.
It's not a to do list. It's just stating the facts. And, reminding us that all these situations are vapor.
"He has made everything beautiful in its time" And the vapor is beautiful, even when it seems like a bad mist.
"He has also set eternity in the human heart" This point was really interesting for me: When we get tired of all the "vapor management," then we can learn to experience what Hipps explains as a state of joyful acceptance of the now. To stop obsessing over the past or anxiously awaiting the future.
Is this how Jesus lived, all the time?
Is this what He has been inviting me to experience all these months with the reminders to live in the present? Because I want that.
Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is within us. Solomon says that God has set eternity in our hearts.
Hipps suggests that Jesus came to show us the way into that peaceful, joyful, eternal kingdom; how to unlock the still water within us, that eternity in the midst of the ever-changing mist. And to do that, we need to 1. have a relationship with the Master and 2. be actively involved, choosing to live in the present, and be able to rest in the NOW
Then we can start to access the eternal, which is in our hearts, which also happens to be the recipient for the infinite love of God.
So, bad day? Good day? Sunshine or rain? Laughter or tears? Hired or fired? Finally got pregnant or another negative test? He loves me or he loves me not? Chicken or fish for dinner?
This, too, shall pass.
But the love of God remains, and it's in me, and it's unchanging. Will I choose to experience it?
Sermon number 1: "lessons in vapor managment"
Turns out that the word "meaningless" is actually better-translated "vapor" or "mist," which isn't nothing and isn't without meaning, it's just passing. And that the book's author is showing that EVERYTHING in the realm of the created is temporary. And the ONLY permanent, non-vapor thing, is the uncreated: God and the spiritual realm.
But we end up spending a lot of time and energy and emotion on what Rob Bell calls "vapor management" -- not that it's all bad, but we do need to remember that all these things, like the early morning fog that creeps up the side of these green mountains, will vanish.
Sermon number 2, which I heard today while working in the garden: "a time"
Yeah, we all know the passage... there is a time for [a long list of contrasting actions]. Shane Hipps points out that most of the time we think of this as a list of things we should do at different points in our lives, but that it's really a list of a whole bunch of circumstances that we will experience between birth and death.
It's not a to do list. It's just stating the facts. And, reminding us that all these situations are vapor.
"He has made everything beautiful in its time" And the vapor is beautiful, even when it seems like a bad mist.
"He has also set eternity in the human heart" This point was really interesting for me: When we get tired of all the "vapor management," then we can learn to experience what Hipps explains as a state of joyful acceptance of the now. To stop obsessing over the past or anxiously awaiting the future.
Is this how Jesus lived, all the time?
Is this what He has been inviting me to experience all these months with the reminders to live in the present? Because I want that.
Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is within us. Solomon says that God has set eternity in our hearts.
Hipps suggests that Jesus came to show us the way into that peaceful, joyful, eternal kingdom; how to unlock the still water within us, that eternity in the midst of the ever-changing mist. And to do that, we need to 1. have a relationship with the Master and 2. be actively involved, choosing to live in the present, and be able to rest in the NOW
Then we can start to access the eternal, which is in our hearts, which also happens to be the recipient for the infinite love of God.
So, bad day? Good day? Sunshine or rain? Laughter or tears? Hired or fired? Finally got pregnant or another negative test? He loves me or he loves me not? Chicken or fish for dinner?
This, too, shall pass.
But the love of God remains, and it's in me, and it's unchanging. Will I choose to experience it?
Sunday, May 8, 2011
mothers' day
Our friends went home this weekend. Went, and aren't coming back within the foreknow-able future. Home, to England.
Today was the parent visit.
Today is also Mother's Day.
That's a lot of emotions.
I cried, kind of a lot.
Wanna know the hardest thing for me today? I don't know how to do what I do. I don't know how to be, and at the same time not be, mom.
And I can't imagine being a kid and not knowing who to give my school-made mother's day project to. Which mom?
And when I am present, and the biological mom is present, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to react? Interact? And when our son gashes his head open... it's not my role to take care of him, because she's there. So I wash dishes and cry in the corner by the sink. And she probably thinks I'm cold and neglecting.
Plus, I'm a single mom. Well, my housemate is my co-mom, plus the biological moms... man it's complicated! These kids need dads, too!
And in church, when the pastor invited all the mothers to stand up, I didn't know what to do.
I don't think I like this day very much, being and not being, mom.
Today was the parent visit.
Today is also Mother's Day.
That's a lot of emotions.
I cried, kind of a lot.
Wanna know the hardest thing for me today? I don't know how to do what I do. I don't know how to be, and at the same time not be, mom.
And I can't imagine being a kid and not knowing who to give my school-made mother's day project to. Which mom?
And when I am present, and the biological mom is present, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to react? Interact? And when our son gashes his head open... it's not my role to take care of him, because she's there. So I wash dishes and cry in the corner by the sink. And she probably thinks I'm cold and neglecting.
Plus, I'm a single mom. Well, my housemate is my co-mom, plus the biological moms... man it's complicated! These kids need dads, too!
And in church, when the pastor invited all the mothers to stand up, I didn't know what to do.
I don't think I like this day very much, being and not being, mom.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Easter and earning it
Update on Rocco: he died. That's pretty sad, and I still keep thinking he'll come wagging up to the gate when we get home, but it's part of life. Hopefully we'll get a new dog soon. He's the fourth dog at our vet who has died from multiple organ failure after eating these tiny beetles, which apparently become addictive to the animals, causing them to eat more.
I'm reading a book called One Child by a woman named Torey Hayden, who used to be a teacher for disturbed children. There's one part where the six-year-old girl that Torey is teaching and with whom she forms a very close bond gets very frustrated because she messes up on a math worksheet that is above her grade level. (She is very bright and can do 4th grade math, but this was a 5th grade workseet.) The scene is portrayed this way:
"I done them wrong, didn't I?"
"You didn't know, kiddo. No one showed you."
She flopped down beside me and put her face in her hands. "I wanted to do them right and show you I could do them without help"
"Sheila, it's nothing to get upset about."
She sat for a few moments covering her face. Then slowly her hands slid away and she uncrumpled the paper which she had mashed. "I bet if I could have done math problems good, my Mama, she wouldn't leave me on no highway like she done. If I could have done fifth grade math problems, she'd be proud of me."
"I don't think math problems have anything to do with it Sheila. We really don't know why your Mama left. She probably had all sorts of troubles of her own."
"She left because she don't love me no more. You don't go leaving kids you love on the highway. And I cut my leg. See?" For the hundredth time the scar was displayed to me. "If I'd been a gooder girl, she wouldn't have done that. She might still love me even now, if i could have been gooder."
This broke my heart. I dog-eared the page. It makes me think of Li'l J, and his breakdowns about doing homework sometimes, and how much he dislikes having to be taught to do something new, even when it's explained to him that there is no way he can know (how to write, for example) without help from someone older.
Then there are some of the other kids who won't even try anything unless they know beforehand that they will be successful. So they sit, passive, unwilling to try to "earn" respect by their actions, but also unwilling to even be helpful if they don't feel like they already HAVE someone's acceptance.
And it reminds me of a friend from back home who is brilliant and wonderful, but who came to the realization that no matter how much he studies, how many degrees he gets, what kind of great job he has, or how many times he gets published or otherwise honored... his family won't love him, won't give him what he so desperately needs and wants from them.
Does it remind you of anyone? Of yourself?
We are all broken, to different extents. In that injured state we try to earn love, and unjustified love doesn't make sense.
If only I'd been prettier, smarter, more talented, wittier, more helpful, willing to do or be something different... things would've turned out differently. That person I loved would have reciprocated, wouldn't have changed, wouldn't have left me.
We all need a healer.
Today is Easter in the Christian faith. The day that we remember that pure love, unmerited reward, jolted into this world and tore apart the system of earning acceptance.
A cross, a tomb: the symbol of Roman imperial oppression; the symbol of the unavoidable fate of every man and woman
Christ on a cross, an empty tomb: the symbol of love we can't earn, nor nullify; the symbol of abundant life, and hope as a firm anchor for the soul.
The eucharist, the Lord's supper, Santa Cena: as we eat a bit of bread and drink a bit of wine or juice, we say, "YES! Count me in! I need a healer and I want one, too. I want more of this counter-culture love and grace and open-armed acceptance. I can't do anything to increase it and I can't explain it away. It's beyond me, and that's just the sort of healing I need."
I'm reading a book called One Child by a woman named Torey Hayden, who used to be a teacher for disturbed children. There's one part where the six-year-old girl that Torey is teaching and with whom she forms a very close bond gets very frustrated because she messes up on a math worksheet that is above her grade level. (She is very bright and can do 4th grade math, but this was a 5th grade workseet.) The scene is portrayed this way:
"I done them wrong, didn't I?"
"You didn't know, kiddo. No one showed you."
She flopped down beside me and put her face in her hands. "I wanted to do them right and show you I could do them without help"
"Sheila, it's nothing to get upset about."
She sat for a few moments covering her face. Then slowly her hands slid away and she uncrumpled the paper which she had mashed. "I bet if I could have done math problems good, my Mama, she wouldn't leave me on no highway like she done. If I could have done fifth grade math problems, she'd be proud of me."
"I don't think math problems have anything to do with it Sheila. We really don't know why your Mama left. She probably had all sorts of troubles of her own."
"She left because she don't love me no more. You don't go leaving kids you love on the highway. And I cut my leg. See?" For the hundredth time the scar was displayed to me. "If I'd been a gooder girl, she wouldn't have done that. She might still love me even now, if i could have been gooder."
This broke my heart. I dog-eared the page. It makes me think of Li'l J, and his breakdowns about doing homework sometimes, and how much he dislikes having to be taught to do something new, even when it's explained to him that there is no way he can know (how to write, for example) without help from someone older.
Then there are some of the other kids who won't even try anything unless they know beforehand that they will be successful. So they sit, passive, unwilling to try to "earn" respect by their actions, but also unwilling to even be helpful if they don't feel like they already HAVE someone's acceptance.
And it reminds me of a friend from back home who is brilliant and wonderful, but who came to the realization that no matter how much he studies, how many degrees he gets, what kind of great job he has, or how many times he gets published or otherwise honored... his family won't love him, won't give him what he so desperately needs and wants from them.
Does it remind you of anyone? Of yourself?
We are all broken, to different extents. In that injured state we try to earn love, and unjustified love doesn't make sense.
If only I'd been prettier, smarter, more talented, wittier, more helpful, willing to do or be something different... things would've turned out differently. That person I loved would have reciprocated, wouldn't have changed, wouldn't have left me.
We all need a healer.
Today is Easter in the Christian faith. The day that we remember that pure love, unmerited reward, jolted into this world and tore apart the system of earning acceptance.
A cross, a tomb: the symbol of Roman imperial oppression; the symbol of the unavoidable fate of every man and woman
Christ on a cross, an empty tomb: the symbol of love we can't earn, nor nullify; the symbol of abundant life, and hope as a firm anchor for the soul.
The eucharist, the Lord's supper, Santa Cena: as we eat a bit of bread and drink a bit of wine or juice, we say, "YES! Count me in! I need a healer and I want one, too. I want more of this counter-culture love and grace and open-armed acceptance. I can't do anything to increase it and I can't explain it away. It's beyond me, and that's just the sort of healing I need."
Thursday, April 14, 2011
beetlejuice
A little over a week ago, Rocco the Kiwi House Dog got sick. He had gunk in his eyes, not much appetite, was really lethargic, lost a LOT of weight, and was weakly/trembly in general. I decided to take him to the vet.
Before we got the test results back, I thought I had paid about $50 for her to tell me he's probably just sad (his brother disappeared around the same time that he got puny and sickly).
But, apparently there is an epidemic in our area of dogs eating beetles and getting deathly ill. Our dog is sick, but not that bad yet. Hopefully we've caught the symptoms in time and the medicines, extra attention, and especially the bright green bandana that the nice, but fast-medical-jargon-talkin' vet, gave him will help Rocco get back up and running soon!
Before we got the test results back, I thought I had paid about $50 for her to tell me he's probably just sad (his brother disappeared around the same time that he got puny and sickly).
But, apparently there is an epidemic in our area of dogs eating beetles and getting deathly ill. Our dog is sick, but not that bad yet. Hopefully we've caught the symptoms in time and the medicines, extra attention, and especially the bright green bandana that the nice, but fast-medical-jargon-talkin' vet, gave him will help Rocco get back up and running soon!
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