Who says?

I have been told you can never go home again. I do not believe this is true. Numerous children of all ages and stages have graduated from dependency on parental units and begin free and independent lives only to return, with more stuff and sometimes with dependents of their own. Why do people make up such ridiculous statements which fly in the face of the reality?

Yes, you are going to tell me that they do go home, but not like it once was. I can tell you, some of those families revert right back to pre-existing roles and not only are they home again, they are home like it used to be. Only they tend to fight more about curfews and taking their own car places. Strangely enough, if you are willing to do the laundry, pay the bills and provide clean room and board, many of them will honor the curfew!

I suppose there was a time when the transportation was so limited that kids who left home and went west young men, that going home was much harder. I presume if you had been fortunate enough to get back home, the struggle would have changed home and traveler. All those westerns seemed to indicate the trip out was one way because someone was going to shoot you somewhere out west anyway. We are still a pretty violent culture, but your chances of getting shot in on a trip into town for supplies is reduced, I believe.

Here is another saying that burns me: "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." I am appreciative of the understanding that we ought to be a little bit wiser than to walk into the same foolishness twice. However, we have this little thing called 'forgiveness' and 'grace' in Christian circles. We are supposed to be restoring people into fellowship and yadda, yadda, yadda. So if we have been faithful to forgive (as we have been instructed to do so we will not become angry, bitter people and also because God says He will follow our lead there) and someone makes us look like a monkey again, is this really a 'shame on me' thing? I am not talking about buying the same snake oil twice, I am talking about assuming there has been genuine repentance because it has been indicated that has occurred and getting toasted again. I think the shame ought to and does stand squarely on the shoulders of the fool er.

And, since I have a good rant started, let me add that I am equally unhappy with is 'no smoke without fire'. That is so incredibly untrue that I am out of all patience with it and I want to stamp my feet and throw a cute, little, mature, professional fit. I have heard more rumor based on nothing more than someone was thinking something could possibly be true, where no fire had ever been. There are people who's reputations have been injured, where drama has run amok and there was never anything at all more than spiteful vindictiveness. I guess you might argue that the spitefulness was the fire but that isn't what the saying means. It infuriates me that once something is said, no matter how casually, it becomes a 'thing'. No smoke without fire after all. UGH. I want this to be outlawed. In fact, I want the whole gossipy chain to be snapped in enough places, it cannot be re-attached. I think this is hardly a new problem, as Paul was writing about it a little less than 2000 years ago, but we have not cured it. I am, myself, a participant at times and afterwards I think, you have just done it again, you dimwit! I have recently been reminded of the deadly force words carry. I am putting a guard on my tongue and I begin to understand Isaiah much better. I too am a person of unclean lips and I want God to purify them.

Strange that my rants always lead back to God convicting me. You would think I say to myself "Stop! You are about to be corrected again", but no, I go boldly where any other thinking person would fear to tread. I would explore this more but I cannot really take on much more than one thing at a time, and I see the unclean lips taking some focus. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all my sins.

Larry Norman

Many, many years ago, a babe to contemporary Christian music, I feel in love with a song that Larry Norman sang called, "I Am A Servant". I don't know that music was so very well done or had a delightful melody. As memory serves, it was just Norman and the piano, kind of high and a little squeaky in places. It was the lyrics that spoke to my heart and I found the song and learned to play it on my guitar. Many a sad moment was spent, hiding in my bedroom with my guitar singing, "I am a servant, I am waiting for my call. I've been unfaithful so I sit here in the hall. How can you use me, when I've never given all? How can you choose me, when you know I quickly fall." Getting to the end of the song always made me feel a little better, though sometimes I had to sing it over and over and over.

Funny how music seems to speak to the soul in ways that words and thought cannot. It wasn't Christian music that taught me this though. My dad was a musician and music was a part of my upbringing. I was surrounded by it all my life and before I was ten I was addicted to musicals. I sang with great enthusiasm all of the leading roles. I was Maria primping in my bedroom singing "Tonight, Tonight" from West Side Story, Liza Doolittle singing "Just you Wait" and "Show Me" in My Fair Lady. I never could warm up too much to South Pacific, but I was delightful as Maria in the Sound of Music, and I wasn't too bad as Laurie in Oklahoma. I like Aunt Eller's songs better and Laurie seemed like such a goose, it was hard to play her with enthusiasm. In the privacy of my room, I would play those albums over and over again, singing and dancing and I was absolutely fabulous! In fact, I feel sure it was only small minded jealousy that kept my father from launching my career on the big screen. He just couldn't bear the competition, I think.

When I hit middle school my tastes changed some and I became a fan of Black Sabbath. Don't anyone throw something at me, or remind me this was hardly a Christ centered group. All I know is this, when I played "Fluff" and closed my eyes, it was as close to heaven as I knew how to get. It drew such pictures for me of beautiful mountains and rolling hills, I just knew I was closer to God when I heard it. James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg and The Who and The Doors and Billy Joe, Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd, Three Dog Night and Charlie Daniels, Bread, ABBA, and BTO all followed. All of them were comfort to me and companionship. To this day if I am driving along on a sunny day, the music is blaring and I am singing at the top of my lungs. I have had folks pass me and tell me later they thought I was having a fit until they realized I was singing. This could be why I never made it to the big screen!!!

Sometime in college I discovered the radio station and contemporary Christian music. I loved my three hour show every week and listened to all kinds of music getting ready for it. This is where Larry Norman entered my musical life, and Keith Green and Randy Stonehill, Amy Grant, Sandy Patti and Steve Green. As I attended a Christian college, some of these singers made an appearance on campus which added to the attraction and adoption. Today, my musical tastes are pretty varied, I love lots of genres but have never been able to warm up to country. All those years of being told not to sing through my nose, I guess!!

After I found Larry Norman and learned to play "I am a Servant", I found Keith Green and learned to play "My Eyes are Dry" and spent many hours making this my prayer to God. "My eyes are dry, my faith is old. My heart is hard, my prayers are cold. But I know how I ought to be, alive to You and dead to me." In time, my soul would be soothed and I would be ready to go on again. In recent years I have added more songs to the list when I have no words. Michael Smith's "Let it Rain" has brought me to tears, sitting at my desk, arms raised and in my mind, the flood gates of heaven open. Paul Baloche singing "What can I do but thank You? What can I do but give my life to do?" My friend Greg has recorded a CD with a cut called "Micah's Song". The words are pretty but its the music that transports me. One day, such joy welled up inside of me, I had to call him to tell him so.

Isn't God amazing, and so resourceful! He has made music a means of grace, where we can experience God in ways that go beyond our intellect, our imaginations and our vocabulary. He finds ways to speak where words could never be adequate. True worship that flows from the heart seems to flow best not in the spoken word but it the melodies of the heart. The book of Psalm lives that witness, the hymns of the faith echo it and the contemporary interpretation simply follows in the Spirit of worship handed down through the ages. And you thought you were just rocking out.

Next time you pass me on the road, and I look like I could be having a fit, it's probably just worship going on! Turn on your own tunes, and join in!

Lost in Time

I have been off becoming wiser. Yes, I have been to the Church of the Resurrection Leadership Institute for making better Methodists. That isn't really what it is, only a little pet name. I was there with all my very dearest friends, a very intimate gathering of about 2000 people from 600 plus churches, learning some new stuff, getting fired up and getting send back to use what I learned. You wouldn't think this was a new concept but I have met people who seem astonished that we are expected to use what we learn. Apparently, the time spent in training is like the wizard confab the nice wizard from Oz was heading to when he couldn't wait for Dorothy. I am not a real wizard so this explains why I keep thinking if we use what we learn we will actually further the Kingdom. This is what fake wizards do to mess things up, you know what I mean?

Anyway, there I was with all the others, when in a moment I was lost in time. I was watching a conductor direct an orchestra and a choir in Kansas City, but at the same time I was in a high school auditorium in Hampton, PA watching my dad direct a choir while the orchestra played behind him. The music is gone from my memory but my dad was very real, very alive and there were things about him that seemed very tangible in the moment. I could almost see his mannerisms come to life in the conductor in Kansas. I can see his choir and I can watch him run his hand through his hair and I am a very small girl again.

How funny that there are memories stored in our minds that are so vivid when conjured by a stimulus that we are right back into the midst of them again. Having suffered through a recent bought of the whatever is going around gunk, I came upon a television show about a woman who is not functioning well in her thirties who has the chance to go back to moments of regret and relive them. I do not want this kind of a memory, but the nice ones that stir lovely thoughts are very pleasant. My dad has been dead now for 11 years and it was very nice to have him very close by in an element where he always shone brightly.

What of those memories that are harder, when they come pounding back and make our tummies flop over and our anxiety levels climb. I know what I tend to do: whoops, don't think about that. Turn that off. Completely! Sorry I opened that drawer, or door or thought! Recently someone shared a dream with me that deals with an unresolved sorrow for her. As she shared with me, I was calling upon God to give me inspiration. I remember having these kinds of dreams and the hunger within to have closure in these areas of sadness and grief, regret and remorse. I suggested what has been suggested to me in these areas, to invite God into the memory, to the dream and ask Him to bring resolution and redemption. As most of us do not get the do-over our hearts desire and I am pretty sure I would mess it up if I were given the opportunity, this is the only way some of those moments are healed and resolved.

I have recently been in touch with high school friends through Facebook. Not a bad thing really, and with them came some wonderful memories. I have been having some of those anyway since I have been organizing the youth structure at church and they are reminders of myself a while back. Those reminders also can open up doors that I would just as soon remain closed. Those things I said or did that bothered me, the decisions that I made that closed some doors forever, and the feeling of sadness or shame or frustration washes over me again. Instead of swiftly shutting the door as I have for years, I have been trying to sit very still and invite God into the memory. Somehow after I tell Him how I feel and discuss the whole thing with Him, the intensity of the emotion has faded and I am able to let go of some of the hurt. Is it gone? I don't know. Bet it doesn't have the same intensity that it once did.

This is a mystery truly. How does God, who is timeless, enter into all time and heal up a grown up woman who has an injured little girl inside? Who knows. I am just grateful. And now, I am off to use that stuff I learned. Sure hope the wizards don't find out and report me.

Ripple Effect

Recently I have been pondering ponds. It's a fascinating event for water watchers anyway. Water watchers really don't need a reason to settle down to a good solitary time of ripple reflection, but recently I have been pondering the impact we have on the pools we have been placed in, and the impact the pool has on us.

This too is not exactly a new reflection. I have given thought to the day I am invited to swim out of this water and into water eternal. It is my wish that when I am no longer in this pool, the ripples left behind will have some lasting impact. I would hate to leave the kind of ripples that sort of fade into other ripples until they just dissolve into nothingness. I want Oswald Chambers ripples. I want to leave behind some insight or vision or thought or even funny story that inspires a generation I will never meet to love God with all of their hearts, souls, minds and strength. Who wouldn't want to leave ripples like this?

The pondering of late though hasn't been how to leave the pool, but how to live in it well. I have been taking on a lot of water recently. I have some big splashers in my pool. Have you ever tiptoed into the pool, the water maybe a little chilly and you are easing your way in? And as you get maybe up to your calves, a big splasher moves your way and begins to unleash a tidal wave of water your way until you are soaked and freezing? Then even after you are completely wet and into the water up to your chin, they continue to float past and cover your head with a little more from time to time? Worse, they dig their feet into the bottom and churn up as much dirt as possible so the water becomes cloudy and then muddy and then loses its clear crispness and becomes sludge. Here's what I want to know: is this illegal? If it is not illegal: can you fill a civil suit over this? Get a restraining order against big splashers? Tell on them to someone in authority, assuming we still have someone in authority?

Let me say freely, I am sure I must have been a big splasher at one point. If you follow the Sound of Music theology - nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could, so somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something bad - then it only seems logical I must have spent some time soaking others. However, since I am a proud supporter of grace, and believe in unmerited mercy in splash forgiveness, I want you to know I want the deluge stopped.

I have appealed to the the local pool police and they agree the splashing is unfortunate, they wish the splashing would stop, but they seem unable to get it done. They are suffering just as much as I am, there is some muttering about being in sales not in management, but ultimately we stand in the poor together, sighing and petitioning the Keeper of all Water to make our pool perturber stop.

I believe this is why the numbers in the ponds and pools and lakes and other water bodies are decreasing. I have been told this is because we are poor at inviting others to come on in, the water is warm. I am sure we can always get better at this, but I believe where we drop the ball is that once they get into the pond, we do nothing to help them live there well, to encourage them to find deeper waters and to be a good pool mate. What we do in my humble opinion (which is not humble or I would not share it with you) is get some good stuff and add it to the atmosphere and the water and we hope in doing so pond people will be transformed. Because God is a gracious God, strangely enough despite our ineptness, sometimes this works. Only because it also sometimes does not, we are left to deal with the consequences of poorly equipping pond people to learn to live well in the water. Why would any self respecting land dweller want to climb into a pool of splashy, muddy, stirred up water?

I can only say this about my own water observations. When I finally observed 'the water' for the first time from the eyes of it's Creator, I saw beautiful, clear, cold, refreshing, inviting water and not only did I thirst for it, my whole being longed to be submerged into the depths. I didn't want to swim in it, I wanted to be consumed by it. It takes a lot of my time these days to look past the muck that has churned up around me to remember that vision of the pool as it was intended to be. It was easy to invite people into the refreshing and renewing water, to teach them how good it was further up and higher in, to lead them through the paths I had taken to experience such glorious splendor. There are some days now when I find it harder to encourage others to get in, I have seen the sludge and some of it gets on me and it makes me feel nasty and it clogs my lungs.

We aren't powerless here. It doesn't have to be this way. We could choose to be deliberate about how we live in the pool and how we teach others to do so. I have seen the clear water and I am sure if others could see it too, the numbers in the pool would swell. I think if you look it up, you would find that was Scriptural, in a paraphrased kind of way. In a world, according to God, interpreted by me way. I kind of like the way that sounds. In fact, my favorite way.

Would someone toss me a life jacket?

Embracing the Silence

It has been so long since I wrote anything, I nearly forgot my log in. I had to scramble to remember the password. Much too long. It isn't like I have stopped thinking, or even stopped recording thought. Only lately is has been all structure and organization and the creativity that my soul longs for has been about who is being called to do what. There are these times when the moments are very much centered in organization and structure.

This week there is a new season. It is a season of silence. It is a gift and I am soaking it in, every bit of it. I am enjoying the other members of the Spiritual Formation Academy, our covenant group and meal time conversations are wonderful. A diverse group but finding much commonality. Still what I am enjoying so much is the silence, the space and the place of my own. It's amusing really, with the two older boys on their own and all those bedrooms empty, it is still somehow a unique feeling to be surrounded by just my stuff. I have spent time finding places for it all. I like knowing I can put things where I like, I like knowing when I leave it will look just exactly this same way when i get back. I have been laying in bed with thoughts of my closet at home and ways to get that stuff more organized too. I think this might be sick, but it has been very comforting I have known for sometime that I work better in order, but because I am always doing seven things at the same time (the perfect number after all) it is hard to take the time to keep order. I think that Monk is too extreme but I sure would like to have some of his methodical approach to order. Hey, order is biblical you know, just read the books of the Law.

But the silences are sweet. I am not feeling pressured to experience anything in particular and I am not having "aha" moments in particular, but I am hearing new ideas picking up a word in the scripture I hadn't seen before and just enjoying the freedom of space. I am enjoying soaking in others reflections and once again find it amazing that people are able to share their hearts with relative strangers. It seems like such a foreign concept to me but I am being touched by what they write. They thoughts are being included into my silences. I don't know how this is so, but it is.

Those who know me best will find the thought of me being silent for 12 out of 24 hours and then choosing to be quiet in free time will wonder if I have a brain tumor or if someone left a pod by my bed. It is a foreign concept but it is a delightful season. The silence is full and warm and restful. Thanks be to God, miracles do exist!

Last night we reviewed our Myers Briggs tests and I haven't changed a bit. I am still a very solid ENTJ, all the way down the line. This appears to be in conflict with the love for silence. I started to thinking this over during the silence last night and decided it was too much work. I have decided that being is good for now. I expect the people will become more of my energy source as the Spirit fills me up and my need for solitude lessens, but I am content for now.

Collecting the Tears

I read The Shack again last week. I read it several months ago but we had a book club meeting to discuss it and I wanted talking points. I enjoyed it the second time as I had the first, but noticed different details. I had wondered really the first time through if I would agree with the theology once I stopped enjoying the story and took the time to analyze if there was truth in it. This time I read with that intent and found places I agreed with, places I didn't. But could find no basis for all of the outcry and I have profound concern that we are fulfilling the message I took away from Masada all those years ago....'if the others would just realize if they leave us alone, we would destroy ourselves'. Why on earth would we worry about a book that makes people stop to consider the possibility that there is a loving God who wants us to know Him better? Or Her better. Or them better. Read the book, it will make more sense.

I was struck by several passages that eluded me the first time. The passage about Adam and Eve was very powerful as was the image of forgiveness being removing your hands from the offenders throat. I could identify with that. Still the one that has stayed with me is the depiction of Sarayu (the Holy Spirit) collecting our tears and then using them to grow a beautiful garden. It is very artsy and some would certainly say it is fluff to make us feel better about the misery in life. I hear that, and I guess if truth be told, I would say this myself, only recently I have shed a tear or two myself.

Now don't be jumping to any false conclusions like I am becoming all mushy and touchy/feely emotional pudding. This is not true. In fact, all that stuff creeps me out and makes me very ill at ease. Not your emotion, you understand. People seem to feel free to cry with me and I am never uncomfortable with that. I am dreadfully uncomfortable when I tear up. Actually uncomfortable is an understatement. So, imagine my astonishment and mortification when in the middle of worship, I found myself leaking from the eyeballs. I was good until we started singing. I remembered a dear friend who died recently singing the same song. I remember watching her face when we sang, 'sing has lost its power, death has lost its sting' and a few tears came. Those were dispatched and I was fine until the greeting time when someone asked me how my son was, how I was and those doggone tears came back. I pulled it together again when the sermon about healing sucker punched me. I sat next to my darling 11 year old who asked me what was up. I said my contacts were bugging me. He said the only time his eyes did that was when he was crying or drank a diet coke. I said I had also recently had a diet coke. We giggled some. Then prayer time followed, and I was out for the count. I don't know why I did that. I work there for pete's sake. I know the rules, no matter what you smile big, respond positively and remain gracious. I have been dealing with my eldest child's illness for 8 years long term and a week in the recent crisis. I have been calm and in control. Who knows what that was. Maybe hormones.

Then sometime in the evening, (after I had considered all the possible options in going into the witness protection program, transfering the a church to be named later or claiming I had an out of body experience), this picture of the Holy Spirit collecting these tears, carefully storing them and one day, at the appropriate time using them to bring about beautiful life in the midst of death. Ponder with me please if perhaps rather than being a feel good kind of message, this becomes the promise of redemption. That God who knows our name, who knew us in the womb, who has counted every hair on our heads, who had made plans for us, good plans that give us hope and a future, who wants us to have life abundantly, who promises nothing can ever seperate us from His love, does redeem the sadness, sickness and death in our lives and brings from it wonderous, beautiful, new life. What if tears are a sign of the promise instead of a show of weakness? It is worth considering, I think.

Today God and I discussed again Paul's message of being content in all things. I am practicing knowing that when it is obvious that things are too much for me, it is apparently not my job. That surrender means more than our will and our control. It means our beings including our emotions and it means knowing that we know that we know, God is good, God is present and if the two things seem to be in discord, it is because it is not finished yet. That's scriptural, you know. Funny how it always seems to come back to the same place.

Voices on the Headset

I have just completed a conference where I got to be the stage manager. I just love jobs that give you titles, don't you? I don't think stage manager was capitalized, which would have made it better, but still it was a title and more importantly, I had a headset. Yes, and wait, there's more! With my headset came a delightful little box that had a button that turned on and off my microphone. A title, a seat at a special table (I believe I had forgotten to share this benefit) and equipment. Short of getting paid for it, I can't see how it could have been better.

With my headset and my title, I had permission to give a running commentary of what was going on in the conference. I got to say things like, so and so is approaching the podium, or lectern or center stage or lights up or lights down or other exciting tidbits of information along these same lines. At first, nervous about doing the job well, along with a team of others who were nervous about doing the job well, we were a little tense and very focused on the business at hand. Everyone was talking at the same time, too much information all the time and no one quite sure what it was we were doing. By day two we were relaxing, having made it through the challenging day before, and by day three we had become our own little community within the community. In fact, we weren't a part of the conference at all, we were our own conference. Follow this logic for a moment, if you can. Our conference was based on observing and supporting another conference going on at the same time. While we were all in the same place, and presumably all on the same page, we were in fact, in our own little audio visual world and while we were in the midst of the conference we were in fact set apart.

Our conversation started out to be informative and it moved on to be connective. We began to comment on what we were producing. As time went on people began singing along, whether they were supposed to or not. There began to be comments on people in the audience who were sleeping and speakers who were either inspirational or long winded. The comment and direction of camera shots were interspersed with comments about the quality of the shot or it's beauty. At the end of the conference when the last blessing was pronounced and I could say, 'that's a wrap' (which is a very cool thing to get to say), over the same headset I heard the group discuss with joy the experience of working together as a team and the hope we would get to do so again. In a world looking for connection, isn't it interesting that a shared purpose and mission over three days brought about community among people who could not even see one another. Just voices in the headset, who somehow became family.

Even more interesting, this was a Christian conference where connection and community ought to be the overriding purpose for gathering. Yet, the renewal I have heard about did not happen during the business or even worship of the conference but in the hallways where friends met, at meals that were shared and in this little community of voices on the headset. I have been pondering this greatly. I am thinking of other conferences and retreats I have attended where my mind was expanded, my heart was touched and I came home tired but so satisfied and learned spiritual truths that I continue to live from today. I became a part of a community of fellow believers who for a time chose to set apart time and experience God together. I feel for those who attended the overall conference who did not have this experience. I am sorry we couldn't pass out headsets to everyone, I am sorry not all had friends to meet in the hallways or over a bowl of chips and salsa. I want something more for everyone, I believe this is God's desire as well. I know more exists, I have experienced it. I loved it enough to want it for everyone who hungers to know more of God and feel the connection of the family of faith.

I pray this is the year that those who plan for such events will form a prayer team who will sit in the presence of a mighty God who desires such things for His children. I pray that this is the year that those who hunger for more will be fed and that all will return home with a sense of being filled up to overflowing with the love of God. I pray that this is the year we reach out and connect with one another and remind each other we serve shoulder to shoulder no matter where we serve. I pray this is the year that at the end of conference there is a joy from time spent together, sharing the same purpose and vision, even without a headset. Because, that's mine and so is the title.