Tis the Season

Late December.
I actually wanted to turn the heat on this week.
Finally.
I didn't see a mosquito today.
The American goldfinch arrived this week... Christmas week.
Everything is almost right.
I no longer hear geese over my home during the Autumn... there's always tomorrow's hope.
Lord, thank you for the many blessings you pour lavishly over us.
I'm sorry for how we mess things up, especially when we don't want to think differently.
I love you.
Jim

End of one chapter, beginning anew

With the close of 2012, I find myself reflecting an a rather spectacular year. Though the list is incomplete at this point, some of my highlights include:

Breakfast with Julius

• Starting an E-Harmony profile last January to get up enough courage to officially "date"again
• Getting a house full of roommates, including Julius
• Going to my first NSTA Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana
• Actually asking ladies out on a date in March
• Meeting Susie last May for our first date
• Becoming Department Chairperson of science department and constant interviewing of candidates for open positions
• Joining a team of high school students to South Africa for two weeks of trekking 
• Sending off Julius and new wife to start life in Waco
• Saying goodbye to my Uncle Mike
• Backpacking with students above Lake City, Colorado, and peaking Uncompahgre 
• Getting to know my godly "person", Susie; I even purchased and have started using jogging shoes... sheesh.
• Starting a very, very challenging school year with huge amounts of changes and challenges at work
• Proposing to Susie on a chilled, moonlit, Nebraska November night after meeting most of her family over Thanksgiving
• Turning 51 and still having some fight in me
• Not seeing flocks of geese migrate overhead this year... makes me sad and concerned.

Crying at Crowder

Twice this week I've ordered Siri to "..play Crowder music..", both times sending me back to a place of intimate connection with our Father.
The only album I own is "Church Music", and I wore it out last year when I drove to Colorado and then the Grand Canyon to spend time with the Father.
To listen again to this music recreates that memory springing from a season of living as a hermit in my own home, a time of rich solitude, contemplation and intimacy with my Lord.

Life is different today.
Not bad, different.
Today I am learning how to be in relationship with a godly woman who seeks to serve the Father and others. As roommate Willy says, a great deal of time is required to be in relationship.

I get Paul's admonition, that it is better to be unmarried, simply on an economy-of-time standpoint. Now I want to spend time with her, whereas before I would sublimate that need for connection and use it to serve others.

Life is good. It's messy. It's different.
God is good. I'm messy. We're different, yet I hope somehow to bring Him a smile at my goofy attempts and foolishness.

Father, protect me from what I was; shape me for who You would have me be.

I love you.

Journey in a Day

I am here.
Here does not define me, but it does describe part of me.
I am not my path, but my path has shaped me.
I am not my future, for there is no such thing; only in the present does the future exist, and no man knows the hour of his reckoning. At best, we get retrospect to learn from.

I have been set free for Freedom, but that freedom is not license... it is an honorable opportunity to choose the things pleasing to my Abba.
I do not get to redo the past-- it is not my present, and therefore not my responsibility. My Lord tells me that he has washed it clean as snow anyway, so to reflect on my past in manners unworthy of my Present is perhaps my greatest sin.

Abba, please allow me the grace of seeing myself in Jesus.
Please allow me the grace to see others as Jesus would.
In this moment, this Moment, I submit what I know to One who gets me.
I love you, Lord.

Cardinal Sin

There is something deep inside of me that is nourished when I spend time in Refugio County. I'm pretty sure it is not the allergies, but I do believe it has to do with the smell of the grass, trees and ragweed, coupled with the sound of cardinals, flycatchers and red-shouldered hawks, the dry wind on a cloudy day whispering false notions about the possibility of rain.

My dad has a pond surrounded by larger trees that he calls "Kelley Park", and I often will lend a hand around his place repairing stuff, or mowing back brush. It was in the process of clearing and trimming shrubs around his lake that I made my mistake: I snipped off a low branch that was hiding a cardinal's nest. I knew my error when I heard the protests of the lone, naked nestling: this high-pitched squeak that usually means: "Hey mom, I'm hungry", but now probably cried out: "Warning!-- old, tall geek with pruning shears who's not looking carefully at what he's doing!!"
I felt terrible. I quickly put the little guy and the souvenir egg back in the nest and wedged it back into the bush from whence it was shorn, an apology offered in the sincerest modality. What else was there to do? RATS! I kayaked back that evening to see if the momma accepted my apology, but I had done a good job of putting the hidden nest back into the bush and didn't want to traumatize them any more by lumbering over to it again. So I left and hoped for the best.
I hate it when I do something trying to help a situation, get so engrossed in the process that I accidentally create a problem, and then have to surrender the outcome, because I don't get the final say.
Sometimes that's like my relationship with God; sometimes that's simply my entire life.
Lord Jesus, I am soo thankful that you are trustworthy, that you know my heart and have the power to make things right, even sins committed with the best of intentions.
Thank you for this summer and the many blessings you shower on us, especially old, tall geeks with pruning shears.

Out of Africa

June is cold in southern Africa. I welcome that.
Returning to Houston and stepping from the air-conditioned confines of baggage claim, I felt somehow betrayed by my own hometown.
Humidity; thick, like a bland cheese that has been melted to point of stickiness yet has no flavor... only texture... Houston in June.

Chasing students through South Africa was a blessing this last month; I am so thankful for the people we met along the way: our Muslim driver, Isaac; our hostel hostess, Sarah; Miss Rosie and her beautiful orphans at Baphumelele; our Kruger guides, Gavin and Jessica; our Zambian driver, Simon, and his son, Benjamin; my favorite waiter in Livingstone, Charles; our Zambezi river guide, "Potato", who prayed for us as we prepared to land our raft; the people of the Mukuni Village. Awesome.

Yard work and interviewing prospective faculty has replaced panoramic views of wilderness; weeding through piles of e/mail has replaced prolonged periods of journaling and reflecting; a non-stop social process has replaced a natural rythme that is older than the baobab trees. We call it civilization; I think: "Babel".

I am thankful.
I am thankful for this day.
   -for the new relationship that is growing
      -for the old relationships that continue to bless me
          -for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I'm out of Africa now. There are shrubs to trim, orders to place, bills to pay, people to meet, and duties to perform-- Lord, let me not forget your Kruger sunsets or the playfulness in the Victoria Falls. I selfishly ask for rich laughter, release from anxiety, and excitement for the moments You have for us, Abba.

Help me to be a fantastic Jim Kelley.
I love You, Abba.

Pause...

I like this morning...
No alarm clock, just a slow fade into awareness like the old tv set we had as a kid... remember? the kind that sometimes you had to adjust the vertical, and when you turn it off there was this little white dot in the middle?
And remember the tv station signal pattern? and the sign off with the national anthem?
Remember recess to the playground?
Remember playing in the dirt with sticks, or poking ants or playing with pillbugs?
There was a time much different today when we didn't have cell phones, didn't have 24-hour news-channels, portable internet access or Siri.
There was a time when there was space in life to think deep thoughts, to dream rich dreams... to pause and reflect upon the amazing goodness within which God marinates us.
And so I celebrate this Jewish Sabbath with a lovely pause.
Thank you Jesus.
Into Your hands I commit my spirit.

ps- Please watch over my loved ones this summer.

Dead Man Walking...

"...but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you." (Acts 1:8)

Sometimes I relate to Lazarus; I've been given a fresh start, a do-over in Christ.
Sometimes I experience the Spirit's presence so closely that all I can do is weep.
Sometimes I feel dead inside, like the white-washed tombs of a pharisee. Or dead to feelings of romance, like my heart has lost its ability to give itself to another besides Jesus. Is this bad? Am I being unfair to those in my life that want more than I am able to give relationally? Do I just stop dating, shut down eHarmony, and walk away? Is the "more" that Abba has for me not include a significant other? Why can't I feel those feelings?

A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, but what if all my ways are not unstable? ... double-minded... I find myself in some weird, personal form of spiritual bipolarity? What is up with that?

I yearn for transformational power from on High.
I yearn for resurrection power, in me; through me.
I don't want to do anything that would compromise my intimacy with Jesus... so does this make me a monk? I'm ok with that, Abba, if that's what is best...
I also don't want to be a dead man walking, either.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?


Thanks be to God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Sometimes You Are So Smart...

One of the things that I love about visiting the sisters down in the Counseling Corner is their "love for one another". Like right now: they're standing around each other, each working on separate tasks but there is this awesome sisterhood thing that occurs down here. Even their insults and candid comments do not wound deeply as might occur elsewhere:
Carebear: "Do they kill peacocks to get their feathers?"
MegaWeave: "That is a BAD question. I mean really.. Sometimes you are so smart, but THAT question.."
Carebear: [laughter] [both continue to work feverishly]
--that's it; no retaliation... just laughter and smiles as both their eyes never leave what they are working on.

First of all, to stay on task like they do is an amazing reality to an individual such as myself! [SQUIRREL!] Their professional acuity is marvelous--even now MegaWeave is discussing her backyard fire-pit and typing so fast that it sounds like machine-gun fire from Julius and Brian playing Call of Duty-3 at the Den of Men.
Even El Guapo, the men among the sisters, is cranking it non-stop, while Care-Bear and Trigger continue to work on next year's schedules as they each migrate back to their respective offices. It's amazing how much this office accomplishes behind the scenes, so much we take for granted by the time the school year starts again.
And I sit here like a lump.
It's quite intimidating, actually.
So I think I'll lumber away and recycle paper or do something else that may possibly give me some hope of being as cool as they are.
I'm also disappointed that nobody wants to go eat chips and salsa at Pappasito's.

I'm a teacher. It's summer. I'm still up at school.
Jesus, thank you for our community at HC. I love you.

Melony, 41

Melony, 41. Someplace, Texas.
Closed.
It bums me when I realize that sometimes I'm too brusque.
I don't like it about myself, but it's part of the package.
The Paddle-Partner calls it "snarky"; I think of it as "being on my spiritual-period". Or maybe I'm just some crotchety old dude.

A few days ago I made an announcement on my profile to the microcosm that "...bipolar=scary"
I did not mean to be "mean", just up front, and didn't have enough 'letters' to be more specific on my profile. In my life bipolar people make me feel crazy because they make assumptions about my intention without checking reality, and often respond to their imagination and blame me for their behavior. That makes me crazy, and sad, and angry-- thus: scary.

Melony41 wrote to me out of the blue asking what I meant by "bipolar=scary": fair question; I appreciate the opportunity to explain that being in a relationship with a bipolar person can be exhausting, and I've had some negative experiences with bipolar persons in my life.. She agreed and shared an experience she had with a relative, then mentioned how scary that was for her and stuff.
She is a creative, lovely sister in Christ, a community builder who accidentally writes poetry simply by penning her thoughts. I enjoy reading her words. She also seemed a sensitive, compassionate person, yet courageous enough to ask a stranger from the blue a direct question-- I respect that. So I replied.

 I apologized if I was too blunt on my profile. Then I did something weird: I offered advice from the microcosm, because she had just arrived and may not understand the processes: if someone is obviously not a match for you, it's acceptable to "close" them, because you see something in that relationship that just won't work, and so that it's a good thing, because it allows both of you to move on. (I guess I was giving her permission to "close" me if I had offended her beyond repair or if she would not ever have further conversation with someone who might write something as brusque as "..bipolar=scary", because she seemed a sensitive person? and might not understand that it's ok to close an account? because she was new to the microcosm?) I warned her beforehand my comment was weird, but I actually was trying to be helpful.

She writes back that she was diagnosed bipolar at one point in her life, but that her friends don't agree with it, that she was perhaps healed, and that I obviously don't want to date bipolar people, and "closed" me before I could reply.
Ummm ok.

Ok.
But I obviously had not closed the account if I was writing to her.
So I obviously did not want to close the account...
So she obviously made her own decision, then blamed me for it? Hmm.
Life is messy.
I would not have closed her.

Closed.

What's Love got ta do with it?

There is a special place in the chest of a man, somewhere in proximity superior to the aorta, that registers feelings deeper than the mind can comprehend.
It is a dull, deep feeling that just sits there like a lump of stale pita bread that was not adequately washed down, a sense that something is there and it's not quite right.
The ancients and contemporaries attributed this to "the heart" and has manifested itself on Hallmark curios for many Februarys now, some red graphic more reminiscent of Ipomoea than cardiac.
I do not like this feeling; it is like a cousin to anxiety, like when you realize you are about to be called on the carpet. It is a hanging, open sensation that something is out of place; like Elvis, shalom has left the building. It is the feeling that occurs when a girl realizes that she will not be asked to the prom. It is a feeling a boy feels when he sees his best friend flirting with the girl he has a crush on.
Crush.
That's a good word.
Crush. This heavy sense that there is something there, pushing in or on.
It is also the feeling one has when he or she chooses to lay aside a dream before it can be further dreamt.
RIP--John 12:24

Diatoms

God's Creation is truly amazing. The biodiversity found in extant and extinct records boggles the curious and challenges the taxonomic tyro. We know that of the millions of species on our blue planet, only 1% are alive today. We also know that Big Industry did not extirpate the dinosaur-- Darwin's verifiable ideas are spot-on: death happens and has been doing so for quite some time now.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/chromista/diatoms/centriclive.jpg

One of the amazing creatures we find floating in amongst the surfboarders of the world is a wee creature we collectively call diatoms. We use their corpses in impacting soil structure, industrial microfilters, or even measuring micro-optic resolution, yet the most amazing contribution is that of a photosynthetic drifter.

Diatoms are considered to be a form of glass-covered alga, a lethargic cousin of the heliozoans (who also have very cool Christmas-ornament-appearance under the microscope). What's interesting to me is that these photosynthetic protists need upwelling to stay in the euphotic zones. No current? They settle to the bottom and die. Which reminds me of: us.

In my One-Year Bible these last few weeks I've been reading through the book of Judges and I am amazed. Really. Actually shocked.

When people get away from the Current of the Holy Spirit in their life, they settle... and that is a bad thing. I read where fathers rashly make some bizarre vow to kill the first person who runs out of his house if God will give him victory--so he kills his beloved daughter, even though God had nothing to do with that-- choices made apart from the Current. Samson gives his power away like a sex-addict thinking with his reptilian brain. Benjamites gang-raping some chick to death, so her man cuts her up with a kitchen knife and sends body parts as an invitation for payback, but the Benjamites protect the perps and get pounded like the hilarious scene in flick "The Avengers", when Hulk meets Loki, then work a technicality for how to help the few survivors replace their slaughtered wives and children. Crazy.

We are ugly when we settle... even dead... when we allow distractions to take us out of the Flow that keeps us exposed to His life-giving light.

God, keep us in You; protect us from ourselves.

Muted

(originally typed on my iPhone as a response to losing internet access and the frustration that was created)

Interesting how mute, muted and mutiny all seem to go together.
That's what every tyrant discovers, though that only occurs when their regime topples. Think: ".. let them eat cake."
There is a dignity worth dying for, a dignity denied by oligarchs, because they have spent most of their life positioning and politicking to rise to their perceived status, and so to listen to or allow minions an authentic voice (I am not referring to paternalistic pretense perpetuated as public performance) that might bring dignity to the speaker-- that is to be denied...lest the oligarch be exposed to be the frightened child that he or she truly is.
That is the power of voice; that is the reason men and women will die a martyr for this simple freedom-- the freedom of speech.
We see it in America: on the job, at school, and certainly in religious institutions: shut the mouth of the prophet; call her names like rabble-rouser or trouble-maker; write in his file that he is divisive or not a "team player" because he asks what others are thinking-- fire them before people hear that message and begin asking questions previously repressed. The fear that runs the office betrays the tyrant for who he or she is. Why the cover up? Why the secrets? Why the stranglehold on communication?
The tyrant rules by projecting their own fear onto their minions, and it works.
It really does work.
The people surrender to oppression. People go back to slave life in Egypt and suffocate the dream of a promised land flowing with the milk and honey of freedom and mutual respect. Mutual trust.

Fear wins.
Death to hope.
Death to honor.
Death to creative dreams.
Death to a community of loyalty and mutuality.
Enter anxiety; distrust; gossip; betrayal; scheming; resentment-- these are the fruits of the tyrant who wears the misnomer "leader" and uses fear, shame and intimidation to keep minions in their place [which was amazingly played by Alan Alda's character in mediocre film, "Tower Heist].


A true leader enters in, engages alongside and then to the front. You see this in Walmart executives who spend a day working in a store, in college presidents who teach a class, in Army Colonels who take a duty.
A leader would never isolate himself from his troops; that is the hallmark of tyrannical separatism.
A leader uses her power to elevate and empower others toward the greater good for all, taking on a servant's humility and not asking another to do what they themselves would not do. The golden rule means something to a true leader; it is a joke to the tyrant.

Freedom is to speak one's mind; to write one's thoughts and not be intimidated by the tyrant's projected fear.
The paradox is humorous and tragic-- pure drama: if the citizen speaks a truth that "causes trouble", it is because the situation is corrupt, not because of the spoken truth.
On the other hand if the citizen is a slandering slob, then the honorable leader will have truth on their side. We see this in the life of the prophet Daniel, whose critics were ashamed because of Daniel's high character.
So what if we risk bold honesty?
What if we never betrayed our own witness by harboring secret agendas?
What if we let the Truth set us free?
I dare you to go one day with complete unblemished honesty. I dare me.
--
All this because I lost Internet and have been reduced to thumb-waving on my iPhone.
Boy I'm weird.

Eleven days

This morning I was catching up on reading my One Year Bible (OYB). In "March 23"s readings we begin the book of Deuteronomy, and it is there that I read this interesting phrase:

"(It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.)"--Deut.1:2.

What an interesting way to begin the 5th book of the Torah.
Curious. Mainly because I forget the names of people and places I've never visited or experienced in person.
I read on:

   V.6--"The LORD our God said to us at Horeb, 'You have stayed long enough at this mountain...'"

   V.19--"Then, as the LORD our God commanded us, we set out from Horeb and went toward the hill country of the Amorites through all that vast and dreadful desert that you have seen, and so we reached Kadesh Barnea." (--ah! this is the point... got it... 11 day trip.)

   V.25-- Israel explores the promised land and SEES that it is FULL of goodness.

   V.26--"But you were unwilling to go up..."

   V.34-35-- "When the LORD heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore: 'Not a man of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your forefathers, [except Caleb & Joshua]...'"

Oh boy... another reminder: same song, different production company.

O God, make me trust You!
Make me take that step!
Close the sea behind me so I can't turn back!
Goad my backside SO that I will move past my stupid fears and ENTER INTO YOUR FULLNESS.
O LORD, I realize I have just invited pain and infliction into my life if I do not pay attention to what You have for me, to what Your promise is for me.
Dear Abba, I recognize the good Father disciplines his children because He loves them and wants their best.
Dear Jesus, show me your ways. Show me how to surrender. Show me the steps to the cross. Show me how to converse with our Abba, how to do battle with the flesh, how to speak Truth into situations, how to risk obedience, how to shift the atmosphere through the Spirit's power and not rely on my own limited resources.
Amen.

Getting your goat? Numbers 15

"...After you enter the land I am giving you as a home..."

I hate reading about Israel, for autobiographical reasons.

To find Chapter 15 in the Book of Numbers is not unlike discovering a wrapper of girl scout Thin Mints in the freezer after thinking my supply has been depleted.
There is something about the annual reading of Numbers in my OYB that conjures that sense that comes from waiting to see the dentist-- you're there for a reason, but is it worth the wait?
Today's reading starts with Ch.14 and that reality does nothing but reinforce my angst... Israel... really? [Jim... really?]
Recap for biblical neophytes:
God knew that a deadly famine was coming that could do great harm to His chosen people, so he used brotherly snarkiness to propel Joseph into a cascade of events, not unlike a Pachinko game, that lands the golden boy as big dog of Egypt. Having set that piece in place, Abba brings over Israel into a protected, fertile land to chase ungulates for a couple centuries... long enough to put their homeland back in shape and make the locals REALLY unpleasant to hang out with. [FYI- sometimes Abba uses jerks and mean people to prepare your hearts to leave a bad situation, so you can experience the MORE-ness He has for you... stop settling for pig slop... Jim.]
By now the locals have enjoyed using/abusing these migrant workers and so Abba raises up Moses by putting him into Pharaoh's own household, educating him in leadership, then sends him out into the wilderness to practice leading huge flocks of clueless Sheep, then at the right time sends Moses back and does a truckload of over-the-top miracles by God's power, demonstrating that he is a worthy leader and has an "in" with God. Because Pharaoh is an entitled jerk and a sorry leader-- because his arrogance and false sense of self is so corrupt, God simply uses that factor to wipe out Egypt's firstborns, which makes the overlords so eager to loose the migrants that they end up subsidizing their exit with bundles of loot.
This is to get Israel back to their homeland, and away from their comfy little slave-life of Less-ness. To help in motivating His people get moving, he puts Pharaoh's army into chariots with lots of scary implements and has them chase Israel through a giant gap through an inland sea, just to make sure they get going.
Once through the middle of the sea, God makes pastry rain down daily for breakfast to feed his people, making water appear in crazy ways in order to take care of Moses' new Flock in the wilderness. Israel continues to be stupid. Continually. Stupid. Finally God brings His people to the gates of the promised land, and send some scouts to go see that it really is a luxurious place with GI-normous amounts of fruit. The scouts gather up the amazing fruit, bring it back to the people, and convince the entire NATION that trusting God is a bad idea. They still have fruit on their breath. That takes us to Chapter 14.
In today's reading we find Israel wanting to kill Moses and Aaron for leading them to the land of milk and honey, instead wanting to go back to life in the slave camp.The people are listening to the Goats and becoming what they listen to (reminds me of the donkey-boys of Pinocchio.. the goat-boys of Israel?), except for Caleb and Joshua who remind the people that God has done EVERYTHING He promised up to that point, with flair, and thus: what's a tall person to the Almighty?
Seriously.
Meanwhile God has had it with these rebellious, unappreciative, blasphemous Goats; He starts warming up the spank ray, when Moses once again does his pastoral intervention thing and wins forgiveness for the Flock. Nonetheless: they pay for their blasphemy with a fatal 40 year hike until all the Goats eventually drop dead. Their blasphemy changes God's initial plan, but being Goats they think they can just use God's immutable nature as an excuse for self-actualization: the Amalekites and Canaanites handed them back their buttocks on a platter-- God was not interested in goatly faith.
Which leads us to Chapter 15.
Here we see a switch: this is a chapter of repeated promises that drip hope like a saturated honeycomb.
"After you enter..."-- you WILL enter, so afterwards...
"..a grain offering of fine flour.."-- crops? that means fields.. that means no more wandering around...
"..prepare a quarter of a hin of wine..."-- wine? that means vineyards... that means grapes, and grapes are fruit, and THAT is what the Father is like.
He does not give up on His people, but it's a REALLY BAD idea to rebel against plan A... at least for you it's a bad idea-- don't miss what Abba has for you, and for God's sake: don't pull somebody else down to your goat-ness.
Don't mess with cursing Daddy's character; listen to Caleb, listen to Joshua-- Abba is good, and He is greater than any supposed giant.
Worldly fear is just a stupid waste of joy and the Blessing that awaits those faithful and courageous enough to stand with Stephen... or Paul... or Jeremiah... or James... or Peter... or (you?)...

Spring Forward

My favorite season used to be the Fall.
Perhaps it was the promise of dove season after the first cool front blew down from the high plains, bringing with it hummingbirds and butterflies?
Perhaps it was the advent of my favorite sedentary sport: football viewing with friends.
Perhaps it was the reprieve from the brutal Texas summer?
I'm not sure anymore.

My backyard is astir with life: it is the Spring.
Flowers are blooming, the ash tree is replete with green, and the crippled old mulberry tree digs deep to begin the process of soon making mulberries.
The dove are ridiculous in their amorous advances, while other feathered friends begin their own forms of persuasive speech, that annual festival of plumage and performance that echos millennia of fitness to a listening female audience.

In the midst of this expression of life is this thing: Lent.
It is something that spurs the pilgrim towards self-flagellation, a fitting counter to the indulgences of a fat Tuesday much like that post-holiday penance perpetuated on the parish: New Year's resolution... Except it is deemed more sacred. The story goes that Passover draweth nigh, a time of remembering and feasting: perhaps this Lenton season is the backdrop behind which such festivities are better appreciated, a contrast of bright upon grayness? And in this metamorphosis of chrysalitic emergence blossoms the pinks, yellows and purples of Easter-- an important, important reminder that, like Lent, the grayness of life will pass into something beyond, a hope unimagined except in the purest of dreams.

Two friends bury their wives this week.

Painting Chinese Trees

...
Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment....
Maybe I just don't have enough reasons to doubt my own abilities, opportunities to un-scaffold any construct on which I might hang the perception of competence.

I returned to Chinese class this morning.

I would like to think that the fact I missed the last two weeks contributes the entirety on which my struggles hang, but alas, nay verily... it is a far deeper cleft from which I murmer.
And it's a double-bind, too: I truly enjoy my classmates.. all three of them... co-strugglers in this quest of knowledge and cultural relevance; I truly honor, respect, and feel sorry for my laoshi who is persistent in trying to frame my contributions in a positive light... Lord, bless her. The problem is me: I am the worst adult student ever to have taken a Mandarin class in the history of Western civilization. Notice I clarified adult student... I teach high schoolers and have tried to engage in rudimentary dialog with those who are learning Mandarin, and even though I am quite certain my pronunciation and tonal use is spot-on, my attempts elicit a facial expression not unlike that of a cow noticing a passing car. And so in typing this, I come to this horrendous awareness that I am now comparing my acuity with a post-pubescent population; pitiful.

The new housemate JuJu asked, in the midst of a self-deprecating, non-actualizing intraverbal wrestling match of Jacobian proportion this week(though Israel's opponent was in a different League), aware that I had not only NOT studied any Mandarin this week but didn't really have time available, he sincerely asked an important question: "Jim, so why are you taking Chinese?"
It's an important question, and the answer is easy.. initially.
I would rather answer why I am taking Chinese class, than try to explain why I have not applied myself as much as possible.
Why study Mandarin?
I want to be able to talk to people wherever I go, and since China is taking over the world, they own America through our debts, and they have more students learning English today than WE HAVE STUDENTS, TOTAL, it seemed logical to be able to speak to our future overlords.
It also is connected to my trek to China a few years ago with the greatest people in the world, my students. The problem was I was completely incompetent to be able to 1) engage this amazing culture into which I was visiting, 2) be able to tell the cab driver where to take me, or 3) simply ask where the bathroom is located. Fortunately China has copied our US policy of providing information in foreign script so as to keep foreigners from assimilating, hence the bano could usually be found via public iconographia. But I wished I had SOME idea what the families were saying as we passed by, following the flag-lady-guide-person throughout the day.
So.. That means it's about control and wanting to be in it.
There is something humbling to have to ask the hostel's clerk to write a destination on a notecard, then wave down a cabbie, handing them the card like a deaf/mute before they begin to actually ask a question. I wonder if that is what a stroke victim experiences when they are re-learning how to communicate even though they know what they want to say?

I truly appreciate my laoshi, and all the time and energy she puts into the four of us adult learners. As a CBCD she and her husband are continuing to learn English, and her grasp of our language is excellent and ongoing. Her family worships in this bilingual Christian community, and her 2 children are ABCD and cut their teeth on Yingwen. I am one of two Anglo's in about 100 students in the school, and even David is married to a Chinese person; my motivation is not the same as many of the ABCD's around me, that's what I tell myself in order to rationalize why I am such a poor student. To be fair to Jim, almost EVERYbody else has family or intimate friends with whom they can converse, practicing not only speaking (I try that in the car when nobody can hear me) but more importantly listening, processing and responding: communication.

At this point in today's blog I am reminded of my pastor/friend who I will refer to as Goatee Sean, who once started off his sermon meandering through some unforgotten point and at 45 minutes... 45 minutes... said... out loud: "..which brings me to the point of tonight's message..", at which my terrified glance was reflected back to me by the Yetti in that mutual, telepathic understanding: "You mean he hasn't even begun his sermon yet?!"

Indeed, yet context is helpful. So today in class my brain hears for the first time what my ears have heard regularly before, when Luoloashi says something like, "Oh, yes, we have learned that before.. it is on page 135," and so our fantastic four flip our textbooks to some word that may actually have been glanced over 4 weeks ago en passe ... "learned"?
And then I remember.. all the times this was said: "Oh yes, we learned that 3 months ago..", and I suddenly felt really, really sorry for some of my biology students. Not because I was being unreasonable in expecting to hold onto their hard-earned understanding of dehydration synthesis, or the monomers of proteins (amino acids, for you former students)-- a teacher.... a laoshi... is supposed to have high expectations for his/her students. Students will most likely achieve what is expected of them, whether high or low, so I aim high.
So does my laoshi; she should-- she is good at what she does.
So then I am faced with this awful realization that I AM THAT KID watching the clock, wondering when class is going to end so I can go do something that helps me feel confident about being me.
But I also know that one-time mentioning it does not teaching make.

Teaching is not lecturing. If that is true, they should fire the lot of us, including college professors, and use tuition money to buy books on tape (or mp3). Or better yet, we just surf YouTube and Wiki our way through our curiosities, if that is what teaching is.
But it is not the same, is it. That idea would be the equivalent to comparing education to painting a mural on a wall using oil paints: once it's laid down, it's good to go.
I'm sorry, but that does not speak to my reality, how my brain works. That metaphor would be more accurate for me if you used colored sand on a windy day.
No, for me teaching is best described in the metaphor of planting an apple seed in hopes of producing a tree. A planting does not a tree always make. And this is especially true if the seed is resistant to surrendering itself to the process of tree-making.
For my species of tree, the soil is best aerated and prepared beforehand, and once the seed is planted at the appropriate depth, the soil covers it and is watered to begin this process of germination.

I guess that's the idea; knowledge is growth, whether biological or linguistic. It is not a point in time, it is an organic process. Following the planting comes watering and re-watering and re-watering. And cultivation of weeds, clarifying errors that have popped up.
And once it has taken root, it is destined to produce fruit.

And so to my classmates: may we prepare to the best of our abilities.
And to our laoshi's: may you work us and tend to us as the greatest of gardeners.

I'm done.

Rhythm

Today as MegaWeave, the Mermaid and your's truly stood outside the front of our building, we were startled by the roar of the nearby beltway.
We were preparing to continue a prayer-walk started the week previous for our campus under the leadership of Dawny, and Mega' thought we should start at the front of our edifice.
We all share our stories of how we use imagination to make urban reality go away, namely road noise, and I believe we all came up with water metaphors. Because she is the MegaWeave, her's was the most appropriate match: a waterfall's rushing sound. I believe mine was a close second: the rushing of a white-water river. The Mermaid, because.. well.. she's a mermaid, said it reminded her of the ocean. Because I'm a broken person I had to correct her, and let her know why I thought that was a close match, but not the best: "The ocean speaks with a rhythm, a tidal sound like the heartbeat of the planet; this noise is constant." Something like that. Sorry.
But I reflected on it for a moment, and I liked the notion: the planet has a rhythm like the ocean tide, in.. out.. like the relaxed breathing of my dad right before he slips off into slumber in his easy chair after one of Rosemary's meals.

Rhythm. There is this pattern, this... cycle? The seasons exemplify it, even now as
The green of Spring
Has sprung this thing
Called life;
Verdant in tenderness,
This season of messiness drips
Rain upon souls of men and beast.

Perhaps it's the bipolar personality of February in Houston; perhaps it's the scent of.. sight of
Spring things that
Sprout new wings or
Budding trees that prove
That there is Life inside,
Like an expectant bride whose beauty is yet to be unveiled.

Fritillaries, bobbing and weaving today through God's Garden as I check the status of my new bird feeding stations erected therein; orange and overlooked, they do not evade the eye of childlikeness along this Gulf coast. Fritillaries; as predictable as the amazing passionate inflorescence that completes them. Predictable like it's kingly cousins who flutter to Central America and back each season, like a tide in it's rhythm of migratory Adventure.

Rhythm.
This downbeat of time, somewhere between chronos and kairos, conjures more than austral migrants; it chants from a deep spiritual whisper things ancient, even eternal. Today was such a day.

She wore ashes as she bought groceries tonight.

Daughter

Mark 5: 21-34
I think it is beautiful, how Jesus looks into her eyes and calls her "Daughter".
In the pressing mob, sensitized to the plight of man and his daughter, Jesus speaks words of restoration.
And I love how she did not give up on herself; she just finally turned to the only one who could heal that unclean source in her life.
So cool.
Jesus, I love how you love.

A Pair of Docs

Last night as I snuggled into my Jesus-pillow in the chill of furnace-less night, it struck me how convoluted my life process is, how I can be blind to my own stuff-- or more likely: how I stucco this idealized sense of reality over my own crap.
To my inner circle this is not news, this is equivalent to saying: "Fire is hot," but when yours is the lens through which the scene is captured, it's not at all that easy. After all, I often have episodes of mental acuity not unlike the three-toed sloth... I need help.

http://www.facts-about.org.uk/images/three-toed-sloth.jpg

It's like: going out for coffee after eating healthy food and afterwards, perhaps a random tooth-check in the rear-view mirror notice a piece of baby spinach the size of Kansas perfectly, smoothly laid across incisors 1 and 2; and then you realize: you ate that thing hours ago; and then you realize you've flown that dental flag all through an entire social session?
 I remember a similar incident when I ended up confronted my beloved Coach Calculus in the faculty workroom with: "I thought you were my friend! You let me walk around with THIS in my teeth?"--pointing at my mouth's keepsake-- after we had gone out for lunch.
No; friends need to take note: true friends inform buddies of tooth boogers.

So as I'm cuddling up with my "Jesus" pillow, now freshly aware that I "should" do this because I mentioned it on eHarmony once (and thus my inner Pharisee tries to run the show), regardless of the joy and comfort I get imagining going to sleep in my Lover's arms, it strikes me: I like to cuddle.
And I'm interested in dating other women, I must be, because logically-- you don't sign up and pay eHarmony if you are not interested in dating women, so I must be interested, so why do I say I'm only dating Jesus, when I'm out there chatting on eH-mail? or am I cheating on eH-mail? Am I two-timing Jesus? Why can't I just admit it to myself? I'm such a pretender; dang it. Or maybe just a frightened little boy in a world of experienced women? It's inner dialogs like this that make Woody Allen seem a neophyte at introspection.
The Apostle Paul and Jesus both recommend staying single; am I unfaithful?
So then I have this inner-demon self-abasement [squirrel!-- I like hyphens] session where I'm wondering "..am I a spiritual slut to Jesus," because I want to explore the possibility of finding my perfect match online, and then I remember: Jesus is ok with sluts, in fact Jesus LOVES sluts in a pure, holy, redemptive, bride-honoring kinda way that only He can do, because those of us who have been intimate with Him know he will not take advantage of our vulnerability.
So I guess I'm a sorta spiritual slut that Jesus adores, because He's cool like that.
I don't know what my future holds. This whole single-thing-again is a weird gig, trying perhaps for the first time in my life to discover what would be the perfect partner for an imperfect me,  but life is good and I rejoice in it's contradictions. The Paddle Partner once reminded me of a wise old sage, whose thoughts I will conclude with here, conjured from the creativity of Margery Williams:



"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

[The Velveteen Rabbit, p.12-13]

May you join me in this awesome adventure of discovery called life.
Cheers,
Jim

Bird Nerd: update Feb19

Figures.
About the time I invest in a fresh new bag of thistle seeds for the myriads of American goldfinches that were attacking my thistle-socks, they've gone. Poof. Nada. Zippo.
I thought the last few days it must have been the abundant rain, which shut down most of my regulars except the white-wings, but with the sun in full-beam, my backyard is astir with my feathered buddies.

CrazyCreek chair at open back door, best seat in the house.

The pair of Carolina wrens that live in the woodpile by my back door are doing their usual circuits: fly over to my grey rainwater catchment (redeemed trash can), up to the suet feeder (currently loaded with cayenne goodness to thwart squirrels), occasionally landing at my feet on the back porch just to make sure I'm ok, and then back to the wood pile.

A pair of Carolina chickadees make their rounds, flitting between the 3 tube feeders suspended above the back yard, then up to the evergreen Ilex, over to the green ash (appropriately verdant with this spring's leaves already), then back to the feeders. One stops and fusses at squirrel that is licking the peanut butter off a stale loaf of french bread that is impaled on dead limb of my sickly Morus tree... my favorite tree in all my life, sick with fungus, yet never refusing to provide my most spectacular migrating visitors a spring meal of ripe, white mulberries: rose-breasted grosbeaks, orchard & baltimore orioles, waxwings, painted and indigo buntings. Dear Abba, in all selfishness I plead for more years of life for this beloved tree.

As usual my mourning and white-winged doves are swarming over every flat surface that might contain spilled seeds; my platform feeder is ridiculous about 8 am with a scene fairly equivalent to a Tokyo subway in bird-world. My neighbor kids me about it, because you can see from the street the 30 to 40 dove starting to congregate in the top of the Morus, waiting for the house sparrows to come in and give the "coast's clear" signal for swarming to begin. Today the male white-wings are quite amorous in their calling... the Fraxinus' auguries must be right: spring is in the air.

A pine warbler now joins an orange-crowned warbler that has been flitting between the peanut butter smeared on the tree and the cayenne suet by the back door. About the time I think the yellow-rumped warbler has also fled northward, a male catches my attention in the top of the Morus and flits its way downward, pausing so I can confirm it with my binoculars, it's back to the afternoon sun so that its yellow rump explodes with radiance that says: I AM SO COOL!... it's times like these I truly wish I knew what kind of camera to purchase for wildlife shots like these.

A pair of blue jays must have seen or heard the doves; they just came through in their typical, raucous manner, the second lingering with it's eery clicking rattle noise that has 'velociraptor' written all through it. They apparently are less interested in the food offerings, and more interested in harassing the pair of cardinals that were there before them. It's not long before the male play's the role of slut-monkey and starts courting every available female from the boughs of the prominent trees... in fact I hear one now, about a block away, shrouded by the calls of doves, including the mourning dove (who have now joined the white-wings's call "who's cook! are youu?")... with their name-appropriate call: "I'm soo, soo bluuuue."

...and not a single goldfinch. I will post it later if they were merely out on holiday this weekend, and missed being part of my backyard bird count.

Thrice since typing I've seen the orange flutters of butterflies, gone before I get a good look. Surely they were fritillaries and not monarchs. Right? What has happened to winter?

If April showers bring May flowers, what do February showers bring?
My guess: Spring.

May God be with you: the Creator, Redeemer, and truly good Father. You are his precious child. May you experience new life in all that Jesus has for you, like Creation awakens from the lull of Houston winter. May the sunshine of his love warm you from the inside out.
Blessings,
Jim.

Manna from Heaven: whiners?

...
Nine hours and counting.
...
Every year I read through my One Year Bible, and it doesn't take a whole lotta time before I really start getting frustrated with mankind.
To start with? God let us run around naked in a post-Pangean paradise, eating almost anything we wanted (note: vegetarians were not considered a bit off at that time), and rules were limited to only one biggie.

..and we blew it up.

And then there was Noah's generation, so nasty that the loving Creator decided to flush the whole lot.

But my greatest "Rrrharrr!" moments come when I read myself into the script of Israel's biography. Here is a people who are unreasonably nominated to be God's very chosen people, who He keeps from starving to death by means of jacket jealousy in this amazing convoluted, perfectly planned plot, who then decide to hang out in Egypt long enough to be considered immigrant workers, and are treated as such. The get tired of the Man, so God sends Moses to take them back to their homeland, but the employers don't want to give up their laborer class, so there's this jedi battle thing with toads and hail and gnats, which are apparently significant, and they finally cross the river, this time not even getting their backs wet. They wander toward God's goal for them in a land where Moses has previously led gregarious creatures, but it was a hard land, so God had to do some miraculous stuff to provide food and water for them.

But my favorite part is Manna: God makes some organic alternative to tortilla chips show up at breakfast time every work day... all Israel has to do is pick it up and eat it or cook it or whatever.

And Israel complains. They whine about BREAD THAT FREAKING JUST CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN SO THEY DON'T STARVE TO DEATH!

One of the greatest gifts God ever gave humanity was the reality that I'm not God and don't have access to the smite button.

Because after experiencing the worst drought in history to which we lost about half our forests, entire communities were placed on water-rationing, livestock perished horribly from starvation and thirst, and fires ravaged the tinder-like pineries of Texas...
... I would probably smite the next person who complains about this gift of rain, soaking us now for almost ten hours of replenishment.
Dear Jesus, thank you for showing us the Love of the Father. We have a long way to go, because we are no different from Israel during their walk-about, and we consider blessings to be curses-- that's how foolish we are. Thank you for understanding: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Boom.
Encouragement.

Rain: It Feels like Redemption

It's not even 8 am, yet the sky is dark with thunder. It's been a long time since I've seen a storm like this morning's, which may explain why I, still clad in my pj's,  sit in my open, front doorway looking at this refreshing performance. The coolness of winds pulled down from the birthplace of rain, the power and splendor and majesty of lightning, the sudden explosion of preflashed (and thus should have been  expected) thunder like a rogue cymbal player in a tranquil sonata, the rejoicing of plants, arms lifted high in adoration-- a close first choice to the  second of curling up is a cozy bed and missing the full performance.

Terrazzo is harder than crossed legs, so I submit to the complaints from my overburdened ankles and retire to my reading chair after putting on a pot of coffee, to best digest this waking thought: rain is redemption.

The notion is not hard on some levels, especially given that last year was the worst drought in recorded history, thus the 10 inches of rain this month makes up for what was withheld previously. On that note this recent December's rains celebrated the birth of more than one savior. With this winter's precipitation comes the promise of s'mores at public campgrounds, the cessation of water rationing and the refilling of our civic water sources. The pine trees of Houston feel hope again, where last season they saw almost a half of their family members and friends perish for want.

Ruth is a beautiful story in the Hebrew scriptures about a young lass married into an orthodox family from a pagan background. She is loved and accepted, yet as she approaches that time in which most young women yearn for-- that chance to participate in life-giving-- she is cut off. Not only does her husband die, but so do the other men of his immediate family, what would be "husband-redeemers" who would step in and take on the new widow, siring children to continue the estate of the missing. With no better alternative, she follows her mother-in-law back to the lands of Israel, a pair of widows now strangers in an old land. Naomi has her old friends who can connect to her past, perhaps how people rediscover each other on Facebook thirty years after high school, yet she is stuck in her pain, mired in what she no longer has... broken vision. Then Ruth finds favor with a distant relative of her late husband. Boaz is an honorable man perhaps twice her age. Naomi moves out of self-pity and uses her cultural acuity to show Ruth how to invite Boaz into her life. I love Boaz-- here is this honorable, hard-working man who sees this beautiful woman coming into his fields to glean with the poor, but because of his being a generation older he refuses his heart from considering the possibility of any kind of relationship. That is why the first step must be Ruth's; she must enter his world and overtly let Boaz know she is interested in him, because anything less than that he will assume he is being inappropriate. And he is interested; very. And she has a new life and is cared for. And she bears a child that bears evidence that she and Naomi and you and I have not been forgotten, because that child was ancestor of David and The Son of David... which is an interesting thought: unto us a Child is born because of a younger woman being proactive in her relationships. I thought men always had to make the first move, and women always "have to" be passive participants in their own courtship. I am repeatedly entertained how God's story does NOT fit our regimes of how things are "supposed" to operate, especially in suburbia: it's good the be the King. Dear Abby: never mind.

So as the rain starts up again, and I wind down my thoughts, I consider this: we are not forgotten. In the same way the rain brings hope of things to come and immediate relief from the dry weariness of daily life... in the same way God brings two cut-off widows into restored community... so we, too, are redeemed. Our loving Abba has entered into our drought and purchased our potential with the painful penalty borne on the shredded back beginning from Boaz's baby boy.

So when you see the rain, don't miss it: it is a love song sung on tin roofs reminding us to soak in the Presence of the One who loves us so much.

You are the Beloved,
Jim.