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.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
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?)...
I hate reading about Israel, for autobiographical reasons.
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?)...
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
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.
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.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
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.
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.
Monday, February 20, 2012
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.
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."
May you join me in this awesome adventure of discovery called life.
Cheers,
Jim
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 |
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
Sunday, February 19, 2012
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.
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.
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. |
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.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
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.
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.
Saturday, February 04, 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Hello Goldie
Every year it happens. Most are so oblivious with chores or work or shopping or cutting people off in mall parking lots that they have no idea the events occurring before their very eyes, provided they ever hung a bird feeder and paid attention... the goldfinch have arrived in my backyard today!
My first sighting of the year was last week at the Audobon's Edith L. Moore Sactuary, which actually brought a weird sense of "what's wrong with MY feeder stations?" dejection since there was not a goldie to be found in my myriad of feeders and awaiting finch socks. Then today, with Jaxon and Angela there to verify it: boom! Goldfinch! Six feet from my kitchen window... awesomeness!
With the hummingbirds come the end of summer; the geese prove autumn. But the goldfinch is the undeniable herald of winter in Houston, TX.
I love my life. Thank you Lord.
jim
 | |
| winter goldfinch by D.McKenzie |
With the hummingbirds come the end of summer; the geese prove autumn. But the goldfinch is the undeniable herald of winter in Houston, TX.
I love my life. Thank you Lord.
jim
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
The Peaceful Middle
Sitting here at my desk this Wednesday night, listening mindlessly to my Mandarin files on iTunes as I distract myself with constant surfing of cybersociety and reminiscing on a grand week of passage: I'm over 50 years of age now.
One of the challenges of being born in mid-December is birthday cards are often anticipated as Christmas cards, and vice versa. I risked opening one from the Captain and saw a cute picture of people from my past poised for Christmas greetings. I followed the invitation and found the other has become a woods-elf; I am thankful for that-- she has enough manmadeness in the day job. May she be richly blessed, richly blessed; and her people as well.
A precious student, who I will call the Rocker, cheerfully greeted me in the hallway today: "Guess what I got you for Christmas Mr. K? Your very own Black Sabbath CD! Aren't you excited?!" --actually... I was blessed she would invite me into her music world, with her black fingernails and Ozzie Osborn stickers and daily updates when I pass her in the mornings about the latest news from some old rocker I thought was already dead! LOL- she's precious... her parents must be a hoot. I listened to my new album titled, "We Sold Our Soul to Rock and Roll"... and folks, I believe 'em. The lyrics were scary, not like demonic scary but how some people can get so alone and lost that they give up and settle for pigslop because of something that happened in life... and they never look up. They never discover the Hidden Treasure, not because it's a mystery, because it is, but because of the paradox of Abba's mercy; because of the magnitude of a beloved, bloodied, bludgeoned, brutalized and buried and born again Jesus who restores those who betray Him with sheep words.
I have no doubt that even Judas would have had a chance to be restored, except... he never looked up.
Cyber people: do not miss this: God loves you and wants to set you free from your self-induced dungeon of despair and depravity; to be able to laugh and dance and have no guilt, not because your perfect-- you're not; and not because you're perverted and rationalize away your own sin-- you can thus never be forgiven... no, I'm talking about a freedom that this world does not understand, a freedom that comes with a blood-drenched corpse, a horrified & grieved Father and a horrible price paid... not because there was no guilt, but because there WAS guilt... a penalty required, a penalty horribly and willingly paid... because you are His Beloved.
Now go: dance in His forest, His beach, His hillside, ...dance; dance like the weight of the world has been lifted off of you, because it has; dance like a child that has total permission to Be because you are.
His Beloved.
One of the challenges of being born in mid-December is birthday cards are often anticipated as Christmas cards, and vice versa. I risked opening one from the Captain and saw a cute picture of people from my past poised for Christmas greetings. I followed the invitation and found the other has become a woods-elf; I am thankful for that-- she has enough manmadeness in the day job. May she be richly blessed, richly blessed; and her people as well.
A precious student, who I will call the Rocker, cheerfully greeted me in the hallway today: "Guess what I got you for Christmas Mr. K? Your very own Black Sabbath CD! Aren't you excited?!" --actually... I was blessed she would invite me into her music world, with her black fingernails and Ozzie Osborn stickers and daily updates when I pass her in the mornings about the latest news from some old rocker I thought was already dead! LOL- she's precious... her parents must be a hoot. I listened to my new album titled, "We Sold Our Soul to Rock and Roll"... and folks, I believe 'em. The lyrics were scary, not like demonic scary but how some people can get so alone and lost that they give up and settle for pigslop because of something that happened in life... and they never look up. They never discover the Hidden Treasure, not because it's a mystery, because it is, but because of the paradox of Abba's mercy; because of the magnitude of a beloved, bloodied, bludgeoned, brutalized and buried and born again Jesus who restores those who betray Him with sheep words.
I have no doubt that even Judas would have had a chance to be restored, except... he never looked up.
Cyber people: do not miss this: God loves you and wants to set you free from your self-induced dungeon of despair and depravity; to be able to laugh and dance and have no guilt, not because your perfect-- you're not; and not because you're perverted and rationalize away your own sin-- you can thus never be forgiven... no, I'm talking about a freedom that this world does not understand, a freedom that comes with a blood-drenched corpse, a horrified & grieved Father and a horrible price paid... not because there was no guilt, but because there WAS guilt... a penalty required, a penalty horribly and willingly paid... because you are His Beloved.
Now go: dance in His forest, His beach, His hillside, ...dance; dance like the weight of the world has been lifted off of you, because it has; dance like a child that has total permission to Be because you are.
His Beloved.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Plate Glass Windows
At a birthday party last night I was privy to a serious conversation between 27 yr olds: "So which is really the 'hard' birthday age: 40 or 50?"..."Oh, definitely 40".
Really.
40.
In half a month I will be a decade beyond what they think is the hardest birthday; I don't see it that way.
At 40 years of age, the 10-year-social-bubble means you can hang out with 30-yr-olds and 50-yr-olds.
When you're 50... the 30 yr-olds are behind this giant shield of glass, so different, so far removed.
So much like being in a monkey cage, when coworkers and ministry buddies are almost all younger than you.
Turning 50 sometimes feels like trying to figure out how to die gracefully, and the passion to reach teenagers for Christ, though it's still there-- now feels like it's done behind giant plate glass windows. I'm guessing that tension is why so many of my peers have stepped out of youth ministry, and tried rationalizing a new gig... it's hard to be the odd-man-out.
Life is good because God is good.
I enjoy my days of simplicity; things have changed, but I'm not dead yet.
I love you, Jesus. Teach me to learn how you love me.
Really.
40.
In half a month I will be a decade beyond what they think is the hardest birthday; I don't see it that way.
At 40 years of age, the 10-year-social-bubble means you can hang out with 30-yr-olds and 50-yr-olds.
When you're 50... the 30 yr-olds are behind this giant shield of glass, so different, so far removed.
So much like being in a monkey cage, when coworkers and ministry buddies are almost all younger than you.
Turning 50 sometimes feels like trying to figure out how to die gracefully, and the passion to reach teenagers for Christ, though it's still there-- now feels like it's done behind giant plate glass windows. I'm guessing that tension is why so many of my peers have stepped out of youth ministry, and tried rationalizing a new gig... it's hard to be the odd-man-out.
Life is good because God is good.
I enjoy my days of simplicity; things have changed, but I'm not dead yet.
I love you, Jesus. Teach me to learn how you love me.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Roach Bait
So, there are certain things that a man takes for granted when he goes to bed. Things like: he will not be robbed while he sleeps, or his house will not catch fire, or that he will not be attacked by insects in his slumber. This week a roach tried to eat me.
I should have paid heed to the foreshadowing when this nervy intruder crawled across my neck: I flicked it off, hoping it was a bookmark or something left on the covers and finding in the flicking an object of troublesome mass-- not a bookmark. Seeing that there was no evidence of any intruder, I turned off the light again and tried to go back to sleep, consoling myself with thoughts of how maybe... it was a cricket, ...yeah a cricket, and: "boy, I bet that scared that cricket", etc. I was successful and at that moment before dropping off into deep rest, when I felt this sharp pinch on my left bicep! I quickly looked over in the dim glow of my neighbor's lights and saw the large, dark insect-- eating me!
There are some things that are just wrong: killing puppies; pedophilia in any form; finding body parts in your fast-food, and... being eaten by a roach in your sleep.
So people; it's personal.
They're not only eating the old crust off your toothbrush at night-- they're waiting for YOU.
...thought you should know.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
God's Littlest Angel Visited Me this Week
There has always been a special place in my heart for birds.
From the time I was a child I marveled at these amazing winged creatures who symbolized both frailty and freedom. To be honest I started out a bit like John Audubon with the less-than-sustainable methods of shooting and trapping them to get close enough to see their details, though I guess the trapping at least was catch-and-release. I come from a family of hunters and for a child to learn to stalk a starling with a BB gun, that was considered part of the process of skill-honing.
Somewhere along the way I grew into the matured-hunter mentality: all life has value, and to take an animal for food is a humbling process. Perhaps that is why I spend more time watching wildlife from my tree stand than ever touching my bow and arrow. I have seen such amazing things this last decade from my arboreal nest, but I can't remember the last time I took a deer. Every year I've teased nice bucks beneath me by pelting them with acorns--I just don't want to take them. I'd rather use my bird book and identify some avian species than release an arrow. (I tell myself I'm waiting for a feral hog or spike to come my way. I'm still waiting.)
Birds have become angels to me, messengers to me that my heavenly Abba is thinking of me with love and adoration, like any good Father. So many times in my deepest of despairs or trials have I been visited by these angels. The owl that flew right over me in the backyard as my wife was telling me she was leaving me; my first golden eagle in the wild within 24 hours of asking God to show me an eagle in an exercise of childlike reception (which transformed me!), and then this week with the hummingbirds.
My local PBS station aired a remarkable program on hummingbirds; it boggles my mind that something that tiny travels continents every year in migrations without the aid of a butterfly's sails catching a north wind spawned by the latest hurricane. Yet this week my backyard is a flurry of dogfighting, nectar-feeding angels. The best thing I did was purchasing the third feeder; much harder to defend when there's three offerings.
So this week three different times I've had hummingbirds drinking from feeders that were in my hand. The first time I was holding the feeder up to hang it back into the tree after replacing the nectar (Texas is enduring the worst heat wave in our nation's history and nectar goes bad in 2 days!) and they started feeding before I could get it hung. The second was even cooler: I took a feeder down and was carrying it to the house to replace nectar and they were feeding on it as i walked. But the most amazing visitation was when I was painting my third feeder. Repeatedly birds would hover around the feeder looking at the decorative flowers but not able to discern the ports because they were simple holes with no color to mark it. So I took some non-toxic yellow paint and started coloring in petals around the ports on this feeder, and this female ruby-throat comes and decides she will feed on the holes opposite where I'm working. Folks, there is something miraculous and angelic to me when this amazing creature watches you from 16 inches away, trusting you to not harm it, perhaps understanding the relationship between this tall, naked ape and the gift of nectar that appears. A feathered angel so small and so close that I could have killed it in a moment, yet that would be an act incomprehensible to me, I adore these creatures so.
May I grow to trust the Father like that.
From the time I was a child I marveled at these amazing winged creatures who symbolized both frailty and freedom. To be honest I started out a bit like John Audubon with the less-than-sustainable methods of shooting and trapping them to get close enough to see their details, though I guess the trapping at least was catch-and-release. I come from a family of hunters and for a child to learn to stalk a starling with a BB gun, that was considered part of the process of skill-honing.
Somewhere along the way I grew into the matured-hunter mentality: all life has value, and to take an animal for food is a humbling process. Perhaps that is why I spend more time watching wildlife from my tree stand than ever touching my bow and arrow. I have seen such amazing things this last decade from my arboreal nest, but I can't remember the last time I took a deer. Every year I've teased nice bucks beneath me by pelting them with acorns--I just don't want to take them. I'd rather use my bird book and identify some avian species than release an arrow. (I tell myself I'm waiting for a feral hog or spike to come my way. I'm still waiting.)
Birds have become angels to me, messengers to me that my heavenly Abba is thinking of me with love and adoration, like any good Father. So many times in my deepest of despairs or trials have I been visited by these angels. The owl that flew right over me in the backyard as my wife was telling me she was leaving me; my first golden eagle in the wild within 24 hours of asking God to show me an eagle in an exercise of childlike reception (which transformed me!), and then this week with the hummingbirds.My local PBS station aired a remarkable program on hummingbirds; it boggles my mind that something that tiny travels continents every year in migrations without the aid of a butterfly's sails catching a north wind spawned by the latest hurricane. Yet this week my backyard is a flurry of dogfighting, nectar-feeding angels. The best thing I did was purchasing the third feeder; much harder to defend when there's three offerings.
So this week three different times I've had hummingbirds drinking from feeders that were in my hand. The first time I was holding the feeder up to hang it back into the tree after replacing the nectar (Texas is enduring the worst heat wave in our nation's history and nectar goes bad in 2 days!) and they started feeding before I could get it hung. The second was even cooler: I took a feeder down and was carrying it to the house to replace nectar and they were feeding on it as i walked. But the most amazing visitation was when I was painting my third feeder. Repeatedly birds would hover around the feeder looking at the decorative flowers but not able to discern the ports because they were simple holes with no color to mark it. So I took some non-toxic yellow paint and started coloring in petals around the ports on this feeder, and this female ruby-throat comes and decides she will feed on the holes opposite where I'm working. Folks, there is something miraculous and angelic to me when this amazing creature watches you from 16 inches away, trusting you to not harm it, perhaps understanding the relationship between this tall, naked ape and the gift of nectar that appears. A feathered angel so small and so close that I could have killed it in a moment, yet that would be an act incomprehensible to me, I adore these creatures so.
May I grow to trust the Father like that.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
A Meandering Hermit
To be alone is in no way a bad thing; for many it is a gift, a reprieve from the noise of a busy world, and I share in that appreciation. A hermit does not have to wait for somebody else to get ready, or worse: bear the guilt of realizing he/she is about to make somebody else tardy because of poor timing. And there is a depth in one's spiritual walk that is profoundly enhanced, leaning into the bosom of Jesus for the intimacy and acceptance that He alone can ultimately fulfill, awakening each day with, "Good morning, Jesus," and concluding each bedtime with, "Good night, Jesus- I love you." But there is something to be said about flesh-and-bone fellowship, too.
Last week I went back-to-back chaperoning student retreats, and over the course of 5 nights I bunked with 3 different sets of men... it was awesome. Yes, some are especially gifted at snoring and others reenact some dreamy story verbally as the darkened room listens to make sense of the prose, but the blessing of laughing with others right before slumber, or awakening to quietly go out for morning devotions while others lie peacefully in their dreams-- that is so cool! It is like the incarnation of scriptural promises like, "I am with you always...". I love being around people.
Some people do not understand my solitude: "Jim, if you like being around people so much, why aren't you dating anyone so you can get married?"
That makes about as much sense to me right now as staying in the water after a shark attack, so that you can overcome your fear, even though you are now bleeding. (It's not the same-- but that's what came to mind so I typed it. In reading this I'm gonna guess that I'm simply not ready for anything like dating, especially in our culture today... so confusing :) .)
Instead I continue to reflect on Paul's words from 1Cor.7 and elsewhere: "...it is good for you to remain as you are... are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife... I want you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs-- how he can please the Lord."
So I meander about in this amazing life, not afraid to stroll by myself yet blessed when accompanied by others-- as I walk into this Adventure called life. Like the Mariposa and the Mermaid, I choose the discipline of thankfulness in all things this hermit encounters. Come Lord Jesus.
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
Life Held in Jars
When I was a child, I spoke and thought like a child, I acted like a child. And now that I'm a man, I can speak much more effectively and I've wisened up a bit, too. But I still love to look at nature through a childlike wonder.
I have fond memories visiting my cousins and trapping lightning bugs in mason jars, somehow trying to trap the magic of their natural illumination. It never really worked. Worse: they often died before they could be set free. Unintentional death chambers that were intended to brighten life.
How often children's neglect leads to unintentional death; how tragic when one becomes aware of the autobiography of one's past.
What is this need to store things?
To capture something in order to somehow cling to its essence?
And what was the Father thinking when he put the fragility of a butterfly with the mortality of mankind?
We are jars of clay, fragile earthen vessels that have been baked and hardened to serve a purpose but are destined to be broken.
How very sad I am at Chelsey's death.
Goodbye for now, little sister. Comfort your grieving parents in their sleep.
I have fond memories visiting my cousins and trapping lightning bugs in mason jars, somehow trying to trap the magic of their natural illumination. It never really worked. Worse: they often died before they could be set free. Unintentional death chambers that were intended to brighten life.
How often children's neglect leads to unintentional death; how tragic when one becomes aware of the autobiography of one's past.
What is this need to store things?
To capture something in order to somehow cling to its essence?
And what was the Father thinking when he put the fragility of a butterfly with the mortality of mankind?
We are jars of clay, fragile earthen vessels that have been baked and hardened to serve a purpose but are destined to be broken.
How very sad I am at Chelsey's death.Goodbye for now, little sister. Comfort your grieving parents in their sleep.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
June 2011, in transition?
Half a year from half a century.
I keep reminding myself that I'm not dead yet.
It's interesting the psychic wrestling match that goes on in one's noggin when you don't have any children or significant others to distract you with their lives... this is definitely a passage/season in my life.
I see pictures of myself and am somehow angry at how old I look, angry that I need reading glasses, angry at how my knee hurts going down stairs or how my back hurts getting out of bed. Perhaps the anger is just masked sadness; sadness that I'm going the way of my forefathers, sadness that I can no longer 'compete' for the affections of the maidens, accentuated by the death of my marriage? Sadness for the lost years?
Or maybe fear: fear of inadequacy, that lingering sense of 'good, but not good enough'? The stench of spiritual battle betrays the lies spoken to my soul... how much of my life have I surrendered as homage to that foul Deceiver?
I went to Southwells today for a burger and saw an old friend I last saw 25 years ago. Another old friend contacted me today on facebook... 29 years since we've seen each other.
Twenty-nine years... that's the age of my 'older' co-volunteers with YoungLife.
It is truly a lifetime, 29 years.
The guys in my Bible study talk about sending their children off to college; soon they will be talking about holding their grandkids. There's sadness there, too-- grieving the loss of a child I never had, a reminder perpetuated every year on Father's Day. Makes me want to go live in a cave.
I know that Jesus loves me, that the Father is faithful in His compassions for me. I am not complaining... more like confessing. I know what it is to go to sleep at night alone in a 3-bedroom home, concluding consciousness with, "Good night, Jesus," as I hug the body pillow on my daybed. Every night. That's just true.
I know that perhaps this passage, this transition in life will probably erupt into some kind of sunshiny day and that I may be just hormonal (or sub-hormonal), or maybe this is the family blessing of multi-generational depressive states I am passing through?
There is within me a dissatisfaction with the way things are... it was not so long ago I had mastered the art of contentment. Have I failed in my current discontent?
It's not pretty inside right now, but I'm 50 next winter.. I no longer have the energy to pretend that everything is 'just fine' right now, and I also acknowledge: I'm not dead yet... there is more life ahead of me.
So thank you, Jesus, for what I do have. Thank you that I still have my parents. Thank you that I have a handful of good friends who are trustworthy and can tolerate my funkiness.
I'm not dead yet; help me to live for You, Jesus. Help me to embrace the "abundant life" you promise us.
Speak to me words of sonship, Father... erase these childhood tapes of orphan-spirit.
Help me to experience Your Love, that I may love others well.
Good night, Jesus.
Jim
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Life is precious
Doctors told them their fetus would not make it, maybe they should consider "terminating" the pregnancy?
They chose not to kill their unborn child.
She lives...
... so does the presence of suffering warrant the death of the sufferer?
...if a child is in pain, should the parents kill their child?
... we do it with our pets, right?
No?
Friday, April 08, 2011
April's Fool, Orlando-style
It's Friday evening; I'm sitting in my lab trying to muster one last push to finish grading biology tests after a 12-day week. So tired. Why?...
Last week I was blessed to chaperon the HCHS band trip to Orlando--that's right, Disney World. There was a competition on the front-end of the trip and our kids did great (Yay Ms Redmon), but the zaniest part of the trip was going around on the rides with "the girls".
My escorts through NeverNever Land were so ridiculously fun, and because most of them were young & married, there really was no awkwardness to it for me-- thank you, JESUS.
So I have to start with describing Tinkerbell, my "guide-to-rediscovering-my-lost-childhood" escort. She grew up around Orlando, FLA, so immediately had a game-plan on how to do each park, starting with the FastPass. The strategy is pure: go immediately to your favorite ride and use your ticket to get its FastPass ticket, then wait in line and ride any nearby amusement. When done with that ride, go use the FastPass ticket; repeat. Beautiful. What's fun about Tinkerbell is she loves to laugh and is...well... crazy. Her idea of Heaven looks a lot like a slumber party in the top of Magic Kingdom's palace with a banquet room lined with princess apparel and unicorns. And there's this fresh sense that all the good things life has to offer are hers to enjoy, and for us oldest-child types-- it's a freedom magnificent to witness.
My second guide, Sleepy, is much like Tinker with the exception that she doesn't let anyone know she's zany until it's too late and you are socially committed with her in a situation. The best-case scenario is to have Sleepy and Tinker together, so they can feed off each other into a vortex of laughter (why is hanging up a phone so funny?).
My last guide I shall call Screamer, not because she's loud, though she can be, but because she can instill fear in co-passengers on a shuttle bus with her, "OMG, OMG, this is gonna be so scary"-- which is very confusing when riding next to her on roller coasters. This is because she gets so worked up and anxious, and starts to go through this pre-ride mental checklist ("ok, I will be needing to use this hand-hold, so you, Jim, will need to find something else to grab onto..this ride is so scary..."), which lulls you into thinking, "Sheesh, what an over-reaction," and then the Tower of Terror throws you around like a human yo-yo at 3-Gs and you realize that "the girls" have already stepped out of the now-stopped box of death and you're still holding onto the allotted side hand-hold with a death-grip that could probably pinch a python in half.
I've never been a roller-coaster rider; I don't like being afraid, and Lord knows I already have enough genetically-bestowed anxiety in my life. So when friends like The Paddle-Partner (aka Snorting Loon) dare me to ride Six Flag's "Batman", it's with great personal angst that I accept. But with this year's Orlando Trip with "the girls", something different happened. It's like I didn't have to be the older, responsible brother-- I could try out rides I would NEVER have ridden solo-- and on the other side, realize that perhaps I'm a bit hardier than I thought going into the thing.
And I wonder if God is like that?
I wonder if God gives us fellow pilgrims along our way, so that when we face the horrors and fears that life's challenges may bring, we can just get a grip--hold on-- scream if able-- and make it through that ride?
I wonder if there is a freedom that awaits beyond the pretentious cloak raised by the demons of fear, a cloak that amounts to little more than vapors in passing through, but in approaching seems more like an impenetrable barricade.
I wonder what it would be like to start seeing all the [crud] that life throws my way as an amusement ride?
That would be very cool.
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