A Holiday Greeting

The Strength to Begin Again

I'm coming to learn that things happen in life that I have absolutely no control over.  Things that break your heart.  Things that tear your soul into a million pieces.  I am learning that in moments of great pain, I forget to breathe.  Maybe it's because, behind our masks of strength, we discover just how fragile we really are.

In this life, I've found myself in situation after situation, where I am required to be strong.  Not because I'm good at it and most certainly not because I want to, but only because I have no other alternative.  What would happen if I don't keep my "stuff" together?  What would happen if I allowed the pain to overcome me?  It makes me angry really how much strength is required of me.  In the midst of a recent break down, someone close to me said, "you have to be strong...too many people are depending on you."  Well...isn't that just GREAT!!!  Thank you universe for the broken heart then...I'll just put my mask back on and pretend life is cotton candy and rainbows.

That's bull.  I don't have to be strong right now.  I don't have to lie and tell people I'm okay.  I don't have to pretend what's happening is fair, or right, or just.  I have to accept what is.  I have to let go.  I have to move forward.  But strength is not to be found in me.  Rather, the Lord is indeed my strength.  The Lord goes before me to defend and protect me.  The Lord is working out great things on my behalf.  I just have to trust God.

I guess what I have come to learn the hard way, is just how vulnerable I can be when I let myself trust in other people.  I errored in trusting others more than I trusted God and now I've got skinned knees, a broken heart and a bruised soul.  Am a bit better?  Yup.  Am I miffed?  Yup.  Can I live there...no.  God is the parent picking me up, dusting me off, drying my tears and telling me not to quit trying.

No matter the heartache, never quit trying to love others.  It's going to bite you sometimes.  It's going to break you sometimes.  People you love will hurt you, abandon you and let you down.  But they are not your rock.

I posted the photo above because it's a smile in the storm.  That girl is hurting more than anyone will ever know.  But...God loves that girl more than anyone ever will and that's worth smiling about.  One day someone is going to love me the way God intends for me to be loved.  And someday, someone is going to want me to love them right back.  For now, I hold on to the truth that there is no man worth my heart or my tears aside from Christ and my son.

God willing...this heart will heal, I'll forget this pain, I'll forgive who caused it, and I'll love again.  Lord, help me to not be overcome with bitterness and a hardened heart.  Help me to be a woman who loves whether that love is accepted or rejected.  Help me to love myself enough to walk away from those who cannot love me as you have called them to.  Help me to love others better and to remember this pain so that I am never the cause of it to anyone else.  Amen.

Goodbye Alice

Jewel hits my soul spot on with these lyrics.  Sometimes you just have to realize the difference between dreaming and pretending.  My eyes are now open.  Goodbye yellow brick road.

[Verse 1:]
It's four in the afternoon
I'm on a flight leaving L.A.
Trying to think about my life
My youth scattered along the highway

Hotel rooms and headlights
I've made a living with a song
Guitar as my companion
Wanting desperately to belong

Fame is filled with spoiled children
We grow fat on fantasy
I guess that's why I'm leaving
I crave reality

[Chorus 1:]
So goodbye Alice in Wonderland
Goodbye yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
I did not find paradise
It was only a reflection of my lonely mind wanting
What's been missing in my life

[Verse 2:]
I'm embarrassed to say the rest is a rock and roll cliche
I hit the bottom when I reached the top
But I never knew it was you who was breaking my heart
I thought you had to love me
But you did not

Yes a heart can hallucinate
If it's completely starved for love
It can even turn monsters into
Angels from above

You forged my love just like a weapon
And you turned it against me like a knife
You broke my last heart string
You opened up my eyes

[Chorus 2:]
So goodbye Alice in Wonderland
Goodbye yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
That was not love in your eyes
It was only a reflection of my lonely mind searching
what was missing in my life

[Bridge:]
Growing up is not an absence of dreaming
It's being able to understand the difference between the ones you can hold
And the ones that you've been sold
And Dreaming is a good thing cause it brings new things to life
But pretending is an ending that perpetuates a lie
Forgetting what you are
Seeing for what you've been told

[Verse 3:]
Ohh truth is stranger than fiction
This is my chance to get it right
And life is much better without all of those pretty lies

[Chorus 3:]
Ohh So Goodbye Alice in Wonderland
And you can keep your yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
These are not tears in my eyes
They are only a reflection of my lonely mind finding
They are only a reflection of my lonely mind finding
I found what's missing in my life

Creativity

How have you used your creativity to enhance your spiritual walk?

You're Still Cruising

The Landslide

  I can remember the first time I ever heard the song Landslide by Fleetwood Mac.  I was so mesmerized by it that I simply HAD to own a copy of the The Dance.  I was in high school at the time and you could find the music club inserts in magazines.  I got my hands on one that allowed me to select 15 CDs for a penny.  Remember those?  I was elated to find that The Dance was one of my options.  I filled out the form as quickly as possible and dropped it in the mailbox.  For three weeks I waited.  Every day I'd pull into the driveway after school and check to see if Stevie Nicks had arrived at my house.  The day she arrived I literally ran down our VERY long driveway, up the stairs, into my room, locked the doors, put the CD in my stereo and turned the volume knob to peak capacity.  As Stevie's voice poured out of my speakers like soft smokey residue from an extinguished flame, it entered by soul and lit a fire.  It was there that I began to see just a glimmer of the woman I was created to be.

  I have long felt a deep spiritual connection with Stevie's lyrics.  Not just in Landslide.  Maybe its more that I feel some kind of kindred connection with Stevie herself...an understanding, an appreciation, an admiration...it's hard to articulate.  Her music has always been soul music to me; as if her lyrics were penned with the words straight from the depth of my own heart.  It seemed so natural then, that when my life, the one I designed and created, the one I had orchestrated, began to unravel at my very finger tips, that I would turn to Stevie for release.  The more I let myself, the self I had fabricated, go, the more I was able to embrace that long lost girl within me.  My innate draw to music called to me and I knew I had to do something to stop the bleeding.

  Stevie inspired me.  In the midst of my breakdown at 30, in the fog of the impending doom of my marriage, I sought to do the only thing I knew how, find my way back to me.  I'm still far from that home and center, but closer now than I have been in the last 20 years of my life.  I was once the girl who let music live inside of me.  I played the piano and the tenor saxophone.  I'd always wanted to learn to play the guitar, but never had the instrument or the time to do so.  Eventually, I lost the desire.  Until the unraveling came.  I stumbled across that CD from high school, turned up Stevie and lost my senses on the floor of my study.  The pain of having lost my self was unbearable.  And yet, the words of Landslide...brought me down.  Down into the pit of despair where I can bawl on the floor, figure out what I'd lost in who I'd become, and decide once and for all, it was time to change...regardless of my fears.

  A couple years prior to this break, my dad had bought me a guitar.  It had lived trapped in its case, propped against my wall.  That day, I decided it was time to release...release myself from the cage I'd built around me and release the guitar from the case the kept it from me.  I took the guitar out and cried all over it.  It's a wonder the pour thing isn't warped.  In the months that have followed, I've attempted to learn, at times half-heatedly, to play it.  Most of the time, I just want to hold it.  To feel it against my chest.  To play an e and feel the music on my heart as the strings vibrate against my fingers.  Today, I woke up with the lyrics to Landslide in my head.  I held my guitar and wept.  "I've been afraid of changing 'cause I built my life around you..."  I thought of the picture of my mom that I cherish, the one where she's sitting on a rock surrounded by water holding a guitar.  I thought of my family and how musical we've always been.  I thought of my grandpa Owen who had a pension for naming everything.  And then, as I held my guitar, it was as if I could hear him say to me, "Josephine, you need to name that guitar."  He's right.  I need to name it.  I need to name the change in my life, I need to name my pain.  I need to name who I am.  I need to name WHOSE I am.  I need to name my dreams, my soul, my joys.  I need to name this guitar!!!!  And so I did.

  That's when I realized that discovering myself wasn't something for 12 months ago.  It's something that is very much for today and there is no one who can do that for me.  So today I hold my guitar and I know the best is yet to come.  And today I let Stevie remind my soul to be in harmony with God and God alone.  Today I make the lackluster yet courageous attempt to learn how to play Landslide on "Stevie".

New CGM Imagery

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The Modern Woman's Perfection

 

On Monday, the Daily Beast published an article titled Why Women Should Stop Trying to be Perfect by Debora Spar.  Below is the direct link to that article.  Regardless of daily activities and career, YOU are, given your a woman, a modern woman.  So as a modern woman in today's scrambled world of expectations, I'm interested in hearing your take on the article.  I'm interested in both general comments and spiritual comments.  What's your initial gut response to the content of the article and how does God fit into your vision for what a "perfect" you would look like?

Why Women Should Stop Trying to be Perfect

She Who Is

  It was my fourth year of college when I discovered Elizabeth A. Johnson's ground breaking book She Who Is.  Johnson's book explored the convergence between some rather historically polar concepts.  For example, she discusses feminist theology, specifically, feminist language and imagery for God and how it is shaped through women's experiences.  And yet...it was still ravishingly orthodox in theological nuances.  As I began to write my senior thesis on Christianity and Feminism, I found Johnson's work to be inextricably vital to not only the essence of my thesis, but also the work of my own spiritual journey.

  At present day, my life is in a state of shape-shifting.  According to Wikipedia shape-shifting is a little like this:

Shapeshifting is a common theme in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. It is also found in epic poems, science fiction literature, fantasy literature, children's literature, Shakespearean comedy, ballet, film, television, comics, and video games. In its broadest sense, shapeshifting occurs when a being (usually human) either (1) has the ability to change its shape or being into that of another person, creature, species, or other entity or (2) finds its shape involuntarily changed by someone else. If the shape change is voluntary, its cause may be an act of will, a magic word or magic words, a potion, or a magic object. If the change is involuntary, its cause may be a curse or spell, a wizard's or magician's or fairy's help, a deity's will, a temporal change such as a full moon or nightfall, love, or death. The transformation may or may not be purposeful.

  My life, a bit like a mythological character on certain days, is changing in both voluntary and involuntary ways.  As I ponder and shift through this season of my life, I think often about Johnson's imagery and language of God.  I think about how God can be painted and represented in a million different ways, like multi-colored fractals of light through a prism in the hand of an imaginative child.  With each twist of the hand or slightest movement of a finger, God is seen more vibrantly or with at least a different hue than before.  It is this way with my life.  With each change, with each subtle tap of the chisel, my experience of God is heightened and becomes more tangibly real. 

  The last sentence of Wikipedia's definition states that "the transformation may or may not be purposeful."  I believe that as the spirit of God moves in and around and through us, it is our response to that spirit that determines whether or not the transformation that God is offering to us, will be purposeful.  I believe God intends it to be so, but our free will may limit it as something else.  What God intends for good, we may discard as worthless chaos because we simply cannot define it within the parameters of the shapes that we know; we are unable to imagine the shapes yet unseen.  To be brave and courageous enough to believe that God can shape and transform us in ways we have not the ability to fathom, is to embrace a sense of surrender and freedom.  To define the she or the he who IS you, there must be a letting go so that the artist can maneuver the subject and the subject can embrace the IS. 

  Your life, like mine, may be in such a state of shape-shifting.  Do not attempt to define it, but instead, invite it.  Invite the transformation, welcome the spirit of God, and allow your experiences to dance with your knowledge of God and be changed in a purposeful way.  This is how I know that the I who is I, is indeed the she who IS...for God is the IS.

A Mildewed Canvas

Art by Katerina Mihnuk (Ranizza)

"The eye can see what we have in common or focus on what keeps us apart.  And the heart can feel what joins us with everything or replay its many cuts.  And the tongue can praise the wind or warn against the storm, can praise the sea or dread the flood.  It's not that there are no differences - the world is made of infinite variety - rather it is the seizing of differences, the fearing of differences, that keeps us from feeling grace."  - Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

It amazes me how much our minds, as great and mystical as they can be, are the most profound instruments of torture if left unattended.  So often my mind has been the source of my greatest turmoils.  It's not exclusively circumstance or the behaviors of others, but the complications of life that cut me the deepest are edged with the serrated blade of my own cognitive demons.

How do you know when your mind is in a healthy state of awareness and discernment as opposed to when it is being controlled by spiritual forces of wickedness?  Take Mary Magdalene for example.  Scripture tells us that Jesus cast out seven demons from her.  I wonder what those seven demons were.  There's no way of knowing for sure, this side of life, but could she have been more like me than I originally thought?  I must confess, that over the last six months, I've found myself more and more drawn to her.  It's as if we have a shared back story and narrative.  It's as if I've known her all along and am just now rediscovering her.  At times, its even as if she is me and I her.  How similar our trials.  So it isn't that far of a stretch for me to imagine that maybe her demons where less of the flesh and more of the mind.

Quite recently, a close friend of mine pushed me to the brink of myself.  Life's circumstances are heart-wrenching these days and my mind has been in overdrive with worry, anxiety, fear, doubt, insecurity and lack of self-confidence.  This friend began to come at me, strongly, and unceasingly.  I felt berated and under extreme attack.  My heart shattered, my breathing quickened, my tears burned.  I couldn't understand how someone I cared for so deeply could be so mean and relentless with personal attacks and vicious scrutiny.  I laid on the floor in a mound of melodramatic matter and lost my mind.  After some very difficult moments, my friend was able to explain to me that they were not coming after me, but after what they claimed to be the spiritual forces waging war in my mind.  The ones that seek to destroy me and haunt me with my past, with my arsenal of baggage, with my brokenness.  My friend said they were calling out these voices to let me go and give me peace.  I was stunned, a bit freaked out and extremely emotionally spent.  What in the world was going on?

I'm not sure how to articulate my perspective on spiritual forces of wickedness.  Up until this point, I had one perspective.  Now it seems I've developed a cracked window opened slightly for exploration.  When I said I lost my mind, I meant it.  But differently.  I often terrorize myself with "what-ifs" and doubt.  I'm my own worst enemy and by far my most malicious critique.  I've done more harm to myself over the years because of my inability to love myself than anyone else could ever think of.  Joyce Meyer's refers to this as the Battlefield of the Mind.  Indeed...it can be a blood bath.  But on the floor, feeling completely alone and rung out, I lost my mind.  There was a sense of peace.  I lost the mind, even if just in that moment, that was controlled not by the grace and love of God, but by the fires of something that seeks to kill.  It's an interesting fact of spirituality.  The closer you get to center, the closer you get to God, the hotter the desert.  It's spiritual warfare.  But I can choose to surrender to God and the peace to be found in those arms or I can choose to "dance with the devil in the pale moon light."  My soul can choose to focus on what is whole, what is of God, what is real...or it can perish beneath the weight of a thousand what-if's.  It's the fearing not the seizing that keeps us from feeling peace and grace.

Mind over matter?  Maybe if we lost our minds, gained our souls and relied on God, we could experience the joy of the endless possibilities that lay within the artists brush.  What we can be is not yet seen but in the eye of the one who is creating us.  Don't let your mind mildew the canvass.

Hello Again

It's been awhile...

  In looking back over this blog, I realize just how disconnected I've been over the last year +.  To say that things in life have gotten a little chaotic would be like calling the Eiffel Tower a building.  Needless-to-say...chaotic is the understatement of the world.  I'm sure over time, I'll hash all of that out in one way or another, but for right now, I'm back.  I'm glad to be back.  I've missed it, really.  Funny how life can seem to get the best of us.  When we're not looking, little by little, we start to put away the things we enjoy and replace them with work thinking this is what we are expected to do.  In the process, we, little-by-little, begin to eliminate pleasure and joy.  Of course, one must take into consideration whether or not what you're doing is in fact an activity that will bear fruit, but assuming that it is, what a pity to pack it away because we are pleasure-phobes.  We are so guilted and shamed by factions of our culture for doing anything that involves enjoyment and the self.  Why is it that we believe we must be self-sacrificial and unhealthily so in order to be "good" people?  If the Lord's greatest commandment was to love and sub-section C says we are to love ourselves (love your neighbor AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF), then why do we fail to heed this part of the GREATEST commandment...as if it doesn't exist?  As if loving God and self are mutually exclusive, or loving neighbor and self are mutually exclusive?  Christ doesn't say to choose which one we'd like to do.  He says we are to do all three when living out love.  But, and I'm speaking very loudly on behalf of my own struggle here, why do we struggle so much with where the line is between self-love and selfishness?  Why do we punish ourselves for taking 15 minutes to laugh, or read a book, or stop and tickle our children?  Are we humans or machines?  Were we not made in the image of a God who fully and completely created the human need for joy?  Do we think God doesn't understand pleasure?  Why do we keep from ourselves that which God intended for us?

  On another note to that, my sermon for this weekend is on worrying.  I think it goes hand in hand with this idea of pleasure.  Do we force ourselves into pits of worry and anxiety

Picking Up the Change

Yesterday after service, I found myself engaged in a variety of different conversations.  At one point, I was standing beside the line for lunch and I saw the sweet face of my son barreling down the corridor.  Excited to tell me all about Sunday school and hand me his papers, he suddenly dropped his little metal tin.  Some months back, Ham made a collection box out of an old mint tin.  Each week after receiving his allowance, he places 10% in his tin to bring to church on Sunday morning.  When coins are found around the house, they rarely hit the piggy bank, but instead find their way directly to the tin.  As you can then imagine, one of his favorite things about Sunday mornings is bringing his tin and “emptying it so he can fill it up again.”

            When the tin hit the tile, the top opened and out spilled his collection.  With arms filled with papers, his little eyes expanded instantly and looked at me with piercing helplessness.  What else could I do but stop what I was doing and hit the tile?  While on the floor picking up the change, I noticed I was not alone.  Several others stopped, even got out of line, to bend down and lend a hand with Aidan’s change.  Soon it was together again, back in his tin and safely in his pocket.  As if nothing had ever happened, he was off running to play with other children and I was back to conversations.

            As I looked back in reflection over the day, this moment stood out to me.  How kind, I thought, of people to help my son.  What a great example of lending a hand, a gentle witness, a dose of TLC.  But then it expanded a bit more for me.  For some, it seems all we have collected has hit the tile floor and spilled out upon the ground.  With arms filled to the brim, we look around a bit helpless wondering what in the world we’re going to do.  There are those who will stand back and watch, hoping for the best.  There will be those who will scoff at the inability to keep from dropping and spilling our collection…maybe we didn’t hold on tight enough.  There will be others yet who will, standing from their perspective, offer advice and direction.  But there will be those who will hit their knees beside us and help us pick up our change.

            These days, it seems like there is change everywhere we look and at points it seems the change is all over the tile.  We can choose to confront change in a variety of ways, but the most effective is the one that results in action.  Whether it be our change or someone else’s, when we hit our knees and pick up the change, we are no longer standing back starring at it in helplessness.  Instead, we are actively seeking to collect change and in Ham's case, mine too, to give it to God.  I’m grateful for the kneelers who stopped to offer themselves in a way that helped my son pick up the change.  The change on the tile may not be of our choosing, but the way we carry on, the way we pick it up and hand it to God, is what transforms who we are. 

Whose change are you helping to pick up?  Whose helping you pick up your change?  As a body of Christ, are we are all on our knees together, picking up the change together, so that together we can run again, laughing with joy?  It’s not change that makes life difficult, it’s the attitude we choose to bring to the tile.

            And sometimes…it’s the exact change God needs us to surrender to in order to bring God the most glory.

Totally Random 80s Flashback

Yesterday I was doing something I never do...writing a paper for class.  (Insert stench of sarcasm here).  Maybe it was one of my frequent "squirrel" moments or just complete and utter randomness, but I began to become nostalgic about Trapper Keepers.  Do you remember those plastic Velcro binders of the 80s?  Of course, now that I'm completely disconnected from paper writing, I run right over to Facebook whereby I post just how nostalgic I am.  As a result, some raised concern about the functioning of my brain, others shared in laughter and one friend reminded me of something that sent me down yet another bunny trail.  Lisa Frank.  Holy 80s flashback Batgirl!  Do I remember Lisa Frank?  Ha!  Do I!  I think I must have driven my mother bananas with my obsession of Lisa Frank school supplies...everything from folders, to Trapper Keepers to stickers.

Do you remember Lisa Frank?  

Do you have any Lisa Frank in your 80s closet?  

What Lisa Frank were you rockin'?

Swimming in Reproduction

Over the course of the next seven months, I will be conducting research on reproductive theology.  It is my hope to address such issues as reproductive loss (infertility, still birth, miscarriage), reproductive technology and treatments, birth control, abortion, population control; it's an exploration of the world of fertility/reproduction and faith.  Further, I will be examining the inter-faith community responses to such issues as they affect primarily women, but also men.

Have you faced a reproductive issue?  How did your community of faith support you or fail to support you?  Do you have an opinion on a particular faith's position on a reproductive issue?  Where does God exist within these issues?  Are you a doctor, a holistic practitioner, a counselor, who works in the field of reproduction?  If so, I'd like to hear from you.  Please send your stories to coffeegodandme@yahoo.com.  At this time, what you share will only be used to 1) guide and inform my research and 2) may be included in a scholarly thesis to be submitted to only one professor.  Each submission will be treated as an interview, and therefore, will require you to consent to an interview authorization.  If you'd rather be interviewed in person or over the phone, that too can be arranged.

It is my hope to establish an argument that women and men facing reproductive issues are a relatively neglected subculture of our national and global community.  Further, it is my objective to seek ways in which the faith community can encourage, support, empower and affirm those who confront reproductive issues, even amidst a variety of belief systems.  As a woman who has faced both primary and secondary infertility, it is my hope to raise awareness to the issues.  As a pastor, it is my hope to listen to the voices that have been silent for so long and to discover new and better ways to offer pastoral care, guidance and encouragement to the owners of those voices.  As a theologian, I seek to find God in the midst of reproductive issues and to reflect upon God from within those issues in order to discover the voice of God that exists in the suffering, the struggle, the joy, the blessings and the journey.

A Lenten Top Ten

Top Ten List: THINGS YOU CAN TRY FOR THE LENTEN SEASON 

by Rev. Penny Ford

10. Try an electronic fast. Give up TV, Guitar Hero, texting, tweeeting, e-mail and all things electronic for one day every week. (or everyday of Lent!) Use the time to read & pray.
9. Start a prayer rhythm. Say a prayer every time you brush your teeth, hear an ambulance, or check your e-mail. Before you text someone, pray for them.
8. Read one chapter in the Bible each day. (Matthew's a good book to start with. Psalms, too.)
7. Forgive someone who doesn't deserve it (maybe even yourself.)
6. Give up soft drinks, fast food, tea or coffee. Give the money you save to help folks in Haiti or others in crisis.
5. Create a daily quiet time. Spend 30 minutes a day in silence and prayer.
4. Cultivate a life of gratitude. Write someone a thank you letter each week and be aware of how many people have helped you along the way.
3. Be kind to someone each day.
2. Pray for others you see as you walk to and from classes or drive to and from work.
1. Volunteer one hour or more each week with a local shelter, tutoring program, nursing home, prison ministry or a Habitat for Humanity project.

For more information on Lent and Ash Wednesday, go to: http://www.upperroom.org/methodx/thelife/articles/lent101.asp

Sometimes

Sometimes you just have to let go and have "childlike" fun.