tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78731186086055677592024-03-19T05:39:27.334-06:00The Desert DwellerMy journey of looking for Jesus outside the four walls of the American right-wing conservative Christian Church.The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-19393058563577724282011-07-13T11:41:00.001-05:002012-01-27T19:51:19.728-06:00Out of the Desert<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZbPSo8aaVy1D0B3y6xmkN240lw5hR6juuGoOb-rM9E820xnultYCoE0dDRxrIlFfUNXxYyomwPOqRgChtym5MJ1iIG3hTqI3eIcZYdONfHFWi98HUl2gH6vlJkQeruIkA4Icxb2ewhOHf/s1600/florida-pensacola-beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZbPSo8aaVy1D0B3y6xmkN240lw5hR6juuGoOb-rM9E820xnultYCoE0dDRxrIlFfUNXxYyomwPOqRgChtym5MJ1iIG3hTqI3eIcZYdONfHFWi98HUl2gH6vlJkQeruIkA4Icxb2ewhOHf/s200/florida-pensacola-beach.jpg" width="200" /></a>Dear Followers of my Desert Journey<br />
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My life that existed when I began this blog is no more. As I begin a new life in a new state and new city, I thought it only appropriate I begin a new blog with a new name.<br />
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Please join me at http://thewanderingjewel.wordpress.com as I wander my way into a new life near the gulf waters that bring much needed healing to my soul.<br />
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This move is a huge undertaking and the first I've ever done completely on my own. But if I fail, I shall fail magnificently and have sooo much to write about. Yay.The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-67125409773204746602011-05-06T14:20:00.000-05:002011-05-06T14:20:31.223-05:00My Mother's Heart<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I am laying by my pool catching some sun, fully sun screened to, fingers crossed, prevent reliving my mother's history of skin cancer. Damien Rice is playing on my iPod and I am wondering if my headphones are about to short out from the tears that are cascading from my eyes, running past my temples and pooling in my ears. I have been crying since 7:42 this morning. It is now noon thirty. I have time as I tan to think about my heart and the place in it that is invulnerable to devastation by anyone but my child. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This last year, my heart was smashed, shattered, broken, bruised and beaten. I thought that every cell of my heart had been through the wringer and had survived. Until this morning. One wrong deed, one well intentioned communication and I have been disowned, disarmed and dissed. Unfriended and now, it seems, unloved because I am imperfect and because he is seventeen. My heart is now broken in a wholly different way.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I broke my Mother's heart, I imagine, more than I will ever know. As the youngest daughter of three, I was the only one left to live with Mom, just the two of us, during my teen years. I'll never know what I did, but one summer I did something bratty or selfish or ungrateful and she went for two weeks without speaking a word to me. I had broken her heart, it seems, one too many times. She and I became friends as I grew into motherhood with my own children and she forgave me long before she died. As my own heart breaks today, I feel her nearby, understanding the hurt in my mother's heart and I am grateful to her for how she lived her life despite years of devastating pain from my Dad and then from me. My mother fought to remain cheerful, loving, funny and full of life. If she had bitterness in her heart, I never saw it. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Now very sad and crying in the sun, I think about my heart and the place in it that may never heal because he will always be my child. No matter what he does or doesn't do, says or doesn't say, I can't and won't stop loving him. The place in my heart that came to be at the birth of my first child will stay vulnerable to the pain this child can inflict. But like</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> my mother, I will not let my heart be protected by bitterness even if it is years before this child and I reconcile or it's on my deathbed that we come to peace.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Happy Mother's Day, Beverly Jean. I miss you.</span></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-28020514145376772582011-03-13T15:05:00.006-06:002012-09-25T20:46:21.256-05:00Life is like a Box of Roller Coasters<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1JyhPy-nE4NCHsPEQjQv7pTAkDcPlTTPsqT7ug_M6TVMQMJgPyMJUTwnOoLOL_-uqAJKAs5vP-o-QpX8KGpQWLBVqZXddTM-xqlbg5wxnFwRgF1KKWhcTIBAALC4f-bwoVlb_WxK-yZTB/s1600/roller-coaster%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1JyhPy-nE4NCHsPEQjQv7pTAkDcPlTTPsqT7ug_M6TVMQMJgPyMJUTwnOoLOL_-uqAJKAs5vP-o-QpX8KGpQWLBVqZXddTM-xqlbg5wxnFwRgF1KKWhcTIBAALC4f-bwoVlb_WxK-yZTB/s200/roller-coaster%255B1%255D.jpg" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Your hands are beautiful'. I am 15, working my first job, an ice cream parlor, and this is the first time an almost-man, has ever said something so personal to me. Mr. Ice Cream Parlor boy works behind the grill flipping burgers and dunking fries. I work behind the counter scooping ice cream or waiting tables on $1 Banana Split days, splattered at the end of my shift with sticky hot fudge, maraschino cherry juice, yellowed whipped cream and a muddy rainbow of various ice creams. He says 'your hands are so slender, delicate'. Never having before thought of my hands as anything but hands, I look down at them and see them through his eyes and hear 'I want you, I love you, I see you'. One date and a few kisses later the romance is over. Without him I feel once again unwanted, unloved, unseen. The words that never stop echoing in my head when I'm alone.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Multiple romances followed. Like slowly climbing to the top of a dozen roller coasters, electrified with anticipation at the mind-blowing ride ahead, then dropping to the bottom and finding each ride over with no hair-raising inversions, no death-defying twists, no euphoria at having survived. You have beautiful ~something or other~ and I would hear 'I want you, I love you, I see you'. Before I was 20 one ride lasted eighteen tumultuous, impetuous, passionate months and ended with my heart so deeply devastated I thought I would die. Once again, I was unwanted, unloved and unseen. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Four years later one more 'you have beautiful eyes' came along. I was lonely and weary of the ride ending the same way. He was lonely and ready to get married. Three amazing children and 26 years later, the longest roller coaster I'd ever ridden came to an end. But this time it didn't slow to a stop and come to a rest at the station where we could buy our picture in the gift shop. This ride careened off its rails, crashed through the guard rails and flung me out into the atmosphere, completely unsure of where I would land or if it would kill me when I did. I wasn't just unwanted, unloved and unseen. This time the words weren't just echoing, they were shouting that I was alone, abandoned and that I deserved it. They drowned out my own voice of reason and for a time I went a little mad. I left my near grown children without a moral compass or a parent they could count on. I made some choices that I'm still not sure of. I left my 17-year old son alone too much. I tried to make Christmas normal and in the process nearly wrecked the whole thing. I gave away books and clothes and crap from the garage that maybe I should have sold later because I'll need the cash. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then I landed and I wasn't dead. Deeply bruised and my heart lacerated, but not dead. On the contrary, flying through the vast uncharted regions of loveless and lonely air I discovered my life. I discovered me. I discovered that I'm an optimist, I love to laugh, I love to write, I love to read, I love to dance, I love a thousand kinds of music, I love making new friends, I love connecting with old friends and I have incredible friends; I can find a job, take some classes and enjoy every day for what it brings. And some days bring nothing but pain. I still don't have a job, have no idea how I'll pay the bills a year from now, don't know where I'll be living at the end of November, don't know if this single thing is forever-until-I'm-dead-permanent, but I really love my life.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If I ever climb aboard another roller coaster, I am thoroughly prepared to enjoy every twist, every turn, every scream-inducing plunge knowing that if or when the ride ends, I will still want, love and see me.</span><br />
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The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-43631352624485501682011-02-07T08:14:00.003-06:002012-09-25T20:49:37.054-05:00The Angst Machine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2J-A22YscpvEH0LzY7WlMG1U2OYk9cJJEHp_e-obsd7UjgqfWbyugqxanlvBylstUASbzCN6mehZn-XbWlmCnB_DyD4v2OlT5LOL19OFpgblE2-dVBvbz5vJOiot0xunj0y8YUjhNGpXJ/s1600/P2070006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2J-A22YscpvEH0LzY7WlMG1U2OYk9cJJEHp_e-obsd7UjgqfWbyugqxanlvBylstUASbzCN6mehZn-XbWlmCnB_DyD4v2OlT5LOL19OFpgblE2-dVBvbz5vJOiot0xunj0y8YUjhNGpXJ/s200/P2070006.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Royal Typewriter, antediluvian even in 1973, sat on a desk in our dining/music/whatever room. The desk was built by my Dad to perfectly match the broken piece of our glass-topped dining room table that had split into a sweeping configuration when he placed a hot cup of coffee down during dinner. The desk was 60's groovy. The typewriter, not so much, but it helped to save my Mom's life and then it got my two sisters and me through high school. I can only imagine how Beverly must have felt as she went back to college and typed her way out of the anxiety and fear her life had become married to a man who couldn't stick around for more than a few weeks at a time or hold a job for more than 3 months. As Dad moved us around like gypsies running from or to God knows what, Mom knew it was up to her to provide for us, so she took The Royal and became a teacher and gave us a home and an education.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My sisters and I used that typewriter to create term papers, book reports, letters, poems and short stories. Its clickety tap clickety tap clickety tap ding zip, a firm certainty in the uncertainty of our lives. Paper after paper, with the typos whited out and typed over. The carbon paper with its ability to rip at the wrong time or smear the final draft of a paper due the next day and often used much longer than its natural lifespan in order to save money. The Royal planted the seeds of a writer in my sister, Tracy, who became a professor of English and just published her first book, <u>My Ruby Slippers. The Road Back to Kansas</u> (</span><a href="http://www.tracyseeley.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">www.tracyseeley.com</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">). It planted those seeds in me too, to grow into a blogger and a lover of words spoken, thought and written.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Royal came to live with me in 1988 when, with my husband and 5-month old baby, I returned one last time to Wichita for Beverly's retirement party. Long after the purchase of an electric typewriter had left The Royal forgotten and collecting dust it rode back to Texas in a rented truck with the rest of my belongings I rescued from the purging garage sale that was to come before Beverly retired to Arizona. In just a few short years my baby, now 3 and joined by his 2-year old sister, would clack away on The Royal's keys, listening for the ding of the carriage and pretending to replace the long-dried out ribbon.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After many more moves, The Royal was finally relegated to the attic where it remained for the next 10 years until this last fall when one more move and the breaking of our family brought it out of seclusion. Grasping at anything that felt solid, anything that would help me bear up against another tempest of anxiety and fear, I grabbed for The Royal and anchored it to the table in the entryway of this house my son and I will share until he leaves for college. The Royal, ignored for years but old enough now to be ironic, has been rechristened "The Angst Machine" and given a place of honor in this new season of our lives. Once again, this marvel of an invention that saved my Mother's life, partnered in a thousand papers and formed the writers in us, is now serving a third generation of this family in ways the makers of The Royal never dreamed into the plans. In brief moments throughout the day, my son will stop by The Angst Machine, dash off a few choice words to vent his anger or frustration in his own darkly creative way knowing that the ribbon, being as dry as his wit, is a trustworthy keeper of secrets.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Angst Machine is also a metaphor for my life....Despite the neglect, dust and tiny pieces of attic insulation that can't be completely dislodged from the inner workings, the clickety tap clickety tap clickety tap ding zip still work and we both have plenty left to say.</span></div>
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The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-28169516470073543142011-01-11T05:39:00.004-06:002011-04-01T11:14:33.169-06:00Babe<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4P838VZIhNzvYTgEdxAqFb39d8j7Tq3XuVVl58tk6rHdccCgR3B0YBxPGrfy49tID2oflK73Z8x5RSn2Ad-yhyNBOoKABZQNlOU_FiA3Y9WMyiLYgs4NGTEhJtvDC_VaIMmlcArty43RV/s1600/P1110029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4P838VZIhNzvYTgEdxAqFb39d8j7Tq3XuVVl58tk6rHdccCgR3B0YBxPGrfy49tID2oflK73Z8x5RSn2Ad-yhyNBOoKABZQNlOU_FiA3Y9WMyiLYgs4NGTEhJtvDC_VaIMmlcArty43RV/s320/P1110029.JPG" width="240" /></a><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">I<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> have a baseball bat. A high-quality, maple, close-grain timbered Grand Slam Louisville Slugger. My bat rests against the headboard post of my king-sized Temperpedic bed within arm's reach because for the past 5 months I've slept alone and my bat's presence makes me feel a little bit safer. This bat really belongs to my son, but I adopted it, gave it a name and it lives next to my bed. I believe that if God named each and every star then my bat deserves a name, so I call it Babe. Mostly in honor of Babe George Herman Ruth. I don't know if Babe Ruth played with a Louisville Slugger. I could have Wikipedia'd George and found out just to make it look like I knew and isn't that neat how she would know that, but I didn't because this isn't about Babe Ruth, and it isn't about my bat. It also isn't about Babe the Blue Ox, even though my bat was also named after that illustrious character of American folklore. Faithful companion, that Ox, just like my Babe, the duck-tape handled and slightly mangled Louisville Slugger.</span></div><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is about new beginnings and how I'm finding some aspects of my new beginnings easier to adopt and embrace than others. One of these new beginnings is learning how to sleep alone in a king-sized bed when I'm only 5'7" and 118 pounds. Do you know how much room such a tiny frame takes up in such a large space? Well, not much. I've kept to "my side" of the bed these past 5 months. My side consisting of about 1/5th of the square footage of the acreage I nestle into at night with two cats, my body pillow and not much else. But I had an epiphany last night during another one of my many tossy-turny sleepless nights. I could sleep anywhere on this giant bed! Anywhere. I could sleep on the other side. I could sleep in the middle. I could sleep sideways, or completely the other way around ala Pippi Longstocking. I could sleep anywhere in anyway I wanted. "Dang!" I thought. "This is gonna be sweeeeet!"</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So Babe, with the grey duck-taped handle, for a better grip when I have to kick some bad guy's ass and the chip out of the bottom where I think my son may have bashed something other than a ball, rests against the head of my bed. And I get to rest anywhere I want.</span></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-41454165850136949532010-09-11T09:00:00.076-05:002011-03-31T12:23:59.383-06:00September 2010<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In starting this blog, my intent was to document my journey into a scary and unfamiliar landscape. In order to keep my sanity, I wrote, and it appears, not very often. I honestly thought this painful season of my journey was coming to an end and I </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">was well on my way back to civilization where I could start a new blog about happy and fun things. I couldn't have been more wrong.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi72LMaApfb539qviM49Sr3j9LGDgVt0cWtArR43vzwDZIxBZEXH8yV923mrgovI4wtgaND8SMwrk50rCESRuEhIe4AoPbnLoAfBRFibUT15-XomduPcITeDcT3bzUR97vpBUTGX28S1arK/s1600/JRauhTree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi72LMaApfb539qviM49Sr3j9LGDgVt0cWtArR43vzwDZIxBZEXH8yV923mrgovI4wtgaND8SMwrk50rCESRuEhIe4AoPbnLoAfBRFibUT15-XomduPcITeDcT3bzUR97vpBUTGX28S1arK/s200/JRauhTree.jpg" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My time here is not even close to being over. I am still in this metaphorical desert, stripped naked, bruised, bleeding, grasping for a hold on a rocky surface that only wounds me more as I climb up or down or whatever direction I'm heading. The unanswered questions gather like vultures on dead carrion and taunt me with the certainty that they will only continue to multiply and remain unanswered. Why am I here? Where is here? Is there an end to this? Will I survive? The loneliness is deeper, wider and more tangible than when I began. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are selling our home of 10 years due to the economy and some unwise investments we've made. Our home, filled with memories of my growing children, is going into the hands of strangers. My sweet dog of 14 years has cancer. Next year I send my youngest child off to college. My husband of twenty-five years has moved out and I have no job.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The thought of leaving this house I spent years of my time, talent, vision and love on is devastating. We'll sell and the endless boxes I've been packing will go with me to a place not my own. I am not ready to leave but the painful memories are choking out the joyful ones and I am willing to rip the bandage off and get this thing over with. The uncertainty of what's next overwhelms me and I cry at almost everything. I don't know where I'll be living. I don't know if I'll be married, separated or divorced. I don't know where or if I'll be working. I don't know if I'll be able to support myself and my 17-year old son.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some days I am totally devoid of hope. I am struggling to see the most microscopic evidence of goodness, truth and beauty in even the tiniest moments throughout the day. I am reaching out to friends and acquaintances and risking rejection. So far, I have found only love, support, compassion and a few good meals. I have discovered who my good, true and beautiful friends are and those who only loved me when my life looked like theirs.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am learning to speak up for myself and to ask for what I need. I am learning to face fear, embrace pain and to breathe until this too shall pass. I am learning to lean into the tears and cry until I'm done, knowing, that as deep as this pain is, it will not kill me. I am reading more, blogging more and listening to good music. I hang out with my son, talk to my faraway daughter, enjoy a sip of whisky here and there and laugh as often as possible.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have found no answers to the questions that panic me, finding instead that as much as I want to trust Jesus, I don't trust him nearly as much as I want to. I have been left empty of anything to offer him and am beginning to glimpse how truly, permanently, profoundly dependent on him I am. Stripped of all that I thought I was with my heart raw and bleeding, I see more clearly the pain in others. My heart breaks for the countless thousands of women in the same place I find myself. And as alone as I feel, I know that I am not the only one clinging to what remains.</span></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-4777466483976696192009-09-16T09:23:00.101-05:002011-03-30T15:36:04.912-06:00Racism<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Gj6wEehgADRo0RwC7m0odrtFvZT445y7nGgZ_GvOn4dMGMrqHvVRWlQDvuyTSTHD5xEnmu8hS74JwabCB4IGW4iLhg2jge-qKsplS8yVXymF0JpY9Evzz65CfNveS_uOSdVwYySH2Tz1/s1600-h/black-white-hands.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382151310809712594" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Gj6wEehgADRo0RwC7m0odrtFvZT445y7nGgZ_GvOn4dMGMrqHvVRWlQDvuyTSTHD5xEnmu8hS74JwabCB4IGW4iLhg2jge-qKsplS8yVXymF0JpY9Evzz65CfNveS_uOSdVwYySH2Tz1/s200/black-white-hands.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 200px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 140px;" /></a><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">1971 in Wichita was a time of racial tension like everywhere else in the nation. It was the year that I was bused to Ingalls Elementary at the corner of 10th & Grove, in the middle of a predominantly black neighborhood. I was in 6th grade and it was my favorite year. I loved my teacher and my Mom taught first grade downstairs at the end of the long Kindergarten/First Grade hall. All those tiny people in Room 119 looked at me with awe as if I was the coolest girl ever. I loved being near my Mom all day. One of my best days came the morning after someone had been shot near the corner I worked crossing patrol. Wearing my orange Crossing Patrol sash across my flat chest and the hand-held Stop sign in my authoritative grip, I was acting tour guide of the dried blood stain in the street.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;">It never occurred to me to be afraid that morning, or any other morning. Recess on the playground, walking out to one of the four corners for crossing duty twice each day, getting into the car or the bus after the last bell, I never felt in danger. My Mom had been teaching at this school for years and nothing bad had ever happened to her. She must have been scared after the shooting but she never let on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;">I had two best friends that year. One was Leanne Ogle. She was skinny like me, but brunette. We'd get to school and trade left shoes so we'd walk around all day with mismatched </span><span style="font-family: arial;">matching </span><span style="font-family: arial;">pairs. Hidden in our desks from the watchful eye of Mr. Schneidewind were the people we made out of Bugles corn chips, glue, yarn and googly eyes. Sometimes Leanne came to my house after school. We'd ride the bus to my neighborhood on afternoons my Mom left school to go to her second job at Lewin's Fine Women's Wear in the mall. A few times I'd go to Leanne's house on Fridays so I could spend the night. My other friend was Sadie. She was chubby, not like me, and had black kinky hair that shined. Sadie came to my house once that I remember. She gave me a poster of a woman with a parasol sitting in a boat on a serene lake surrounded by willows. She said it had reminded her of me. She and I put it up with tacks on the only wall in our unfinished basement that wasn't concrete. I kept that poster for years, remembering what it felt like to be loved by someone as kind and sweet as Sadie.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;">The following school year I attended Truesdell Junior High, or as we called it, True Hell. Truesdell was within a couple of mies from my house, so this time it was the black kids who got bused to us instead of us to them. I think I was afraid most of the time. Afraid I'd forget where my locker was. Afraid I'd forget my combination. Afraid I'd fail Spanish. Afraid of gym class where I'd have to unclothe my frighteningly thin, prepubescent body in front of girls with breasts and hips and change into the ugly green bubble shorts and matching short sleeved shirt. Everyone said I looked like a toothpick stuck in an olive. I hated 7th grade. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><br />
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Truesdell was the loneliest and most crowded school I'd ever been in. There were hundreds of students and I missed my Ingalls friends. I missed having a friend to share shoes and Bugles with. I missed knowing my classmates and having friends. Leanne was running with different girls and we hardly ever saw one another. I didn't have the one close friend that I needed in this giant hormone infused rat race. And then I saw Sadie. She was the most beautiful thing I'd seen all year; a serene, beautiful lake surrounded by willows. I greeted her with open arms and a smile so big my face hurt. But she didn't reciprocate. Her greeting was restrained and cool. She had a painful kind of sadness in her eyes. We saw each other a few more times in the halls, but something was different and she never wanted to stop for long. I thought she had just made different friends. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;">One day during that in-between class rush in one of a dozen long hallways, classes miles apart, hundreds of students all rushing to get where they needed to be before the dreaded bell, I felt a !Thwack! on the back of the head. Turning to see who or what, as I continued in my rush to get to class, I saw a girl much bigger than I was. She had 3 or 4 friends attached to her and they were all laughing at me. This big girl, with hate in her eyes and a face I did not know, had hit me. I had never been hit before and shock, embarrassment and fear all flooded up but there was no time to think about it. I had to get to class. Every day after that I expected to be hit again. I became more afraid, not knowing where or when that girl was waiting to jump out and beat my skinny body into a pulp. I didn't know this girl and her posse of friends or why they hated me but I did fear them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;">Colors were everywhere. The pale white skin of my Spanish teacher's complexion. The ugly green of my gym uniform. The blue of the lock whose combination I feared would allude me. The browns, blacks, whites, tans and olives of the skins of the hundreds of students at True Hell. We were just different colors, like everything else in life. But those differences were just as natural to me as the different colors of the rooms in our house. Cars, books, flowers, trees and bugs were different colors. It seemed obvious that people would be different colors, too. Then I spoke to Sadie one last time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;">It was in a different gray, long, student-filled hallway between classes. Sadie walked up to me. "Shannon, I can't be friends with you anymore." A sharpness stabbed my heart and it grew heavy with a weight that was new to me. I'd had plenty of painful moments by the time I was 12. Plenty of pain. My pets dying, my Dad leaving again and again, the loneliness of being the youngest. But the words she spoke next added a new, pressing weight to my heart and pushed me forever away from my innocent view of color. I came face to face with the ugly, irrational, stupidity of racism. "I can't be friends with you because I'm black and you're white." Looking at the sadness in her face, I also saw fear. Standing less than 15 feet away behind Sadie, was the girl that had hit me and her backup singers, glaring at me and at the back of Sadie's head. They had scared her too, and in order to survive this school, this True Hell, she had chosen to do as they said and get rid of her skinny, blond and very white friend.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;">As I thought about writing this piece this morning in my bathroom with the blow dryer pointed at my now brunette head, I realized that the last moment with Sadie still makes me sad and I miss her. I think the tears that I push back now while I sit at my desk aren't for Sadie or for me, but for a world that I believe should exist and doesn't yet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;">Racism still comes in all the colors. With the advances in science over these past decades, you think we'd all know by now that none of us are exactly the same color, while at the same time we're all made up of the same exact stuff. Race still becomes a conversation during elections. Color is the blame for countless hurts and failures. A kid in my son's school started a teacher-sanctioned "Southern Gentleman's Society" a couple of years ago. Most of the kids understood that was really KKK Light, but this kid with his affinity for the confederate flag, has convinced all the teachers and administration into letting him start his little 'whites only' club. What do I do with that. What do I do with the injustice and stupidity. What do I do with my outrage. I feel as helpless as the day I realized that I was white and there were people who hated me because of it. I hated 7th grade and I still hate the day Sadie's fear mixed with the tension of the times and I was forced to see that something big, ugly and powerful lived and would probably not breathe its last in my lifetime. But it was also the day that my black friend saved me from any more harm. Those girls who hated the color of my skin never bothered me again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"></span></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-23511666064793508102009-09-08T06:47:00.004-05:002010-11-18T07:05:43.879-06:00Moving From Home<span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >The 10 moves we made before I was 8 years old</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" > formed an insatiable hunger in me to have a real home; a place filled with memories and history; a place that ties me not to an unseen and possibly scary future but to a solid known past. </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >I hunger for a secure home so much that when the economy tanked and the loan for the remodel we'd just finished looked as though it would bankrupt us, I went back to work full-time to try to save the house I'd put so much of my time, energy and emotions into. I want this house to be here for my children now and for their children in years to come. I don't want to do what my Mother had done.<br /><br />She retired in 1988 after more than a 25-year career as an elementary teacher. She sold the house we built in 1967, the first new house she had ever owned, and moved to Arizona, far away from the Kansas where my dad had abandoned us. She was finally free of Kansas. I was devastated. Never again could I return to the house </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >in which I'd spent 11 years of my life and</span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" > knew better than the back of my hand. Strangers were </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >cooking meals in our kitchen, </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >watching TV in our living room, taking cover in our basement during tornado warnings. Every inch of that house held tangible remains of countless memories I was never going to be able to share with my children. There was no place called home anymore.<br /><br />This loss became entangled with the grief of </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >my Mom's death. Then seeded with the estrangement and subsequent death of my Dad, it grew into a roadblock on my path to wherever Jesus and I were headed. Then I happened upon my now-grown next door neighbor through Facebook. She is living in her childhood home with her family and her Mom is living in my childhood home, next door. I can't describe the utter joy and relief I felt at finding out this news. I became instantly free of more than I even realized I was carrying. And I was now ready to leave my childhood home and all the memories of my Mom in the hands of this good neighbor. </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >The roadblock is gone and an overwhelming peace, one that I can't fully describe or understand, has taken its place. </span><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >Jesus and I can get up from the front lawn where I'd parked my rear end ten years ago and get going to the next place in Kansas where my heart needs healing. <br /><br />It seems this healing is going to happen in a different place than the home I'm sitting in for the last time. Tomorrow movers show up to take the boxes, furniture & miscellaneous objects we've collected and put it into a much smaller rental house that my son and I will be living in for the next 12 months. The economy wins and I lose my house.<br /><br />Because I have no control over this event, every moment is an opportunity to look for things to be grateful for. I am also believing that God really does have plans for my good and not my harm. I am ready to move on. To put this house, all that it's meant to my family, all that God did for us here, behind me. I'm ready to squeeze 3,600 sf of stuff into 2,100 sf of rental space and over the next 12 months set myself free from the bonds of material ownership. I will become a Craig's List expert.<br /><br />And for my friend John "Tigger" McG, who finds my blog depressing, here's to taking my Irish melancholy into an unprecedented future and working my Sanguine muscles until I can take you on. Anytime.<br /><br /></span>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-48537192674670552432009-09-06T10:58:00.038-05:002011-01-11T14:43:39.632-06:00Walking Backward<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApxRrkC7GU1kG-DXMjG_02BGRtjWjRwEK6Gj2wIv7DK2aPgajPSG72uZi74MSwl1sxf07fmaPhJMTdojO3ampi1RDwq1x7MfWIuzQsgvgH3ovvOWN09UCcFERuqVxG36P6GU27RMi20k7/s1600-h/120px-Sunflower_After_Rain.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378846940618535154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApxRrkC7GU1kG-DXMjG_02BGRtjWjRwEK6Gj2wIv7DK2aPgajPSG72uZi74MSwl1sxf07fmaPhJMTdojO3ampi1RDwq1x7MfWIuzQsgvgH3ovvOWN09UCcFERuqVxG36P6GU27RMi20k7/s200/120px-Sunflower_After_Rain.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 90px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 120px;" /></a><br />
<div style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 100%;">I left Kansas in 1981 </span><span style="font-size: 100%;">with all my essential possessions crammed in the back of</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"> my 1970's, sun-oxidized silver Toyota Celica. Heading for Texas, I left my books, much-loved stuffed animals and assorted memorabilia to gather dust in my </span><span style="font-size: 100%;">1960's g</span><span style="font-size: 100%;">roovy lime green and navy blue room. Driving away from my Mother and the house in which I'd grown up was nearly the hardest thing I had done up to that point in my life, but </span><span style="font-size: 100%;">I had to move out and try to separate from the pain of the past. </span><span style="font-size: 100%;">I had to make a fresh start and I desperately prayed that I was leaving Kansas forever.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Regardless of that prayer, Kansas has never let me fully leave. It sticks to the story of my life like a piece of spinach in my teeth. Kansas; with its Dorothy & Toto jokes, supposedly flat nothingness and "flyover state" status. I even met a woman who remarked that "everyone she's met from Kansas was so backward!" And she was from Lubbock. </span><span style="font-size: 100%;">But more than the cultural labels that Kansans counter with farmer-like </span><span style="font-size: 100%;">quiet </span><span style="font-size: 100%;">dignity, the pain of bad choices, mine and others, remained to follow me from that great state of buffalo and sunflowers. Kansas has just meant pain.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Ever since leaving, I have been on a </span><span style="font-size: 100%;">journey to overcome and be set free from the Kansas I saw in my past, but no more so than over the past two years. Part of this desert experience has been about going backward into that pain and watching Jesus pick up each memory and, in ways only He could pull off, begin to heal and redeem. He's used the book my sister wrote of her journey back through Kansas to put the pieces of her fragmented childhood together. He's used Facebook to reconnect me with friends from the high school I bailed on my Junior year and the other high school I barely graduated from. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 100%;">I realize as I write this, these steps leading to memory after memory, some long forgotten, some unforgettable, are through the mountains I saw off in the distance last year as I stood in this spiritual desert, having just sat my behind next to a rock for about a year. I knew eventually that through these shadowed mountains was the path that led out of this place I'd grown to love.<br /><br />I read recently that some cultures believe we look to the past we can see and have our backs to the future we cannot see; that we walk backward into what's next. I've been walking backward, with my eyes viewing what's past and with each step of healing, I've seen Kansas grow more and more beautiful, and can honestly say that I am grateful for every moment of my life there. Even the horrible, terrible moments were steps that brought me to this place with this Jesus. I have many more steps to trace over, with countless moments of pain to relive, but I'm ready.<br /><br />Ready to go again, backward.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">We shall not cease from exploration</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"></span><span style="font-size: 100%;">And the end of all our exploring</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"></span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Will be to arrive where we started</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 100%;"></span><span style="font-size: 100%;">And know the place for the first time.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;">~ TS Eliot ~</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><br /></span></span>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-82644285517854319712008-09-24T07:15:00.007-05:002009-09-07T15:27:02.828-05:00Mandate of the Manatee<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4-F5QrTfognwVU1kcDxyNToUlHUrx57-qZ-1Ih1xgSjmkGRDha9VAeYmo1TH6sDcZR-c5iu2QDAcNqj0VLuBjwqy_V6HC9ZBff1qlTcBe4pviITYxOIw5X5BVCEVOQovdrz1-8Dmq1NQA/s1600-h/manatee.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4-F5QrTfognwVU1kcDxyNToUlHUrx57-qZ-1Ih1xgSjmkGRDha9VAeYmo1TH6sDcZR-c5iu2QDAcNqj0VLuBjwqy_V6HC9ZBff1qlTcBe4pviITYxOIw5X5BVCEVOQovdrz1-8Dmq1NQA/s200/manatee.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5249560890644781314" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> I can't explain why, but </span><span style="font-family:arial;">I absolutely love Manatees.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> With their large, white, squishy bodies, their adorably ugly faces, and the way they live their lives as though they completely understand the Shalom of Christ. The peaceful floating blobs of love and wonder.<br /><br />I think about Manatees and their fragile, peaceful lives. I think about the scars they carry from the blades of boat motors and how each scar on each manatee makes them unique from every other manatee. I think about how those scars, long healed, will be part of who they are until they die. And still the Manatee swim about in their peaceful manner, seeming to accept the wounds as a part of life, a part of who they are and they aren't bothered by any of it.<br /><br />Have I become so emotionally attached to my scars that I pretend the pain never happened? Do I let the pain determine who I am and how I'll live with other people? Do I offer advice to others to not dwell on their pain, get past it, get over it.<br /><br />I want to be like the Manatee, where the Peace of Jesus defines who I am, and the scars that I carry only allow me to know that while I'm like every other human on the planet, I am also unique. Hurt will come and scars will form, but despite them, I pray that I can still rest and float and be at peace. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">The scars don't define who I am, they only mark the places I've been in the river.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /></span></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-12428174938505150132008-09-23T13:17:00.007-05:002008-09-23T14:16:55.992-05:00Life Without Peaches<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjkDDS5VfGRh4ZyCWbiFlU7NdS8R-PWUdjkaknbPYzPB7KwMN-YEKgHTBbvFwOuROrUvNPDOmSP-7X3kXOXbzmTlBoAWi8sCV4Sr2L2cAfZbsjyKWSpWLdIlHptRzF6Hs2N6SoU88Zusr/s1600-h/senior+pic+1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjkDDS5VfGRh4ZyCWbiFlU7NdS8R-PWUdjkaknbPYzPB7KwMN-YEKgHTBbvFwOuROrUvNPDOmSP-7X3kXOXbzmTlBoAWi8sCV4Sr2L2cAfZbsjyKWSpWLdIlHptRzF6Hs2N6SoU88Zusr/s200/senior+pic+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5249297772467992786" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I call her my best friend, which is completely true, but she's so much more than that. Like Milky Way big more than that. She's the honey in my tea, the bean in my green, the fruit of my womb and she's 1,800 miles away, living out the as-near-as-perfect Freshman year of college that either of us ever dreamed possible. Pert Near Perfect. And I miss her. My soul has a hole that aches for her everything. I miss her smell, her laugh, the way she gets silly and sits upside down on the couch. I miss the brilliance of her thoughts and the depths of her insight. I miss the moments when she goes blond and says something totally stupid. I miss walking next to her and beaming with pride that she is so loved by so many and at the same time a mystery so worthy of the X-Files that it scares some off. I miss the way she can go to the refrigerator, pull out 5 random ingredients and make something unique and delicious. I miss her knocking on the bedroom wall at night to tell me to be quiet. I miss listening to her morning routine and the way she'd leave her room in a clutter. I miss nagging at her to clean up the mess she made in the kitchen/living room/dining room/library. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"> I miss wondering when she's coming home from a day at the lake with her friends. I miss wondering if she's had an accident and lying dead in a ditch. Because they're always dead in a ditch if they're late. I miss the kettle whistling for 5 minutes because she forgot she was making tea. I miss road trips and shopping trips and girl lunches and chick flix. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">I miss having this other girl in the house that is so like me that I don't feel the least bit odd or weird or crazy because there are two of us almost exactly alike and that must mean we're OK.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Those nearly 19 years flew by like the hummingbird, Tweedle Dum, that stops by the feeder. When she was born, they/them told me that it would go by so fast and to appreciate every minute. Yea, right. There was that day when I just knew she was going to be Three and screaming at me F O R E V E R. But they/them were right. Before I blinked she was gone. All grown up. Living her own life and taking over the world.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I am immensely, hugely, ginormously, profoundly proud of her and all I can pray is that we will remain BFs forever. I love you, Face.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-71166923118605178492008-06-23T07:09:00.003-05:002009-09-08T07:30:07.245-05:00Earth Turn<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl6MVqU6nXmnBzr7jp5-Mkz6JeZJ2f3-ZSqLzChTTMdon4i2730hjNB9ooVXoY-UscRLk8lNja8k34_pumFedoflDRHB7VGBXBQ9x7yniHGnbf-2uwX7I96ZN-4uZRwP4tnbaCqtRDUqwZ/s1600-h/sunrise.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215048567136648914" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl6MVqU6nXmnBzr7jp5-Mkz6JeZJ2f3-ZSqLzChTTMdon4i2730hjNB9ooVXoY-UscRLk8lNja8k34_pumFedoflDRHB7VGBXBQ9x7yniHGnbf-2uwX7I96ZN-4uZRwP4tnbaCqtRDUqwZ/s200/sunrise.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">I watched the earth turn this morning. I could say I watched the sunrise, but that wouldn't be true. Being slightly ADD, a label placed on those of us with brains that work at the speed of light, part of my brain wanders around asking questions about the weirdest stuff. Stuff like; why are manatees so puffy, where do the rabbits that eat my garden sleep at night, what do the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">hummingbirds</span> think my plastic plants will do for them and what's up with this sunrise thing. If the earth really does revolve around the sun and not the other way around, then the sun isn't rising or setting. It's just being. So what should I call that thing that happens in the morning, when the light of the sun reaches my upstairs deck with its fabulous view? All I could come up with was Earth Turn, but that sounds like some low-budget space movie from the 50's, not that there's anything wrong with that. If I really believe that the earth turns, then I feel like a liar when I call what I saw this morning the Sunrise. It didn't, so I can't and that's just it. So whatever happens every morning, and for that matter every night, is awesome and amazing and unique and it is one of the most delightful things God and I watch together. I'm thinking of taking a picture of every "sunrise" for a year, just to sit and wonder about how gifted God is at <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">painting</span> the sky. I wonder if God calls every "sunrise" by a different name, like He does the stars. Maybe that's why, despite my ability to give names to anything, I just can't figure out what to call the daily event of seeing the sun pop up over the horizon. For now, I'll call it Bob.</span>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-59594122799812621812008-06-20T08:31:00.005-05:002008-06-20T09:01:27.362-05:00Mountains in the Distance<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim5InjoyoEkLQ0AyyrX-kvTDYEFSE4pWbhlcI9tZ72uiHt5sYnOJc77Y2vFRkOHUuTTJuX9KeVPeP1zdvZ1pPLZTN6F0rRkT5qcDLbhcWIAFUgr-12MJezZorQPNJwcnmp6_j0bIm9IDPH/s1600-h/mountain.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim5InjoyoEkLQ0AyyrX-kvTDYEFSE4pWbhlcI9tZ72uiHt5sYnOJc77Y2vFRkOHUuTTJuX9KeVPeP1zdvZ1pPLZTN6F0rRkT5qcDLbhcWIAFUgr-12MJezZorQPNJwcnmp6_j0bIm9IDPH/s200/mountain.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213962531744026162" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">When this journey began</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> it started in a desert that I couldn't see. Then I saw the desert I was sitting in and I didn't like it. I've never liked the desert. When my Mom planted Yucca and broom grass</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> in the rock garden in the front yard of our Kansas home, convincing the neighbors that we didn't fit, I started hating the desert. Although I loved donning my leather moccasins that we bought in New Mexico and walking through the rocks and cactus, pretending I was an Indian, which is what you were in 1969, not a Native American, I was still a little embarrassed that our yard looked like Arizona and not Kansas. Pretty silly, really, considering I have been embarrassed to be from Kansas until just recently, so either way I lost. The desert is hot, dusty (i hate dust), rocky and so unkempt. I mean, clean it up once in a while, huh! Put those boulders in some kind of order for beauty's sake!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When I mean "I saw" I really did. One of my gifts, I guess you can call it, is the ability to see stuff that I can't see with my eyeballs. Call it an over-active imagination, but proven throughout my many years of following Christ, what I see seems to be what He's doing. So I saw myself in this desert, sitting near a saguaro cactus and a clump of untidy boulders, watching the sun bake the rocks and stick-like plants. Yucc-a.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Until one of the last Sundays I attended worship in the church we joined 6 years prior. It was that Sunday, when the din of the music accompanied by chatting pew sitters and wandering late-comers, truly pushed me over the edge and all I could think about was running. Running anywhere to find a quiet, lonely place where the hot wind was in my ears and I could feel the peace of sitting and watching the sun rest on the land.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Again, slow learner/late bloomer...Oh! That's the desert. I love the desert. I have to go to the desert. I want to go to the desert. If I don't get out of church and go to the desert I'm going to die.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So for months, I'd check in with God about where we were, because He eventually showed up to sit by my rocks with me, and He'd show me a non-eyeball picture of what was up. I sat by those boulders for months, maybe a year. I watched eagles soaring on the hot wind, lizards lounging on hot rocks, shadows move across the landscape. I noticed tiny, delicate flowers push their way up through the sand and dirt to face the blazing sun and thrive in it's heat. I began to understand words like peace, still, rest. I began to stop and look and wonder at the beauty of this place that I had dismissed for so long as ugly, dry and barren.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Recently, I checked in again. So, Guys (Father, Son, HS), where am I now? I am standing, no longer sitting by the boulders I had come to know and love, and facing mountains. They're still at a distance and I'm still in the desert, but no longer is just desert before my eyes. I see mountains. Green, gray, tall mountains with shadows crossing their ridges and peaks. I know we're headed there and part of me is scared. I've had to climb mountains before and it was hard and horrible. Part of me is excited about the new thing ahead of me and that Jesus and I are going to do this thing together. And part of me is very sad. Sad to leave this place I've grown to love so dearly because I took a journey here with Jesus for a long time now, even though I never moved an inch, and this place is very precious to me.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Whatever the mountains hold for me, however the climb will look, I know that Jesus is right there with me and the aloneness that I've felt all my life disappeared in the desert and I'll need to remember that when the climb gets hard.</span><br /></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-19791967595141386652008-06-20T07:30:00.005-05:002008-06-20T18:01:57.690-05:00Mustard Seeds<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXIo01tLSwOl0dDArtXDtF7l0Suu2M1CceGt0mo-bF3nhzQCc3PUL6vdORsH2Ofb2B_2kXM5Hq-JOnRizSj-byuQFNFs9HcdZn-0exY4JcuLCeo_v5Xsb4xK5HN8gsmmU3Y8xMwBSBbd1/s1600-h/mustard.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213954755827407378" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXIo01tLSwOl0dDArtXDtF7l0Suu2M1CceGt0mo-bF3nhzQCc3PUL6vdORsH2Ofb2B_2kXM5Hq-JOnRizSj-byuQFNFs9HcdZn-0exY4JcuLCeo_v5Xsb4xK5HN8gsmmU3Y8xMwBSBbd1/s200/mustard.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span style="font-family:arial;">God is showing up everywhere these days. The grocery store, the tattoo studio, my hair lady's shop, Target, the gas station. It seems that where ever I go, there He is. Just like David wrote about in Psalms, there is nowhere that God isn't.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I find myself getting excited about going out of the house to run errands. And not just because I like buying fresh fruit and filling the fridge to make my family happy, but because I just love striking up conversations with people about anything. I used to freeze around "the lost" because I knew that my job, as a good Christian, was to share Christ, like He was a cake or something. What if they're on a diet? What if they don't like cake or are Gluten-intolerant? Then what? How do I bring Jesus into a conversation about the price of peaches? All this panic, geez! Now I just want to be kind, caring, open, fun and I've had the coolest conversations with people. So many that I've had cards with my contact info printed on them to give to these lovely nobodies (to borrow from Jim Palmer) in case they want to ever talk again.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This may be that Freedom that Jesus was setting me free for. I feel so much of His delight when I'm just being free to be me, that I feel delight in the people He runs me into. And my first thought or question isn't "where do you go to church?" It has ceased to matter to me. What matters is can I, just for this moment I'm with them, convey any of God's love and delight He has for them?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It surprises me every day, the things that don't freak me out anymore. Like when I found out that friends from the church I no longer attend think I've gone off the deep end. The only thing I felt was sad. Sad that I've been judged and labeled without one conversation taking place. Without one of these people calling me up to ask me about this journey God has me on. For all the years of serving, caring, coming alongside in community and only 7 people out of the hundreds I know have asked any caring, open questions about what's up, and they were the ones who asked me how it felt to have people think I've gone lefty-wacko nuts. If I had heard this a year ago, it probably would have thrown me in to that familiar pit of depression and self-doubt I have lived in for all my life. But I know beyond anything I've ever known that I didn't pick this journey, Jesus did, and He really knows what He's doing. Really. I wish my friends who don't ask could know that about Jesus. Know it enough to delight in whatever God is doing in someone else even if they don't get it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I still freak out at times. I still find myself asking Jesus "so, how are you going to get me out of this fine mess?" and then freaking when He doesn't appear out of the magic bottle I just rubbed. Like the day we got the test results back for my son, who will be 15 in 11 days. Apparently he has Celiac disease and has had it for so long that my 5'10", 190 lbs. son is malnourished and his thyroid is out of wack. And he can never again eat gluten without causing severe damage to his body and immune system. But, it was the painfully embarrassing psoriasis that he's had for a year that God used to finally push me past traditional medicine (that wasn't working) into the food testing. That poor kid is allergic to 24 foods, a few of which are killing him. Now we get to wait to see what God's going to do with that as I clear out all the junk "food" and learn to cook for real this time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Its the every moment, every day miracles that keep me amazed and living in expectancy for what God will do next in and through me. And I haven't picked up my Bible in months. Who knew that all the rules of being a good Christian and keeping God pleased were bogus. He really does delight in me, even if I never ever ever did anything for Him ever again. He really does order the steps of my path and it really is His job to perfect me into the image of Christ. Who knew that the things He said He really meant. For all the big plans and purposes that I'm supposed to have as a Christian, its been the everyday little things that seem to be making the most impact in my life and the lives of those I meet. Maybe that's what Jesus was talking about when He mentioned mustard seeds. If all I ever have are mustard seeds, then its enough to change the world.</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-8928378969533005802008-05-02T07:49:00.006-05:002008-06-20T10:31:38.494-05:00Brilliant & Witty<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">My niece has a blog. She's brilliant and witty and her blog is a pleasure to read. She uses really big, brilliant type words to get her message across and then you're out of there. Lots of little posts, full of lots</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmYOnLIVbY9FL-pbvrTfJVmd-4bUUH2XNFxrQvRH54FdqOQIiAks42i-Bm6jnCskckWTfT-EyS7hhJCmX3wghisYcIcZlfJO2bRGjSEwbpaGcvcpB5SYe9u6K9AvjIKbNbGF-ndEAYASFm/s1600-h/albert.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmYOnLIVbY9FL-pbvrTfJVmd-4bUUH2XNFxrQvRH54FdqOQIiAks42i-Bm6jnCskckWTfT-EyS7hhJCmX3wghisYcIcZlfJO2bRGjSEwbpaGcvcpB5SYe9u6K9AvjIKbNbGF-ndEAYASFm/s320/albert.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213986509059783426" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> of wonder, ponderings, silly things, smart things, funny things. But, they're short and fun to read; even when they have something profound to say. I, too, am brilliant and witty (just</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> being honest here). It's a family trait passed down from all kinds of sides of the family. A kind of Comic Soup that we all swam in. Just remember you can't pick your family. So in rereading my Blog I wondered; "Geez, I don't sound Brilliant & Witty. When did I get so damn serious and heavy? Must be all the ice cream & beer So...I know I can do this. Now I just have to think of something to say....</span><br /></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-81233508175819375432008-01-10T12:48:00.003-06:002008-06-20T10:55:47.674-05:00Questions<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">My friend died this week. My tattoo-bedazzled, bald-headed, father-</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxbyc5EA6Wm0qMDA1j5xQGFDXuZDi1DXFujD1nNbb4nck-8eWDBQMFgH_hncqH7Qk3ycBmJo5s9Br3fmuuqbSQq2Fmrv2px81HUY9BPzf3oBM3Hp846K-KCsqi2gfAwp3fKTADE55Vi4a/s1600-h/isaac+harley.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxbyc5EA6Wm0qMDA1j5xQGFDXuZDi1DXFujD1nNbb4nck-8eWDBQMFgH_hncqH7Qk3ycBmJo5s9Br3fmuuqbSQq2Fmrv2px81HUY9BPzf3oBM3Hp846K-KCsqi2gfAwp3fKTADE55Vi4a/s200/isaac+harley.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213992731394156242" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">of-four, husband-of-beauty friend died. There's a website that was created early in his battle against a very rare cancer to give friends and family updates and opportunities to give money. My friend was poor in money, but rich in friends and beyond wealthy in faith. Now his widow is rich in medical bills. If these bills were money, she'd be quite well off. They put a picture of my friend on the website yesterday with the date of his birth and the date of his death. He looks so happy in this picture. It was taken last summer when the pain from the cancer was becoming overwhelming. He said the only time he didn't feel pain was when he was riding our Harley. So we let him borrow it for a trip to California and they took a photo and now he smiles back at me and I cry. I cry because I loved my friend and will miss him. I cry because that beautiful Harley that mostly just sits in the garage except for those glorious days in spring my husband will ride it out, became a place of healing for my friend, if only for a little while. Now, my friend is memories added to the other memories of the dead I know. It's amazing how our minds work. Those little triggers that pull an old moldy memory up as though it was fresh and newly formed. Sometimes its a smell. Have you ever smelled something and suddenly you're back in your grandmother's house and you can remember everything about it? My friend's death triggered those old <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">moldies</span> in me and along with them came a million questions. Some I know will not be answered until I see Jesus face to face. Others aren't questions that really need answers, I just can't help asking them. Some I would seriously like to know. Seriously. Like, where do the dead really go. People tell me that those who love Jesus are immediately in His presence. But I can't find scripture to back that up. There is something about "we shall not all sleep". Is that sleep what the dead do? Something else about "the dead in Christ will rise first". That would seem to mean they aren't risen yet. I've heard pastors, preachers and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">sermonetters</span> proclaim that this is just the body going up to meet the spirit. But, again, where did they read that in the Bible? If the dead are sleeping, when they wake up will it only seem like a second ago that they breathed their last? What happens to the cremated? I mean what does the Bible say? I don't want the theology made up about this stuff, I want truth and in my experience the truth that we have isn't nearly all the truth there is. Is that why we make up the answers? Will I ever understand what percentage of us is not our bodies? When my Mom died, the shock of her sudden, profound 'gone-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">ness</span>' was overwhelming. Here was the physical form, so familiar, suddenly empty and nothing of Beverly remained. I mean she left and this body was so amazingly not her. I can't describe it. Death isn't just so final, it's way more than that. I don't think there are words on this planet invented yet to describe death. Nothing that could even come close to preparing you for that moment when the last breath is exhaled, the heart just stops, and it's weird and awful and gut wrenching and life shattering. Everything from that moment at 3:11am on Friday, February 19, 1999 defines everything that has come after it. The death of my estranged Dad 11 days later and my Mom's mother (92) on my Mom's birthday (weird) joined to became a kind of giant ball of pain dropped with a sonic boom onto the path of my life that shattered everything and everything that comes beyond that point carries the definer "After Mom Died". How is my friend's wife sleeping without him? How does grief this deep and painful not kill you? How can a woman so devoted and in love make the decisions that need to be made to put her best friend's empty body to rest. Funeral arrangements are bizarre. You're in the most pain you've been in your life, your mind is reeling with the unbelief of it all, the shock makes your brain stick and some guy in a suit is guiding you to make very personal decisions for the most important person in your life who you just watched die and Funeral Guy has never even seen you before and never met your Mom. How does he know anything about her, or me, or what we need right now? It's all so mechanical and impersonal. It's cold and scary and feels like a train careening down the tracks and there's nothing you can do to stop it before it plunges off that cliff and the decisions you've made are permanent and unchanging. Like death. What happened to good old fashioned wakes, where we left the body of the disappeared family member on the kitchen table for a week and everyone came to bring casseroles and pie? You had time back then to get a little used to the idea. You had time to say your goodbyes and you buried this family member in the little family plot under the giant oak when you were good and ready to. What happened to those days? I understand burying someone in a hurry in the tropics, or where war is raging. I understand not having time for long goodbyes in a place where 30,000 children die every day from hunger. But, not here. Not in America. We have the time and the technology to let that loved one hang out in the Lay-Z-Boy for a good month before putting them in the ground. What's the rush? We don't like death in America. It's too real and it flies in the face of our youth obsessed culture that's all driven by the love of money and the love of beauty defined by some guy when movies were invented. I hope when I'm dying, very much older and very much grayer that I die in the hands of Hospice workers with my family surrounding me and singing something silly. Hospice workers are not afraid of death and I love that about them. They take what's inevitable for </span><span style="font-family:arial;">almost 100% </span><span style="font-family:arial;">of us and they give it dignity and they allow us to face the reality of this painful part of life. They walk you through the stages of dying and they encourage you to hang out for hours or days. And they talk openly about it all. Honestly. Real Gut wrenching honesty. My friend loved gut wrenching honesty. He'll be deeply, deeply missed.</span><br /></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-27727713365896265192008-01-05T15:46:00.003-06:002008-06-20T09:06:34.782-05:00Lizard Lesson<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjybT-eGPiF6a1hf18Lz4n02uFogkHpOyIvDk8QXMV9Q-YuCuylTl-l07Be-S2iRM6Mzz7uaB59E_Rbk1Auq5qDjVVnI2WLRh2yr4_E5jSgiw0IWMLySo-aEPc5uxdvyj9sJfwvUlEDpXfC/s1600-h/lizard.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjybT-eGPiF6a1hf18Lz4n02uFogkHpOyIvDk8QXMV9Q-YuCuylTl-l07Be-S2iRM6Mzz7uaB59E_Rbk1Auq5qDjVVnI2WLRh2yr4_E5jSgiw0IWMLySo-aEPc5uxdvyj9sJfwvUlEDpXfC/s200/lizard.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213964775401787474" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Lizard lessons, because I like <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">alliteration</span>, I'm in a desert, and the lizards seem to be the only thing moving. So my lessons, the one's I've gotten a grip on so far, are the only things that seem to be moving in my life. Other than my oldest turning 20 in two weeks, my only daughter looking at only 5 months of high school before heading across the country to college, and my youngest being the "only lonely" left at home; a position I played quite well myself as a teen. I know there are lessons in there somewhere, but for now the obvious ones. So my crazy American/Afghan friend? The one who told me how much he loved his desert experience and I told him he was crazy? So, it turns out he might have been right, although I still think he's crazy. I'm not giving him too much credit yet, 'cause I'm still sitting by this rock, but I have grown to love this place. I don't know if I'll ever understand all that's changed in me these past 20 months, but I know I love this place. I was at a church two months ago, trying hard to participate in the song part of the service. I was singing and closing my eyes and everything. All I could think about was how desperately I wanted to run out of the building, away from the noise, the people and the wall that was separating my heart from Jesus' heart and go someplace quiet, someplace alone and still and just listen to the wind blow and wonder about this God I love. And like the quick wit that I am, it took me all of 15 minutes (ha!) to realize..."Oh, the desert! I WANT to be in the desert!" That was the day I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started loving this place I'm stuck. I longed for more and more moments of absolute quiet, absolute solitude. It is in this place that my heart has begun to understand Shalom and the Rest that Jesus invited me into. I love the sand, the rocks, the cactus, the little flowers that bloom in secret to be discovered by me if I'm still and pay attention. I love the solitude and being able to hear my heart for what might be the first time in my life. I feel more connected to God here, in a completely different way than I ever imagined. And despite writing this on a blog, I hunger for this part of the journey I'm on to remain my treasure just between me and the God I love. The depths to which He has touched me, I will never be able to convey in language, so that part remains truly secret, truly safe. Thank you, sweet Afghan friend. I miss your stories and I will always be grateful for the crazy way you share your life. But I bet my desert's better than yours.</span><br /></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-2032048909720583132008-01-05T11:10:00.002-06:002008-06-20T10:56:19.610-05:00Stirring the Pot<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I became aware of one of my gifts about two years ago. I'm calling it a gift because despite the apparent destruction that comes initially, there is always a redemptive outcome eventually. I've named it Prophetic Atomic Bomb or Bob for short. (I call everything Bob. It's my favorite name for stuff, events, chairs.) So I use Bob, most of the time unknowingly, to stir up a mess of trouble. Or a pot of stuff. I see or sense something and act on it. Whether it's writing, or having a conversation or just ranting to my often-patient husband, daughter or friends. And then the demons of hell are unleashed. Some refer to this event as the Sh*t Hitting the Fan or Nuclear Holocaust. Not exactly beneficial to my self-esteem, but I need humbling if I plan on walking out Micah 6:8.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Apparently, I've done it again. Somewhere along the way in this desert journey, I've unleashed some sort of Angry Christian spirit that has come after me and my daughter. I'm actually excited and terribly curious to see how God will, once again, redeem this. I love to watch Him work.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I have a cousin that I haven't seen in 15 years or so. A guy I drop a Christmas card to every year but never hear from. Well, he emailed me this year. I was so glad to hear from him until I read what he had to say. Something about the end of the world and a 74 disc DVD set that he sent to his mother full of warnings, predictions, and get out of Hell Free cards. He admonished me to log onto a particular website, so that I too could fully comprehend the terrible destruction that is upon us. I felt so loved (mild sarcasm). After all the dire warnings and demands that I understand our doomed plight he ended with "I hope this finds you well". Really?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Time in this desert life has encouraged me to look at me and make changes in how I love people. So instead of my usual response of "wow, what a nut job you've become!" I responded with joy at his search for truth and then shared with him titles of books I've been reading, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">url</span> for my blog and encouraged him to check it out, if he so desired. Lovely, encouraging, hopeful and bragging a wee bit on Jesus.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Well, to my great surprise (or not, I'm not sure), my dear cousin responded within 5 minutes to my end of what I thought was conversation. Turns out, this wasn't a conversation, it was a lecture and I had failed the pop quiz. The anger, arrogance, vitriol and rage with which he responded almost knocked me off my chair. Who the h*&ll was I talking too? Has this guy been pent up in the west desert of Arizona so long he's lost his mind? What church has he been going to? But as I sat and pondered his end of our "conversation" I saw so clearly that this is the church I was a part of for so long. The one that made me sick of spirit and depressed. My cousin's response did not resemble Jesus in any way, shape or form. Test the spirits, Paul admonished. Did anything my cousin extend to me resemble Peace, Patience, Kindness, Self-Control, Love, Joy? Nope. And all because he is caught up in an End of the World panic. Perfect love casts out all Panic.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">News Flash! The end has been coming for a few thousand years now. You can read all about it in a little book I like to call Revelation. I'm pretty sure Jesus' message to the 7 churches in the beginning of this tome by John had something to do with faithfulness, compassion, giving. Pretty sure there wasn't anything in there about Arrogance, Panic, Fear, Rage and dissing your cousin. Pretty sure. But I'll need to read it again to be certain.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Let's say it is the end of the world and we're all going down a deep dark rabbit hole. My guess is, God already knows. He knew before the Bible was written because like Dr. Who, God travels in time, except He doesn't really travel because He is in all times at ... uh, all times. So if God knew about this end of world freak out, but told us to love our enemies, care for widows and orphans, give to the poor, multiply food, heal the sick, comfort the sad anyway, how does Doomsday dismiss the two greatest commandments? Love the Lord your God with all your Heart, Mind, Soul & Strength and Love Your Neighbor as Yourself except in the case of world crisis? Don't think so.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Then, my daughter read the blog of a leader at a teen intensive she went to this past summer at a Prayer ministry in KC. J's doing research for her senior thesis and wants to use this guy's comments to support her presentation on what's wrong with the church. Turns out, he's made her famous. He's written an entry decrying her leaving early from the intensive and how she manipulated God by "laying a fleece before Him." The blog is written with the same shockingly sad arrogance, know-it-all, holier-than-thou crap my cousin spewed. No humility. No wondering. No questions. Just cement-like certainty that he's right, she's wrong and his hope that she doesn't end up in Hell for offending God this way. Again, I really want to live in Micah 6:8. This has given me the desire to pursue it more diligently.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And this KC ministry is founded on God's letter of love in Song of Solomon. You know, the God that is the Kindest, most Gentle, most Loving, most Compassionate, most Patient, most Joyful, Most Hopeful person you will ever meet. Did I see that Jesus in this man's writings. Nope. And we read several of his entries. they were all so arrogant it actually made me frightened for him. Boot shaking, get on the floor and duck down real low fear.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So the cat's out of the bag, Pandora's box is opened, The bats of hell have been unleashed, and the wild dogs of the north are on the move. I'm sure I could think up more metaphors, but you get the point. What a Mess. But God does the best stuff with Mess. I'm not kidding. Look at me. I can't wait to see what He'll make of this and how He'll use it to change me.</span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-54025599890117648672008-01-03T08:39:00.004-06:002010-11-18T06:17:53.680-06:00My Father's Imprint<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">It's amazing to me the life I've begun to find in this desert. Sitting here for months on what appears to be barren ground, has given me the time to look at things previously unnoticed. The tiny flowers that have gone ignored in the busyness of my life, my memories long forgotten, have begun to catch my eye. Coming more into focus as I start to pay attention, really pay attention to something God is trying to tell me about His imprint in my life. One of these revelations is about my Dad. All of my life, up until now, I've had a story about my Dad and his presence in my life. About how he failed me, hurt me, abandoned me. That had to have been a mistake God made to give me such a Dad. I was very clear about the scars he had left, but now I see that there was more.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The story goes like this: He left my Mother. Often. Finding women who believed his handsome words of love, he abandoned us over and over only to come back when his mask slipped and the object of his most recent affection wanted what every woman he slept with wanted; a relationship, commitment, longevity of love. He only wanted assurances that he was truly a man. One who could make the conquest and have his desires met without attachment or responsibility. He was a very broken man. But, at the same time, a very talented and handsome man. Charming with a quiver full of quickly retrieved and fired puns that had us groaning for their valiant yet failed attempts at humor. He was charming and witty and thought for a while that maybe he could be Dick Van Dyke. He adopted some of Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">My dad could do voices. He wanted to be Mel <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Blanc</span>. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">He could paint, carve things from wood, build things, act, impersonate cartoon characters, write and be adoring. But his absences made him more like a ghost that would visit on occasion than a father. I thought he left me only a broken heart, but God has shown me the treasures in my Dad that He has used to imprinted me with.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Getting away from the mold of the American Church and stepping into my own skin, I've discovered that not only am I much like my Mother, who I miss terribly, but I am more of my Dad than I ever realized. My love of books started with my Dad who ignored us over a good Sci-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Fi</span> or Louise L'Amour. What better way to get into his world than read a good book across the room from him. My Mom saw that love of books and signed me up for numerous book clubs. Every month a new book would come in the mail just for me. It was like Christmas and it was magical. I'd get dropped off at the library to browse for hours, even at the ripe old age of 7 or 8. When my Mom came to get me I had armfuls of books to take home and devour before next week's visit. My dad gave me that love which was then nurtured by my Mom who was a school teacher and reading was life. My Dad even wrote a book, never published, sometime before his death. The last I heard it was over 900 pages long and no one would ever read it. So, I gu</span><span style="font-family:arial;">ess my long winded writing came from him, too.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> I saw a photo two months ago in a design magazine I bought for remodeling ideas. The article was about Wichita's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">carthalite</span> architecture. The photo was of an art supply store, long gone, but seeing that photograph was like water to my dehydrated soul which poured out a flood of memories. I remembered my Dad and I</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> shopping together at that store and then I would sit in our Kansas basement for hours watching him apply acrylic onto canvas. I'd watch him sketch out his thoughts and then cover them with the vibrant colors of the 60's. I still have one of his pieces. It's titled <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sunburst</span> and it's ridiculously large with lots of orange, yellow and red, but it's one of the few things I have of him that didn't get lost or sold before his death. I love Monet, Renoir, Rembrandt, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Michelangelo</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Da</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Vinci</span> and Van <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Gogh</span> because</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> of my Dad.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I love the smell of sawdust and the feel of a good power tool because of my Dad. He and I would go into the garage on warm summer nights to watch the June bugs gather as he worked his magic at the table saw. Creating chess boards and pieces that he would teach me the game on. Building cabinets for the garage so Mom could organize our lives. Carving the head of Mohammad Ali when he was still Cassius Clay. Sitting in my house is a wooden hand, a replica of my Dad'</span><span style="font-family:arial;">s hand, with a thumbs up, and my Dad's pun of a title; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Thumb Fun</span>. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">I</span><span style="font-family:arial;">t's cracking and the light green st</span><span style="font-family:arial;">ain my dad rubbed on it is fading, but I don't think I can ever get rid of it. My Dad told me those little creepy June bugs that I would let crawl on my hands were for me because my birthday is in June.</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaY9taSd96grsxIeWHVWW1mofn9EPicdnT1X_-1QlUgTVtvxZGc6xQBILOr7s-1W8Ovjxkq1OwPFT50BUfTBCSXkJXUpc1t_TreBDPdmB4KJDphPDWTPOtyutmo7JARjZQfbwK2hEqsqUf/s1600-h/P6190005.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 112px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaY9taSd96grsxIeWHVWW1mofn9EPicdnT1X_-1QlUgTVtvxZGc6xQBILOr7s-1W8Ovjxkq1OwPFT50BUfTBCSXkJXUpc1t_TreBDPdmB4KJDphPDWTPOtyutmo7JARjZQfbwK2hEqsqUf/s320/P6190005.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213990491748348546" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> I loved those little bugs, the sound of the saw running, the feel of the sandpaper on my fingers and brushing the lovely and aromatic sawdust out of our </span><span style="font-family:arial;">hair before going into the house long after</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> bedtime.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I love theater because of my Dad. The sounds and smells of an empty theater. The mystery of all that happens backstage to make the magic happen upfront. All because of his desire to be discovered and become famous. Every summer he performed with the Wichita Crown Players; a group formed by a mortician that gathered to put on good old fashioned <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">melodramas</span>. Player pianos, popcorn in buckets, sing-a-longs with the audience, the villain, the damsel in distress, and the hero. My dad always played the villain, with a dark cape and a menacing black mustache. It was campy, over the top, but so much fun. I had my first love in one of those summer productions. I was 7 and he was 18. For weeks during rehearsals he would give me piggy back rides up and down the rented theater aisles. I was sure we would marry.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There were also attempts at real theater with The Arc, a production about Joan of Arc, which my Dad built a stool to use for her inquisition. I keep that faded stool in my attic. He did a a few productions of summer stock and he tried movies. He was actually good for the 3 minutes he was in the beginning of "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">SuperVan</span>", but the rest of movie was not worth watching. I was so proud of him, despite being embarrassed around my friends who endured that awful movie with me. One of his last acting jobs was in a very poor made for TV movie about a grown Tom Sawyer. My dad played an angry judge, but not very well. His dad had been an aspiring actor back in the 30's. A Day at the Races with the Marx brothers was his only commercial success. Leon Otis <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Seeley</span> then slipped into oblivion with a few poor choices of roles and an angry wife who demanded he quit acting and get a real job. My Dad followed in his Father's footsteps.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">All of these treasures that God used to make me who I am, so close to my DNA that I never noticed them until I was put in this desert to do nothing but think and wonder and question. I never thought I was creative. I watched my Dad with awe and wonder at his gifts, so wasted, so untrained, so broken, but wonderful. My sister taught herself to play guitar, sew, draw and cook. She's a gifted writer, too. I figured she got all the creative genes that were left and I got to be youngest, which had it's benefits. But, I have heard God's whisper in my heart over this past year. All that my Dad was, all the time I spent with him, God used those moments, brief and unpredictable, to pour something into me that He has awakened and I'm very excited.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I'm going to take a pottery class in February. A gift from my husband. I'm signing up for stained glass lessons soon, too. And I'm going to learn to take this love of beauty and make something of beauty to share and explore and wonder over. And for the first time since I was 11 and my Dad left for good, I am truly grateful for Ralph <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Seeley</span> and the gift that he was to me.</span><br /></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-18799313806515250502008-01-02T07:58:00.003-06:002010-11-18T06:12:29.734-06:00a death in the desert: abandoning christianity to find christ<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span> </span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Is there a word that's drier than dry? Desert experiences are often described as dry, but this isn't dry. This goes way beyond dry. This is beyond arid, droughty, sere, thirsty or waterless.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I've experienced dry before. You know those times when God seems distant and silent. But relationships are good, the routine of church seems normal, you still read your bible, use all the lingo and feel as though you belong. The times that God isn't near, but it doesn't really matter because everything else is still in place and life goes on. You believe that God will show up any day and it will be alright. I thought that was pretty dry.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">But not this time. This is the desert experience I've been dreading my whole life. The one like Moses lived in for 40 years before God showed up in a pyromaniac's frustration, a bush that wouldn't burn. Forty years! I don't know that I have 40 more years and I sure as hell don't want to spend it here in this vast wasteland of doubts, questions, emptiness and the sound of my prayers bouncing around my head like echoes off a canyon wall.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">This is beyond dry and it's my fault. Two years ago, I started asking questions about the american church and the culture of christianity I live in. It seemed that things weren't lining up with the bible that I knew or the words of Jesus. It seemed as though we were working really hard to convince ourselves and maybe others that this thing was really working and that we were really making a difference, just like Jesus wanted us to. But the more I really started to look, the more questions I had. The more wonderings I wandered through until I wandered my way into this desert.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I wondered why the abortion rate in church was now as high or higher than outside the church. I wondered the same thing about divorce. I wondered why we sang songs about giving Jesus everything, but less than 5% of christians give even a tenth of their income to their local church to support the staff and facility expenses and even fewer give money to care for widows and orphans around the planet. I wondered why so many people come late to worship, yet say they believe Jesus is among us. If we really believed he was among us wouldn't we be on time or even early to meet with him? I wondered what it was about american christians that the muslim and liberal american cultures hated so much. I wondered about what Jesus meant by "love your neighbor" and why radio personalities claiming to be christians were so vicious to those who had differing opinions. I wondered why the culture of my kid's private christian school was rampant with underage drinking and premarital sex and yet no one wanted to see it or have a conversation about the pain these kids must be feeling. I wondered why my buddhist sister was nicer than many christians I know. I wondered why so many christians seem sad and angry. I wondered why churches spend millions of dollars a year building bigger, nicer and newer facilities when 30,000 children die every day around the world from hunger. Hunger. An entirely preventable death.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">And without realizing it I began to abandon christianity to find Christ. Never in a million years did I think I would contemplate ending my status as a christian. I've been a christian since I was 13. Not a very good one, mind you. I got pretty lost there for a while in my teens and drank too much, took a few drugs, smoked a little pot, slept around and had two abortions. But I pulled it together when I was 21 and started over. I was never going to be as good as my friend, Michelle. She'd grown up in a christian home and assured me her sins weren't as bad as mine. But I'd take second or even third-class christianity over being out there in the world, lost and alone. God's taken me to so many places since then and being a christian has meant following Christ. But lately, not so much. The strength of the christian culture in american is flowing swiftly to God-knows-where when the world is heading to hell, which might mean it's time to change rivers.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">So 18 months ago I asked God: "Take everything away from me that's not Jesus. Everything that's man-made, american cultural christianity and not Jesus. I need to know who Jesus really is and what He really meant, because this church thing isn't working for me anymore and it sure doesn't seem to be helping the world. amen."</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Sometimes God hears my prayers and then he answers and I'm not so sure I'm glad he was listening at that particular moment and that he took me seriously. The first year after that prayer was great. All the stuff he was stripping off of me I was completely glad to be rid of. We were in total agreement about what was wrong with american flag-flying christianity and I loved the freedom I was beginning to experience. I loved reading authors from the 'left' and feeling a little afraid of the adventure, but not too afraid. It was just exciting enough to be dangerously fun. I started asking more questions and reading the blogs of people who were asking the same questions and weren't freaked out by my wonderings.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">That's when he got to the bone. He pulled off things I'd lived with all my life and that I had my identity wrapped around. Without those things, who was I? It got harder to go to church with my identity wavering and my life-long struggle with mild depression getting deeper. My ability to fake it was no longer functioning. I didn't fit anymore. I had more questions every week. But the church was uncomfortable with my questions, my doubts and my wonderings. I had no one to talk to. There was no one else in my circle of friends who was thinking these thoughts or asking these questions. There were plenty of blogs about this stuff and entire churches out there that were on board with realigning their lives to match Jesus' and not the culture's. But no one near me except my 17-year old daughter was there. We were no help to each other and her doubts fed mine and my questions gave birth to more for her. We were together in a desert alone, by ourselves. And for the first time, without God.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I've had a long and fruitful life with God since re-giving him my life 26 years ago. We've been close and we've pretty much agreed on most of the stuff he's done in my life. But not this time. This time I've grown very, very afraid of him and scared to death of what he's going to take away from me next. I have a feeling it will be everything because I told him more times than I can count that he could have it all, but I guess I didn't know what I was talking about.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Nine years ago, my sweet Mom was diagnosed with a metastasized cancer from 23 years prior. She died within 3 months despite my desperate prayers and the prayers of my church. My estranged dad, who I had not seen for 10 years, died 11 days after my Mom. Nine weeks later, on my Mom's birthday, her mother died. That wasn't a desert. That was a cave. A dark, scary, smelly cave. But God was very near. Worshipping him in the midst of that pain was the hardest thing I've ever done. But, I loved him like I had never loved him before. I was also very mad at him. To pray so hard, to believe so desperately, and to have all my moorings cut out from under me and to be set adrift changed me in ways I still can't get a hold of.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">This feels worse than that. My expectation is that soon my life will parallel Job's and God will take my husband next. Then my three children, the dog, the two cats and finally the house will burn down. But only after we finish the remodeling. My oldest son will fail his sophomore year of college. My daughter's eating disorder and depression will worsen. My youngest son will start drinking like his christian classmates. These are my fears as I sit in this desert that doesn't seem so much like an experience as I've lost my salvation. But God has my life and can spend it on bubblegum if he so chooses. I'm truly afraid he will.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">This is the same God that I've known as loving. I mean really loving. He's loving and he's good. He's really good. But he's also King of the universe, creator of everything including nebula and amoeba. He has the power to wipe me off the planet without so much as a "how do ya do" or "have an apple'. He knows my every weakness, every flaw and every sin. If I was him, I might consider wiping me off the planet, too. He knows that my prophetic gift, the one He gave me, has been used to hurt, maim and deeply wound countless people, including the ones I love the most. He knows that I wear my insecurity like a shield of arrogance and wield my fear like a sword, cutting the heart of my husband more often than not. Why in heaven's name would he want me here?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">But somewhere He said he loved me, then He died for me and then He was raised from the dead. Not just so He'd be good as new, but better than new. Shinier, more powerful and able to leap tall galaxies in a single bound. And He's touched me, talked to me, healed me and been there. Until now.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">And I've never felt more lost. The christian culture hasn't skipped a beat in my absence and they're still worshipping, serving in children's church and moving along like clockwork. They say He shows up on Sunday and that He's healed a few people. Somewhere in California He's healing hundreds of people. Maybe He'll heal my friend Isaac, who has an incredible wife, four young kids and terminal cancer. Maybe.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">But in this place that I've wandered into while looking for Him? He's not here. At least not that I can see. I've wondered daily if I took a massively wrong turn and need to head back to the fork in the road so I can eat crow. Am I crazy? I went to the doctor for this deep depression I have been unable to crawl out from under like all the other times in my life. She's got me on drugs. Medication to combat the decrease in my hormones because I'm at 'an age.' I thought we were all at an age, but I guess I was wrong. I'm at 'an age' that no longer makes my brain happy, so a prescription has been written to make my brain happy again. This is the desert.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I can't believe I'm leaving a culture I've lived in for 26 years. I can't believe I'm taking anti-depressants. I can't believe I don't want to read my bible, go to church or pray. This is one very weird and hard place and I hope that whatever the lessons are that I'm supposed to be learning, I'm learning them really well so I don't ever have to come back here.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I have a friend who went through a life changing desert experience when he was 30. It lasted 3 years. It changed him. He looks back now and practically glows when reminiscing about those years in the desert. He knows the lessons he learned there and the value of the desert. He assures me that it will change me in ways I can't imagine and that I'll be forever grateful to God for this experience. I think my friend has had his brains baked in the Afghan sun. He lives in Afghanistan. It's a desert. He told me to enjoy the desert and that there was nothing I had to do except wait.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">So, I wait, baking under the shade of a very small tree, leaning against a large boulder. I watch the lizards scurry across the hot sand, listen to the wind blow, admire the freedom of the eagles riding the upper drafts. And I wait to see what wonders God has in store for me. I think he may be crazy, too.</span></span><br /></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-9928953051222127302007-12-31T11:59:00.001-06:002008-06-20T11:00:41.162-05:00Yearning for the Holy<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I think back to when this desert experience began, although I wasn't aware of being in the desert until I'd been there for .. how long? As amazingly fast as my brain operates, I am at times terribly slow. I think the ache for something else whispered it's presence to my heart when we moved to Austin 7 years ago. It was the loss of something holy in worship. Whether it was the trauma of leaving a place with so many memories of my children's young years, the group of women I had grown to love so deeply during our pursuit of worship dance, or the church where God had done so many things to me, for me, in me, through me that I lost count, my heart lost something when we came here. I attempted to keep keeping on with my worship dance, but it wasn't the same. First came the attacks by an angry, hurting, lonely pastor's wife who seemed to despise the freedom I danced in. Then came a new fellowship where dance was tolerated, but not blessed or protected. Dance, as untrained as I am, has been what makes my heart come alive since I was 2 or before. I was a disco queen for heaven's sake, but when I came to Jesus for the 3rd time since I was 13 it was in a denomination that banned dancing back in the dark ages. It was "of the devil" and I would have to never do that again. I loved Jesus and wanted to please Him so I turned my back on dance. Never to darken the door of another dance hall again. Unknown to my heart, a quarter or more of who I am died that day. Walking around 1/2 dead (ok, the math doesn't add up, but go with me) for the next 10+ years gave God an opportunity to raise me up. He loves working with dead, broken things. He's a little nuts that way and He's not offended that I say that. I asked.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">At a worship conference in 1993, God handed me a gold wrapped box with a big red bow on it. I know it was from Him because despite the colors chosen they weren't at all gaudy or tacky. The box contained "DANCE" and He told me He was giving it back. It changed my life and the lives of everyone in our church. We formed a dance team and baby-stepped our way through for the next 6 years. And then we moved.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Dancing in worship was the one place that brought me face to face with God. I'm not kidding. I never feel as close to Him, as touched by Him, as pleasing to Him, as when I dance. It's weird and wonderful. I stopped dancing a year ago. It was like battle every Sunday with no one else out there. No one else understanding. I just didn't want to be that vulnerable or display that depth of intimacy anymore. Especially when I didn't feel backed up, protected, fought for by the leadership. And surprisingly, I was ok with it. All I longed for was His face. To sing a song that would usher me into the Holy of Holies so I could gaze on His heart and know Him. Really, Truly Know Him. Really. We sing so many songs in church these days that aren't worship. God Bless John Wimber for his legacy of Holy worship, but somewhere along the way from that revolution people started writing a whole lot of songs about us. Songs about who we are in Him, how He's changed us, healed us, delivered us. blah blah us us. Nice, true, but not worship.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I long for Worship. I long for a gathering of believers that truly believe the King of Kings is in the building and you can tell because everyone comes early instead of 20 minutes late. You can tell because every song, from the beginning to the end, is to Him. A conversation of Thanks, Adoration, Love and Awe. For Heaven's sake. Jesus died a horrible, painful, humiliating death so that the curtain that separated us from the Holy of Holies was torn in two and we could boldly enter the Holy of Holies where the Creator of Everything sits. It cost Jesus everything to give us that gift and how many Sundays have we frittered away this priceless gift with songs that are easy to sing, with no more than two verses, a good beat, and I give it a "7"?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I long for worship where God is so awed, revered, loved, adored and believed in, that no one can speak and all we do is lay on our faces in absolute wonder that He, so great and so powerful, loves us. He adores us. He gave everything for us.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Maybe someday He'll let me dance again, but I don't care what I do as long as I can have Him.</span><br /></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-9251281445696220322007-12-31T10:18:00.001-06:002008-06-20T11:04:38.797-05:00I May Have Found Jesus<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I've been looking for the real Jesus over the past two years. Really looking, for the real one. Not the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Americanized</span> one, or the televangelist one, or the Oprah Winfrey one. But the real one. First of all, I think He's much more complex than I realized. Second, I don't think I'll ever find all of Him until I get to heaven. But for now, I think I found a piece of Him.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">On Christmas Eve, my husband, three children and I went with friends to feed and clothe the homeless. We drove behind a little truck from Mobile Loaves & Fishes ministry and we stopped near a park where the homeless gather. We handed out fruit, juice, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">hot dogs</span>, coffee, hot chocolate, clothing and dozens of beautiful handmade winter scarves that women from a local Jewish temple had been making for a year.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And I found Jesus. Nearly every person we cared for, every dirty, broken, lonely, lost, lovely person mentioned Him and asked for prayer. Real prayer. Sincere, honest, shameless requests for God to show up and touch them. They didn't pray for stuff, or success, or wealth, or a new car, or a trip to Aruba. They asked for Him to show up and save them from the cold. To save them from getting beat up again tonight. To touch them and give them wisdom on how to get back on track in their lives. They asked for prayer for their spouses in prison for drug possession. And they were thankful and grateful and rough around the edges. Jesus absolutely loves the broken, the hard, the lonely, the despairing, the foolish, the lost, the hungry, and the cold. I saw him that night, on Christmas Eve in the streets of Austin.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I can't wait to see where I find Him next.</span><br /></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-37345563407370628682007-11-15T11:02:00.000-06:002008-05-02T08:06:44.004-05:00Puzzle Pieces<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLpGAX3tLCb-RNNhp7anSFM80aMINJqkqqz0tTg176xZjzr_iOMQz1hPVjhs5r70BAoHHF1ny01nqze2EAwEdAnCixLp0SAWNpKbt_IKDL8kHt5OT-r9KpdzSyN9tG3BoBaXrlMahGaSjm/s1600-h/Jigsaw_pieces.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLpGAX3tLCb-RNNhp7anSFM80aMINJqkqqz0tTg176xZjzr_iOMQz1hPVjhs5r70BAoHHF1ny01nqze2EAwEdAnCixLp0SAWNpKbt_IKDL8kHt5OT-r9KpdzSyN9tG3BoBaXrlMahGaSjm/s200/Jigsaw_pieces.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131987990639912674" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">My original intent was to write a book at the suggestion of my friend who loved his desert experience. But, my thoughts are more random than creative and writing a book feels too much like a big juicy steak when all I'm hungry for are a few sweet seedless grapes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">So it's been weeks now. I didn't have anything to write about, but I didn't care. I was just enjoying this place outside the american cultural church. There's a lot of freedom out here. There seems to be more color, more texture, more creativity. For instance I found a name for the weird way my daughter's brain works, did some research and discovered that I have this 'disorder' too, as does my 14 year old son. We're synesthetes. Its so cool! For Jordan and Sam letters and numbers have colors and personalities. Names have colors. For me, a spatial synesthete, time is located in space. Days, weeks, months, years, decades are located in concrete places in space. Of course they are. So I joined a facebook group of synesthetes from all over the world, made a bumper sticker for my car "My Synesthete pwns your Honor Student" and I get excited knowing my brain works in funny ways.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I've discovered, through a test I took, that I'm pretty creative and I'm a fairly good match for the job of sculptor. Unbelievable, really. That has opened up my world in ways I would have never dreamed three months ago. So I'm taking over the design of our house remodeling. I'm picking colors and I have a million ideas. I'm going to take a pottery class because I absolutely love pottery. I want to take a stained glass class because I love that too. I can't wait to get my new shop in the garage fitted out to start creating beautiful things or maybe not so beautiful, but they'll be things I made.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">With the discovery of this creativity came the memories of all the time my Dad spent with me before he left for good. How he taught me to play chess, introduced Sci-fi novels to me, let me hang out in the garage while he built cabinets, tables, sculptures and chess sets. He taught me as he created. I realize now that so much of who I am is because of his influence on me. I didn't get him for very long, but this very broken man, who oozed untutored creativity, loved me enough to pour what little he had into me, before his brokenness led him out of my life. I am very grateful to God for that and for letting me remember.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The pain of my high school years is being healed, as well. My daughter and her friend are co-presidents of the Regents' Student Section and my brilliant and beautiful daughter has rewritten the words to the school fight song, made up cheers for many of the players and her involvement has invited my involvement. She has even appointed me Parent Rep on her facebook group. All this is healing that place in me long ago hurt by a very sad high school experience at my own small private school in Wichita. Coincidently, with the same colors as this school my children are very much a part of. I've even gotten in touch with friends I haven't seen in 30 years and I've been invited to the reunion of my class I didn't graduate with.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I've learned that my gift for grammar and spelling are because I see elements of writing as pieces of a puzzle and if the pieces are out of place then the universe is out of place. I realize that this particular insight might surprise you, since my writing is filled with errors, but I honestly don't see it as well with my own writing. Such is life. I also see elements of life as a puzzle.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I can't go to my church anymore because the puzzle is out of wack. The pieces seem to be in the right place to those who are there, but from the outside I see the larger pieces have been put in the wrong place, which makes all the other pieces fit in the wrong place, leaving the Universe completely out of alignment in that particular quadrant of space, and leaving no space for my piece.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I tried going to church. I really did. I went a few weeks here and there sporadically. Feeling like an outsider. Feeling loved by most, but not needed, not really wanted. It was at some point in the worship that I realized how much I just wanted to get out of there and sit in a quiet, alone place where I could think or not think. A place where I could feel the breeze on my face, see the beauty of God's world, watch the lizards crawl on the sand and the eagles play on the warm winds. I wanted to be in the desert, alone. I wanted to be there! Really wanted it. Way more than being in this room where the universe seemed out of alignment and my skin ached. My piece doesn't fit.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">So my friend's words have started to make sense. Enjoy the desert, he said. You're crazy, I said. Now, I guess I'm crazy too. It's really beautiful, the desert. I never thought so before. I thought my Mom was nuts when she retired to Prescott, Arizona. We were the only house in Wichita with a rock garden in the front yard. My mom had tons of small river rocks hauled in, placed them around the front of the house, then planted cactus, broom grass and yucca. This was in '68. Our neighbors thought she was crazy. I would pretend I was an Indian or Laura Ingells Wilder in that rock garden. My Mom loved the desert. But, I hated the desert. I mean it has some interesting elements, some fascinating structures, but to live there?! Nuts. Now, I get it. The rustic beauty, the colors,the textures and the hidden life that can only be seen if you're still and quiet.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The lengthy hours of being alone here have taught me to really like me. To really like who God has made me to be. Really. With all my quirks, flaws, mistakes, goofs, I love the creative way my brain is wired, the way I see the world, the way I'm connected to more than just the 3 or 4 dimensions that we know, but into the 7th or 8th or even 15th dimension.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I am actually loving my life. In spite of the fact that Sam broke his left hand in a football game and became unbearable to live with because he couldn't play for two weeks. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">In spite of the fact that my oldest son has another atypical mole that will require more surgery. In spite of the fact that I'm taking happy pills, our house wont' be done in time for Christmas, my daughter had another car crash, and my dog stinks.</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> In spite of the fact that my daughter has a tumor in her left jaw that will be removed next week and hopefully (beyond hope straight into desperately crying out) that it's not cancer. In spite of the fact that she's a senior and college applications are in and she'll be leaving in 9 months. The right side of my body and brain will be moving away to start their own life. I hope I'm a little like those lizards and my missing parts will grow back.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Right now. Today. I love my life.</span><br /></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7873118608605567759.post-88960823317506948192007-01-05T16:08:00.001-06:002008-06-20T10:52:12.352-05:00Charlie Wilson's War<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">How powerful one man can be. He changed the face of the planet, that Charlie. But he fell short. A man who loved the governmental process, gave up when the governmental process stopped caring about Afghanistan. I know that if "we the people" had known that $1 million dollars would build a school in Afghanistan and that in turn would bring hope to a nation balanced on the edge of a knife, we would have given. We would have hosted fund raisers and licked a million envelopes to get the money to rebuild and give hope to this nation. But we didn't know. It was a covert war and the government machine was in charge. So this beautiful nation is only now beginning to hope again. And I have friends who live there. Friends who have started companies and live in neighborhoods and will do anything to bring hope and life to this ancient and beautiful land. One person can change the world. If you see Charlie Wilson's War then take some time to read Three Cups of Tea and the Kite Runner if you can. Log onto an Afghan news site to find out what's really going on. Is it possible we're still in Iraq because we're hanging in there to build roads, open schools, fix water treatment plants, rebuild infrastructures and bring hope to a land long without it? I know these things are happening in Iraq. And good things are happening in Afghanistan, but I am not waiting for the government machine to do it. I am not a fan of big government for many reasons, but watching this film last night solidified for me the worst reason for big government; our inoculation to the idea that they can fix it all and when they can't, there's no hope. We the People.</span><br /></div>The Black Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14527902098679268126noreply@blogger.com0