taking comfort in the leadership of a strong leader...

Dan developed this run 3 telephone poles and walk one telephone pole length as he is training for the 1/2 marathon. So, I decided I'd follow that method. And as mile after mile drifted by, I realized what comfort I find in trusting him as the leader. It's easy to follow a leader who is experienced, who has the best in mind for you, who will stop to encourage you, take care of you, and lead you. It's delightful to know that I am well cared for. It's reassuring to see that all my needs are taken care of...yes, it's still effort as I have to put one foot in front of the other. Yes, I can opt out and go it alone at any moment. Yes, following someone else means being dependent on them. But when the leader is proven, their actions supporting all your concerns, their love for you evident, why wouldn't you follow?

God is the perfect leader. Let's face it. He's been there, lived it through his son, Jesus, and he's conquered death to bring us into relationship with him. He removed all obstacles, shattered all barriers, endured and succeeded.

Why do I doubt him? If my human leader takes care of me, why would I doubt the perfection of my Father?

What's my abundance?

Lately, I've been thinking, what's my abundance?

As I take in the millions of helicopter maple tree sends taking over our yard, the road, the ditches, and the gutters, I see that there are places of abundance.

I see this in pine cones, too. There can be piles of them thoughtlessly, seemingly randomly lying around pine trees just begging to be picked up.

Consider green beans; a row is planted and bowls full of green beans can be harvested. Or tomatoes; an average year with three plants produces 300-400 tomatoes. It's crazy!

Abundance in nature is everywhere! I want to be abundant like that. So, I've been thinking, asking, and praying, what is my abundance? What's the limitless well I can draw life from? The work that is meaningful and rich and plentiful? That's how I want to live my life....

remember me

Jesus beckons us to remember him. Simple words. Easy to understand directions. No complex mathematical formula needed. Remember me. And yet I forget him.

I forget him as I drive in my car, as I weed the front flower bed, and as I mow the lawn.

I forget him as I grocery shop, get the oil changed in my car, and listen to the summer storms move in.

I forget him as I prepare my staff sheets for weekend programs, as I run to the library, and as I brush my teeth.

It feels so selfish, but at times I think that if I invited him in to the mundane and everyday, I'd have to live it his way and I couldn't be in the control.

So, here's the silly part...IF I invite Jesus into my car, my yard, my shopping experience, my ministry, my home, my kitchen table, and my bedroom...IF I do this, it will be exponentially better. Richer, more vibrant, more meaningful, more fun, more abundant.

Remember me. Simple words that take a lion's share of effort to live out.

stare and glaze

so as I am out and about, running mile after blessed mile, I've found this mantra that works for me. It's the stare and glaze mantra. I repeat this over and over. Here's the method behind the madness. I fixate on a sign post a quarter of a mile down the road, staring it down with all the intensity I can muster, and as my eyes glaze over, I reach my goal. Then, I do it again and again and again. As I ponder running 13.1 miles, I find that the more I fixate, then more the miles glide by. It's a bit of an obsession, an all consuming focus that rejects any interruption, any periphery activity....it's all that matters.

God is a jealous God. He is all consuming, desiring everything I have. Do I dare to live in Him with this stare and glaze lazer focus? What if I contemplated, meditated, delighted in, and rejoiced over his laws and his love? What if it were all I thought about, what would my life look like?

arts in the church

It doesn't take very long to see that God is visual, God is creative, God inspires beauty; it washes over me like a warm, sunny waterfall. I am sitting in a light-drenched hotel room coated in warm, natural hues of seafoam, lime, and burnt sienna in Southern California. I've decided I like Southern California a lot. It chases away any last thread of depression. Bright, inspiring colors, warm and happy images, lingering scents of flowers and this....this is everyday. And then there is the church I am visiting....arts are everywhere! Liturgical, Inspirational, Meditative....it relaxes and challenges and calls you to a more disciplined-more spirit led place. Arts in the church are critical, as much for the creative as for the analytical, the impulsive as for the steady and fixed, arts in the church expresses what the word, the conversation cannot. It brings context through images and ideas, calling the viewer to delight with a new thought, wrestle with a gripping translation, and worship, oh worship, the God who is unending and never beginning.....

loving with open hands

"Abs, we need to love with open hands. We need to love with the understanding that at any point we may loose all we have. We need to accept that what we love doesn't ultimately belong to us. We have to love without holding something captive, controlling it, exacting it to be what we want. Open hands, Abs, open hands."

I called 911 for my daughter, she was in distress and couldn't breath. Asthma. A disease that is cruel and bold, capturing it's victims by the simplest means...that of a breath. To rob a person of a breath, then another, then another.... And as the Medic team arrived, the Fire Chief, and the county officer; I shrank little by little in the background. I had to let go, to give her away to a capable team that could meet her needs better them me, that could give her what I couldn't give her, I had to love her as she sifted through my hands. She belongs to God and I get to guide her for a few moments, but when it all comes to the end, she isn't mine.

Silent tears pooled, emotions overflowed, and I let her go.

separate and at peace or together and broken

i want to be with them, to be understood, and to be accepted; but to walk among them means to be broken. How can this be? it's like examining puzzle piece after puzzle piece and finding that I don't know how they fit together. i am one of them in DNA, in historical record, in origin, in creation and yet i do not belong. if i walk among them, i deny who i am. if i sit with them, i ignore my inner spirit. if i talk with them, i am cautioning my thoughts, censoring my words, hiding my heart. blood may be thicker than water, but it does not create family, unity, community, originality, creativity, and diversity. this blood demands silence, and code, and hurt without justification, pain without reconciliation, self-centeredness with validation. accept what you see, do not question what you feel, betray your heart and walk among them, celebrate your heart's spirit and be rejected.

why oh why oh why i cry. it's not meant to be, it should not be, it wasn't supposed to be.

i don't belong. to be free is to be set a part. father against daughter, mother against son. not a curse or a blessing, just a choice that repeats and repeats and repeats. it's insanity, yet acceptance, it's blindness yet celebration, it's the family way and it's unlike anything i can understand.

all that i've learned, all that i've been taught, all that i long for is unconditional. all that was offered was by condition alone. i walked away. i found a better way. and it haunts only at times of confusion, of disillusion, of curiosity and of temptation. it's hold has slipped....in twenty one years it grows weaker, but my souls still cries for understanding. it can never be.