Lent...the Third Post

I'm not even trying to keep track of what "day" of Lent it is. It's Lent...good enough. Apparently many of us are in this place of trying to launch this thing, and not feeling like our take-off is going particularly well. My friend C sent me this yesterday from d365 and I found it hopeful and comforting:

Lent is about change. We think about what we want to quit doing, or what we want to do more or better, and we make promises, and try really hard. That’s good,and that’s as it should be. But know this: the Spirit of God is always working in you, on you, with you, to transform you. You are swimming with the current,in other words, and God knows where you’re going.

R and I have been attending a non-denominational service on Sunday afternoons for the past month or two. It's hard for me to even call it church as it's so far from my experience of that particular thing. I say that in a couple ways. For one thing, it's in a big meeting room at the Y. It's informal, no real "prayers" are said, there is no "liturgy" as such. We do have ritual in that we gather and share a meal and fellowship, then we usually sing together, often some contemporary Christian music. perhaps with new words provided by the Methodist pastor who has been the main impetus behind the group. After that there is something to kick off discussion. Lately we have been using the Nooma series by Rob Bell. This week we watched a video called "Shells," the theme of which was purpose. One of the discussion questions was about "the one thing" in our lives....do we know what that is, do we focus on it? Is that our purpose in life? Basically the folks at my table all just kind of sat and stared at each other. Well, duh, yeah of course we all know what the answer is supposed to be here....most of us somewhere along the way went to church or Sunday school and heard that the one thing was God, Jesus, and that is supposed to be the focus and purpose of our lives But are we doing it, can we do it? Two of us at my table are "professionally religious" types, myself and a woman who is a commissioned lay pastor. Another man whom I did not know clearly has a church life as he was able to quote scripture to chapter and verse. Others I know to be people of faith, but we were all in agreement that "the one thing" can be many things and that it changes sometimes many times, not only in the course of a life, but in the course of a week or even a day.

Perhaps we were not thinking deeply enough....maybe we were thinking more about focus than purpose...I don't know. I do know I can, and do, get awfully distracted from what I really, honesty do know is the One Thing. And not just by shiny things! By every day things, by just the flotsam and jetsam and the grocery list. By the cat box and the gas tank. By the e-mail from a friend whose concerns become mine, by the overheard remark I cannot let go. And by happiness and anticipation. By "what comes next." But I also know that somewhere, down there underneath it all, like a deep spring, like a life giving underground well....God is always there. Do I take God for granted? Perhaps. Is that wrong? Maybe. Or maybe not. There is a permission in loving relationships to rely... so I am learning....to assume that permission is given to look away for a time, to focus on other things with the assumption that if you were to suddenly look back, or fall into....the loved one would still be there. Is it not this way with God? Or am I simply telling myself something I want to hear so I can be distracted with out guilt? As I am working on giving that up for Lent you know. Well, those are the thoughts as I go off into Wednesday as the the first full week of Lent ends and the second one begins.

Lent...the Second Post

While I know that Ash Wednesday officially begins Lent, it seems like it really begins with the first Sunday. There are so many tangible (and deliberate) liturgical signs that, at least at St. J's a person would really have to not be paying attention to know that something is up here. The beautiful brass candlesticks that grace front and back altars are gone, replaced by somber wooden and brass candle holders on the table only. This year we have small purple votives on the back altar that will be extinguished one by one as part of our opening Lenten reflection each week. There are no flowers on the altar and of course, all of the paraments are somber purple. The choir wears red robes with no cottas. We have a ceramic chalice and plate instead of the shiny silver. We use Rite One for liturgy. This is the "old service" and the language reflects a much more penitent sensibility. The alleluias of course are gone from the hymns and, at least this week, even the hymnody was solemn. Our organist even had a bit of a grouse about that, and one of the choir members was heard to quip that "if we are singing like this all through Lent, that should be enough penance, I won't have to give anything else up!" Yes, it is Lent, and we are surrounded by the reminders in a myriad of sensory ways that cause us to pay attention. This is a good thing even if not always comfortable. I have kind of a mixed relationship with the Rite One liturgy. There is part of me that loves the connection to the past, to the sheer oldness of it and the connection to all of the people who have prayed this liturgy through all of the ages of time, and I have to say to the beauty of some of the language. On the other hand, there are parts of it that make me kind of theologically squirmy. But perhaps that is not a bad thing. Thinking about not being worthy to collect the crumbs under God's table (from the communion prayer)....on the one hand, that takes me to a place of weird subservience that trips all kinds of triggers. But on the other hand...well...there is some profound truth here, and it is only by grace, is it not????

My own efforts at Lent bumble on. I will not say that I am necessarily succeeding at worrying any less. I am more aware of how much I do it, so perhaps that's a start. One of my worries continues to be L. I haven't heard back from him yet and he was not in church. I didn't expect to see him, as he's now twenty miles away, and other than contacting me to get the names of the congregants who live in his town for a ride, I don't know how he would get to church. It's very hard not to go charging into the night to try to save him from himself. It's very hard not to feel that I failed to do just that in the first place. But I try to remember what I told myself from the very beginning with L. He is God's and in God's hands, and I need to trust that and trust God with him.

I guess that would not be a bad thought in general...because it all is, we all are...in God's hands. I remember that and then forget it again, or I trust it and then I don't. Perhaps one thing that I might want from this Lent is longer intervals of remembering and trust. That would be a good thing I think. Good for the joy and peace quotient.

So my first full week of Lent begins. How's it going for you?

Friday Five: The Fork in the Road

Singing Owl says: "I am at a life-changing juncture. I do not know which way I will go, but I have been thinking about the times, people and events that changed my life (for good or ill) in significant ways. For today's Friday Five, share with us five "fork-in-the-road" events, or persons, or choices. And how did life change after these forks in the road?"

This feels pretty relevant for me right now as I have had a year that has contained more life changing things than I would have believed one life could contain. But everything that is going on right now, as amazing and exciting as it is began earlier with another momentous decision. So let's start there....

• The first big fork moment in recent history was my decision to leave my secure known life behind and move across the state to this small place. It was undertaken (after a kick in the posterior from another friend) to work with National Health Service in order to pay off my huge student loan debt acquired while I was getting my doc. The plan for this particular fork was, go out to the prairie, "do my five to seven years" and hie myself back to the big city where I belonged. Ha! God seemed to have another dream for me which began unfolding almost immediately after my arrival in this place when....
• I began attending the Episcopal church and was approached about joining the ministry team, first just being commissioned for lay pastoral care. But the discernment process widened out after my meeting with the commission on ministry and the Bishop and the focus of my call shifted to full ordination for the priesthood as part of the local team. Another fork, as it appeared that "five to seven" was suddenly becoming a commitment to God's people in this place.
• With all the joys and happiness of finding a new life here, there was an undercurrent of sadness. My relationship with my "Dear One" (DO) was not going well. I had been working very hard to dive deep into my heart to find my own truth and it was becoming painfully clear that my truth and DO's truth were simply not going in the same direction. As I looked down the path of life I could see that there was not a fork but a major life highway interchange. The kind that no matter how many maps you read and how much research you do, you really can never feel quite ready. So I did what I had never done before. I did something totally spontaneous and impulsive and totally for me. I jumped ship! On the ship that is....I went to the BE!
• What a fabulous time spent at a fork that was. Life-change at it's finest. It was, for me a time to say things that I felt were unspeakable and have them heard. To see a me I was not yet but could possibly be reflected in the eyes of accepting others. And it was just plain fun! Something I let myself have far too little of in my life. The RevGals on the BE were the best support group anyone could have. In informal groups, in passing conversations, in the intentional moments to tell me something that might be helpful.....you who were there may never know the difference you made.
• The next fork would of course have to be meeting R. I have to laugh at myself now. I was so certain that I was not "dateable" coming to the party late as I was with all my baggage. C and my other friends just laughed at me and urged patience. "It will come when you are ready." And of course they were right. On the first date we closed the coffee shop we talked so much. We laughed at ourselves for being nervous and the silly things we did...about the first date. On the second date I knew I was already having some feelings for him. Then there was a time lag when we did not see each other, during which I almost gave up on him. Old tapes kicked in and of course I knew again I was right about no one ever being interested in me. But one fateful night I decided to be brave....a fork now it turns out...and do something totally out of character and take a chance! I sent an e-mail. I got response almost instantly. And well....you know the rest of the story! (If not it's just a couple posts back and a picture of the ring is on Facebook!)
• This whole series of forks is really about love. When I left the big city to come to this little place I left what I thought was a fine little life. I had a decent job, a career, the trappings of life. I had a couple of friends that I kept at a safe distance. I spent time doing things and taking care of people. I was alone a lot and I was lonely, even though at the time I am not sure I knew that. I was faced with a choice that I thought was about money. Give up the so-called security of what I had to come to this place full of strangers in order to take care of the burdensome debt. It was terrifying but exciting to start over. I had no idea what I would find here. I have been gifted with not only the love of a good man, but some of the most wonderful friendships. In C, in my Soul Sisters and other close friends in town. And I feel surrounded by a larger net of love from my RevGal friends, from others in the community here. By taking that chance....such amazing things have happened, and I really do thank God every day!

Lent...the First Post

The Best Prayer Julian of Norwich
The best prayer is to rest in the goodness of God, knowing that that goodness can reach down to our lowest depths of need.
Source: Revelations of Divine Love

I'm not sure that I will manage to post every day during Lent. I gave that a go for a January Nablo and it didn't go so well, but let's just say, it's my hope to be more reflective and intentional about posting over the next forty days. Ash Wednesday service was a good beginning for the season. I preached the sermon posted below, and M and I celebrated the Eucharist together. Our choir sang and we had a good attendance of 23, which in our tiny place is a major crowd. I had the strange and wonderful experience of placing ashes on the forehead of my beloved and saying those powerful words that for me hold such depth and meaning. In one millisecond holding the solemn truth that this man I love so much is dust....ephemeral and mortal, easily lost to me by death, and at the same time knowing he, like all of the other beautiful faces at the rail last night, is held in God, part of God and linked to me in a far bigger way than my human mind can ever grasp.

Lent has begun. I have already bumped up against challenges to my plan to give up suffering. I had coffee with XDO on Shrove Tuesday. There is fertile ground for a guilt wallow there should I chose to dive in. I did not personally share the news of my engagement before it got around by way of the grapevine. That was an oops on my part, I think. I did procrastinate some. I wasn't entirely sure of the reception, although to be fair, overall, the response to my developing relationship with R has been pretty positive as XDO and I have tried to negotiate these strange waters of post-relationship friendship. But there is anger about the fact that the news did not come from me. And more, too, I think. About the news itself. That I have moved on this soon...and so many other things. XDO is experiencing health issues at some level of seriousness. How serious I cannot be sure as that is not being shared. I get it. I am no longer the bearer of that privilege. But it frustrates me as well. And from my own pile of issues it is very hard to resist going to guilt. I have joy and blessings, love and abundance. XDO has illness and apparent suffering, loneliness and perhaps an uncertain future. My head knows....my heart mourns....and wants to take it on and must be pulled back from an edge that bodes no good for anyone. Lenten discipline....fasting from the wallow in XDO guilt.

I saw L yesterday. He has been keeping a very low profile. That has been very concerning to me, but for a whole host of reasons I have had to let him do that. We ran into each other and he told me that he has been "kicked out" of his roommate situation here in town. He has moved to his mom's house in the little town down the road, which is far from an optimal thing, for many reasons. He's not working...again, not good. Lot's of free time. I encouraged him to call some congregants who live in his town for a ride to church and to call me to talk. I wish I could do more for him. I worry about him and pray for him constantly. His life makes me so sad. I want to save him from himself....it is out of my power to do so. *sigh* ....fasting from worry? Now there is a tall order!

And so Lent begins....

Sermon for Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

Once again we gather as a community of God’s beloved people to begin the journey of Lent. To make the shift from one season of our church lives to the next. I think sometimes about what a blessing it is to be in a liturgical church, to have this rhythm to help us remember the great breadth and depth of all of who God is in our lives and who we are to God. Tonight our service has a focus on penitence and the receiving of Ashes. It gives us the opportunity to remember by word and symbol the fragile and brief nature of this earthly life. To reflect on how precious it and we are before God. And to remember how God holds us in that life...and that we can indeed trust God to do that.

Last Sunday I talked about thin places and mountain top moments. How sometimes we have those experiences in which we know that we have come face to face with the living God and have, for a moment caught God’s vision. Last Ash Wednesday God graced me with one of those moments during this service. What came from that moment on the mountain has stayed with me through Lent and Easter and beyond and I’d like to pass it on to you tonight.

Last year, I had the privilege of being the one to "impose" the ashes upon those coming forward as the prayer book says. When I got home that night, I had to go look up the word impose to see if there was something I was missing, but all the definitions had the same sense of the word that I am familiar with, that of bringing something on someone with force or at the very least authority, pushing it at them. Because that certainly was not what I had I felt. I had felt instead that I was giving each of them a splendid gift. The Sunday before, our mentor, Father T had led us in a comptempletive prayer workshop, and one of the things we had reflected on was that essentially the "dust" that we are is the stuff of the universe, the same matter as supernovas and stars, glaciers and canyons, that the very ground we stand on and the air that we breathe... is the stuff, could it be....of God? This came back to me that night, and as I marked that small cross of ash on each forehead, I felt as if what I was truly saying to each person was, "Remember that you are of God, and to God you will return."

We are dust. We are God’s. How ever we look at it, our lives are not our own, nor are they endless. We are all part of a connected and intertwining community with God at the center. Everything we are, everything we have, belongs to the One who created us and loves us beyond measure. The One who has desired to be in relationship with us through all time and has kept faithful covenant with us forever. The One who became flesh in order to be among us, to be us in order to both show us God and how to be human.

It is when we forget and lose sight of this essential truth and fall out of right relationship that we sin. It is then that we are in need of forgiveness. It is then that we must repent and turn to a new way of being with God, with others and with ourselves. It is then that we must remember again who we really are – stuff of earth, yes, but chosen and beloved by God, covenanted through all time, graced beyond measure, redeemed and saved by a love so vast that we cannot conceive it.

Lent provides us with a time to step away, to quiet and to center ourselves, to remember who and whose we are. And a time, too, to eliminate some of the distractions that keep us from remembering the essential truth that, at points along the way we have sinned, we have missed the mark and have failed, in our relationships with God, with others and with ourselves, and do need to repent, be forgiven and be redeemed by God’s unfathomable redeeming love. The spiritual disciplines of alms and prayer and fasting that the Gospel speaks of offer us a way to focus on the One who created us and loves us and calls us back into that right relationship. By taking time in prayer for stillness to listen and really hear and respond to the quiet voice of Spirit within us and by drawing away from the “stuff” of life in all its forms that surrounds and smothers our senses, perhaps we can get a better sense again of who we are as we stand before our God. Perhaps if we can fast from the overload of all that surrounds us we can once again remember our vulnerability as human beings, the brevity of our lives, and how truly intertwined we are with one another, as well as with this fragile planet that God has given us stewardship of. The giving of alms might call us to gratitude for God’s gifts in our own lives, as well as providing us with a time to repent in a meaningful way of how we often fail to notice the true needs of those around us.

As we leave this place tonight, each of us will have a cross of ash to carry with us into the night as a reminder of our vulnerable humanity, but also our connection to the one who created, loves and calls us, to life, and when we fall, to new life again. “Remember, my beloved ones, you are God’s and to God you will return.”

And So It Begins....

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, is a unique time for revisiting the work of the soul and taking stock of what God has done and is doing in us. Canon Renee Miller

Ash Wednesday. I woke this morning with a sense of "something's up" before I was completely conscious. That sense of a day that is just not like the others, one that has extra things to do or remember, a day that has import. "What?" my foggy brain asked. "Ah, yes....it's here." That Lent I am not quite prepared for, sure about. But ready or not, here it is. That is the way of liturgical seasons. They come upon you if you are ready or not, and somehow it's been my experience that they have turned out to often be just the thing I needed, even when I didn't know it or...um...want it.

As usual, "coincidentally" (ha!) things have been just appearing that have given me great food for thought as to "what to do about Lent." Comments from Imingrace and Beach Walkin' on my last post and a remark made by Kathryn on the Tuesday Lectionary Leanings as I thought about my sermon for tonight. Something I read on Barbara Crafton's Daily e-mo. Something C said to me last night on the phone. It's all in the mix and it's all brewing in the Lenten stew. I know this must be important because it makes my stomach kind of queasy to think about it. Always a clear sign that a) this is likely to be Big Stuff and b) I probably don't want to deal with it. So what better for Lent! So what is this momentous thing? Well, I am thinking about giving up guilt and suffering for Lent! OK, that's kind of flip, but seriously, I am thinking about working on repenting of feeling guilty about joy and trying to do as some of you have suggested and relax into God's blessings and the joy in my life.

It has been pointed out to me by a few people that I struggle with receiving, with accepting others' care for me. This is true in many contexts. I know it, I accept and I get the reasons for it. It's just plain better, easier and safer to give! I get to be in control, I get to feel good and I get strokes and brownie points besides. I mean, does it GET better than this?!? In essence, maybe I get to play God a little, really. Oh. Well, now....perhaps there is something that could use a little repenting.

I also tend to feel guilty about the blessings and goodness in my life. I've written about this before....I know it's not a good thing. I know I'm projecting here a bit, but I imagine God sometimes giving me all this wonderful stuff and then sort of going "mmmpfh!" as I respond not with simple joy and gratitude, but by going into paroxysms of guilt about not being deserving and feeling upset about those around me who are not getting good things, etc. etc. I imagine how I would feel if I went to the trouble of finding splendid gifts for someone I loved and instead of simply enjoying them, they got all strange and said "Oh, but look, you didn't give her one, or him one. " I mean really! So perhaps I could repent on that front as well.

I mentioned in the Monday post about being more accustomed and comfortable with a spiritual life based in suffering. Now it's not that I have had this horrible life. In fact, overall, my life has been pretty blessed. But like anyone who has made it past the midpoint, there has been some pain and struggle. And the last year has certainly had its share of hard times. I have pretty much always been able to flee to God in such times....to find my "wing," my safety and comfort. When I am sad, God is there, when I am anxious in the night, I know that steady Presence is with me, in times past when I felt that I was alone and abandoned by everyone, God did not desert me. But happiness? Joy? Strangely those are less comfortable for me to settle into in general, and also less easy to "ease into" with God. I truly do believe in my heart that I am God's beloved child and that God truly does delight in me. This would seem to suggest that my joys would be God's joys, too. That, God's dreams for me are those which would bring me the greatest happiness and fulfillment, and that as these dreams come to pass God would be rejoicing greatly. This suggests yet another Lenten discipline....though that seems a funny word in this context....doing as Beach Walkin' suggested, "using this season to rejoice... for all of the quiet ways God has... is... and will continue to work in you... and through you...." by "learning to sit and allow God to love me " as Kathyrn suggests in TLL, because as Imingrace said, "God has been good to you and resting in the joy of this gift is a good thing."
Amen, my sisters, that, I think, will Lent!

The Countdown to Lent

I can't believe it's only two days until Ash Wednesday. This didn't really hit me until I was doing the T-fig sermon prep last week, and suddenly it was like "Omigosh, how did we get here!" Given that I am preaching the AW service, this was an additionally sobering realization, never mind the fact that it heralds in this whole season that I have given absolutely no thought to as far as observances, Lenten disciplines and such. Last year at this time I pretty much had my Lent mapped out. Had a theme, knew what I was reading...had at least an idea of where I was headed with a plan.

OK, I have to admit, I have been a little distracted lately. And yes, I am feeling a little guilty. I used to be such a serious overfunctioner when it came to my church-life, every minute that was not consumed with my day job(s) was focused on church or something related to it. In retrospect, I know that this, like a lot of the manic busy-ness that consumed me in those days, was a very handy way to avoid looking at some unpleasant truths that I was not, at that time, ready to deal with. But I worry some times that my pendulum might swing too far the other direction. Or maybe I worry that people might think it has. I'm picking up a little disapproval from some quarters, or at least I think that's what I'm sensing at least from one person. I've said no to a couple of things lately on the church front. Nothing big.....opting out of a meeting for a "family event." Talking about the possibility that out of five Easter week events, I may miss one. Again, to gather with some of my in-laws-to-be (and no it's not on Easter Sunday).

Overall, I'm feeling less internally focused, less contemplative. I'm sharing more of what's going on inside of me with another person instead of simply reflecting on it or writing about it. And yes that does feel a little weird and maybe a little unbalanced. I suspect I will find my way back to center over time. I do feel the need of finding some sort of Lenten practice to ground and focus me. And I'm thinking maybe that will help me feel like I'm moving back towards center again. I remember how much I liked some of what happened last Lent in terms of spiritual growth. But I also have to remember that I was in a very different place personally then as well. Life was in no small amount of turmoil and I was in transition in a big way. It's hard to believe how much change a year can bring. How much joy a year can bring, too. It occurs to me that I am pretty good at doing a solid spiritual life in the midst of pain and suffering and even in the midst of change. But I'm not sure I quite know how to do this in joy and serenity. Perhaps that is my challenge. To give up suffering for Lent!?!? Somehow that doesn't seem quite right to this ever-still RC kid...no matter how for recovered I like to think I have become.....But clearly there is food here for thought. It's a good thing I still have those two days.

Friday Five: Taking A Break

Songbird says: "Where we live, it's February School Vacation Week!Yes, that's an odd thing, a vacation extending President's Day. But it's part of our lives here. Some people go South or go skiing, but we always stay home and find more humble amusements.In that spirit, I offer this Taking a Break Friday Five. "

Tell us how you would spend:
1. A 15 minute break -- Catching up on my blog reading which has been neglected of late.
2. An afternoon off -- When I got my new countertops, a small amount of wall was left that needs a paint touch-up. An afternoon would do it. But I haven't had one!
3. An unexpected free day -- I am longing for a day to go to the big city to have a shopping day. Yes I know it's way early to start looking at "those dresses" but....a girl can dream!
4. A week's vacation -- I'd grab R and we'd go South together....maybe to look at one of the places we dream about relocating to someday.
5. A sabbatical --Oh no contest on this one. I'd find some group that sponsors counselors in NOLA and head down and do some work there for at least part of the time, the other part, I'd take some kind of class in Scripture or preaching and I'd write like a fool the whole time!

And All is Well in Kate's World Today

Once upon a weekend, on the windswept prairies, the K clan gathered, as is their annual custom on President's Day weekend. To eat, and laugh and play a few hands of cards, to catch up on one another's lives and just enjoy being together. This year, however, there was a newcomer among them. The youngest brother of the clan had a new lady in his life. Oh, they had been hearing about her. Way more than she knew, fortunately for her, and were waiting to meet her. They were very warm and welcoming and a good time was had by all....

I took the advice in your comments and concentrated on learning names and having individual conversations. By the end of the weekend I had the names of all six of the siblings present, their five spouses, the five young adult children who were divided between the siblings and the three grandchildren they in turn produced pretty well nailed, and most of the time could match who went with whom. I teased and was teased in turn by Dad, and had a serious conversation about a family concern with some of the sisters. Not bad for the first time out of the chute, I'd say.

As expected, I liked them. They are fun to be around, they enjoy each other and it shows. It was a delight to watch R with them, to see him with his sisters and his brother and his Dad, who is 95 and deals with some memory issues. R is sweet and patient with his dad and it made me fall in love with him all over again to watch him. He and his sisters and brother pick on each other in that affectionate way of people who have known and loved each for a long time. Clearly he is closer to some than others. There is a large age span. As one of sisters noted, she could have easily been his mother, several of them were off and and gone when he was tiny. Unlike in my family, though, adult relationships have been built and there is caring and affection. There is, as he says, a safety net here. If you need, you call and the Clan rallies for you.

And it is a good thing that we all took to each other. I to them and they to me. As it is official that I shall be an "outlaw" member of said clan come May 2010. Yes, asked and answered on Valentine's Day. I'm guessing this comes as no surprise to you who read this post. It has been evolving for us and even though the ask and answer was a formalizing of something we both already knew to be true, I still find myself amazed. It's that time thing I wrote about a couple weeks ago. In some ways we are still so new, and yet we are so right with each other, that it seemed a foolish thing not to publicly state and confirm what we both are fairly certain to be true--we are each others' future. But we both agree that a year is a good time frame for an engagement. Time for us to settle...to be sure that what we think we know is really true and lasting. We picked May because it is Spring and lovely and, well, it just felt right. And it gives ample time to dream and plan for the one wedding I am going to have in my life. With good liturgy (of course!) and a wonderful party after with food and dancing to which all our friends, as well as the extended Clan will be invited.

So that was my big weekend. Far less stress and far more wonderful than ever imagined. God continues to shower my life with blessings. And I continue to remind myself that the correct response to blessing is gratitude and not guilt, that my more is not someone else's less, that there is great abundance in God's world and that it really is ok for me to fall into the net of love that surrounds me and just enjoy it. Grace does abound.

"Friday Five: Pets"

Sophia says: "My son's tiny beloved lizard, Elf, is looking and acting strange this week. His skin/scales are quite dark, and he is lethargic. We are adding vitamin drops to his lettuce and spinach and hoping and praying that he is just getting ready to shed his skin--but it's too soon to tell. Others in the ring have also been worried about beloved pets this week. And, in the saddest news of all, Songbird has had to bid farewell to her precious Molly, the amazing dog who is well known to readers of her blog as a constant sacrament of God's unconditional love. So in memory of Molly, and in honor of all the beloved animal companions who bless our lives: tell us about the five most memorable pets you have known."

• Well of course no discussion of animal companions would be complete without Maggie the Peke. Her picture appears on my blog, and she frequently has appeared in posts. She is a good companion, somewhat of an introvert and contemplative as dogs go. Someone once said of her that the batteries were not included. But she is an ideal dog for me, very low maintenance for the most part. She has very few bad habits of the doggy variety. She does not chew or dig or bark excessively. She cohabits well with the kitties. Her only flaw of late has been to express her displeasure with my spending more time with a new human friend than with her in the best way doggies know how. She has been leaving me little gifts....always in the same place, about the same time. Yes it is a message. Yes, Maggie I hear you, but R is not going away.



• There was another Maggie in my life before this one. The earlier Maggie was a cat, Persian persuasion. And, sad to say, the ugliest of that particular breed I had ever seen. She was a non-descript gray, she was always a matted mess and she loved to sit on the gas stove because it had a pilot light where her old arthritic self could stay warm and comfy. One day of course the inevitable happened. Maggie caught fire. Her tail somehow got where the tail should not be and there was a terrible stench and she took off running and howling and we took off chasing before she could set the whole place ablaze. What, after all do cats know of tuck, drop and roll? We did manage to grab her and get a towel around her and put her out before too much damage was done. Mostly it was tail hair that was lost and a few superficial burns. Before long she was happily back...on the stove.



• Then there was Khodi the WonderDog. One day I went with a friend to get a puppy. It was a sad sad tale. The mama dog had been homeless and this nice lady took her in. But the lady could not keep her as she had another dog, so hapless Kate took the homeless mama dog. And oh did she have issues! She was not housebroken, had never been on a leash and apparently had some kind of serious anxiety issues about being left alone that made her eat anything consumable left in her path. She ate a comforter, a pillow, and part of a couch. Why did you not kennel her, you ask? She ate that too! Then of course it was a steel cage, and even in those she could not have blankets or rugs, even rubber mats were no match for her. It was clear that living with someone who went to work every day was not going to be a good thing for Khodi, so we found her a great home on a farm where she was much happier.



• Cats. I have lived with more cats than I can number or name. Most of them have passed through my life as foster cats in the care of XDO. This was a passion that got a little out of hand. At one point I felt a little like the crazy cat lady. People would say, "So how many cats do you have?" and I would develop a sudden cough or hear my cell phone buzzing in my pocket and have to flee the room. We had special needs cats, cats in diapers and cats that needed nebulizer treatments. We had cats that sneezed green stuff and cats that failed to thrive. We had feral cats that were seen only as they passed through the house and were holy terrors if you had to catch them to medicate them. With the departure of XDO I was left with "some" cats. I am now down to my own three and one semiferal inside leftover and one feral outside leftover who lives in the garage that XDO pretty much comes and cares for.



• Bridget is one of my own three cats. I've had her for thirteen years when she came to me from a friend who found her as a stray. She is a gorgeous dilute calico girl with beautiful green eyes. When I got her the vet said she was probably about four or five. This makes her a senior cat citizen these days and she is acting the part. She has always been a strange kitty. She came with me when I moved across the state "for company." Ha! She lived under the bed and the only time she ever came out was if I had company or there was a repair person in the house (preferably male). Bridget has always had an unabashed and clear preference for men and she expresses it clearly. She made friends with R right away and makes for his poor allergic to cats lap every chance she gets. She also has some mental health issues. For periods of time she will pull out her tail hair and the hair on her back till she is bald. Then she will stop. And she's fine for a long time till she starts again. The vet can find no organic cause....it's psychosomatic! She is very arthritic and at seventeen or eighteen, I don't know how much longer she will be with us. Right now she is back in full coat and looking good. I'm grateful and loving her in all her quirks.

Family Ties

This will be an important weekend. I am meeting the family! This of course is always an important milestone in relationship development, but it has a little extra kick when I consider the fact that R comes from a clan of nine (he's the youngest) and I come from, at this point pretty much a family of me.

I came into my family late as the third child and only girl to a sibling set of two teenaged brothers who were off in high school and not terribly excited to have me join the group. By the time I was four, Brother #1 was married and Brother #2 was overseas in the military. I was left to be raised pretty much as an only child, with them coming to visit and bringing their children as they arrived, I thought only to torment my solitary bliss. They, if they thought of me at all, saw me as the spoiled princess who wore out my already tired and aging parents. I had no real sibling relationships with them growing up, and my attempts to form them as an adult were only moderately successful. Brother #2 and I did grow closer in his later years as he recovered from alcoholism. This fledgling relationship was cut short by his early death in 1992 after heart surgery. Brother #1 was very hurtful to my mother in some ways that I have so far been unable to resolve in a way that has allowed me to continue to have a relationship with him. I have had no direct contact with him since the day of my brother J's funeral. Sometimes this bothers me. Sadly, when it does so, it is more in the whole global realm of human forgiveness and reconciliation than it is in terms of the personal connection to him. I often think, too if he had done something to hurt me, I could so much more easily have let it go. But it was my mother, and for some reason I struggle so much more with that, as if I were somehow charged with being her avenging angel, even though she has been dead now almost a dozen years. I have a feeling that she has long forgiven him, and sometimes in the dark of night when I lie awake and think of such things, I think I hear her urging me to let it go, too. But if I did desire to make a connection, I think I would not know where to begin. I'm not even sure at this point if he is still alive. Or if he has any desire to hear from me, for, as is often the way of these family battles, the anger and bad feeling was not mine alone.

So I am somewhat of an orphan. After J's death I did not remain in close contact with his widow or children. My father has been gone since I was in my twenties. When my mother died, with things being being as they were between Brother #1 and I, that was pretty much the end of the family ties. And it did not feel strange to me. Because even when everyone was alive, we were not all that close as a family. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I arrived so late...all my cousins were my brothers' peers...or that I always felt that I just never felt I quite fit with this bunch, or that we just weren't very connected in general. Family gatherings when they did happen tended not to be terribly pleasant affairs and often included drinking and arguing and somebody going away mad. So they were sort of avoided unless necessary, in the case of someone getting married, baptized, confirmed, graduated or buried. Then they tended to be short, stiff formal and perfunctory, unless they were as above, drunken and rowdy. Either way...not something I engaged in willingly and was only too happy to finally be old enough to avoid attending.

This is not the case for R's clan. They are big, they are connected and they willingly get together for all sorts of reasons. I'm getting the sense that they might actually be a group of people who enjoy each other's company. This weekend they are having the Annual President's Day Gathering, one of the selected times when as many as possible of the gang gathers. This one is at a hotel to just hang out for a weekend together. Eat, drink, visit, play cards...and this year, meet the new woman in R's life. The questions have been asked, the curiosity is rising, the time has come.

I am more than a little anxious. There are, for one thing, such a lot of them! Just keeping the names straight alone will be a challenge. And there is of course all the usual "will they like me?" stuff. R has been shushing me on that. Not to worry, as he likes me and that is all that matters. My friends tell me to relax, I am making him happy and his family knows this and that is really all that matters to the people who love him. Ok, yeah, my head gets that. And I'll be fine, I know I will. I do, after all know how to meet people. I do it for a living! But I have to say, I'll be glad when the first hour or so is behind me and they start feeling more like friends and less like this amorphous large clan of relatives waiting to interview me. I do want them to like me....after all, I have a sneaking hunch I may be having some long relationships with these people.

Strictly Ballroom

R and I went to our first ballroom dance class last night. I had seen the announcement in the community ed flyer way back before the New Year's dance, and after I creamed his toes a few times that night, it seemed like it might not be a bad a idea to take a class. Besides, I really do love to dance and I have never in my life had a partner who was willing or able to go dancing with me....so when there was a chance to spend five Sunday nights in the cold mid-winter doing something related to dancing...well how could I pass that up! And R, being the sweet, agreeable guy that he is was willing to go along for the ride.

So last night found us and about twenty-five other couples of all ages and description nervously milling around the decrepit grade school gym making small talk while we waited for Harry the instructor to finish getting everyone checked in. Harry, it is clear, has been teaching ballroom for a long time! His first step was to put us in two long lines, guys on one side, women on the other across from our partners. All in all, the women looked much happier to be there than the guys, some of whom looked like they would have been happier having root canals. He told the guys, "Your job is to lead" and us, "Your job is to follow" and had us all repeat that. We all laughed of course. Then he taught the basic box step of the waltz and we went to work practicing. I immediately failed "follow." We all knew I would. I had warned R of that before the New Year's dance...and proved it. And last night I proved it again. OK, so I have control issues....even on the dance floor! But after a while I relaxed and started to trust his lead. He really can count to three! Who knew!?! And we began to if not exactly glide around in our little circle, at least to do something that remotely resembled a waltz.

Some of our neighbors were not so fortunate. The couple to my right were struggling mightily. They were both having a hard time with the whole business, but at least they were having fun. We laughed and talked with them about the advisability of bringing something a little stronger in our sports bottles next week to loosen our feet. The couple to my left were not doing too well, either. Unfortunately they were not having fun. She in particular was taking it all very seriously, and she was ragging on that poor man to beat the band. Sadly, she reminded me of a not so long ago version of myself. Uptight and perfectionistic and controlling.

So dance class was instructional for more than my feet. It was a good reminder that I need to remain conscious about who I choose to be, who I really am. Oh, I could be that lady on my left. Not for long of course, because someone I love very much would probably raise an eyebrow at me in that way of his, and I would remember just who it is I am, he is and we are, and I would slip back into the real safety of now and not need the illusion of security that trying to control it all gives me. So dance frame ready, the music begins....and off we go.

My Relational World

Madonna may have been the Material Girl living in her material world, but I am definitely living in the relational world....and I am taking those comments seriously that nobody is sick of hearing about love from me just yet. Sometimes in the middle of the night for one horrifying second between sleep and wakefulness there is a space where I think this whole thing is a dream. And then I come to full consciousness and memory and sense returns and I know it is not. And I begin to wonder where I have been all my life. And what I have been doing. Because surely I have never been loved like this by anyone before. And it is not like I have not been in long attached relationships....sixteen and twelve years respectively. With people I loved at that time with deep attachment and care. They were people who needed my love, I knew that. My love mattered to them, it helped them in some way to feel better, to heal some wound, to come to some better place than they had been. I knew that they cared for me, and, yes, I guess, loved me in return....I "knew" this in a kind of intellectual way like you know the times tables or the formula for calculating percentages. But it wasn't something I ever thought about much, their love of me. For one thing, I know now that the perp rap of the nun who spiritually abused me was still acting as a barrier at that point to my really letting anyone love me, because I could not believe at a soul level that anyone really could. But once I had worked through that and finally at long last eradicated her voice from my head, I think I was free to allow myself, perhaps for the first time in my life to let it matter that I be loved in a relationship.

So this time it does matter that it is mutual. And I have to say, I am finding it quite wonderful. To not have that sense that I am working without a human net (although R pointed out to me that I really wasn't....I had friends who were loving me all along, I just wasn't quite up to acknowledging how much they were there for me) is so soothing. I feel a sense of safe solid ground in my life that I have never before experienced. I am not where the buck stops. For the first time in my life in my primary relationship I know if I fell, I would have somebody to catch me in arms strong enough to make a difference, and that if preventing the fall by fixing the step were possible, he'd have it done before I asked.

I am also learning that there was a payoff for being the one who did the loving of the needy ones, the wounded birds, the strays. It kept me safe in a strange sort of way. It kept me in my little bubble of control, in charge and secure. I did not have to give my heart away as long as I was the caretaker and not the taken. This new place requires a radical trust, a letting go....a backward plunge into the pool. It's a good thing I had the chance to practice this in my faith life. I learned that I can let go and live through it in my relationship with God. Now I get to practice it in my human life. Letting go, allowing, receiving, letting into my heart and mind and life the sure and certain knowledge that I am loved and....truly, all is well.

Friday Five: HGTV Edition

Willsmama says:"As some of you may know I am in the midst of my first home purchase. It is a new-build and so some of the fun was picking out upgrades and major decor items to my taste rather than walking into a previously owned home that needed to be upgraded room by room (pink and teal tiles in the bathroom, anyone?). As much as decorating is not my thing, I did try to embrace the moment because just how many times do you get to have a do-over on kitchen cabinets/floors/countertops?And so, my questions to you this fine Friday involve your home past, present or future..."

1) If you could, what room in the place you are currently living would you redo first? My bedroom. And I personally would do nothing except call my fabulously talented friend and Soul Sister C and ask her to help me pick out wall colors and carpet, then I would hire it all done by others because I am getting pretty darned tired of being the doing it yourself girl. This particular room has been a trial to me. Several years ago, as I started to strip the wallpaper on the sloped ceiling above my bed, the skim coat came with it in patches and the wall now has divots and I just got stuck and stopped stripping or doing anything more. I took up the carpet and the floors are hardwood but hideous....do I sand and refinish or carpet (the pet issue stymies me here) and I am stuck again. So for five years I have lived in bedroom limbo with an ugly floor, a divoted ceiling to wake up every morning, old blue gray wallpaper that I mostly ignore but is peeling here and there and isn't me at all.

2) What is the most hideous feature/color/decor item you have ever seen in a home? Ummm...that would have to be the bedroom of the last house I owned. When I walked in to see the house for the first time there was a full wall mural above the bed of an autumn forest....blazing reds, oranges, yellows. And it was BIG wall. We are talking an old house here with very high ceilings! The look was complemented by a bright orange shag carpet, heavy red velvet drapes, and dark mediterannean looking furniture. My comment to the realtor that it looked a bit like a bordello elicited the response that this is the reason that buyers are not allowed to be home when houses are shown...."tastes differ." Um, yeah. It was so loud in that room (they left the drapes and carpet of course) that I had to kill the mural in order to get any sleep even before I finished unpacking!

3) What feature do you most covet? Do you have it? If not, is it within reach? My house is 100 years old. The full bath is on first floor and the bedrooms and a half bath are upstairs. I would love to have a master bath "en suite" as they say on TV. The only way to do it would be to sacrifice the smallest of the three bedrooms which adjoins the half-bath and convert that. It could be quite lovely. Large, all the bells and whistles, with a huge closet too, I'm sure. Yes, it's doable. If I win the lottery. So in the meantime in the real world, it's pack up my clothes and treck off downstairs to the shower.

4) Your kitchen - love it or hate it? Why? Love-hate relationship. I just got the most BEE-YOU-TI-FUL new counter tops and I love love love them. My kitchen is a decent size but a funny layout. Long and narrow like 15x9 (love old houses). The realtor called it a bowling alley! I have a dishwasher but it's one of those that you have to hook up to the sink and every single time I have to get soaked at least once in the hooking up process. The appliances don't match but they all work and I can't justify replacing for vanity. And with the new counters of course, the rest looks even shabbier, but new things or remodeling.... it is want not need.

5) Here is $10,000 and you HAVE to spend it on the place you are living now. What do you do? Hire that bedroom done! And if there is some left, strip and paint the hall....more old wallpaper with who knows what underneath and way up there ceilings I can't reach. Maybe install a "real" dishwasher in my kitchen if there is any left.

BONUS: Why do you think there was such a surplus of ugly bathroom tile colors showcased in all homes built from the 1950's right through the early 80's? I'm not sure they thought they were ugly. There seemed to be a rather strange color sensibility in general in the culture during that time. Think about avocado appliances, gold shag carpet, mint green leisure suits....can't explain it, just observing

Time

Time is a strange thing. To look at it on a calender, or one of those old fashioned round clocks, it appears very neat and tidy. Each hour, each day, each week, all the same size. Even months only differ by a day or so. It should march along in orderly progression, and looking back on any last two hours or last two months should be, by rights, about the same. But we all know if we are paying any attention to our lives at all that this simply isn't so. An afternoon of fun with someone whose company we enjoy flies by, while thirty minutes in the dentist's chair is an eternity.

Time does not move at the same pace, nor is is remembered so. It contracts and expands both in its reality and in its recall. The whole of the last year has been like this for me. It has had sort of an accordion feel. As I'm thinking ahead to the BE2, I'm remembering the BE1. What a rush that was! I had not planned to go. But then in the bleak midwinter, as my life began to do what in that time felt like a fast fall out from under me, something, some Wisdom I actually had the sense to listen to, told me I really needed some help here....and perhaps something radical was called for. So e-mails were sent and arrangements were made....and in what seemed like no time at all there I was on that aft deck saying out loud things that felt unspeakable and finding myself heard into being and new life. Those few days of course passed all too quickly, and the return from that liminal space was bumpy and the landing none too soft. The time that followed seemed to pass very slowly as I struggled to make sense of things in the new normal of my life. And yet as I look back on the Spring and Summer of this past year....it is only because I have it in record that I can recall as much of it as I do. It is blurry, like something that speeds by the window on the fast train to the next place. Because clearly....I was on my way to that next place, whether I knew it or not, whether I believed or not.

And these last two months....time is playing it's tricks again. In this new love...time stretches and compresses. It speeds and drags. It moves in one pace in real time and another one completely in memory. How can it be that in July I was caught between fear and hope and in January we are here? How can it be that in November we were there and now we are here? We are as if brand new with each other with the wonder of it all and we are as if old and forever with the comfort and safety of our love for one another. How can this all happen in this short time?

Go slow with love, people say. Oh, yes, I know. My heart knows and my head knows and my good therapist advice giving self knows. But in which time universe is this? In the one of calendars and clocks? Or the one of the heart? In the one that knows somehow that there is something here that is old and wise, that even in it's quickness, there is something deep and slow. In the one that knows too that there is something sacred here. That this is not a random thing, but one of grace and gift and blessedness. Because in the earthtime we spend, there is also timelessness..a connection to God and the utter eternal....the sense that in the only-now that is God time we are living God's dream that is and has always been coming to be for each of us...separately and together. We talked a bit this weekend about that coming across time to each other. How in some ways we wished we had found each other sooner. But at the same time, we know that now is the right time for us to be together. That each of needed all of what came before in our lives to be who we are now in this time. That had we found each other in an earlier time we might not have seen the same things in each other, appreciated each other, been ready for the kind of love we now find together....a love that makes space for each of our separate lives, that celebrates our uniqueness, that allows for all the time that has been and time that is yet to come but focuses most gently but insistently on the time that is now.

"A Cabin Fever Friday Five"

Singing Owl says: "Sorry for the late posting! My daughter's car won't start, and I just returned from driving her to work. I think she made need a block heater. Speaking of that...Here in snow country we are settled in to what is a very long stretch of potentially boring days. The holidays are over. It is a very long time till we will get outside on a regular basis. The snow that seemed so beautiful at first is now dirty and the snow banks are piling up. Our vehicles are all the same shade of brownish grey, but if we go to the car wash our doors will freeze shut. People get grumpy. Of course, not everyone lives in a cold climate, but even in warmer places the days till springtime can get long. Help! Please give us five suggestions for combating cabin fever and staying cheerful in our monochromatic world?"

1. Unless it is so absolutely gosh-awful that the skin freezes in seconds, I bundle up, grab the wee doggy and get out there and walk at least a few times a week. I have my Soul Sister S to thank for this. Winter before last she encouraged me, pushed me and even gave me the bundling equipment and I found that I did not succumb and even perhaps mind winter a tiny bit less if I do get out and move through it rather than just sit and grouse about it.
2. Eat something spicy. Restaurant is ok, homemade is better, especially when made by someone you love who COOKS! (Sorry...can't resist singing those praises).
3. Listen to great music. Turn it up loud. Dance along. This works alone or with others.
4. Think about that great warm place that is coming...either in the Spring or on the vacay.
5. Cuddle as much as possible. This is highly recommended as a chill chaser.

NaBlo...No Mo

So, ok, I have given up on the daily postings in January. I don't know what I was thinking. Or perhaps to be easier on myself, I could say it seemed like a good idea at the time, but....It just doesn't seem to be the time to be coming up with something to say about anything every day. It's not that I'm not reflective...it's just that some of that reflecting is going on in other places, in journaling that is not of the bloggable type, in conversations and sometimes in my head in posts that just never make it here before they evaporate! And sometimes I worry that I am getting a little boring....I mean, how many times can you write...."I'm in love and I am so happy I can hardly stand it," before people get kind of tired of hearing it? So while I'm not taking a break from blogging, I'm not promising consistency or regularity right now either. I'll simply write when I have something to say, or when I simply have to tell you one more time, "I'm in love and I am so happy I can hardly stand it." Thank you for your patience.

Tradition!

It was an interesting weekend. For many years now XDO and I have had a tradition of getting together at some point after Christmas for a holiday celebration with two close friends. It began when we still lived in the Big City, and continued when we moved to Little Town on the Prairie. This year of course, being the First Christmas Apart there was a bit of a conundrum about how this would be done. Initially we had decided that the most comfortable thing would be to have two gatherings, one with XDO and the friends and one with me and the friends. But schedules being what they are, that just did not prove feasible, so this weekend the two of us found ourselves spending the weekend in two separate guest rooms at my sweet friend J's house.

To say there was some tension would be an understatement. For the most part I think XDO and I have done pretty well with civility and even beyond to a level of understanding and friendship that allows us to interact pretty well most of the time. But to expect that we could maintain that in close quarters in a setting that brought back memories of an earlier time when one of us has so clearly moved on and the other has not....well, perhaps that was pushing the envelope. My friend J and I had talked earlier in the week about trying not to say too much about that "moved on" part of my life. In short, I was going to try really really hard to stifle myself all weekend and not act like the really happy, contented, joyfully grateful, totally blessed, newly in love woman that I am. Yeah. Especially in the presence of two of my oldest and dearest and friends who just might want to know something about this new person in my life. But I gave it my best shot. I was pretty quiet when we were all together. I answered the questions about R in generalities. I showed them his picture discreetly and tried not to gush about him and how great he is. Fortunately there were some respites. There were times in the car on our shopping jaunts when I could talk to J. And on Saturday night I drank too much wine and took the dog for a long walk and called R and kvetched. And on Sunday morning, the weather was looking dicey, so I begged out early and headed off for home earlier than planned.

I think it was hard on XDO as well. I noted I was not the only one who was doing disappearing acts. I was not the only one who was snappish at times. Clearly we need a new plan for the post-Christmas gathering for next year. We have moved on and times really have changed. I can remember many years ago knowing some folks who broke up who were determined to stay friends. I wondered at their motivation. I wondered at their ability to do this difficult thing. I wondered at their sanity. As with any decision we make in life there are pros and cons. There are some unique things about our situation that makes me fall on the side of still thinking that the pros do outweigh the cons for us to continue to struggle with this. But what shape it takes, how it evolves, especially now that I am clearly "with" someone else and not just casually dating changes things. Particularly since I am not sure how clearly XDO has or wants to apprehend that fact quite yet. Saying you are happy for someone and living with the reality of seeing them live into a new life can be two quite different things. I don't want to be insensitive, to flaunt my happiness. But on the other hand, I don't want to have to keep censoring and stifling either. I have worked too hard and fought too long to stop people pleasing to take it up again. Somewhere here there is a balance. There always is. And if I can be quiet, and wait patiently in the now, curiously compassionate, listening to my heart, trusting myself to know....it will come.

Friday Five: Take Me, Baby, or Leave Me

Songbird says: "Although written by a young man, this song from "Rent" became an anthem for women of a certain age ready to be taken on their own terms. Maureen and Joanne love each other, but they are *very* different. Whether it's new friends or new loves or new employers, what are five things people should know about you?"

This is a particularly on-target Friday Five for me, as I am in the "new love" category and there have been a lot of these conversations going on between R and I...."things you should know," "things you'd never guess," many of them shared with gales of laughter. So since I'm pretty much a no-secrets, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of person, here is my latest list:

1. I find it much easier to give than take, but I am working on it.
2. I have a history of getting into relationships with "wounded birds" who need rescuing. It's not been the best thing all around in the long run for the bird or myself, so we are turning over a new leaf and going with the healthy equals premise on this one.
3. I am more than a tich competitive when it comes to any kind of game situation. When I play I play to win--so watch it!
4. I do not suffer fools well, especially if the fools are trodding on the least, the less than, the downtrodden, the weak. Also, then....watch it!
5. I am intense, passionate, in it for the long haul....pretty much whatever "it" is. I don't do fluff well. That makes me kind of exhausting sometimes, for myself as well as others. There are also benefits if you can can weather through it with me.

NaBloPo...More or Less

Trying again for consistency at the halfway point. I must say that I am glad that January is half over in some ways. It is anywhere from 20 to 28 below zero this morning depending on whose thermometer you believe. Just having the car start is a miracle. Ever since moving to Minnesota way long ago, I have always been sort of amazed by the fact that life even goes on when it gets like this. But it does. Oh, some things are adjusted. School is starting two hours late this morning so the kids don't turn into little Popsicles waiting for their buses, and many of the pre-schools and kindergartens are not meeting at all. Some of the senior programs cancel or delay starts to make it easier on folks, but for the most part it is business as usual and the expectation is that you show up for it.

There is a part of me that has always rankled a bit at that. It feels kind of like a fist-waving "I'll show you who's boss" stupidity that can only lose in the end. I mean when it comes to minus 64 wind chills and white outs versus the human body....duh....it's kind of no contest who wins here. But if you say, "well I think perhaps we should cancel such and such" or "perhaps I will skip this or that" or "I'm not coming in to work today due to the weather" there is a sort of looking askance, sometimes concealed, sometimes not, an attitude that you must not truly be one of us, not tough enough to live here, to play among the real folk of the great North country. I have gone back and forth over the years with how much I give in to that. It was a whole new adjustment again when I moved to the prairie. Driving in my first white-out was sobering. It was, also I hope, my last experience of being able to look up and see perfectly blue sky but not being able to see the end of my hood in front of me. Yeah. I have adopted the position of "just say no" pretty much. If anything that looks even remotely inclement is predicted, I simply don't leave town.

Getting around in town is enough adventure for this chick. I managed to get stuck at the end of the driveway last week. It was another one of those days when it had snowed another three or four....my snow guy hadn't come, the town plow had, I thought I could make the mogul, I was wrong. Fortunately three very nice men, and C who was picking me up to run an errand came to my rescue and we dug a little, pushed a little, rocked a little and spun a little and out I popped. I hope that is my one for the year. Last year's was much worse. It involved a tree, two guys and a winch. The year before I had an off-road incident simply coming back from a church meeting on the other side of town. Life, you see is not dull here in my little world of white.

Blogger Friend Award

Mompriest has kindly awarded me this blogger friend award. She was one of the first bloggers I connected with as we had "that Episcopal thing" in common first of all....but many other connections as well. I have appreciated the friendship that has grown and am really looking forward to actually meeting IRL at the BE2!

And now it is my joyful task to award this to eight other bloggers. I started thinking back to early blogging days and one of the first people I connected with was Josephine who back in those days was posting as Tandaina at Snow on Roses and since has gone off to seminary and been having great adventures. Another early connection was with Gannet Girl. The events of her last year have been so painful, and yet she has hung in as a blogger and allowed us to continue to care for her and offer what comfort and solace we can as she grieves her son. Two bloggers that became closer friends after the BE are Mary Beth and Mid Life Rookie. I also wish I could have weekly tea with Mrs. M and Imingrace as both of these women are so good for my heart and soul. Two more great blogger friends to round out this award are my writing inspiration Ruth and my all around inspiration for courage under fire of all sorts Eliza.

So, with great joy that you and all my other fabulous blogger friends are in my life, I give you this award! If you accept the award be sure to include the following and then award 8 others....

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

NaBlo....Wha?

I seem to be heading in the completely wrong direction on this daily posting business. Now it's been two days, and if it hadn't been for a Friday Five, it probably would have been three. *sigh*

I once had a professor who said, "While it is true that the unexamined life is not worth living, I also believe that the unlived life is not worth examining." I seem to be living in a tension between those two extremes these days. I find myself thinking at times, "Oh, I want to stop and take time to remember this moment, this feeling....to reflect on all the wonderment of this absolutely amazing gift that has come so unexpectedly to decorate my life." But at the same time....I want to be in that moment, fully completely alive and present. And I want many such moments...truth be told I want as many of them as my busy life allows. But then, still being an introvert, even an introvert in love....I still need to withdraw... from the business, even from the moments to recharge, regroup. It is a dance I do with myself, and now with another. And blessedly, he too is an introvert, so he gets the need to go away and recharge....but also the pull to "be with." It's a funny little two step we are doing these days.

Thinking about the pros and cons.....I think I there is the possibility that I may become boring to others, as I seem to have kind of a one-track mind. I seem to have less of an interest in the affairs of the world than perhaps I should right now. I think my dog is feeling a little neglected. I seem a tad distracted at times. My need for post-it notes is even greater than before. My bloglife is seriously suffering. But on the good side, I am more generous of spirit. I feel more compassion for my fellow creatures. I am more apt to say yes to just about anything within reason that is asked of me. Despite the fact that it is January and it has just snowed for what seems like the hundredth time, I am remarkably cheerful. My house is cleaner than it usually is.

I have been at the beginning before....and yes I know that some of this is transitory....but there are forces at work here that go deeper. The soulwork that has allowed me to open myself to the possibility of being loved obviously makes a difference. Being able to relax into receiving care and nurturing obviously changes things. Feeling for the first time that I am with someone who could be my safety net too, and that I might even allow myself to fall now and again....well, that's kind of transformational.

So this is about change...this post, this time....these gaps in my blogging. Do it, write about it, find the balance. Live life, examine it.....it all makes it worth living in the end, really I guess.

Friday Five: Pancakes

Sophia says: "Last week Sally gave us a beautiful, spiritually reflective Friday Five, so it's time for something light and fluffy (literally). It's inspired by the fact that as I write this my dear spouse TechnoGuy, with the assistance of daughter Ladybug, is making a batch of chocolate chip pancakes with two Christmas presents. One is the Knott's Berry Farm mix which came along with jam, boysenberry syrup, and biscuit mix from my aunt (we ended up with two sets, since my parents passed theirs on to avoid sweet and carb-y temptation). The other is the large size Black and Decker electric skillet he was thrilled that I got him online -- our trusty wedding present normal size one still works at going on 20 years, but the Teflon is getting worn, and he wanted more cooking space. So pull up a chair to the kitchen table and tell us all about your pancake preferences."

1. Scratch or mix? Buttermilk or plain? My faves in the mix department are two. For sheer simplicity and never fail, I love all the the Krusteaz brands. Plain, Buttermilk, Blueberry...it's add water and off we go! For something a little more substantial in the mix version, I like Hodgson Mill's Buckwheat. They too are simple add in and go and they are really yummy!

2. Pure and simple, or with additions cooked in? Well...it depends on the day, the mood, the meal. Nothing, of course, could ever be as straightforward as yes or no on this one. My favorite addition overall is bananas, then a peanut butter/honey topping and a side of bacon. Yum-o as RR would say! Of course I also love potato pancakes...while not really an "addition"....really more the whole thing, they are just the best!

3. For breakfast or for dinner? You mean I have to choose?

4. Preferred syrup or other topping? How about the best side dish? Well...again, it depends on the cake....on the buckwheats, a good maple is best, on those banana guys, that peanut butter honey business, on a lighter cake, I like a berry, something a little tart maybe...maybe even some strawberries with sour cream around a crepe....like a blintz. Oh, dear, now I really am craving pancakes in all varieties.

5. Favorite pancake restaurant? IHOP....but the nearest one is three hours from here. So Perkins has to do.

Bonus: Any tasty recipes out there, for pancakes or other special breakfast dishes? Bring 'em on!
No recipes, but my other favorite breakfast thing is eggbake, especially the one our wonderful receptionist makes for special deals at work.

Oops...Tripping on Change

This NaBloPoMo thing is not going so well. I missed posting again yesterday. This time is was not so much forgetting as a combination of not having time and really having nothing to say. Apparently writing about change isn't any easier than doing it!

The shower is less random than the posting. I'm not quite sure what happened. If the tech was being more dire than he needed to be and just turning it up did the trick, or if something put the fear of the Almighty into the heater....but we are running at 100% hot showers and (gratefully) counting.

Most of the time being part of people's change process is a really splendid thing. It is, in fact, one of things I love best about my day job. This week though for some reason there has been a fair amount of frustration involved. I am kind of between "gigs" here. With the closing of CH, ten hours of my week freed up, and I am getting a new contract position which will begin in February. Because of that, I can't be assigned a lot of new clients who would then not be able to get back in to see me. But I need to stay productive (translated: produce some revenue for the center) so I am seeing people who need a crisis counselor, or who just need a quick assessment for something. In short, not the most satisfying kinds of situations for someone whose greatest love in therapy is the relational connections! In addition to that, it seems that a fair number of my own folks are in hard or stuck places right now and I'm feeling the pain with them.

There are also some who are bringing some of that pain on themselves. I feel different things for them. While I understand that sometimes we really do stand helpless before ourselves, victims of our still unhealed pasts, or our neurotransmitters run amok, or by being overwhelmed by too much life and not enough coping skills ...sometimes we don't and are making bad choices with some pretty clear sight....and then want pity, solace and rescue when those choices have consequences. "Duh!" I want to say at those points, "And you were expecting exactly what when you did the exact same thing for the fifty-sixth time?" But of course I do not...well not in those exact words anyway....because those folks could not hear me if I did. No. I take a deep breath, and ask God for patience, and say, as gently as I can..."So what were you expecting to happen when....." There has been a fair amount of that this week. The holidays bring it on. January in Minnesota brings it on. It's cold. It's dark. And this year it's been snowing approximately forever. My own fatigue level factors into how I feel, too. Even happy and in love I feel the drag of January. It is never my favorite month and I am always glad to see it pass.

So I can have empathy for those who are not blessed with love and friendship and coping skills. Even the ones who are heading down the same path with their eyes kind of open. I get that they do what they do because they simply have done it for so long they don't remember that there is another way. That when they get scared/stressed/anxious/depressed the system crashes and reboots to all the old defaults and we have to go back and slowly, patiently once again add all the pretty and useful upgrades. I remember how long it took me, and how blessed I was (and still am) with wonderful patient people to reboot and reconfigure my crashed self. So I remember and breathe and pray and say, "It's a process, change is slow, it will come, you will get there....let's just take that first baby step, shall we?' Some days....in the bleak midwinter.....it's just a little harder to get there than others.

When Good Appliances Go Bad

It was one of those good news, bad news things. The water heater itself is fine. It's just the thermostat that's shot. That was the good news. The bad news. The water heater is seventeen years old and there are no thermostats to be had. The temporary solution for now is to crank it up manually to "scald" and sometimes, on a very random, intermittent basis, sort of whenever the water heater feels like it, I'll have hot showers. And other times, well, I won't. A new one? Of course that is the real solution. When I asked the technician, "How much?" he said, "Well, as long as you're sitting down.....and he told me. Oh. My. Kind of the same reaction I had when I went looking at washing machines last summer. Clearly I have not replaced appliances in a very long time. In this century perhaps. There is good news there, too. My utility company will finance the new one. Just pop it on my bill, interest free for ten months. I think I will try to tough it out until after the heating season when the bill drops back out of a range that makes me gasp every time I see it anyway.

The way I see this, it adds an element of interest to my life....what will today's shower hold? Or perhaps I can use it as a way to remind me to be grateful. I have a shower, and sometimes it will be a hot one. And at some point there will be the means to make it consistent again. Good news on many fronts. Choosing my attitude, changing my focus. It's easier to change that than the water temperature, it seems.

Anticipating Epiphany.....To End and Begin

Only five days in to NabLoPoMo and I have missed a day of blogging already. I have no good excuses to offer. I simply forgot. Instead of writing about change yesterday, I was doing it. I'm afraid I anticipated Epiphany a bit and took down Christmas. I felt the worst about the creche. The kings had not even gotten a chance to really settle in and adore when the box came out and they got packed away till next year. But Christmas, as I have been reminded in ever so many ways this year is not about a season, or things or decor. The Love that we celebrate arriving in incarnate form came and stayed. It doesn't get packed up with the lights and the garland to wait in silent darkness for another season.

As much as I love having my house decorated, there is a kind of calm serenity after it all comes down that I also enjoy. It seems more spacious. Especially this year as I really claimed the process for myself. I purged a lot of old holiday junk and got it down to a manageable amount. As I packed it away I organized it in totes and labeled them so decorating next year should be a snap.

Though all of this did include a fair amount of work, it seemed like a good thing to do on the Sabbath. It was reflective and restful in that it got me thinking about Christmasas past and how different this one was and why. Perhaps it is this new birthed and steadily growing love in my life, but the whole Incarnational aspect of Christmas has been striking me anew. Especially as I preached John's Gospel on Christmas I, that from the beginning this was in the mind of God...to be among us, to be us so that we could know God and become more like God. It really does boggle the mind to be loved that much by the Creator of the universe. Sometimes I can only think about such things while doing mundane things like sweeping tree needles and picking up stray ornament hooks.

And tomorrow it is officially Epiphany. If I had to pick a day for my spiritual anniversary, this would be it. Epiphany Sunday was the day that I finally said yes to God and meant it as I wrote about last year in this post . Anniversaries for me are always a time to take stock of the last year. What has changed, what needs attention, where do we seem to be going. So that is the intention for the next twenty-four hours. To find some space for quiet. To focus on this relationship, to reaffirm this commitment, to once again say yes to whatever God has in store for me knowing this year at an even deeper and profound level that I am loved and God truly is holding my life.

Thoughts on Change

Just about when I think I'm figuring it out, it changes. That used to make me all anxious and uptight. Now it just makes me sort of smile at myself in a kind of tolerant amusement. Like take sleep for instance. I had this pattern going. Little spurts of a couple hours through the night with little wake-ups, then a longer chunk before morning. It probably wasn't the best for getting that really good REM stuff, but it was working. I seemed to be functioning, and I was used to it. I was almost always awake and ready to go before the alarm at six and often by five no matter what time I went to bed. Lately I seem to be downshifting. Last night I slept six hours without a break, and I slept until after 9 this morning when the phone woke me! That's just one example. There are certainly far more profound ones in my life that demonstrate clearly the possibility of change. Ask those who know me best! Old dogs may or may not be able to learn new tricks, but middling humans....I am here to say that amazing things can and do happen!

Beginnings and Endings Friday Five

Sally says:"This Celtic Mandala represents life, noting how days and years turn from one to another. As we have stepped from 2008 into 2009 some of us look back with joy and others with sadness; probably most of us with a mixture of the two.As we look back we may come to understand how God has worked in and through us in joy and sadness. how we have grown against what may seem impossible odds. As we look forward we may do so with expectation, and we may do so with fear and trembling. As we look back and forward in New Years liminality I offer you this simple yet I hope profound Friday Five in two parts:"

First list five things that you remember/ treasure from 2008

1. The BE. I was not planning to attend. Then suddenly I knew I must. And as is the way of these things, a place had opened, the flight was in my budget and the next thing I knew, there I was, hugging a bunch of wonderful women in a hotel bar in NOLA. And the rest, as they say....is history.
2. Baptising L. It is, without a doubt, one of the best moments of my ministry.
3. The day R's e-mail appeared inviting me to coffee. I knew he was sent as the answer to prayer. I have not changed my mind.
4. Finding out that I can trust the strength of my faith bond, even through the darkness.
5. My dream come true night at the New Year's dance.

Then list five things that you are looking forward to in 2009.

1. The BE 2. This time I am even planning ahead!
2. Exploring what it is like to rest in and accept being loved and cherished (while trying not to overthink it!)
3. Giving myself the gift of time to write and paint and generally be creative.
4. On a really practical level--getting more of the projects done on my house.
5. Continuing to be more fearlessly and joyfully myself.

Ch-ch-changes...Post 1

My basic belief about change is that we finally do it when the pain of our current situation overtakes the fear of what it will be like when we finally take the steps necessary to do whatever it is that is needed to make the change. Because I do think it is fear that is the greatest obstacle to change. All those scary messages we give ourselves (based on perfectly reasonable -- to us anyway -- beliefs about the "things that could happen" if we take this step out into the unknown). Because that's where change takes us....out there into some new place where we have not been before. And for most of us it takes a lot to get us to go there. And whether we like to admit it or not, pain or at least a fair amount of discomfort with our current status is the best motivation for that movement. And the funny thing is, that when we get there, to the new place....we often find it's really not half so bad after all.

Something Good

I'm feeling a little like Cinderella today. I did get to go to the ball...well at least the New Year's Eve dance....and it was everything I'd hoped it would be. It has been kind of a long-term fantasy of mine to do that on New Years...get dressed up and go to a dance with someone special...and for a whole host of reasons, it has just never happened. Bless R, when this event was advertised and I shared my dream with him, he never hesitated for a moment. And unlike many things that having been dreamed of for so long, do not deliver in real life, last night was wonderful and almost perfect. The music was great, we had fun dancing and just being together. It was interesting seeing who else was there and fun to talk with our friends. We toasted the New Year at midnight and I uttered a prayer of deep gratitude for this wonderful gift of dreams that really do come true.

One of my favorite songs has always been Something Good from the Sound of Music. I find myself humming it lately. "Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could....I must have done something good." I feel like I must have done something to deserve this. Not just the dream come true of the dance, but finding love at this time in my life, finding someone who fits, who accepts all the complexities and baggage that come with me. And that there is an ease, a lightness, a distinct lack of drama that I find very refreshing at this point. But I also know that I must account for grace, and that perhaps I did nothing and that he, like all the blessings of my life is simply another gift and my appropriate response is simply gratitude and cherishing.

NaBloPoMo for January is about change....it sounded interesting, and since my life and many people around me seem to be about that, I thought it might be fun to take on the challenge of trying to write something every day on that theme...so off we go.