some thoughts.

I was raised by a beautiful couple. They had been married for nearly five decades when my mom died.
Everything they had, is everything I want.
Unfortunately I didn’t realize this until mom was on her deathbed.

I am earnestly and eternally grateful for what seems to have been woven into the fabric that is me, by my parents.
I learned to harmonize standing close to my mom as she bellowed out the melody of each and every hymn – she had such a beautiful voice. Very tender and honest.
My dad remains, to this day, my hero. It was under his tutelage that I developed an unflappable work ethic.

Because of their commitment to The Church: It’s religion&community, I was left not having to ask one question about any of it.
I followed and followed and followed.
I dressed the right way, sang the right songs, memorized the right scriptures, threw down a full 10% in the offering plate and won my fair share of sword drills.
It was the perfect way to grow up.

And then I grew up.

I believe in Jesus the Christ, and know fully that if I follow his teachings life is better. It’s hard to argue with things like peace, patience, kindness and the like…
I believe in God.

With all of the tiniest, light filled, energetic and remarkable bits of me, I believe.

I have my own children now.
I watch them process things - topics ranging from divorce to Darfur.
They ask questions about timelines and science and mythology and evolution.

Ten years ago, if I had overheard people around me asking these questions I would have had 2 options: 1. Shun them. 2. Pray for them. But they would have never, ever, ever been my friends.

I didn’t need their stinking blasphemy in my periphery. I had God all sorted out.
I look back at the mental pictures of that day and see that God looked suspiciously like me.
Anne Lamott said it this way: You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

The honest truth is that I can’t stomach my own hypocrisy. I’ll let science hurl me through space for a visit down-unda, I will sprint to science when my child has a suspicious lump in his bone. But I say ‘oh no you di’int’ when science offers up anything to do with all that I think I believe – as if!
I really see it as everyone’s fault (but mine), as the Christian community and the scientific community trend to three legged races for the prize in Arrogance and Smarmy.

HEAR ME HERE:
I LOVE THE CHURCH.
The beautiful Bride. Unblemished, perfection, so white your eyeballs burn.

But now:
If we take GOD, the Supreme Ultimate BEYOND THE UNITED STATES&EVEN PLANET EARTH GOD, and subjugate Him to OUR understanding, what we think we know, what we groan to understand and finally, our twisting of scripture to prove it, we will get no where: and that’s a hysterical understatement.

The bottom line for me is this: Keeping God as small as me takes too much energy.
And anyway, I’m a messed up girl – so I need a really big God.
I need a God whose ways are not known to me. Whose decisions and methods are not dependent on my approval.
A God who needs no instruction. And finally, though humbling, A God who prefers from me stillness and praise.

.life.

We have BigStaff every Wednesday morning at 9:30.
This is where church wax is hashed. It’s pretty generic but every once in a while Steve will ask, “What’s going on with you? Need prayer? Have something good to say”, and he scans the room.
For one year (minus two days of ditching) every Wednesday he has posed the question and I slink in my chair… think math class, 8th grade.
People talk a lot about how great their kids are, school acceptances, career advancements, proposals, moving to Europe blah blah blah.

At my house we talk about moving, advancement and college too. And my kids have beaten me down with such vigor that not ONLY am I nearly convinced that a pot farm in California is a viable solution for college financing, but it could also answer a bevy of retirement questions I have as well.

I tried the the-family-that-prays-together-stays-together thing.
Maybe the-family-that-harvests-together-stays-together is worth a whirl.

BUT TODAY IS DIFFERENT.
Today I had two things to report – but, alas - no inquiry.

So I’m going to tell You.

Last night, Fat Tuesday, my boys and I were at party in the neighborhood. There was a great band and no once was dancing.
I looked at my 11 year old and said ‘Want to dance??’ He is always up for a good Worm on an empty dance floor. ‘No’, he said.
I looked at my 15 year old, who only came because every once in a while I allow him to drive illegally. I said with a wide grin, ‘Do you want to dance??’

To my utter shock, he smiled and said,
‘Yes’.
He got up, took me by the hand, and proceeded to spin me, twirl me and box step me for what felt like a blissful eternity.
With the most beautiful awkward smile I’ve ever seen.

It was the perfect gift.

Next item: Last week we found out that son #2 (Worm boy) beat out a few hundred kids for a position at the Talented and Gifted middle school in our area.
… He’s got such a bright future.
I hope I don’t mess it up.

Thanks for listening.

hopegnostic

I’ve been seeing a counselor (comments to self, please).
I’ve done this before (again, no comment needed) but I tire easily because I don’t understand why they get $$ for a 50 minute hour and only ever seem to offer, ‘and how does that make you feel?’ [my girlfriends at least offer wine with that, FOR FREE]
(TANGENT ALERT)
‘Well, Bob, it makes me feel like taking a tire iron and bashing their useless head in’.
‘Oh’, says Bob, ‘And how does THAT make you feel?’
‘Bob, I’ll be right back, I need to get something from my trunk.’


So, I’ve been seeing AnotherBob.
And I learned something about me this time.
I have an addiction.
It is hope.
It’s not HealthyHope. It’s sickhope.

It’s the one that makes you stay when you shouldn’t.
It’s the one that makes you justify something that is unjustifiable.
It’s the one that makes you crazy and end up hating yourself.
It’s the one that causes you to believe something that is unbelievable.
And you put your sickhope glasses on every time your start to see or sense something in someone, or something, that you don’t want to know/deal with/believe.

And then you run/breathe/work/live like you can call it into being – by sheer will.

Trust me:You Cant.

My BFF, Karen, has a beautiful life altering mantra:
No expectations, No disappointments.

(TANGENT ALERT)
Another friend of mine holds to the sentiment: Under Promise Over Deliver – unfortunately what that really translates to in that particular life is Never Promise Never Deliver – lonely, but safe.

I’ve thought about pursuing Karen’s line of reasoning but I have the same trouble with it that I do with fasting (which is why I don’t): I become so obsessed with not eating, that I forget why I’m not, and what I’m to be doing with that space in my life.
The more I focus on expecting nothing, the more my focus moves to what I expect – which, OF COURSE, increases my disappointment… over stuff I shouldn’t be counting on from another human. (which is a crock for another blog).

So I decided that I was going to be Hopegnostic – I won’t believe or disbelieve in Hope. And I will step aside and appreciate another’s pursuit of it, or not.
(and yes I realize that it’s sickhope I should do away with not HealthyHope: think baby/bathwater.

So, I walk through my kitchen this morning, tidying up from the beautiful chaos of a school morning, and see a little black square on the floor beside the fridge.
It’s a teensy tiny magnet from a magnet poetry set we like to have fun with…
I turn it over:












and I know, without a shadow of a doubt:
I’m not ready to.