Bodies in motion...

My body:

So, I've made a commitment to get up off my butt and move. And now I'm dreading it. Even though I KNOW it's the right (really the ONLY) choice for me right now. I can eat as healthily as I want (which I do most of the time) and still not lose any weight, because I'm moving very little.
The torture started yesterday. ;-) Really, it wasn't that much of a problem, because my holiday plans included mopping the rest of my living room floor (the old-fashioned, on my hands and knees way) and boxing up my winter clothes (I'm believing we're finally done with this crappy spring/winter/spring/winter stuff that feels more like March than almost June). I didn't get everything accomplished that I'd hoped, but...I moved. And I moved everything out of my closet and other things back in, so I got my workout AND my closet looks good. (And yes, everything is organized in rainbow order--I start out REALLY well at the beginning of the seasons, but it soon looks like rainbow soup...oh, well.)

My "community" body:

Several of us went to Paris, IL this past weekend to help with a benefit dinner for an 18 year-old who's in the hospital, recovering from a ruptured aorta. I've never met him. I may never meet him, but I hope to someday. It didn't really matter, though...he's "family" in that really cool way that most people just don't get. We road-tripped Saturday, hung out with Chet's family (I love crashing other people's family reunions!), sat around the campfire, sang silly songs, listened to the kids playing, watched the stars...who could ask for more?

We started out EARLY Sunday (I'm not a morning person, but I didn't even mind)--we left the house a little after 7:00 AM, headed to the church in Paris and started cooking. And didn't really stop working until everything was cooked, everyone was served, and everything was cleaned up. It's so amazing to watch my little "community" join together with others to do something good and selfless--it gives me hope that, to quote Shane, "another world IS possible" when we take our eyes off ourselves.

My formal-organization-that-meets-on-Sunday-morning "body":

See the Shane quote above. I'm SO encouraged by what I've seen/heard/experienced lately--from our new pastor and from others. Peck has a GENUINE heart for the less-blessed and broken in this world. He doesn't just mouth the words because he thinks that's what I want to hear--he has a proven track record. And there are others who have shown me lately just how generous and loving they are.

And, God is proving faithful...as we look for new opportunities to really be the hands and feet of Jesus to people both inside and outside the walls of the building in which we gather, he's providing. I'm excited about some doors (one in particular) which may be opening for us that will allow us to serve more of the less-blessed in a really tangible way.

I've wanted to run away for so long...to get out in the world and REALLY do "something big" for God...maybe that big thing has been in my backyard all along and I just couldn't see it. Maybe big to God isn't (always) going to Darfur or Myanmar or even to the post-Katrina Gulf Coast--maybe "big" is sometimes just opening your eyes and looking at (and listening to) the person sitting in the pew next to you on Sunday morning...maybe it's stepping outside your back door and helping your neighbor weed her flower bed...maybe it's sacrificing a little sleep and helping a dad not worry so much about paying his bills while he's sitting by his son's hospital bed...maybe that "little is much when God's in it" song is truer than I thought...maybe he just wants us to get up off our butts and get MOVING.

Silly love songs...

...gotta love 'em.

I was listening to the bluegrass station on Launchcast tonight while I was baking my famous "kick-ass chocolate cake" and stuffing a pork loin full of garlic/onion jam, Craisins, and pecans (surprise retirement dinner tomorrow for a co-worker). I forget how much I love bluegrass music until I start listening. There's something about a mandolin that just makes me HAPPY. And Alison Krauss--she's truly amazing. I'd love to be able to sing like she does. This is the song I heard tonight. Kinda silly/sappy, maybe. But it was really sweet. And it made me smile. Kinda wistfully, but it was a smile. That's a start, eh?

"I Will"--Alison Krauss

Who knows how long I've loved you?
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely lifetime?
If you want me to, I will

For if I ever saw you
I didn't catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same

Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we're together
Love you when we're apart

And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do endear you to me
You know I will

I will

Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we're together
Love you when we're apart

And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do endear you to me
Oh, you know I will

Losing my mind...

I read this on Wrecked For the Ordinary today...THIS is who I want to be. Some would maybe say I've lost my mind in a very different way, of course, but this...this is my heart.

I tell you this morning that I have lost my mind. I have given it over to Christ, some time ago, and He does much better things with it than I ever would have. He has my mind, my heart, my spirit, my body, my life. All of it is His. This is no sacrifice - I simply acknowledge the truth that Is, Was, and Always Will Be...and choose to live joyously within it. In this place I find passion and purpose, and the wildest places in my heart are stirred to dance even as hard things are happening in every area of my life.

The days of our lives...

A friend's dad died last week. My friend knows his dad is no longer in pain...and knows that he knew God. I watched my friend walk through the week with peace and grace--he encouraged ME when I went to be an encouragement to him and his mom. He comforted his children, smiled as friends reminisced, cared for his mom...and I never saw him falter.

And yet, there's enormous loss. The family is left with the task of rearranging their lives to compensate for what's gone...you don't just move the furniture around and hope to cover up the gaping husband/dad/grandfather hole. How do you move in the face of that reality? How do you listen to idle gossip and random chitchat? How, sometimes, do you even breathe?

"Like sands through the hourglass...so are the days of our lives." I grew up hearing that line from my mom's favorite soap opera. I've been hearing MacDonald Carey's voice echoing in my head all week. The days...they're just trickling away, hour by hour, grain of sand by grain of sand. And what do we do with those days? With those hours? With those minutes? With the relationships we're handed? How cognizant are we that life is truly just a vapor, a breath...and then it's gone? Do we really value relationships, especially those with our families, like we should?

I sat next to a guy in church Sunday morning who had all 5 of his kids with him. On Mother's Day. He's an outstanding dad...I gave him one of the little potted plants that were handed out to all of the ladies of the church, because he's a great single dad who's tackling the dual-parenting role and is doing a wonderful job. But I still wonder about the kids...as they grow older, will they wonder where Mom was on Mother's Day? And why they weren't with her? His oldest daughter is at the age where she needs a mom to advise her and guide her as she transitions from little girl to young woman...how sad that Mom is missing out on the opportunity, for whatever reason. Will she regret those missed moments someday?

I know a woman whose dad turned his back on her a few years ago...for whatever reason, he made a choice: his life would no longer include her. She's beautiful and smart and funny and talented and has her heart set on God...she's everything a daddy would want his little girl to grow up to be. And he's missing it. Will he look back on this wasted time someday and see what he's lost?

I always think about them when I hear Steven Curtis Chapman's song "Cinderella":
She spins and she sways to whatever song plays,
Without a care in the world.
And I'm sittin' here wearin' the weight of the world on my shoulders.
It's been a long day and there's still work to do,
She's pulling at me saying "Dad I need you!
There's a ball at the castle and I've been invited and I need to practice my dancin'"
"Oh please, daddy, please!"
So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh I will dance with Cinderella
I don't wanna miss even one song,
Cuz all to soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone.

Maybe it's just because I'm getting older and recognized myself in the face of my friend last week--someday I'll be in his place. I don't want to regret anything. I don't want to lose even one grain of sand--I'm sure I will, but I want to be constantly reminded of how precious each one is.

Listening to the voices...

So, I had an epiphanal moment today. During a funeral. When my mind was wandering. And God met me on that meandering path and stopped me in my tracks.

I hear voices. A lot of them. A veritable cacophany, really.

Some of the voices tell me a lot of negative things--I'm too fat, my hair is too red, I'm untrustworthy, my house is dirty, I'm irresponsible, my friends don't really care about me, my beliefs are a load of crap, I waste my money on unimportant things, I'll never really amount to anything, etc. These are LOUD voices. I hear them a lot.

Other voices are different. They tell me I'm loved and beautiful and talented and cherished. They don't always speak so loudly. Sometimes they get drowned out with all that other shouting.

So, on this meandering path today, I was kind of contemplating what the minister was saying--that we'll all face the end of the journey someday and people will be mourning our loss--and kind of thinking about some of those voices (mostly negative) I've been hearing recently. And then I started thinking about the nature of the person to whom each voice belonged.

Integrity speaks quietly but with strength. As does honor. And character. And truth.

The people I most admire, the people with those qualities, are the people speaking in their quiet voices strong words of affirmation and encouragement to me.

I've never heard God speak audibly to me, but I can tell you that I heard his voice today. And his inaudible voice resounded more loudly in my ears and in my heart than all of that negative junk combined.

I choose character over noise. I'm listening to the quiet now.

This is NOT a political commentary...

...just something I heard today that's making me ponder a lot of things.

If the leaders of Muslim countries have issues right now dealing with the US because we have a female Secretary of State and they have "issues" with females in leadership positions, what kind of predicament could we have on our hands if we have a female PRESIDENT?

Interesting, eh?

Beautiful words...

...that I didn't write. Wish I had.

Time does not always heal, and peace does not always last. Home is not always where you are, but where you’ve been - no matter how short the stay. Your heart has been left behind, because it was captured by the paralyzing reality of grace, peace, beauty, and love. For me, home is where I met God most intimately - in His silence and stillness of peace - basking in the overwhelming complexity of His creation that was made for His glory and my joy. And that joy is what caused me to forget whether or not there was any other time in my life when I heard my Beloved’s voice any louder or felt more alive.

Doin' the chemistry...

So, everyone around here seems to be quite cognizant of the fact that "cooking" meth and ingesting that finished product is pretty lethal to your body. And why wouldn't it be? Anhydrous ammonia (and some of the other ingredients as well) isn't really something I'd like to knowingly put into my body.

But.

Where do the "cookers" get their anhydrous? By stealing from local fertilizer plants or from nurse tanks the farmers leave out in their fields. Which means...anhydrous goes into our soil, along with seed that grows into corn that goes into feed that "nourishes" the cattle/hogs/chickens that yields the steaks/chops/wings that we put into our mouths without (for the most part) a second thought.

So, it appears I'm ingesting (maybe in a very minute amount, but ingesting nonetheless) anhydrous ammonia when I consume a delicious, grilled T-bone. Doesn't THAT sound yummy?

Run wild with the hope...

"From the place where morning gathers
You can look sometimes forever 'til you see
What time may never know
What time may never know
How the Lord takes by its corners this old world
And shakes us forward and shakes us free
To run wild with the hope
To run wild with the hope..."

So, I mentioned a few days ago that I've been listening to Rich Mullins again...and feeling that old stirring that I used to know so well. I want to "run wild" with hope again.

This isn't just some sentimental, teary-eyed idolization of a long-dead man who didn't know me from a hole in the ground. Well, the last part is true--he DIDN'T know me from a hole in the ground. I met Rich once...and it's the only time I can recall that I was tongue-tied and stupid in the face of "celebrity". You don't just walk up to a total stranger, introduce yourself, tell him he's turned your world upside-down and do something stupid like propose to him (well, you might if you weren't already married at the time...or if it was a few years later and the person was Donald Miller and none of your friends believed you'd do it, but that's another story.) It was at the end of a show, I was at the end of the line...and Rich was exhausted and a bit crabby.

But the words...oh, my gosh. I can't listen to a song like "Calling Out Your Name" without feeling that long-buried wildness stirring. I remember the night in Wichita, gathered at the foot of the Keeper of the Plains with kindred spirits from the Lecacy Fest...honoring Rich's memory with our songs and with our silence.

And I'm ready to run.

In some ways, I feel like I'm only now "getting it"--the story Rich told with his life and with his music isn't new...wasn't even new at the time of his telling. It's ages old...ancient. He was all about community and being the hands and feet of Jesus before it was cool. He certainly got it. He didn't wear funky glasses or cool clothes like Rob Bell. He didn't go on world tours like Brian McLaren. He just went about his business, living at poverty level, teaching music to Indian kids on the rez, eating "freegan" food from the plates of strangers in restaurants...and setting pen to paper to create lyrics that resonated deeply with so many people.

Those lyrics, those ideas...they still stir me. Lately, I've found myself pushing those stirrings down deeper...down to a place where I haven't felt them so much. But how long can you push them down before they find their way back to the surface and explode out into the light? I've been quiet lately--I've been just skimming along the surface of life, trying to not really feel too much. But it's not working. I think WAAAAY too much for it to work.

When Katie and I listened to COYN the other night, I honestly thought I might explode right then. Sometimes God has to take by the corners our own personal little worlds and shake them hard...and sometimes that's a really good thing. Sometimes we need a good shaking out of our complacency. I know sometimes I won't move forward until I'm shoved there by circumstances beyond my control. I don't like being out of control, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. And maybe that shaking will set me free. Maybe it'll set free some of that stuff boiling up inside of me that's dying to EXPLODE.

I think I'm ready to run again.