Hurricane Gustav update...

New Orleans is now under a mandatory evacuation order. Hotels in the city are being closed; the airport closes at 6 PM tomorrow.

Gustav went from being a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane in less than 24 hours. It's expected to become a Category 5, possibly by tomorrow evening. That means winds over 155 miles per hour.

I read a comment from someone who believes this could be worse than Katrina. Not sure what there is to back that up besides fear, but...if it's true, well, I just don't even want to think about it.

Because I still remember miles and miles of this:

Not-so-happy anniversary...

Today is the third anniversary of the day Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast.

And what are we doing? We're watching Hurricane Gustav bearing down on a shoreline just starting to wear some semblance of "normal".

My dear friend John is taking a group of 30 people back to the Gulfport area in October...to continue the rebuilding process. After three years...

And now, of course, I'm wondering if we're just going to be starting it all over again.

If you're a praying person, this might be a good time to practice.

It's PAC-MAN!!!!

Look at the pie. Seriously. I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how much I'm loving this.

Fiery destruction and regrowth...

I know I've been mostly silent since I returned home from Montana...I've been thinking. A lot. This trip changed me. I know every moment we live is a change from what the last moment was, but...this is something else. Or maybe I just have more of an awareness of the change now. No. I'm different. I know that.

Most of it goes beyond words...it's just a sense in my spirit that things will never be the same. If you asked me for details and I trusted you completely, I still wouldn't be able to vocalize some of it. And I've tried. The words somehow get stuck in one of those synaptic paths and never make it out my mouth.

But I DO have stories to tell. And some of them, like this one I'm "fixin" to tell, will eventually be told. I've learned that when I hear or read something more than once in a short span of time, it's usually something of which I should take note. This is something I heard twice in 3 days while I was at Glacier...with some of my own perspective thrown in, of course.

Forest fires destroy thousands of acres of trees each year. Over 5000 acres burned in the Skyland Fire, right outside of Glacier Park, last summer. There are an average of ten fires per year, usually small and quickly contained, inside the park. If a forest fire starts by natural means (lightning strike), the National Park Service policy is to allow it to burn itself out. If they determine it was started by human error/intention/etc., they will take steps to put it out.

Lodgepole pine trees grow in abundance in Montana. They are tall and beautiful...and if you look carefully, they are often towering above burned stumps remaining from old forest fires. And that is because...

The pinecones of the lodgepole pine tree are coated in a dense resin. So dense that the seeds don't release unless the resin is melted away so the cone can open. Melted by high heat. From a forest fire. When the fire burns the existing trees, the resin melts, the pinecones open, the seeds release and...the "circle of life" begins again.

Hmm. So, God has a plan. And even when that original plan is thwarted, there's a perfect "back-up" plan already in place. Kind of echoes the creation/fall/redemption story, doesn't it?

And, of course, I bring this all down to a personal level as well. I've had several "firestorms" in my life. I've set some of those fires myself. Others, I guess, you could say were "natural"...or at least not of my own making--I was just in the path of the blaze...the right (wrong) place at the right (wrong) time. Some of them burned their way through my life and extinguished themselves when there was nothing left to be burned. Others were put out by people who care, people who put themselves in the fire's path to help me.

But no matter the cause, the fires burned. Burned away things/people/ideas/attitudes I held dear...or at least held onto. And I was left semi-standing--a burned-out, smoking stump...a barely-recognizable remnant of what I once was. Dead. In the middle of a charred field. A blackened field full of...newly-released-from-melted-resin seeds ("forged in the fires of Mt. Doom" for you LOTR people--don't you love my randomosity?!). Fresh starts. Unexpected potential. The blessing of a clean slate and a new day.

And once again, I'm reminded that change, even that change forged by fire, is a gift. Part of the plan. A page in my redemption story.

Such a little word...

...to be causing such a struggle for me.

TRUST–noun
1. reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.
2. confident expectation of something; hope.

I read this definition and it makes perfect, logical sense. And then I turn around to see how this fits into where I am right now and it all falls apart.

I wrote a few weeks ago about having faith in a God that I can't see...and now I'm struggling with trusting that same God. If I really have the faith I say I have, why doesn't trust automatically follow?

I can pick this definition apart and fully agree that I can rely on the integrity, strength and ability of God. And I DO, indeed, have confident expectation and hope of...well, something. I guess it comes down to the fact that I trust what *I* think is best for me more than I trust the great unknown of what's behind door number one in the mystery of whatever God's thinking.

I know this sounds crazy, but I have to sacrifice my hope. I'm seeing, with some clarity, that my trust, my "confident expectation of something" has been in myself. My hope hasn't been in God...it's been hope that God will give me what I want. It's WAY too similar to some of that "your best life now, name it and claim it" prosperity BS. I've always found a way to justify it because my dreams aren't for financial riches--my dearest dreams are, for the most part, cloaked in really good, unselfish intentions. But now I'm seeing that, if I'm really going to trust God, it requires laying those things (and one especially) down...tying them up on an altar, actually, and taking the knife to them. Sounds pretty morbid, doesn't it?

So...I'm honestly not sure where I go from here. On the surface, it's an easy answer. An obvious one. But when it's the thing you hold most dear--the most treasured, precious, beautiful hope you currently possess--and you see that God may choose to NOT provide another lamb for the sacrifce and hand your dream back to you, well...I'm not there yet.

The song I'm loving right now...

You're Beautiful--
James Blunt

My life is brilliant.
My life is brilliant.
My love is pure.
I saw an angel.
Of that I'm sure.
She smiled at me on the subway.
She was with another man.
But I won't lose no sleep on that,
'Cause I've got a plan.

You're beautiful.
You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face
that I was flying high,
And I don't think that I'll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end.

You're beautiful.
You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.
You're beautiful.
You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.

There must be an angel with a smile on her face,
When she thought up that I should be with you.
But it's time to face the truth,
I will never be with you.

On a reading binge...

I've finished The Shack.

I'm still thinking about it. Trying to process it all. If I've talked to you lately, you probably know that this book, combined with some other things that have been going on in my world, has brought to the point of near-meltdown. I don't think the book itself would've had that much effect on me, since much of it lines up with the direction in which my thoughts have been heading for the past couple of years, but combined with the other "stuff"...well, let's just say I've spent the last week either in tears, near tears, or in complete emotional shutdown to avoid the possibility of tears.

I need to chew on it all some more. And maybe I can come back with something readable. Well, something I'm comfortable with posting here, anyway.

And now, I'm reading Rob Bell's Sex God again. In a weird way, the two completely fit together--it makes perfect sense for me to be reading them back-to-back. I think I'll be able to glean more from the re-read now.

It's kind of strange...I have so much that I'd like to write about, but I sit here and look at the screen and NOTHING comes out. Someday, though...

Correspondence with the cat...

Dear Pissy:

I've just spent 2 hours vacuuming my niture. Take note of the fact that there is no fur. Frankly, I would like to keep it that way.

Love,
Me



Dear keeper of the cathouse:

Fat chance of that. And who is this Frank Lee person? Please don't discuss our personal issues with strangers.

Paws and kisses,
Lady Pissy of Hairball Castle

Women of hope, women of change...

...if you're feeling helpless, help someone.

GOOD counsel.

Beautiful messy truth...

...from a guy who runs a homeless shelter and blogs here:

The real world keeps on spinning and our lives continue to unfold. Life is not like a television drama or a novel with tidy resolutions that pull everything together at the end. We do not have the luxury of living happily ever after or being damned for good at the final page. Each day is another page in the story. There is failure, relapse, redemption and hope lurking on the horizon. That is bad news. That is good news. It means I cannot tidy up a person’s story and give it the permanent, Christian fairy tale ending. It also means I cannot write anyone off as beyond hope. Once I do either of those things, it will be time to turn the page and be surprised again. It is both a blessing and a curse to have the longevity in this business that I have. Most people do not get to stick around long enough to see redemption take place. Most people do not stick around long enough to see the sure thing unravel. Real people live real lives of not so real permanence.

Shacking up...

Ok, for those of you who keep asking...I FINALLY bought "The Shack" today and I'm heading to bed right now to start reading. :-)

Tears and laughter...

The music is loud and the crowd at the bar tonight is raucous. I'm a stranger here...and that's ok--it's easier for me to just sit back and watch people than try to shout over the top of loud music.

He's a friend of a friend...and he's enjoying himself. His face is careworn and grizzled, but his eyes snap with mischief and he laughs loudly--it's contagious. He greets the women with hugs and kisses and dance offers and the men with an invitation to a game of pool.

Our eyes meet across the room and he dances my way, waving the pool cue to clear a path and bows deeply when he finally stands in front of me. He offers to buy me a beer and asks me why I'm so serious. I smile and he tells me I need to laugh more. He begs for, and gets, a kiss on the cheek for luck in his next pool game and tells me he'll buy me a drink if my kiss brings him victory in the game.

He wins. And buys himself another drink to celebrate. He plays another game and loses. And buys himself another drink to help him forget the list of losses stacked against him.

His eyes find mine again. I smile. He doesn't buy it. No dancing across the room this time--he makes a direct line for me and plants himself solidly in front of me. "Why are you so sad?" I tell him I'm not sad and he edges closer. He asks me again, more intently and insistently this time, "why are you sad?" and I look into his eyes and know I could drown in the depths of heartache and knowledge and understanding I see swimming there.

How do I answer that? How do I tell him that, without him uttering a word of it, I know his story...a life of disappointment and lost love and abandonment and despair? How do I tell him that life is bigger and hope always remains? How do I tell him that I'll go home tonight and weep the tears for him that I'm fighting to hold back right now? How do I tell him that I'm full of anger and overwhelmed with despair when I look at history and see how our government has played a part in the "something" insidious and ugly and hopeless and evil that brought us to the point where we're standing at that very moment? And how do I tell him that my heart has somehow found kinship and comfort and, in some odd way, "home" in a veritable stranger?

I don't tell him any of that. I tell him that people disappoint me and I'm tired of being hurt. He steps nose-to-nose with me, eyes still inviting me to dive into the haven he's offering, and lets me know without saying a word that he knows I'm giving him the "easy out" answer.

Sometimes that's all I can manage.