On Oklahoma and God May 21, 2013

Hey, y’all!  That, by the way, is an adaptation of my normal greeting, in honor of my home state that got hammered the last two days by the tornadoes.

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I have so much I want to say right now, and as usual, my biggest concern is that I will have the right words.  Starting from when I woke up this morning and was almost afraid to pull up Facebook for fear of what more horrible news I would find posted there, all my thoughts have been focused on the tragedy of the storms and the results and aftermath.

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As an almost-lifelong Oklahoman, I’ve been through this before.  I’ve watched weather updates, heard sirens, and “hunkered” down in hallways, bathrooms, cellars, and closets.  And…I’ve seen it up close and personal as well.  This happened to my own small hometown in 2009.  Trailer parks wiped out.  Eight or nine people dead.  Destruction and devastation and neighbors’ lives uprooted just like the trees in their front yards.

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And now, as then, there is good in every evil.  There is triumph in every test.  When bad things happen, good people come out of the woodwork.  I’ve seen it.  I am so proud of this state.  I am proud to be FROM here.  Someone was telling me about the news footage last night of the line of cars, stretching around blocks and blocks at ONE donation point.  Just one out of the whole city, and all you could see were headlights.   Not to sound cocky or anything, but guys, that’s just how we roll here.  When bad things happen, people are literally there in a moment to do whatever they can do.  Sometimes all you can do is hold people while they cry, but I can speak from experience:  there are times when that is everything.

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I think I know, intellectually, that there are good people in every state, and that if something comparable to this happened in California, or New Mexico, or Ohio, or New Jersey, or anywhere, people would be there to help.  Donations would pour in.  I know this.  But somehow, Oklahoma feels special.  The outpouring you see here isn’t just charity.  It’s love.  Pure, undiluted love in action.  I like to think it’s because we’re largely a group of God-fearing Christians, but that’s arrogant.  Oklahoma and Texas specifically, and the Midwest in general, are just very special places.

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It’s interesting to me how my thoughts move when something like this happens.  I have been feeling a need to draw near to God all day today.  As I drove in to work, I was singing some church songs and just kind of realizing what I was feeling.  I acknowledge how sad it is that it takes something like this to make me feel that need, to make me feel that strong desire to really come closer to God, but above and beyond that, I feel mostly a deep gratitude for the opportunity.  I’m thankful for this tragedy, in that it serves as a reminder that catches my attention, that wakes me up, that makes me realize as little else rarely does… I NEED God!  I need faith in my life.  I need to believe in a higher purpose, a higher power, in a wisdom far beyond mine that knows all, understands all, and has a greater plan for good from this, than I can scarcely begin to comprehend.

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I really truly do understand how angry that sentiment could possibly make some people.  Those who lost their homes, their children, their workplaces…I get how they could read that and go, “Are you INSANE?  Are you crazy?  How dare you be thankful for something like this, for MY suffering and MY loss?!”  All I can say is that I am.  I am thankful that I have the opportunity to be reminded of God’s awesome power, and how people’s love for Him leads them to walk in love for their fellow man and just give so much and so deeply.

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And I would say to everyone who is struggling with their thoughts about this, with their pain and anger and doubt, but especially to those people who lost loved ones, particularly children- can you just imagine where they are today?  Can you see the beauty that surrounds them?  The sunlight, the warmth, the absolute and utter peace and lack of pain where they are?  The love that they are wrapped in?  Can you picture the scene?  They are in the place Jesus Himself described as Paradise.  Feel that, and let it comfort you.

All in all, my pledge is this:  I mean to take advantage of the opportunity to wake up another day and draw near to God and also show that love by doing what I can to help those whose lives have been impacted by this storm tragedy.

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Until next time,

D.

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Sweating, Hatching, and Breathing! May 16, 2013

English: Drops of sweat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hello all!  Technically this is the second post of the day, but really the first, since the first-first was a  re-blog.  I want you all to know that this post is coming to you from inside a universe of sweat, both literal and mental.  For one thing, I just finished exercising.  At work. Never let anyone tell you that working in a church building is a bad deal, because hey- at what other job can you exercise and write a blog all in the same day and still get paid.  Ok, there are probably a lot of others I’ve never even thought of, but just let me have my moment.

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Anyway, the phone hasn’t been ringing much today, and I’m caught up on all my other tasks, and in the face of that boredom my weakness just crumbled.  I found myself scrounging in the fridge in the fellowship hall and discovering leftover triple chocolate fudge cake from their last gathering.  Now, I knew if I ate it, I’d be down to about ONE Weight Watchers point left for the day, but, sadly, I didn’t choose to stop myself.  So in order to combat my weakness, I decided to try to hike up some points on my ActiveLink monitor by going for a jog in the upstairs hall.  And that is the source of the sweat.  A) Heat rises, and it’s hot up in that old hall.  B) I just did something I’ve never done before in my entire life.  Now for some people, what I’m about to tell you is probably your warm-up for the actual exercise, but for me it was a pretty big deal:  After climbing the stairs to the second floor, I jogged up and down that hall…for 20 minutes straight!  Initially, I set my timer for 12 minutes.  At the end of the timer, I thought I might collapse, but instead, my mind said, ‘Hey, why not try for 20?’ So without stopping, I set my timer for another 8 minutes and kept going, and I finished it!  I was all proud of myself for the 10 straight minutes I did a couple of days ago, but this is a whole new dimension for me.  (At least I hope it will be a whole new dimension, as I want to lose 40 lbs. in the next four and a half months before The Blathering in Charleston.)

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The mental sweat is coming from the audition for my local Little Theatre that is looming on Saturday like a date with death.  A few days ago, I had talked myself out of it.  I told myself I didn’t really want to do it anyway, and that if I am selected, it will mean a huge time commitment once rehearsals start- 7-10 pm every weekday for about a month, and who has time for that, right?  But here’s the deal.  This is just another one of those big steps for me, those ‘hatching’ moments where I take a chance on doing something just because I’ve always thought it would be fun.  This is just. like. Charleston.  Despite my misgivings and fears, I have to give it a try, or I will hate myself.  Seriously.  If I let this Saturday and Sunday go by without forcing myself to go to that audition, I will feel like a giant failure.  I really don’t know what the big deal is.  I mean, I’m not even trying for a part- just the chorus, for crying out loud.  Maybe part of me is secretly hoping they’ll think I’m good enough and just give me a tiny small part, but I don’t even care about that.  Really.  I just want to say I tried it, I took a chance, and I went for it.

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Ok, calming down now.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Repeat.  Oh, that reminds me!  I was about finished with the 12 minute section of my jog when I noticed the Bible verse on the bulletin board at the end of the hall.  I thought it was perfect for the moment, and that if/when I do another race of some sort, I will have this put on a t-shirt:  Psalm 150:1, which reads in part: ”Let everything that has breath praise God!” So for the rest of my jog, I prayed thankful prayers that I had breath (albeit huffing and puffing breath), that I was physically able to even attempt to move, that I would have strength to finish the goal I had set for myself, both for today and for the next few months.  And I finished today’s, so woot-woot for me.   I know you’ll be holding your breath to hear how the audition goes.

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Until next time,

D.

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Making Friends Who Disagree With You (is the healthiest thing in the world)

Reblogged from Shaunanagins:

• 

I did not expect this to be the most life-changing part of my semester in Washington DC.

When I first left, I thought the biggest impact would be academic--the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, Museum volunteering.  Either that, or my health would improve with the balance and space.  Or maybe I would meet a tall, dark, handsome American man and run away to Hawaii with a green card.

Read more… 1,045 more words

* Hello all! I am sharing this because I think it is true and correct and extremely important in this world where suddenly disagreement = hate and dissention = judgment and the way people form their world views is limited to listening only to those who agree with them. This woman is so worth reading! I have a lot of other things on my mind, but for now, enjoy! * Until next time, D.

Some Done Deals, and the Peace They Bring! May 3, 2013

Thinking (Photo credit: Moyan_Brenn)

Hello all!  You know what just irks me?  Feeling the need and desire to write, but not knowing what to say.  That happens to me very frequently.  I’ll be just… in that mood.  If you consider yourself a writer at all, even an amateur, you know the one.  For me it’s that I just feel like writing, like I just need to write, RIGHT NOW.  Forget the fact that I may or may not have anything particularly significant to talk about, as long as I’m getting the chatter that’s in my head relocated to the paper or the screen.  It probably doesn’t help that I don’t craft posts ahead of time and save them in organized draft folders for posting at a later, more appropriate time, as some of the bloggers I’ve read apparently do.  I post when I have something on my mind AND I have time to devote to it.  This is probably the reason I often have ideas for posts that never get written.  Things pop into my head, and I’ll think, “Man, that would be a good thing to blog about.  I should write that down.” But then I don’t, and by the time I have a good stretch of time to sit down and write, I’m all “What was that I wanted to write about, again?”  I should definitely work on that.

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Right now I’m all hyped up because after weeks of indecision and dithering, I am tickled to announce that I have booked my flights for my trip to Charleston!  Yay, me!  I am so excited about this.  I know I have gone back and forth, worried incessantly, and probably driven everyone I know stark raving mad, but now that it’s a done deal, I am so happy.  Part of me is still a little concerned about the whole ‘fitting in’ thing.  I feel like I’m older and at a different stage of life than a lot of these amazing bloggers I will be meeting.  Many of them are writing about their babies and nap schedules and nursing problems and sleeping through the night, and terrible twos and kindergarten schedules, and I’m thinking, ‘Boy, could I have been the queen of this world if they’d had this stuff when the girls were little!’  But alas, they didn’t.  So now I have twin girls who are almost 20 years old, and a boy who will be 12 on Monday, and sometimes I’m wondering what I have to offer.  I don’t really have too many Raising Twins cautionary tales or horror stories, unless it’s about what to do when one of your twins literally hates the other one, or when your son is almost universally looked upon as being either the next Jim Carrey/Robin Williams or a future school shooter, and which one he becomes is entirely dependent upon you and your parenting.  That’s a scary-as-heck place to be, I can promise you.

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Anyway, I do realize that there are bloggers of all ages, in all life stages, with all kinds of stories, who will be at this event, and I am so very much looking forward to the adventure and the journey of being a part of it.  I am a little torn between tempering my expectations so that if I don’t find at least one or two people who become fairly good friends I will not be terribly disappointed, and having faith that this is going to be the best, most amazing thing I have done thus far in life and it will result in some wonderful friendships.  I think I’m going to do with the latter, as that seems to have been the experience of many of those who have attended in previous years.  If nothing else, I am excited that it will be the first time I have just branched out on my own and done something for myself, by myself.  (Except for having someone drive me to and from the airport, which my mom has always been willing to do for me, thank goodness.)

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So, more about my son.  He started out in public school in our local district, but he has never really done well.  He has struggled both academically and socially.  We’ve had him tested at every turn, and he has some non-specified processing difficulties, as well as a diagnosis of ADHD.  He also seems to have some Asperger-y traits, but has never been diagnosed with that.  He was in 4th grade last year in public school, and we have been “homeschooling” this year.  I put that in quotes because while we started out with a very structured, organized system at the beginning of the school year through online public school, we pulled out of that after about six weeks, and have been taking a different approach since then.  We have just explored different things that he really loves, and I have tried to teach him some real-world skills that he will need in the future, but there has been very little structure or consistency.   I have really beaten myself up about this.  But he has grown so much, matured in a lot of ways, and I think more than anything, he has really benefitted from just being out from under pressure.  He has spent a lot of time with me, coming to work with me most days since I am blessed with a flexible job as a church secretary, and I think it has been what he needed.  Our lives for the several years leading up to this year have been marked by change, tragedy, and chaos, and I don’t think he handled it very well.

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Thankfully, I think that is largely behind us!  This week, I found an educational option that I think offers the best of both worlds- the self-pace and lower pressure of homeschooling with a little more of the structure and consistency found in the public school environment than I have been able to offer him while trying to work full time simultaneously.  It’s a small private Christian school here that is basically a group homeschool, but the beauty is that it’s NOT I who is responsible for the teaching and structure.  It’s a little pricey for what it is- they want $230 per month, and if I didn’t think it would be incredibly presumptuous, I’d ask friends and family for “sponsors.”  But I think it is do-able for me, whether I get help or not, so I am very happy and excited for both of us.  Honestly I will miss him coming to work with me, but this will be so much better for him- he will get the education he needs in an environment that fits him.

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I could go on and on about this, but this post is already longer than usual.  I’ll just say that for now- I am happy, the stars are aligned, and everything’s coming up roses, and I won’t even make a remark about ducking under my desk to avoid the Other Shoe Dropping.  Oops.  Scratch that.

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Until next time,

D.

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Some Thoughts From A Special Guest! April 29, 2013

English: Scroll of the Psalms (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hello all!  I have something new for you today-  I have a guest writer.   Allow me to introduce you:

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Michelin Mama is her bloggy code name, and well, she’s a glimpse of Jesus on earth.  This is a woman who gave almost 32 years of service to her job, and now continues to give of herself in every possible sense.  Need your flower bed thinned out?  She’s there with a shovel, and when she’s done, she will haul the flowers and plants miles away to plant them at a Christian summer camp.  Need food made for a sick friend, a new mom, or a grieving family?  She’s on the doorstep with a full meal and a smile.  Need a ride somewhere?  She doesn’t just go across town, she’s been known to drive people on a 4-hour road trip to visit loved ones in prison.   In short, she’s a practicing saint.  She’s also my mom.  (Bet you figured that out.)  She’s a novice to blogging, but she comes complete with a lifetime of experience at seriously, contemplatively studying the Bible, loving the Lord, and showing her faith by her works.  What follows is a devotion she wrote on the subjects of depression and Divine comfort.

 

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Psalm 130: 1-8   Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord; ²  Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive  to my cry for mercy. ³ If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? ⁴ But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you.  ⁵ I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. ⁶ I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.  ⁷ Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.  ⁸ He himself will redeem Israel  from all their sins.

Depression is often accompanied by an overwhelming sense of loneliness and self-loathing.  As we descend into the darkness of our pain, fear, or loss, we sometimes assume that our depression separates us from God.  We feel we have disappointed God and that He won’t have any more to do with us until we are “fixed.”  No.  According to this psalm, written by someone who had known the darkness of depression, God joins us in the darkness!  When you face depression, repeat the psalmist’s assurance to yourself:  God’s love is unfailing.

“More than sentries long for the dawn.” 

Anyone who has ever worked a midnight shift can understand this feeling.  Working at night in a factory, you are busy.  There are lights on and you can’t wait for your shift to be over.  But a sentry is alone on a quiet tower, peering into darkness.  It strains the eyes, it’s quiet…your eyes want to close so badly, but everyone’s safety depends on you.  Every snap or rustle startles you.  Is something out there?  Can’t you imagine how they long for the light:  Hurry, dawn!  We are tired of looking into darkness.

Verse 6:  “I long for the Lord more than sentries long for the dawn.”  Have you looked into the darkness of what is going on in your life and desperately longed to see what God had in mind?  To see His hand in all of it?

“Like a small child is quieted with its mother.”

Psalm 131:2 I have stilled and quieted myself, just as a small child is quieted with its mother.  Yes, like a small child is my soul within me.  Oh, Israel (author add:  Oh, Christian) put your hope in the Lord now and always.

Don’t you love how the Bible paints word pictures to put a point across?  Is this the acid test for truly following Christ?  Trusting the Lord?  Fighting depression?  If we only will, we can calm ourselves and imagine climbing up in our Father God’s lap and just feeling so relaxed and safe.

       Michelin Mama

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Isn’t that the truth?  No matter what age we attain, sometimes we just need the comfort of a loving embrace that speaks without words to our hearts and says, “You know what?  It’s all going to be ok.  You’re not alone.”  Whether from God Himself or from a parent, a sibling, a friend, or even on occasion, a stranger, comfort comes from the strength of the arms around us.  All we have to do is walk into them.

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Until next time,

D.

God’s Plan for Man

• Hear:  Romans 10:17
• Believe:  John 8:24
• Repent:  Luke 13:3
• Confess: Romans 10:10
• Be Baptized:  Mark 16:16
• Be Faithful:  Revelation 2:10

(credit: http://mclishchurchofchrist.com/ )

Finding a Life, From Wildly Different Places. Or Maybe Not. April 25, 2013

Hello again.  I wanted to talk a little more about the why of the fact that I considered, even for a moment, auditioning for Little Theater with the second lead MALE’s best song.  There’s just something about Javert.  He just reminds me of myself, in the way that he’s a dedicated rule-follower, kind of fanatical about upholding the tenets of the System he represents and works for, but he seems most content and happy when he’s subverting that system.  And yet it’s the internal struggle between what duty demands and the heart compels that ultimately destroys him.  Unlike Javert, I’m hoping to get that balance worked out before I throw myself onto a water-covered brick wall thing with a resounding crunch that is quite possibly the WORST-sounding death I’ve ever heard on film.

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On the audition thing, though, I finally did come up with the perfect song for me.  Are you ready for this?  “When You’re Good to Mama” from Chicago!  It’s not too high, not too overdramatic, (Evita, really? {see comments in last post}) and it will demand that I come out of my shy little shell and show a little sass.  Which is something I have long felt the need to do, and part of the reason I am even doing this.  In short… it’s perfect.  Instead of being nervous, I am now completely excited and looking forward to the audition.  If I had any experience in theater whatsoever, I’d probably have been auditioning for the role of Mme. Thenardier.  The Thenardiers are awful, awful people, but since I’m too old for Eponine or Cosette, she’s the only semi-major role I’d be suited for.  Until they make Javert a woman. HA!!

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I also thought I’d share a little bit about some of the things I’ve mentioned in passing in the last few posts.  Our trip to Medieval Fair in Norman went as planned.  I was able to meet the guy I had talked to online and hear his Irish pub band.  I even bought his CD.  He has jumped the ‘ship, though- hasn’t been online in weeks, so we’ll probably never talk again.  On a related note, anyone want a free CD of this group?  Their song, The Scotsman, is really fun.

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I went to a few “church lady” events the last couple of weekends, which I really enjoyed.  One was an overnight retreat at a Christian youth camp where we planted flowers and did some volunteer landscaping for the camp.  It was a blast, although nobody got any sleep.  Picture a big dormitory room that sleeps about 25 or 30 people, half of them little old ladies blissfully snoring in symphony, and the other half 30- and 40-somethings and teenage girls, who didn’t have the foresight to fall asleep before the snorers, lying there praying to GOD they could get at least a couple hours’ sleep before daylight! But it was a really nice weekend.  The theme was joy.  The guest speakers talked about finding your joy and learning to see joy even in the worst times, and for a craft project we made a Joy Journal.  Here’s mine:

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Then last weekend I went to a Ladies’ Day event that was just a half-day thing, with some singing and a couple of lessons by another guest speaker, and a luncheon.  The theme for this one was courage, with lessons from the book of Joshua.  I enjoyed this event too.  I didn’t get quite as much cup-filling from the lessons themselves as I did from just riding in a van full of crazy, wonderful, beautiful Christian sisters for a few hours.  Something different to do on a weekend.

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What’s interesting about all this is that I have talked before about sometimes feeling just the tiniest bit like maybe my “religion,” by which I mean the church I attend, the things I say and do in the public eye (read: social media), and the things I believe and endorse or don’t, is kind of like an act.  A performance of sorts.  But I’ve recently been creating and building a more satisfying life by finding fulfillment in both true acts of expression of my beliefs (retreats and ladies’ events) and performance that everybody KNOWS is an act; that is, theater.  And it’s got me thinking that maybe the two things are often more similar than they should be, but that’s deeper than I want to get today, so I’ll save that for another post.  Just something to think about:  in what areas of your life do you find yourself ‘acting’ most frequently, and should you be working to change that at all?

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Well, I really need to get busy and get some work done.  Thanks for reading, and I hope YOU have a blessed and fulfilled day!

Until next time,

D.

UPDATE:  ETA:  Ok, NOW I’m nervous.  Just looked at the Facebook Event invite for the auditions, and looking down the list of all those names and thinking of trying to sing in front of those folks…I’m definitely feeling that little whisper that says, “Never mind…you didn’t really want to do this anyway, did you??”  Must. Ignore. The. Whisper!

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ValJean, Javert, O’Hara, and Me April 24, 2013

English: New York City: Les Misérables at the Imperial Theatre. Location: Manhattan, 249 West 45th Street / 238-250 West 46th Street (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hello all!  I have needed, I mean literally needed to write a post here for so long, and I just haven’t been able to find a moment.  I don’t have a way to blog at home in the evenings.  Our family laptop is painfully slow, and also always being hogged by one of the kids.  I know it makes me sound like a Slacker Extraordinaire, but I usually write my blog posts at work.  When you’re a church secretary who basically gets paid to sit by a phone that rarely rings, you can do that.  The bad part is that all the things I have needed and wanted to write about have sort of fallen by the wayside.  I wanted to do the A to Z blogging challenge, NaPoWriMo, etc.  I wanted to talk about the bombings and explosions, and loving oneself and loving humanity and like, God and religion and tragedy and survival and all those things that swirl in our collective head when our lives are disrupted by ugliness and accidents.  But when I finally have a moment and sit down to try to write about it all, I just can’t think what I wanted to say about it.  Or I feel everything’s been said and I don’t have anything worth adding, or maybe I deal with certain kinds of things by just blocking them out of my head.

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Or maybe I’m just a remarkably selfish individual, because the things that are filling the space in my head right now are as follows:

First of all is Les Miserables.  (Sorry I can’t do the little punctuation marks in the right places.)  So right now I am obsessed with Les Mis.  I rented the movie the other night and have watched it about 3 times.  I downloaded the 40-song soundtrack on iTunes and have listened to it incessantly ever since, and to top all that off, my local Little Theatre group is putting on LM this summer.  I would love to audition for a part, but I realize I don’t have enough experience for that.  No experience at all, actually.  Therefore, I am thinking of auditioning for the chorus.  (Ok, I am going to audition for the chorus if I can find a really good song to use for my audition. I’ve blown about ten bucks on iTunes instrumental tracks of different songs I could audition with.) I can think of nothing else!  I have been reading the novel, looking at the SparkNotes info on the novel, reading about the June Rebellion and the whole barricade thing, just obsessing in general.  I don’t know why.  I have realized that there is so much more story than the movie could have included, and even reading the small part of the novel that I have read thus far, it’s just so much more tragic!  I just feel I have to keep reading and thinking about this book until I find out why it is just sort of taking root in me so completely.

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The other thing is The Blathering.  The trip to Charleston in October that I think about every single day.  I check flight prices every day.  I read Twitter every day looking for other writers mentioning it.  I dither and vacillate back and forth on whether I should really go, whether it’s a selfish and ridiculous expense, whether I’ll have fun and make friends.  I think about how much I’d love to lose more weight before the trip, but how every stinking day is a struggle not to put the wrong things in my my mouth and thoroughly defeat that goal, and how I have absolutely GOT to learn to love myself and develop a style and rock my look no matter what.  I think about how maybe I should be planning the tours I want to take and the plantations I want to see, but what if I don’t find anybody who wants to do those things with me?   Or what if the planned group events  take up all the time that I’m there and I don’t actually get to see anything but the resort and the airport shuttle?  I think about how I really want to ask all these questions and find fellow early-planners on Twitter and Facebook but feel like it’s too early to be obsessing over these things, and most people probably won’t even know their plans for a few more months yet.  (Maybe next year I should help organize!  That would put my pre-planning obsessive skills to good use.)

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So anyway.  I have plenty of other things that I continue to worry about, that as I told a friend the other night, are the usual things that decorate the hamster wheel that is my life.   Many things that I need to make decisions about and then follow through and be at peace with, many things that I need to just determine and do, so to speak.  But now is not the time.  Luckily for my dear, devoted readers, as Scarlett O’Hara said, tomorrow is (another post and) another day!

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Until next time,

D.

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