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Musings
Dare to Decide
There is something about life that, little by little, makes us forget all that is good
November 02, 2006

She walks the street as though the pain, the heaviness of her heart, were more than she could bear. So tiny that her long, gray-streaked hair nearly covers her body, she doesn't look up, she doesn't acknowledge anyone passing by. She's lived on this street all her life, among relatives, yet she is very much alone.

She walked three miles to and from her job at the factory until her legs could take it no more. Having too much pride to ask for help and not knowing how to count money, she couldn't ride the bus which would have picked her up seven doors from her home. When she returned from work there was no rest at home where grandchildren and great nieces and nephews were waiting to ask a million questions--and make as many demands. She was supposed to feed them, but snacks from the dollar store were the best she could muster. Her frail body had to have a moment to rest. She puffed on a cigarette as a substitute for her own meal.

Throughout the evening she greeted many visitors as they came to pick up and drop off their children, tell her their problems and ask for money she didn't have. She also had the added responsibility of caring for her older brother and sister. Thankfully, they were able to provide a little money for the maintenance of the household but it was far from enough to keep everything going.

She didn't have a lot of good in her life. She didn't have much to give her hope. Then the furnace went out on the first really cold day in the fall.

"What more, Lord? How can I take more?"

There is something remarkable about the cry of surrender. There is something even more remarkable about the timing of unrelated events when God's working His plan. On this morning when she'd had all she could take, strangers came knocking at her door. They were the people who'd come together to work for the restoration of her sister's constitutional rights which had been violated by the taking of her home for back taxes while the sister's money was controlled by a court appointee.

The people were able to offer hope with a promise to move quickly. But no one forgot this was really God's arrangement and God's plan which was offering the hope.

"There is something about life that, little by little, makes us forget all that is good. This can happen to anyone...and so we must look for a cure against it. Praise be that such a cure exists: the act of quietly making a decision. A decision stirs the mind from the slumber of monotony. A decision breaks the magic spell of custom and the long row of weary thoughts. A decision will bring blessings upon even the weakest beginning. A decision is an awakening to the eternal." --Søren Kierkegaard

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Rants
Am I a Radical?
How can we actually look at ourselves objectively?
November 05, 2006

I was raised to keep my mouth shut and mind my own business. Now I don't suggest my parents were mean, they weren't. They just wanted we girls to be the kind of sweet young woman every 'prince charming' would be delighted to carry away and live with--happily ever after.

Something went wrong with me and I still haven't figured it out. Inside I feel like the mousy wallflower I was prepared to be, but things keep going wrong. It usually begins with my opening my mouth. No, that's not right, either. It begins with a propensity to feel the pain of others. That pain is what makes my mouth fly open. I think maybe God eggs me on. He just wants to show me how quickly I can get myself into hot water so He can rescue me.

God wants all his children to know that no one can care for them as well as can He. And with the pain swelling up within us, He is working a plan to relieve someone else's pain while He is also teaching us the lessons He most wants to impart to each of us.

So, which matters? being popular or being used? I don't like to be used by people, but I'm honored to be used by my Heavenly Father.

I'm off to a meeting and I'm going to open my mouth..........again.

"The radical is that unique person who actually believes what he says. He is that person to whom the common good is the greatest personal value. He is that person who genuinely and completely believes in humankind. The radical is so completely identified with humankind that he personally shares the pain, the injustices, and the sufferings of all his fellow humans. For the radical the bell tolls unceasingly, and every man’s struggle is his fight." --Saul Alinsky, "Rules for Radicals"

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Musings
Reactionary or Revolutionary
The struggle to become something solid
November 08, 2006

I had a bad case of thin skin and shallow thinking--you know the kind--so transparent you could see there was nothing inside. It was terribly embarrassing, so I tried to make adjustments that would conceal the emptiness.

Not knowing how to become something solid, something real, I reacted to other's opinions. Everything about me was reactionary. I reacted to this one's criticism; then I reacted to that one's criticism but no matter how dizzily I spun in circles of accommodation, you could still see through me.

I tried so hard to be something. It was so exhausting and so frustrating. Eventually I got so tired, I threw up my hands and cried out that it was hopeless. There was no use trying to be what anyone wanted me to be. There was no pleasing anyone.

In my typical reactionary stance, I went from trying to please all the way to the other extreme--I rebelled against anything and everything.

As we all know, that's no solution either. When the confusion and the exhaustion from the befuddled mess overwhelmed me, I had no choice but to slow and to let go.

LET GO!?!

Yeah, let go of it all and be comfortable being the way I'm supposed to be. If I am supposed to be transparent, cool! Chameleon's have great survival instincts.

The wonderful thing about letting go is having no choice but to turn everything over to God then gradually realizing the unformed spirit is joined by and infused with the strength of the Holy Spirit.

Strength, resolve, purpose, passion for the purpose I have been given--where did those things come from anyway? I feel different; I feel changed. But how did I change? I didn't do anything

or did I?

Did I really let go?

"A humble man can do great things with an uncommon perfection because he is no longer concerned about incidentals, like his own interests and his own reputation, and therefore he no longer needs to waste his efforts in defending them." --Thomas Merton

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Musings
Missing Father
How we need our daddy
November 13, 2006

He's a cool kid. He is very smart and he thinks a lot. He can be sensitive; he is intuitive. He has all the tools a young person needs in order to achieve, in order to make a difference in this world.

What will he do with that potential? It is difficult to say at this point in time. School started in August and by the beginning of November he'd changed schools three times, been suspended four times. Boredom is so intense during the day while everyone else is at work or in school, he's explosive by the time they all return home. Roughing up the petite woman who is dealing with suicidal thoughts and agitating the ADHD youngster into the kind of violence that causes a child to ram his fist through a door window are the results.

Social Services were requested over a month ago. They've got a huge backlog and cannot say when they'll have the time to come. In the meantime, the father who really cared about him and was staying at home to supervise him, doing everything he could to help his son get it together, has been taken off to jail for parole violation. Parole violation is not to be condoned, but how much greater the need of the child than the need for the rigid interpretation of the rule.

When the earthly father writes letters to the son about anger management and about relying on his Heavenly Father, the words sink in, the young man takes them to heart. Then something or someone triggers another explosion and he cannot see or feel the presence of either father at that moment.

Father is missing.

"One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters." --George Herbert

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Praise
It's all good, Lord
Life is crazy, mixed-up weird, but it's good, too.
November 16, 2006

I look at the pictures of retirement life as portrayed by AARP. The smiling silver-haired couple lounging on the beach is a long way from the retiree working as a Wal-mart greeter. I know some of both and in a crazy sort of way, I think the Wal-mart greeter may be the one who is more content with the retirement life.

Either way, whether we've amassed the proverbial fortune or we'll be working till we drop, life can be very good. Either way, life can also be very bad. The strength of the spiritual life, not the possessions, determines the life well-lived.

As I find myself immersed in my community, unable to solve any of the problems on my own, I must place it all into the care of the Heavenly Father, knowing only He can see the complete picture: past, present and future. Only He is in a position to work the real miracles. Only He can take a problem created by one generation and be around to bring it to resolution thousands of generations later. Only He can take the disagreement that began with the Biblical Abraham's sons and bring it to a workable conclusion.

I'm only capable of viewing the present and as long as I understand I am merely a spectator passing through today's moment in this crazy, mixed-up world, only then can I know the peace that comes through the Heavenly Father's assurances that He has the plan.

"Perhaps if I only realized that I do not admire what everyone seems to admire, I would really begin to live after all." --Thomas Merton

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Praise
Mister Mayor
do-gooder is a title frequently bestowed with a hint of derision
November 20, 2006

I've been reading about the Mayor of Newark. He's a young man with a degree from Yale Law School and he's living in the blighted portions of Newark. He started his campaign to clean up the inner city with a stent in a tent beside a drug-drenched housing complex. He is among the residents recently evicted from a condemned apartment building where he had lived for eight years.

The article says some accuse Mayor Cory Booker of grandstanding. Purposefully spending eight years of your life walking up 16 floors to an often unheated apartment when your income is six-figures is not grandstanding. Only other one I can think of who would let their passion carry them that far and that long would be Jesus.

I have noticed that 'do-gooder' is a title bestowed with a hint of derision. Books and movies often portray 'do-gooders' as eccentric, out-of-touch with reality persons who are barely tolerated by those who know them. Funny thing, though, is how often the 'do-gooders' do not even notice the scorn because they are so busy giving of themselves to those who need a friendly boost.

When Mayor Booker's assistant was helping him decide what to discard prior to his moving out of the condemned building, the assistant insisted on discarding:

The magenta “praise the Lord” throw pillows

Surely do wish I'd been there to retrieve one of those pillows--and I don't even like magenta!!

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Praise
The Blessing of the Untraditional Thanksgiving
I have come to believe the 'untraditional' Thanksgiving holds the true expression of Thanksgiving
November 23, 2006

I have come to believe the 'untraditional' Thanksgiving holds the true expression of Thanksgiving. Some years back, I received a message through the spirit to stay home on Thanksgiving Day instead of joining family. Needless to say, my daughter was not appreciative, but I stayed home not having any clue why I was to stay home unless it was to meditate and contemplate thankfulness toward the God who blesses us.

This was back in the early Internet days when email was more of a novelty and early in the morning on The Day, I was connected with two women I'd never known or corresponded with previously. I no longer remember how we came to connect on that particular day, but both of these women were home alone. They were not home alone by choice: they were home alone because they were dying, unable to be up and around, and they wanted to give their family members a break from caregiving. Both women knew they'd not see another holiday season and their sense of sorrow was so great they could not conceal it from family so they had asked the family to go elsewhere and have a great day.

One woman was set up with a computer by her bedside so she could lie in bed and type a little between spells of resting. Typing between spells of resting is how the three of us spent the day and they poured out to me all the anquish they were trying to conceal from their loving families. They both talked at length about God and how they related to their Heavenly Father while dealing with a lingering death.

By the end of the day, I had come to realize this was the most meaningful Thanksgiving I'd ever had. The women had been able to say to each other and to me what they were really feeling without being concerned about hurting another person.

The woman lying in bed with the computer quit writing prior to Christmas; the other lost touch in the winter months.

This year I was given a choice between Thanksgiving with my grandbaby and taking a woman across the state to the State Hospital where her husband resides. This husband and wife have not shared a holiday for four years.

I expect this to be another good Thanksgiving. May yours be blessed as well!!

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Teachings
The Giving that Endures
The gift of love that endures is the gift of...
November 27, 2006

Charities are having their massive annual campaigns to raise funding for people who need a boost up. With this money, they have great programs designed to help people who are down. I applaud their efforts; I encourage people to take advantage of the opportunities.

I am living and working among the people the charities are assisting. I now have a somewhat different perspective of what is most needed. I have always believed love is the greatest gift, but now I am developing opinions on how love can be given. It is not always given through money, for as long as there are humans, they will find a way to misuse material gifts even though they have been given in love.

What I have come to believe is the gift of love that endures is the gift of your time--of yourself. If I was knocked about as a kid by parents, grandparents, institutions, I would have no clue how to go about living. I would understand existing from day to day, never looking ahead except through delusional daydreams, but I would have no idea how to go about living. I would have gotten my education off the street: stealing and street selling, working with drug pushers, cheating on welfare.

I would see the way you are living through the shows I watch on the big screen TV someone bought off the street. Even though I am cynical about the reality of people actually living that way, I want it, but I have no clue how to get there. If you can spend time with me, letting me see how you live, maybe I can absorb some pointers on how to change my ways.

Most necessary is the time spent with the children who still have hope in their hearts. They are the ones who need the gift of love the most.

Mark 9:37 (NIV)
"Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

Luke 4:18-19 (NIV)
18"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

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Musings
Reversal of Fortune
My Christmas Wish for the young people of today is for wisdom to come to them at a very early age
November 30, 2006

I have reached a time and space where so many things I was told as a child, and which I readily disregarded as rubbish, now appear to be abundantly true. Had I been more insightful; had I been more attentive and accepting, one can only imagine how differently my allotted time on earth would have been used and how much greater value my existence would have realized.

The children listen with eyes wide open. But by the time they have begun to reach the status of adulthood, the eyes glaze over whenever anyone not of their own generation makes any kind of suggestion about life and living.

It seems humans have always been that way.

Apparently, we are intent upon continuing to always be that way.

"I used to consider that all of the talk and opinions of life, love, and happiness were nothing more than words spewed forth by those who were running away from their own lives. But, as in all things, we wake up one day and realize that the information we've ingested actually holds some weight within our own lives." --Edward B. Toupin, Ph.D.

My Christmas Wish for the young people of today is for wisdom to come to them at a very early age. If they take most of a lifetime to gain wisdom, as have their predecessors, time may not allow them to reverse the fortune we predecessors have laid upon their shoulders.

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