Deep Calls

Often -- too too often -- I am yipped and yapped at by should's and ought's. I am the problem...on some days my 'rose-colored' glasses are streaked with grim and smudged as I rub them with grimmier fingers. Yesterday as I scanned the horizon of life -- not just my life, but life as far and wide as I could see -- I saw patterns of things that should not be the way they are, things that ought to have come through change to good and settled by now. It is weariness to me. I can quote the answers but they come out ~ on days like those ~ as trite, heartless syllogisms: true in point of fact, but without heart and devoid of life. I know the power that ought to course through the Body of Christ ~ the dynamic miracle, the cutting edge creativity, the unshakable integrity...and I see my'self' and see that in these and in so soooooo many areas I stand 'the chief of all sinners'. Yes, 4 fingers pointed back at me and 1 pointed out at situation after situation, eve...

Shooting was very fun...and kind of scary. And loud. And I liked to shoot. And Erica hurt her hand. And the family that shoots together, keeps all their stuff. And BANG!

So I wrote the last one because I had an image...not a story. I was reading my 'dictionary.com' entry that morning. OBVIOUSLY the word of the day was cacophony . cacophony: 1. harsh discordance of sound; dissonance: a cacophony of hoots, cackles, and wails. 2. a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds: the cacophony produced by city traffic at midday. 3. Music. frequent use of discords of a harshness and relationship difficult to understand. I instantly was struck with the juxtaposition of thought having cacophony too...but a cacophony silent to the world. My mind swirled with the idea/concept/questions ~ in my head, I 'hear' thoughts...when I can concentrate it is (usually) one voice. But though I hear it , it isn't made of sound....but if I 'hear' it -- and I do -- what is it? So I stopped on an image of those moments when thoughts bombard me from all directions at once: memories of conversations, sometimes mixed with things I wish I had said; questio...

She readjusted her glasses and intently set her eyes to the print infront of her. Words and words. By the bottom of the page, lines and lines of lines and lines...she gave up. Snapping the book shut and pushing it to the back of the desk, she spun in her chair to gaze out the window. Marion said her name 4 times before it registered ~ the silent cacophany of her thoughts blaring above any sound her ears tried to bring her. a beginning...of something

I re-read the last blog. I told my daughter it was a bit like fruitcake. That isn't exactly a perfect comparison, especially because I really don't like fruitcake at all. What I mean is it was chalked full of too much...too much-ness. The sentences were one simile and one metaphor and one comparison after another. (I bet, Garth, that you either laughed out loud, or didn't even bother finishing it.) I thought about it and wondered if it might have had something to do with the fact that I hadn't been able to write anything in like a week -- couldn't even really "think" writing. I wonder if the images stacked up by the door of my mind and all tumbled out together. Don't get me wrong...it was fun to write "Reflections". When I told my daughter that I needed suggestions cuz I had hit a DRY spot, she said I should think of a memory from when they were all little and write a story. I remembered a dress-up box that the kids had. They had spent hours ...

She stood, like a cameo surrounded by the perfect oval of her tall mirror, amid the scattered jumble of this and that dress tossed carelessly from the dress-up chest. The gown she had chosen was only barely still lavender and scarred by careless coffee drips and after date make-up smudges. She didn't see them. She didn't see the unmended rip at the hem where a misplaced high heel had severed material from seam. With an unconscious tug at the sleeve to pull it back up on her shoulder, she focused on the old lace table cloth and the clips barrettes she was using to secure it to her braids -- braids she had bobby-pinned to the top of her head in what looked to her to be a crown. She had chosen the mismatched jumble of barrettes with the practiced eye of a Milan couturier. Stepping back and turning slowly -- this way, then that -- she surveyed the effect as the light caught the facets in the 'diamonds' of the tiara that held her bridal veil in place. She smiled. And she saw...

I like the feel of a cold floor on bare feet on a brisk morning. Funny because I like a warm bed to tuck my feet into at night. I like the first whiff of fresh ground coffee beans. I like the color of the sky at twilight -- deepening aqua blue, especially when the trees are silhouetted against it. I like roses and I like violets. Violets are especially wonderful early in the morning when the dew is sprinkled on the green velvet leaves and the violets are deep and purple and full of perfume. I like the smell of homemade bread when it is baking in the oven. I like the first bite of homemade cookies. I like the magic you catch when your eyes lock with someone's and you know the same delightful thought dances in your mind and theirs. I like the wonder I feel as I gaze at art in a museum. I love standing there, caught in the amazement of beauty. I like strong Irish cheddar cheese, crisp crackers and Earl Grey Tea. I like a bit of butter, with salt and pepper on popcorn and a cup of good...

after a hiatus ... back to finish John 3 Ok...Jesus has had a "let me tell you what is in your heart, and let me tell you who I Am" chat with Nicodemus. As I have said, I think for me the only way that the beginning of John 3 makes sense is to read it with some OT scriptures...ones that I think were on Nic's heart, ones that I think Jesus used to reveal 1) the state of Nic's heart, 2) the dynamic need for the Holy Spirit (ruach) of God, not just perfection in religious practice, and 3) that he, Jesus, is telling Nic that he is Messiah, and God. It is, it seems, all too too much for Nic to deal with. His question, (John 3:9) "How can this be?" Nicodemus asked . (NIV) to me reveals a man whose carefully crafted world view has just been shattered. He cannot deny what Jesus has revealed...but...what does he do? He KNOWS KNOWS that the Pharisees are not merely out to win a philosophical/theological debate. They are out for blood. Can he jump? It seems as the sto...

Sometimes trying to write is like...well facing a room where the furniture is all over the place -- most of it blocking the door. Going in. getting across, to "the other side" -- it is so hard. That is how I feel. I remember the room when it was in order. The light was streaming in -- dancing off the crystals meant to catch the light and play with it. Beauty everywhere. Windows wide -- an inviting panorama. but ... today... clutter, shin-high clutter walls of things out of place windows blocked.... I stand on the door step and try to ponder going in but I just can't Maybe tomorrow...I'll try

as I read through Acts ... and the attendant epistles... I am teaching through Acts and the letters of Paul right now to a gaggle of gangly teens --- yeah, that was bad -- I know -- but ... ok, no excuse for sappy alliteration so ~ as I was saying The characters and the flow of the story are so intriguing: Paul, the uber-educated ex-Pharisee, trudging along the road from Antioch to Derbe to Iconium to ... ... ??? on his "second missionary journey"... thinking, "lets go to Asia!" and the Holy Spirit saying "nope!" " OH, ummmm OK, then, how about if we go NORTH to Bithynia?" and the Holy Spirit says, "nope, NOPE!!" I think I have felt that way...heck, I think I feel that way right now: "OK...so we have been out doing our best to do what we are called to and ~ ok, never mind the beatings, and oppositon from people who used to be our friends (I suspect he actually KNEW some of the Jewish Christians who came into the region...especially...