Moving Through the Room of Jello

Dear God;
moving within a new place is hard
even if i believe i'm supposed to be here
we're to be here
i am afraid

Leaving (not on a jet plane)

Dear God...

It's a new year but the newness began last year. You've definitely set me on a more narrow path.
So many words spoken into the atmosphere. (I don't believe words go away, they fly around in the air. We don't see them, but their effect is continuing.)

December 2 was 'go day'. Blessing, Blanky, & 3 girls, compelled to move on a road less traveled with little to 'go' with. Our plans were not Your plans (how funny is that?).

We left in dark rain on a Friday night; it stopped long enough to walk the streets of Hot Springs Arkansas. We left that state under torrential swallowing land rains. Car slip sliding across bridges as we crossed into Tennessee. 18-wheelers washed the car as they passed. It rained all the way to North Carolina. A much needed place of rest.

Resign, Resignation, Moving On

resign |riˈzīn|
verb
voluntarily leave a job or other position; leave, hand in one's notice, give notice, stand down, step down; leave, vacate, stand down from;renounce, relinquish

Dear God it’s me, your daughter—again.
“No good byes, farewell or dinner parties, or wonderful conversations over meals. Leave.”
How to explain that to the people I know? Not…can’t
I have the audacity to believe the compelling within my gut pushed me from comfortability onto a road unknown but not first traveled.
"Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household to the land that I will show you." God spoke those words to Abraham. He I am not.

And so without traditional so longs, farewells, auf wiedersehen, good-byes the Ford Focus Zx3 was packed. Harvey, my brother, helped us by taking things that wouldn't fit in the car (larger, but smaller, than believed).

What was I to tell people? "God told me"? There are times I don't even know if I do hear Your voice. Our conversations are unique. So, I prefer not to talk about something that doesn't make sense in the natural (when I'm being obedient to the compelling from the spiritual). All I have are the dreams of places to go, highways to drive, and a fellow traveler.

Dear God, thank you for taking care of us so far. There's so much to tell; too much for this blog. Tomorrow, from the same hotel, part 2.

i sit in my puffy chair

and finger ergonomic bumps

to do my bidding

rearranging

sights and sounds
to go

my way
to be

my truth
to save

my life

30 second

byte-size slices

of schizality
coming
fast, furious
shimmering, shaking
snaking, sliding,
deceiving
distracting
denying
but not delaying
my own
digital
demise
one
dot
at
a
time...

George MacDonald Quote of the Day...

From the man who comes to know and feel that Power in him and one with him, loneliness, anxiety, and fear vanish; he is no more an orphan without a home, a little one astray on the cold waste of a helpless consciousness. (The Hope of the Gospel, God's Family)

Living Truth

I am glad that Jesus didn't point to something other than himself, like a book or a tablet or a scroll or any object around him, and say, "That is the way, the truth and the life." When he referred to himself as the Truth that told me that the ultimate truth is not a purely abstract, mental concept. Truth wasn't something to wrap our minds around but our hearts. In other words, Truth is not a proposition but a Person. Here in this divided world, we can express a truth without living it. In heaven, where all is tried by the fire of God's presence, only those who are living truths will be able to stand the heat. There can be no duplicity. Only true integrity (wysiwyg) will be able to bear the "weight of glory."

Reel it in to the present

I am a man divided

I think truth

I fondle lies

wysiNOTwyg

I smile outside

Only God knows what's going on in the inside

who can deliver me from this perpetual state of duplicity?

case in point:

last Thursday I cut down a large diseased section of our fig tree

I left two branches for my son to help carry to the front sidewalk

My son tells me that he can't lift them

They are too heavy for his pencil-thin arms

I ignore him because I've got more important things to do

The next day the large trash truck is coming

I remember the two limbs

I run out, grab them, and haul them to the front sidewalk

They feel light in my hands

I remember my son's words

"They're too heavy for me, Daddy"

He lied.

I confront him at the breakfast table

Humiliating him in from of his mother and sister

He starts to cry

He stops eating

I justify my anger by saying I want him to know that he's stronger than he thinks he is!

My wife tells me that I only want to prove that I'm right

She knows me well

But I ignore her and drag my son out to the front yard

To make him prove that he is wrong

He sees the two branches that I've separated from all the rest of the limbs

He says Those aren't the branches!

I say Those are the branches!

We play several rounds of ping pong

I am the stronger, better ping pong player

He carries the limbs to the sidewalk with some effort and says

These aren't the limbs!

The ping pong whooshes pass me

I try to help him see the truth

All he can see is an angry father who is more concerned that he is right

He calls me a liar

I shout at him and tell him to go to his room

I face his mother who looks at me like I'm a stranger

She has to teach him for the rest of the day

And I've just ruined it for her

What do I care? I'm right! I know the truth!

THOSE WERE THE LIMBS!

She tells me that I have to face the weeping angel in the room

I go and stand before his door

Lord have mercy on me

Give me the words to say to help my son see that I'm right

I walk through the door

There is my son

A Tempest

Rocking

Weeping

My heart skips a beat

I forget my wrath for a second

I forget the truth I was going to whack him on the head with

He says he wants to talk to mama

He wants to share his side of the story

I say she's not the judge

He can share his side of the story with me

He knows I already know his side of the story

And he stands condemned in my eyes

But he braces himself

He says those weren't the same limbs

Maybe a kid in the neighborhood came by and took it

I look in his eyes

I don't see a desperate criminal trying to weasel his way out of a crime

I see a little child desperately wanting to be believed

Wanting to be loved

I say do you really believe those aren't the limbs?

He nods his head

I breathe

The moment of truth

Ok, son, I will believe you

Even though my mind tells me that those are the same limbs

I will choose to believe that you believe they aren't

I know that there are many things I've done in life that were or weren't true

But only Jesus will be able to sort them out for me

And when that happens, it will not be a day to mourn

but a day to rejoice

To see our lives the way He sees them is freedom

And life

And love

It was like watching the sun rise in my son's face

the rain vanished from his eyes

he smiled

he couldn't believe what just happened

there was no condemnation

Next thing I knew he was happily helping his mom water the garden

The Day wasn't ruined

yes, i know what some of you are thinking

i just reinforced his propensity to lie, to get away with it

maybe i did, maybe i didn't

but you know,

i wouldn't be surprised

if an angel were holding those limbs down,

making them immovable

just to test me

sort of like Balaam's Ass who saw the angel

and in the end ended up saving Balaam's ass

or maybe my son did try to move them

but because they got caught on something

and because my son has asperger syndrome

and therefore is easily distracted

he really couldn't move them...

What is the truth?

The truth is Jesus was with my son when he tried to move the limbs

and I wasn't

If I had been with my son

The way the Truth chooses to be with me

I could have saved him and myself from much madness

Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on me a sinner!

I've Got People!

Dear God, it's me - again;
You wrote in your chronicles (i believe the 14th sentence in the seventh chapter)
if your people, called by your name...
you have got people
and we are learning (still)

well today, celebrating you giving me another year to breathe
i was reminded - again
i got people down here on this earth
and am humbled by their happy words
(yes Eugene, i am laughing)
words of love
placing hope within my heart that Your Body might just get it after all
one person at a time

and so to my people here to Guam to Tennessee
and all the places in between
your words plucked my eyes
remembered your faces
smiling mouths open
blessing me
reminding me
of conversations around plates of food
sharing beliefs and doubts
and more of the same
reminding me that i miss you all
and have no idea if we'll ever meet again
the joy is that we have met
spoken
laughed
cried
done a small part of life
together

and those are stepping stones into my new year
i never believed i'd live to be 50
passed that milestone
i have to tell you
it gets deliciously better
with God mixin' it up!

and God and i continue to look for Him in America

My Dreams Haunt Me

i awoke crying & speaking
"oh God"

i'd had a warring dream
the details are not important here
but within this dream - human on human horror
and there were children
helpless children
at the end of this dream
i was holding a little boy
hugging my face
"tank you" came from his mouth
i held him close and began crying
crying for the pain of the place
crying out
"oh God, oh God, help us"

i awoke and thought
through my tears
how far are we away from that human on human horror
where children are...

dear God, it's me - again

A Better Way to Speak My Heart

this evening i had the unfortunate experience of speaking from an emotional place of historical pain
it let me know that i still have personal pain over the way i'm still treated because of the color of my skin
it's unfortunate that the racial divide of our nation's been minimized to the comfortable definition of 'capitalism'

dear God;
how do i let you live through me when i keep getting in the way?

The Work of My Hands

Is leaked into my eyes
when I am blinking myself awake.
A list of divine
tasks,
some as simple as washing a dish
an application mailed in
an assignment explained,
a phone call, encouragement
for the weary,
a meal served,
hands washed
and words written down,
pictures taken,
hope reigned in,
and just like that, just like that,
the sun is already setting.
My magic tucked in around me
underneath the home-made quilt
keeping me warm,
my hands numb,
my eyes,
my eyes closed.

I've Got A Question For You...

i recently asked a friend the following question: imagine you're in a pitch dark somewhere. you don't know yet where you are because you can't see anything, but you can hear and feel something. and then it begins to dawn on you: you're in water because you can feel its cold wetness and you can hear it swishing around your hands, arms, and legs. on the heels of this realization comes an ominous dread: because your feet and arms aren't coming into contact with anything other than water, you could be in the middle of the vast ocean with thousands of miles between you and dry ground. you shout out "help! anybody there? help me! i can't stay afloat much longer!" there is no reply. not even an echo of your own voice. you begin to swim madly in all directions. who knows? maybe you're simply treading water in a large pool... or maybe a sandy shore is just a stroke away...dread turns into abject fear. you begin to thrash about reaching for something, anything to keep you from going below the surface—below the surface: your body shudders involuntarily in response to the unnerving thought. the theme from jaws "duh—dumps" in your frantic brain. needlelike pain begins to shoot through your arms and legs as lactic acid brickifies every sinew in your extremities. suddenly, just before you sink helplessly below the liquid darkness, you grasp something. without thinking you wrap your arms around it and hang on for dear life. ok, now comes the question: what's that thing you find yourself clinging to?

i won't tell you what my friend said but i will tell you this: the first adam, when he found himself treading water in the darkness of the fall, held onto himself and an inadequate leaf-shaped flotation device, and we, his progeny, have been following in his footsteps (wake?) ever since. the final Adam, on the other hand, when he found himself in an even hairier and darker situation, against his feelings, against all that his senses screamed at him, entrusted His Spirit into the hands of the Unseen, Unheard, Unfelt One. there's been only one who's been there and done that, and so he alone is uniquely qualified to take us on the journey from darkness into light.

No Rest for the Weary

weary |ˈwi(ə)rē|
adjective ( wearier , weariest )
feeling or showing tiredness, esp. as a result of excessive exertion or lack of sleep

tiring, exhausting, wearying, fatiguing, enervating, draining, sapping, wearing, trying, demanding, taxing, arduous, grueling, difficult, hard, tough

Dear God, It me - again;
How do I get myself trapped within spaces, within walls, that try to define me and I still don't know the full understanding of who I am? How?
I want people to like me, chose me, love me (a person-pleasing spirit) and that is not healthy. It sits low within me and comes out when I least expect; don't like it at all.
I know it because my inner voice speaks "careful...careful", but my mouth engages and a lie speaks.
"I'm well, thank you."
"It's good to see you." (accompanied by the back patting hug)

And within my mental landscape I war with myself another day questioning whether I am loved for just me and not what someone can get out of me or without me giving away my soul.

There's so much to tell and so much to write; but then I'd have to bring things I don't want to remember forward.

Dear God, thanks for listening.

Pieces of other People

I carry pieces of other people around. I have treasured you in my heart, or saved a note or card or trinket or I have written words from your mouth on scraps of paper-receipts, church programs, business cards. These might be some of those words:

Warriors Know


What is Peace between God and Man?

The time is at hand--
through the blizzard of troubles
we wrap our injured flesh around You.

Warriors know zeal is not circumstantial.
What keeps you captive?
A multitude of unknowns?

The answer lies in what you are wanting. In the starving.

Provide the sacrifice-whole. Shalom.
Overwhelm the temple of today.

Musings

I stood at my stove eating sea salted potato chips, the fat kind, and tearing pieces of cold chicken from the bone, one chip at a time in my left hand and one tear of chicken breast with my left hand. I kept eating, just kept eating; thinking "I should stop eating these chips, the salt's not good for me, it makes me blow fish puffy". But I kept eating; crunching loudly, my ears hurt. Within this me swirl, I recognized the sadness wasn't going away. I stopped eating.

There's lots going on within me, around me, and food is my hiding place (except for lima beans, they look like little fetuses). I keep thinking it will all get better--soon. It doesn't get better and I'm not going to be beamed up to the star ship Enterprise (my view of biblical rapture) in the near future. Life doesn't get better when it hurts. Food comes as close to a magic wand and no magic wand poofs the bad out of existence. Ans so I fight the desire to eat and eat and eat some more.

Re-engaged

     Adam, a friend of mine, stood above the table looking intently at a script of mine that I've heavily revised in pencil. Meaning, he was attempting to decipher mucho handwritten gobbledygook while  I looked on hopefully. We hadn't looked at the script since the last time we shot at my Grandma's where Adam's car was vandalized and burglarized.
     Right before he picked up the pieces of paper, as he tried to convince me to add a few shots here and there for continuity sake, he took a deep breath and said, "Just trying to re-engage."
     The word struck me. My life has been full of re-engaging lately.
     Traumatic events have forced me to re-engage with my extended family even when I want to run. Like Jonah, anywhere but Ninevah, Lord,  especially when your revered Grandma is the Queen.
     Chris and I are re-examining our hearts about our adventure on the bus, with home schooling and our current job situations. I have re-written our budget, re-taken my head shots and re-vamped my resume. I am re-reading the Bible with my children and re-learning basic Spanish.
     I am working with a group of teens every Monday night, re-learning to be a facilitator and not a dictator.
     But the thing I most want to re-do is ignite. To not just get a glimpse of the vision, but to be consumed by it. I like being consumed. My major deadly sin is gluttony. If God doesn't consume me, something or someone will. I must remain ever watchful, because when I am consumed without God involved, I am careless and messy and fruitless.
    I don't want to go there again.
    To consume means to use up while consummation means to be complete. I am being used up and completed at the same time. There is no divine countdown for some sublime vision, I know. I see a piece of the vision every day. 
    This is what Jesus looks like in me today. I wonder what he will look like in me tomorrow?  Okay, so I didn't do such a hot job living out Jesus today. God's mercies are new everyday. We'll start again tomorrow. 
     Right now,  the vision comes mostly as a still small voice. 
     Don't give up. Be diligent. Don't give up. Be diligent. Don't give up.
     This means so many things on a zillion different levels, but it's enough of a vision to keep me going even though I don't feel the consuming fire to do so. Good thing I'm stubborn. 
     Leave it to God to use my flaws to get me where he wants me. Re-engaged and kindled.

Selective Hearing Delay Disorder (SHDD)

shigeko had been asking me to change the door knobs of the master bedroom and bathroom for sometime. my selective hearing delay disorder (SHDD) kept me from fulfilling the request until, somehow, a crack in my thick skull got wide enough for me to finally respond. I went to the local hardware store, bought the knobs, returned home and replaced the defective knobs with the new ones.

done deal, right? not quite. you see, the first knob went in just fine, but the second knob, due to the poor craftsmanship of the cookie-cutter housing fellahs who installed the original knobs, didn't. long story short: i had to chisel a hole in the door jamb so that the bolt of the new knob would line up with it. needless to say, the work looked like sh#@*! when shigeko got home, here's how the dialogue went:

"So what do you think?"

"What's that?"

"That? Oh, that's what the cookie-cutter guys did..."

"I don't think so. That hole looks new...and ugly."

"What's so ugly about it?"

"Do i need to describe the obvious?"

And from here it was all down hill.

"Well, why don't you do it next time?"

"Next time i'll hire a professional."

needless to say, with that last sentence from my wife, all the blood rushed out of my brain and into my face—my proud, sullen, arrogant, "that's not fair" face.

"Ok, then why don't you hire a professional to fix the gate in the backyard!"

you see, i was also asked to fix the dilapidated gate in the backyard some time ago, but due to SHDD i had just started on that project as well. well, just as the words were released from my mouth, i had a slight conviction that i was going down the broad slippery road to destruction. no more words were exchanged between the two of us. i just stood there on the apex between the flames of heaven and the flames of hell. fortunately for me, by the sheer grace of God, i chose the flames of heaven—i prefer being saved as by holy fire instead of the outer flaming darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

i knew what i had to do. since I had the materials and tools to begin work on the gate, i would do that and would purchase the stuff to patch up the terrible knob job at another time. so, i went into the garage to get the necessary tools to fix the gate. after plowing through a mountain of junk (since moving from our swiss avenue office, my garage has become the storage unit for all the stuff from the office), i found what i was looking for and pressed the garage door button to close it. the next instant i unexpectedly heard a loud "boom!" for some reason, the garage door became a living demon of twisted arms (i.e., the rails), disheveled scales (i.e., the lopsided, sections of the door itself), uncoiled sinews (i.e., the lift cables) and hideous decayed teeth (i.e., the rollers) both hanging and falling from their greasy sockets. i stood before the beast unable to move. how could the Lord allow this monstrous failure to assault my life on the heels of the door knob fiasco? For an instant i felt like unsheathing my sword (i.e., grabbing a sledge hammer) and commence in the utter destruction of the fell beast with all my pent up rage. but something stayed my arm. was it fear? no, i was fearless in my wrath. whatever it was it began to spread throughout my person and i soon found myself laughing at myself. it was a joke and the joke was on me...no, the joke was me. just as with the knob, my fault found its source in viewing the source of my worth in the work of my own hands and how that work was perceived by myself and others. the Lord, God love him, was unwilling to nurse my madness by allowing me to go from one state of insanity to another without making me see my folly. rather than pouring ice on my heat, he poured gasoline on it in the form of a garage door monster run amuck. yes, i chose the flames of heaven the first time, but was it truly my choice or one simply out of habit? the second test revealed that it was the latter.

"ok, Lord, i see my fault. forgive me for my foolishness. forgive me for measuring my worth by the work of my hands. now let the work of my hands, come failure or success, find their worth in the work of yours. i'm not sure how or if i can fix this fell beast, but i will try one step at a time." and so i tackled the beast, and within an hour or so, miracle of miracles, i pushed the garage door opener and up rose the door without a hitch. later on i told the story to shigeko (actually, it was more of a confession) and she laughed with me at the Lord's humorous way of humbling and uplifting me at the same time.

pray that the Lord would continue to knock the SHDD out of me and replace it with his humility and grace.

mh

Today I Read Something

Today I read something I’d like to share. John 13:14, if then, your LORD and Teacher have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another’s feet. (NET Bible)

Share because I’m perplexed at what I’m experiencing within our church culture. I use our because I too am included. Also, when Nehemiah prayed to God for Israel, his people, in their effort to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls, he didn’t pray, those Israelites have sinned against you; no, he said, I am confessing the sins of the Israelites that we have committed against you. I digress; please forgive.

We are colorful church-going folk. All the colors precious in God’s sight and contemptible within our own insidiously separate within our we’re going to do church our way buildings on Sundays and other days of meeting. I do not know if that makes us Christians—followers of Jesus. If we are, we should be shamed by our evident disrespect and contempt for each other, our employers, and those we call pastors. Church hopping when we get our feelings hurt or don’t like what we hear shows contempt. Disrespect of our employer, as we demand time off for church, get paid what we’re worth, and don’t do the work—shame.

Jesus did things that were truly menial and commonplace. Jesus got down on his knees, took a basin of water, and washed dusty dirty feet and wiped them with a towel. Can any of us use a towel like Jesus? Towels and dishes and all the menial life tasks reveal what each of us are made of—with shameful quickness.

It would seem with the entire God talk happening as we lounge on the job and gossip in church, we’d understand that our ministry opportunities are not selected by us. They are selected and engineered by FatherSonHolySpirit God. Oswald Chambers’ comment slices; the characteristics we manifest in our immediate surroundings are indications of what we will be like in other surroundings. If any of us believe we will perform as required when we get to our mission field while behaving spagglley (sloth, pride, anger, greed, gluttony, lust, lying, envy) within our workplaces or churches, we are sorely mistaken.

We display rebellion, disobedience, gossip, and disrespect; and, enjoy our racist gospel. I am amazed at our belief we actually expect our pastors to cow tow to our whims and desires. Our church culture is in general disarray and unkempt. We are sloppy in our responsibilities and this must change because of who we are (or say we are)—followers of Jesus.

We’re held to a higher standard, not subject to philosophical or theological debate.
If we do not do the running steadily in the little ways, we shall do nothing in the crisis. Go Oswald!

Nothing Works

Nothing works for me when I’m rundowneyesburningkneeshurt tired—nothing. Not cookin’, juicin’, readin’ my gottamakeyoufeelgood devotion—nothin’. And I hurt on the inside with words I can’t find within my vocabulary lost in the winds of my mind; stuck and can’t come out. So I just sit in my blue chair and watch Babylon 5 on my computer and get lost in an unreality confused about its own god and think about prayer and fasting and reading my bible and not being able to answer the question about how I’m doin’ and what’s goin’ on with me and all that other mess. But to survive I’ve got to go through my room of jello and hope it doesn’t gel and I get stuck in the pain position—no movement, just stopped still.
But I’ve put these words on paper; incomplete as they are…

Today

i was listening to someone speak and i heard the phrase
"i believe god's told me..."
i've heard that phrase before
sometimes i've used it
god-naming
little "g"
letting God know we've used His NAME in vain
the christian way
little "c"
letting Jesus know we like He's following us!
dear God!

so, as i was listening
i stopped listening
let my mind absorb words thrown at it
(with great speed)
stopped thinking
became still
silent
except for the music softly wafting through
the feces cloud sprayed within my car
(did i write that?)

my mind concluded
no, we do not trust God
do not hear the voice of God
through our voice screams
god-naming what we want Him to do within our lives
not listening because we can't hear
through life-noise of striving for gourmet food, desired shelter, styled clothing
not what He wants for us
not what YOU want for us, for me

Dear God
you do not say a lot of what we say you've said
"god said _________________" fill in the blank
i have heard, i think, the voice of God
and i'm alone
in silence
waiting
my journey and no one else

more to come

I am NOT My Own

Dear God;
after much ado about nothing
i sat in my chair of meditation and
meditated on this
nothing that happens outside of me, myself, and my
is of any concern to me
because you've got my back
(i'm still not sure what that looks like, but i believe it)

i'm a genuine ET
and i'm phoning home
do i trust you to answer when i don't hear your voice?

i ramble as i muse across my keypad
thoughts cascading
torrential downpour of letters lost between keys

i'm not my own and that means that i don't want to be seen
i want Father Son Holy Spirit God to manifest within & through me
and when i get in the way that cannot happen
lately i've been in the way
and music brings me back to you

and i remember i trust you
dear God i trust only you
and believe you've got me through the falling letters
rambling from my fingers