When all you can do is pray

I have been feeling a little disconnected and numb from the latest cycle horror...until today and a post from a RevGal on Facebook.  Her simple prayer request:  "Please pray for my friend M who will be participating in 5 (so far) of the memorial services this week."  That's when the prayers started flowing.

Praying for the families.  For the teachers.  For the school and district administration   For the survivors.  For the first responders.  For the town.  For the country.  For the pastors.  For the children's directors/pastors.  For the youth directors/pastors.  For the counselors.  For the church administrative assistants.  For the funeral parlors.  For the organists, pianists and soloists.  Just simply praying because right now, that's all I can do.

A post in which I am thankful

I have a job.

I have a car that runs.

I can take public transportation to work.

I have a family that loves me.

I have parents that enable me...or let me live with them, you choose.

I have friends.

I have really good friends.

I have food to eat.

I have clothes to wear.

I have shoes.

I have a lot.

I am thankful.

I am thankful that I live in a country where I can:

Vote.

Speak in public.

Go to church...if I choose.

Travel with few restrictions.

I am thankful that I have been empowered by people within the church to:

Teach men, women and children alike.

Speak freely and openly about my faith journey.

Read scripture.

Sit in the front row...though I usually choose to sit in the back.

Stand in front of the church and share my thoughts, feelings and interpretation of scripture.

Walk through the doors and join others in worship and life even when I'm "not clean"...though sometimes I should just keep my grumpy b-u-t-t at home.

I am thankful for all of this and so much more.

What are you thankful for?

A post about change

Yesterday I went to the Post Office.  I parked my car and got out and there on the ground was a dime.  I normally would leave pennies on the ground but a dime seemed significant.  I picked it up and pocketed it.  Someday soon it will go into the soda machine at work.  This is not a post about that kind of change.

This is a post about change that happens in life.  Tonight, I stood at the sink in my purposely darkened house looking out over the neighborhood where I grew up thinking about how the neighborhood has changed.  It's Halloween. When I was a kid this neighborhood my Mom would throw a Halloween party and our friends would come over for nachos and beer...the beer was for the Dad's who would take all of us kids around the neighborhood and drive us over into other neighborhoods and over to Grandma and Boompa's and Grandma Catherine's house.  The lady across the street gave out dimes.  The people in the house down the hill gave out full size candy bars. We would walk up and down the hills, passing by all the other kids in the neighborhood and having a great time.  Tonight, as I looked out over the neighborhood I noticed that most of the homes were dark.  There aren't that many kids in the neighborhood anymore.  This change isn't good or bad, it's just different.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend got married.  I was blessed to be the officiant at the ceremony and spent some time thinking about how her life has changed in two seemingly short but kinda long years.  Some of the changes were unexpected, many of them were difficult but as I stood there looking at her on her wedding day, I knew this change was good.

I spent some time reflecting, this last weekend, over the last year of my life.  I've said goodbye to some friends, hello to new friends.  Goodbye to an old job, hello to a new job.  I've done a lot of soul searching and still feel lost.  I've felt myself slipping further and further away from what is called "Christianity" today and further away from the churches around me.  There are some changes that have been good...some changes that have been tough...some changes that were just different.

Through it all, I know that change means growth.  Change can mean the death of one thing so that something new can grow.  Change means what I've taken for granted becomes apparent and the things I fear become vividly clear.  Change means there will be times to mourn and times to rejoice.  I can fight it or embrace it or ignore it but one way or another change will happen. 

I'm looking out over the neighborhood tonight seeing a whole lotta change.

A post about hiding

Do you ever have moments where you just want to hide?  I was going to write "hide under a rock" but that statement doesn't really make sense.  There is no hiding under a rock for this girl...I would be seen.

I have favorite places to hide.  My room is one.  It does kind of resemble a cave at times, especially at this time of the year when the light is harder to find and the cool air streams through the window.  It's one of my favorite hiding places.

I like to hide in Tahoe.  I've found a couple of places, close to the water where I can hear the waves lapping against the rocks, with some sun and some shade.  They aren't the most comfortable places unless I bring my own chair but they are calming, quieting, places where I can find God.

I've found a new place to hide.  A place to be in the same building, worshiping with people but a place where I can hide just the same.  It's in the balcony.  High up above the main floor, where I can sing, where I can listen, where I can use my cell phone to send text messages if the sermon is really boring, where I can chew gum and blow bubbles and not have anybody see me.

I also like to hide in plain sight.  Be there, with people, but not really joining in the moment.  I do that a lot.  It's not healthy, to be honest.  It's a protective mode, keeping myself "hidden" from the people around me so they don't really see all that is going on beneath the surface.  It's a mess under there.

Which is really the problem, right now.  There's a mess under the surface of the exterior of me.  There's a disconnect.  It's something that has been growing and growing and growing, getting so large and overwhelming.  I want to deal with it and yet, I just don't want to either.  So I'm in hiding, of sorts, trying to keep one foot in front of the other, nodding and smiling at the right moments but just feeling numb on the inside, distracted, disconnected and just tired.

Here I am...

































and here is God.

We've been here before, God and I.  God hasn't left me, I haven't really left God.  There is just this wide chasm in me that feels miles apart from God...and I'm not really sure what I want to do about that.

I'm in hiding.  Sitting at the top of the balcony, watching the goings on, not really participating, if I'm honest, and not really sure that I want to participate all that much.  I'll just sit up there, chew my bubble gum and blow bubbles, all the while wondering where to go from here.

A post about Monday

I woke up in a blah-mood.

I got on the bus in a not-so-gracious mood.

I sat across from a smiling girl and her little brother on the light rail.  My mood got a little better.

I walked into work in a I-kinda-don't-want-to-be-here-but-I'll-make-the-best-of-it-mood.

I opened my emails and was BLASTED with a barrage of angry emails.

Not necessarily directed at me but angry still the same.

My mood plummeted back to not-so-gracious.

I sent out a not-so-flattering picture of my boss (at his request) to the masses.

The attention getting method worked.

One of the masses emailed back and laughter ensued.

My mood lightened again.

I have a feeling it's going to be "one of those days."

Happy Monday.  How's your mood?

A post about crap I'm tired of

A blogger I used to read had as a label for some of her posts "crap I'm tired of".  I have gotten used to thinking that way about many things in the years since I first started reading her blog (she since changed blogs and that label isn't used anymore.)  I'm blatantly stealing it for this post and it may become a regular in this blog.

Crap I'm tired of:

• Politics.  I'm tired of the same political conversations being held over and over again.  I'm tired of the debates, I'm tired of the rhetoric, I'm tired of looking and someone and wondering just how much they have been groomed for the position.
• On that same politics bent, I am also tired of the problems with the country resting solely on the shoulders of one person.  Last time I looked there was a whole slew of Senators and Representatives that had a lot of responsibility for the situation we are in at the moment as well.
• I'm tired of the label of "poor" being slung around to only mean those who choose to live on the streets and not work.  I know plenty of working poor.  Honestly, if I had children, I would be one of the working poor.
• I'm tired of racism, sexism, ageism and the rest of the "isms".  I know I fall into those categories at times...I'm tired of it in myself.
• I'm tired of gas prices rising and rising and rising.  Between Monday and today prices went up 30 cents at one station.  I will ride the bus and the light rail as much as possible...and please don't try to tell me that's the President's fault.  Take a look at how much profit, not gross, but PROFIT the oil companies make and the insistence this country has on not building more mass transit (still wishing for a light rail system on this side of the hill).
• I'm tired of feeling like I'm never going to __________________.  Too many things to fill in the blank there.

And right now, I'm just tired.

A post about things I wish

Things I wish:

• To be able to ride the bus and read a book at the same time.  There are an awful lot of books on my bookshelf I want to read and 3 hours a day I could be reading.
• I was a little more of an auditory learner...thus my wish to read on the bus.
• Christian Churches would be more about love and grace than condemnation and disgrace.
• That the church would let go of the theology which says you deserve the bad things that happen in life because of bad choices made.  Sometimes shit happens, people, and it's not fair, doesn't make sense, we haven't brought it on ourselves because of choices and it f*ing hurts.
• That the 2012 election year would be done already.  I've had enough.
• For debts to be paid off...mine and others.
• To win the lottery or somehow become independently wealthy so that...
• I could spend a lot more time helping people. (Missing Mississippi today.)
• For the office with a window that looks out over the fountain.
• One more hour in the day.
• To find peace, once again, in singleness...
• Or the ability to stop wondering if that person might be...
• For grace in my humanness...got that one already.
• To be happy, truly happy, again.