I am listening to a Donald Miller podcast thing about his new book, Let Story Guide You (by now you can tell his is one of my favorites), and he is talking about writing out what you want, your year to be like, your life to be like, and how these things can create your story, how God wants us to live better stories, like one more pleasing to Him. So lets write some of my wants out, especially since I know the new year will be here soon.
I want to write more, for God, for anyone who may know Him more through words He helps me put on paper.
I want to work on my friendships, to be a better friend.
With that I want to be more selfless.
I want to work on all aspects of my faith, on every relationship I have with God and Christ.
I want to continue to see Christ everyone, and in everything, like in Tv, movies, and literature, and music, and nature.
I want to be more involved in some sort of community.
I want to be more altruistic.
I want to help this world, literally, hands on somehow; if it be writing, so be it. If not, so be it.
I want to spend more time with God.
I want to be more confident in my writing.
I want to communicate better with everyone.
I don't want to waste a moment.
I want to figure out what I want to do when in comes to physical health and Kaiser.
I want to read more, and retain more when I read. The Bible in particular.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
He Ran To Me
This is Clark holding Chloe, Season 5 of Smallville. She had followed him to the Fortress of Solitude and needed him to save her because she was so cold. So he stopped his Superman training to run to her, to hold his friend warmly in his arms, and to save her.
Take this to heart with some lines from a Phillips, Craig, and Dean song:
When God Ran
And then He ran to me, He took me in His arms
Held my head to His chest, said “My [friend's] come home again”
Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes
With forgiveness in His voice He said,
“[Friend] do you know I still love you?”
He caught me by surprise as He brought me to my knees
When God ran – I saw Him run to me
And maybe instead of waiting all the time for Him to run to us, what if we started running towards Him:
Run To You by The Rocket Summer
Run to you, I will run, I will run.
I will move right on through
All of these things that I have done.
And you'll take me back, I don't know why.
I want to say I'll never do it again,
But I can't, but I will try.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Vows
I have been thinking about my relationship(s) with Christ and I thought of something I wanted to exchange with Him, for all to see, and for more to find more ways to engage Him.
Amen (So be it, Truly), Zoe
To be my: Bridegroom, Shepherd, Friend
I take you, Christ, to be my Bridegroom, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, for forever.
Amen (So be it, Truly), Zoe
To be my: Bridegroom, Shepherd, Friend
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Hardcore Christianity
I have a notebook that has become, over some time now, the notebook where I keep a lot of chapter ideas for books. I say books because I have so much to say and I have a need for a direction to point everything too, you know, besides God of course. And there is this one chapter I want to call "Hardcore Christianity," mainly because in high school people, other students said I was such, "Hardcore Christian."
You know, there was a day we sat outside the weight room during P.E., just talking, instead of jumping rope (yeah it was P.E. old school style, and we were "hardcore" rebelling), about a party and how I wouldn't go and how I wore a WWJD bracelet and tried not to cuss or be mean to people--I mean here I am a Christian-nerdy-jock (not always in that order) sitting with literally the punk-rocker-seemingly-slacker-types, hanging out and talking about them drinking and smoking and having sex and whatever and I obviously didn't have that much to contribute to the conversation and they picked that up quickly--and so of course I am called, labeled, whatever, the goody-two-shoes (and why wouldn't I have two shoes, and two that are bad, that sounds uncomfortable, especially for P.E.) Christian type. But they used specific diction when telling me how Christian I was. I was "Hardcore Christian."
I took this as a compliment, sort of, and they were nice people, made fun of me a lot (but that seems to be a normal friend high school thing), but nice and for the most part respected me probably because I respected them.
I think in this world there are, now, after the Fall. I mean we have created levels for some reason. Our relationship with God was severed and we are apart from Him now. Donald Miller in To Own A Dragon talks about God being a type of "bubble boy" who can't come into full contact with us because of our sin germs. So I begin to think that levels of Christianity or faith are a matter of how close or far in "distance" you are from your god. Like levels of friendship.
There are friendship seminars about 1-4 levels of frienship. Level 1 being a nod and a hi when you see them here and there. 2 being a quick catch-up conversation when you see one another, maybe getting coffee here and there. Level 3 means you can eat together and have deeper conversations on a more regular basis, and 4 is like you are bestest best friends, spending a ton of time together and knowing everything about one another and being able to have seriously deep conversations.
I wonder if that is what it is like with God, especially because now I am a firm believer in a relationship with God, with Christ being the foundation of my faith. So, there kinda are levels of Christianity, if you look at it from a relationship standpoint with the four levels of relationships. But I don't think that this is the way God wanted or wants things to be, and they shouldn't be this way. We all should be at a 4 with God; we should be "Hardcore Christian," and then if we all were, then there wouldn't be kinds of Christian or levels of faith, it would just be Christian.
You shouldn't be allowed to be Christian during the week, but not while partying on the weekends. You shouldn't be Christian except during five o'clock traffic, etc. You should be Christian all the time. There shouldn't be exceptions to the rule; soon you may be not Christian more than the amount of time you are Christian, and that isn't the way, you can honestly tell me, the way God and Christ intended it to be. Can you imagine if Christ wasn't completely Christian, or holy and glorious and perfect to pertain more to Him, and come time to suffer and die on a cross for our sins, to save the world, He decided He wasn't going to do that part, He was gonna be around a 1 or a 2 on the frienship scale, but only during that one instance, right, so it was ok because the rest of the time He felt a 3 or a 4 with us, in His love for us. Thank God! Christ doesn't approach Christianity with its levels we have established, created. Thank God He was always a 4, if you are going to go with our limiting frienship metaphor, though it shouldn't be confined to anything, a level, a number, His love; how He approaches His relationships with us is limitless. We are the ones you have limited how we approach Him.
It is interesting to me that it was non-Christians who noticed our levels of faith. Any of us who have faith wouldn't admit that we have lessened it or changed faith. But they called it how they saw it, how I believe it really is, especially if I am talking from personal experience.
I think I got so used to hearing I was a "good kid" who was mature and did the right things and didn't really mess up in the world's eyes. I got used to people telling me I was Christian because I had bible verses memorized and understood some with my heart's mind, but most with just my head's mind though, to look back and tell you the truth. Because I wore a WWJD bracelet, because I was active in church for a while there, or I listened to Christian music, or didn't cuss or party or whatever, I was "Hardcore Christian."
But just because I did what I was supposed to or listened to what I was supposed to or wore what I was supposed to that doesn't mean that is who I was. I can tell you all about my best friend. What her name is. What her favorite color is. The things she likes and dislikes such as the music she listens to, the style of clothes she wears and likes and dislikes and whatever, but what if I don't know her? Her being. Who she is, what her soul reveals about her. And what if, what if you found out she isn't real? What if this is just a bit of information I can spit out but I really don't have her as a best friend? I can think I am her best friend and she is mine, but there is a huge difference between me saying these things and actually living them out, actually spending time with her and listening to her, talking to her, laughing with her, crying with her; there is a ginormous difference between saying I am her best friend and she is mine and actually being best friends.
The same goes for God. For Christ. I had some of the facts and was doing some of the right things, obviously not really for the right reasons all of the time, and it looked good to other people, and they were telling me I was good, but I look back, knowing what I know now, knowing the relationship I have with God now, with Christ now, I wasn't so good people. I wasn't very "Hardcore Christian."
We are beings who need told who we are.
And I heard it from them so often that I believed it:
That was the Devil slithering up and whispering lies into my ear. Thank God, He came up and has been shouting about who I really was, so I am not her anymore. So I am His friend and He is mine instead of just talking about it. I mean, these people can't know all that God knows about my relationship with Him, you know? God and I know my relationship with Him, same for me and Christ.
I thought I was "Hardcore Christian" because they, the world, told me I was. God has been telling me the truth these last few years. Just because someone says you are something, that doesn't mean you are. Only you know who you are. And if you have faith, if you are Christian, only Christ knows if you really are in love with Him. And how do you find out? Talk to Him about it; engage a relationship with Him. Be His friend, and give Him time to be yours.
There is a song I want to share with you that feels like the story of my life when it comes to my faith, to me being Christian. It is by The Rocket Summer:
If you are going to limit or put levels or numbers to your faith, make sure it is up there with Hardcore and with 4, but try to just simply and complexly be Christian, as He intended it to be. Imagine if we all were Chrsistian all the time.
Listen to A.W. Tozer people,
"We also try to measure abstract qualities, and speak of great or little faith, high or low intelligence, large or meager talents.
Is it not plain that all this does not and cannot apply to God?"
-The Knowledge of the Holy
You know, there was a day we sat outside the weight room during P.E., just talking, instead of jumping rope (yeah it was P.E. old school style, and we were "hardcore" rebelling), about a party and how I wouldn't go and how I wore a WWJD bracelet and tried not to cuss or be mean to people--I mean here I am a Christian-nerdy-jock (not always in that order) sitting with literally the punk-rocker-seemingly-slacker-types, hanging out and talking about them drinking and smoking and having sex and whatever and I obviously didn't have that much to contribute to the conversation and they picked that up quickly--and so of course I am called, labeled, whatever, the goody-two-shoes (and why wouldn't I have two shoes, and two that are bad, that sounds uncomfortable, especially for P.E.) Christian type. But they used specific diction when telling me how Christian I was. I was "Hardcore Christian."
I took this as a compliment, sort of, and they were nice people, made fun of me a lot (but that seems to be a normal friend high school thing), but nice and for the most part respected me probably because I respected them.
SIDENOTE: I want to admit, to show something about fitting in, that I also felt like a bit of a loser because I didn't do what they did. There was a small part of me, I fully admit, that wondered about all this fun I could have if I wasn't "Hardcore Christian," and for that matter I wondered if I was only a little bit Christian if that meant I could go to the party and not hurt Jesus' feelings as much, somehow. I wondered and still wonder if there really are levels of Christianity, of faith for that matter.
I think in this world there are, now, after the Fall. I mean we have created levels for some reason. Our relationship with God was severed and we are apart from Him now. Donald Miller in To Own A Dragon talks about God being a type of "bubble boy" who can't come into full contact with us because of our sin germs. So I begin to think that levels of Christianity or faith are a matter of how close or far in "distance" you are from your god. Like levels of friendship.
There are friendship seminars about 1-4 levels of frienship. Level 1 being a nod and a hi when you see them here and there. 2 being a quick catch-up conversation when you see one another, maybe getting coffee here and there. Level 3 means you can eat together and have deeper conversations on a more regular basis, and 4 is like you are bestest best friends, spending a ton of time together and knowing everything about one another and being able to have seriously deep conversations.
I wonder if that is what it is like with God, especially because now I am a firm believer in a relationship with God, with Christ being the foundation of my faith. So, there kinda are levels of Christianity, if you look at it from a relationship standpoint with the four levels of relationships. But I don't think that this is the way God wanted or wants things to be, and they shouldn't be this way. We all should be at a 4 with God; we should be "Hardcore Christian," and then if we all were, then there wouldn't be kinds of Christian or levels of faith, it would just be Christian.
You shouldn't be allowed to be Christian during the week, but not while partying on the weekends. You shouldn't be Christian except during five o'clock traffic, etc. You should be Christian all the time. There shouldn't be exceptions to the rule; soon you may be not Christian more than the amount of time you are Christian, and that isn't the way, you can honestly tell me, the way God and Christ intended it to be. Can you imagine if Christ wasn't completely Christian, or holy and glorious and perfect to pertain more to Him, and come time to suffer and die on a cross for our sins, to save the world, He decided He wasn't going to do that part, He was gonna be around a 1 or a 2 on the frienship scale, but only during that one instance, right, so it was ok because the rest of the time He felt a 3 or a 4 with us, in His love for us. Thank God! Christ doesn't approach Christianity with its levels we have established, created. Thank God He was always a 4, if you are going to go with our limiting frienship metaphor, though it shouldn't be confined to anything, a level, a number, His love; how He approaches His relationships with us is limitless. We are the ones you have limited how we approach Him.
It is interesting to me that it was non-Christians who noticed our levels of faith. Any of us who have faith wouldn't admit that we have lessened it or changed faith. But they called it how they saw it, how I believe it really is, especially if I am talking from personal experience.
I think I got so used to hearing I was a "good kid" who was mature and did the right things and didn't really mess up in the world's eyes. I got used to people telling me I was Christian because I had bible verses memorized and understood some with my heart's mind, but most with just my head's mind though, to look back and tell you the truth. Because I wore a WWJD bracelet, because I was active in church for a while there, or I listened to Christian music, or didn't cuss or party or whatever, I was "Hardcore Christian."
SIDENOTE: Many psychologist and therapists (for the disease stuff affecting me, pain management stuff) have revealed, correctly, to me, that I didn't really party or smoke or drink or whatever not because of Christian morality (which we don't really understand, ask Donald Miller) but because I was a great student and athlete who understood how much I had to lose. It was way more an athlete thing than a Christian thing. And they are right. Yeah I had the bracelet on and that was the bit of information that made the cup (my brain) overflow with logic, but most of the cup was filled with stuff I could lose, like school and sports. Who knew I never really understood morality, which is supposed to be about a relationship with God and Christ, not a list of do's and do not's.
But just because I did what I was supposed to or listened to what I was supposed to or wore what I was supposed to that doesn't mean that is who I was. I can tell you all about my best friend. What her name is. What her favorite color is. The things she likes and dislikes such as the music she listens to, the style of clothes she wears and likes and dislikes and whatever, but what if I don't know her? Her being. Who she is, what her soul reveals about her. And what if, what if you found out she isn't real? What if this is just a bit of information I can spit out but I really don't have her as a best friend? I can think I am her best friend and she is mine, but there is a huge difference between me saying these things and actually living them out, actually spending time with her and listening to her, talking to her, laughing with her, crying with her; there is a ginormous difference between saying I am her best friend and she is mine and actually being best friends.
The same goes for God. For Christ. I had some of the facts and was doing some of the right things, obviously not really for the right reasons all of the time, and it looked good to other people, and they were telling me I was good, but I look back, knowing what I know now, knowing the relationship I have with God now, with Christ now, I wasn't so good people. I wasn't very "Hardcore Christian."
We are beings who need told who we are.
And I heard it from them so often that I believed it:
Who told you that you were naked?" (Genesis 3:11). Who told you that you were good and the Christian I would like you to be? Who told you that you know me?
That was the Devil slithering up and whispering lies into my ear. Thank God, He came up and has been shouting about who I really was, so I am not her anymore. So I am His friend and He is mine instead of just talking about it. I mean, these people can't know all that God knows about my relationship with Him, you know? God and I know my relationship with Him, same for me and Christ.
I thought I was "Hardcore Christian" because they, the world, told me I was. God has been telling me the truth these last few years. Just because someone says you are something, that doesn't mean you are. Only you know who you are. And if you have faith, if you are Christian, only Christ knows if you really are in love with Him. And how do you find out? Talk to Him about it; engage a relationship with Him. Be His friend, and give Him time to be yours.
There is a song I want to share with you that feels like the story of my life when it comes to my faith, to me being Christian. It is by The Rocket Summer:
"Never Knew"
I just ran into a few someone's today
Someone's that I never really knew
And I used to think how I had them all so figured out
But no, none of it's true 'cause I never knew you
and now the truth of it is, is I wanna be like you
So hello, good friend, I wanna be next to you
For my head, for my heart, for what's true
So I'm burning the thoughts of the things that I once said
Because you tore down the walls that the world that has put inside my head
And I just get sick of the things that we think, we think we know
And no, none of it's true 'cause I never knew you
and now the truth of it is, is I wanna be like you
So hello, good friend, I wanna be next to you
For my head, for my heart, for what's true
So take me and save me and change me and then make me
And embrace me and then brave my heart for you
No, no, 'cause I can't go on without you
And it's time for something never knowing, oh
And no, none of it's true 'cause I never knew you
and now the truth of it is, is I wanna be like you
So hello, good friend, I wanna be next to you
For my head, for my heart, for what's true
And as they strolled along
My heart broke out in song
From all the things and the thoughts and assumptions that I had wrong
See now I'll be on my way to make this claim
I'll make it famous in every way
I'll make it stay when I will save it...
No, none of it's true 'cause I never knew you
and now the truth of it is, is I wanna be like you
So hello, good friend, I wanna be next to you
For my head, for my heart, for what's true
If you are going to limit or put levels or numbers to your faith, make sure it is up there with Hardcore and with 4, but try to just simply and complexly be Christian, as He intended it to be. Imagine if we all were Chrsistian all the time.
Listen to A.W. Tozer people,
"We also try to measure abstract qualities, and speak of great or little faith, high or low intelligence, large or meager talents.
Is it not plain that all this does not and cannot apply to God?"
-The Knowledge of the Holy
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Miracle Rain
I grew up and currently live in California, so for most of my life my understanding of rain and my thoughts and feelings about it were stereotypical:
For instance there was an afternoon in September, or October, freshman year when Roomie and I were walking to the HUB. It was an extremely moist and misty fog spread thick through campus, which was all green grass and pine trees and old brick buildings (the campus where you see pictures on the website and in brochures and are like, “it doesn't really look like this,” then you get there, and it does). She had on Pumas, jeans, a long sleeve shirt, her beloved old puffy vest, gloves and a scarf, hands in pockets of puffy vest but not looking cold; she was born for this weather. I had on Nikes, jeans, a sweatshirt and was feeling quite cold worrying about how much colder it was going to get as the frozen moisture starting burning my nose, when she "soccer moms" her arm out in front of me like she's driving, I'm her kid passenger, and we had to break hard and fast.
And I don't know about you, but at the time, the smell of rain was no wear near chocolate. Rain smell in California is often the rain drying, evaporating, and burning off the dirty, polluted black pavement, when the sun comes back out. It is gross, nauseating even. So that is the smell I thought of, and again am unfortunately thinking of as I reminisce, when she asked me to smell rain. But that was sense memory, not me actually smelling the rain right then and there in the Northwest while walking through a gorgeous campus in September, or October. So I did as she said. I mean if she loved it so much, and I trust her, and why would she lie, and the look on her face wasn't of lies, it was of love, love of rain. So I closed my eyes, with head tilted up, inhaled deeply, and something changed in me that day, or began to anyway, like I was cleaned out of old bad sense memories from rain in California and reintroduced to rain for the first time, the rain God created it to be.
She smiled again because I was now smiling in amazement, getting a glimpse of what the wet stuff is supposed to do to my emotions and senses and my lungs for that matter, or at least what it should, because it felt good to breath in clean moist air. It felt healing and like a little surreal perfect moment in time as we walked down an old path through a picture perfect campus in the at-times-perfect-Northwest like two refreshed and renewed college students in a misty haze that took us into a Narnia-type magically clean and distant world away from the stress of studying and learning and growing up away from home...mmmmm. I can smell it now.
And rain is more than that "before rain smell." There is a "during rain smell" and an "after rain smell," I went on to learn. And it becomes instinctive, smelling these smells. Your body can also just learn to tell when it feels like rain. Your body can even tell when the earth looks thirsty and all the leaves and trees and plants and blades of grass are somehow, in their plant-like ways, opening up their mouths, tongues out, up towards the skies waiting and praying for the floodgates to open and slake their thirst. Rain, I began to learn, is all smell, look, feel (many kinds of feel) and so much more. It is a little miracle...
So Roomie and I had class together MWF Spring Semester at 9:20ish; it was our first class of the day for both of us. I would get up early, to eat "breakfast" and take some of my meds in proper orders and at proper times and study some more. She would sleep until I woke her up five minutes before I was leaving. Most mornings she would be sleeping there with her blankie on her pillow, her head on her blankie, her arm around her moosh pillow and Frogger (I bought her this little frog beanie baby with a Santa hat on it for Christmas) in her hand. Sweetest thing ever, then I would yell at her to get up for the fifth time, like a mom, telling her, "You can get up now and walk with me to class or you can walk by yourself trying to catch up. Make a choice." Mind you I have her backpack on her chair and orange juice in her Nalgene and I had grabbed her a granola bar, all she has to do is find pants and a sweatshirt and follow my figure down the hall, down the stairs, then to class. Simple enough, right? Well, she often had to catch up. Good thing I am old and slow and it didn't take her very long.
But there was one morning in the spring. It hadn't snowed in a while but there was still the snow on the ground that was really ice and it had been dead grey and brown all around for quite a while. We had a big test so we were Rory Gilmore-ing it through campus, walking side by side, flipping through flashcards, quizzing each other back and forth, taking up the path, completely unaware of other people, completely unaware the path could be for more people other than us. She was giving me a great study tip about boutonniere deformity, it's this finger thing involving flexion and extension of different joints, she told me to hold my finger like a hook of a pirate and think of a pirate's booty. I, because of Buffy, hold my finger and go, "Grrr, arrgh," and move it across the "screen" (the front of my face), from right to left like the little monster does at the end of the show, and then get a laugh because I like Buffy and the little monster, and then think of booty and get another laugh, because sometimes I am five years old. It works though, helps me remember obviously to this day…but there we were speed walking through campus holding the hook up, taking up the whole path like we owned the school, people having to walk on wet grass around us and on the outside of the path that had been mowed that morning, getting wet grass clippings all over their shoes and looking at us like, "Who do they think they are?" and we are kinda aware of this, that they are frustrated with us, but at the same time we don't care because we don't care in general, because we want to walk on the path, and we don't care because we are laughing about the pirate's booty thing and freaking out about the test we are about to fail, when I "soccer mom" her this time.
We ran to class and probably bombed the test pretty well. But the test is obviously not what I want to remember about that day, that morning. I had become a North-westerner, with a Northwestern eye. I had seen and noticed right away The Miracle Rain. The student became the master for a moment. It was beautiful and so was the grass. Overnight, dead-grey-brown to rich, dark, strong and alive green! Only God can do stuff like that, especially overnight, and only His beloved children can notice and appreciate and stand in awe in the middle of a crowded pathway, even and especially on a busy stressful morning. We can and should help one another appreciate and fall in love with His everyday miracles more regularly and frequently! Such as The Miracle of Rain.
I must note that there were many other miracles these beutiful friends introduced, in a sense, me to. Other places and things roommates and newfound family members taught me to love and appreciate, things of God. I hope to remember and write more mini stories like this one in the big story of How I Fell In Love With The Northwest, and thus with God all over again! Thank you! You helped save my relationship with my Father, My Shepherd, My Savior, My Bridegroom, my Friend, and you need to know that. I love you all!
"What is this wet stuff falling from the sky?! It is getting in the way, disrupting life, and it is so depressing!"But I went to college in Eastern Washington and my roommate freshman year was from Portland, so I began to hear different thoughts, different philosophies about rain, if you will.
For instance there was an afternoon in September, or October, freshman year when Roomie and I were walking to the HUB. It was an extremely moist and misty fog spread thick through campus, which was all green grass and pine trees and old brick buildings (the campus where you see pictures on the website and in brochures and are like, “it doesn't really look like this,” then you get there, and it does). She had on Pumas, jeans, a long sleeve shirt, her beloved old puffy vest, gloves and a scarf, hands in pockets of puffy vest but not looking cold; she was born for this weather. I had on Nikes, jeans, a sweatshirt and was feeling quite cold worrying about how much colder it was going to get as the frozen moisture starting burning my nose, when she "soccer moms" her arm out in front of me like she's driving, I'm her kid passenger, and we had to break hard and fast.
"What?" I proclaim, completely startled.She looks at me, her eyes real big like a kid in a candy store who can smell the decadent chocolate permeating throughout, the trail of smell floating around the room like in a cartoon and then swipes under her nose... but it doesn't pass under mine, yet.
She has her eyes and head darting around, her arm still held out, then she looks up, closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath through her nostrils.
"What?" I again ask watching her closely having no idea what is going on, and a little frustrated she scared me like that, as visible warm air exits her nose.
"Smell that?" She says as what ended up being half question and then half demand because I, the Californian, had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
"Smell what?"
"Rain! Can't you smell it?"
And I don't know about you, but at the time, the smell of rain was no wear near chocolate. Rain smell in California is often the rain drying, evaporating, and burning off the dirty, polluted black pavement, when the sun comes back out. It is gross, nauseating even. So that is the smell I thought of, and again am unfortunately thinking of as I reminisce, when she asked me to smell rain. But that was sense memory, not me actually smelling the rain right then and there in the Northwest while walking through a gorgeous campus in September, or October. So I did as she said. I mean if she loved it so much, and I trust her, and why would she lie, and the look on her face wasn't of lies, it was of love, love of rain. So I closed my eyes, with head tilted up, inhaled deeply, and something changed in me that day, or began to anyway, like I was cleaned out of old bad sense memories from rain in California and reintroduced to rain for the first time, the rain God created it to be.
She smiled again because I was now smiling in amazement, getting a glimpse of what the wet stuff is supposed to do to my emotions and senses and my lungs for that matter, or at least what it should, because it felt good to breath in clean moist air. It felt healing and like a little surreal perfect moment in time as we walked down an old path through a picture perfect campus in the at-times-perfect-Northwest like two refreshed and renewed college students in a misty haze that took us into a Narnia-type magically clean and distant world away from the stress of studying and learning and growing up away from home...mmmmm. I can smell it now.
And rain is more than that "before rain smell." There is a "during rain smell" and an "after rain smell," I went on to learn. And it becomes instinctive, smelling these smells. Your body can also just learn to tell when it feels like rain. Your body can even tell when the earth looks thirsty and all the leaves and trees and plants and blades of grass are somehow, in their plant-like ways, opening up their mouths, tongues out, up towards the skies waiting and praying for the floodgates to open and slake their thirst. Rain, I began to learn, is all smell, look, feel (many kinds of feel) and so much more. It is a little miracle...
So Roomie and I had class together MWF Spring Semester at 9:20ish; it was our first class of the day for both of us. I would get up early, to eat "breakfast" and take some of my meds in proper orders and at proper times and study some more. She would sleep until I woke her up five minutes before I was leaving. Most mornings she would be sleeping there with her blankie on her pillow, her head on her blankie, her arm around her moosh pillow and Frogger (I bought her this little frog beanie baby with a Santa hat on it for Christmas) in her hand. Sweetest thing ever, then I would yell at her to get up for the fifth time, like a mom, telling her, "You can get up now and walk with me to class or you can walk by yourself trying to catch up. Make a choice." Mind you I have her backpack on her chair and orange juice in her Nalgene and I had grabbed her a granola bar, all she has to do is find pants and a sweatshirt and follow my figure down the hall, down the stairs, then to class. Simple enough, right? Well, she often had to catch up. Good thing I am old and slow and it didn't take her very long.
But there was one morning in the spring. It hadn't snowed in a while but there was still the snow on the ground that was really ice and it had been dead grey and brown all around for quite a while. We had a big test so we were Rory Gilmore-ing it through campus, walking side by side, flipping through flashcards, quizzing each other back and forth, taking up the path, completely unaware of other people, completely unaware the path could be for more people other than us. She was giving me a great study tip about boutonniere deformity, it's this finger thing involving flexion and extension of different joints, she told me to hold my finger like a hook of a pirate and think of a pirate's booty. I, because of Buffy, hold my finger and go, "Grrr, arrgh," and move it across the "screen" (the front of my face), from right to left like the little monster does at the end of the show, and then get a laugh because I like Buffy and the little monster, and then think of booty and get another laugh, because sometimes I am five years old. It works though, helps me remember obviously to this day…but there we were speed walking through campus holding the hook up, taking up the whole path like we owned the school, people having to walk on wet grass around us and on the outside of the path that had been mowed that morning, getting wet grass clippings all over their shoes and looking at us like, "Who do they think they are?" and we are kinda aware of this, that they are frustrated with us, but at the same time we don't care because we don't care in general, because we want to walk on the path, and we don't care because we are laughing about the pirate's booty thing and freaking out about the test we are about to fail, when I "soccer mom" her this time.
"What?" She questions.We have a moment where a camera, were it on us for a film or something, would have been zoomed in on me and my excited happy face, then switched to her and her amazed face with a smile beginning to form, then the view of us looking around, then pulled up and all around us as we look around—quickly, this is all quickly because we are bordering on late—and have a quick moment with what I from then call...
"What's different?" I ask as we have now stopped in the middle of the path and people are even more frustrated with us.
"What are you talking about?"
"Something is different, with campus. Something is different. What is it?"
"Nothing, we're gonna be late." She tries to keep walking, but I don't let her. It's bugging me, and I am not sure I can figure it out on my own.
"No we won't, and what is it? It's something, I just know it. It looks different."
"They mowed the grass. Let's go." She starts walking, breaking through my "soccer mom" arm.
"Wait!" I exclaim. Boy are people staring. "It's green! The grass is green!" Man I am making it worse. She walks back to me and has that, don't talk so loud look on her face.
"Yes, it is green," she kinda whispers. "Good job. Let's go." She is pulling my arm to try to move me now.
"No. You don't get it, do you?" Brief pause, as I kinda wait to see if she will figure it out. "It wasn't green yesterday."
She just kinda looks at me thinking about what I just said, then looks around, then back at me in a bewildered disbelief. I look around with her, fully taking it in, while watching her take it in.
"Yeah," I continue, "it was brown yesterday, and we overheard it rained when we were in the lounge right now, and it looks like it rained, it smells like it rained, and now the grass is GREEN!"
"It's miracle rain! Brown grass one day. Green the next."
"Miracle rain, huh?" She says with a half smile, kinda smiling at the miracle, more smiling at me because I am a little crazy, but at least entertaining.
"Miracle rain," I say with a smile that was similar to hers when she smelled the chocolate rain. Miracle rain.
We ran to class and probably bombed the test pretty well. But the test is obviously not what I want to remember about that day, that morning. I had become a North-westerner, with a Northwestern eye. I had seen and noticed right away The Miracle Rain. The student became the master for a moment. It was beautiful and so was the grass. Overnight, dead-grey-brown to rich, dark, strong and alive green! Only God can do stuff like that, especially overnight, and only His beloved children can notice and appreciate and stand in awe in the middle of a crowded pathway, even and especially on a busy stressful morning. We can and should help one another appreciate and fall in love with His everyday miracles more regularly and frequently! Such as The Miracle of Rain.
I must note that there were many other miracles these beutiful friends introduced, in a sense, me to. Other places and things roommates and newfound family members taught me to love and appreciate, things of God. I hope to remember and write more mini stories like this one in the big story of How I Fell In Love With The Northwest, and thus with God all over again! Thank you! You helped save my relationship with my Father, My Shepherd, My Savior, My Bridegroom, my Friend, and you need to know that. I love you all!
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Blind Stupidity
I know that not many other people will think these thoughts to be significant or even worth writing about, but I do, and luckily with writing that is all that really matters: what I want to say.
Many others, writers, philosophers have probably said something similar about the rare opportunities we get to sit above Time and take a good look at our lives and how moments in time, dots below us, all connect. I believe these thoughts written below to be me being blessed with an opportunity to connect some dots.
I was raised in a house that was across the street from left field of a baseball field. I fell in love. Thus the Jim Bouton quote below. Great game. The thing about sports though, with real athletes, we have high pain tolerances and we suck it up, and we dig deep into everything we've got. If we look sick, coach might not let us play. If we show pain, coach might not let us play. We are stoic and strong. While I don't enjoy looking back in time and knowing that I was worshiping sports, an idol, I do know God had me take on these characteristics of that of an athlete to help me now. I have poor health, now. Lots of pain all the time. Lots of fatigue all the time. It is bad, and that is an athlete, a real one as I call it, telling you I don't feel good. Ask old coaches of mine, I don't admit anything unless it is bad or if I know I can be stronger than it. In this case, it is both. It is stronger than me most days, but I also have moments when I am strong and stoic and hide it well. I handle pain well. I don't complain. If anyone could handle this disease well, and with grace it is me. I honestly believe without sports this disease would have beat me. God shaped me growing up to prepare me for this. I thank Him for not only giving me the will of an athlete and the ridiculously high pain tolerance and strength that I developed over the years of worshiping something other than Him, but I thank Him for helping me connect the dots on this one. Who I was helps me be who I am; even if I look back and am disappointed in her, God worked it out for His purposes.
I was born with a head of hair. Let me tell you, hair! It was straighter when I was younger, I went through this really short hair phase and it grew out curlier, very poor life choice. I miss straight hair. It is lighter; doesn't weigh the head down as much, and if you took the time to physically pay attention to how heavy your head was, or if you have gone from curly (with a head of hair) to straight, you know: lighter is important. That and I personally believe straight hair is easier on time management, but this is all irreverent rambling to keep your mind focused on a head of hair. Still got it, good. Now think about this: all these years, hair, has been annoying, frustrating. Too much of it, big bulky pony tail, and I always wear my hair in a pony tail (well not always obviously, but most of the time). I need more shampoo. I need more conditioner. I need a big bulky hairbrush. I have a bigger hat size than most, and I like hats. All this stuff I used to, in childish stupidity and ignorance (or something, too tired to analyze it out), and occasionally still do complain about. The thing is though...the thing is though, is I am on a low dose (very low for auto-immune ish) of chemotherapy. I shower and more hair than normal is around when I am done. It just happens. When I brush my hair, more than normal is around. It is just a thing. But guess what, with my head of hair God gave me, I still have plenty. I am ok because He "cursed" me with so much hair. When they say He knows the number of hairs on your head, in my case it was literally Him planning for the future. I don't know about you, but it takes me aback a little bit. The dots connect for me. I don't want to know what my head would look like if He hadn't counted as high when He was planning me, writing my story in His book and not being able to see all of time at once. His knowing how many hairs He should count up to was going to be and is very helpful in the self-worth I find in a mirror. I thank Him for taking a little more "time" to count high, and I thank Him for forgiving me when I selfishly and stupidly complain about a gift. I know you don't know how much hair I throw away all the time, honestly I don't think you want to, and I am not sure I can ballpark that kind of a thing, but I do know how much it is roughly, and I can tell you I would be kinda bald. Thank you God for planning ahead--hehe, a head :) thank you.
Lord, help me to stop complaining about things that are gifts, whether I realize with those rare moments sitting above Time with a big pen connecting the stars, real starry moments in my life that shine so brightly in the dark, or whether I am still in the dark, I know from these two experiences that you do know all of time at once, and you keep track of everything, You plan for anything and everything, especially this big disease of a thing in my life. You have it and everything all figured out. We complain, and you laugh because you know what You have done for us; You know reality; we know what we think we see. I guess...just help me remember something I complain about today, or think insignificant today, could be something I thank you for tomorrow. So maybe I could try thanking you today. Maybe we all could. You show us Your point of view every once in a while, and that should be the view we try to see everything from, the view that we begin to let shape our reality.
"And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." - Romans 8:28 NLT
Many others, writers, philosophers have probably said something similar about the rare opportunities we get to sit above Time and take a good look at our lives and how moments in time, dots below us, all connect. I believe these thoughts written below to be me being blessed with an opportunity to connect some dots.
I was raised in a house that was across the street from left field of a baseball field. I fell in love. Thus the Jim Bouton quote below. Great game. The thing about sports though, with real athletes, we have high pain tolerances and we suck it up, and we dig deep into everything we've got. If we look sick, coach might not let us play. If we show pain, coach might not let us play. We are stoic and strong. While I don't enjoy looking back in time and knowing that I was worshiping sports, an idol, I do know God had me take on these characteristics of that of an athlete to help me now. I have poor health, now. Lots of pain all the time. Lots of fatigue all the time. It is bad, and that is an athlete, a real one as I call it, telling you I don't feel good. Ask old coaches of mine, I don't admit anything unless it is bad or if I know I can be stronger than it. In this case, it is both. It is stronger than me most days, but I also have moments when I am strong and stoic and hide it well. I handle pain well. I don't complain. If anyone could handle this disease well, and with grace it is me. I honestly believe without sports this disease would have beat me. God shaped me growing up to prepare me for this. I thank Him for not only giving me the will of an athlete and the ridiculously high pain tolerance and strength that I developed over the years of worshiping something other than Him, but I thank Him for helping me connect the dots on this one. Who I was helps me be who I am; even if I look back and am disappointed in her, God worked it out for His purposes.
I was born with a head of hair. Let me tell you, hair! It was straighter when I was younger, I went through this really short hair phase and it grew out curlier, very poor life choice. I miss straight hair. It is lighter; doesn't weigh the head down as much, and if you took the time to physically pay attention to how heavy your head was, or if you have gone from curly (with a head of hair) to straight, you know: lighter is important. That and I personally believe straight hair is easier on time management, but this is all irreverent rambling to keep your mind focused on a head of hair. Still got it, good. Now think about this: all these years, hair, has been annoying, frustrating. Too much of it, big bulky pony tail, and I always wear my hair in a pony tail (well not always obviously, but most of the time). I need more shampoo. I need more conditioner. I need a big bulky hairbrush. I have a bigger hat size than most, and I like hats. All this stuff I used to, in childish stupidity and ignorance (or something, too tired to analyze it out), and occasionally still do complain about. The thing is though...the thing is though, is I am on a low dose (very low for auto-immune ish) of chemotherapy. I shower and more hair than normal is around when I am done. It just happens. When I brush my hair, more than normal is around. It is just a thing. But guess what, with my head of hair God gave me, I still have plenty. I am ok because He "cursed" me with so much hair. When they say He knows the number of hairs on your head, in my case it was literally Him planning for the future. I don't know about you, but it takes me aback a little bit. The dots connect for me. I don't want to know what my head would look like if He hadn't counted as high when He was planning me, writing my story in His book and not being able to see all of time at once. His knowing how many hairs He should count up to was going to be and is very helpful in the self-worth I find in a mirror. I thank Him for taking a little more "time" to count high, and I thank Him for forgiving me when I selfishly and stupidly complain about a gift. I know you don't know how much hair I throw away all the time, honestly I don't think you want to, and I am not sure I can ballpark that kind of a thing, but I do know how much it is roughly, and I can tell you I would be kinda bald. Thank you God for planning ahead--hehe, a head :) thank you.
Lord, help me to stop complaining about things that are gifts, whether I realize with those rare moments sitting above Time with a big pen connecting the stars, real starry moments in my life that shine so brightly in the dark, or whether I am still in the dark, I know from these two experiences that you do know all of time at once, and you keep track of everything, You plan for anything and everything, especially this big disease of a thing in my life. You have it and everything all figured out. We complain, and you laugh because you know what You have done for us; You know reality; we know what we think we see. I guess...just help me remember something I complain about today, or think insignificant today, could be something I thank you for tomorrow. So maybe I could try thanking you today. Maybe we all could. You show us Your point of view every once in a while, and that should be the view we try to see everything from, the view that we begin to let shape our reality.
"And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." - Romans 8:28 NLT
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Anselem's Exhortion
For a lack of knowing where else to put this so I can see it regularly in something other than my poor penmanship, for I see it speaking to me directly and needing to speak to me on a regular basis, I am leaving it here (in hope it speaks to more than just me).
"Up now, slight man! Flee for a little while thy occupations; hide thyself for a time from thy distrurbing thoughts. Cast aside now thy burdensome cares, and put away thy toilsome business. Yield room for some little time to God, and rest for a little time in Him. Enter the inner chamber of thy mind; shut out all thoughts save that of God and such as can aid thee in seeking Him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, I seek Thy face; Thy face, Lord, will I seek."
From page 43 of The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer
"Up now, slight man! Flee for a little while thy occupations; hide thyself for a time from thy distrurbing thoughts. Cast aside now thy burdensome cares, and put away thy toilsome business. Yield room for some little time to God, and rest for a little time in Him. Enter the inner chamber of thy mind; shut out all thoughts save that of God and such as can aid thee in seeking Him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, I seek Thy face; Thy face, Lord, will I seek."
From page 43 of The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer
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