Pressure's on
I've been reading Lawrence Crabb's "The Pressure's Off", and it amazes me how unwieldy the mind can be, when grappling with spiritual, abstract concepts.

For those who haven't read it, the book is about seeking God, instead of seeking God's blessings. And if we don't get what we want, it doesn't mean we've done wrong and He's punishing us or something, and if we get what we want, it isn't because we've done it all right and now we can take cred for that~ God gives where He wants to give, and though the Old Testament was full of do this, get this stuff~ do this and you'll prosper, do that and you'll be punished~ the New Testament pretty much gave us a flip on the picture.

Suffering became a GOOD thing (yeah, right~ doesn't often feel so great, does it?), sometimes good people get good things, sometimes they get bad; and sometimes, people do bad things on Earth and don't get their just desserts. God lets nice things come their way, anyway. He gives gifts with an appalling lack of judgement, to our way of thinking!
It's all mixed up in a grabbag of confusing messages, and we have to apply ourselves to finding any answer to get a grip on.
(Cliff Notes-type summary: we're not supposed to worry about all that, but keep our eyes on God and God alone.)

As I read, no matter how many times I told myself, "God wants good things for His children," I was still totally freaked at the shadow of thought that I wasn't SUPPOSED to ask for any blessings, shouldn't even consider getting any earthly blessing, shouldn't be hung up on having them, therefore was doing some kind of wrong to want them.

Sigh. Truth, mixed in with great expectations and a most unpromisingly dim view of God's generosity. My experience in the distant past was hard and drawn, bitter drops in the dark, times when I felt He was holding back from giving me something, just because I wanted it so intensely. Punishing me for wanting something, needing something besides Him.
Sigh. Did I mention I'm a screw-up?
It's hard to believe He'll give nice things when you feel it's wrong to want them.
I'm stuck between my saint and my sinner sides, no mistake.

The good news is, I'm sure I'll get it straight, and stop being such a scaredy-cat about What He's Going To Do To Me If I Don't Buckle Down and Renounce It All. The sane part of me knows better than to think He would 'punish' me if I liked the idea of being able to save money in the bank, or travel to interesting places, or have my loved ones all around me, etc.

Looking around and gauging the scene I see with my super-duper wise-way type vision (ok, just experience and intuition combined), I see that in general, God doesn't rush us. He goes at our pace, the genuine pace of His children growing up as fast as they can. My feeling is that for a wide part of our lives, He makes the effort to speak to us in the language we understand. He lets us form our opinions of Him on our own, influencing us bit by bit to add purer, bigger, more vibrant aspects to that vision of the Living God.

Here's another good thing:
I don't know when it really kicked in, but at some point, my habit of picturing His thoughts surrounding my own little rattling thoughts has fused a bond between us that wasn't there, before.
Oh, I'm sure it was~ I'm sure it was latent, waiting for me to notice it. And now, I do. If I think about Him as a large, warm contrast to my babbling brook of thoughts, I can get a sense when I talk with Him about what He's saying about my prayers and comments. He confides in me some, which I was taught is what happens when you start learning to faithfully follow Him.

I'm hesitant to say that. I don't want to be given the kind of guru status where people would go, "Oh, she hears God!" I want neither that kind of influence nor that kind of reputation, either for foolishness or for saintliness.
First, because it sounds quite insane for someone like me to hear Him (though paradoxically, I feel that anyone can get to the point where they truly hear their Master's voice singing love songs to them from the depths of their own soul. You can have that. Yes, you most certainly can.)
Second, I don't want that said about me because too many people would use that kind of rep and go all power-mad, and I don't want to get like that. Let me grow up a bit, before you hoist that kind of temptation on me. (Am I shirking like a coward from my responsibilities? Maybe.)

So far, the more I connect in my awareness with God, the more I realize it's truly just Waking Up to what's already there; and also that I'm just a tool for His purpose~ and that's totally alright with me!

There is no glory in my position, no respect that I can take to me as my right, and there is no chant against me that is supported by God. He loves me, He'll continue supporting me as I screw it all up once again, as I am wont to do. This is apparently not about popularity, to God. As long as I try to do what He wants, I'm fine with Him~ that's the feeling I get.
I'm trying to obey Him more. That's good enough.

My house church friend Mike mentioned that I seemed like "a model Christian" (he don't know me very well, do he? she queried); and I said after a flash of winsome inspiration, that I hoped I was seen as an example of a good Christian, because
(say it with me!)
I am an acknowledged screw-up,
and if people start realizing that Christians don't have to be saintly in order to follow God with a heart full of love and the hope of reaching God-Love, things would be a whole lot more genuine around here.

I've seen some of you look mighty spiff, in your Walk with Christ, but for the most part, a 'model Christian' is a fallible human who trudges along in the footsteps of Jesus, learning to adore Him more all the time, doing the best they can as they bang their knees repeatedly on the ground.

And here's another good thing:
It's Friday, the dogwood is blooming, and the rains are still sometimes making the river a creamy, polished celadon green, like milkglass. My heirloom irises are blooming, and they smell heavenly. It's good to be alive.

I enjoy the push
My friend Max is expert by now at encouraging and pushing me, at the same time, but I find that he's got nothing on God's expertise at that!

Most of me enjoys it. By this time, I trust God at this pretty much, and figure He's not going to push me into doing something that will go completely awry.
However, I've learned to adapt my expectations and definitions of what is successful and what is not.

God is pushing me through the writing of a book, as well as learning the guitar. As well as pitching headlong and unstintingly into a closer relationship with Him. I'm always forming those ties~ how tragic if I ever stopped! (Dear God, that's an awful thought!~ please don't let that happen! I want to always seek You with all that I've got.)

I didn't want to write the book, and I didn't want to play the guitar. Well, I did want to write a book, I just didn't (and don't) have the guts to do it, of my own devices. Everyone has a story in them, but few could get that story published, right? I didn't want to try at something where the stakes were so risky, the obstacles so large.

But God wouldn't let it go, and I was brought to the conclusion that it would be better to do His will, and end up with a big fat failure on my hands, a manuscript lost somewhere in the anti-matter closets of the world, than to not go through that process, at all.
Surely, in the journey there will be reward enough. Does it matter if the book is accepted at all, if God wants it written?

So, I write and organize pages and have fun and also have 'what in the world do I think I'm doing?' moments. But everytime I think - even TOY with the idea of backing off, God puts something in my path that makes me know to keep going. Ballast. Reassurance. That kind of thing. Go on, kid- push, push. You can do it. Just do what I say, you'll be fine, God says. And I stop gnawing on my knuckles, and I do it.

So far, we've been on a kind of schedule~ I seem to need that bolstering and reassurance about once a month, but it used to be once a day, then once a week, so progress is being made, don't ya know. I still like it when He nudges and cajoles and encourages me, though.

Wait~ no, I would have to say that I LOVE it when He nudges and cajoles, et al. It makes me feel all kinds of flying free things, like, hey, I've got a bonafide, creative, servanty type of purpose in the Kingdom!

Then, there's that guitar.
"Lady".

Sigh. That one has been a doozy. I never wanted to play an instrument. I figured I had no capacity for it whatsoever~ singing and dancing and writing up songs, that was my thing. And I've known some really good musicians, the kind that make you want to shrivel up with admiration. Max is one of those guys, and Chris Yale, and Michael Wilson's brother, and, and, and! So many GOOD musicians out there, who can combine skill with latent talent in a flair of virtuoso type playing that hits you right where you live, when you hear it. Very emotive stuff.

So, I didn't want to do it. Not only for that reason, as there was at least a small chance that I might be able to one day master at least the basics of guitar. Who knew? Maybe even dredge up some talent for it.
No, the thing that threw me off was that my music had for so long been a game of That's Entertainment, and I didn't want to play that game, anymore. If I couldn't use my music as a heart-and-soul outlet to express the joy and valleys and excitement of following God, I didn't want to mess with it.

But again, I wasn't in a position to barter with God. He wanted me to do it~ who was I to say 'nay'? I've dragged my feet on it a bit, yes, and it wasn't till recently that I realized my reason, stated~ that I didn't want to do it if it wouldn't talk about God and how I see Him, in it.

So, this morning, on my way to work, I told Him about it. Sure, I'll still keep plugging at that guitar, for as long as He wants me to. A, C, D, G, very bad B, a handful of the minor ones, on I learn, would love to continue, would be disappointed if I had to stop.... but I long for something distinctly God-ish in my music.

Will I get that ability? Eh, we'll see. That's totally up to God. That kind of thing is a gift, and nothing else.
But a bit down the road, I found myself taking an old song I'd written for God, and accidentally coming up with a twist to it that resonated with me, really made me excited by the sound of it. Those kinds of songs, I'd love to be able to bring to my poor, patient house church, my backyard jams, and neighborhood coffeehouses, one day!
I wouldn't mind getting just good enough to be able to bring my sense of God out to others, when I played music. I don't need the rest of it.

Want to read something incredible?

http://soigo.blogspot.com

If you and Jesus were sitting in a car together, and you were telling him all you were doing for him and planning to do for him~ what would he say he was planning to do with you?

He let me know without details what he was planning~ just a glimpse, a general form, and I ran into it with that blend of hope and faith and doubt that I'm so good at.
I begin to wonder if it's true, if it could be true, the half that Jesus tells (I know there's more), and I wonder how it could be possible, and I still believe in my heart, anyway, because I'm a fool when it comes to that hope and faith stuff. That half-sinner/half-saint goes deep in me~ faith and doubt, somehow all mixed together. Maybe it does that with you, too.

I've been building towards my next Retreat~ a few golden days to spend with God, but it will be enough. This is sort of like training for a race. I'm practicing and gearing my mind to focus on the essentials that the apostle Paul talked of in his age-old biblical race~ run it.

It occurred to me that God doesn't NEED me to set up blocks of time in retreat, in order to reach into me more. In Larry Crabb's "Finding God," he asked in the chapter questions, "what hinders you from finding Him?" I saw I was holding back because I didn't yet have time for a proper retreat, with those blocks of precious time to spend on complete and prolonged concentration on God.

And that's a dimwitted way of looking at the almighty power of my Lord~ I'm happy to say that that is a dimwitted way for me to look at the power of the Lord in my life! He can reach me in a nanosecond! Why am I holding back from trying to reach Him, waiting for the time of retreat, when I could be getting into it, now!?

So, my days are filled with moments and moments, multiplying in appearance, where I stop and think of God. I think of His presence wrapped like a big U shape around my own mind, so that His thoughts become more important than my own. I think of how He's been behaving, the things I've noticed that He does for me, for others, and I somehow eke understanding out of those bits, a better understanding of Him that still has miles to go before I sleep in His arms.

I know this upcoming Retreat will be the most incredible I've ever experienced. I realize that I'll be set into Stillness, made whole in the air of God's graciousness, and something I can't even fathom will go on between us.

Maybe others will see a difference, maybe not. It doesn't seem to matter like it did before, whether I change and improve and become a blessing for others, or not. I feel like I'm leaving the world far behind, at least the world as I know it; and I will continue leaving the world, becoming attached to God's way of doing things and God's way of looking at things and God's ideas for my every move. It doesn't even matter if I get closer to the pink of perfection~ somehow, I don't think that's what God is hoping for, in this our journey together. Perfection is His alone; not my game.



(My coworker Alice, her husband Jim and I went to the Flower Show, at our company's expense- nice, huh? This is a photo I took of the Secret Garden exhibit.)

Unusual and lovely
I believe that I can have what I can't even form into dreams~ even the most daring dream! I believe I can have the kind of life that is rewarding and fulfilling and worth the experience, a life of soul-satisfaction, gracious loving-kindness, breathtaking beauty, treasure-laden days, borrowed wisdom and creativity and knowledge and strength and love beyond my own small capacities.
I believe this because the thing I want most, what we all want most and need most, whether we realize it or not, is a direct link to God.
And I believe I'll get that better life because I believe that all those things are the by-product of following God, putting Him first. As long as He's my very first thought, my motive, all else will follow. I might never have the list of things we feel is necessary for a good life, but with Him as my aim, the Best life for me comes about.

The requirements for this are my willingness and God's willingness to forge this connection. Since God is already into forging connections with us, His beloved creations, that leaves me and my willingness, doesn't it? Yeah.

Well, that's where most of us fall short. There's the laundry to do and the closets to organize and that big project at work.....time slips away, and maybe you're more comfortable that way, anyway.

But such a way of life, though as magnetic as a whirlpool, leads to emptiness and alienation. What a part of us hopes is so important- the ins and outs of our daily lives- turns out to be nothing much but a sludge of activity all lumped together in a vanilla void.

Creating your sanctuaries
In interior decorating, some of you may have noticed that when you set out to make a special, meaningful room, you have to go off the beaten path. You can't furnish the whole room in items from the ubiquitous major chain stores, because then, you've got nothing but what everyone else has, as well.

No, to make a truly special room, you scour the places where you'll find interesting and beautiful things that resonate with you~ antique shops, heirloom items from the attic, offbeat specialty stores, tokens of affection from friends and loved ones, yard sales, funky discount stores, odd little catalogs, discreet little shops tucked into corners of your city. You're looking for items that make your heart soar to look at them, things that seem to speak of something wonderful to you.

So it is with your spirituality. You can't take a generic, commonplace approach to it, because as we've seen all over the place, that approach doesn't do so well. The relationship with God is not deepened by unthinkingly doing the standard, numbing motions and disciplines that 'everyone else' is doing.

You search for the worship and connection with God that warms you and brings you closer to Him, and you find it in many forms, many ways~ through earnest, hard prayer and through smooth moments of wordless gratitude, through building habits of meditating on Him and through spontaneous praises to Him, through music and through silence, through fasting and through feasting, through giving and receiving in obedience to His will, through action and through faith in His grace~ all when taken in and given out for the glory of God alone.

It is this focus to our activities and being that we need. This focus on God as the real thing that we're looking around for.
Convincing ourselves of this~ I know, it's more than half the battle. It's really ALLLL the battle, when you get right down to it! We either can't figure how much He loves us, don't really believe that, or we figure that that's not going to satisfy us.

We say, 'no, I've got a hole in me that can only be filled by financial security, a soulmate, a child of my own, a beautiful house on beautiful land, more knowledge, more power, more of any earthly bread I can fill my aching emptiness with.
'And you know, what if God tried to change me? What if He lowered the boom and told me I had to straighten up my act, maybe sell everything and go sweep latrines in India?'

I can't tell you that He wouldn't do that. I don't know what He would want you to do. But I can tell you that He isn't trying to change you in that way. He isn't trying to force you to change your delinquent tendencies, this isn't about threats and bullying ~ what He's trying to re-form is the lost bliss that you once had, long ago, a right heart that will lead you to Him and His will again and again. With such a heart, you'll change for the better, with your full agreement to it. It will be wonderful.

He wants to thaw out your heart and make it strong and good, He wants to give you wisdom and forgiveness and a sense of Him above all, but also a sense of your own worth, as well as the worth of others, in His eyes. He wants to give you love, enough love for you to fill up on in deep desire, and also to give out to others.
He'll lead you to follow Him faithfully in true love; not because He wants to boss everyone around, but because we're happiest when we're back with God the Creator, Parent of all things positive.

It's time
"...this was the simple happiness of complete harmony with her surroundings, the happiness that asks for nothing, that just accepts, just breathes, just is." - 'Enchanted April', Elizabeth Von Arnim

I have experienced the feeling described in this passage, before, and believe it's possible to get to a state where it is constant. If it isn't possible, don't tell me, I don't want to know! Though I realize that I've already been given more than my fair share of that kind of bliss, I still think it's possible to get to a spot where you're blissful in God at all times.

But very recently, my dreams at night have been empty, my days have been filled increasingly with thoughts about the futile nature of life. Though I'm not a bitter person, I wondered why in the world God bothered to even put us the Earth, it all seemed so devoid of any real purpose. I was quizzical. I was dissatisfied for no good reason with any future possibility. I could see a dull sheen over the beauty I've been seeing everywhere.

Sunday morning I woke up and realized that God was purposely setting me up to be dissatisfied, restless, unable to find enough of Him. Unsatisfied with the amount of Him that I am awake to.

So, the cycle starts again. I will seek Him, and I will find more of Him, I suppose in basically the same way I did last Spring~ by taking some time off for a Retreat, turning off the phone and keeping to myself with any inspiring books I can lay claim to (it will probably be Larry Crabb, as "Finding God" is echoing in me as I read it), and journaling till my fingers fall off.

I wish this were happening NOW, because the yearning to find more of God to fill my empty corners with is a great need, it's been growing in me daily. I know that God has heard my prayer to bring more of Him into my awareness, and I know that He'll give this to me, if I only seek to draw closer to Him. I know He'll do it because He wants that, too. He wants that (full and fuller) awareness of Him for us all.

Just ask
Setting aside my previous post about not being mercenary in our pursuit of God, I realize that we all need to start out with a self-based Getting kind of thing, if we're trying to build a good picture of the loving God in our heads.
After all, if He's Love, He's going to be giving, right? We need to find out how this thing works. So, asking for stuff seems a good way to start.
But it should be the "right" stuff...not that new Lexus. Don't waste God's time. Believe it or not, that kind of thing isn't as important to a good life as one might be led to think.

They say that Jesus was talking about spiritual gifts when he urged us to ask for anything in his name, and we would be sure to receive it. That makes sense.
Not everyone is meant to be given lots of money, but we're all meant to have the truly finer things that nothing can corrode or take from us~ the peace that passes understanding, the love for all, communion with God, the Fruit of the Spirit...(Galatians 5:22-23)

Here are some things I believe you can pray for and receive (though some may be given over time, and not right off) :
Faith
Trust in God
Hunger for God
Help with your everyday tasks (finding car keys, doing a job well, finding time to do what needs to be done, help in lifting heavy things that need to be lifted, etc.)
Help in praying
Aligning your heart's desires with God's heart's desire for you
More Love for God (and others)
More understanding of God
Time alone with God/Retreat
Patience/endurance
Forebearance- the continuous leaning on God during times of trouble
Fearlessness in the face of trouble or evil
The ability to see the solution God is trying to give for a present problem
Discipline in your pursuit of God
Diminishing of pride/selfishness
All that fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Good things to have around!

Those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of them...

Have a good weekend ~

The Libertine hits it
"It's a new morning, and the possibilities are endless. What will we make of it? What can we do today to bring us closer to where we want to be tomorrow? Hold the vision in your heart, and do what you must to realize that vision. Dream God's dream for your life, and move ahead with purpose and joy...."

Read the rest of it on his blog~ he's added what must be the only positive part in the book of Lamentations!
Good stuff. Thank you, Mr. Yale.

An amendment
I inadvertently did a disservice to my newer readers yesterday, by forgetting to emphasize what I've said before: what I describe in my relationship with God can be had by anyone and everyone.

It takes only a willingness from you to allow Him to do His gentle work in you, to open up and welcome God into your life, developing a rewarding habit of putting Him first, keeping a part of your mind on Him at all times. And it really does help the quality of your day if you build the habit of snatching little moments throughout your day to just quietly BE with Him in your head. It's a mini-vacation, shutting everything else down and simply being with Him for a brief span.

You don't have to be a saintly type of person, or even want to be a "Christian," to be able/allowed to get to know God (it amazes me how many people won't give God/Christ a try because of the foilbles of us, His followers) ~ you only need to give Him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to your questions and wonderings and beliefs about Him, and seek Him genuinely.

For a Christian, a Believer in Christ as the Son of God, Saver of your immortal butt, the best way I've found to get closer to God is to put Him first in your life, the way you probably did with the one you fell in love with when you first fell for them, or for any time you've felt unconditional love (perhaps when you had a newborn to take care of).

You remember how that goes~ you're willing to put your trust in them and think highly of them, perhaps higher of them than of all others, you think of them constantly, you gush about them frequently and bore all your friends to death, you see only the best in them, you don't do anything without first talking it over with your loved one, you do everything for them....you are besotted, adoring, a bigger person inside because of this time of selflessness.

That's basically what you can do with God. He deserves it, He can fulfill it. Give Him a chance, even when things get really really confusing and scary, and your love is tested. Stand strong in that love and trust, as much as you can, and don't hesitate to ask Him for help in dealing with it.

By putting Him first in your life, as if by magic, things begin to take on a new and potent shape, for you. Your life sets itself in order; the more you do what God wants (or at least, have the heart that will do whatever you find He wants you to do), the better things get.
Doors open, opportunities and new ways spring up out of nowhere, clarity comes home to roost, something big and profound and amazing that is warming you inside begins to grow.
You don't have to know what He wills, in order to have a heart that is ready and willing to follow Him.

Do whatever you can to strengthen your love for God. Spend time getting to know Him, not just asking Him for stuff and telling Him your prayers by rote. This isn't a test, you're not going to be graded on it, you don't have to get it exactly word-perfect, in order for the Holy Spirit to intercede for you.
(Romans 8:26 "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.")

Wouldn't it be great if we could continuously live out those bountiful prayers of praise? To be as energetic and thrilled at life, yet peaceful, like a butterfly dancing around in a garden. Edified and inspired under God's wing....

An addition
Let me be clear~ I don't think we should seek God in order to gain things for ourselves~ good feelings like ecstacy or high callings, or anything self-feeding like that.

We seek God for the sole sake of finding Him, and Him alone, of connecting to Him fully at last in our awareness, waking up to what's already there. Our beings are already connected with Him, because God is our Ultimate Source. The rest of what we get in Him is just bonus.
Remember that those things are the by-products of God; they are not God and they are not the goal.

When I stop and am aware of His presence overflowing around my little bit of a spirit and voice, I don't FEEL much of anything, myself, that I know of ~ I'm simply BEing in Him (emphasis on HIM), resting in His greatness, soaking into Him, forgetful of self, which in hindsight is a wonderful feeling, the best experience possible.

Every now and then, I can feel ecstatic in Him, and by now, I usually have a humming sense of well-being; but on the whole, I'm convinced that self-forgetfulness in the face of God is the way to go.

In Retrospect
Easter and its proceeding days will always have an extra layer of meaning to me, because it was the week after Easter last year that gave me the first Major breakthrough of my spiritual life, the passage that changed everything for me. My life became something new and wondrous, then.

Although that Easter was during the last week of March, it feels like it's been a year, NOW, to me, so I've found myself looking back at the past year, gauging the changes that have occurred as best I can~ though I see that some changes in me are still in the works, and are still shrouded. Some mirrors are still clouded, for me.

...I took a vacation that week, feeling certain that something was going to happen. I amassed many books on getting closer to God, contemplation, prayer~ whatever I felt would help me on my voyage. I had a date with my own destiny towards God's feet, and I could feel it coming!

But all those books stayed by the side~ for the entire week, it was "New Seeds of Contemplation" that held my attention, leaving me astounded and thrilled and delighted by all that it contained. I was reading all about the footpath that I was on! Each step was either about to happen to me, or had just happened, or was my present situation.

I sat in the newly warming sun on my porch all day, reading and journaling for hours, sorting everything out, in the grip of an unbelievable gift, a gift that kept flowing unceasingly.
Clarity, insight, the comprehension of the heart~ these are priceless, more valuable than all the sapphires in the arc of sky over my head.

How lucky have I been, how blessed? I've been considering that one.
Yesterday, during my contemplative prayer meeting, I was hit anew with the understanding that God helped raise me, He was right there with me the whole time I was growing up, pouring into my mind the guidance and direction and sense of self that helped me prodigiously, for as long as I would listen.
I had good self-esteem during those emotionally grueling growing-up years because of God.
I didn't believe every hideous hangup I was told about the bible and 'What God Thinks' and spirituality in general, because of God's guidance in my own head. Those harder, meaner beliefs that I did believe eventually found a place that I feel is more conducive to the whole of God as Real Love, neither namby-pamby nor cruel.
He allowed me to have a deep pervading sense of the rightness and light and order of His world, and for that I am grateful.

Every now and then, Christ hits me with a new facet of comprehension on what he did for me, while I was growing up (and with what patience he put up with me while I went through my mixed up phases!), and I am struck dumb anew by it.

Listening to the people in my prayer group talk about what they were led to believe with no room for doubt or difference, I saw that I'd been very, very lucky. I'd had plenty of harsh believers in my environment, and some of it did rub off on me. I've had my time of living in that domain.
But God kept me just a step off of all that. He broke it to me gently that not all those beliefs were right to live by, many of them did not do His heart justice. Some of my own beliefs kept Him out of the picture completely.

I think I was given the greatest gift of all, in God allowing it to be possible for me to grasp what He's been trying to tell me for so long. Such a simple idea, the idea that He loves~ and yet, how hard it is to take!

The changes have been odd ones~ I didn't begin founding hospitals and soup kitchens, I did not run off to join the Peace Corps, or any of those things I've come to think of as what people do when they are doing what God wants, because God didn't want those things for me.
He had plans for me, and He is nothing if not original in His plans.
Noone can predict the fate in God. He is beyond our soothsaying and assumption.

I lost interest in most of the media offerings in my culture~ tv, magazines, that sort of thing. They had nothing to do with the fresh world I found myself in, they had nothing to do with a timeless life. I needed to balance my step in this new life, get my bearings, look around a bit, before venturing into colder fields.
(I can watch a bit of tv, now. But I still find the media creates a tempting world that is empty of any real value, and in fact, places importance on things that will lead me out of peace and harmony and timeless beauty that is in this world I live in under God's grace.)

I also lost interest in a lot of aspects of me!
I used to have a list of things here on this blog that I enjoyed or found my identity through. After a certain point, I got rid of that list, because it wasn't important, anymore. It began to seem self-involved.
My identity's been freed from the finite things I was using to form myself with, it's no longer a defining thing to love freesia and chocolate, to be a Southpaw with eyes that change color, etc. ~ and my common ground with others is the only reason I note them, at all, anymore. People like to know that you too, are in the same situation as them~ most don't realize yet that we find our real common ground through more abiding things, the things that won't leave us because they're embedded in our spirits.
I heard a lot of angst against labeling, but the practice is still common, to define ourselves by our details.
Those likes and dislikes and ways of thinking were my own way of labeling myself, and those labels were chains. I didn't even realize they were, until they were released from their thrones in my life!

My interest has focused on God, which I know sounds deathly dull~ and I don't say that I think of nothing else.
My hobbies and interests are still there, I've even added to them!, but now that there is freedom behind all that, those interests have more sparkle for me, and my main interest in God leads them all!

It's keeping my eyes full of God that makes the world a fun, rich, enjoyable place to be. Life has depth and glowing color and a beguiling, arresting importance to it, when the focus is on God. It doesn't make me perfect~ it just makes me happy! There is peace in these meadows, there is pastoral beauty and treasure to discover, places to explore as well as loft during troubles.

A life with God has a Baroque richness, a refinement and order as of the art in ancient Greece, the kicked-up, saturated depth of a Technicolor palette, the savor of a long, warm summer, the soft caress of a downy bed during hard times, and the romance of a gentle rain in Spring, with the chasing clouds and the sun sparkling not far behind.

It's as close to an idyllic utopia as I ever thought I'd get, and it comes to me solely through the peception that God is giving me to see with. Without Him, it would be back to the dull, dreary, quietly desperate life for me!


Lord, I ask You for the freeing gift of loving You and knowing of Your love, for this reader. Let them find You and Your feelings for them wherever they look; let them abide in Your grace and be transformed, catapulted into a new life, into the way of seeing things that only Your influence over them can bring~ the life they're meant to experience.
And thank You, God.






Image from fitzroygardens.com

Dwelling on quiet
Sometimes, my awareness of God is kicked up so much, the babbling brook of my conscious is almost drowned out by His silence.

Because of this, I'm starting to grasp a concept of how unimportant my own rattling, constant stream of thoughts are, next to the substance of God.
I see this constant stream of thought is being used by my instinct as a shield against disappearing, against a sort of annihilation~ a way of ressuring myself that I am a Something of considerable importance in the Great Big Scheme!

Balderdash, really. What does it matter if others are not aware of me in their midst?
I notice that in this civilization, being quiet often means being ignored, but I feel certain that risking the chance of disappearing into the woodwork in front of others would be a good thing to do. Getting back to the quiet, observant listener that I was when I was quite small would be good, for a variety of reasons, all selfless and therefore hard.

It isn't that I talk incessantly or anything like that, although I could be guilty of it, from time to time~ do any of us ever really know when we've talked too much in a group?
Being petite, and coming from a line of strong women, my Alpha is highly developed, as is my presence projection (we small people don't want to be stepped on by you great lugs! :) ).
These tools have been used by me for many a year, but now I see a need to harness them with more discretion.

I want to learn (or re-learn) the value of a steady silence coming from my soul, because that silence is the place of God. I noticed that when I am quiet and calm, I can feel God's presence with me more than I can when I'm all over the place, talking up a storm, prancing like a gleeful princess to the length and breadth of my kingdom. There is dignity to be had in learning that calm, quiet centerdness with Him, even while in the distracting presence of others.

I've been struggling to learn this for months, now, and will continue with it until I can keep quiet unless I have something worth saying~ worth saying in God's eyes, not just mine.

I don't think I'll seek to change much of my fearlessness in speaking up in front of a group~ I shouldn't want to learn that kind of fear ~ but I would like to master restraint, the art of letting others shine before me.

Ode to Oswald
I've been considering Oswald Chambers' "Utmost" book for my centering prayer group's read/discussion segment. It was the first book I remember having a major impact on my life. I first read it back in the 90s and am still learning from it today. His biography had impact on me, too~ more of the same godliness was shown in his life, just as I picked up in his work. The man positively reeked of the Holy Spirit, I tell you!

Oswald taught me that you don't need to agree with someone's beliefs 100%, or even know for sure whether you agree or not, in order to see that they have God with them.

Oswald was a godly man, very close to God~ I could see that in his "voice" on the page, the things he said and how he said them. I recognized God behind Oswald, in a general sort of way that had nothing to do with Oswald's intellectual beliefs, and everything to do with his God-besotted, faithfully serving heart. The things he came up with mirrored that heart.

This was where I began to culminate my belief that it isn't so important to God that we're completely accurate on all our beliefs (noone will be, anyway~ those who think they are merely have a problem with self-perception and arrogance)~ what is most important, I believe, is that we live our lives with the attempt to please God and love Him as we should. I feel that God wouldn't have been with Oswald so strongly, strong enough for me to see it, if Oswald didn't live for the I AM.

To insist on growing in understanding and love of God is a sure way to please Him; to meditate on Him and your spiritual landscape, how you look at life and God and all creation is the divinely planned course of your days, the way He would have us live.

And what do I mean when I say 'spiritual landscape'?, you might ask
(and even if you don't ask, I'm still going to tell you, because I enjoy talking about it!)
Your spiritual landscape is the place you truly sit, the vantage point of your soul. To be willing to blend with God's will and outlook on everything allows your spiritual landscape to flourish like Paradise.

Your beliefs are merely symptoms of your spiritual heart's home.
To be willing to set aside your self-identity and float in the Lord's light, doing His bidding and falling more and more in love with Him, allows your life to don its true and highest purpose.

And in the outcome of this, untold rewards are waiting~ the sheer joy and wonder of a world set right, right before your eyes, of love coming up out of the ground before you, of exquisite suggestions for your moods and opinions to follow.

When Christ shows you His way of looking at something, submitting it for your benefit, as a gift that you could use and adopt for your own, it's stunningly beautiful; albeit not always easy to adopt as your own perspective.

But with diligence, the views of Christ can become a little more of our own. As you tend your spiritual landscape, it grows from your own 'backyard garden,' your own little view of your own little life, and becomes the way you see the world in all its aspects.

Sitting in the pure air of God colors everything with a divine and unshakable glow. Your hard and fast doctrines will fall gently to the ground one by one, as you come to some understanding inside of what it truly means to follow God with a humble heart. Your behavior becomes more about pleasing God moment to moment, living out the love and upright heart that He's placing in you, and less about the sharp angles of THis Is How Everyone Else Should Behave and Think know-it-allness that usually flavors any strong doctrine.

I dislike the usual use of doctrine in the world, as you can tell, because I see that it more often than not takes someone away from God, through pride and distraction, rather than bringing the soul closer to Him. Doctrine has its place, and unfortunately, that place seems to be hard for us to keep straight. Too often, we make everything else- the call to forgiveness, grace, humility, love, service- subject to our doctrinal beliefs.

The laws of Grace we are to live under have only a finely honed sternness, saturated in love and the desire to forgive; an attitude that only God can give, and He can only give it to a heart that cares more about living right than about being right.

I feel the person who repeatedly stumbles, but who never takes their eyes off God, always wearing their heart on their sleeve for Him, is more pleasing to Him than the small-loving person who has all their ducks in a row.

Go at it. Get better at it than me~ go find God in your own backyard, right with you; stop for a moment throughout your day to consider Him, talk with Him, listen to His rich, resonating silence. Only the silence of the Lord can feed the spirit's most important craving.

Set aside your beliefs and doctrines, realizing they are fallible, you could be wrong, and that's ok. Doing your best by God is going to be enough~ have faith. Focus it all on God and let Him guide you from there.

It will be new frontier, uncharted and unknown lands, because most of us have long forgotten the forgiving, gracious, warm bliss that only babies seem to have intact. The bliss of God's presence felt to your toes! The deep and total instinct, through and through that God is with you and loves you and ok, REALLY loves you~ adores you beyond fathoming.

Own it.

From there, you'll begin acknowledging His right over you, and I understand that we'll eventually start freely giving over to it; because the more we know of the supreme true God, the more we will do anything for this perfect and absolutely love-giving God.

That's what I hear, and that's what my instincts tell me is true; that's what I'm experiencing some, for myself.
But I have to tell you, I'm not there, yet. I still have a ways to go, before I live entirely at the Lord's command.

Go ahead of me, and work to get THAT close to God!
Once you give Him all rights in your life, or even begin to give Him more rights in your life and in your mind and in your being, amazing worlds will open before you, both the depths and heights will swirl together, and you'll be right with all Creation, glorifying God with all that you have in you.

I've submitted enough to Him, in my small amount, to see that that's what happens. Just giving God a tiny bit of leeway in your life, just the general attempt and commitment to place Him in the number one priority spot, will reap those amazing differences; and very shortly after you start putting Him first as much as possible, those differences come up and begin to change life for the much-better.

This I have experienced myself, over and over, and know to be true. Life lived even some for God, while still a faulty life, becomes an astounding adventure.
God is too good~ He gives me more than I deserve, considering how often I fail. He'll do the same for you.


Max
Max called to let me know he is still alive and kickin, though still feeling sick. Looks like he's going to make it, and I myself feel that it's due to all you devout pray-ers. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being such good Servants of God!

Finding God
"Instead of using God to solve our problems, we need to use our problems to find God." - Summary to "Finding God", Lawrence/Larry Crabb

Whenever someone notes my honesty in this blog, I'm always taken aback, and find myself thinking, 'You've got to be kidding me~ if this is as honest as it gets, we're all in trouble.' What have we come to, that an admission of fallibility is considered gut-wrenchingly honest? Have we really become so defensive and scared to be real with each other? Is there a way to change how we deal with each other and the subject of sin/grace?

Most people have no idea what God's grace looks like. They can't know how to deal with others with grace; they often feel that to do so would be to encourage sin. Forgiveness is a risky thing, it leaves one feeling vulnerable, it's hard work. Things get very tangled on the blind road to redemption.....

Our churches have fallen asleep, and I don't think it's because we have a lack of persecution, though persecution gives a kick to Christianity. I don't believe that persecution is necessary for spiritual revival. The Great Revival of early America came about at a time when we were not being fed to the lions.

How do you beckon and invite the Holy Spirit to kindle a flame of such magnitude that it would spread across the country?
And would the Spirit answer, if you did invite? Perhaps great revivals only happen at certain times, when the Lord alone deems them right to happen. And though reason would dictate that the time is always ripe for revival, my instincts have observed something akin to a noncommital attitude from God, on that subject. I suspect He doesn't always allow things to occur that we would assume He would want to be happening continuously. It could be that great and widespread revival is one of those occurrences that are marked down to happen only at specific times in His plan.

But if that were true, I don't think it would clear us of the responsibility to seek it. To seek God is not a seasonal event, it's to be a lifelong occupation, the one true purpose and pursuit of our existence, and the most rewarding endeavor we could possibly undertake.

In our troubles, I have noticed with myself, we find it hard to seek God merely to be with Him and know Him better. A trouble plagues the mind, filling it with entirety, making it difficult to set aside or use simply as ballast to finding out more about God. I want problems solved, and it takes a big step of faith to believe God will tend to the problem if I merely put it aside and abide in Him, concentrating on getting to know Him better. While I memorize the outline of His eyes, He flows peace into me, and often, answers.

But what a tenacious hold I have on a trouble! I see it's a pride issue, a desire to solve my trouble myself, to be all responsible and adult, and deal with it like a self-sufficient grownup, as my culture dictates. To let go of it when it isn't yet solved or answered seems to be asking for trouble, being immature, irresponsible, impractical.

Faith would have us let go of this kind of adulthood, and become like little children, trusting in God to see to our lives as we go about the business of focusing on Him alone, Him and His wonderfulness.
(Luke 18:15-17 ~ 'People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."')

During the recent health scares of people in my life, I've found it a struggle to place things in their proper context. I did not want to ruin an otherwise perfect Easter by dwelling on my worries. I knew that was the wrong road to take, so I kept attempting to rest in God, with varied success.

(To update: Max was 'discharged' from the hospital on Saturday, but that's all I know. Last time I talked with him, on Friday, he asked me to thank you for all your prayers. I'll let you know if I hear anything else.)


The "My Utmost for His Highest" devotional for today ends with:

"If you have heard Jesus Christ’s voice on the waves of the sea, you can let your convictions and your consistency take care of themselves by concentrating on maintaining your intimate relationship to Him."

A little better
Max is doing a little better. Not sure what all that entails, but anyhow, I am in grateful though tremulous hopes that this improvement will continue. Thanks be to God for even this small blessing!
(and I'm trying not to worry about my mom's and my sister's health, as well!)

Thank you so much for praying for Max, and for me. I myself am recovering from my own bout of illness.
You can't know how much it means to me to have you (often unseen) people praying for us from all over the world, kind friends and strangers who have found this blog and have the goodness to answer a need in a sister, one you may have never even met or conversed with.

It's quite a ride. This is surely the time when tender new buds try to root and grow in the spiritual heart. Brittle and delicate and vulnerable and dawningly warm as this new growth is, I can't blame God if it breaks. That would be my own doing, not His fault.

I accept the responsibility for my own opinions~ God is not bad, and He's not out to get me, He isn't trying to break my spirit or ignore my wishes. If He doesn't allow this faithful plea to be given, I have to try to remember the belief of my instinct~ that He wouldn't "punish" me if I must ask for help in my shaky faith. That He won't lower the boom on me if I can't produce the faith that could move a mountain. That He loves me and He will heal any wound placed on me, if I only let Him.

We're in this together, the merciful God and me, His little created bit of humanness. I don't want to turn on Him if things go very badly. I don't want to lose my trust in Him, just because He pushes me through painful events. Those will happen in a life, regardless. Yet, it's taking all of my strength to keep close in trust to Him. The sting of my husband's death, the litany of losing 6 family members in these last 6 years, my doubt and confusion as to how all this faith/miracle/belief/surrender stuff works, where the lines are drawn....

I do wonder if I'm doing something wrong, if I should be doing something differently; I wonder if I'm hearing God's voice well, or just 'filling in the blank' with my own voices of fear and hope. I wonder if I can find out His will through all those separating fears and wishes.

I am a unit saying, "Please give!" and God is pushed to a distance, so that I can look into His eyes without getting too close. It's taking me much effort to find the courage to snuggle up to Him again and abide in Him during this time of danger.

May we all fight a noble Battle.

Max update
I wish you guys could see Max, but I don't have a photo of him. I guess that's odd, considering I've known him for 9 years, and we've played music together so frequently, usually seeing each other once a week.

This morning when I called his hospital room, he was full of fight, taking steps to get a doctor fired ~ now, that's the Max we all know and love, full of fire and gruff justice! This new treatment they're trying has helped him at least some.

I realize that his improvement doesn't indicate that he'll pull through (and he is still not convinced that he will).
But I was so thankful just to be able to hear his voice one more time, this morning, I can't help but feel better, at least for now. The way he sounded last night was so horrible, when he called to tell me the prognosis, I didn't think he'd make it through the night.


To be able to speak to a dear one even for just one more time, when you didn't think you would get that chance~ well, it's a beautiful gift, and I'll always treasure it, no matter what happens.

Midnight entry
Max is worse.
My tough Apache friend is worse. The prognosis is apparently not good.
This is a nightmare.
Please pray.

Doing better
I'm not well, but I'm better than I've been, so we're counting those blessings. Mercifully, the really miserable times were more often than not cut short by a heavy but sweet sleep.

However, I must warn you: my generally loopy state of mind just might be noticeable here. If I don't make sense to you at all, please extend charity to me, and pretend that my unintelligible, strange comments are due to allergy pills. 'k?

Thank you for praying for me and for my friend, Max~ I know I myself turned a corner about half an hour after posting my entry, so I can tell you, that prayer stuff is potent medicine! Max will be ok~ he's a tough Apache, remember?

I'd like you to pray for my sister, who has undergone some health tests, and for my mom, who will be having a lump examined Friday.
I know already that you're going to do it~ you'll pray for these unknown people in my life~ you guys have the sweetest dedication to the good of others. So, thank you in advance.

It hits me hard just now that we circulate so much bad PR about ourselves, trying to be truthful or sound the alarm against those in our ranks of the Christian Kingdom we find offensive or dangerous or damaging or just plain stupid in their beliefs; and yet, you hear relatively little about the high quality of the Body of Christ's collective heart.
It's been shown to be a compassionate, vast, connective, mysteriously thriving family with great power flowing through it from God.
However wobbly may be the pedestal we build for Him, we've mostly got Him up there. Most of us mean well.

At some point, we have to acknowledge both the family mess and the family treasure, (often amplified in the same person~).
If we want to be genuine, we have to try for that balance of truth~ we are what we are, and that isn't entirely without merit. Outsiders might not understand, but God can work through the faulty, the weak, the inane and misguided.

Of course that drives me absolutely bonkers sometimes, because some of the people pointing fingers of blame and boasting power of God seem to me to be worse than the ones they're pointing at, and it gets to be real mud-slinging within the family unit, doesn't it? It can hurt.

We're all pretty much chickens without heads, in this game. We can only know so much~ 'we have a head somewhere, rolling around' ~ but after that, it's all guesswork~ 'where's that head got off to, now?'

That was pretty vivid, wasn't it? Ok, just chalk it up to a Sudafed buzz.....

But I wanted to talk to you about the movie "Walk the Line". I got to see it almost inadvertently. Watched it before I got sick.

For some reason, when I was in the stores, I was totally blanking on it, forgot I wanted to see it so much, now that it's out on dvd.

I was trying to gird up to view "Brokeback Mountain", but was very timid, it seems so sad and haunted a movie, and I didn't know if I could take it. A movie has to leave me with something positive, good, before I can appreciate it, and Brokeback seems a doomed plot that might or might not bring something valuable to my understanding of the world.

But Brokeback was all rented out, in the TWO stores I went into, so I got Walk the Line when it practically flapped its box panels at me to get my attention.

Of course, the acting was good- sparkling, nuanced, yes. I liked the costumes, too. Cinematography, ditto. It was all good.

But it was the music that wowed me (yes, I can use "wowed" as a word ~ I'm excused from using proper grammar!- I'm doped on Sudafed!).

The bluesy bit playing on the dvd menu page ~ also playing during the scene where Cash walks in a stupor through the rain and keels over near his future home~ if they still played blues like THAT, I'd be playing blues! (hear that, Max?)

This was a clean, rich, chutney rural blues, before it got soaked in the artificial, beery brine of town bars. These roots were deep in the soil. They meant something integral and evocative and deep-in-me.
I 'recognized' it; always a good way to tell a good song, when you feel like you recognize it when you're hearing it for the first time (well, that's what Bono says, and don't you agree?).

And the rest of the music! The rock, the country, the backporch blues, the fusions of all three genres~ it got me in that part of my instinct where I always hope a piece of music is going to get me but rarely does.
Reved up, crackling, exciting, sweaty, uplifting, budding graftings taken from true strains, no muddying up the basic pull of emotives, no concrete, no glitter, just raw Something Passionate and Real.
It amazed me!



*ok, I'm about to tell something that I found funny, but you might get a bit queasy over it ~ so be warned*
*you may also decide, upon hearing this story from me, that I'm a chowder head of little use to you~ if so, I apologize in advance for lowering your opinion of me*

(Heh heh. right.)


After watching the movie, I decided to use that inspiration and practice my guitar a bit.
When I got my guitar (Lady) out of her zip case, a sharp bit at her neck punctured the skin on my thumb, and drew a couple of drops of blood.
One got on the guitar, and when I tried to wipe it off, it disappeared into the guitar finish; I couldn't feel it on the finish, and it wasn't on me. Curious and amused, I got the other drop of blood (are you totally grossed yet?) and tried that one, and it too went into the guitar. I couldn't feel it on the polished surface, and I couldn't see it, though I figured surely it couldn't sink in below a polished surface, right?
And you had to look reeeeeeally close at my thumb to see where the puncture was, it's so teeny. In some light, it isn't visible at all. After those two drops, it didn't bleed anymore.

So, me and my guitar are blood-sisters, now!

Maybe it's the Sudafed, but that amuses me!

(Ok, you are now free to consider me too eccentric to be of any real use to you.
Rest assured, once I'm not doing 4-hour interchangeable rounds of Sudafed, Advil and Robitussin, I will be
qwoit nolllllmal and veddy proh-puh a-gainnn.
Ok?)

I'm sick, but Max is sicker.
He's in the hospital with double pneumonia and a blocked air tube, on oxygen.
Please pray for him.

I like her attitude
"Almost every time something hasn't gone the way I planned in my life, and my hopes were dashed, once I processed my frustration and disappointment something much better came into my life that wouldn't have happened without the disappointing event. It can be easy to get stuck in a sense of disappointment and failure, but in fact there are boundless opportunities in front of you." - Jane Seymour (quoted from article posted here)

A Believer will identify this as GOD working through faith. He's the one that can turn the situation around, and make it something better than what was lost.

But I noticed that you've simply got to give Him room to manuever. Faith is a network, connecting to many areas of our existence, often mysteriously. It colors so much of our lives~ I'm convinced that our faith (or lack thereof) affects the course of our life, what happens to us and what doesn't happen.
The quality of our life depends in large part on our willingness to go with God's flow, with a sense of trust, a good attitude directed towards that flow. The more willingness you show in believing He'll do the best for you, the more you end up with cool events and deepening occurrences in your life.

It's the Faithful and the Grateful who see the miracles, and they also see the amazing, fun, enjoyable things that can spring up like grape hyacinth in Spring (those little boogers pop up outta nowhere, I tell you!).
I've seen that time and again. The people who expect good things to happen are usually the ones who end up having all the fun, or get to experience/witness those rich moments in life that happen rarely.

How many times have I faced a difficulty with blindness, with fear or dread, and only found the perfect solution (usually right under my nose) only after I gave it over to God, making the effort to believe that "the solution is built into the problem, and God will reveal it to me". And I always ended up going, "I can't believe I didn't see that solution, before! It's so obvious, how did I miss it?"

That belief allowed me to move on to better things, each time I built up my courage and adopted it.

Jane has inspired me repeatedly~ her life has had many ups and downs, very wonderful things and very painful things. I'm positive that her marvelous attitude gives this kind of life the leeway it needs in order to come about. She has always looked at life as a big adventure, a romantic experience just waiting to unfold before us.

As a Christian, and as a mystic (ugh, I'm starting to hate the connotations attached to that word), I agree with her. I feel that when I am not adopting that attitude, I'm not doing right by God, because He's certainly quite capable of making life wonderful and satisfying for me. He's willing to show me extraordinary things, if I will just open myself to them~ to Him.

Putting myself entrustingly into God's hands has to be done over and over, I've noticed that about myself! It's a new day everyday, and with it, a new chance to cultivate the kind of attitude that glorifies Him in my life.

To learn to expect beauties and graces and wonderful things, mixed in with the bad episodes~ I want to have the courage and energy to do that everyday, all the time, until it becomes a constant state of trust, faith, keen love and gratitude towards God Most High.

(Image found at www.lef.org)

Yesterday's rain falls again and again
Yesterday, the leader of my contemplative prayer group asked me to consider finding a Christian Protestant book on centering prayer/contemplation that we could read and discuss in our group. So far, all the authors have been monks and Catholics of varying degrees.

I am blanking out on that one completely. I know there's a new book out by a woman, a friend of Dallas Willard's, so I guess I'll think about that one.
If I could get my hands on more books, I'd be happy, but my library system has a dismal amount of these types of books (no Larry Crabb at all!), and they charge 5 bucks to do an interlibrary loan.
Ugh. I could buy the book for about $5!

I think my only solid hope on this one is the Quaker authors. But so far, I've only found Thomas Kelly, and I don't think he'll fit the bill.
...I'm looking into Andrew Murray~ he seems interesting. There is always Oswald Chambers to consider....his work had great impact on me. He still challenges me to unflinchingly follow Christ.

How dismal that a culture with such a rich supply of preachers and teachers has so few books on silent prayer and seclusion/retreat with God and the state of resting in God....where have we BEEN? With all that hermit blood in us, why haven't we written about that?

I suspect the Protestant culture has focused more on activity and doing things, always with a sociable-creature type of profile and temperment, always surrounding themselves with other people, always working in teams.
The Protestant hermits were silent, and maybe they didn't get much respect, as holy-living people. It just didn't seem the done thing, to be like that in the Protestant culture.

Of course, I (being of the hermity, contemplative, personal-relationship-with-God calling) think we suffered for want of more diversity in our forms of worship/prayer. It isn't just the actively social personalities that work in God's Kingdom. He calls some to a life where solitude with Him is the cornerstone.

Too many Protestants don't realize that, and feel uncomfortable about the way they are; they're meant to be that way, they serve a definite purpose with those introspective, deep thinking characteristics, but they don't know that. Just this morning, Seraphim was telling me that he had been struggling with this issue.

Contemplation- Not Just For Breakfast, Anymore
Most Protestant Christians have a time of devotion, usually before breakfast, and then they go out to their day, and they're fine with no more one-on-one time, alone with God.

But some of us need more. Much more. We need a lot of time alone, to be with God and our thoughts, to let Him do His deep work in our quiet waters.
It's a good way to be, it has its purpose; and the bible tells us to seek His face in a sort of constant way that would be extremely challenging to do, if you were always surrounded by the distractions of others.
Alone with God in the quiet, you have little to take you from Him, save your own brain activity (which is a huge obstacle, on its own!).

I seek solitude so that I can be with the whisper of God's magnificent voice, and can find Him in as great a strength as my being allows.

There are probably people who feel they can't get to God unless they're in a crowd of others. I'm talking specifically about the ones who avoid being alone.
But those who avoid being alone are just running~ from themselves, from loneliness, from God or from the lack of God in their lives. And sometimes, service to God through service for others can be used as a way of NOT facing God.
They live in fear; they don't reach for a personal relationship with God, very much.

Can you imagine how you would feel if someone you cared about was avoiding being in the same room alone with you~ and you hadn't done any harm to them? But that's how many deal with God.

The ones who feel God with them never feel alone, when they're in solitude~ I count myself in their numbers ~ in fact, we thirst for solitude, because in solitude we focus on God the most. We meet Him one-on-one, noone between us. This is where we can grow the most, in our awareness of God with us.

If morning devotionals and meal prayers just don't seem like enough time for you to be alone with God, I commend you on your outreach towards Him. Your soul is seeking God, and that's a good way to be!
I pray that you and God find ways to meet together, in solitude, for rich company and time for you to get to know the Godhead better.

An aside of small significance
Bought "Chronicles of Narnia" yesterday, watched it for the first time, cried so hard I couldn't even drink my chocolate shake. I loved the way Aslan was portrayed, loved the children who portrayed the characters~ in general, I loved the movie.

Saw the video from Michelle Branch's new duo group, the Wreckers, I think the song was called "Leave the Pieces". Anyway, I liked it~ the whole thing did CountryCool very well.

And iTunes' m4p extensions are devil's work!! (kidding, kidding)

We don't throw people away
Know what happens when you start loving everybody?
You miss them.
Know what happens when you miss them?
You find out just how far away they live. Or just how busy they are. Just how impossible it is for you to get to see them as much as you'd like.

God goes through all that missing/lonely stuff for others. What does He do about it?~ He waits. A gentleman, waiting for you to pay attention to Him. Ready to be there for you if you ask Him. No doubt longing for you to want more of His company.
And I'm sure this makes it all the more wonderful to Him if you're one of the people who visits with Him frequently, all the time.

So, I decided that I should do that, too.
But now, I have to face the fact that I will be missing people, be lonely for them, for all of my life. That's just going to be a fact, and I accept that~ unless I can get to the point I hear people can get to, where I feel so connected to everyone I love, through the Love of God, that I can't miss them! Wouldn't that be nice?

In the meantime, those that are in my daily life, my everyday life, those I get to see or communicate with often, the ones who seem to really want to have me in their lives ~ they're gold.
They mean more to me than ever, I really appreciate them!

I'll go with the flow as much as I can, allowing God to work in me until I don't dwell on wondering what people think of me, and just love people as I should.

On the way home from the funeral, with my kids spending the night with my parents, I found myself saying out loud to an empty car, "We don't throw people away."
It had become my creed, what I aspire to.

I realized this would be a tall order, fraught with complications and issues that only God could straighten out. There is risk involved, but God's guidance is available, and I hope to stay open to that guidance, for each situation.

Coincidentally, as I wrote this out, I got an email from a friend who is dealing with the same sort of issues of loss and missing others, and how he has to accept that. Made me feel better to know someone else is going through the same thing. I guess in our busy, overloading world, lots of people are going through it!

Just think how the world would be if people really knew how much God loves them..... I know that, for myself, it would have profound and positive affect on how I deal with others, how I see myself, how I behave, and what I accept or turn away from. It would saturate everything in my existence.

Lifesong
My aunt Betty was too young to die, really, but her health ran amok, and there you go. Gone.

Her funeral is tomorrow, and like all funerals have been, this seems a bit surreal to me. I can't quite take it in that she's gone.
How is that possible?~ she had kids my age. She and my mom used to go shopping together.

Looking back into the Summertime of childhood, I didn't think she would ever die. Noone but the reallyreally old people would ever die. Old people might kick off without warning, a thought that made me rather jumpy in their presence; but anyone else, no~ to my kid brain, we were all immortal, or very near to it.

So, I suppose I won't be blogging tomorrow~ I'll be down in beautiful Williamstown, letting the land soothe my soul, giving my goodbyes to my aunt.

****

This whole love thing~ when has anyone ever been able to sufficiently warn me? Love brings more emotions than just love with it.

But as I learn to love, I noticed that God is using my scattered, irredeemably blemished, unpolished, wild-wind past, and winnowing it into an understanding of His grace, an understanding that speaks to others who have that wild wind to them, too.
One can't be forgiven such a large amount, a whole passel of sins, and not come to realize a thing or two about
a) gratitude,
and b), grace.

Luke 7:47 ~ "Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."

but, in return,

Luke 12:48 ~ "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."

And yet,

Romans 4:7 ~ "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered."

There comes a duty with grace, yet its rewards are the most valuable.

It's impossible to fathom the idea of grace being sufficient to forgiving sins until you've been awakened to just how much God has forgiven you, already. Just how much.

You can be sure that the unforgiving are also unforgivable to themselves, deep down inside their souls. They fear that the Lord can't forgive what they will not forgive, in themselves.
I find that particular dis-ease to be widespread.
Forgiveness is our calling, our painful but fruitful growth, our grace coming up out of the favor of Christ.

It's been brought to my attention that He's been using my imperfection to show His forgiving love; not just towards me, but towards all others, too.
This makes it easier to love others, in general~ that He would love me to such an extent, and be so generous~ He who had every right to be offhand towards me! But His kindness has shown me a thousand surprising glimpses, the things of God that somehow reflect light onto my own spirit.

In seeking God, I find myself.

It would be next to impossible for someone to understand this covering grace if they haven't been able to face their own depth of ongoing sin, haven't been able to face the fact that they aren't perfect, no matter how much they long to be, no matter how much they think they should be. Plus, they have to face God's willingness to forgive that sin and imperfection.

I was telling of my own forgiven state to some who didn't follow God, saw no reason to follow God. I was telling each what I'd found in this God I follow, and the love lavished on me by a God they knew so little of that was good, a God they were conditioned to avoid.
I had no proof beyond my belief~ but that belief was all God needed in order to shine out to the hurting heart before me. And what a profound gift for me to be able to see!

It's been my experience that people disliked it when I tried to convert them to Christianity. I had made it an organization, a thing to do, a deal to make. Not a love relationship at all. And they didn't like that any more than I like it when someone tries to convert me to their religion!

With Christ being such a kind person, accepting and encouraging, willing to be my dearest Brother, all I want is for someone to suddenly see Him for what He is, and not for what they fear Him to be. The religion that follows Him is not as important as HIM!

There are so many hearts mutely seeking Him, afraid to actively hope anymore for His forgiveness. It's so hard for them to believe He loves them. Not just because of their own sins, but also because of us~ our bad examples, our clumsy doctrines.
Wow. That hurts. I can't think how many people I've possibly messed up, myself, through the best of intentions!
(God grant that I may cling to His grace through any mess I make while trying to do His will.)

I find myself looking for a chance from the Holy spirit to tell someone about God's love, His REAL love, and what it's like (your wildest dreams of unconditional love~ that's what it's like).

I can't ask for more than that this understanding be allowed to grow in them, until they're warm with the acceptance of His love.