The Gentle Making of a Thoughtful Life of Beauty . . . .

That's what I want to be doing.

Yet I run ragged with my hair on fire.

When I do that,  I miss you . . . and I miss me . . . and I miss God . . . and I miss so many other gracious, loving, unique gifts God has placed right in front of me, all around me.

I collapsed on the sofa after work this week and breathed in the smell of a hard rain coming down. I smiled as it thundered.

More, more I thought.

I didn't want it to end. It was God's aroma and music therapy while I laid still inhaling it all in--listening and smiling and feeling.

But times like that are exceptions.

I need, I want more "exceptions" and less rules so that I may participate in and receive the gentle making of a thoughtful life of beauty.

Hear my prayer, O Lord.     ....amen....


(The title of my blog is taken from Ann Voskamp's blog "A Holy Experience"  http://www.aholyexperience.com/ She quotes from Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity and Writing.)

For more, listen to Audrey Assad's "Restless" . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0B2ybZpDeM

Valley Thoughts, Rose Bushes, a Great Light

September 11, 2011
Ann Voskamp, who wrote 1000 Gifts, coined the words "valley wisdom" describing those who have gained wisdom as they have walked through the "valley of the shadow."

Well I don't feel too much wisdom coming out of me right now as I walk the valley. So here's my attempt at some "valley thoughts."

This weekend, today, tonight I find myself thinking about my grandmother, Polly Armistead Miere, and my mom, Shirley Hardin Neville--both a part of my heart and soul and both gone. My mom died in October 2008 and Polly died a few weeks ago, August 30, 2011.

Here's some of my valley thoughts to sort of describe some of my valley feelings....

• It's like all the chairs are empty at the emotional dinner table except for me.
• It's like I have good news or hurt feelings with no one to tell on the other end of the phone back home.
• It's like the phone doesn't ring anymore on Sunday afternoons to hear how my week has gone or about what my cat has done or me hear about the crazy RV trips or Sunny the Poodle.
• It's like I am deafened by the silence.
• It's like even though I'm getting fatter on the outside, I feel like I could cave in from emotional starvation on the inside.
• It's like my clothes are getting older and frumpier because there's no one left who cares, comments, or compliments.
• It's like crying is no longer the exception.

Maybe I'm "Donna Downer" like this because it's 9/11 and I've cried off and on all day as I've participated in grief with all those on TV. Maybe it's because I didn't get my happy pills renewed for over a week. Maybe it's because I miss my mom and grandmother and miss the love I had with them, for them, and from them. Maybe it's because life is dramatically changing in and around me as I walk on without them.

I've called on God tonight.

I've written this blog.

Amen.



This is my mom's headstone in Springhill Cemetery, Madison, TN.

My brother, Brad, left the penny--a signal of a job well done

in the world of food servers.

I left the little "I love Mom" pot.

Next Words . . .
September 13, 2011
Up early this AM. And so I had time to sit outside in my Cracker Barrel rocker on my deck. It was my prayer time where I spoke no words. Only listened to the birds waking up, squirrels fussing, and I-40 morning traffic in the distance. I love being with my back yard. It's a sanctuary for me. And so I was just being before God, with God.

I've been noticing my red rose bush has done better this year. More growth and more blooms. My pink rose bush has also done better. But both have been needing me to prune off the old, dead, dried up blooms and yellowed leaves and stalks.

That's when the thought surfaced for my own rose bush of a life--I don't bloom as well when I hold on to all the dead stuff, hold on to all that's gone.

What's dead? What's gone? I began to write . . .

• Except for my brother Brad and Marcia, my nuclear family--Mommie, Polly, Mama, Pop
• My home place to come home to
• The way it was for me at home when I was younger--people and places to run to, to find rest and security in
• My strength and energy and interest to keep on working the "front lines" for all the tragedies and sadness and trauma in my chaplaincy ministry (17 years worth and counting)
• Old relationships like they were at first
• Submitting to the male agenda in Christendom--an agenda that has me being reticent, defensive, silent . . . an agenda that is often reductionist for women who are disciples of Jesus
• Having my own family
• The dream of teaching at a university
• Basically clinging to and giving the most value to paths, people, and memories old and gone

It's hard to look at this list and offer it to God for pruning. But hanging on to dried up nubs of past blooms is not life, not living. And I trust God that the pruning is for blooming, for enjoyment of more life, more color, more rich aroma, more beauty.

It is a good and hopeful word for this 56 year old rose bush.

Next Words . . .
September 14, 2011

I’ve just read in Matthew 4:16 this morning:

“the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

It’s a prophecy from the life and times of Isaiah the prophet (Isa. 9:1-2).

“The people living in darkness . . . .”

“Those living in the land of the shadow  . . . .”

My eyes looked again and again at those verses. This wording hooks into my wording above—“valley thoughts” and “shadow of the valley” walking.

For those of us who are walking and living in darkness, for those of us who are trying to press on through the land of the shadow, we are promised “a great light.” We are informed that for us “a light has dawned.”

A Great Light.

Dawn.

That Light, that Dawn is not an idea, not a new program, not a latest book all the rave (and I thank God for all of those things which have meant something to me throughout my valley walk).

The Light is a Person. As usual, God points us followers, us valley walkers, us folks swaddled in darkness, us folks who’ve bought a house in the land of the shadow  . . . God points us to a relationship, to a living, loving, adoring, healing Person—Jesus.

Jesus, in all his humility, humanity, and divinity, Jesus in all his lordship, love, and laughter, Jesus in all his acquaintance with grief... He is my Light out of the darkness, my Dawn of hope from a long night, my One True Love in what too many times feels like devastating loneliness.

Thank you, Oh Lord, for a word within the word. For hope. For a future. Praise be to God.

Dare to Ride the Rim

Jesus said the Greatest Commandment is to love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Lovin' God.       


Lovin' others.

What am I scared of?

Nothing and a lot.

C. S. Lewis said:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

I gotta stop diddle daddling

                            and get out there

                                    and ride the rim....

Live the Questions

I would like to beg you . . .

to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart

and to try to love the questions themselves

as if they were locked rooms

or books written in a very foreign language.

Don't search for the answers,

which could not be given to you now,

because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is to live everything.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps then, someday far in the future,

you will gradually,

without even noticing it,

live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
in Letters to a Young Poet

Leisure Time

Thoughts Like Ants in an Ant Hill
Most of the time I have a bizillion thoughts going on inside my brain day and night. I have so many thoughts sometimes that I can't sleep. (Like several nights ago when it was finally around 3 AM before I started the zzzzz's.)

But when it comes to lassoing one or two of those thoughts and bringing them out in the open, well good luck to me.

One Thought Will be about Church Goers and Atheists
Someday I'm going to put Jimmy Dorrell's newsletter and an article from our newspaper on here. Jimmy is a lover of God and a prophet to the church. The newspaper article is a plea to stop hating atheists...written by atheists I think. That's coming soon. (And when I say "soon," that often means before the New Year if I'm lucky.)

My thought tonight will be a short one b/c I have more things to do before I lay down. So here's the short thought:

Leisure Time Rules
I like not having deadlines. I like not having to do position papers. I like my time not so dominated by things needing to be finished and done and finalized and mailed off. But right now, I'm back on the clock trying to get things written, emailed, snail mailed, and turned in for "the man." I thought I finished all that in 2009. Yet once again, I am back in a type of "school" in order to become more and do differently one day.

I like the kind of leisure that allows me to read, to write, to nap on the sofa, or to sit in my rocker on my deck and listen and look out into my backyard. I like having space and energy to say "yes" to a friend inviting me to have coffee or for  Mexican food or for a walk. I like having time to create. I like enjoying time to blog. I'm sacrificing several things that should be getting done NOW in order to lay down a few words. And so NOW will become tomorrow night which is already crowded with its list....

Leisure Time is Foolish to this Culture
I think leisure time is rare with most people for a variety of reasons.

I think leisure time is laughable for most of today's culture.

I think leisure time (and those who imbibe) is labeled "lazy" or "stupid" or  "antiquated" by today's culture.

The Kingdom of God and Leisure Time
Yet I think the kind of leisure time this blog is discussing is on par with the Kingdom of God.

That kind of leisure,  "wasted" time is like the mustard seed nestled in the dirt or like the one lost penny and a woman sweeping or like a farmer broadcasting his seed while he sings or like the Maker noticing a sparrow taking a tumble from a limb. That kind of time is like a woman's prized, hidden treasure of expensive never-used perfume in an alabaster jar. That kind of time is like that same earthy smelling ointment/perfume oozing and dripping from the tips of Jesus' curls on his head.That kind of time is like dipping bread together and drinking wine together before the big showdown just hours away. That kind of time is the aroma of fish cooking over an open fire on the beach by the Greatest Griller for his friends.

Jubilee
After I graduated from Asbury acquiring my doctorate (in five hard years), I took a year off and participated in the Kingdom of God. I call it my "year of jubilee."

And really at this age and stage in my life, I don't have time to allow anything else to interfere with God's Kingdom that lives in me and around me.

Coming Soon
I promise: Atheists and today's new prophet to the church to come soon . . . as soon as I have some leisure time.

Zach and the Newly Transformed Guest Bedroom

As I type up this little blog thot, Zach the Cat sleeps soundly on the guest bed behind me on this Memorial Day holiday. It’s nice to have his presence in the house as I piddle on projects or as I jump on the computer and set my writing muse free.

One of my projects on this 3-day weekend has been accomplished—rearranging my guest bedroom that also doubles as a corner home office. I have longed for better “office” space and better aesthetics in general in my guest bedroom.

And so I dismantled the room.

Out went one of the two twin beds. In came a fake tree-type plant. Out went a night stand. In came a five-foot long bench. Out went one of my two book cases. In came an oval braided rug. What was against the wall is now open and turned towards a window. What was up against the window is now pointed towards the door.

The room is wonderfully more open, airy, light, and free of furniture crammed in all corners, against walls, and in front of the window. I love it.

Zach the Cat hated it.

When he first gingerly peeped into the new-and-improved guestroom, he stopped at the door and bellowed. Nothing looked familiar to him. His favorite window perch—which was the foot of one of the twin beds at the front window—was gone. His other window perch atop the two-drawer file cabinet was gone. The twenty-plus-year-old blue two-seater sofa/pull-out-bed which served as an alternate sleeping area for Zach was now on the opposite side of the room (which means the WRONG side to Zach).

For the last 48 hours Zach has refused to sleep on the one twin bed left standing. I would put him up there, push his hinny down, and say, “See, it’s a great place to sleep. You can even see out the window from this angle.” But as soon as I tip-toed away, down and out he’d go.

I brought in a five-foot long “church bench” in front of the window. I even put two blankets on it for a soft perch. In my mind, it's just perfect to sit there and watch the world walk and drive by.

Zach has hesitantly jumped up there and ponderously looked out the window for a few minutes, but I can tell he’s not excited about it like he was  about the end of the twin bed or the top of the filing cabinet.

“This looks really pretty,” I explained to Zach as I pointed to the church bench. He turned and eye-ed it for a moment and then turned back to slowly, disgustingly walk away.

The breakthrough happened today. As I was in and out of the house working on three other projects (which are impossible to complete in the remaining hours left of this holiday), I noticed Zach was nowhere to be found.

Not on the sofa in the living room (a familiar sleep spot).

Not on my bed or in my rocker in my bedroom (other familiar resting places).

Then I spotted him. He was in the guest room on the solo twin bed curled up on my newly cleaned comforter. I went over to him and whispered in his ear how happy it made me to see him ease up on the guest-room criticisms, judgments, and general unhappiness. Then I lightly kissed the top of his head.

He purred as he kept his eyes shut.

With my cat asleep on the twin bed, the newly transformed guest room is now prettier than ever.

Ragged in the Rain



A profusion of pink roses

bending ragged in the rain

speaks to me

of all gentleness and its enduring. 

~The Collected Later Poems of William Carlos Williams