Annual Anonymity

Sometimes analogies are as clear as glass like I feel as giddy as champaign is bubbly or I am as low as a crab in an ocean trench. In fact, our DNA wires our brains to seek patterns from nothingness. This drive to create order compels us to interpret our dreams and identify concrete symbols from abstraction. Our medium is meaning and we seek to understand. We want to know and to be safe and feel well.

This genetic drive for stasis socializes us into a community of diagnosticians as our need to know is equally yoked with our desire to be comfortable.  As such, we approach experience like a puzzle to solve or a diagnostic differential.

If we feel ill, we assess our symptoms to determine if we do or don’t need the intervention of a physician. Often the indicators are straightforward like a fever, or a rash that won’t go away, or pain.

Unrelenting pain.
Pain is the body’s signal that something is wrong.
Pain is a definitive, primal signal.
Pain flashes a warning.
STOP!
Pain asserts the most elementary of medical principals.
If doing that hurts, STOP doing that.

Yet, in it’s way, pain is also entirely subjective.

When I’m in pain, it’s difficult for me to remember that it may have hurt less yesterday.

It (still) hurts (now)!
Make it stop!
Make it stop now!
I’ll drink anything.
I’ll swallow anything.
Get me an epidural!
I don’t care I’m not in labor (or even pregnant).

When in pain, it’s difficult for me to remember that I will feel better, let alone soon, or that my life, actually, is generally very sweet and comfortable.

I’m so comfortable in fact, with my first-world sensibility and Middle Class American propaganda that I’ve devolved into something of a pain-phobic persona.

I don’t want it to hurt.
Whatever “it” is.
Truth be told,
I don’t even want it to feel hard,
or require too much effort…
Whether its making dinner,
or raising a child,
or saving a marriage,
or growing in Faith.
I really don’t want it to be messy
or painful
or moist.

I want my challenges like
I want my food,
fast,
quick,
inexpensive,
easy,
and convenient.

(Hmmmmmm…. Notice I didn’t list healthy…)

As such, I avoid pain and difficult conversations and hard workouts for the simple reason that they hurt. I know they hurt. The gamble that pushing through the pain will take me to a better place often, and simply, isn’t worth the upfront pain tax. This is true when The Husband and I try to agree on a budget or our family needs to purchase a new vehicle or The Mamma needs to schedule her annual OB/GYN physical.

In fact, prior to this week, The Mamma was over a year past due her for her pap and pelvic. Even though I respect that my health is a family resource, and it’s a commodity that daily caregives for the five people I love most on the planet, I kept procrasstinating making an appointment Here because I knew it would hurt.

I wasn’t willing to pay the pain tax.

Ever since I was in grad school, I had the benefit of the medical care and relationship with of one primary physician. Initially he was my gynecologist and later became my obstetrician. He tended my every woman’s health issue from before I conceived of conception through every pregnancy and pregnancy loss and reproductive repair.

He caught each of the heads of our four children.
He held us together through four losses.
He helped me get my body back into shape four times.
He performed seven surgeries.

I trusted him
in a way that I haven’t ever trusted
anyone else with my body.
Never.
Ever.
Except my husband.

So I thought I knew how much he meant to me before I finally made my appointment for that stupid pap smear Here.

I was so wrong.

Nothing at all went wrong with the appointment Here.

The physician was entirely competent and kind and professional. She was thorough and took a medical history as extensive as an archeologist on a dig. She tutored me on how to do a self breast exam and its importance. She inquired if I wore a seatbelt. She admonished me not to drink and drive. She warned that sending a text behind the wheel could kill me dead. She observed that there were treatment options available for recreational drug use and tobacco addiction. She inquired if my husband ever abused me and if I am safe in my relationship. She ordered blood panels and offered me a referral for a primary caregiver. She also asked to weigh me, inserted the speculum without telling me that she was gong to do it first and placed her finger in my bottom without a polite warning.

In other words, she didn’t know me.
Like, at all.

There was no malpractice and nothing inappropriate in the medical care she gave me.

As a woman physician, taking care of a woman with my medical history, she had every reason to expect I knew the ins and outs of a gynecological exam without verbal cue or someone to hold my hand.

Mine was a routine exam,
one of many she would do that day,
of the scores she would do that week,
of the countless thousands
she has done user career.

It was simply,
no biggy for her.
It was just,
as my lab prescriptions record,
a routine well visit annual exam for a healthy woman.

It was for me, however, anything but routine.

I felt anonymous.

As course as it sounds, I learned a lot about relationship from having a strange woman’s finger up my bottom.

Yep, I said it.
I went there.
I mentioned the nasty.

Ladies, we all know that appointment can be a literal pain in the butt.

Now I’ve got to figure out how to make my point without your thinking that I have some kind of anal fetish or engaged in an inappropriate relationship with my previous doctor.

No.
No, no.
No, no, no!

He was, however, a partner in my medical care and wellness. The Husband and I have had a relationship with him for over 15 years.

Relationships matter.

Relationship reduces pain. Relationship takes the impersonal out of sterile medical procedures. Relationship extends safety when you’re feeling naked and alone, let alone literally nude while straddling stirrups.

It hurts to be away from the people who make me feel safe and known and loved. It hurts to be anonymous, just another pap smear, just two more breasts to palpitate and one more woman to remind about sunscreen.

I knew it would be difficult to see a new doctor. But I didn’t realize how much it would hurt my heart.

I am so grateful that I enjoyed such flawless medical care from my physician the for so many years. His choice to care about me as a person was the longest acting, most effective and most life-giving prescription he ever wrote me.

I know it’s unlikely I’ll ever have that kind of relationship again with another doctor.

I am grateful to him.

He knew me.

I will go to the dentist and get a skin checked and make and keep my annual appointments Here.

I will also seek to nurture and grow the relationships that I’ve begun with people Here. Nothing is more important to my wellness nor better medicine than being known and appreciated for who I am.

There was a time when you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

“I Gotta” List

The May dance Here jigs a dervish as frantic as the one I recall and trust that  you are also doing There.

It’s an aerobic month that demands inventory and industry with more than a dash of insanity.

With no end to the list of things I gotta do, my children also scramble to meet their many, various objectives.

They have academic jobs, social obligations, domestic chores, athletic responsibilities and personal agendas. They gotta do so much more than was ever expected of me at 6, 10, 12 or 14. In many ways, their I Gotta Lists are longer and less yielding my own.

It is also Final Exam season.  In my house only one is old enough for that rodeo, and the others are in the midst of the school year “ramping down.”

Running a household wherein one is frantically studying cumulative, college-prep, honor’s curriculum
(not bragging here, friends, and no longer certain that I still want them to participate in this Chase to No Where) 
while the rest of his siblings leisurely unfold into Summer mode collide two fronts as forcefully as a hurricane. Their howls, cries, complaints, and frustrations register enough MPH (Moans Per Hour) to be classified as a Category 4 event.

It is also simultaneously a season of turning each other in, spontaneous confessions and hypersensitive peer relations. In this merry ‘ol month of May, I never know at any given moment which child will come to me with moist, wide eyes and, “Need to talk to me alone.” Generally, there are tears and we have to hug it out before things resolve. The school year has tenderized their egos like a gourmet marinade and the Crying Chair hasn’t gotten this much use since we moved in.

As a Mamma, I’m something of a hybrid between an attachment parent and a drill sergeant. I am crazy in love with my wonderful children, but I get that they are no where near perfect and often need a combat boot kick to jump start their quality maneuvers. I am also aware, however, that their I Gotta lists demand almost every moment of their waking hours.

Their obligations have begun to blister them like their now almost too small shoes I bought them for Back to School in August. They are rubbed raw by the deadlines, award banquets, concerts, and games. They can not perform at a concert and play in a soccer tournament at the same time. They can’t study for an Algebra exam and practice an 8th grade class speech in tandem. Though helpful to an extent in terms of teaching time management skills, too often our kids face Hobson Choices between two required events. Does this help them better organize their time or polish their study skills or simply assert that many students are overbooked?

What strikes me as most unfair in this merry old month of May is how unrealistically our children are taught to adhere to the rigid (and often unreasonable) timelines of their I Gotta lists. As an adult, I have options that are unavailable to our children.

I can delegate.
I can pull an all-nighter.
I can file for an extension, or sometimes pay for an extension.
I can outsource it.
I can wing it.
I can decide not to do it.

At their school, my children would be suspended if they outsourced, consequenced if they winged it and have no option to delegate their I Gotta lists.

As a  mom, I also have options my children lack.

I can not do it.
(Think laundry, dishes or making beds.)
I can reduce the usual requirments.
(Think cereal for dinner.)
I can delegate.
(Now the kids have to walk Puppy and get their homework done.)
I can do it tomorrow without penalty.
(Think scheudling my dental cleaning.)

In our home, my children would lose a cherished, electronic device if they went on strike, sent to Time Out if they didn’t do something, “The right way the first time,” and have zero delegation options.

As we sprint through this month with so much to do and so many places to be, let’s consider that even within our families, our I Gotta lists ain’t really equal nor created the same.

My children need Grace, the Crying Chair and the boot right now.

And they’re in good company.

So say we all?

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

The Body

The decision to move from to Here from melted a slow, liquid process like ice caps.

The final call was time-lapse photography worthy of PBS Nature episode. Nature programs always make me think of my grandfather, who was hypnotically fascinated by snakes. If a during a segment a snake began to hunt, he expected total silence in the room, an homage not only to the chase, but to the fallen.

Whether or not the snake ate well that night, the hunt stirred reminders like a gust of wind conducts fall leaves to waltz in an arbor.

Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return
I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff comfort me.

Though our resolve unfolded slowly, its execution was swift.

Eight weeks from driveway to driveway.

In that single interval, I learned more about the strength of the Body of Christ than I had ever known.

Our church family carried us.

They tended our children
and wiped our tears.

They tagged items for the moving sale
and showed up at 5:00 a.m. to peddle them,
(and restrain me from dousing a smoker with my Diet Coke).

They drove us 400 miles to pick-up our babies
from grandmother’s haven
and carried us home again the next day
because they knew how much it would
cost me to travel alone.

They insisted we just go.
Just go.
And repaired walls,
spot cleaned carpets,
vacuumed,
changed light bulbs,
emptied refrigerators,
and cleaned,
and cleaned,
and cleaned some more.

They held us
and prayed for us,
Jeremiah 29:11,
over and again,
For I know the plans I have for you,”
declares the LORD,
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.

They put us first
at the risk of their own hearts,
paid forward labor and
toils that were rightly
ours to bear alone,
read my posts
and folded us into prayer.

They carried plates
and t-shirts,
took memorial flowers
and shared testimonies,
they showed up
and they genuinely cared.

They surprised us with visits,
even on the last morning
and showed up-
bearing Starbucks
and hand-stitched pillows
and sparkling pretties
and books for the heart,
and disco soap for hands
and timid, walking-it-out feet.

All this without judgment
or complaint.
Meeting us where we were,
loving us right as we were,
serving us as we were,
individually and as a family.

My heart floods with gratitude today for those many, precious kindnesses.

The Body was the hands and feet that made our transition Viable.

Because of The Body, I left with a Song of Praise on my lips,
and not a bitter heart.

As my feet sink into the shells Here, I realize I owe so many thank-you notes to the red-clayed kicks There.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff comfort me.

You kept me safe as I began this journey. You knew the road would include much dying to self before I would pick up my head all the way again, yet you never uttered a discouraging word.

You made it so I feared no evil,
Showed me He was with me,
and with sweetest mercies were such
wholly, Holy comfort.

You know what you did
as you did so intentionally.
Trust I know it too;
and am forever changed by the agape love
of every single moment still.

How you taught by example;
what we do matters.

God bless you always.

I love you forever.

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

May I Please See Your ID?

So I got a new gig.

The gig’s a good one, but it comes with a name tag.

The name tag serves the dual purpose of security clearance and identification. At a glance, children and parents may easily recognize me as a community member.

So much so, in fact, that when I first encountered the community I perceived it as a badge of honor. Shiny and white like the patent leather, church shoes I wore as a little girl to catholic Mass, I looked for those uniform placards when I needed help.

And when I first arrived Here, I needed help with everything including where to find the bathroom. As dazed and confused as I was, however, I trusted that if I found someone with that clean, white badge and its navy school insignia, s/he would help me. In its way, the troops that wore them were like my M*A*S*H* unit. As messy as I felt, they helped me triage the needs of my children and prescribe appropriate treatment.

I, however, haven’t worn a name tag at work since I worked my way through school waiting tables in local fern bars. During that season I wore an apron, carried an ice-tea pitcher and politely inquired any patron who looked under 30, “May I please see your ID?” in accordance with store policy. Didn’t matter who complained it was an invasion of privacy that I would deign to ask, or  moaned that now he would have to run back out to the car in the rain for her wallet, being sure that patrons were legal to drink came with the name tag.

Flash forward three graduations,
a wedding,
four children,
four score and seven years,
(Ok, not quite, but some mornings as I battle the snooze alarm it feels like that long ago)
and now I work another gig in a foreign land that requires a name tag.

Initially, because of the rescue mojo that had become my gestalt associaiton to the badge, I was my-first-pony proud of my name tag. Giddy, jump up and down, hug-it-out, my-new-colleagues-think-I-am-a-freak, tween with new Adriano Goldschmied ex-boyfriend jeans, proud of it, I got the job!
I got the job!
I got the job!
Oh, so happy proud of it!

Me-Pop proud of it,
feeling groovy
kind of Zen
welcome to The Show
kind of wowsa juice
proud of it…

(Like when I wasn’t wearing it at work, I kept it on the leopard apron in my kitchen kind of giddy about it, proud of it…)

Until last week Wednesday, when I was at breakfast with a friend that is.

This brilliant, percussive friend of mine is from the East coast.

She talks fast,
drives faster
and likes the F-word.
A lot.

And says it often,
a lot,
and
loudly.

Now I’m no stranger to the F-word,
I’m not squeamish about the F-word,
I grew up with the F-word,
I respect the versatility of it,
it’s pliability,
it’s enduring ruggedness
across the ages,
as dolphin flippers,
of aquatic
verbal acrobatics
that can approximate
every part of speech…

However, all of a sudden, wearing that new, shiny name tag was like having a How’s My Driving: 1-800-URF-IRED bumper sticker plastered to my forehead.

“Oh, yeah,” I could hear ONE Mommy complain to another Mommy at a neighborhood Botox party, “I saw that new hire, Ms. Jael Seeker, you remember her bio sent out by the head of school don’t you, and she was sitting there over a omlette listening to a woman drop F-bomb after F-bomb and laughing!”

All of a sudden wearing the name tag was an invasion of my privacy.
That shiny white badge publically
staged my name,
position
and place of employment in bold font.

It mutated into an invasion of my privacy
and even though it was raining,
I wish I had left it with my wallet in the car.

Wasn’t oh-so proud of my name tag then.

In fact, I was pretty embarrassed,
hang-my-head-down,
hair-in-my-face
humbled.

Context’s vital to distinguish between form and substance.

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

Cherished Correspondence

I bathed in loving responses to Mistress Silence yesterday.

Thank you precious ones.

Used with permission, I post the one that wrapped my heart in a hand-stitched quilt and my response.

These words from my gifted Sister in Christ warm me like hot chocolate on a snow day after sledding.

To use her own words, may they bless you, “…If our lives can be poured out like a drink offering for the sake of others, then it is worth it.”

Dear Jael,

…Yes, please feel free to share on your blog.  If our lives can be poured out like a drink offering for the sake of others, than it is worth it…

Oh how your words have resonated deep within.

The alluring silence is that indeed.

I know that temptation and have given in to it myself.

Trying to seek the Lord apart from praise is like trying to drive a car without fuel, or trying to drive in three feet of snow without four wheel drive…spinning the wheels, but going nowhere.  I have forgotten my First Love and have gone through the motions of a marriage…loveless or at least numb on my part.

I … <had an opportunity>…yesterday.  Much time and energy was put into prayer, thought, calculating and communicating… and ultimately gearing up to take that leap of faith…only to have the opportunity snatched away like a dangling carrot…

Yet…God is still faithful.  Still loving.  Still steadfast.  Still the same…

He sang to me in the ice cream shop this evening in the form of Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way you Are”. Then, a short while later, He caught me off guard before the display of onions in Kroger in the form of Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are”

I know God doesn’t play games, but it sure does feel like it sometimes.  Was yesterday’s move God’s or Him just sitting as the enemy moved his chess piece?  I may never know.  But when He sang to me in the shops, I knew, once again, that He is for me.  And when I read your entry, I knew you’d understand.

We cannot diminish His love for us no matter what we do or don’t do.

Be encouraged, dear Jael.  His mercies are new every day.  His faithfulness is great.  His plan is perfect, so matter what our eyes can see, our hearts perceive or our feelings think they dictate.

The Lord be with you, sister….

Much love to you,

Mononomous

xo

Dearest Mononomous

I read Yesterday
a wonderful idea
I contemplated
for good use today
to seed Tomorrow.

Its gist was that fallen we,
sons of Adam
and daughters of Eve
view the world
as a dense globe,
a massive ball of rock
spinning,
(…all but out of control…)
twirling,
(too fast,
too fast,
I think I might puke…)
and orbiting the sun.

God, however,
sees the world as a glass bowl.
events to His
Face of Love
gleam Transparent,
Clear,
Ordered,
and Perfectly Perceived.

He pours in
amid
among
and out over us
from The Well of Life.

I share your Faith that God doesn’t play games.

I also take deep comfort
in the assurance that though
you may not understand why your leap was deferred_

Not yet,
not yet, my sweetling,
not yet, baby girl,
child mine,
not yet.
_He knows for certain.

And His plan for your life is
a good and marvelous one,
a perfect plan,
not easy every minute,
but good.

Love you so…
xoxoxo

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Mistress Silence

Silence may become as seductive a mistress as a golden idol breast.

I have been unfaithful.

Unlike Sméagol, I became a Gollum, not for making a horrible swallowing noise from my throat, but for the absence of my cry.

Even a Hallelujah.

Silence became my Precious.
Perilous Precious.
Stillness Precious.
Precious swill,
now no longer precious
still.

Like infidelity, my precious silence has cost me.

The silence I wrapped around myself like an insidious shawl to camouflage my self-reliant perversity, protect my marriage, and keep me warm became like a sword in our bed.

Silence cut like a knife and it divided covenant promises as I bled quietly onto blank pages never penned.

Initially my silence had virtue. I chose to partner The Husband and heed God’s call on our family to move Here. All the fight in me became mute to the undeniable will of our Father and I was encased in an aisle of precious and Supernatural peace.

I knew that I was to wait upon the Lord,
Called to trust and obey.
And when I would bid Him
when would I feel fulfilled again,
He replied to me
just what he said to my sissy, Ester,
“Not yet.”

Historically, I am a hpyer-verbose verbal processor. I am a word girl who has a GRE vocabulary word ap on her iPhone just for kicks and giggles. I mention this not for bragging rights, but to confess I really am that much of a logophile. Words thrill me. I go weak in the knees for a bon mot with a powerful hilt or verb with a preposterous thrust.

However, as many detour signs I placed in my mind and thoughts I aborted mid sentence, no matter how many conversations I didn’t entertain, eventually the quiet of His peace mutated into the silent din of my own self-indulgent tantrums.

Are we there yet???
I have to go tee-tee…
I’m not happy Here…
I was drafted…
I’m tired…
It hurts…
I want to go home…
I am unfulfilled dammit!

Yes,
PATHETIC!
You know it’s true,
I admit it’s true
and that I even stomped my feet too,
but oh, so quietly,
you couldn’t hear me,
I never made a sound.

However, my ever loving, intercessory Father has never needed words nor lightning bolts to make His will known.

In addition to His illustrious Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow sealed upon my heart, I also limped through my own disastrous yesterday.

Like tax day, silence left its bill.

The debt is large.

I diluted the unity of my marriage.
I created distance in key relationships.
I abandond this platform of Praise.

Here I am
a woman of His Word,
seduced
by a silent masquarade
of obedience,
led by feeling,
not by Faith-
even though
I know Who made me,
perfectly imperfect as I am.
I know Who died to set me free.

“Foolish child,”
He said to me with a chuckle
that tickles like a butterfly kiss
when His Grace restored
my senses,
“Enough.
I said, not yet.”

Waiting is.

Hear my cry, Lord.
HALLELUJAH!

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah!

Total Behavior

William Glasser, M.D. challenges my beliefs with a yesterday, today, tomorrow reality that cousins Scripture. As adverse to idols as ever, I do not assert him a deity, rather I acknowledge that his psychology of personal freedom well partners my Christian faith. We all have vinyl in our heads, a combination of feel-good songs and rank rants. Within my mind, my shiny Jesus and Glasser are happy artists that both sing from the hopeful label of Joy.

Joy pours from the fountain of the stream of life as certainly as my deep cries out to Deep, “Come Lord Jesus come.”

How does Glasser factor into my prayers this morning?

Glasser’s concept of Total Behavior helps me consider why I choose to do (and choose not to do) the things I do.

Total Behavior refers to four components in Reality Therapy: Doing, Thinking, Feeling and Physiology.

Glasser challenges us to consider two, total behavior loops and their outcomes. One path examines total behavior that leads us away from our Quality World, what we value and desire. The other looks at total behavior that drives us toward our Quality World.

Glasser created a chart to visualize these choice loop complete with color symbology. Scarlet represents the total behavior loop that leads us away from our Quality World. Yellow symbolizes total behavior in accord with our Quality World outcomes.

I tell you all this to to confess that like Dorothy in her Ruby slippers I have wandered away from the yellow brick road of home, my Quality World, especially in regard to my writing.

Instead of writing, I’ve been depressed.

Glasser would confront this sentence with the friendly assertion that I have been choosing to depress or depressing. He would remind me that people choose to depress for many reasons that include the following: to keep anger under control, to get others to help them, to excuse unwillingness to choose something more effective and to gain power or control over others.

Glasser would encourage me to make choices that focus based on what I am doing (or could choose to do instead), instead of what I am feeling.

This is the direct opposite of what I have been doing of late. My focus has leaned too heavily on feeling instead of the cornerstone of my precious Faith and doing (putting my feet to it!).

All this emphasis on feeling kept my choices in the scarlet total behavior loop of withdrawal.

Wanting to feel less or feel differently, I’ve instead chosen to withdraw.
Like the impotent scrivener, Bartleby,
“I would prefer not to.”
So I’ve stopped talking,
writing
and communicating-
especially to the people I most miss from There, our former home.

These choices haven’t made me feel better, in fact, this total behavior has deepened my choice to depress.

This post is a battle is my battle cry!

He makes everything glorius.
I prefer to!
I CHOOSE to!

I know my Redeemer lives.
I know my pen sings Him praise.
I know that I miss you because I love you so.
I know I should write.

I choose to post that my Redeemer lives!
I choose to write that my pen sings Him praise!
I choose to record here that I miss you because I love you so!
I choose to write!

“To be happy, I believe we need to be close to other happy people.” -William Glasser

To be happy, I believe I need to stay close to my dearest There-dwellers. Your portraits hang in my Quality World gallery under lights.

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well, really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light in every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

I Know What You Are Thinking…

Where in the hell have I been?

I lead you on.

I tell you that I’m going to write
and I don’t.

Am I a blogger or a bad man?

Ah me, pray tell not a bad blogger!

December slapped me on the bottom so hard it was like being born again.

Not in the good, shiny Jesus kind of way.

In the bad, gooey, birth squall,
OH-GOD-IT-HURTS kind of way.

Suffice it to say the banal intersected with the tragic and fried my mother board.

Triage became the cycle set on my washer and, like the rest of you,
I just ran loads and tried to stay even:

Boxes,
Baking,
Shopping,
Wrapping,
Gingerbread Houses,
Quiche,
Wish Lasagna,
Family divided,
New roles assigned,
and the C-word,
Again.

Amid the sorts there were also:

Prayers,
Joy,
Sweet reunions,
Happy babies,
A new puppy,
Surprise glazes,
Hotmilk Cake,
Telescopes,
Sacred text,
Time together,
and
God winks plenty enough
to o’r pour my pitcher.

Because of His Strength and Grace alone, I celebrate that I came through intact.

The Husband and I gave our children their first Christmas Here well.

God be praised.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord and His call upon our lives,
but in December,
that was all that I had in me.

There were days I felt like a child forced outside to play.

I sat on the teeter-totter
of depression
and
shimmied,
twisted,
squirmed,
and scooted
for purchase,
for balance.

Through His stength alone I did not fall.
In fact, He carried me.

I am so grateful.

Tired,
happy enough,
and still Here.

Thank you for praying, texting, emailing, calling and even making plane reservations!

Thank you for caring.

I missed you too.

I love you.

So.

xoxox

Well baby I’ve been here before
I’ve seen this room and I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew ya
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah!

3 Questions

My recent passion for Pursuit was prompted by the Prince of Peace.

He gave me a gentle nudge in church Sunday.
Actually it was a shove.
Alright, I was all but thrown from the pew.

The Spirit can rock it
in more than one way during Worship.
I needed an icepack for my esteem.
It was a secondary injury
as I compensated my gate
due to my severe Pursuit sprain.

You know how sometimes the Lord,
all sweet and gentle
like a love song,
croons the Truth in your ear?

This was NOT like that.

Nope,
this was more like
when I came home late
as a teenager
and my dad could
hear in my walk
from two rooms away
before he ever looked
into my eyes that
I’d made some poor choices,
and that I’d strayed
from the rules
he had for me
in his home.

My heart blushed as hot
as my cheeks once did
When Father God boomed

(In all fairness to Abba, it
wasn’t a MEAN boom,
just a crystal clear one
the kind that
any kid who’s ever been
caught by the short hairs
of obedience
knows is worse…
That whole internalized
code gone rogue.
Again.)

Anyway,
He booms to me
so loud I know
that the people
in the parking lot
can hear His voice message
just for me
in stereo sound
like a Howler
at Hogwarts.

He thunder transmits
two simple questions
like short
sudden squalls:

1. Do you think a church community is gonna come find you?

2. Do you think that blog is gonna write itself?

The jury’s still out, but I’m of the mind
there’s also an implied question.

3. Is you or ain’t you mine?

Thus, I humbly share with you our family’s renewed commitment to plug into NL Church and share an editorial calendar for the rest of the month:

bh’s First Transparent, Editorial Calendar: November 2011:

• Wednesday, November 9, 2011:  Joshua (from his senior years): The Choice
• Thursday, November 10, 2011: Choice Continuum
• Friday, November 11, 2011: I Meant What I Said and I Said What I Meant
• Saturday, November 12, 2011: Banana Bread Ministry
• Monday, November 14, 2011: Rule Mutation and Other Hazards of Policy
• Tuesday, November 15, 2011: Psalm 92:2
• Wednesday, November 16, 2011:  720 PB&Js
• Thursday, November 17, 2011: I Don’t Like Spiders & Snakes
• Sunday, November 20, 2011: First Aid FAQS or Carnival
• Monday, November 21, 2011:  1st Day of  Thanksgiving
• Tuesday, November 22, 2011: 2nd Day of Thanksgiving
• Wednesday, November 23, 2011: 3rd Day of Thanksgiving
• Thursday, November 24, 2001: Thanksgiving Prime
• Sunday, November 27, 2011: Arsenic, Lace & Christmas Carols
• Monday, November 28, 2011: Holiday Euphemisms
• Tuesday, November 29, 2011: Project Confidential Part 1
• Wednesday, November 30, 2011: Project Confidential Part 2

Well there was a time when you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show that to me do you?
And remember when I moved in you?
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah 
Hallelujah
Hallelujah!