Over My Shoulder

Talking about Joseph this past Sunday in my class....

Several of us thought the same thing.  What would it be like to be the father of God's son?  After having to get over the shock, anger, and then relief that Mary had not deceived him, the gravity of the situation must have struck Joseph at one point.  In my family alone, there are all sorts of relational issues due to divorce and re-marriage.  I know this is not a good illustration, but bear with me.  A stepfather is stepping into the life of a child that already has a father.  Parenting, good or bad, is on display and at the critique of all parties involved - ranging from in-laws, out-laws, wife, ex's - you name it.   There is a lot of pressure on all parties.

In the case of Joseph, I don't think I would particularly like God looking over my shoulder, evaluating my parenting skills.  Top it off with Holy Mother Mary as wife and the closest thing to perfect for a son.  Whew!
Glad it was him and not me.  But in the next breath, I had another thought. In the same way it was threatening, it had to be comforting as well.  God not only wanted you to do a good job - a vested interest for sure - but He loved you as well.  Mary was chosen and given to you as a helpmate.  And to have Jesus as your child, your Son.  Can you even come close to comprehending the love and respect you would receive from Him?

Then I started thinking about myself.  Many times I feel as if God is looking over my shoulder.  Judging me for what I have failed to do.  Sizing up the opportunities and gifts I feel He has given me and how short I fall.  But why?  Can't I understand that He is not breathing down my neck, but walking by my side.   Protecting me and loving me along the way.  To add to that, He has given me a divine  Holy Spirit GPS system, that can guide me in the way of knowledge and wisdom.  And the cherry on the top?  Jesus completes the picture, interceding for me, putting in a good word for me.  Letting God know the obstacles I face are real because He faced them as well.  

Wow!!  How blessed am I?  And before I start feeling guilty for either taking this for granted or ignoring it completely, I will just stop here, take a deep breath, and  rest in the Holy Power of the Holy Three

Amen and Amen!!

Thanksgiving Day

I have been to my local grocery store 3 times in the last 12 hours.  I never get everything I need in one trip.  Especially for Thanksgiving. 

This morning, I made my first trip for the day @ 7:00 AM.  I added too much milk to the cornbread for my dressing (I don't cook on a regular basis these days) and so I needed  to replace it.  When I was checking out there were a group of young men standing around the cash register.  One slightly older young man was standing behind the one checking and was giving him pointers on how to classify, where to find codes, etc.  I assumed he was like a head cashier.   All of the young men seemed to be taking it in and were fairly respectful. 

It dawned on me that the slightly older, somewhat balding young man was probably in this position as a job choice.  He might continue in this field, work up to store manager one day.  Or he might be satisfied with where he was and continue working jobs of this type.  Limited by intellect, education and opportunity, his options might be somewhat narrow as well.  The other young men looked like high school, perhaps college students and you could tell this was not their dream job.  A paycheck, a means to an end, an appeasement of family to get off the couch and do "something".

Okay, I know this sounds like physical profiling, but give me a minute.  My point is, this  early job experience for the young men was valuable.  Due to a tragic injury to one of my siblings, I started taking a very large role in our household at the age of nine.  At 16 years of age, I worked a 28 hour a week job in addition to high school.  Life for me has been hard work and perseverence.  I have done well in a self-made woman sort of way.  But you see, in doing that I depended on the knowlege of folks along the way - folks that might never move from their position but they gave me what I needed for my journey.   Now my journey is no more important than theirs and to be frank - I probably would not be where I am today without them.  And I pray to God, there might be others that are where they are in life today because I came across their paths.  

Then why do I still find it hard to see that every person I come into contact has a potential to add or influence my life?  Why do I look around for those I might influence or bless?  God chooses the least, the last, the lost and if I am not careful I will miss them and the lessons God has for me through them. 

A forgotten can of mushroom soup, may be the venue He chooses to place you or I in the path of someone or something special He has for us today!  One way to rationalize my failing memory!  LOL

Serenity IV

Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will


And the sky will always be blue and birds will forever sing.

Yeah, right....

Exactly!   That is the word He used - RIGHT!!

So the question is whose right?  His, mine, yours, the majority, the white, the black, words spoken in Spanish, or English words only please.  Right is an odd word.  As an adverb it means to the farthest and complete extent of degree.  As a noun it means morally correct, just, or honorable, the opposite of wrong.  As a verb it means to restore to a normal or upright position.  As an exclamation it is used to denote agreement.  You can also be politically right or conservative.

But it all boils down to MY right!  OK, I said it.  I want to be healed, and my husband's job to be restored, and my nineteen year old unmarried daughter not to be pregnant so she can finish college and make a good living and have all the things I never had or could not provide for her.   And the thing is, if my life is such a mess and I had my eye and thumb on it, how can I possibly surrender it all to Your will, without your express promise you will make it right?  Promise?

If we leave it to Him, there is no promise of healing, or a new job, or miraculously that the 19 year old will not be in a delivery room in 8 months or so.  But I can tell you it is all bound up in those words SURRENDER & TRUST & WILL.  Right becomes a balance, a harmony.  Maybe tentative and sometimes dissonant, but it is there and He is the master who writes - pardon me - rights the score, trusting that I will place myself in His will.  Surrendering to the Song.......

Serenity - Part 3 "Ohmmmmm"

I left you hanging, I know.....

That is the thing about these blogs.  Life interrupted I call it. Funny, but when there is a long pause I kind of wonder about the author.  Like when you haven't heard from a good friend.  Are they sick, on a trip, tired of writing, etc.  Well, I guess for me it was a little of all, but enough of that....

I was dissecting the Serenity Prayer, the full version.   To recap:


God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

So the focus of this post is


Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;


Now your first response to this would be, "No way - He came to save this world!"
But you see, He came to save those in this world.   When He was born these many years ago, there was a Roman occupation of the Jewish homeland.  When He left, there was still a Roman occupation of the Jewish homeland.  He did not abolish sin, or slay the wicked, or bring the literal heaven to earth.  He did not take an opinion poll and ask folks the way they ought to see things run or how they wanted to live.  No - He came to set us free.  Freedom from sin and death, but only if we choose it.  But you see, he did not come in a way that was easy for men and women to see.  He was not born into a proper family, heck he was born in a stable.  He did not live in the best neighborhood, he lived in Nazareth - nothing good comes from Nazareth!  He was a carpenter by trade and an intinerant preacher after that.   He was ultimately accused of blasphemy and sedition and died a criminal's death on a cross between two thieves.  He was not free financially, socially, and in the end even bodily, but He did all that so we would be free.

So where do I get the idea that I know how things work.  How folks should act and react.  Can I realize that not everyone operates on the same Holy Spirit system?  But that does not mean I love them any less.  And those that have the same internal, make that eternal navigation system are not always going to operate the same way I do?  And the best is yet to come.......

At Mary's Breast

At Mary's Breast.....

I am using the book/DVD The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem by Adam Hamilton, in my Sunday School class for Advent. Just started, but I am enjoying it and hope my classe will as well.

The first chapter is on Mary, and in preparing, I came across the following sentence....

"When Mary finally gave birth to Jesus and suckled him, the Son of God was fed and sustained by the milk from her breasts."

Now I know that is totally natural and in Mary's day and age the most probable means of feeding a newborn infant, but I had not really thought about it. I had tried to imagine giving birth in a stable, with the only means of support her husband (don't get me started on that) but I had not really focused on the actual suckling of the newborn King.

I remember being a young mother and breast-feeding. I was not overly confident or fond of the mechanics. It was somewhat difficult, but I loved the closeness I felt to my daughter. To sit there, knowing that she was taking from me and that what I was giving was literally life-giving. In reflecting now, I realized there was no way, at that young age, I had any idea how beautiful that experience would come to be. What I am writing, at this moment, comes not only from that experience but also from the knowlege of her life and the woman she has grown be. To see her with her children and to know that all of that began out of my body. I am sure a few years from now, her birth and the time she spent at my breast will grow even more special.

I doubt Mary, as a girl of 13 or 14, would have understood all of that. Of course, saying yes to such a role said alot for her maturity. But I cannot imagine all she faced in that tiny cave of a stable, lent itself to much time pondering the joy of birth or nursing. You never know though. God in His infinite mercy and, hopefully, in gratitude for the willing gift of her body as incubator for His Son, may have given her the wisdom and knowlege far beyond her years. To see and experience the wonder of the moment. I hope so. But if not, I imagine Mary, at a much older age, must have reflected back on those first days as His mother. What would it have felt to look back and see all that had happened because she said, "Let it be with me"!

More On Spiders

Now this is something I did not know....

Which makes me feel somewhat foolish, for exactly what did I think spiders did when their webs were damaged?  The culprits being weather, humans, or the day to day incoming supply of food.

I came out of my door this morning and to my astonishment, the web, I had waxed and waned about so eloquently a few days ago, was repaired - good as new.  I don't know what I expected to happen.  For the spider to sit idly by, hoping his lunch came flying near the intact part of the web.  And throwing a little arachnoid fit when it didn't.   Nope, where there is a hole, you repair it.  In fact, garden spiders sometimes re-ingest the torn, old parts of the web to use as repair materials.  No great theological riddle there.  But I can pretty much find "God" in about everything.  Not always noteworthy, I will admit, but that is my fault, not His.

I know I have just gone through a period where I was pretty much overwhelmed with the rent in my web.  It just felt good to hole away (no pun intended), tucked in, fetal position, and ponder my woes.  Sad thing is, a lot of the joy, He intended for me, pretty much whizzed through my web and now, looking back, that makes me sad.  However, sometimes you just don't feel like making the repairs.  In fact, some folks never make the repairs.  Aptly illustrated by the blue plastic tarps, still adorning some of the roofs of some of my Gulf Coast neighbors after Hurricane Ike.

However, I am starting to slowly piddle around in my emotional and physical life and that feels pretty good.  But you know what?   I was not ready until at this very moment in my life to start rebuilding.   And no amount of pushing, prodding, or cheery advice would have gotten me to this point.   In fact, I think it probably would have made me a little mad and might have cause more damage than good.  I might still be tucked in with my thumb in my mouth.  In fact, knowing me, I would have waited even longer, just out of spite.  People first have to either get tired of the hole itself or what they are losing by stalling.  Then they will "pull themselves up by their boot straps and git to gittin' "as my grandfather used to say.  So it was with me.

I am a fixer-upper by personality and this has been a hard lesson to learn.  But I am trying.  It is so much easier when you finally realize it.  My job is to love them and to make sure they know it.  If I just can't stand it, I could check to be sure they are safe and their needs are met during the hibernation.  Then just wait.  For them to grieve, be angry, stomp a foot or two, and eventually come out of their cave.  I have to remember as much as I love them, there is One that loves them so much more and I just need to sit tight and listen.  And and an added bonus - I have time to mend my own web.

So we have time to repair our own webs!

Perception

To see or not to see, that is the question.....

Don't mean to mess with Shakespeare, but it is true.  What we see and how we perceive it is our choice.

I am reading a book, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War by Leymah Gbowee.  Gbowee is the winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, political peacemaker and women's activist.   In the preface to her book, she states that the perception of  African women is ragged depressed-looking women with sagging breasts, when in fact they are not.

In the minute I read that statement, I realized sadly that it was true.  How stereotypical my view of folks can be by the visuals or even the written words that I take in daily.  As a child, I loved reading National Geographic magazine, of places far and away.  That visual was imprinted in my mind and is to this day.   I cringe to think of the perception the world has of American women, seeing them through the media by-products my country circulates.  Celebrity escapades, frivolous wealth, waste, and pollution to mention a few.  I am not any of those things, but I am lumped into that boiling view vat of disgusting humanity.

No! I will not allow it!  But who am I saying that to.  A person who has already discounted me and does not want to acknowledge me much less listen to what I might have to say in my defense?

No! That word is for me.  I must not be numbly led into that herd of the non-thinking, non-caring media audience of prejudiced and pre-judged indifference.  Thank you, Leymah Gbowee.  For your life and work as a peacemaker and for that one reflection that awakened the sleeping apathetic giant in me.  I can't wait to read more!

Spider

I love spiders.

Let me rephrase that, I love spider webs. I love when the light is just so and coming out my door, I suddenly see a web hanging from my eaves. That all this industry has been going on without my knowlege. That on this very day, at this very minute, the time was right, the light was right, my thoughts were right, and God said "Enough! You will notice this thing of beauty created in your very space"
That the minute creature of black and brown, sitting within her lace living room, is the very person who created all of this.

Amazing! A few days ago, I found a new web, but sadly there were so many rents or tears in the web, I was somewhat disappointed. It was not a perfect web, as I would have hoped for, but one that was not very pretty.

As my day progressed, my thougths returned to that web again and again. I remembered the bits of remants of insects scattered throughout the web and realized that this was not just web of beauty, but a successful web. The spider was rather large and easy to find, because she was well fed. This little web designer had picked a great spot, laid a great web, and the rents and tears were signs of her success. This web was not solely created for my pleasure but as a tool for the survival of its creator.

As I grow older, I feel much like that web. My body has its share of wounds and tears, and I realize, sitting here writing my experiences, that that is a sign of a successful life. Not measured by the world's success, for sure, but by fact that my Creator has blessed me with food for the journey. And I have received and devoured and each and every scar is a memory of a well fought fight. Whether it be a deepening of my faith or a tool received to fight the next, I have a successful web.