Our Flood

This is our neighborhood creek on Saturday. Since then, Nashville has been awash in devastating thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flooding. Areas that have never flooded have been initiated - they are calling it a once in a 1,000 year event. Click here to watch a slideshow portrait of what is happening here in Nashville and is regrettably not being reported very well on the national media scene. Johnny Cash accompanies the video, appropriately! And it is continuing to unfold - already swollen tributary rivers are going through the domino effect as the Cumberland spreads out. I am so proud of our city, and the Volunteer State is being represented well with all the citizens who jump in to help, don't loot and pray for their neighborhoods. Also, check out this article that states the spirit here very well. Our church mobilized immediately to help setup, staff, and assist Red Cross shelters and be the hands and feet of Christ throughout our Middle Tennessee community. It's not just Nashville - it's Franklin, Crossville, Belle Meade, Smyrna, Antioch, Bon Aqua, and many more. Love to you all from the South! and hoping you have the same type of neighbor response when disaster comes knocking - we count ourselves blessed to live amongst these people. None of us could have imagined last week that just two days of thunderstorms would have turned into this.

Teensy jonquils

teensy jonquils

daffodils?

in pairs
blooming

at our entry step

almost underfoot

easily overlooked

barely noticeable

but   by   some   grace

s e e n

by my eye

o look!

running in for the camera

to digitally capture

and document

and share

their moment of glory

not to fade, to keep,
to trumpet the glory
of their creator
who placed them there

Be sure to check out...

...Holy crap! a blog series by my dear friend, Jen Taylor - honored to be so! She addresses how sometimes the church office can be the most dysfunctional place on earth because of the all-too-human desire to avoid conflict. Favorite teaser quote: "Boundaries are like PMS — real, but used as an excuse for lots of bad behavior."

Thoughts on an Easter Resurrection Sermon

Sunday - in the eyes of the women, the stone rolled away and the empty tomb meant one ugly but logical conclusion - theft. Someone/Some hateful group had stolen the Master's body. There was no immediate understanding but a gradual but shocking revealing of what was true - that Jesus was who he claimed to be and that death met its master. The angel messenger prompted the women "Don't you remember?" and then the Word says "and then they remembered!" Luke 24:6-8

Have you ever been in the midst of a situation or event that did not make sense? Or rocked your world of what you thought you understood? Or every sense (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste) were telling you one thing, but your mind another? Our speaker identified that experience as "having no categories" to understand something foreign. He used some examples:

• a Central American Indian traveling in a car on the interstate for the first time and thinking that a type of dragon was after her in the form of an 18-wheeler coming up fast behind them.
• Scholars cited the Islanders/Mexican Americans that greeted the New World explorers as gods, not understanding their armor, their ships, etc. They had no categories to comprehend the tools and accoutrements of these humans.

I have only personally experienced a bit of this phenomenon when in other cultures:

• a Guatemalan trash dump where whole societies were arranged in a pecking order of who had the highest community standing to have earned the honor live at the 'top of the heap' (literally) to scavenge the best pickings as the dump trucks delivered the 'fresh' trash. Everyone else descended in levels until the lowest of the low who lived at the bottom of the pit. I walked in a daze - unable to comprehend this sight, to take it in fully. Embarrassed - knowing that I didn't have to stay here, live here, that I could leave at any time to go get clean (or try to) and have some time to try to understand what I had seen.
• Or sitting in a room full of orphans in Ukraine, trying to get by with nonverbal nods, smiles, and gentle looks to try to connect and bless while waiting on an interpreter.

I can't imagine trying to wrap my mind around resurrection and all its implications, especially with tear-puffy eyes from grieving, from a state of exhaustion (emotional and physical), and while on a mission to tend to a burial scene that had been hurriedly put together (another's grave, borrowed - spices not applied, wrapped properly). I can hardly understand now - except for in one way.

Our speaker, Josh Graves, briefly mentioned fairy tales - Disney stories. Idyllic longings for the seemingly impossible (but the just or right) to become real. That possibly the Resurrection Miracle is the norm in God's equation, and our broken world the anomaly. I think of the Matrix movie, and so many other literary associations of wrestling with the injustice and wrongness of the world (To Kill a Mockingbird).

I believe this to be true. I came to find ways of affirming this life/death/life cycle (especially visually) and believe in the promised return of life years ago after watching the Disney Firebird short video. It epitomizes my thoughts on this cycle. This longing in me for things to be made right, for justice to be truly administered, for the broken to be mended or restored completely is a reflection that things have gone horribly wrong here and need redemption. That I'm part of an interim timeframe where it is my joy to shine light, to support the lifting of a standard high that sometimes will show how horribly things have shifted from dead center, where they need to be. And sometimes that the world hates seeing or recognizing the contrast. And that in that moment of recognition it brings out a visceral hatred. Keep things dark, so that we can all agree that it's just dark. Don't mess with the system (or wake the volcano). Or even worse - don't be made a fool of, don't be naive. Stay cynical.

On a lighter side note ( I know, I digress all the time, sorry) - this makes me think of the HGTV show Holmes on Homes - we all want the building contractor who knows how to use the plumb line correctly - that he can tell when there has been shoddy work that won't stand the test of time, and he knows just how to fix it - to "make it right" as he says. We all want that kind of hero to come in and save the day in an hour show.

We live in a messy world, where nature, friends, children - die. Or where relationships get twisted, marred -  misunderstandings abound between people and nations. Sometimes my tears have the power to heal, or at the very least draw attention to, injustice. I know people much more talented at this than I, but I want to walk in their footsteps, and learn from an ineffable Holy Spirit that always knows a way to heal, to restore. And when there is silence, and an inability to do anything at all to help, to wait silently and in trust that the mysteries of the Godhead will resolve it in a wondrous way that I could not have imagined.

I don't believe this is naivete - I have experienced this cycle over and over again personally in my short life, and there is no denying the agonies of the death phase, when you truly believe that there will be no returning light. Or even just the numbing, trudging surviving phases where lifting the spoon to your mouth exhausts all your reserves. But I do testify to the reality (that is in the truest sense 'real') that life comes again - that the dawn breaks even if behind obscuring clouds, the burnt blooms again, the catepillar dies to his form to break out of his tomb a radiant butterfly, that fellow believing mourners can laugh at death's sting, that the birthing mother believes she is to die only to bring forth new life, and that abandoned daughters can learn to trust again.

Ask around - and see if there are not compelling evidences of rebirth. They are but pastel hue examples of the real stained glass, my friends, of new transformed life after passing through death.

Ending and Beginning

Well, I gave notice recently to my now-former boss that I was not returning to work, that we had decided that I would take the opportunity to be with my son and husband. It was a sweet conversation - I was so excited to talk with my boss about this change because he has such a great view of life and work, and I knew it would be a fun and interesting discussion.

His first reaction was "Are you sure?!" I loved that. We joked that coming to work is sometimes a great reprieve from home/family life, a great 'breather' away from the ones we love that also have the unique ability to drive us crazy.

This is an interesting change for me - it will be the first time in my life that I will not be supporting myself (or more recently adding to the family's bottom line) with a hard-earned paycheck. I warned my husband before we headed into this season that it might be rocky. More from a personal point of view rather than financial - we were prepared for that. I've experienced gainful employment since I was a young babysitter! And finances were always on the tight side in my home growing up mainly due to a father who left when I was in sixth grade. But my mother was a hard worker, and we made it and even enjoyed major family purchases under her money management.

I saw work as a necessity - a way to prove myself, have worth (literally), and a way to justify myself as a girl who could take care of herself independently. I wouldn't have had it as easy as I did if it had not been for the way my mom and stepdad set me up for success. Sending me to college, expecting great things of me, and encouraging/prodding me all along the way.

I had a time of workaholism, during the dotcom boom and bust. I was flying high, working for a small company that built itself from the hours of hard work only possible from single people with no lives to speak of outside of work. And it paid accordingly, trying to make all the sacrifices worth it, and it was to some. But I depended on caffeine to get me through (like a medical resident) and I unfortunately depended on my boss and work status to determine my perception of self worth. What a roller coaster that causes! I finally jumped off that speeding train, willing to take any job that would remove me from that situation. Being solvent allowed me to do that (as well as renting at the time), and take a steep pay cut to get away in one piece.

So, this most recent job was a return to a corporate culture that was more established and distinctive for its laid back timeframes (in comparison). I had to learn that it was a safe place to 'gear down', and in fact you had to - in order to not make yourself crazy with the slower, but sure, pace of progress.

I got married while working there - planning my wedding in spare moments and having actual personal conversations around the proverbial watercooler with kind people that really cared. I watched this corporation respond to Hurricane Katrina and participated on campaign committees (during work hours, no less!) to raise money for the local nonprofit community and attend ribbon cuttings for Habitat houses.

I let my management know that we were trying to have a baby, and found many other women there who were new mothers that shared all kinds of wisdom with me. I attended baby showers for co-workers, and then was thrown my own when we got the good news. I applied for maternity leave and processed all the necessary paperwork attending such an event. I prepared my replacement person with spreadsheets and hours-long conversations about my clients and the peculiarities of each region and accounts. I left knowing that I was not coming back.

But even so, I had been wisely cautioned by work friends that "you never know what might happen - so keep an open mind and the door open in case you change your mind". Indeed, my husband experienced a heart problem two months after our son was born, causing me to think - is this serious enough that I need to continue working? for secondary insurance or extra money for medical bills? Thankfully, it's not needed, but it was a thought that gave me pause. But also my friends had meant that there were women who thought they wanted to quit work, but then once in it discovered that they were not challenged enough and couldn't live without going to a job. Or hated being a full-time mom, really needing the reprieve of work. OR the opposite - the mom-to-be swore she wouldn't be able to wait to get back to work after birth, then come to find out she loved being at home!

I am glad to report that I am blissfully, no, that's too Disney of a word - content. I am contented in a way that I have never been before. Well, maybe once before when we were newlyweds and I looked around at all the generosity of friends and family helping us set up housekeeping and I had the thought "we have everything we could possibly ever need - and even niceties on top of that." This is similar, I don't know if it is my age or what, but I am just content knowing that this is my place of belonging now, this is my calling right now, for this season of time. This little family of ours makes me deeply content - we were a family before as well the two of us, but now we've expanded our borders to welcome in this little trusting one. We trust in the leading of the Spirit to make us worthy of that little boy's trust. And I'm trusting that I'm up for the job - the job of being a mama.

Touch

Reading this article tonight reminded me of one of my core languages - touch. When I had no way to communicate in Guatemala with my students, I would reach out and rub their shoulder with a smile. I didn't realize how familiar this gesture was until at the end of our trip, the kids acted out a guessing game to identify different american team members or counselors. As you can guess, mine was a high-pitched greeting with an accompanying enthusiastic arm rub. Embarassing - but definitely distinctive/memorable apparently! Greg knows that sometimes I get low on my "touch quotient" and he graciously ups his number of fly-by hugs, or simple face caresses, or hand-holding times. Having a baby has certainly added to my store of opportunities. The way Seth will reach out and hold my hand, or lay his hands on either side of my neck, or gently wave his hand over my skin like sea coral moving in the tide...amazing experience.

I have always loved this medium of communication - and the nurture it provides. I think I would be a different person if this were not true of me. In college, I had the dorm reputation as being the best masseuse around. Whenever a friend was writing a paper late into the night, sometimes I would oblige with a stress-releasing shoulder & neck massage.

Sadly our society is not as open to gestures of affection - there are very distinct mores about who, where, and how you can reach out to anyone. But in a moment of need, a kind touch is sometimes all it takes to unlock the griefs of our hearts and allow some healing to seep in.

Nostalgia - 20 year (!) high school reunion

Knowing that I have a 20 year high school reunion coming up this Fall causes quite a pause in my thoughts. In one way, all those school experiences seem a lifetime ago, not just twenty years. But it also feels like I myself (thoughts, soul, spirit) have not changed.

I was not part of the popular crowd back then - it was a private school and I had been away in public school for 3 years, and I was new to the already-formed cliques of 9th grade. But I found a core of great friends (one whom I had attended elementary school with) and I had a great time cultivating deep relationships rather than many superficial ones. I also had the advantage that first year of having a brother who was a senior and I got to know a lot of his friends as well. But even so, our class was relatively small, and the school itself small and distinct, so we were quite a clan even though we had our internal pecking order. I understand that this is almost a universal high school experience. I also was dealing with quite a severe case of insecurity because of the damaging blow to my family of my father leaving.

I screwed up my courage to attend my 10th year reunion simply because I thought it would be good to re-introduce my adult self to old friends and other classmates. What I found suprised me.

1. I expected everyone to look the same. I didn't know that I had that expectation beforehand, but at the reunion I found myself saying "why, that doesn't look like so and so at all!" I can't explain why I even had that reaction, or the expectation for people to be unchanged. I knew from looking in the mirror that I had changed, myself. I just hadn't expected everyone else to have, either.

2. After the initial greetings, everyone gravitated to the exact same cliques they had had in high school. I was amazed. I really did naievely believe that we would meet each other anew, learning who we had all turned into as young adults. I felt that I was a completely different person in the sense of security, but somehow walking into that cheesy hotel room alone - these people were somehow able to make me feel like the high school outsider all over again. I was a workaholic success at this point in my life - I made grown computer engineers cry with the strictness of an executive demanding perfection (thankfully I've evolved past that stage!). And yet in this crowd, I was reduced to an insecure single gal, fussing that maybe my dress made me look heavier than I was, or that my hair wouldn't lay right, or any other myriad things I could blame for making everyone react in the same old way to me. It most likely was my capitulation and immediate posture change that projected my interior angst. I also was chiding myself the whole time for even caring what these people thought of me.

3. Some people were exactly the same - completely unchanged. This amazed me too - how could they have gone through ten years of life and not changed a bit? Or did the same thing happen to them upon entering the ballroom?? Or were they just so integrated as a person already in high school, already set, jelled, so to speak? My path was different - I didn't really 'come into my own' until I was 30.

4. The one highlight was getting to visit with three people in particular. One was a boy that I had known since kindergarden. We were able to talk like adults - I quizzed him about his life, and was so proud for him all the things that he had accomplished, experienced, and shared. Another was one of my best girlfriends - I had always appreciated her grace and sophistication and she was just the same and enjoying being a wife and mother. She made me feel right at home. The last and probably most important was a guy that I had had an amazingly deep tortured crush on, and he had had a hard row in high school and was largely misunderstood (especially by myself). I had wronged him then, and I was especially keen to make sure that he knew how sorry I was and how glad I was for him that all that was past, and that his life was going great guns. At least I hoped it was, and that we all weren't just lying to each other to get through the weekend.

So, now I have a whole new story personally - it's been a new chapter for me for the last 5 years. A man I had known peripherally for years (partly because he lived in another state) began an spirit-led pursuit of me in 2003, and he persevered until I came to trust him and we married in 2004. We thoroughly enjoyed 5 years of marriage when we were blessed with the arrival of our first child this past year. My husband enjoys a deep sense of self, and therefore unquenchable confidence, and that has freed me in so many ways being around him. As such, he cannot imagine why I would even hesitate to go to a high school reunion. It's not that I don't want to go, it's just that it's so weird! It's so weird to go to this alternate reality that is a reunion of people that haven't talked to each other in 10 years since the last weird hurried reunion meeting. And knowing that people that were not my friends (or even friendly) then are trying to friend me on Facebook doesn't really make sense to me either. I decided early on that if I was going to do the FB thing, then I would only be cyber friends with people I am friends with in real life. I may be changing my mind on that one, but that's my protectionist stance currently. Also, anyone would have to be a real good friend to survive the barrage of baby pictures 24/7!

It's not that I expect us all to sing kumbeya or anything, it's just that I guess I expect more depth and I guess I deeply believe that that's impossible in such an artificial environment of high school egos trying to prove themselves to other high school egos. When, really, we don't have to! Why do we have to prove ourselves? We are who we are. I'm hoping that maybe we've all gotten so old (!) that it doesn't matter anymore.

Baby

They tell us
that you grow
while asleep
cocooned in your
blankets
sometimes sighing
rhythmically
sometimes twitching
your eyelids and fingers.
We think it happens
when you awake
and you look at us
with that sideways smile
and then lift your arms
slowly and your knees
raise to your chest
and you stretch
full length.

written on the occasion of your 3 month birthday

Image

I just read a posting on a great blog (http://idodeclareblog.blogspot.com/) about images of self. I was just saying to Greg the other day how the camera is not capturing how I feel inside. Why can't it capture the synaptic sparkles I feel when I look at my newborn son?  or the deep glow I sense when I walk in on my husband taking care of Seth? I feel like I need to have an animator alongside to help me document this time, because our admittedly amateur digital camera is too literal. It almost seemingly intentionally highlights my son's baby acne (or any other visual "flaw") on purpose - the light is so harsh, and actually is not capturing what I see when I run for the camera. So it helps me to see that even with someone as perfect as my boy ;^), it can lie. This is why I love artists and writers - they seem to capture the reality, the emotional, spiritual reality of a moment more than any other mediums. Don't get me wrong - I have so many friends who are professional photographers that have harnessed the camera's power and know how to finesse it to capture the moment, but unfortunately I can't teleport them in every time the boy does something amazing.  It reminds me of my great aunt Jimmye who said - at the grand old age of 100 - that she still felt young inside and how it surprised her to look in the mirror and see this old lady peering back at her! I agree with her - I expect to see my high school/early college self in the mirror too. But I've always (even then, maybe even especially then) struggled with the image staring back at me, not reflecting accurately my inner spirit. The purpose of Art is always to reveal truths, and I love diving into the inner life sanctum to find where the truth waits to be named or displayed. So here's to the search and recovery mission...and the attempts to portray and communicate the findings!

transitions

Celebrating the new year with a dear friend and Greg, we got into a discussion of the time periods of change in one's life. It always seems to occur in waves - there will be a lull (sometimes years) and then comes a huge wave of change. And we always seem to have expectations for that change once we have recognized its coming and have a name for it. Some are obvious - graduation, wedding, christening, new year celebrations. Some are come as gently as the first attempt at a snowfall, or a blue moon appearance, heralding a new day. I watch for these season-changing indicators all the time. I try to notice, to document, to explore their coming. And I'm learning not to limit their impact by pre-defining what form they should take in my life. I'm trying to participate, to join in the dance that is my life as it unfolds.