I'm confident that this week will give me the needed boost of energy and creativity that I need. I'm also looking forward to getting to know the world's best brother!
Here's a hint where I'll be. . .
Friday, June 29, 2007
Summer Break
I'm going away for a little while. I'm looking forward to the change of scenery. I've felt a lot of my normal energy drain away in the last few months. Everything seems to take so much effort and frankly, I just don't care too much about anything right now.
I'm confident that this week will give me the needed boost of energy and creativity that I need. I'm also looking forward to getting to know the world's best brother!
Here's a hint where I'll be. . .
I'm confident that this week will give me the needed boost of energy and creativity that I need. I'm also looking forward to getting to know the world's best brother!
Here's a hint where I'll be. . .
Thursday, June 28, 2007
The Gift of a Smile
I’ve been watching Ali play softball this summer. I enjoy watching the games. It seems like the perfect summer evening activity. Besides the game, I also enjoy watching the people who are there.
This recreation league draws a few regulars. Among them is a man who I will call Bobby. Bobby has a mental disability but functions pretty well on his own. I’ve seen him cruising around town on his bike, stopping at fast food restaurants with a buck or two in his pocket. He’s an older guy with graying hair and really nice wrinkles around his eyes when he smiles.
Bobby smiles a lot.
Every time I’m at the field I watch Bobby. He usually sits on the bottom row of the metal bleachers – right on the end behind home plate. From that vantage point he can see nearly everyone who comes and goes around the fence. He looks intently at every face that goes past. Some of the faces that pass by him are bored. Some are focused on where they are going and don’t take much notice of an old man. There are faces that show distraction, excitement, worry or disinterest.
It doesn’t really matter to Bobby. He’s just waiting for someone to look him in the eye.
And when they do, his face lights up.
All Bobby wants is to be connected. For someone to actually see him so that he can smile and interact in some way that is positive and good. He has a gift for everyone if they will just have the courage to look.
As I sat there on Sunday night it occurred to me that perhaps Bobby is a lot more like God than most people would ever imagine. Perhaps God is sitting on the sidelines somewhere looking at each of us exactly the same way Bobby does – staring at our faces. Maybe God feels an excruciating longing – wanting connection.
What if God is present in our daily lives waiting to look into our eyes – waiting to look past all of our mistakes and shortcomings and tell us that all of creation is good and that we are loved?
Could that be possible?
If so, it would mean that I would have to scrape together enough courage and look up out of my own small world and into the eyes of the God of creation. A more frightening possibility would be that I would then need to give myself permission to let God look clear-eyed and honestly at me and hear him call me beloved.
Thanks, but no.
It’s so much easier to let people remind me of all the ways that I have let them down. To focus on the things I might wish I had done differently. To dwell on the fact that I’m not a pastor anymore and that there are countless people who see me as a failure.
It’s easier to feel pitiful than it is to feel forgiven.
Bobby and his smile are teaching me the essence of grace. I’m learning that Bobby and God have gifts for all of us – if we will just have the courage to look up and outside of ourselves.
These warm summer evenings at the ball field are also teaching me that grace trumps pitiful every time.
••••••
I have some family who read this blog. My church email was shut down without any prior notice so I didn’t get a chance to let anyone know an alternate email address. I also lost my address book at the same time. You can contact me at piketanya(at)yahoo.com.
This recreation league draws a few regulars. Among them is a man who I will call Bobby. Bobby has a mental disability but functions pretty well on his own. I’ve seen him cruising around town on his bike, stopping at fast food restaurants with a buck or two in his pocket. He’s an older guy with graying hair and really nice wrinkles around his eyes when he smiles.
Bobby smiles a lot.
Every time I’m at the field I watch Bobby. He usually sits on the bottom row of the metal bleachers – right on the end behind home plate. From that vantage point he can see nearly everyone who comes and goes around the fence. He looks intently at every face that goes past. Some of the faces that pass by him are bored. Some are focused on where they are going and don’t take much notice of an old man. There are faces that show distraction, excitement, worry or disinterest.
It doesn’t really matter to Bobby. He’s just waiting for someone to look him in the eye.
And when they do, his face lights up.
All Bobby wants is to be connected. For someone to actually see him so that he can smile and interact in some way that is positive and good. He has a gift for everyone if they will just have the courage to look.
As I sat there on Sunday night it occurred to me that perhaps Bobby is a lot more like God than most people would ever imagine. Perhaps God is sitting on the sidelines somewhere looking at each of us exactly the same way Bobby does – staring at our faces. Maybe God feels an excruciating longing – wanting connection.
What if God is present in our daily lives waiting to look into our eyes – waiting to look past all of our mistakes and shortcomings and tell us that all of creation is good and that we are loved?
Could that be possible?
If so, it would mean that I would have to scrape together enough courage and look up out of my own small world and into the eyes of the God of creation. A more frightening possibility would be that I would then need to give myself permission to let God look clear-eyed and honestly at me and hear him call me beloved.
Thanks, but no.
It’s so much easier to let people remind me of all the ways that I have let them down. To focus on the things I might wish I had done differently. To dwell on the fact that I’m not a pastor anymore and that there are countless people who see me as a failure.
It’s easier to feel pitiful than it is to feel forgiven.
Bobby and his smile are teaching me the essence of grace. I’m learning that Bobby and God have gifts for all of us – if we will just have the courage to look up and outside of ourselves.
These warm summer evenings at the ball field are also teaching me that grace trumps pitiful every time.
••••••
I have some family who read this blog. My church email was shut down without any prior notice so I didn’t get a chance to let anyone know an alternate email address. I also lost my address book at the same time. You can contact me at piketanya(at)yahoo.com.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Zen Lawn
One of my favorite summer activities is mowing the lawn.
Sure, I get tired of it by August, but there is something deeply satisfying about making all those little blades of grass even. It appeals to me on several different levels.
Did you know that walking a lawnmower for an hour and forty-five minutes burns 621 calories?? That’s not a number to take lightly when one has just passed the forty-second year mark!
There is something very Zen-like in immersing yourself in one task and allowing your brain to take a break. Up and back. Up and back. Up and back. Kind of like meditation for your whole body.
There is a sense of lighthearted achievement when I’m done. To look at the neat and tidy lawn brings a sense of satisfaction that few other household chores can bring for me. If I’ve done a careful job, I can stand at the bathroom window overlooking the back yard and see the stripes.
Vacuuming the carpets just doesn’t have the stripe pay-off at the end!
A couple of years ago I mowed grass one whole summer. . .for money! It may have been the best job I ever had. I spent most of the summer in a sweaty Zen-state! One of the important lessons I learned that summer was the pride involved in making stripes in the grass. We would drive past the properties we had mowed just to check the stripes. When driving past properties that weren’t our accounts, we critiqued (mostly rudely!) the stripes of other lawn companies!
I remember Jeff excitedly calling my cell phone one afternoon when we were all out working. He just wanted to tell me that he had made a perfect checkerboard in a yard and wanted me to drive by it later!
There’s really only one secret to making good stripes – it’s walking a straight line. Not as easy as it sounds. When you walk, you tend to look down. When you mow, you tend to look at the front end of your mower. You judge to see if you’re following the last strip of mowed grass and that you’re not leaving any escapees behind.
When you do that, your stripes are going to look ocean waves on a summer afternoon.
The only way to mow is to look up. To look at where you want to go – not where you’ve been.
It’s like magic.
As soon as you change your focal point everything begins to fall into place. There aren’t any worries about AWOL blades of grass. And the stripes are straight and true.
Funny how quickly I forget that. I start my day or my week – hell, I even start mowing the lawn thinking about where I want to go. It isn’t long, however, until I’ve allowed people and attitudes to drag my vision down. Before I know it my fears and concerns have become center stage and I’m wandering along looking at my feet.
I’m learning though.
The only way to live is to look up. To look at where you want to go – not where you’ve been.
It’s like magic.
Sure, I get tired of it by August, but there is something deeply satisfying about making all those little blades of grass even. It appeals to me on several different levels.
Did you know that walking a lawnmower for an hour and forty-five minutes burns 621 calories?? That’s not a number to take lightly when one has just passed the forty-second year mark!
There is something very Zen-like in immersing yourself in one task and allowing your brain to take a break. Up and back. Up and back. Up and back. Kind of like meditation for your whole body.
There is a sense of lighthearted achievement when I’m done. To look at the neat and tidy lawn brings a sense of satisfaction that few other household chores can bring for me. If I’ve done a careful job, I can stand at the bathroom window overlooking the back yard and see the stripes.
Vacuuming the carpets just doesn’t have the stripe pay-off at the end!
A couple of years ago I mowed grass one whole summer. . .for money! It may have been the best job I ever had. I spent most of the summer in a sweaty Zen-state! One of the important lessons I learned that summer was the pride involved in making stripes in the grass. We would drive past the properties we had mowed just to check the stripes. When driving past properties that weren’t our accounts, we critiqued (mostly rudely!) the stripes of other lawn companies!
I remember Jeff excitedly calling my cell phone one afternoon when we were all out working. He just wanted to tell me that he had made a perfect checkerboard in a yard and wanted me to drive by it later!
There’s really only one secret to making good stripes – it’s walking a straight line. Not as easy as it sounds. When you walk, you tend to look down. When you mow, you tend to look at the front end of your mower. You judge to see if you’re following the last strip of mowed grass and that you’re not leaving any escapees behind.
When you do that, your stripes are going to look ocean waves on a summer afternoon.
The only way to mow is to look up. To look at where you want to go – not where you’ve been.
It’s like magic.
As soon as you change your focal point everything begins to fall into place. There aren’t any worries about AWOL blades of grass. And the stripes are straight and true.
Funny how quickly I forget that. I start my day or my week – hell, I even start mowing the lawn thinking about where I want to go. It isn’t long, however, until I’ve allowed people and attitudes to drag my vision down. Before I know it my fears and concerns have become center stage and I’m wandering along looking at my feet.
I’m learning though.
The only way to live is to look up. To look at where you want to go – not where you’ve been.
It’s like magic.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
The Gospel Truth
Reading Curve magazine yesterday I read a review of lesbian recording artist Susan Werner. I’d never heard of her, but the review of her album “The Gospel Truth” was intriguing.
A farm girl, raised in a large Catholic family in rural Iowa, Werner started singing (where else??) but in church. But, she asked too many questions and began to struggle with all the baggage that institutional religion creates.
I found this to be too much to resist, so I clicked on over to iTunes and for $9.99 I downloaded the album. I was not disappointed.
All of the lyrics and music are original and have a gospel feel. The first song on the album is “(Why Is Your) Heaven So Small?”
Excuse me sir,
What did you say?
You shout so loud it’s hard to tell.
You say that I must change my ways
For I am surely bound to hell.
Well I know you’d damn me if you could
But my friends, that simply not your call.
If God is great and God is good
Why is your heaven
So small?
You say you know,
You say you’ve read
That Holy Bible up on the shelf
Do you recall when Jesus said,
“Judge not lest ye be judged yourself?”
For I know you’d damn me if you could
But my friends, that’s simply not your call.
If God is great and God is good
Why is your heaven
So small?
With your fists that shake
And your eyes that burn
What makes you do these things you do?
I would not be surprised to learn
Someone, somewhere excluded you.
But my friend, imagine it if you could
A love much mightier than us all
If God is great and God is good
Why is your heaven
So small?
The rest of the tracks deal with themes like forgiving those who have hurt you, even when you don’t want to; the importance of a conscience in a life that is lived well and fully; the kind of peaceful world that God must want (if there even is a God!) and a direct prayer asking God to save us from all the self-righteous people who think they speak for Him.
After listening to the CD for the last two days all I can say is “amen.”
Friday, June 01, 2007
It's All in My Focus
My latest project is only for the sturdiest of knitters. It’s a blanket. On size 6 needles. All told there will be 180,840 stitches. . .give or take a few.
I’ve been working on it for about 4 months. It comes out of the knitting bag when I’m stressed and garter stitch is the only thing that appeals to me. I’m about 60,000 stitches into it.
When I’m not feeling overpowered by life I put it away and work on something more interesting or more challenging.
Right now, it’s all blanket. . .all the time.
I love the colors – dark and light green, tan and purple. I enjoy the feel and drape of the yarn as it passes through my fingers. (It’s Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool!) The pattern is “Moderne Log Cabin Blanket” from Mason-Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne.
Like everything else, if I were to spend too much time thinking about the 120,840 stitches that were left I might get pulled under by the enormity of the task. I might feel like I couldn’t do it. Like I couldn’t go on. Like it was too hard or boring and that I might as well give up now. That there’s way too much knitting to be done and it will never be completed anyway.
But that’s not how knitting works. If I look at the 120,840 stitches looming on the horizon I get overwhelmed. But how distressing is one little row? Do I get alarmed at the thought of one more little stitch?
Maybe that’s why this blanket appeals to me when life has gotten me down. If I could see all that was before me I’m quite sure I would panic. But that’s not where my focus can reside.
In the words of writer Ursula K. LeGuin, “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
I’ve been working on it for about 4 months. It comes out of the knitting bag when I’m stressed and garter stitch is the only thing that appeals to me. I’m about 60,000 stitches into it.
When I’m not feeling overpowered by life I put it away and work on something more interesting or more challenging.
Right now, it’s all blanket. . .all the time.
I love the colors – dark and light green, tan and purple. I enjoy the feel and drape of the yarn as it passes through my fingers. (It’s Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool!) The pattern is “Moderne Log Cabin Blanket” from Mason-Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne.
Like everything else, if I were to spend too much time thinking about the 120,840 stitches that were left I might get pulled under by the enormity of the task. I might feel like I couldn’t do it. Like I couldn’t go on. Like it was too hard or boring and that I might as well give up now. That there’s way too much knitting to be done and it will never be completed anyway.
But that’s not how knitting works. If I look at the 120,840 stitches looming on the horizon I get overwhelmed. But how distressing is one little row? Do I get alarmed at the thought of one more little stitch?
Maybe that’s why this blanket appeals to me when life has gotten me down. If I could see all that was before me I’m quite sure I would panic. But that’s not where my focus can reside.
In the words of writer Ursula K. LeGuin, “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
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