Barefoot

"After a sordid religious background, trying on denominations like shoes, finding out which ones fit and which ones don't, which ones squeeze too tight and which ones give freedom, comfort and support, I find that I prefer to live barefoot."

Book Review :: Solo: An Uncommon Devotional

I found a new devotional that is really working for me right now. It's called Solo: An Uncommon Devotional and it's by Eugene Peterson. I'm a longtime, hardcore Eugene Peterson fan. He's the guy who wrote the Bible paraphrase The Message that has revolutionized Bible reading for so many people.*

Solo has revolutionized the daily devotional for me. He takes a small piece of Scripture and then guides you through reading, thinking, praying and living it in ways that are fresh, relevant and thought provoking. The book is in the ancient lectio-divina approach to becoming one with scripture.

I'm finding that using the readings and guided meditations as a jumping-off point for journaling is best for me. Here's a bit of what I wrote and how I used it today. The passage is Matthew 11:28-30.*

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

In response I wrote:
Holy God, I am tired. I have been so burned out on religion and hurt by religious people that I've been afraid to even think of trying it all again. There has to be a better way.

The church that claims you, excludes me.

Since leaving the institutional church, the place that I've learned to see you is in the stillness of my soul. It nourishes my spirit to find that place. I can find it in your creation, in the words of others who are walking the journey with honest, stumbling faith and in the music of old hymns, ancient chants and bird songs.

The only thing I miss and still need is a community to challenge me and to love me into becoming even more.

So, as I wait, I will practice learning the unforced rhythms of grace. Teach me. Show me. Heal me. Amen.

I love this book. If you're in Findlay you won't be surprised that the local Christian bookstore won't have it. I found mine at the bookstore in the mall.

* Peterson makes the Bible a pleasure to read. Same passage - King James Version:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

New International Version
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

It Was Unintended. . .Really

How many unexpected children come into the world because nice people meet each other for dinner and drinks in a bar and the next thing you know one thing is leading to another?

Well, let me tell you – it can happen to anyone.

We met a friend from Toledo for dinner in a bar last night and came home with this.

Seriously.

His name is Oscar and he's the sweetest, craziest, most freaked-out dog I've ever met. Scott has had him for a few months and Oscar is truly a special needs kind of dog. And you know that the way to Ali's heart is just to mention the words "special" and "needs" in the same sentence. (Why do you think she's with me??)

After 12 hours in our laundry room I can say that his "special needs" are far beyond our capabilities. He has peed and pooped all over everything. He's so far off the scale of being scared he makes Sammy look hostile – and Sammy is the most gentle dog I've ever met. (Except for that one squirrel killing incident of which we agreed to never speak again if he promised to never do it again.)

The saving grace of this sordid little tale is that, unlike most situations that lead to unexpected children late on a Friday night, this little boy is going back where he came from.

Update!

Frank found a home! Yea, Frankie-boy! You be good so I don't have to be worried about you anymore!

But now it's on to this one or this one or this one. . .

Seriously. I need an intervention.

My Girl

:: She sings me Jackson Five songs when I'm feeling blue. My favorite is I'll Be There closely followed by her original version of ABC. It never fails to make me laugh. Not just smile, but bust out loud laughing that makes my stomach hurt and my eyes water.

:: Last night she remembered that I wanted to see Coraline. She brought it home and didn't even make us watch the 3-D version with the silly glasses.

:: She also made me stand in the kitchen with my eyes closed and my hands outstretched. I heard a crinkly noise and opened my eyes to find this.

A Hostess Orange Cupcake! It's one of my favorite childhood junk foods!

Thanks honey. I'm a very, very lucky girl.

A Gift

Some days it's the simplest things that bring the greatest joy. Today I'm thankful. We seriously needed this.

Ready

I have a crush on old, run down pick-up trucks. Not that I especially want one. But, they are useful in their own ugly way.

I blame this weird infatuation on my dad. He used to possess the world's crappiest truck. It was mostly red. It had the stick shift on the floor and every time he changed gears that thing would huck and buck and snap your neck backwards so hard it was painful. My fourteen-year-old self wanted to crouch down on the rusted out floorboards and die. Especially if he ever picked me up in it after band practice. 

It was reminiscent of this.


But now, of course, I look back on it (sort of) fondly.

We named it "Ready." Get it? "Red"-ey. That, and it most usually started somewhere near the first or the seventh try. "Ready!"

It wasn't that my dad loved owning clunker. At least I don't think he did. But, that was what he could afford. Also, he drove this truck into the woods, where he loaded the bed with logs that we burned to heat our house.

He didn't want anything too nice. Nothing he would worry about dinging or scratching.

Maybe we should have called it "Rough & Ready."

So, that explains my love for old trucks. They kind of remind me of what my parents were willing to do for our family and how hard they worked.

Now, when I start whining because I'm tired or because I don't think life is fair or because I don't think anyone is paying attention to me, I think about Ready and the rest of the parade of clunkers my parents drove. And I think about how Dad used to chop down trees and split them up so we could be warm every winter.

And I quit feeling sorry for myself.

Communication

I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm a crummy communicator.

It seems crazy to me. I write for fun. I used to be a mostly effective preacher. I enjoy words – their meanings, the power they have to bring about change in the world. But when it comes to expressing my own personal feelings I usually find that the words I choose don't do an adequate job of painting a portrait that looks like anything recognizable.

What I really wish is that I could be like Dumbledore and pull my feelings and memories out of my head and place them in the Pensieve so that I wouldn't have to worry about interpretation. Anyone who cared could look.

It would be nice.

As my level of emotion rises, there's a direct correlation to the number of words I use. More stress = fewer words = even more stress as I wonder why I am being misunderstood. Anyone who actually reads this blog knows when it's happening. My posts get farther and farther apart.

I guess that's my communication style. Kind of dysfunctional, but difficult to change after all these years. Mostly, I am a forward and direct kind of speaker and writer. I used short, to-the-point sentences. I've been told from time to time that I can be blunt and off-putting. I'm OK with that. I'm not a writer or speaker who is proficient at transporting someone to another world or who has the ability to explain things in ways that the hearer has never explored before.

My uncle Jon has that kind of writing ability. Sometimes his descriptions of the commonplace things can take my breath away. When writing about his experiences when he first opened a Facebook account he said, "It's like a scrapbook for the whole world, held together by everyone's imagination." 

If you're on Facebook you know exactly what that means.

My Dad on the other hand, writes obliquely. He slants around, never quite getting to the point. For some reason I still receive his church newsletter. One came in the mail on Saturday and in it, he addressed his current health situation. Sort of.

"Today my doctor and I talked about the likelihood of my death. I told her that 13 billion people have lived on this planet called Earth and so far over one half of them have died. 'Guess what's going to happen to the other 6 1/2 billion. . .and me,' I asked. I reminded her that the question isn't 'Are we going to die?' but rather, 'Are we prepared to die?'"

"I've grown closer to Jesus because I have been forced to think more about my own mortality. I still don't think I will die before the Rapture occurs, but I might. I am very thankful that I am useful to Him and that He has prepared me for either one."

The fact that he never really got to the point in his column bothered me. Ali pointed out to me that in those moments my emotions thawed and I became aware of the sensations of fear and pain that have been frozen for so long. She was right.

Since my uncle Jon is the only one who is in communication with my Dad I wrote him an email in typical Tanya style – less than 200 words and ending with, "I guess more than anything I'm scared that he's going to die and I will be left wondering whether I ever mattered to him at all." How's that for bare naked emotion? Gotta give me credit. . .it's all or nothing some days. As they say, "Go big or go home."

His response was so emotionally eloquent that it made me weep.

All of us share the same loss of a loving, feeling brother who found an ego in a different realm.  Our loss is nothing in comparison to your loss and we all share a helpless love for you that none of us really know how to express to you. You really mattered to the Kirk we all grew up with. Somewhere we all hope that the "old" Kirk will return and the "new" Kirk will retire and lay down his armor. Until then for what its worth, you still have the rest of us undivided and unconditionally loving you whether we know how to communicate it to you or not.

With Hope and Love,

Jon

What really rips me apart and causes me to shut down is the fine line between feeling pain and wallowing in it. The line between expressing my truth and becoming someone who others perceive as not being able to deal with whatever life hands out. 

I can't stand whiners. And I don't want to be one. So, maybe I will be a little bit quiet here for awhile. Maybe I'll try to cut myself some slack. Or maybe I'll just give thanks for the boundless generosity and graciousness that's already in my life and work at continuing to let the rest of it go.

All I can say is that I'm doing the best I can.

Is Dolly Parton in the House?

Ali plays softball for the worst team in the league. Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it's just a drag to lose every single week.

Some teams are classy about beating them. Some teams aren't. The team they played this Tuesday night embarrassed them, but it wasn't quite the same.

Every year when they play the Snyder team the Snyder pitcher starts the game by wearing a horrendous, Dolly Parton-style wig. Some years she also wears a very long skirt. The person on Ali's team who makes the third out has to wear the wig all during the next half of the inning. The wig then moves on to the next person who makes the third out – and so on.

In Ali's league, if you are down by 20 runs at the end of the third inning the game is over. It's 15 runs at the end of the fourth and 10 at the end of the fifth. On Tuesday night, if the Snyder team got close to run-ruling Ali's team they all started batting left handed. The pitcher switched positions with the short stop and they let the score tighten up just a little bit.

It's one of the few games that Ali's team plays that is actually fun. It's still embarrassing, but it's an embarrassing they can deal with!

Ali, after making the third out in the third inning. Oh, and by the way, despite the extra measures taken not to run-rule them, Snyder still won 20-4 in the fourth inning.

New Killer on the Block

The sweet little baby has become a killer. And the next door neighbor encouraged him.

Last night after finishing up dinner dishes, Ali and I wanted to go play tennis. It was a simple little desire that was quickly thwarted by the realization that we had given all the tennis balls to the dogs. We ventured out into the backyard to see if any of them were salvageable (which they weren't) by digging around in all the holes they had dug to bury their "treasures."

While we were searching, in vain, our next door neighbor shouted over the fence, "Hey! He got one today!"

Not sure what he was talking about Ali hollered back, "Who? Got what?"

Tim came over by the fence and pointed at Sammy. "He got a squirrel!"

There was a moment of silence as we contemplated the fact that our dumb, sweet, gentle boy had made his first kill. We didn't think he had it in him.

"Yeah," Tim said. "They were chasing something around the yard when I heard this crunching noise followed by this screaming sound. He got him good! That squirrel limped up the tree but I'm sure he's a goner by now!"

Ali and I were dumbstruck.

Tim finished off the disbelief by adding, "Yeah, I told him what I good boy he was!! Those damn squirrels just won't stay out of my flower beds!"

What happened to our sweet little Sammy-Boy?

Every Seventeen Years

I heard the first calls of the cicadas last night. They always make me feel a bit sad. They sound so lonesome. Hiding out underground for 17 years, they just wait. When they emerge it's only to make that rustling, buzzing sigh that signals the beginning of the end of summer.

When I first heard them last night dusk was beginning to fall in my kitchen. I was wiping the counters after doing the dishes. The kitchen light was off and the shadows of the chairs were lengthening across the tiled floors. What might I have been doing at sundown on a Sunday evening exactly 17 years earlier when these little creatures were first formed in the earth around our trees?

Quite possibly, exactly the same thing.

Last night, the sound of the cicada made me wonder – how is the 2009 version of me different than the 1992 one? 

What might the 2026 rendering look like?

Of course there are no guarantees, but one thing is for sure. The cicadas will be here, steady as clockwork.

Cicadas at the End of Summer

by Martin Walls

Whine as though a pine tree is bowing a broken violin,

As though a bandsaw cleaves a thousand thin sheets of

titanium;

They chime like freight wheels on a Norfolk Southern

slowing into town.

But all you ever see is the silence.

Husks, glued to the underside of maple leaves.

With their nineteen fifties Bakelite lines they'd do

just as well hanging from the ceiling of a space

museum —

What cicadas leave behind is a kind of crystallized memory;

The stubborn detail of, the shape around a life turned

The color of forgotten things: a cold broth of tea & milk

in the bottom of a mug.

Or skin on an old tin of varnish you have to lift with

lineman's pliers.

A fly paper that hung thirty years in Bird Cooper's pantry

in Brighton.

poem credit found here

Family Stitches

Since hearing of my dad's cancer diagnosis I've been thinking a lot about family dynamics. Particularly my own responses to family situations.

I confessed to a friend one night last week that I'm not particularly good at predicting my own reactions to emotional pain. I tend to be a bit too optimistic about how I'm going to react when something bad happens. I know that I'm going to hurt, I know that I'm going to feel the restless, stinging ache of loss but somehow I convince myself that it's not going to be so horribly bad. I tell myself that if I'm just stoic and patient it will all be alright.

I'm at least right about one thing. Loss does eventually ease into something manageable. It just always takes so much longer than I think it should.

All in all I think I've dealt with the loss of my family pretty well. The ache is mostly gone. It's only when quirky little things happen that I feel the sting – when I run through the McDonald's drive-thru for lunch and sneak french fries out of the bag like Dad and I used to do when we took lunch home for everybody else. He used to say that if we took some from all four crinkly paper envelopes of french fries that nobody would notice.

I feel a little piercing when I see a playhouse in the neighbor's back yard as I drive by. I remember the overseas shipping box that Dad brought home for us to play in. He put a real, miniature screen door in so that we had a proper "house." We salvaged items from the garage to serve as furniture and this space became our neighborhood clubhouse.

Yesterday I saw Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench on TV and felt a twinge of loss. Dad and I used to watch Cincinnati Reds games together. I don't know how much I loved the game of baseball. I just know I loved hanging out with my dad.

Families are sewn together with threads all around the edges. I used to believe that it would be possible for me to unpick these tiny stitches whenever I needed or wanted to. But lately I've begun to realize that no matter what our circumstances are, no matter how badly we might desire to unravel ourselves out of that cloth that we were woven into, we can't.

The stitches are too small.

They are pulled too tight.

Sadness

I watched parts of Michael Jackson's funeral and stayed up way too late last night. I also watched the live feed that Facebook had. There were people from all over the world commenting in real time about the memorial. As I watched, I was most interested in what "christians" had to say.

It was nauseating.

And all I could think is that I hope none of those people show up at my funeral, because if there's anyone who doesn't deserve a good memorial service, it's me.

See, here's the deal.

Not a single one of us deserves any good or perfect thing we've been given. Not one. And the second that we Jesus followers begin to label people as "good" or "bad" then God help us all.

Actions are moral or immoral. Choices are good and bad. But people can always be redeemed.

Yesterday I grieved with a little girl who has lost her father. I also grieved for the part that all of us play in the culture that treats entertainers as gods and then acts morally outraged when they aren't.

"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor." 

– Matthew 7:3-5 

The Message

Pie and Learning to Let Go

I love pie.

I could go on about why – how it's the perfect marriage of crispy crust and sweet insides, about how it reminds me of my gramma's house, about how I once won a pie baking contest – but I'll spare you. I'll just leave it that I. LOVE. PIE!

So, when invited to a family picnic at the lake for the Fourth of July and asked to bring the dessert, I opted to make peach and cherry hand pies. They are the ultimate pie in my humble opinion. . .twice the crust, half the filling and portable – so you can wander around the picnic area and hide the fact that you are now eating your third one! Try getting away with that dragging around a plate and fork!

The only problem is that hand pies are a pain in the ass. They take all day to make. Assemble the ingredients. Chill them for an hour. Form the dough. Chill for an hour. Roll and cut the circles. Chill for half an hour. Fill and seal the pies. Chill for half an hour. Bake for 40 minutes. Add that I had to make the recipe TWICE and I was lucky that they were finished by about 8:30 on Friday night.

After I collapsed on the couch, sick to death of fooling around with pie dough I heard a suspicious noise from the kitchen. Too tired to get up, I ignored it. To my peril I might add. A minute later I heard a quiet gulping noise. Dragging my sorry self up I looked in the kitchen and saw Oliver crouched behind the kitchen table quietly munching on something crispy. With rising consternation I counted the peach pies on the cooling rack. Where once eight small pies had rested, there were now only seven.

Of course it was too late. I let him finish it.

He came flying out from behind the table, butt waggling back and forth with pleasure and gave me a big kiss before jumping up on the couch, circling three times and collapsing in a heap. I was more than a little annoyed with him. I kept thinking about how much time and energy I had invested in making those pies and how I now only had 15 to take to the picnic instead of 16.

I stewed about it for awhile and texted a friend to relay my woe. He laughed. Made me laugh about it too. Then he gently reminded me that I had created those pies to be enjoyed.

Pow. Right between the eyes.

I looked over at Oliver who was next to me on the couch having fully succumbed to a pie induced coma. He was snoring peacefully with an occasional moan thrown in for good measure. I looked at his ribs which stick out because he's usually too busy to bother with eating. He had delighted in eating that pie. He was fully appreciative of his good fortune and was probably more thankful for his treat than anyone who ate one at the picnic would be.

Maybe that's the thing about creation. You might be the creator. . .but you don't get to control everything.

I've been thinking about this small lesson since Friday night. I wonder if I got a very small taste of what God felt after a full week of making the world. Everything was finally done. God might have finally sat down on the couch to take a breather thinking that the world was finally ready – waiting on the cosmic cooling rack if you will – when those silly, butt wagging humans made a bad choice. They ate the apple pie and then tried to hide out behind the kitchen table, hoping God wouldn't notice.

Wouldn't it have been easier if God hadn't given humans a choice in the first place? Why put the tree in the garden if we weren't meant to eat it?

In that same vein, wouldn't it have been easier if I had trained Oliver to not do anything he didn't have permission to do?

Quite possibly, on both accounts. But is that really a relationship? What kind of connection between Creator and Created would that be?

That's the story of the rest of the Bible I guess. Humans making our own choices and God doing everything possible to bring us back into relationship. We wander. God woos.

Oliver isn't my puppet.  And I don't really think God is pulling my strings.

God created. God stepped back. God watched. God let go. God trusted that all would be well.

That's the lesson I need to work on.

Oh yeah. By the way? There were more than enough pies to go around. And left-overs for breakfast on Saturday too.

Patriotism

Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.

- James Bryce

The Fourth of July always finds me conflicted. I love my country. Perhaps a better way to express my feelings would be to say that I love the idea of what my country could be.

I am deeply moved by these famous words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men* are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I am also deeply moved that there are people in my life who have sacrificed themselves in the pursuit of this ideal.

My conflicting feelings begin to stir when I wonder if so many of the squabbles this country finds itself in are the result of self-serving interests.

* Oh yeah. . .I also get conflicted when I realize most folks don't really mean all of us. This phrase usually is translated to mean "except quite a few women, some folks of color and all queers."

Introspection

This space has been kind of quiet this week. I've been feeling introspective. I think it's a combination of things that have me thinking – but not necessarily writing.

For now, this quote from Steve Jobs seems to be serving me well.

Your time is limited, don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is really just living the result of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinion drown out your own inner voice. Most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. 

I'm flying solo for the next few days while Ali does some traveling with her family. The boys and I are going to ignore the "to-do" list and see what comes our way!