by Liz | Apr 23, 2008 | main
I have a relative who keeps my inbox loaded up with all of the current chain mail and jokes that circulate around the net. I sometimes feel like I have my own personal spammer. Thing is, I usually at least look at every one of those emails, because I never know when there might be something really good in there.
A couple of days ago she sent one purporting to be a dog’s letter to God. I’m a dog lover. We share our house with a couple of miniature schnauzers that earn their keep by protecting us from the neighbor’s “evil yellow cat.” And so I did laugh my way through this “letter.” It was filled with observations and questions such as “if a dog barks its head off in the forest and there’s no human to hear it – is it still a bad dog?” It gave a list of what a dog must remember in order to be a good dog: “The garbage collectors are not stealing our stuff” and “The cat is not a squeaky toy.”
As I continue to chuckle over the dog’s observations, it brings to mind the expectations we put on each other and ourselves. All those things I am expected to do or not do for others to see me as good. Don’t laugh at the wrong time. Mind your manners. Don’t let anybody know how I really feel – especially if that flies in the face of how others see things right now.
And the expectations that we have for each other are no easier. In Acts, there is great disagreement going on because some (most?) expect that for a newcomer to be a Christian, that person must have gone through all the steps of becoming a Jew first.
As I follow Acts, in many ways I see it as the beginning of the journey from pushing “my expectations” to “accepting God’s expectations.” And, so often they are so different. We expect rules, God expects relationship. I expect the syllabus for the class so I can figure out what I have to do to pass, God expects me to come to class and live the experience. I expect a map and a schedule. God says “Walk with me, talk with me. It’ll be a great adventure.”
It seems I’ll just have to continue to learn to let go of my expectations, slow down and learn to be in the present without a syllabus, a map or a schedule.
by Liz | Apr 22, 2008 | main
It’s been a day. Started by spilling coffee on my shirt when I transferred it to the travel mug so I wouldn’t spill it. Change shirts. Load the dogs up to go to the groomer’s. Spill coffee from that stupid travel mug on shirt number 2. Get to the groomer’s, and Cooper manages to soak my pants with what’s left in that ever inefficient travel mug. Call work – I’ll be a few minutes late. Run home, change clothes (that shirt 3, pants 2) again. Get to work just before 8:30.
Give me patience Lord. I was so not at peace before 8:30 am. And work was not exactly a calming experience either.
Call me back, Lord. Remind me that You are the wind beneath my wings, that you are the Rock that I stand on. And most of all, help me slow down and take a minute to talk with You.
And yet, as twitchy and unfocused as I was, ocasionally I could hear those words:
Through all the tumult and the strife,
I hear the Music ringing
If Love is Lord of Heaven and Earth
How can I keep from singing?
I have been given many gifts in this life – music is one of my favorites. I’ve not been gifted with a glorious voice, but I can make my guitar sing. I hear music in my head. Music calms my soul. Music feeds me and gives me energy to go on. Some weeks, by Thursday, I’m ready to throw in the towel. And then we congregate at church for what passes for choir practice, and I am renewed.
It’s so amazing that God can find so many different ways to be present to us — if I just pay attention, I can see and hear Her. In people, in nature and in music.
How can I keep from singing?
by Liz | Apr 22, 2008 | main
I was just following a post on FAMVIN about what Bee Stings and Car Dents can teach us about economics. The full story is over at Boston.com.
I’m no economist (although I am the mother of an aspiring economist, but we don’t want to talk about how we see things differently), but I can identify with the idea that if you have one bee sting, you are more likely to get it treated than if you have several. Why treat only one, when the others are still going to hurt so bad? Or dents in the car — if you have one or two, it seems urgent to get them fixed, but if you can’t, and you get more, then why bother?
I don’t know whether the author is on to something or not by applying this to explain issues of poverty. But I do know the feeling of being so overwhelmed that it seems useless, if not impossible to even fix one problem. What good will it do? Life will still stink. Most everything you do will still be painful. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.
When I hit that point in life, I was lucky. I had good health insurance. I had a doctor who went to bat for me to protect my job. I had a home, a husband, kids. I had an idea that maybe there was a God who might keep me from total disaster.
But what happens to those who are stuck in that cycle of poverty and hopelessness? No health insurance? No experience that tells them that there are others they can lean on? Maybe, there isn’t anyone to lean on anyway.
I don’t know the answers. I do know that the support of others – emotional, financial, physical – can make a difference. I know that someone stepping in to help heal the first and second and third bee stings, or fix up several of the dents can move a person to a place where it might seem worth the effort required to heal the remaining stings or dents. I know that it often only really helps if treatment for the first few stings comes in such a way that it doesn’t put the recipient deeper in debt to someone.
Jesus reminds us of how we serve Him:
When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was thirsty you gave me a drink…When I needed clothing, you gave them to me…
Nowhere in that passage does He mention running a tab or setting a time limit so that it could be paid back.
My hope is that the experience of surviving and being given a shot at becoming whole will help me to understand that my job is not to judge, but to love and accept another wherever they are right now.
by Liz | Apr 21, 2008 | main
Yesterday I got a call asking me if I knew the praise song “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High” and if not, could I learn it. I’d heard it, so I went out to iTunes to get a copy so I could learn it. There were 107 different versions of this song. So, I picked the one that seemed most popular, bought it and proceeded to learn to sing and play it in a matter of minutes.
If you aren’t familiar, the words go like this (I hope I’m not in copyright trouble here):
Lord, I lift your Name on high
Lord, I love to sing Your praises
I’m so glad you’re in my life
I’m so glad you came to save us
You came from heaven to earth – to show us the way
From earth to the cross — to pay my debt
From the cross to grave, from the grave to the sky
Lord, I lift Your Name on high
I can’t get it out of my head. It’s swirling through my brain and has been for hours. I can only conclude that something about the words and the melody have (forgive me) struck a chord. There’s something inside that needs to praise the Lord. As it runs through my brain I am reminded of the idea that to sing is to pray twice.
And so, I’ll just continue to sing praises. That is quite the foundation to rest on when I’m wrestling with knotty questions and fuming about things I don’t understand and disagree with. It’s good to sit back and offer a good song of praise.
by Liz | Apr 20, 2008 | main
Today’s readings seem to be shouting at me. I’m sorting through the cacophony of voices I hear and trying to find a central theme. In Acts, I see a group freed up from “serving at table” (I’m not sure exactly what that means, yet) to be out in the community ministering. In the second reading from Peter (1 Pt 2:4-9) I hear the clear call that we are all called to offer the spiritual sacrifice – a whole people who is called to be priests. And in the Gospel (an expanded repeat of Friday’s gospel), I hear Jesus calling me to follow Him, to know Him, to stay in relationship with Him and know that He is the way home.
Where does this leave me? I know that my deep-seated belief that we are all (man, woman, layperson, clergy) called to make Jesus present might get me into hot water with Roman Catholic faithful because I’ve just never understood why Jesus would not be just as present when 2 or 3 are gathered and break bread and share a cup as He is when a priest does the same at mass.
It might seem odd that I would say that, because when asked why I converted to Catholicism (3 decades ago) my answer would have to be “The mass.” And yet it makes perfect sense to me. We believe that Jesus becomes present in the Eucharist. Not just a memorial. Not just a memory. But present, here and now with us. I did not find that in the other Christian communities I explored. And then again, I don’t know why we hold that this only really happens when an ordained priest (male and celibate) is presiding at the celebration. That Presence is simply too powerful for us to declare that it can only occur when we say it is so.
So — I look forward to mass this morning. To hearing the Word proclaimed and being in the presence of God among us.
