What tomorrow may bring

Kind of got caught in a loop yesterday. I realized it was the weather combined with hormones...and I sure have my share of them...and being Irish...

I arise today through a mighty strength
Through an invocation of the Trinity
Through a belief in the threeness
Through a confession of the oneness
Of the creator of creation...

But me under a full moon and you will discover more than you would ever wish to know about me. But the warrior side of me came through again. The survivor. The captain of the ship. On these days, Deborah and Esther are my older sisters. My great-grandchild is Mary...we are women who can save the nation, by holding fast, birthing babies and showing men how wonderful they really are.

Did I really say that? Good thing I have only 12 people who read my silliness! Long ago, in the 60s, I wrote. I kind of figured someone would find my dead body someday and just maybe, someone would want to know who I was. I didn't like the things I was learning about people, and I didn't like where my life seemed to be heading. Gotta make a record. For posterity. For science. How can anyone solve a problem without data?

Godowski. I learned about him when I began to study piano again. He was the pianists' pianist. The recordings are on CD, but they are so very old...and he is so very gifted. Has a legato that borders on perfect. Legato is the ability to hold a note just long enough but not too much...to be able to allow people to clearly hear one note move to the next without overlap or disjointedness. Smooth, lingering, but not too much to be dramatic, not too quick to be tense.

I recall the day I began to figure it out. I was playing a Charlie Brown song on the piano in Murphy. It began to 'feel' right. Then the doorbell rang and it was the UPS guy. I saw the look on his face and knew he was listening to me. He was completely calm. It was humbling.

The birds used to fall in the chimney when I played. How about that, I can make birds swoon! That's much more interesting than impressing people!

This 'creation dance' happens when we surrender to God. We get in touch with the mud of creation and the sublime of God. It it learned, if it can be learned, by paying attention. More than the Zen of paying attention, it is attention brought into light by the unceasing realization that all is a gift from God. The song of creation manifests in us when we pray.

Our prayer may be in the form of music and art, but it is also in the form of how we love each other. I mean our prayer is in the form of our work. Attentive to God during work makes work sing its own song.

Aslan sang Narnia into creation. We sing it back to Him (God). Wrong notes and all. Even silence is a song. Think of the Chopin Ballade No. 1. Silence is key to the understanding of that music. The legato in this piece, when paid attention to, makes ordinary extraordinary.

I'm supposed to be writing a verbatim. Anyone who knows me knows I rarely do what I am told, unless of course, God is giving the orders. How I could possibly know the difference, I haven't a clue.

What I have learned in my life is that when I listen to people, I get hurt. People are basically selfish and self-motivated. People will do what they have to to win. God, on the other hand, has my interests at heart, your interests at heart...and he can see the way to make us both better without hurting either one of us. So I have to look at the person speaking to me: Is it God, or is it Bruce? Because both exist in the same shell. And Bruce isn't a bad person or anything, Bruce is just talking from his humanity...and that is myopic, clouded, driven...but Bruce also speaks as the voice of God, when he humbles himself. And then, I have to listen carefully. Something important is about to happen.

I remember the first God moments I awoke to back in the 1990s. I'd be with someone and the air seemed to get very still, like just before a storm...and yes, there would be a rush like a mighty wind...when the words were finally formed...and I would know...someone just told me their secret truth...we are on holy ground...and I better get out of the way and let God do His thing.

It was so cool. Now those times are almost regular. Now, not being in that place feels horrible, uncomfortable...and I start pouting and demanding God to give me what I want...like yesterday...but He loves me anyway. We are an old married couple now. And He know this woman has an unquenchable fire and sometimes sparks and hits the good carpet...but that was what attracted Him to me anyway.

Get it? I want the whole world to feel this way with God. I want the whole world to love Him the way I love Him. Yet, I know...my way is best for me...and your way may be best for you...but this way...is so much fun!

I can't really write verbatims anymore. I deliberately try to not think too much about what I do and why I do it. I have found, that if I remain in prayer...even my screw-ups can and are used by God.

Last night I was with a family. They were getting ready to 'pull the plug' on a young man. They wanted a chaplain. When I walked in, I just looked at all the faces and all the tears. Have I met you before, I asked. No, the wife said. But I have met them. Each time I do this, I see God. He is always there, always the same. And the humanity in that person is so scared. Love is messy. It means there will be days like this one. I just said, don't worry. Don't be afraid. He has someplace wonderful to go. I know. [I have been there, I have seen it and felt it and it is wonderful...better than any dream]

I could spend a great deal of time examining whether I said the right thing or in the right order, but I just don't stress about it anymore. I go in. I see Christ. I love, in the way I can, as Cindy. Nothing more. Nothing less.

What was so cool about yesterday, was I was showing the 10th graders the film "The Fourth Wise Man" with Martin and Charlie Sheen. Some of them were texting during the movie, but they were watching. I put the movie on because about one yesterday I got a call that my partner for the class couldn't come. I came up with the movie...no, God came up with the movie.

The the movie is all about the Sermon on the Mount: Do for others. You will be rewarded. And about halfway through, I heard an alarm. I thought, a fire drill? Now? and then knew it was my phone. The hospital was calling. The pending death. I asked the sub helper to finish out the movie, told the kids I had to go to the hospital and that they should pray for the family I was going to see.

I walked out of the room and marveled at God. I wanted to remind them about service, about loving one another...and God just made it all so three dimensional for them. God in the mix. God in the mess. Maybe a couple of them figured it out. Serve Him by serving others.

Just cool.

Thus endeth the examen...

Love, Cindy