Gravy

Written yesterday:
Just finished off a soy latte and needing to make another one. Dark roast Italian beans, for me, the blacker the better. Don't need all the caffeine of the lighter roasts, but need all the hormones of the soy. Properly textured oatmeal with gently boiled raisins and fresh squeezed orange juice, compliments of Fiesta Food Market. Peter Frankl playing Debussy's Piano Works...
Luxury for me.  Gravy. More than I deserve. Something I must always appreciate and cherish when it comes, because tomorrow might be very different. I have always cherished the luxury moments. The gravy in life. A long bike ride up and down the hills of Alamo Heights in San Antonio, then the cool water handed to me by the secretary at some church...Walking down the steps to the Tolouse Latrec lithographs at the McNay Art Institute, or just basking in the blues of Monet's Waterlilies...or just sitting out by the fountain in center and wanting to stay there forever.  Luxury.


Finding the non-bumpy part of the tree, leaning back and not falling out.  Watching my two year old daughter skipping stones in a mountain stream.


Gravy.


I suppose because of the darkness, maybe I see the light a little better than others. I don't take anything for granted. I can't.  It makes me quite stubborn, too.  I hear the notes Frankl plays on the piano and I feel them, I feel the keys going up and down and the tired but wonderful feeling when I am able to make those sounds correctly. That I have a Steinway to play right now...and that the privilege could be taken from me in the blink of an eye, so I must savor every minute.


In the same way, it is how I feel about my ministry. It is a treasure and I know I do good work, and often God does great work through me. When I get out of the way, wonderful things happen.  And there is not a minute in which I am not aware that all my work could be taken away from me in a heartbeat. So I cherish each encounter as if it was pure gold. "I get to do this...and this...and this..." And I push the limits of everything. I have so little patience inside me.


And I know that comes from my core: I was abandoned. I was left alone. I had to learn how to survive alone. So everything good that happens is gravy.  And everything bad that happens...I have learned, only lasts a little while. For every Good Friday, there is an Easter. Regular as clockwork...also a by-product of abandonment. What we feel, experience, enter...only lasts a little while...sure enough, it is right in Thomas A Kempis...feelings change...like the Texas weather. So you learn to discern, hang onto the good parts, flush the bad...keep your eyes on Him..

Monday, February 14, 2011

I thought what I had written yesterday was a waste. But I was with the 10th graders yesterday afternoon. They got to watch a film (they watch too many films, I think...but the boss knows what needs to happen for these kids) about decision-making. I only watched a couple of minutes of it. I was tired of films. The boy, non-white, was talking about the environment he had to grow up in. How he made his choices by what he saw around him. Yeah, really don't want to watch that...

I spoke to that a little bit in the class discussion that followed. I spoke to how hard it was for me and how no one was there to listen...and just maybe someone they might meet today might need someone to listen. And it might surprise them. I said, "Look at me. You see this face. Does this face look like someone who was in trouble? I won almost every competition I entered. I went to State in UIL in golf and speech, to Nationals in speech. Do I look like I was in trouble?" And they said no, you look like a winner.  And I said yes, that's right. 
All I needed was for one person to ask me how I was, and I would have told them. But no one asked. And that is what they must do. Pay attention. Care about others. No one really has a clue about who is hurting.
And I thought, what in the world did you just do, Cindy?  I looked around the room. I'd broken through into a couple of faces, but I tried not to let them know I could see. Crap. What were you thinking, Cindy? Oh, Lord, give them what they need. And let them forgive me. 

Yes, I suppose I can be a dark cloud on the horizon. I don't really mean to be. Oddly, I like to think I'm offering a little healing for others. It's a skill I am only just beginning to learn. Yet, maybe this is the way to do it.   When we open a wound, I don't know that it is always wise to close it back up quickly, though I think in this world, we are inclined to close it up.  Sometimes, in order to heal, we have to sit with the unpleasantness of it for awhile...not so that it leads to depression or something worse, but so that we can examine it for what it is:
Kind of like this:
Oh look, here is my broken heart.  Look here where a little piece got torn.  This was where my mother told me I was stupid or slow. And this crack, that was when I lied about who started the fight with my brother. This bruised piece here...is my first love. See how it has healed. Kind of hard, but not as hard as it used to be. Over there is when my best friend moved away....this big hole...oh yes, that's when my father died...but see how it is being filled up again, and how beautiful the new flesh has become...and there at the center, guarding me in the midst of all the things of my own life...is Jesus...there He is, right there. See how his love reaches out into all the rips and tears and cuts and scrapes...and makes them all so beautiful. 
Yes, it really is a broken heart...but it is a beautiful broken heart...because He's there...in every cell of it...making it beautiful.


I think we need each other to see the beauty in ourselves. Otherwise, the loneliness will kill us. That was really what I was trying to tell them. Hope God told them for me.  


Love, Cindy