Staying the Course

It's been a difficult August. Been wandering through the swamps of sadness, feeling used and abused by the ones who I thought were supposed to help me along the path. It is hard to wake up to the truth that your first impressions of people, places and things and most often the correct ones.  I wonder though, sometimes, if that is just self-fulfilling prophesies: what I have always claimed: we see only what we want to see. 

I wonder today, if I should just put on the blinders again...and settle for something less. 

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Started with these words over a week ago.  Nothing has changed.  Listening to the documentary on how and why the television show "Joan of Arcadia" came into being. The creator Barbara Hall, spoke about trying to create the series:

"A million things went wrong, but we made it anyway."

"I knew what I wanted but I didn't know how to get there."

"I needed a natural warrior (her father) and a supernatural warrior (Joan)"

"11/11/2001 changed everything, people wanted to know"
including  

"Why does it [life] have to hurt so much?"

"There was nothing simplistic about it [the show]."

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So I ask God again:  Why does it have to hurt so much? 

 

There have been some very challenging moments this summer.  Things I expected and things I did not.  I see I have done good work for others.  I am sure I've done some good internal work, but I can't see it.  Must have, because I know I am ready to do the next thing.  But it still hurts.

 Joan: "Why does it hurt so much?"

God:   "Because you feel it, Joan."  

In the show, God explains to Joan that all this mess of feelings is what makes us human, what allows us to love. The pain now is part of the pleasure later.  The pleasure now is part of the pain later. There is no escape. 
And I realize this reflection contains nothing new. 
Life is pain.  Anyone who tells you different is selling something--Princess Bride
"What if this is as good as it gets?"--from the movie with the same name.

"The Uncertainty Principle" 

This was my favorite episode, because God asks Joan to do something totally outrageous...and not until the "deed is done" does God explain how and why what she did worked.

 

I am right there today.  I am pissed at God, not for what I've done...or perhaps didn't do...but because it hurts and I don't understand why.   No, that's not completely true.  I know why it hurts.  I even told God it was okay.  "Use me anyway you want." I said. But I didn't say I would like it. And I didn't say that I wouldn't pitch a fit. 

 

That's one reason why I love Teresa of Avila so much.  She is so honest in her writings about her conversations with God.  Much more human, not all that Hollywood style of saintliness.  I think real saints have a large range of emotions...and God taps in and uses every single one of them. 

 

So now, added to my usual visiting is an unusual visiting. A young mother with cancer. This is a real growing edge for me...and tapping into a multitude of emotions that I didn't expect to access in my chaplaincy.  Ha!  The reality that every aspect of our lives works into our ministry is kind of the first rule of being an apostle, a minister, a servant.  A servant means being the property of the one you choose to serve.  It means you don't really get answers to all those questions you might have when asked to complete a task. It means not always understanding, but doing anyway.  It means trust and it means love.  How creepy to me to think that I have a "master" that I obey.  Human beings are a bit more challenging to embrace. I have let a few into my inner being...and some of them have let me down.  While that depresses me, I must remember that I am answering God's call, not some man's call.  I have wounds that I wonder if they will ever be healed.  I even spend time thinking that perhaps they are not meant to be healed, that I might lose some of my mojo if I were suddenly healed. 

 

It is always a challenge to stay the course. Especially when you are uncertain if you are staying true to the initial call, the initial commitment, the initial love. And then there's that whole human body thing that can rear up it's head and say, "No! You must pay attention to me!"

Stay the course. A thousand years ago, God called my name and I said yes. A thousand years ago, He knew I would be here...and He knew I would be given choices...and that I'd do some things right and some wrong...and that my being here, in this moment of time mattered. A thousand years ago, someone else said yes...and now I am here. And a thousand years before that, someone said yes, so that a thousand years later, another yes; a thousand years and another yes...and that one was mine. I have always held in my heart the idea of eternity going in both directions, before me and behind me. I have always known that now is so very small, but that now matters.

I try to keep humble, in the sense that I am needed and not needed, in the big scheme of things. But humble takes on an immense role when it is fully realized. It doesn't mean being quiet, or obedient to the things of this world...for me, it is a submission only but totally to God. Yet, in this small dot on the timeline of eternity, I still get upset and anxious about so many little things. That reminds me how much I am not humble.

I watch a priest friend play with the trappings of his profession and I judge. He reminds me too much of my mother, who had the most beautiful house she could have on her budget...and I lived in it and I was miserable. It was pretty. But there was no family, no love...just pretty. I wonder why a man with so many spiritual gifts would choose things over people. I am judging. I don't know what he is thinking. It is none of my business. So I have sinned. Sinned in judging and sinned in wasting my time thinking about it. I am not humble. And I do know a clean house is needed to think, to pray.  To be inspired. To be proud....and there you go...there is no real escape from our humanity.

Nor should there be. It's all part of our gift.  Something was said, or I heard...about truth this week.  Our brains are good for so much, yet we use them to justify our position, our choices, our actions...not always to our own good nor for the good of others. I was trying to read Aristotle again this week...and I kept thinking outside the words I was reading: Why is he choosing these words, these examples, when he could write more clearly?  And then I thought about the translator, gifted with a particular education, and how he took Aristotle's words and did the best he could to translate them into a language I could read...and still it made no sense to me.

I read different theologians. Some speak to my heart and others drive me batty. How could someone with a good brain come up with "that" conclusion?  I start thinking about the female perspective on creation, Christology, mythology, systematics...and I start to realize it's all babbling. Some people hear and some do not. Absolutely nothing in linear. Absolutely nothing is simple. There may be a perfect truth out there, but human beings, in this form, will never know what it is. Such a thought brings on so much despair.

We can never figure it out. So why go on living? Why try, when people are so mean to each other? Why they hate? Why they kill? Why they destroy each other's souls, creativity and life source? Why go on living, when only suffering and old age lie ahead for the survivors? Why can't I have it (my life) my own way?

Then my mind goes back to the image I have inmy head from the last retreat. What was supposed to be a beautiful experience that evening, a selfish man chose to write his wife a letter: "I do not love you. Your son does not love you. Why won't you listen? We are divorced now. Let go."  I sat in that circle, across the room from her, watching her shoulders rise and fall with her sobs. I watched the arm that was placed around her, as she silently wept.  I knew from where I was, it was not my place to go to her again...now...but merely to witness...and then suddenly, in my mind's eye, I saw Jesus again on the cross.  Hands bound my nails so that his body could not move...as He watched the crowd before him.

I remember my vision from so long ago...that odd moment when I saw Him die on the cross...and I watched Him watch the crowd of people...and, in my head, I kept trying to sort it out for years later...so confusing, I wondered if I should try to forget...  Why was this happening? Why am I seeing this? He was watching...all of us...his lovers and his betrayers...and all the ones who were so confused...and He knew...He was dying for all of us: the good, the bad, the ugly.

I looked at that woman, with whom I had a commonality: ( I too was told, "I don't love you anymore." by the one person I believed would never leave me...I knew the betrayal...and the hate...) And I knew Jesus knew it all...in those moments on the cross.

The pain of the physical death was harsh, but temporary. The suffering He knew in his body was completely overshadowed by the suffering of the knowing of how horribly we treat each other. How we judge and condemn and isolate...and kill love at every turn.  He knew the abuse and the wars and the horrors, the big things and the little things...breaking a toy rather than sharing it with your brother...beating up a man because...he's different...raping your wife...because you can...telling a lie about your best friend...not forgiving someone for not saying hello...and for writing your wife a letter so that she can read it again and again "I don't love you." 

As a spiritual director, I was aware of many of the sufferings that at in that circle...many wounds that would take longer than one retreat to heal.  And I was there, also, in that moment, with Jesus on the cross. He was so close to me, I could smell the wood and blood before me. And I wondered, 'How did you endure it? This knowing...when I know only a few small things...how did you endure it, knowing all things?  Only God could stay on that cross and take it to Himself.  Only a God who loves would be willing to do it. Only a God could stay the course and see it to it's holy conclusion.  To die, so that we might stop hurting each other.

This is the God I love. This is the God I serve. This one. Who did it all...for me...and for all of us.

I'm drawing close to another blue moon.  I thought, if this is the time to let go...then I should do it now.  But the closer I get to trying to go back to an ordinary life, the more strongly I realize the love that has been given to me. Part of me just wants to run away. Part of me is so ashamed of my own selfishness, and of my own sins. 

But if He stayed the course...then so will I.
Because I love Him.
Because He loved me first.

Love, Cindy
 

The One Who Didn't Matter

What I thought was going to be a one hour meeting ended up closer to two and a half hours.  I have sought the proper muse, and I am working to bend myself to the challenges I actually asked him to place on me. It is a contract designed by me to help me achieve my goals.  Immediately, he challenged me to write nothing but poetry for the next six months.  I thought perhaps I could walk into that yesterday...but I am still standing at the abyss, not quite certain...not that I might not complete the task...but that I might not survive it. 

It all boils down to a decision I made, somewhere in the age of nine: I decided to never feel again.  I looked at the world I was born into, I had lived in it for ...at least eight or nine years...and I learned quickly that, if I felt what was happening to me and around me...I would be dead or go insane. I happened on a Star Trek episode, where I was introduced to the character of Spock, a 'man' whose people learned how to survive by not feeling.  It was a scathlingly brilliant idea.  Somewhere, in my journals, perhaps destroyed, I wrote the words: I will never feel again.  I won't go into why here. If you have read some of my writings, you will discover why...but it is not so important...or is it?  When I was 33, I read in some books that I was not unique in my decision. It is a pattern some of us choose to cope. To survive. But it is not to think about today. 

I have always been drawn to poetry, in particular, to poetry written by people who suffered greatly in their lives. By age 14, I was in love with the poets who wrote about slavery, and war and prison and famine...I wept so easily of the ballades of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan...and others.

"It is fitting that you be here, my little brown boys with Christ-like eyes and curling hair

Look you upon that crucifix, where He hangs, nailed and pierced

And eyes all blind with the blood that drips from a thorny crown

Look you well.  You shall know this thing.

Judas kiss will burn your cheek

And you will be denied my your Peter also..." 

I could recite most of it to you.  And the others. 

"Where's the Jim Crow section of this merry-go round, Mister,

Cause I want a ride. Down south where I come from,

white folks don't sit with colored folks,

they don't sit side by side..."

I have always loved poetry, great and small.  Perhaps that is why I love the Gospel of John so much...and Jeremiah and Isaiah...the poetry parts...

"And like a lamb led to the slaughter, He opened not his mouth..." 

When confronted with great suffering, there are no words...only feelings: confused, intense, unceasing feelings...that need a name to be set free. 

I used to write them down on little bits of paper and hide them in my house: behind picture frames, inside statues...anywhere...so they might not be destroyed, but found, like a message in a bottle...to prove that I existed...just in case...somebody killed me...or I finally decided to kill myself. 

Such was the desperation of "the one who didn't matter." 

"This is my letter to the world that never wrote me..."

I don't think it's a unique feeling, but ironically, the ones who thought they didn't matter really didn't matter.  There is a powerful new generation out there who truly believes they don't matter. (Yes, the grammar is horrible).  So very evident in this present darkness where our culture seems to glorify humiliation to levels that almost make the age of the gladiator seem civilized.  But I digress.

My exercise now, is to remove my coping skills of studying life and myself as some kind of experiment and feel it.  To invite chaos and let it happen. To let go of cause and effect responses.  To let the art of poetry heal my wounds.

I tell you because...you might be able to help someone...or help yourself...by casting aside that safe world of logic and rules and take on that other part of your humanity...the gift from God that feels...

I know for a fact that some of you have divorced yourselves from emotion, much as I have done, but for very different reasons.  I am convinced that God wants me to use ALL of my gifts, not just the ones I've found so far...not just my head, but my head and my heart together. 

Some of you are already good at that, already there...and I love you for it.  That you are a friend to this strange woman who is still about five years old in that "love" category...or perhaps nine years old...

But this work, like any Ignatian work, should never be done alone. It needs an observor. It needs a herald. It needs an historian.  It needs mercy and grace. And it needs a brave soul.  I have had companions along the way, brave knights who were up to part of the challenge, but were vanquished along the way.  Perhaps their armor was not yet completed for their bodies.  Kind of fun to think of it that way...but truthfully they worked hard and sweated blood...as they were willing and able.   Any spiritual encounter has a price...but its gifts far outweigh the sacrifice, which is why I do the work, why I love the work.

But it is never ever linear.  It is never simply cause and effect.  Enter into someone's life and you are changed by it, too.

This week...I was changed by a woman, who may not remember me...but she changed me...as I told her the truth about what I saw, what would happen, and her tasks...and I saw the miracle yesterday. Telling you now would say too much.  Then today, another woman. She needed me and not a priest, not yet.

Why would I ever doubt my work?

But this wounded healer, to keep going, to not die...must heal more...and again...and each time is scarier than the one before. Each thing I think I cannot live without, I must learn to live without...but not shut down from the next thing, the next time I may fall in love...and risk it all.  I can claim a holy purpose for letting God cut me open again...and risk death...but I must own the selfish desire I cannot leave behind of one more union with Him, the One who created me...what pleasure and joy it brings me...a love that is not afraid...and will never leave me.  The side effect, the child born of this love is the work I get to do.

But each time I see the miracle...each time I feel like that woman in the reading from Matthew today:  "But my Lord, even the dogs get to eat the scraps from the table." Sometimes, to get what we want, we don't just have to be humble, we have to be humiliated.

The work I have to do will be humbling and humiliating.  But I must remember that, by dying to self...in ways I never imagined...life will be more than exquisite...it will be exhilirating. 

I tell you to challenge you to try.  Like a broken record: if we each do our part, we can change the world...and the world needs changing.  Not just analysis, not just some facimile of justice, not some self-righteous display of a particular side of truth...but that real love of God...that lasts...that is trustworthy...that heals...that makes us fully human.

I can't do this alone. I need your help.  But more importantly, God needs your help.
Someone today is discouraged...and needs your hand, not mine...so reach out. Take the risk. Get hurt. Cry if you need to. Then get up and try again.

From the one who didn't matter to the other one who didn't matter:
Breaking news: you matter.

Love,
Cindy

What to expect

So here's the deal.  I'm changing a lot of things, with the hope of becoming more...human.  My prayer life, I hope, will grow more disciplined...as much as my ability to play more. I will start another CPE unit at Children's Hospital this fall.  While Methodist might have given me more clinical experience, I chose Children's because of the personal challenges it will require. 

I have agreed to write only poetry for the next six months, which means, if I choose to publish anything, it will more likely be at www.bluedogstories.blogspot.com  This will be challenging work...kind of like learning to play a new instrument...yet not new, because I used to write poetry often...

In order to understand my writing, you will have to work for it, like parables...but it will be much more fun, I think...because your story will naturally take its own form inside the work.  It will be life changing for me...and at the end of the time, next spring, I may actually have reached a different spiritual place as well. 

I will list the books as they are assigned, but I will only be able to write about them as poetry.  I don't know if I can be completely true to the challenge, but I look forward to giving it all my very best.

I had a good day of sharing with people, a long day...and ran out of time.  I cannot believe it is August 7th already.  My wandering in the desert, I hope, will end soon. 

May the Lord bless you and keep you
May the Lord make His face to shine upon you
Lay the Lord be gracious unto you
And give you peace.

Love, Cindy

Chicken of God

I had a beautiful week in Estes Park with my son, his wife and their five children.  Each day was unique, each day refreshing and a little bit challenging. I never once felt like I "needed" to do something, except perhaps go to Mass, which I did, but not every day.  When I did go, I liked myself better and my day better, so I still recommend it and wonder why my Protestant friends don't see the benefit of collecting together, as the Body of Christ, each morning to do the "five things" of our namesake: praise, humility, petition, word and song, communion abd thanks. Okay, maybe more than five things.
It was hard to come home, to watch my son's big black SUV head straight down the road as I exited to U.S. 287 in Amarillo.  The umbilical cord cut once again.  I work hard to not be attached too much to anyone for just these moments...when I have to let go.  Be alone again, which seems the lot of my life and yet, seems that it a path I have deliberately chosen. 
So after a week of bliss, clean air and deliberate slowness, I hurry back to the life I have in Dallas...sort of.  The silence allows me to reflect again, "what's the next step?"  The accident slowed me down even more.  And even before I was home, I was back into my ministry. So far, so good.  But still always out of the loop. 
Working the funeral on Wednesday, I encountered some unexpected challenges. On a private level, I was reminded of our many human weaknesses...things I had put out of my mind, hiding in my self-built ivory tower.  Jealousies and envies, areas of unforgiveness and places devoid of trust...and so very much misunderstanding, mixed with that manipulations and judgements.  Everyone was hurting, including me, and I was helpless to offer any consolation to anyone.  Things might have gone awry when one priest left, then two, then three...but things are broken and I don't know my place anymore. Was it that I expected too much (but perhaps was given too much) in that first bizarre entry back into the Catholic Church?  Was what I experienced a skewed representation of the church? 
Or is it that things are just getting uglier out there?  When I lived in Tucson, I found that we had seasons of more deliberate evil.  There were times, in the nearly unbearable summer heat, when rapes went up, beatings and robberies increased...times when, even though I did not want to believe in God, I found myself running to St Cyril's Catholic Church in Tucson to ask a priest "Why?" Why is this happening, why is there so much evil? 
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That was Wednesday.  And maybe Thursday. I ran out of time...may run out tonight, too.  But will try to finish this...
While in seminary, my wonderful professor of OT, Bill Power told a story about the reason why a lamb was sacrificed on Passover.  Back then, lamb was a common food.  He told us that nowadays, chicken in more common.  He said, how easily the words of our great prayer might have been, instead of  "Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world..."  could have easily been "Chicken of God..."  and the class roared in laughter.  In my laughter, I was certain I would go to hell for laughing...
That little story came back to me this week.  Apparently, to show your belief in your "Christian values," you were supposed to go to Chick-fil-A to show your support of...something...I think they were calling it "freedom of religion," but what I felt was "let's put those perverts in their place, I want the world to know I want Christian values to reign in this country" That may not have been what it was.  That was how it felt. At least, that was the anger that came across on FB about it.  It was less about "religious freedom" but more about some kind of definition of what marriage is supposed to be, according to what the Bible says.   It felt like anger all over the place, and the more I read, the more frightened I became. My thought was, "if people believed in marriage so much, then why is divorce allowed?  Why do we have annulments? Why do we get to change partners, why do fight over child custody? If marriage is so sacred, why do we...and in particular, why do many Christians, believe they can change partners and call it holy?  And if some same sex couple wants to have a binding legal deed created to protect them and their families...then why not?  Not all heterosexual couples choose to have children, and most of them choose how many they want and when to have them...if it's all about God...then what about that? Fix that first, then come to me with a mandate to redefine marriage. The hypocrisy just took me to a place of great sadness...and then anger.
Please be certain, I am not claiming a right or a wrong here, I am just saying...do it right.  Then I'll know how to behave, what to do, how to help.  But right now, it's not consistent, or well defined. I see the evil of our lack of respect for marriage and the horrible consequences of a 'relaxed' understanding of commitment, but I don't think an attack on gays...and on gays who are trying to maintain a fidelity within their relationship...as the solution to a society broken by moral permissiveness. 
I don't claim to be right, I don't know if I'm wrong...but something about what is happening right now just feels so skewed and broken.  It hurts because I see the hate, the feeling of superiority and self-righteousness. It hurts my heart. It hurts my head.
I'm pretty certain it is not my mission to be a martyr to this cause and I must let it go, but it has disturbed my ability to love right now. I am stuck listening to both sides and I don't want to listen anymore, because no one is looking at the Truth.  And the Truth is to love one another. The moral debate will continue, just like debates over subtle understandings of salvation.  I do not believe God will put me to a theological test when I meet him (although He might, if He wishes)...but He will ask me how I loved myself, and my neighbor. 
I hurt all over. Not about the Truth of God...but about the way we have chosen to live out our faith.  I think about my beautiful Sisters, the Missionaries of Charity...I cannot see them deliberately going to a Chick-fil-A to prove that they are good Christians.  They work with people who have done terrible things...and they don't judge.  They have rules, though.  If you follow the rules, you may stay in the house. If you don't, you are asked to leave. Yes, I'm sure some of you can find a way to take that and argue it to support your point of view.  I don't claim to be right, to be smart or to be clever. I just know my gut is telling me something is wrong. 
I had the funeral to deal with on Wednesday, so I didn't have time to stand in line for my "right to believe in God the way I want to" or whatever it is.  I blame the Obama administration for taking this to a destructive level with the HHS mandate, which is clearly a violation of the Constitution...but I am also aware that carpetbaggers will run with this mistake and turn it into a weapon and make it evil.   Someone always wants more. That is where governments and theologians fail.  They take it one step too far. 
I am so very sad. 

There is a feeling, a sense, a wonder...that happens when I know I'm being manipulated.  I've watched politicians for years incite riots to fight for a cause...that had nothing to do with the real rights and liberties of people.  I have read the speeches of Hitler and what seems like a thousand other dictators...and how they manipulate people. (I almost have a second degree in history) I studied the French Revolution, I've read Burke and many others, I've read of the conquest of Mexico, and the history of dictators, and studied the Jewish Question.  Since I was 14, I've read slave accounts and narratives, the poetry of violence and suppression...and I can feel the difference between what is morally right and what is emotion. At least I can for myself.  And right now hurts.

Since the Wednesday Chicken of God event, fires have been deliberately started in Oklahoma, and today a Sikh was the target of a shooting...several shootings...I believe seven people died. On the day I left for Colorado, an attack in a movie theater killed twelve and injured many, many more. 

Something is happening...and it has to do with morality, and how we teach it and how we live it. I've done my best to live outside of the world, but this week...it is very hard to not look at what is happening here...that I know about. I realize there is much more all over the world. So much, that to try to grasp it might be more than any one human being could possibly do.

So perhaps it is time to return to that love one another thing.  The problem is so big and so horrible...the devil wants us to think, to believe, that we are helpless.  But we are not. We have God's word...and we have each other.  We must love...now, while we can, because we can.  Because He loved us first. While we were yet sinners. While we mocked him on the cross.  While we doubted and questioned Him. While we were so angry with Him for not giving us what we wanted. 

We must love. I beg that, while there is a right and a wrong...and only one truth, love first.  When you are done loving, then argue the fine print. Please. Do not be distracted from your call by your need to be right. Please love. There are so many who need you. Today.

You can hate me if you wish. But love who you can. Now.
Love, Cindy

Lucky

Today is a day that I wish I was married.  Today I need someone to hold me, at least, I think I do.  Perhaps this is just one more lesson in becoming stronger. Today, though, I would like to be held...so I could cry a little bit...selfish as it is.  Wasn't sure about how to get home, so I pulled into a truck stop.  Messed with the internet to get directions, got them backed up the car, moved forward...into a low 2 foot pole.  Broke the radiator. The familiar scent of radiator fluid pouring onto the ground.

No more driving.  One hundred and thirty seven miles from home.  I was ashamed that I cried. What a foolish thing to do.  The truck stop thermometer said 105 degrees.  The bathroom was the dirtiest one I had seen in the last ten years...twenty years...inside, the smell of stale smoke and rows and rows of slot machines. Where did I just end up?  More importantly: why?

I sat in the heat for as long as I could, waiting for the tow truck.  Now that outrageous sum of money I was paying for car/home insurance made sense. Yes, they told me, I was a good customer.  They would get a tow truck to take me all the way home...two hours each way for the tow driver.

I thought about what I knew about tow truck drivers. Suddenly I was scared. I had to remind myself that I preferred to drive alone, that I liked to travel alone...that this was my life. I chose it.  And a stupid accident was far less damaging than being hit on the road. I prayed that the person who I had to ride with would be reasonable. I prayed that I would be a good rider.  But inside me, I was still feeling sorry for myself. 

Today is a good day to do the examen.  Monetarily, I hate spending anything that I did not plan.  But I was not hurt. Again and again, my memory of the father who went through a flashing light, thinking all sides were red just kept pushing in on my brain.  He killed his only daughter. He loved her so much.  And she was gone. And I have a broken radiator. I will not get to go to Mass today.  Or tomorrow morning.  How very small are my problems!

But, in the examen, I look at my day, my week...and I have no right to be upset.  My dreams last night were so vivid!  I dreamed of my fictional heroes: Patrick Stewart (Capt.  Jean-Luc Picard) and William Shatner (Capt. Kirk).  A long time ago, I dreamed that I helped Patrick Stewart die...and that dream pleased me so much, I knew that God had created me to be a death coach.  Sounds horrid, doesn't it?  "Death coach" was the term that came to me.  I was born to help others die well.  And I knew I was good at it.  This dream last night, was not about Patrick Stewart's death, but about William Shatner's death.  Only he didn't die. I was there to let him talk about all the things that worried him.  It was so strange.  Then, my home priest, Fr. Bruce, was with me in a magnificent mansion.  He was doing a funeral, and I was there helping, but I didn't know the person who had died.  Then my Aunt Dell showed up, wearing a wig.  (She died in 2006) She was there to tell me that she was happy.  She was laughing and told me to be happy.  Then she took off the wig...and the dream went on, but I don't remember more now. But it stayed with me when I woke.

What was the purpose?  What was I supposed to learn?  Clearly, the strength of the dream was important. 

I was so very sad that the trip was over.  The week with my son, his wife and my grandchildren went by all too fast.  And there were times my patience was much too short.  I can handle two children, but five...all needing things at the same time...that was hard.  I felt not too much like a good grandmother, but again, I know God wanted me there. I had a purpose, even if I didn't really understand it.

Why did I need to see the mountains, the starry nights and the stormy nights?  Why the elk?  Why the little Catholic Church?  Why the consolations?  Were those good things given so that I could do today without too much pain?  I wonder if God worries about such little things. 

Just remembered the potatoes on the stove.  They taste very good. A priest gave them to me. That makes them taste better.  And more comforting.  I need a little comfort food right now.

So the driver of the tow truck was younger than my youngest child.  He had four children, the oldest was nine.  And he had a story to tell me, one that lasted all of the two hours.  Poverty and suffering, some by choice, some just happened.  We talked about life and death. How he dealt with the deaths he had to face so far, and the next two, which will be very hard for him. We talked about raising children, and raising adopted children and how he rescued one from a very dark evil...and part of me had a difficult time just listening to it...and I will be writing about it, I'm sure, in the future. 
And there was so much story that was not told.  He said many people he had to drive home were very unruly.  They were so angry about their car trouble.  I told him I was upset, and that I might cry, but I never did.  I knew that if I could get him to tell me his story, it was a better use of my time.  I can cry now...that I am home.  But as I write, I do not feel the need to cry anymore. 

Did I help him, this stranger, through a darkness he held in his heart?  Was that the real reason I stupidly plowed into a two foot cement post?  I took what could have been a dreadful day and I turned it into a blessing.

Was it because of the strange dream?  Was it because of the beautiful week with my son and his family?  Was it because of the healing power of the mountains?  Perhaps. 

Or the sermon I listened to on AM radio, driving the plains near Amarillo...mesmerized me...without question Methodist theology, filled with grace and warning against allowing the RULES of the Bible become more important than leading a compassionate life. It was all about Ezra, and how the people became so distressed when they realized how much they had sinned and they wept.  Ezra said do not weep, but celebrate the Lord's day.  Do not be sad on this day!  And then the preacher went on, something about "how good it is to know the joy of the Lord." (I am writing it wrong, I think) He said it is not our joy that we rest in, but rather the Lord's joy, His pleasure, in creating us.  I listened carefully, not noticing the road much at all.  Found out it was the FUMC of Lubbock.  Bet I can get a copy of the sermon.  I liked it very much.  I remembered again why I wanted to become a Methodist minister: because of the theology of grace Wesley wrote about.  That the rules were there to warn us, to help us, but never to condemn us.  And when the church service was over, my radio could not receive the station any longer.  Suddenly, I found I was getting stations from Fort Worth.  I would not have listened to the radio had my CD player not broken in my car two weeks before. 

Lucky. 

What could have been seen as a negative, was instead a tool by which God changed my heart...which must have needed a good wash...and then graced me with the chance to offer grace to someone else.

There is much more to say, to write, to think about...and to pray about...but this is enough for now.   I have extra expenses and inconveniences in front of me. I will need the help of my friends. In fact, I chose one woman...for some reason...to pray for me in this mess.  I'm not sure why I chose her, but I have faith in her prayers...and I am grateful. 

We aren't meant to always walk alone. I had to rely on a ride from a stranger, I had to wait in a terrible place, hot and scary.  I had to cry a little. But what seemed like a bad thing, might not have been bad at all.  Perhaps God saved me from an worse accident by giving me a little one. Sometimes God will take away a good thing to bring us something better. 

I think that was what I was supposed to write about today.  What looks like darkness...was only the shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly (cf. The Hound of Heaven)...wanting me to seek Him...surrender to Him...to let Him satisfy me...to let Him love me...that I might love others...and myself...better. 

If you have had a challenging day, look to the blessing within it.  I promise it is there.

Love, Cindy

Happy

When I worked in my first assignment as a youth pastor, I had a young Catholic boy (yes, who was part of a UMYF group) ask me if atheists were ever happy.  I paused and thought.  Yes, atheists were probably happy, but atheists would never know joy.
I learned in seminary the subtle difference in the Hebrew understanding of those two words.  Happy is a transient feeling, but joy is eternal.  Happy will come and go, like hunger or tiredness. Joy is a state of mind that looks at the big picture. Joy is an understanding, an assessment, a conclusion. 
I'm sitting here in a hotel room with only moments before I must wake the children and we'll be on the road again to one of the most beautiful places in the United States: the Rocky Mountains. 
When I hit the Colorado border, I am usually overwhelmed with tears, because it is so beautiful.  It makes me happy to see beautiful things. Yet, when I look at the big picture, I feel joy...that I lived long enough, and had the chance, to see such a wonderful thing.  It is not the thing itself that brings me joy, but the knowing...that creation is so diverse...and often to hard...and that we have many reasons to be good to each other.  
Heading to Colorado in the midst of yesterday's tragedy...I am still a bit shell shocked by what has happened. The killing of 12 and over 50 injured.  And in Colorado...one if the most beautiful places in the country.  Again. I recall the April 20th shooting in Columbine...in Colorado...I drove around Oklahoma City yesterday, and remember the bombing of the Federal Building...it is all kind of surreal.

My gut response to this horror, these horrors...was that...of the existential loneliness these people must have had to commit such horrible acts of anger. I wonder if they every understood, or knew about joy.   They were incapable of seeing the big picture...and they may have felt no one was listening.

People are listening now.  I think of all the lives lost...and how nothing will be the same for any of those people who were there. I realize that stories would have to be told, again and again, until the healing is complete...and joy will be found again.  I wonder in sadness why these perpetrators could not find someone to listen...so that the bottle that popped inside them might not have made such a big noise...and lives could have been saved. Was it possible to stop the evil before it started?  How many people have that much pain?  Have we stopped the evil before? How many are waiting in the wings, with their own desperate plan to be heard?  How do we  help? How do we hear their suffering? 

These are the things on my mind.  An impossible task for only a few, a manageable task for the many who know what love is to some degree and know how to share it. 

I beg you to be brave and listen to those around you.  They need to talk, to speak the unspeakable so that it will not destroy the joy that lives in them.  The light has not gone out, but for some, yesterday will dim their lights to a place where they can barely be seen...or heard. 

I ask you, those who can, to stay away from the dark side, where we can blame and hate with ease...and yet not hide from the truth. Yesterday was a dark day for many.  But if you have the courage, listen authentically to the people you meet. Do not think you can fix them, or convert them...do not tell them what to do to feel better. Just listen. And remember your joy. Help others to remember theirs. There will always be hardship and sadness in this world. There will always be suffering.  There will always be the poor, the oppressed. There will always be wars.

But recall John 16:33
In this world you will have hardship, but have courage, for I have conquered the world!

Got to get the kids up.
Love, Cindy

Just in case

The adventure never ends. A death today. What I remember is a daughter washing her mother's feet. She was sitting right next to me. I watched the mother and daughter and could not stop crying. The love that was there. Now momma's gone to heaven. I was blessed to give her Holy Communion for the last time, to speak to her one last time, to gently touch her hair.
How I admired her and her daughter. How I wish I'd had some of that in my life, but I'll settle for being a witness to their love. I pray my children will find it someday for themselves, if I did not, or could not teach it to them.
So much suffering in this world, but every now and then, God shines a beautiful light on a fact of life: we are all going to have to say goodbye.  Now and then, we figure it out. We get it right.  We love. We forgive. We offer kindness and hospitality to each other. We love. In spite of everything. We love.
I don't know how my story will end. I hope it will be a happy ending. I hope what I have learned, I have passed it on.  For those who loved me anyway, despite all the challenges, how I may have fought you...or hated you for loving me...thank you for not giving up.  Or giving in. 

When I see a good death...I don't know. It makes me so happy...and so hopeful for mankind. Humankind. We mess so much up...but the Light still shines. Every chance it gets.

Give it a chance to shine in you.
Love, Cindy