Trust; A Pledge of

As some of you know, for reasons I would rather not discuss, I am slowly working my way through playing an entire hymnal on the piano. Since I am not a piano player this is a rather painful experience for both my and God's ears. But that is the whole point - I'm doing it because I can't do it and the only way to be able to do it is .... to do it.

Thus far (with a few exceptions) this has not been an particularly worshipful experience. This is merely an exercise to become a better player of piano. But last night I actually read through one of the responsive readings in between the hymns and it got to me (especially the last part). It is fitting for dealing with the frustrations of learning a new instrument and learning how to live.

I thought I would share it with you because I'm just that nice:

A Pledge of Trust

Father, during this coming week there may be times when I shall not be able to sense your presence or to be aware of your nearness.

When I am lonely and by myself
I trust you to be my companion.

When I am tempted to sin
I trust you to keep me from it.

When I am depressed and anxious
I trust you to lift my spirits.

When I am crushed by responsibility and overwhelmed by the demands of people on my time,
I trust you to give me poise and a sense of purpose.

When I am rushed and running
I trust you to make me still inside.

When I forget you
I trust that you will never forget me.

When I forget others
I trust you to prompt me to think of them.

When you take something or someone from me that I want to keep, when you remove the props I lean on for comfort in place of you; when you refuse to respond to my questions and to answer my too-selfish prayer, I will trust you even then.

Amen

(written by Bryan Jeffery Leech)

The Fates Think I'm Fat

I went to lunch with my good friend, Brian, today. We decided to get out of our Mexican food rut and ventured into the yummy land of Chinese fare.

This seemed like a great idea. Three courses and a waitress all for the super low lunch special price - woo hoo! Chopsticks added a lot of entertainment (at least for Brian who got to laugh at my attempt to use them.) Sweet and sour chicken, good converstation, and a chance to catch up with an old friend -- It's all fabulous!

And then came the best part (or so I thought): free desert! A "oh yay! Fortune cookies!" type squeal of joy flew out of my mouth when they were dropped off. I was excited. Was excited, until we opened them.....

Assignment #1

"Creativity lurks in the vision of a slightly skewed perspective" - Caffeine for the Creative Mind (here after: CFTCM)
(I think for the most part I am going to keep this little project in Xanga - but I figured I would post this first one a little more broadly so that anyone that wants to follow along/be a part of it can. We'll see how it goes but please check back and see how things are going.)

I got the above book yesterday and I am going to start using it. It is full of little assignments to get your creativity more in shape. I was thinking of posting all of them.. but it might be better to just pick my favorite one from every week - partly because I know I probably will miss a day or two and because I don't want to put the entire book online. Go get your own - its a good one!

Yip Yip Hooray for accountability! Please add suggestions/critiques and your own version of the assignment as often as you like. Hopefully this will inspire more writing in general from me as well. (also if anyone wants to get me a digital drawing tablet I would love you forever :P)

Also, I just finished reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and would highly recommend it to anyone that is "trying to figure out what the heck to do with my life"

Assignment #1: "Pimp out a Red Wagon"

This morning's medical adventure

I was excited that I had to go to the optometrist and the radiology lab this morning because it meant I would get to be an hour late to work. I was SUPPOSED to drive the complete opposite direction of work on a Monday morning - wonderful! I haven't gotten my eyes checked in 4 years so I was slightly worried about what they might say but the missing work out weighed any anxiety I was feeling and I headed for Ventura bright and early this morning.

I had a lovely visit with the Doctor while he checked my eyes. He told me that if everyone's eyes were like mine he would need a new job, I have better vision than an Air Force Pilot that was recently in his office, and for insurance purposes we had to make up a problem so that the insurance would pay for my visit (we decided on itchy I think). He explained how the glaucoma "air-puff" test works (which was very interesting) and assured me several times that my eyes were perfect. He then told me "I think you're terrific, kid." I think he meant my vision but I'm going to take it both ways. I really enjoyed hearing that my vision is still "better than perfect" but not just because it was an ego boost and saved me money on glasses.

The reason I'm bragging about this is because there was very little genetic chance for me to have good vision. There are some members of my family with good eyesight but both of my parents have needed fairly strong prescriptions since they were young children. The story that I remember is that once my mom was pregnant with me, a group of people decided to lay their hands on her stomach and they prayed for my eyesight.

Not only do I have 20/15 vision (a.k.a. "better than perfect") I get quite a lot of complements about the beauty of my eyes as well as if God went above and beyond their prayers. To be honest there have been moments where I've gotten a little vain about my blue eyes (there have been times when I've felt that they were the only thing going for me). But most of the times when my eyes are a topic of conversation (especially when my vision is the topic of the complement) it reminds me that God was already loving and healing me before I was born. And that was something I really needed to be reminded of today.

The rest of morning was spent going to medical clinics #3 and #4 attempting to get a hard copy of x-rays they took at clinic #2 (and it was the 2nd time I went into clinic #2 because the x-ray machine was broken the first time) after I left the Optometrist at clinic #1. Luckily there were a couple nice people that helped me figure out 1. where I was 2. where I should be 3. where the x-rays were and 4. how to get us all in the same place. Once I got to Santa Barbara I still had to go to the drug store (for my cough) and the grocery store (for my lunch) before I finally made it to work! oy! (I was a full 2 hours late for work by the way.)

But God is still working, He knit us together in our mothers' wombs and He knows what is best for us - especially when we don't.

Topic of my next blog (hopefully): Thomases of the doubting variety.

What preschool and the dentist taught me about God

As a young child I was completely grossed out by things that were covered in holes. I got the "fingernails scraping down a chalkboard" chills whenever I saw something that was full of holes. Forget trying to make me touch it! (In fact even right this blog is giving me a slight case of the willies)

I vividly remember the event that brought this involuntary reaction to my attention. A boy in my preschool class brought a rock for Show and Tell. This rock was special enough to be worth sharing due to its being full of holes. It was from the ocean and had been the home of a lot of small creatures that were very good at burrowing.

As a rather ironic tangent I do greatly enjoy burrowing.

Anyway, this rock was passed around the Show and Tell circle and when it got to me I flipped. My mom tried to help me figure out why it bothered me to no avail but it was clear that it did.... a lot. Things like tennis rackets and fly swatters didn't seem to bother me - they were supposed to have holes in them. But things that were supposed to be solid that weren't... I couldn't handle it.

Here comes the irony --
the one that was so bothered by holes as a child now feels like she herself is full of holes and people are not supposed to be covered in (metaphorical) holes.

There are a lot of voids and divots in this life of mine (and I'm sure I'm far from the only one). The pains of life have burrowed their way under my skin and left their marks. Broken promises, screwed up parents, elementary school bullies, injustice, sickness, death, lost dreams; they have all tunneled down and left me hollow.

Left on my own I just try to cover them up. I'm incapable of filling them myself so I buy pretty sweaters or try the latest cosmetic miracle cream in hopes of making them less noticeable. For short periods of time this works, but the cavities are still there, and they still hurt like the dickens.

I had to go to the dentist recently and suddenly as I was tied down on a chair that held me upside down with a plethora of un-pleasantries fishing around in my mouth this whole mess became a little more clear. If I had tried to avoid the dentist and just brush harder the cavities that I already had would only get worse. Someone bigger than me had to step in and take over and heal where I was broken. If I tried to tell him how to do it - or fight him because it hurt - it would only slow him down and make it hurt even more. I need someone that understands me better than I know myself to fill the holes.

Unfortunately the holes can't just be filled, someone needs to go in there and clean out all the gunk - both the raw hurt of the original wound, and also all that stupid stuff I used to tried to hide them. Cleaning them out actually makes them bigger - and in my opinion its by far the worst part of the whole experience - but the filling is useless if you skip this step.

I think that is where God has me right now, he is cleaning out all of my wounds and it f-ing hurts. I am trying to let him do what He needs to do without too much complaining and I'm trusting in the fact that He knows whats best for me and that I can't fix it on my own. But it still hurts.... Good but not fun, Good but not fun.

This happens every once in a while, I am suddenly struck with how small I am in the grand mess of it all. This time it happened while I was scanning paperwork.

Someone I have never met and will never ever know anything about (besides his social security number) signed his paperwork on my sister's birthday.

He has never met my sister, the thought that it was her birthday never crossed his mind while he was signing his paperwork. But he signed it and we celebrated the same day.

I probably did something unexciting on his birthday too. I did other menial things of all the birthdays of the people that are important to him that I will never know about. The world keeps going with all of us strangers wandering around living our own lives not knowing a thing about who each other really are.

(I think this is why I like crowded public transportation in big cities - it forces us to be around people we would never even know exist otherwise)

we
are
all
so
small

To ponder

The paradoxes of God never cease to stop me in my tracks

"He was created of a mother whom He created. He was carried by hands that He formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, He the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.
- Augustine

and-
Avoiding Easter at Christmas <-- this is a thought provoking article about seeing Jesus' whole life as important to our spiritual life (and not just his death and resurrection) This quote is one of my favorite parts:

Sometimes you go into public restrooms and you see the criminal engravings: “Anthony was here.” You’re not sure why Anthony is making this declaration, but it’s there, in plain sight, carved into the wall of the bathroom stall. You look around the walls and you find out that Deion was there too, as was Brian and Karen—which baffles you because this is a men’s restroom, so what the heck?

You see these same markings on trees and bus stop benches, and any other inanimate object someone deems a suitable personal landmark. And while I don’t know that God is pro-vandalism, he definitely had a similar idea in the person of Jesus—or Yeshua, the long-awaited Messiah.

Yeshua was God vandalizing this earth.

Forget the cross (just for a moment—I promise it won’t go anywhere). Forget the miracles. Yeshua showing up on this earth was God’s proverbial tree carving, His way of saying to all existence that “GOD WAS HERE.”

He came and He dwelled among us.

May you have some time in the next week to ponder how cool our God is!

Some Thoughts on Christmas

This is a wonderful quote by C.S. Lewis. Published in the magazine "The 20th Century" in Dec 1957. (the punctuation etc. might be a bit off since I transcribed it from a recording.) Enjoy!

Three things go by the name of Christmas. One is the religious festival; this is important and obligatory for Christians, but as it can be of no interest to anyone else I shall naturally say no more about it here. The second – and it has complex historical connections with the first, but we needn’t go into them – is a popular holiday and occasion for merrymaking and hospitality. If it were my business to have a view on this I should say that I very much approve of merrymaking, but what I approve of much more is everybody minding his own business. I see no reason why I should volunteer views as to how other people ought to spend their own money and their own leisure among their own friends. It’s highly probable that they want my advice on such matters as little as I want their’s.

But the third thing called Christmas is unfortunately everybody’s business. I mean of course the commercial racket. The interchange of presents was a very small ingredient in the older English festivity. Mr. Pickwick took a cod with him to Dingleydell. The reformed Scrooge ordered a turkey for his clerk. Lovers sent love gifts. Toys and fruit were given to children. But the idea that not only all friends, but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers. Neither of these circumstances is in itself a reason for condemning it. I condemn it for the following reasons:

One, it gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure. You have only to stay over Christmas with a family who seriously tries to keep it, in it’s the third or commercial aspect, in order to see that the whole thing is a nightmare. Long before December 25^th everyone is worn out: physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gives for them. They are in no trim for merrymaking; much less, if they should want to, to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the family.

Two, most of it is involuntary. The modern rule is that anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you quite an unprovoked present of his own. It’s almost blackmail. Who as not heard the wail of despair and indeed of resentment, when at the last moment, just as everyone hoped that the nuisance was over for one more year the unwanted gift from Mrs. Busy – whom we hardly remember – flops unwelcomed through the letterbox and back to the dreadful shops one of us has to go.

Three, things are given as presents which no mortal ever bought for himself – gaudy and useless gadgets and novelties because no one was ever fool enough to make their like before. Have we really no better use for materials and human skill and time than to spend them on all this rubbish?

Four, the nuisance – for after all during the racket we still have all our ordinary and necessary shopping to do and the racket trebles the labor of it. We are told that the whole dreary business must go on because it is good for trade. It is in fact merely one annual symptom of that lunatic condition of our country, and indeed the whole world, in which everyone lives by persuading everyone else to buy things. I don’t know the way out, but can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of stuff every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If worst comes to worst I’d sooner give them money for nothing and write it off as charity. For nothing? Why better for nothing than for a nuisance.

bah bah this is the sound of settling....

I've got a hunger
Twisting my stomach into knots
That my tongue was tied off

My brain's repeating
"if you've got an impulse let it out"
But they never make it past my mouth.
(Death Cab for Cutie)

I keep coming up with these great blog posts.... composing them in my mind... usually when I'm stuck in traffic (or a staff meeting). But I can never find the time to write them out.

If I could get them past my mouth and onto the screen these topics would include:
filters, two vs. three dimensions, loneliness in the church, the future, life and everything, a rundown old house, music's effect on my soul, my coworkers nicknames, a hunger for art, the importance of absence in life, the psalms, perfectionism, my moleskin, the great schism, painting, the Chick Magnet, Levi Weaver, composing, gymoholics, online quizzes, marriage vs. singleness, redemption, god-in-a-box, regret, pain, missing people, absence, joy, laughter, pumpkins, Unbound, congas and other drums, all the great questions of life, and oatmeal.

The blog in my head is amazing! If only I could let you all inside.

Chapter Next: Good But Not Always Fun

My last vague post seems to peak some interest. I wanted to explain on that Tuesday but this new chapter has panned out to be very busy, very busy indeed.

From the outside looking in there isn't a whole lot of newness or change, but there are a lot of little things that put together make this feel like a fresh start.

The Spring and Summer turned out to be a season of goodbyes, of letting go, of loosing (or facing the possibility of loosing) most of what I had come to hold dear to me, with a short rest bit in Italy somewhere in the middle. Thus far, year 24 has overall been a hard one for me. I have been completely unable to see past this time of loosing. I have not had anything to look forward to on the other side but emptiness. A dark, blank void was all that I have been able to see and it scared the heck out of me. I searched for God's hope but have found silence, everything I clung to seemed to fall away, and I have had no idea what to do with myself but be left behind and feel sorry for myself.

But the last goodbye (for a while at least) has been said. I have met the black blank wall head on and I have found that I'm still breathing on the other side. My social life has changed dramatically (though I am rediscovering lots of people that I've always been meaning to see more often). I feel much more alone, but I'm still kicking. In fact, I believe I'm becoming even more of myself.

The missing of the people that are less present in my life hurts terribly much, and the future is still rather black, empty, unknown and scary. But this next phase is looking like it will be a time of preparation, growth and healing so that I am ready for whatever the heck God has coming next (and I am trusting that He has something lined up).

When I graduated from Westmont I decided to take *one* year off - I was expecting it to be a time of introspection, growth, healing and all around wonderfulness. But job searching and mundane life got in the way. I was not willing to be broken for God and so none of that wonderfulness happened. I feel like this coming year will be the year that I had wanted at graduation. Although now I have realized that it isn't going to be anything like the happy, carefree experience I had in my head. God is molding and shaping me and its not a fun process but I'm excited to see who I will become.

It seems I will be somewhat reclusive for this season - which I'm not happy about. Most of what I will be working on required me to be by myself; I'm getting back into music (practice!), and hopefully a bit of art (if) when I have time, and utilizing my work sponsored gym membership. I'm also working with the youth group and worship team at my church, helping lead a service at another church (quarterly service, monthly meetings), and running sound for another church twice a month - eek!

I think as much as I hate it, being alone is an important thing I will be learning now, along with self discipline and many other things that I can't foresee. So, if you are willing and able to, I could use your encouragement and accountably to focus on my priorities and remain open to God's work.


and most importantly this newness with more pondering requires a more dignified place to ponder so I'm moving over here: inklingsofhope.blogspot.com
(isn't that a good name? I'm a fan)