Shining for a season

I looked out the window of our bedroom to see if the morning had brought snow. It had. There were a couple inches dusting the ground. Also out the front door of our neighbor's house their Christmas tree was laying on its side on the ground, also covered with snow. It was there awaiting removal. Christmas is past, its use over. It is now to be disposed of.

When the tree was decorated in their living room window, it was a sight of wonder. The lights blazed, encircling the branches. calling attention to the splendor of the season. There was no wonder now. Its beauty deserted. 

I thought of how my life is like that. There is a time when the world is a wonder, bathed in the bright lights of opportunity. While there is still light for me, it is dimming. My possibilities are waning. 

I think the temptation is to try to keep the lights bright and not be the tree tossed out in the front yard. And yet it is inevitable. Sooner or later the lights are pulled off and the wonder has waned. What it does make me aware of is not wasting the opportunities given to me. The season ends, the purpose is past, and transition to the next season is predestined.  That is the cycle of life.

A distraction to myself

My boss came in today and hid in her office. She didn't let anyone know she was at work. She effectively removed the distraction of interuptions. She said that by not letting others know she was here, she was able to get so much more done.

I could do that as well, BUT I distract myself. And where can I go to hide from me?

Holy family

I attended Mass with a friend. The day in the church year was The Feast of the Holy Family. There was a family sitting ahead of us with two children. One appeared to be a 6 month old who appeared "normal". The other child looked like a two-year with some physical and developmental disabilities. Both children looked loved and cherished. Mom held the two year old for 5 minutes. Grandpa took the child, holding her and interacting with her throughout the Mass.

It was another example to me of how we don't choose the events of our lives. The only true choice we have is how we will respond to what life has given us. This family in front of me is a representation of holy family. None will be rejected, all will have a place in the family.

Our love isn't perfect. We all get tired. We don't respond perfectly. And somehow we can limp through life making the best of situations. We choose to stay. We can choose to respond. We can choose to help bear each other's burdens. Most importantly we can choose to love. And when we do others are enriched.

Guide me oh thou greatest Google

On my phone I have Google maps. It is a great feature that includes traffic information. When I am confused on where to go during rush hour I look for the way that has the most green roadways on it. Yellow and black are to be avoided. It will also locate businesses in the area. At times, relying on the information provided I have hit traffic where Google said was clear. I have found it to be marginally accurate.

On our way to Mexico in October we were trying to find a Sonic drive-in restaurant. I consulted my Google maps application to guide us to the desired destination. I located one that was on our route. We were looking for the exit when someone said "there's a Sonic!" The one they found wasn't the one I had identified and this one wasn't listed on my map.

There is a real temptation for me to put my faith in technology to guide me, but it falls short. It could go down at any time, it depends on electricity. Technology is wonderful to use, it makes my life richer, but it will never save me. Never.

Loving a newborn

When people interact with a newborn, they act in ways that are out of character for behaving in public. They will coo, make funny faces, and speak in baby talk regardless of who is around. They seem so absorbed in their relationship with the infant that nothing outside of that interaction seems significant.

When God wants to communicate his love in a tangible way he sends a baby. Everyone can approach an infant. Everyone. Mary and Joseph didn't have to say to every visitor "don't be afraid". Almost every other time God reaches out to human beings, the first words out of the mouth of a heavenly messenger is "Don't be afraid". That was the experience of the shepherds being told by the angels of the amazing birth. In dealing with a newborn, the only thing that I fear is that I could injure an infant in its frailty with my overpowering strength. Well that and spit up.

For me, the meaning of Christmas is that God is saying "let me try this another way so you don't cower whenever I fry to tell you how much I love you." "Let me try this another way so I don't have to warn people not to be afraid to be approached". God shows us through our holding an infant how he restrains his own power to destroy us in our frailty with his overwhelmimg power.

An infant who is also God, gives me the courage to approach God and hear his words of love by approaching and loving the little frail infant.

Butchering Britten

I attended Christmas Eve Mass last night with a friend. There was a concert before the Mass where many different pieces of music were performed by the church choir. One of the musical selections was a processional and recessional piece from Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols called "Hodie Christmas". Putting it kindly it was performed badly. Very badly. It was well beyond what they were capable of.

Kudos to the choir director for being adventurous and pushing his choir to their limit, but there is reaching and there is overstepping and they overstepped.

Yet not knowing the mind of God, I can't assess it as a failure. I believe that God takes our failures and our limitations and spins them into meaningful patterns, that when completed, may have us gazing in wonder at the glory of God, even if it didn't start out looking so glorious.

I am trusting that that is how he is working in me, because I butcher even more than Britten on a daily basis.

After Christmas

It is cold. Bitingly cold. There is an elderly man facing a headwind as he moves down the street. Oddly enough he looks like Deniro's tough guy face.

I get to the grocery store. there is a bad trumpet player out of rhythm with a Salvation Army bell ringer. Both are bundled against the wind, but smiling. As I check out at the cash register, a high school band plays Christmas carols for the enjoyment of the shoppers.

Merriment in the cold. A lighter spirit at Christmas time. Joy is spread like a carpet, keeping the cold from winning. It is a grand buildup to a single day and then it's over. 

CS Lewis in his book "The lion, the witch, and the wardrobe" talked about the curse on the land as being always winter, but never Christmas. But to me that begs the question, how long does the joy stay around after that grand day ends. What happens then?

Moving into January the days are dark and cold. They are to be endured. The trumpets, the bells, the impromptu  caroling evaporate, and what is left is the hope that if we hold out long enough, Spring will arrive and life begins anew.

It's all about the setting

Walking into a coffee house in a snowstorm with my fleece lined Sorel boots someone remarked to me that I had sensible shoes on, for the weather. I must admit that I probably looked like a tiny version of Paul Bunyan, prepared and reaching for a latte rather than an axe. I agreed with him that the going was easier with my footwear than with his.

Bu he didn't see me in Target for the last hour walking like Bozo the Clown, waddling deliberately and slowly down the isles of the store. He didn't see me planning my steps to reduce the amount of space I would need to travel to more effectively manage their size and heel slippage.

Given the right setting most of us look well prepared and wise. No one commented on my choice of shoes in the store. I think they were following the rule of "if you don't have something nice to say..."

Once I got out into the parking lot there was no contest as to who was thinking when they shod their hooves this morning.

Muscle memory

I have been dealing wirh a thigh muscle that has been causing me some pain over the last few months. Steph, massage coordinator at school, worked on the muscle. She stated that it felt bruised, that I must have hit it hard to leave such a knot in the tissue. She looked confused when I didn't remember anything. I went back to my office, puzzled as to why I couldn't remember what could have caused the injury.

Ten minutes later the memory burst through my consciousness barrier. A hail storm five months ago shattered one of our windows. I went out to survey the damage. Walking down the hill, my flip flops became skis and took off toward the horizon. I went down hard. The ground saturated my jeans instantly. I stood up quickly and was focused on my neck and back which seemed ok. My hip, where I had done injury to, begged me to acknowldge it, to no avail. I was grateful that my spine and neck appeared intact.

Sitting in my office the memory came back with vivid detail. I could even feel the wet jeans clinging to the leg. You could almost here the muscle rejoicing in the acknowledgement.

Earlier in my training to become a therapist I watched a person who performed what she called "Body Work". She took a volunteer from our class and started massaging her. At one point she described feeling a tightness in an area of the patient's back and bored into it, the patient's discomfort growing. The therapist asked her to identify a person that came to mind. The patient singled out her mother. The therapist asked her to talk about feeling she had for her mother. The patient burst into tears and psychic pain poured from her. The therapist explained that memories were not only stored in the brain, but in the muscles as well. Applying pressure and asking therapeutic questions would literally unlock memories.

I was amazed as to the vividness of my memory so many months after the injury. It makes me curious as to what else my body and mind are keeping from me.

Gum chewing ethics

In the urinal lies a pink wrinkled gob of gum. It disgusts me that someone would be so unthinking to deposit their discard in a place where someone would have to do something unnecessarily distasteful to tidy the fixture.

It got me thinking about all the places where I have encountered gum wads. I have stepped on soft wads of gum in parking lots and on sidewalks, stuck to the underside of a table, and my backside stuck to seat backs or bottoms. Any unexpected encounter I have had with those multicolored sticky nuggets has been unpleasant, annoying, and frustrating.

Where you discard your gum says a lot about the belief you have of your relationship to the world and your fellow human beings.

Validated by the universe

Last night it was snowing. It had been snowing since noon. At 8 pm the freeways had been plowed. Now there was a dusting on the road, and the highway was slick.

For the most part people were driving at a reasonable speed for the weather conditions. A set of headlights came up behind me too close to my rear end, even for good weather. When I could, I moved to the right and a Hummer barreled by me. I felt angry at the arrogant and unsafe way in which the truck was being driven.

Hummer-man made it to the end of the turn before going all Disney-on-ice. He did a couple pirouettes in middle of the road and disappeared in an explosion of snow on the shoulder. To be totally honest that is what I wait for when someone drives by in a thoughtless manner.

However, what went through my mind was not a sense of satiated vengence, but a sincere hope that Hummer-man would be more realistic and thoughtful in his driving from here on out. And if I were totally honest, I have to admit that there was a small sense of validation.

Vengence never feels good when it is enacted, but validation does. It feels good when the world turns to you and says "you were right." I think we have to savor those moments because they don't come very often.

I woudn't do it

Animorphism refers to ascibing human traits to animals. I work to make sure that our animal stays an animal even though it is difficult with a six pound, very cute poodle.

One if the things Coco loves doing is shredding tissue paper that she can reach in the trash can. However it is masked by stealth. We never see her do it , but by process of elimination it is pretty apparent who the shredder is.

I walked in the bathroom where I found a dog peering in the trash can. When she saw me enter she lowered her head, turned around, walked to her food dish and casually started eating her food. While she chewed she looked at me from the corner of her eye. She growled when I picked her up and she wouldn't look me in the eye.

It was so animalistic, this behavior. I never would have acted that way if I were caught.

The power of fear

In processing this last presidental election one overarching concern seemed previlent among by my more conservative Christian friends. It was fear. The fear of this nation falling into godless demoncratic hands was something they all shared whether they knew each other or not.  It seems that the highest office in this land has used fear to drive its agenda. McCain used it as well. It is definitely a tool in the republican party.  Fear is natural when we are focused on change and how it will affect us.

As those who follow Christ we are part of another system and while we may participate in this world, we aren't held hostage by it. Fear has no part in this process. If our way of life falls apart, we belong to another kingdom that is vastly different than the system we know. A system where everything is backwards to the world system we know. To lead you must become a servant, to be rich you should give away.  And to be accepted, you just have to be, and to love you need to cast fear away.

So then why is fear employed?

When it's too cold for business

Yesterday we woke up to the sound of rain on the roof. By last night the temp was close to zero. I took Coco, our six pound toy poodle, out for the last pit stop of the night. She joyfully ran outdoors to her business area, circled a few times with her tail dropping between her legs and then sprinted for the door. I tried several times to get her back on the lawn. Nothin' doing. She was clinging to the front door to save her. You can drag a dog to the lawn but you can't make her potty.

The prospect loomed that it would be a middle of the night run. Fortunately our daughter was able to coax her outside long enough to piddle, but when Coco was done, she had to be carried back inside.

Cats are spoiled!

I would do anything for love, but I won't do that!

The thermometer in my car says 7 degree outside. The snow is spanking the road like an artic Sahara sandstorm.

I pass a house with a shadowy human figure standing huddled near the front entry. He is facing the street which means that he isn't knocking on the door. He shifts his weight from one foot to another.

And then I see the hand move to the mouth and a frail orange glow. A smoker.

On a night like tonight I would give up any vice that made me stand out In weather this ungodly. But not this smoker. He braves the blistering wind to pursue his passion. Wow! What commitment. What love.

I would do anything for love... But I wouldn't do that.

No shaking

In church there was a kids Christmas choir presentation. There were kids who had individual speaking parts. Not one of them appeared to be nervous even when they struggled with their lines. What appeared to be missing was a sense that their performance was being judged critically.

Last week I scored presentations in some of my classes. The adult students displayed a lot of various nervous behaviors.

It made me think that somewhere between the experience of a child and the experience of an adult, the world becomes a more critical and demanding world.

Don't be afraid

When we encounter pure, naked power, only the insane aren't afraid. When we are threatened to be engulfed by a power that rips all control from us, we are afraid. That is a natural response. The power of nature is a great example. A tornado, an earthquake, a hurricane, all can cause fear as we see how big the event is and how insignificant and powerless we are.

When God or his messengers come in contact with humans, the first words the Bible records that they say to the spectators is "don't be afraid". God, pure naked power, the power of the universe is concerned that we feel loved by him.  There is no fear in love, but perfect love drive out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. God knows that if he were to order us to "love" him, or frightens us to "love" him, it isn't really love. Love can only happen when we desire him, his goodness, his care, and his company.

Advent is about the coming of God in a form that we could understand. God came as a man who grew up like we grew up and made himself accessible to us. The season of Advent says, here comes your God. Don't be afraid.

Heaven leaking through

At Caribou students came pouring in. They were all dressed in black tuxedo pants or floor length black skirts. The coffee house was transformed from a scarcely populated room to a mass of humanity  It went from a wide array of tables, to a mass of people pressed together. It was buzing with the voices of seasonal excitement. 

The atmosphere changed with the hint of a note that grew into a beautiful blend of voices. A carol swelled around each of us at the coffee house. In an instant the room went from a realm of earth to a realm of heaven. Angelic energy swirled through the room blending with the aroma of coffee.

The final note was met with loud applause as the people in the shop expressed their thankfulness for the gift given.

Then the sky closed and everyone went back to their separate worlds.

Fun with OCD

Sitting at Caribou, a man came in and sat a table near me. He moved the chair just right, put his folder down, placed a napkin on the table, laid a stir stick on top of it, adjusted the stir stick and put it back on the napkin. He got up, ordered a cup of coffee, straightened the condiment shelf, moved the stir stick, placed his coffee cup on the napkin. raised both pant legs and scratched both shins in unison, opened up his folder, took out a document out and started reading it.

While his behavior looked a little excessive, I'll bet he got WAY more detail out of the document than I would have gotten. In fact if someone depended on that detail, I would rather he be combing the document than me.

It reminds me that we all deal with our idiosyncratic behaviors that help us cope with life. We all have strengths and weaknesses and if somehow we find uses for our strengths we muddle through and make a life for ourselves.

Sign of winter

Turning into our subdivision you are met with a 45 degree turn as you traverse the street. At the point of that curve there stands a mailbox. Turning into the subdivision you travel slow enough that there are no problems with navigating the curve. Leaving the subdivision is another story. If you do not watch your speed and it is icy,  your car might negotiate the turn depending on how icy and how fast you are traveling.

The mailbox stands in the way if you don't make the curve. In the first snowfall of the season, it has already been taken out. Last winter it was leveled enough times that the homeowners put it in a large flower pot and moved it out of the way of overreaching car bumpers.

I believe winter 08-09 has arrived!

I want it stopped NOW!

Someone sent me a request to join a cause to stop the practice in China of skinning of dogs and cats while they are still alive. There was a painful video that accompanied the request. It was horrible. I want it stopped! I want it stopped NOW!

Sarah McLachlin sings "In the arms of an angel" as she talks about the abused pets that must be rescued. I want it stopped! I want it stopped NOW!

Thinking of the abuse of animals I turn to children among others who are systematically being starved around the world, women and young girls being raped, mutilated and killed, men tortured and killed in horrible ways.  Innocent people lose their lives due to fanatics making statements with bombs designed to tear flesh apart. There are millions trapped in human trafficking horror with no one to hear their cry. 

The field starts to expand until my vision is overcrowded with need, pain, and abuse. The plethora of needs causes the compassion center in my brain to short out. And when it shorts out I end up doing nothing, because it is so huge I don't know where to start.

I want it stopped! I want it stopped NOW! Now I have to go sit down and figure out where and how I start. While I am figuring out how to start, thousands of animals are being skinned alive, thousands of people are being starved, tortured, and trafficked. AAAHHHHH!!!!!!

The death and revival of Santa

Driving the neighborhood in the morning there are deflated symbols of the season. I drove past a shriveled Santa lying face down in a front yard awaiting it's nightly resurrection.

When evening comes Santa is breathed life into it's lifeless form and he waves and sways to the rhythm of the season.

It is disconcerting to see Christmas carnage on so many lawns.

Rolling stop

Last week I saw red and blue lights in my rearview mirrors. I pulled over to the curb and waited for the officer to approach me. He asked me if I knew why I had been stopped. I said I did, that I hadn't come to a complete stop. He agreed with me. He took my license and proof of insurance leaving me to wait in the cold and dark. While sitting there I kicked myself, waiting for the financial slap on the wrist.

I saw the officer get out of the squad car and walk up to my window. To my relief he gave me a warning. I was a free man once moe, a repentant man wanting to be a better man.

Since that night I have been attempting to make sure I come to a complete stop, and to my surprise I have been amazed at the incidences of my rolling stop addiction. I realized that I rolled though stops all the time! The warning was a wake up call. I am curbing the urge to roll when I stop now and my passengers actually notice.

Sometimes a warning can be as effective as a punishment.