everchanging view

5 march 2014...Ash Wednesday

'Lent is a time when many Christians prepare for Easter by observing a 40 day period of fasting, repentance, moderation and spiritual discipline.  The purpose is to set aside time for reflection on Jesus Christ- his suffering and sacrifice, his life, death, burial, and resurrection.'  (definition complements of that deep theological treatise, Wikipedia)

now. i grew up baptist and the only lent/lint i'd ever heard was the kind found in a bellybutton.  (i'm southern.  can you tell??)
oh and i prepared for Easter, alright.  i always had a new hat or dress.  new clothes. springy.  easter eggs.  colored chicks.  dressed my kids in smocked awesomeness.
cause Jesus is alive.  right??

this is the 3rd year that i've seriously observed lent.  i mean, i talked about lent and what i might 'give up' but i never honestly tried on the practice of lent until our church had an Ash Wednesday service. this was the first time i'd had ashes imposed on my forehead.  that i admitted along with 100 or so folks at our church and millions around the world and throughout history that i am frail.  and weak. that i am dust. (psalm 103:6-14)

wow, way to be a downer, tracy.  i mean, come on.  it's Easter morning.  Resurrection Sunday.

interestingly in ways i never expected, i have found more joy in that one Sunday morning by sitting in the intentional reflection that Lent brings.  i have found that the liturgy and spiritual practices around this time, starting with the imposing of ashes, the prayers of confession, the sacrifice of fasting and attention to moderation, the deliberate examining to my own shortcomings, along with remembering the tremendous sacrifice of Jesus makes these 40 days deep.  and rich.  and hopefully life changing.

read this for a perfect example of what i'm talking about.
saying the hard thing because it HAD to be said.
how having the courage to encourage changed everything.

i'm gonna leave you with this:  love love it.  because deep down i am a cheerleader.

i've found this prayer site (thanks to my friend Aron Gibson) called pray as you go.
it's a Jesuit site, which means it's a bit outside my ordinary mindset and that's a good thing for me.
the readers are British, which makes listening to them fun.

so many many questions and thoughts around this.
today, i'll start here. 

what's the difference in accepting and settling?

how can i be my best me and still accept who i am?
like deep down?

how can i expect the best out of people (like love does) but still take them for who they are?

what if accepting what IS ruins everything that
COULD BE?

how can i make peace with accepting what i hate but have no power to change?

more questions than answers today.   i need wisdom. 

when you talk as much as i do, you say a ton of crap you shouldn't say.
in the 52 years i've walked this earth, i've said some heinous things to people i love.  on purpose.  because i was mad. or right. or even because i was the mom.  or the wife.

and i've also said lots of things that aren't really bad or wrong, per se , but offended the hearer.  because i was thoughtless. quick to speak. getting my $.02 in.  being funny. sarcastic. maybe not WHAT i said but HOW i said it.  dang, i suck at that. 

then there is the volumes of useless words that pour out of my mouth.  words that aren't wrong but have no value whatsoever.  like zero.  just blabberyness.  talking just to hear myself talk.

like a strom thurmond filibuster.


the thing about talking is that it's REALLY HARD TO LISTEN  at the same time. 
a goal of this month of blogging about words is to speak less and listen more.

how do you do with that?

'...be quick to listen and slow to speak..'

bajabas (ba-ha'-bəs)

i learned this word from the fabulous Gabrielle Lorraine Carvell-Vaughan.  (i actually think the word became a part of my vocab when Gabs was here in the Hville and maybe the word actually came from Andrew Capets? but nonetheless she gets the credit because i associate the word with her.)

anyway, 'BAJABAS' is an AWESOME word.
it means 'gotcha.'
and today, Jesus said 'bajabas' to me.

i'm minding my own business this morning, making smoothies and lunchies for my men, chatting, drinking coffee, all the usual.  At some point, Algie said some thing that i thought was judgy about someone.  and being the good wife that i am, i quickly pointed that out.  quoted him some bullshize, eh, truths about kindness and living a life of meaning, etc...yada yada yada.
and then i pulled out the big gun.
as he was walking out the door, i yelled, 'would you have said that if Jesus was here?????'  (hear in my voice 'oh yeah, baby.  no trumping that comment.')
cause you know i'm all Christ-y cause i am practicing lent and just got back from storyline conference and work for God and all...

feeling a little uneasy about that last exchange, i justify it in my mind.  'speaking truth is loving someone.'  'it's my job to hold him accountable.  he wants to tell a better story with his life.  how can he if i don't help him?'  

so i sit down to read and meditate and pray as i've committed to do more regularly during Lent.  see that story here.  and i read about Jesus as Immanuel, God with us.  and as i'm writing about this, i think, 'how will i live differently if i believe this about Jesus?  that he is always with us.'
i start thinking about Algie.  and what he said.  and what i said.  and it occurred to me that if Jesus had been physically standing in my kitchen drinking a blueberry smoothie, i would have TOTALLY let him call Algie out about being all judgy.  and i would have minded my own business.


Exactly.  



















Don’t condemn others, and God won’t condemn you.   
God will be as hard on you as you are on others! He will treat you exactly as you treat them.

“Jesus, maker of these mountains, be near to me.” 
“Jesus, who said to Thomas, ‘see and believe’; show me who you are.”

maybe you don’t know how to direct your prayers to God.  you don’t have to be an MDiv  or a PhD (sorry, Mike) to discover names of God to use in breath prayers.  you can google it. ‘names of God in the Bible.’   here’s a link: http://christianity.about.com/od/biblestudyresources/qt/namesofgodjesus.htm

one part of my job at Lake Forest Church during this season of Advent has been to write our Advent readings and prayers.  
here's what we read and prayed together this morning.

a few years ago i stumbled across a book that has rocked my world repeatedly, challenging me and my various whacked points of view: listening to your life by frederick buechner.
the reading for monday was this:
'what if anything have you and i done to battle against the great darkness of things?
as parents and the children of parents,
as wives and husbands and friends and lovers,
as players of whatever parts we have chosen to play in this world,
as wielders of whatever kind of power,
as possessors of whatever kind of wealth,
what other human selves have we sacrificed something of our own sweet selves to help and heal?'

even now, as i type this, i can feel my heart lurch inside my chest,
what HAVE i done?
what AM i doing?
now, i help the poor and all that jazz.  i volunteer and serve and give.
but what does it cost me?  what have i sacrificed of my own sweet self???
AND (dang it,  frederick) he starts with parents and children and husbands and wives and friends...not the poor homeless people out there to whom we can write a check, put it in an envelope and send it on.  (please know that i'm not discounting that at all; write that check and send it)
instead he asks how am i sacrificing (not just giving...there is a marked difference) of my own sweet self to those that are closest to me?  for me, sometimes it's easiest to give to those who aren't as close to me, who don't piss me off or hurt my feelings or diss me. but when it's the ones who day in and day out are up in my face....
that's hard.  and i suck at it.

i have a friend whose mom is staying with her.  her mom is sick. and high maintenance.  and self absorbed.  she abdicated self care years ago both physically and emotionally so she's feeble and frail.  in body and spirit.  and even though my friend is struggling herself with acute and chronic back pain, i watched her tenderly care for her mom; sacrifice of her sweet self to help and heal.  quietly, like the widow dropping her mite in the offering plate, fixing her mom's plate, giving her medicine, changing a bandage on a wound that is slow to heal.

buechner goes on to quote a traditional advent prayer: 'give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light.'
put on the light like a garment. like a uniform.

this, this giving of our sweet selves in order to battle against the great darkness of things, is the meaning of Christmas to me.  choosing to give because Christ chose to give.  following His example of giving up his God-dom (or whatever)  to put on human skin and flawed humanity among those who had no use for him, who didn't recognize who he was or what he was saying.
who dissed him.

when i think about my life,  it's so freakin' easy to be selfish, to let myself off the hook, to cling to my rights.  but i want to wear the uniform.  so today i'm putting it on.  and we'll see about tomorrow...

it's stunning how polarized we are about the upcoming election.
that's a newsflash huh??  nothing like stating the obvious.

i'm saddened by it all.
the name calling.
the faith doubting.
the sheer ugliness of our society towards one another.  it's not civil.
we forget we are on the same side.
not Romney's side.
or Obama's side.
but the side of America.  the UNITED states of America.

my husband and i disagree on some political issues.
i'm not gonna lie to you.  last election was hard for us.
but this time around we've had better conversations, civil discussions, heated at times, but civil.
on many things we've just had to agree to disagree.
and there are issues where he thinks i'm flat out wrong and tells me so.
and visa versa.
but ultimately our disagreements remain about the issues.  it's not personal with us.  i don't doubt his character or his faith or his intelligence because we don't agree about everything.
and visa versa.
cause ultimately we are going the same direction.  we just disagree on the best route to take.  and at the end of the day, life is more than, bigger than who sits in the oval office.
and that's something algie and me definitely agree on.

(nester.  i'm sorry.  i'm trying.  it was really ambitious of me to sign up for 31 days of blogging.  but i'm taking you at your word. 'It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.'  

today's words are the inspiration for the theme of the month.  written by one of my all time favorite artists, James Taylor.

you can listen here.

at least that's what Elton John said.
and i guess for some folks sorry is the hardest word.
for various reasons.
some people are arrogant and never think they are wrong.  about anything.
some people are rude.  they just don't care enough to say 'i'm sorry.' 
some people aren't self aware enough to know they need to be sorry. but this post isn't about any of these people...

it's about those those people who move about their lives with purpose.  they are thoughtful and intentional.  they don't need to say i'm sorry as often as many because they know where they are going and who they are.  they have the right amount of confidence. 
i wanna be one of these people.

i am one of those people who overuses those two little words.
now i know that everyone makes mistakes.  and being able to say 'i'm sorry' is hugely important. 
but i'm one of those people who is always saying 'i'm sorry.'
and just in the last few days, i've realized something.
that's not good.

sometimes i say 'i'm sorry' when i really mean 'don't be mad at me.'  
i say 'i'm sorry' to appease; to keep the peace.
i say 'i'm sorry' because i'm second-guessing myself, my ideas, my words.
sometimes i say 'i'm sorry' because i'm a suck-up and a brown-noser.
yeah.
i am.

yes.  it's true.
i'm a people pleaser.
i HATE for people to be mad at me.
my friends
my co-workers
my kids
my hubs
you
so 'i'm sorry' becomes trite, overused, and disingenuous.

sometimes people are just gonna be upset with me.
because i said 'no'
because i was actually right and 'they' were not.
because we disagree.
just because i subscribe to different ideology/theology doesn't mean they need an apology. (cute, huh?)
sometimes that's just gotta be the way it is; they will just have to be mad.  if i did what i thought was right, then the chips just have to fall where they may.

there are those times when i need to say the words; when i'm wrong and i need to let people know.
that's when an 'i'm sorry' or better yet a 'please forgive me' is the right thing. 
but then it's up to them. and i have to be ok with that. 

so sing on elton...i'm joining the refrain.

cars are just cars.  unless you're me. 

today we sold our 2004 expedition.  we bought it new (before dave ramsey)
and even upgraded to the deluxe version with a DVD player and 3 headsets (an upgrade from the usual 2 because we had three kids.  we were hooking EVERYONE up with this purchase.)
honestly, we had no business buying this vehicle; it was too much money and we financed it for too long.  but we loved it. and i had been driving a piece of crap voyager minivan (not even a grand voyager...just a plain one) and we succumbed to temptation and bought the truck.  See?  it wasn't even a car.  it was a TRUCK, a bad ass machine that could handle a screaming kids with the slip of a DVD.  Just open up that sunroof and let the freedom in.  yep.  that's what i thought. 

we sold clifford for several reasons: we didn't need the room.  i don't carpool any more.  everyone drives.  two are leaving for college.  3 people don't need an SUV. 
and we needed cash.  college is expensive. so again, clifford to the rescue.

when we bought Clifford, our kids were 7, 9 and 11.  they are 15, 18 and 20 now. 
a lifetime.  of carpools.  and field trips.  and vacations.  of trips to school and the ER and baseball games and plays and PFO and swim meets.  of double buckling more kids that were legal and staff road trips.  trips to the vet.  of peace and quiet and my music when i needed that.
of conversations.  and singing bohemian rhapsody at the top of our lungs. 
of life as we lived it.  the good and the bad.

things change.  we have to as well. 
thanks clifford.

i was sitting with my friend Reeve a few weeks ago eating a super fabulous salad at Flatiron Kitchen and Taphouse in Davidson talking about blogging.  blogging is overwhelming to me. 
my friend Christina stopped looking at Pinterest because of how it made her feel.  sometimes i feel this way about blogs.  

maybe i just overthink it. 

maybe i just feel like most everyone who blogs seems like they have 'it' all together.

or they are super creative and have things that they made to share or sell. 

or they are funny.  

or they write 20 words that are so poignant when combined that they move me to tears. (well ok, that's not that hard to do; move me to tears, that is.)

maybe i think that a blog post should be words or ideas that are original.  
(an aside...this was why i could never write a song.  because it all seemed like something else that   had already been written)

i don't have any of those things to talk about.
but i do have a unique perspective.
--a 51 year old woman who wants the second half of life to matter as much as the first
--a mom with beautiful daughters who have become women in their own right; one who is a rising junior at a school in NYC and one who is going to be a freshman at ASU this fall. 
--a mom of a fabulous 15 year old son who has better fashion sense than i do.
--the wife of 21 years of a remarkably earnest man who is my complete opposite and who travels weekly.
--a creative director at a church 
--a daughter of aging parents who live in a different place from me
--a sister
--a friend
--a bit of a sap
--an extrovert who loves to be in the center of it
--a history major and former high school teacher
--a wanna be dancer
--a divorced person
--a Christ follower
--a seeker
--a procrastinator
--a deep thinker




but i do want to blog.  so in spite of my insecurities, i'm gonna write.  sometimes i'll post it and sometimes i won't. and i won't use capital letters.