everchanging view

'Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.' ~Orson Rega

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..'

when Jesus says 'bajabas'

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.

You can see the speck in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the log in your own eye. How can you say, “My friend, let me take the speck out of your eye,” when you don’t see the log in your own eye? You’re nothing but show-offs! First, take the log out of your own eye. Then you can see how to take the speck out of your friend’s eye.
matthew 7:1-5

parking lot prayers

my celebration of Lent this year includes giving up apathy (toward my relationship with God in particular) and putting on intentional devotion. it’s a long and drawn out story but the short version is that as someone who works for the church, i.e. for God, my own personal faith can be sucked into the ‘work.’ so for lent, I’ve committed to daily spending time with God thru prayer and journaling and reading through the gospel of Matthew.

I’d like to say that I hope out of bed every morning and spend and hour in devotion but honestly, i don’t have that habit and while I try to start my day with this practice, it’s sometimes difficult. which is why I found myself here.

this is the view from my car at Canyons restaurant parking lot in Blowing Rock. I’d taken my daughter Molly back to school at ASU and in the rush to get out the door, I’d bypassed the journalling. so as I’m jamming to mumford and sons and heading back to Hville, I look to my right and see this view.

stunning…

so i whip my car into the parking lot, stopped and pulled out my journal (I take it with me everywhere) and wrote my breath prayers.

“Jesus, maker of these mountains, be near to me.”

“Jesus, light of the world, show me the way"

“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

my hope is that prayer; really talking to and listening for God, becomes as natural as breathing.