Month: May 2011

Sunday Morning [a poem]

Sunday morning was
the ticking of the clock, each second in my head.
Time stretched beyond eternity, hung over.
Awash with a thousand regrets swallowed the night before.
I thought I knew in my anxious thoughts
what I needed. My thirst was constant.

Fully knowing, the need for living water was
stronger than the thirst that sits
on me,

in me,

around me

smothering hope all morning long.

Sunday morning is
time stretched out, relishing the moments.
Slow and graceful, time is on my side.
Grace is found in Sunday mornings where not only do I wake to the sunshine, but
hope and glory meet me as I slowly come awake to realize the gift
of lingering with my creator.
Sunday morning is undeserved for surely I have toiled at foolish things.
I have wondered what you have already answered, what your word proclaims.
If only I would stop and be here more often, I would find the answers.
I would see that I get to start again when I wake up Sunday mornings.

gratitude

Though I haven’t read her book One Thousand Gifts, I do read Ann Voskamp’s blog.   She so poignantly questions our incapacity to be amazed and grateful.

“Why do I spend so much time struggling to see it?  Do I need to see the world, visit the exquisite, before I face eternity? Or isn’t it here? Can’t I find it here? Isn’t it here? The wonder? Why do I spend so much of my living hours struggling to see it?”


I so relate to that sentiment.  For me it is a struggle to be positive and grateful; to see the wonder in my life here and now.  And so much that I have is wondrous!

Last week in a group we attend we were asked to express some things that we are grateful for and I was absolutely mute.

I felt so ashamed of myself, but I just couldn’t come up with anything.  I was stuck in a limbo.   I have many blessings and things to feel thankful for but

I
just
sat there.
I was

unable (or unwilling) to express them.  Unwilling to open my mouth.  It all seemed too risky somehow.

I felt a fragile sense that if I opened up my mouth I have no idea what might happen.  What if it wasn’t words of gratitude that came out?

I don’t know about you but sometimes I am just stuck in my head — too heart and head heavy
to let go and allow myself the space —

to b r e a t h e.  Deeply.  (Do it right now.  In and out.  It feels incredible.)

Why is it so difficult to allow my pulse to slow down and feel

(even just a little)

grateful.

“God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches you by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly – not one.”  — Rumi

Don’t you think that is true?  From hatred to love.  From dissatisfaction to peace.  From fear or anxiety to hope and trust.

I want to fly!   Some days, I do.

b r e a t h e.  Deeply.  (Do it right now.  In and out.  It feels incredible.)

Angry in the Cereal Aisle

US sweetener consumption, 1966-2004. It is app...
Image via Wikipedia

I got really angry in the cereals aisle today.  I just stood there wanting to scream!!!

To me it epitomized one of the things I find so difficult about being a parent — choosing healthy food!

What is the point of cereal really — which is just a candy or dessert — between the high fructose corn syrup or just plain sugar? It represents everything my children want that I should not buy for them because it is bad.

I think I could go down the whole aisle and not find one healthy cereal.  And the one I might find, costs a small fortune.

How can our culture be so misguided?  How can eating healthy be so expensive and counter-cultural? 

We do our best, okay not quite -our -best.  There is always room for improvement, but we do try to eat well.

But my twelve-year-old cannot run the mile in the prescribed amount of time.  He says he’s fat.  He’s not thin, that’s for sure.  He’s not in organized sports any more. You get to a point where you need skill in a sport to keep going or enough enthusiasm to not care how you perform.  Those converged in about 4th grade.

I am flummoxed.  What do you feed your children for breakfast?  (Names and brands please.)

Related articles

I Dare you.

Osama bin Laden is dead; New York celebrates a...
Image by Dan Nguyen @ New York City via Flickr

Why not love if you have the option between that and hate?  Why does hate come so easily?  Why judge? Or condemn?  Why is it that Christians so often are known for how they judge others?

Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers.

But we don’t bring peace.  We rejoice in someone’s suffering.  Bin Laden is dead!

We wish for more for us which means less for them, who ever they are.

We can only think of our own needs.  We groan about the price of gas and our grocery bill, when others have to take public transport and go to bed hungry.  Often living with fear and financial insecurity.  Have no home.  Have nothing.

Why can’t we love more tenderly?  I dare you.  I dare you to love today.  Be a peacemaker. Hold your tongue.

The world is waiting for us to love, in Jesus’ name.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate.  In fact, violence merely increases hate….Returning violence for violence multiples violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

Just love.

Why not?

I dare you.

finding the dead on facebook

So I got to thinking the other day, how I wish I could find my dad on Facebook or some other social media outlet.   An odd, really weird thought I’ll admit, since he died years ago of brain cancer.   Before the cancer stole his mind, he was a complex and interesting person.  Sometimes he could be one of the kindest people you could know.  He knew how to encourage and loved to compliment a person, telling you what he liked about you.

But when the rage came over him, somehow he ‘forgot’ he loved you and that he wanted the best for you, and he’d yell, chide and berate.  Castigate.  Criticize.  Condemn.  It is difficult to explain how it happened — starting from nowhere and becoming a living hell — if you didn’t experience it.  He could and would utterly demoralize a person.

Still, he was my father.  And, I miss him.   I think?  As I think I possibly do actually miss him the old fear returns.  The dull panicky stomach ache.

My life is so much better without him.  And I wonder if all my siblings feel that way?

So, I am not so naïve as to believe that we shouldn’t have any difficult people in our lives.  I know that my response to my father makes me the person I am today. They shape and form us.  But pain is pain.  And I was particularly shattered by my father’s treatment.  Perhaps it was my temperament and sensitivities.  Again, a conversation I’d like to have some day with my siblings is who we are and who we might have been as it relates to him.

Do you have someone in your life that you love, but you know that you would be better off without them in your life?  (Not necessarily dead, of course.)