First Monday, New Decade

Well now, with a pretentious title like that, how can this post go anywhere?

Actually, I'm just thinking again this morning about newness, and wondering what this year and decade are going to hold.

I woke from dreams this morning that made me smile.  And dreams that stirred prayer.  And dreams that surprised me in what they contained - people and places I wouldn't have expected.

This is the week that I'll find out if I've been accepted into the nursing program for January entry.  The week that I'll either come off of the waiting list, or I won't.  I'll be in school either way, it's just that taking classes as a nursing student would be my preferred outcome.

I'm mentally planning my week as I sit here, too.

Tonight my parents and I are trying a new "cult following" burger chain from the states that has made it's way to Canada.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm skyping with one of my best friends.  Tomorrow night I'm meeting another dear friend for dinner and a chance to chat and catch up.

Wednesday night I know that I'm cooking dinner at mom and dad's, and Thursday night house church starts back up.

This afternoon I have errands to do.  A stop at the library, probably a trip to walmart.  I need boring things like deodorant, and a neck pillow.  (The neck pillow that has been my soreness savior that I purchased for $2 at a local dollar store wasn't all that sturdy it turns out.  I've repaired it twice already, and now I'm ready to just buy something with quality that I won't have to stitch shut every couple of weeks.)

I read this post at Donald Miller's blog this morning, and remembered reading the story of the Scott Street Parade in his book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years."  I choked up a little watching the video in the post, when I spotted the smiling and waving parade queen and remembered the story in the book about how they choose a special woman from the street each year to be appreciated as the parade queen.  Reading the post made me think again about how story was my "one word" for last year, and how it's become an overarching theme to my dreaming and hoping and planning.  It reminded me, too, that I want to give "A Million Miles" another read through sometime in the coming month.

This post at Stuff Christians Like made me laugh this morning too.  Yes, I'm one of those people who is doing the read through the Bible in a year thing this year.  I particularly enjoyed tip # 6: "Start mentally preparing for Leviticus.That book will break you. I promise. Unless you have some very specific questions about mold. It’s a beautiful book, but 87% of all read through the Bible plans jump the sea cow right here. (That will make sense once you get to Leviticus.)"  I've bailed on at least a couple of read through the Bible plans because I got stuck in Leviticus.  So, I'm taking his advice and mentally preparing myself now.  (And grinning at the very idea of that!)

So, on the agenda this week (other than the aforementioned things):

• hang out with dad and do errands with him, stuff he needs to do to get ready for his next trip leading a team to Ghana (he leaves in less than a week)
• create a plan for cleaning and purging stuff at home, and follow through
• catch up on a number of blog posts I've been meaning to write about books I read (many of the books I read when I was doing all that bus reading, before starting my contract job)
• and speaking of bus reading, get one or two sessions of that in (Like I said, I want to make another trip through "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years", and I've got a few other books on the agenda)
• Listen to the audio book I spent months waiting for at the library
• tackle a few little nagging administrative tasks (like product registrations, and some changes to my cell phone plan)

Not perhaps the most glowingly auspicious way to start a new decade, but for me, the stuff of day to day life, the accomplishing of the little things is what lets me tell a better story with my days.  Having a list and tackling it.  Planning the fun moments too.  These are important in my life.

So, those are my plans, what's on your agenda for starting out this decade?

Live/Write

I came across this blog post by Rachel Held Evans late last night.

Quite the title - striving to live the way we strive to write.

These are the lines that struck me:

forgiving myself for crappy first drafts,
allowing trusted experts to make edits,
running into my fears rather than running away from them,
counting goof-ups as  “material,”
making art out of imperfection

All points that I'll need to spend some time considering.

He still sees a person

I mentioned yesterday that one of my brothers, J, currently works for a local social services agency, as an aide of sorts in a home for teenagers with severe emotional and behavioural issues.

On Tuesday, he was forced to restrain a teenage girl, to prevent her from harming herself or others.  In the process of restraining her (it took three grown men), she spat in J's eye, and bit him on his shoulder.

He's seen a doctor, who wasn't too concerned about the bite, and is getting bloodwork done, just to make sure she didn't transmit any diseases when she spat in his eye and bit him.  He's okay.

But his response is what struck me.

We traded text messages about the incident for a little while yesterday, and, after assuring me that he was fine, his response was this, "I understand the need to restrain her, but it still sucks, to have to hold her down, and to get spat at and bitten."

What struck me was this - he still sees a person.  Not someone evil who broke a lot of rules and is a danger to herself and others.  But a girl, who needs help.  A girl, who, while he'll restrain her to prevent injury to herself and others, is still a girl, and one who he regretted having to restrain.  He sees the person behind the issues in these teenagers, and that challenges me.

Because with that many issues, and after being bitten and spat at, I'd have a hard time seeing anything but a person who bit me and spat at me.

J. and I didn't get along for a lot of years, and it's only within the last year that we've begun patching together a tentatively functional friendship.  We are about as opposite as two siblings can be.

And yet, yesterday, with one line in a text message, Jesus borrowed his voice, and he taught me something.

He sees a person.

I think Jesus probably did too - when he was beaten and spat at and hanging on a cross.  He cried out "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they do."

I read a powerful post at Donald Miller's blog this morning about what kind of story you're telling, and what happens if you don't tell a good story.  And this morning I'm grateful for my brother, who told a story of love and acceptance.  Who saw a human being, and loved her, even when she bit him and spat on him.

Story

I was thinking again today about story, and how it shapes and forms us.  More thoughts on that to come in the coming days, but here are a couple of links worth checking out.

Donald Miller talks about living a good story, and New Year's on his blog.  Worth reading.  I'll be blogging more about his book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" in the coming days.

Ali Edwards chooses a word for each year, and this year her word was Story, inspired, in part, it turns out, by Donald Miller's book. 

I made a list today, of some goals or resolutions or hopes and dreams for the new year.  I'll share those likely tomorrow.

In the meantime, I also liked Dana's post at Of Wool and Water looking back and looking forward to 2010.  Here's to a year of new beginnings!

Rolling Around...

So I have this question rolling around in my head... well, maybe two actually, and they're causing some thought and some dreams...

What if there was a way to take the stories of everyday living, the crazy experiences and the mundane, and use them to really communicate the beauty and ugliness and challenges and stunning ways of life, the ways that God is intertwined in all of that?

And what if I tried to do that?

Grounding Myself Again

I'm sitting here in the dark, only the light of my laptop screen and a small candle burning behind me. I'm sipping mango-tangerine juice, and trying to figure out how to start this post. In the background, U2 plays.

I've been listening to U2 a lot again lately. I go through cycles of needing just that sort of music.

I've been reading Anne Lamott again this last week or so. This is my second or third time through "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith". I read Anne Lamott when I need to be grounded. I read her when what I need more desperately than anything is the assurance that a life lived in relationship with Jesus, a spiritual life is not about angelic perfection. Instead, it is earthy, messy, confusing, and very, very normal. Spirituality in the smallest of moments, the little things, long walks and a hug from a friend. I read Anne Lamott when I need to be reassured that somewhere out there, there are wild, fun, irreverent people, who love Jesus desperately, meet Him intelligently, but also simply.

I listen to U2 for these same sorts of reasons.

Because somehow, when I read Lamott's books, or listen to U2 play, my heart quiets and begins to pray again.

So this last week and a bit I've been basking in the comfort of U2 and Anne Lamott, sometimes together, sometimes apart. I've needed to reground myself again lately, in the face of the stuff of life. And to find again the truth that Jesus really loves the very messy, ugly, normal moments of daily life, and will meet with me in them, usually when I least expect it.

Lent, two weeks in

I realized tonight that I am enjoying this season of Lent, that it is doing things in my heart yet again, that God is working, even where I didn't expect him.

I'm fasting once a week, and I've stopped reading fiction for the course of this season. Both things that I felt God was asking me to do without for a while, in order to more fully listen to his voice. Both food and novels are ways I hide from the world, and often from the more painful realities in my own life, and the painful things God is doing.

Here's the thing, while the fasting isn't that easy, and I can't quite figure out what to do with my time now that I'm not reading two or three novels a week, I feel certain things shifting in me. I feel parts of me coming alive again, in ways they haven't been alive for a quite a while now. I am listening more, instead of filling the space in my head with false realities. I am hearing God, and voices of people I trust. I'm checking out sermons, reading works of theology and biography, and watching things that challenge me. I am feeling inspired to create again, and to write. I haven't particularly wanted to write this last while - not the blogging sort of writing, but essay writing, and working on a book project I started last fall. I want to create beauty again, rather than just enjoy other's creations from a distance.

Today, as I took the train to work, I was writing in the journal that has rapidly become my c-train book (it's smaller than my other journal, more portable, and pretty - orange silk with a cool decoration - a gift from a friend's trip to China last year). As I was writing, I began to reflect on the various things I'd learned in four weeks of fasting on Mondays. I'm not going to share those things here, yet, and maybe never, but as I wrote I came to the conclusion that even if God does not provide the clarity and direction I'm seeking over the course of this fast, I won't regret it. I value the things I am learning about myself, about God, and about my relationship with God.

Sometime in the next few days I'm going to post some "Jesus stories" here. The latest discussion topic on Marty's blog has got me thinking, and I definitely have some stories to tell - some I'll tell there, some I'll tell here.

See you then!

Great Article

Check out this article at Relevantmagazine.com. I love and to some extent greatly understand what the author had to say, and the place in life from which she's writing.

Just Thinking About... (Take 2)

Startled Awake
I had a rather odd moment this morning. I’m not sure what it means.

At around 5:00 I startled awake quite suddenly. My instinctual response as I woke was to quote the child Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” And then I lay there for a moment or two before drifting back to sleep.

Nothing spectacular followed in the hour and a bit of light sleep that came before waking more permanently to prepare for the day. I didn’t have any kind of divine revelation, nothing spoken that I’m aware of. Just this moment of waking and having my instinctual response be a prayer that created a posture of listening and invitation.

Interesting way to start the third Monday I’ve fasted.

Voices
In this current season of seeking direction and intense awareness of the spiritual realm, two voices in what I’m reading and listening to have stood out in the last while – the first is Jason Upton (both his music and some recordings of talks he gave at a conference in November) and the second is Rob Bell (particularly the chapter of Velvet Elvis titled “Tassels”.) I love this line from Rob Bell (paraphrased as I don’t have the book in front of me), “Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has called you to be, and anything else is sin.”

Fasting
I’m not good at fasting intentionally. It felt easy that first Monday, the one right after I nearly died driving home from Marty and Kari’s. Such a strong sense of divine calling that day (and the queasy stomach from the leftover nerves helped too!). Last week was okay, and I ended up breaking the fast early to join my family and some guests in a meal, but this morning I keep having to remind myself that I’m not eating today. The chocolate bowl on my desk for our staff is mocking me. We (or should I say they) had cake to celebrate a co-worker's birthday, while I watched.

I’ve discovered that I eat out of habit – it is a way to fill time, to take up space that feels empty. When there's nothing else to do, when there's a pause in the action, I eat - some quick snack, often something fairly healthy, but I eat simply to fill space. I’m not sure that this is a particularly healthy method of eating, and it is probably good to discover these things about my appetites. This fasting has created a regular, forced reminder in my day that I am supposed to be focusing on God to fill me.

I am one of the fakes...

Thousands
Out of the thousands
who are known
or who want to be known
as poets,
maybe one or two
are genuine
and the rest are fakes,
hanging around the sacred precincts
trying to look like the real thing.
Needless to say
I am one of the fakes,
and this is my story.

I fell in love with this poem, by Leonard Cohen (in Book of Longing) when I first read it. I think I may put it as the facing page/introduction to the first book I ever write.

How beautiful a concept, that even the fakes, the failures, the ones with pretense and the ones without, all of us have a right, and hopefully an inbred desire and ability to tell our story.

I read something on Donald Miller's website just after Christmas, where he was talking about working to tell a better story with his life this year. About living fully and intentionally.

I like that.

I am not (usually) a poet.

I am one of the fakes.
And this is my story.