The Neighbor's Yard

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while will know that I have two younger brothers.

We had a big back yard growing up, and we (well, mostly they) spent a great deal of time playing every game involving a flying ball or frisbee ever invented in said back yard. Our neighbors on one side (in the early years anyway) were a kindly old couple who didn't mind if we went into their yard to retrieve one of the balls or other flying objects that seemed to inevitably go "over the fence". We never fought about who had to retrieve things from their yard.

The neighbors on the other side however, were fearsome. A woman and her husband whose children had long since grown. An avid (almost obsessive) gardener, who got angry and yelled every time something inadvertantly went over her fence. (She also once yelled at us for "playing too loudly" while they were entertaining company on the patio in their garden.) She would threaten to keep anything that went over her fence, and stealth was required in it's retrieval. If she caught you in her yard, you were in for yet another tongue lashing. We fought regularly over whose fault it was when something went into her yard, and who was therefore obligated to try and retrieve it.

I remembered all this this morning when I read the following article, which made me smile:
Woman, 89, Who Kept Boy's Football Sues Parents

New Year

It's a new year. Actually, we're only a few short hours from already being on the second day of the new year.

I've wondered all day what I would write here. I wrote here the equivalent of nearly twice a day for the last 365 days. And all day I've wondered what I would say to you.

I didn't really celebrate last night. This last week has seen a coming to a head of some things I've struggled with and prayed about all year. I didn't receive any invitations to go out this year, and I'm not really all that sure that I would have accepted if I had. My heart was pretty shattered by the time I reached yesterday, and despite not having the energy or motivation to go out, I was lonely.

I spent a chunk of the evening praying. Quietly sitting in my living room. Sometimes crying. I had bread and wine, and orange and some chocolate. I shed a few tears, and read some scripture aloud, my voice echoing a little in our quiet house. I came back again to a Psalm that has been a particular favorite, that has marked much of my journey.

Psalm 116

1 I love the Lord because he hears my voice
and my prayer for mercy.
2 Because he bends down to listen,
I will pray as long as I have breath!
3 Death wrapped its ropes around me;
the terrors of the grave overtook me.
I saw only trouble and sorrow.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“Please, Lord, save me!”
5 How kind the Lord is! How good he is!
So merciful, this God of ours!
6 The Lord protects those of childlike faith;
I was facing death, and he saved me.
7 Let my soul be at rest again,
for the Lord has been good to me.
8 He has saved me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling.
9 And so I walk in the Lord’s presence
as I live here on earth!
10 I believed in you, so I said,
“I am deeply troubled, Lord.”
11 In my anxiety I cried out to you,
“These people are all liars!”
12 What can I offer the Lord
for all he has done for me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and praise the Lord’s name for saving me.
14 I will keep my promises to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.

15 The Lord cares deeply
when his loved ones die.
16 O Lord, I am your servant;
yes, I am your servant, born into your household;
you have freed me from my chains.
17 I will offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving
and call on the name of the Lord.
18 I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people—
19 in the house of the Lord
in the heart of Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord!

I was in bed, asleep, long before midnight.

~~~

I started the new year by making a visit to my park. "My" park. The spot I go to meet with Jesus. The spot I go when my heart hurts. I went praying that today he would have words for my heart, words of healing and comfort. To be honest, I kind of wanted the "big moment" that happens occasionally. My heart has felt dry and cracked and hungry, in need of a flood of sorts. God has called my heart to pray on behalf of others often recently, and I am tired. Not resentful, just in need of renewing. I felt guilty, to be completely honest, asking God if just this morning, for a few minutes he'd speak just for my heart, and not for those whom I care deeply about, and who I've been praying for. I'd felt him calling me to the park this morning, and I was hoping for those healing words. They didn't really come. There was silence mostly, the pull to keep walking in moments when I was ready to call it quits. I paused a few times, in the silence (not many people are out fairly early in the morning on New Year's Day) to watch the chickadees flit and play in the bare snow covered branches. A walk in the park is never a waste, but today, my heart had hoped for more.

After the park I went to the zoo to visit with the gorillas. Buying a zoo pass was one of the best things I did last year. I love to go early in the morning to the zoo, before it gets busy, and spend 20 minutes or half an hour watching the gorillas. This morning they were mostly resting too. But it is beautiful and warm in the enclosure, and one of the few places that I have found to be a place where, for those minutes that I spend there, my heart quiets and finds joy and peace.

I rounded out the day with a trip to the mall to return a birthday present I'd bought for someone that turned out to be "not quite right", and to continue the quest for a dressier winter coat. I bought one today. A pretty, sort of plaid black and white one, that has a high collar and falls nearly to my knees. I knew it was the one because I looked in the mirror and felt beautiful. Not the every day, doctored kind of beautiful, but elegant, in a classic, 1950s black and white movie, Audrey Hepburn sort of way.

I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning my house, cooking lunch, showering. Doing the mundane sorts of things that are neither particularly relaxing, nor particularly tiring. I joined my parents and youngest brother for Chinese take out for dinner, and now I'm home, already in my pajamas, writing from bed. I'll read for a while, then hopefully sleep early.

I'm tired, and my heart still feels a bit disappointed. I am asking Jesus for direction, for the ability to dream again without fear of brokenness. I need to meet with Him deeply in the next few days. I need to start the new year off well. I need this year to be different than the last. To be marked with hope and joy and peace far more prominently than hopelessness, anguish, sorrow and brokenness.

It's snowing again, and my heart is tired of the cold. I long for warmth, and the coming again of spring.

I pray that the new year will be marked by warmth and beauty for each and every one of you, and that Jesus will encounter each of you deeply and beautifully as your year begins.

Random Items in a Bag

I finished work at noon today, and headed for my parents house. I had a pre-established appointment for a massage.

My mom is always sending things home with me when I leave their house, and today the assortment is amusingly random. I came home with a grocery bag filled with:

• one set of pajamas. a birthday gift that I purchased that needs to be returned.
• one of my plates, left at their house over Christmas.
• my mail (mostly bills)
• a little bag from a local bakery, containing one apple cinnamon sticky bun.
• a bag of croutons for salad that were given to my mom but she didn't want.
• a package of dried mango - again, something given to mom that she didn't particularly need and knew I loved.
• and a partially drunk bottle of red-wine that I'm to drink what I want from tonight/tomorrow and then return the remainder to be consumed at their house.
  

new year coming

I was up most of the night.

Talking with a friend.

Praying.

Crying.

Some combination of all three at times.

This morning my heart hurts.

I am angry.

And exhausted.

I'm done.

With so many of the things that have marked this crazy year.

I am letting my heart look back, and remembering the many, many oh so broken, bittersweet, beautiful moments.

I am writing. One last ditch effort to give voice to my heart. Words that may or may not ever make it out of my journal or my draft email folder, but words I need to record anyway.

There's a new year coming. And I pray, that in the last hours of this present one, many things will draw to a close.

It's time.

To rise and walk.

To heal.

To let go.

To be free.

For all of this to draw to a close, that new life may again begin to sprout.

If 2008 was "a time for tearing down" then I pray that 2009 will be a "time for rebuilding" a "time for healing."

God's Imagination - Henri Nouwen

God's Imagination

So much of our energy, time, and money goes into maintaining distance from one another. Many if not most of the resources of the world are used to defend ourselves against each other, to maintain or increase our power, and to safeguard our own privileged position.

Imagine all that effort being put in the service of peace and reconciliation! Would there be any poverty? Would there be crimes and wars? Just imagine that there was no longer fear among people, no longer any rivalry, hostility, bitterness, or revenge. Just imagine all the people on this planet holding hands and forming one large circle of love. We say, "I can't imagine." But God says, "That's what I imagine, a whole world not only created but also living in my image."