Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 70

Today's Daily 5:

1. 1 year, 70 days of making these lists
2. a funny old lady on the bus yesterday afternoon "I'm 88, but I know I'm lucky.  I know I only look 70!"
3. wearing a cozy scarf
4. sleeping in a little
5. eating a cinnamon twist for breakfast
6. hanging out at the zoo with my friend F. and her daughter A.
7. visiting palm trees, even if they were the kind that grow indoors
8. Going to hear Jason Upton with my friend H from house church
9. the peace of being able to greet someone who unexpectedly showed up with grace, and not have it throw a total wrench in my ability to meet with God for the evening
10. quotes from Jason Upton - "practice resurrection", "I'm with you in the valley," and "I see you in the simple things."

Dance

The spring weather, and something about this particular day, about the atmosphere I'm sensing is making me want to dance.

Except I'm a terrible dancer, and horribly self-concious, so I just kind of dance inside, with a smile on my face.

I was thinking about dancing last week at the conference I was at.

There was definitely a lot of dancing going on.

But even there, busting loose is harder than it looks to achieve.

Unless you're holding a baby.  I think something about my conservative upbringing made it totally okay to dance and be silly if you're holding a baby, or the hands of a toddler perhaps.  Because then you're not just dancing for your enjoyment, you're spreading the wealth.

I have a favorite memory of being at a conference with Jason Upton, and he began playing a song he'd written for his children.  A fun song, designed to make you just wanna hop up and move around a little. 

I was sitting on the floor at the back of the room, with three little kids all around me.

It's a memory I cherish, dancing and singing with them in the back of the church.  3 special kids that I love.

I was thinking about that today as happy music played, and the sun crept through my office window, and something in the atmosphere made me want to dance.

Feels like a long week

It feels like it should be Thursday at the very least. It's only Wednesday.

I'm listening to Ingrid Michaelson's "Maybe" on repeat this morning. The refrain, "maybe, in the future..." plays over and over in my thoughts.

I discovered this morning that Jason Upton is doing a conference in a small city only 3 hours drive from here this weekend. I'm far too broke to attend, which is disappointing.

Tonight is grocery shopping night. That means that I'm already praying for a peaceful experience there. (Have I mentioned that while I don't mind grocery shopping, I have a strong dislike for the discount warehouse type store we do most of our grocery shopping at? I refer to it as the "soul-sucking mega store".)

I started my four days of exercise a day earlier than usual this week. (I read a brief study that suggested that one way to increase seretonin in your brain was to do 20 minutes of moderately aerobic - they suggested yoga - exercise for at least four days in row. Apparently if you do this, there was an increase of seretonin levels in the brain shown over a period of sixty days.) Because I started a day early this week, that means tonight is my 4th day, and that I'm actually kind of excited about.

My budgeting strategy is being put to the test tomorrow. One of my favorite shops is having a sale. A good sale. 20% off everything for members instead of 10%. And it's very tempting to go stock up on the products I buy there (which include my skin care products and hair care products). But I bought what I needed, and a bit extra fairly recently, and my budget is already a bit stretched, so I think tomorrow I'm going to quietly ignore the sale. (Which hurts the bargain loving part of me that rarely pays full price for things...)

I'm really looking forward to eating the chicken gumbo I made last night for dinner tonight. It looked pretty tasty, and it's rather nice to know that on a night that will already be busy, there is a full pot sitting in the fridge, just waiting to be heated up and consumed.

I'm still in the midst of odd, deep spaces, and am thus sharing mostly the ephemera of life at the moment. I hope you'll bear with me as I sort through memories and ponder the events of my days (and nights) more quietly.

The dreaming has been thick lately, and has carried memories with it, and I'm feeling the need to process deeply and internally before sharing with the world (or perhaps never sharing with the world.)

It feels like a long week. How is it possible that it's only Wednesday?

Daily 5 - Day 89

Today's Daily 5 (or more):

1. the gift of a dozen multi-colored roses from a friend, to remind me that I'm cared about
2. the smell (all day long) of those same roses filling my office
3. a nice quiet day at work
4. taking time tonight to make some cards - pretty basic, but it's been a long time since I took the time to do something even kind of creative
5. finally taking the time to paint my fingernails and toenails and to put a mask on my face (it's been way too long since I stopped to give myself that little bit of extra attention)
6. accomplishing a number of things on my "to do" list
7. plans for the week slowly coming together
8. listening to Jason Upton this morning and revisiting some long ago promises and callings and being reminded that God is faithful to keep his promises
9. getting day 1 of yoga for this week accomplished
10. getting out of the office for a little while this morning to run an errand for the company. (I love that my job sometimes encompasses errands... I've always been the errand queen, so it's fun to get paid time for some now!)
    

Monday Morning...

The drive in to work this morning was helpful. I listened to some Jason Upton songs that I hadn't listened to in quite some time. Songs that Jesus has spoken through for very specific situations in the past. It was good to remember those moments and promises.

Work this week should be nice and quiet. Three of the four management team members are out of town on business. Two of those three are the ones that tend to stir conflicts and tension within the office. With all of them gone, the office should be quite peaceful this week.

A coworker and friend discovered via facebook and my blog yesterday that it had been a pretty rough day. I was surprised and delighted when she showed up at my office this morning and delivered a bouquet of multi-colored roses, telling me that I'm loved and cared about. I was delighted both because it's nice to be surprised like that, but also because they were roses. With my new, tighter budget, I've been walking past the roses in the floral section of the grocery store for weeks now, unable to justify the cost of having one of the few flowers I really love in my house on any kind of regular basis. My office smells wonderful this morning, thanks to the roses, and every time I glance up, they are bringing a smile to my face.

And with that, I've got schtuff to do! A number of things that need to be accomplished today.

So, I'm off to do those things!

Smile List - Last Day of April Edition

Because this has been a week where I've rather desperately needed good things to cling to, and three days in I'm finally managing to see some, or at least spin some of the bad things more positively!

So, without further ado, here is the latest list of things I'm thankful for - Things that Make Me Smile!

• David Crowder Band's song "All That I Can Say" played on repeat
• showers where you don't have to worry about the hot water running out
• blackberries
• strawberries
• the Nooma film "Open"
• three new novels to read
• little reminders of things and people that I love, such as necklace made of shells
• clean smelling damp hair
• a new watch (since my previous one died this morning, and I rely on it for my alarm)
• 2 work days left
• lavender scented candles
• a favorite blanket to wrap up in for the evening, and curl up against my face while I sleep
• green apple lip balm from Rocky Mountain Soap Company
• a deepening friendship with my roommate
• an evening spent watching "America's Next Top Model," laughing, and eating mango with my roommate
• pink toenails
• curling up in my favorite chair
• a clean bedroom
• the crucifix I bought in Rome
• thirst
• that it's been nearly two weeks since we've seen or heard mice in our house
• comfort foods
• cheese
• Lamentations chapter 3 (in either "The Message" or The New Living Translation)
• a reprieve from the struggle and the foul mood I've been buried in all week
• that I actually took three major items off my "to do" list at work today
• Jason Upton's "Open up the Earth" album, particularly the spontaneous disk.
  

And with that, I think I'm going to head for bed. Maybe do a little reading, and then have my lights out early!

Peace returning...

The following are portions of an email that I sent to a friend this morning. I felt that they rather nicely captured the space I find myself occupying today, and wanted to share them with the rest of you...

It's funny to me how sometimes it's such a struggle and a fight to slip into the presence of the Lord, and how other times, when I'm not even trying, I manage to get there quite inadvertently. This morning was one of those times. As I walked and took the train this morning I was listening to a Jason Upton album. Had to laugh at some of the lyrics… they stung a little (in a good way, I suppose).

I wrote in my journal on the train this morning "For the first time in days I feel some semblance of peace, of rest, of quiet in my heart. There is a faint possibility of hope that has been missing. This morning I believe that He will hold my heart. That He will shield me. That I will get through this season and find myself walking taller, stronger in the face of the waves. Intimacy with Him is less terrifying and more comforting a thought this morning. The pain exists, still, but this morning I believe that healing may be coming, for my heart and for so many others."

I am reminded of that line from Isaiah this morning, the one that says "a bruised reed he will not break" and am finding great comfort in that.

Just before I arrived at the office, a line from a Jason Upton song that I'm quite sure I've never heard before it played on my ipod this morning caught me, and I'm taking comfort in it as well… "In the midst of the presence/there is a stone/that the world rejected/and it kills the giant." Something comforting about that in the midst of a season where it has felt like I've faced an endless stream of "giants".

I'm relatively at peace. My heart feels quiet. It feels as if I've somehow managed surrender again (in a different way this time), and that, by managing it, I've managed to push through whatever it is that I've been swarmed with these last days and step into a clear space, an open space of rest for a little while. The waves are still there, but they're calmer and far less overwhelming at the moment. No more drowning or gasping for air in the fight to survive.

I've got plans to be still for a while later tonight, with that same Jason Upton album, and a candle or two. (stillness hasn't come easily or been very desired lately either.) I need to absorb some of the things that album offers in stillness instead of while I'm moving and commuting. This is a much better space to be occupying.

Bruised but not broken or crushed.

Moving slower, healing deeper

I was listening to Jason Upton's "Trusting the Angels" album this morning, and found myself quite caught by the following lines. So descriptive of this Lenten season, and the broader season of my life right now. I'm moving slower, and it's taking a little longer, but I'm healing deeper and feeling stronger. This is a painful space, but a good space.

Now I’m moving slower and it takes a little longer
But I’m healing deeper and I’m feeling stronger
It’s tearing down defenses and opening my senses
To the wonder of a lover crying out

Come now let’s reason together
Come now where blood turns to wool
Come now where fire is the measure
Come now where fools turn to gold

Encouraging

I know it's only 9:30 am, but I am having a difficult day. That could be because of some stuff I carried into the night with me last night - ultimately meaning I probably only slept for two or three of the six or so hours I lay there with my lights out. I say probably because much of that night was spent in the inbetween place of waking and dreaming - flashes of images, people, ideas.

I forced myself out of bed, feeling exhausted, and ill. My muscles tense, my head aching, my stomach rebelling yet again against my very existence. Tears are burning behind my eyes. Tears of frustration and exhaustion and confusion and fear. I sent a quick note to a friend I'd been talking with last night - to tell her that I'd slept poorly, that I was hoping for the grace and strength to make it through the day.

I headed out into the cold morning. It's that time of year when it's beginning to be dark when I leave home in the morning, and it's dark once again by the time I return in the evening. Jason Upton's "Trusting the Angels" album playing on my ipod, and I'm clinging to the song "Not Alone" - desperately needing to hear it's truth.

Got to work and found a response from the friend I'd sent the note to. Tears in my eyes again. I needed to hear the words she said this morning. They eased the aching loneliness of my heart just a little. I wrote back thanking her, and telling her that I'd just been thinking that I could use a hug, but was certain that if someone actually gave me one I'd shatter into a million pieces.

Made tea and Caught up on my blog reading. Faye has a new post up. A beautifully written piece. Her writing reminds me of Anne Lamott sometimes - rambling and deep. She mentioned me briefly - a moment we had together on the weekend. And it encouraged my heart again.

Thanks, Jesus, for friends who love me. Thanks for words spoken and prayed over the lives of others. Thanks for going with me. Thanks for passion tea, and that Wednesday (however miserable) means there are only a few days left before the weekend.

just sitting...

Thinking about random things today...

Wondering how a week that was going to be nearly empty, is suddenly quite full.

Trusting again that moments of rest will come in the midst of the full schedule.

Reading a quote that's hanging on the wall beside my desk:

"What lies before us and what lies behind us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." (anonymous)

Loving the truths I'm slowly coming to understand in these words.

Loving the book "Prince Caspian" again lately... a number of scenes are speaking deeply to my heart, and have been for several months...

Letting Jason Upton play in the background, his worship quieting my soul. Looking forward to attending a conference he's playing and speaking at in a couple weeks.

Just sitting. That's what I'm feeling at this moment. Just sit. Breathe.

Going to make tea, and get ready to head out for church in a couple minutes, but for the moment, just sitting.

The Deeper things...

There are things floating around me lately that defy words...

Lyrics from an as yet unrecorded song by Jacob and Lily that I heard at a couple of their shows a few months back... "...I heard that if I sold it all and bought a field I'd find myself a treasure..."

Lyrics from Jason Upton's song "You Decide What's Beautiful": "...You live in the tension, live in the tension, live in the tension of creation... you decide what's beautiful, you decide what's glorious... you're funny like that, you will not be controlled... way beyond men, way beyond our ideas... you live in the tension... you come to the broken, you live with the broken..."

Thoughts from an invitation I received this week, and from posts on Kirk's blog this last week or two...

A growing sense of expectation, coupled with a growing desire to spend time in quiet waiting.

A growing need to engage in the world - to engage in issues of justice, to care for the environment, to love on those in the "gutters" of the world.

A desire to make pilgrimage. To walk and pray and listen at various places around the globe.

A need to spend time with those people who make me most myself, most free to walk in the things of depth that God has placed in me.

A need to be in the mountains. I have tentative plans for two separate weekends over the course of this month. One on my own, staying with some friends, time for retreating, hiking, reading, and refocusing. One as a part of a gathering of people who pray.

A fascination with engagement with culture and politics, but from a place of separation. Engagement and separation...hmmm.... (see this post and particularly the article it links to, from earlier this week.)

I find myself very glad for a week away from the concerns of the office, the politics, the tension. A week to allow myself to once again rest and breathe. To spend time with family, and time at a conference for leadership development. To celebrate my birthday, and the birthdays of some others. To think and pray, and wait and wonder... That's where I'm at on this Friday morning.

The Current Soundtrack

I haven't been very tolerant of music lately. So much of the stuff I normally listen to has been grating on my nerves, adding edgyness and discomfort to the rest of the upheaval in my life just presently.

There are, however, two albums that I've been listening to over and over.

The first is a new release from Jason Upton titled “Beautiful People”. I love Jason’s heart for God, and I love the theme of this album. Some of it is stuff that I’ve felt God speaking to me over the last year, and I’m delighted to find someone else expressing the theme of finding Jesus in the broken, in the ashes. One line that sticks out to me from the album (which is at home, while I’m writing this at work, or I’d tell you what song it was from…) goes “You live in the tension, you live in the tension, you live in the tension of creation.” I love that. I’m experiencing on a number of levels again lately what it means to live in tension.

The second album is “The Cathedral” by Jacob and Lily. I think I could listen to Karla and Caleb sing and play pretty much all day. In fact, I know I could, because, on one particularly bleak day earlier this week, where the clouds of mental confusion had closed in and were threatening to overwhelm, I simply played their album over and over on my ipod, through the whole workday. And my soul felt soothed. I don’t know if I can even pick a favorite song off this album. I just know that Karla’s lyrics, and the music that brings them to life have been speaking to the deep parts of my soul lately, and that has been such a surprising, beautiful and calming thing in this space on my journey.