Simple Journey

I want to know a song can rise from the ashes of a broken life... --Mike Donehey, 10th Ave. N.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Wasting Time

I am wasting time. I didn't know that was what I was doing until my husband decided to tell me. "Get this boy off to school!" he shouts down the stairs. I am currently formulating a well worded message to his algebra teacher, who is under the impression that taking an algebra test over again without any studying in between can improve the score. "Why isn't this boy out the door yet?!" comes the next hurled query. "He is not feeling well," is my answer. "Quit wasting time and get him in the car!" is the unstudied response. I can feel my ire begin to rise. "Wasting time." I have just read that my son can take the proffered redo test at a later date, if necessary. I am taking the time to communicate to his teacher by email just why it may not be a good idea for him to take it today, choosing my words carefully. "Wasting time." Right. I am wasting time now. My son is definitely not going to make it to school today, so when I have finished the message and sent it on its way to the unsuspecting, unenlightened algebra teacher, I stay a while to connect with friends on Facebook. I'm wasting time. One friend asks if my husband is on Facebook. "What a joke!" I think. I inform her that he considers socializing "wasting time". I waste some more time socializing with some more friends on Facebook. Dear people from long, long ago who live far, far away. These are people who are precious to my soul and with whom I would rarely converse otherwise, because time and distance steals familiarity. But they are gems in my treasure box I am not willing to give up soon, after at long last contacting them in this newfangled way that brings them so close every day. So I waste some more time. In about 15 minutes of wasted time I turn my Facebook page to searching out references to Brother Lawrence, with whom I have recently become acquainted and whose writings I am beginning to read. This is soul food. But "wasting time" is all some will see in it. Some plan every minute of every day full of work. "There is way too much too be done," they say, "to relax and enjoy myself even for five minutes!" I have tried that way of life. It is not for me. Others conduct their days according to this motto: "If you want a thing done right, you have to do it yourself." And they want everything done "right" - that is, according to their specifications. So of course there is never time to interject anything pleasant, relaxing, or soul filling into their day. The work must be done! None of this time wasting Facebook stuff for them! Why, next thing you know, you could be sitting in front of the screen all day, actually communicating with people you haven't seen since 3rd grade or something. That might lead to conversations that could unleash forgotten hurts, guilt, or longings you had buried under mountains of living to forget. Yeah, you don't have time to deal with all that stuff. Push it further under! Or you might meet someone interesting who could help you along your way, like a businessman or woman say, who could become so interested in what you do they offer to fund your next project. Then what would you have to complain about? No, better stay the island you've been all these years, plodding alone through your day, complaining about how poorly everyone else does his or her job on the way, nursing your old wounds, relying on your old addictions, never wasting any time making or keeping friends. That's far easier, because then you know you have everything under control and you know exactly what tomorrow will look like and you have nothing to worry about, not even wasting time. But that's not me. I love "wasting time" being in community with friends and family. They are the life's blood of my existence. I was born an extremely social creature, and I have always chosen to remain so. I have given up careers to remain so. I have given up fame to remain so. I will always be so, thanks be to God the Creator. So please don't try and tell me I'm wasting time, when what I am doing is being in communion, something consecrated by our Lord in the Upper Room around 2000 years ago. If you think I am wasting time, try holding yourself up to His standard, and see which lifestyle seems most like His. And if you decide "wasting time" is something that could benefit your life, come on over to my Facebook page. I'll be glad to "friend" you. Simply yours, Patty http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=feed&id=1434576718

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I Was Glad!

Psalm 122 1 I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD. 2 Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. 3 Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together: 4 Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the LORD. 5 For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David. 6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. 7 Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. 8 For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. 9 Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good. I love this Psalm, and not least because I first learned it in the choir at Bethany Church of Sierra Madre. Or was it Tustin Pres? I remember it was a great big choir, and they could sing rings around most church choirs at the time. Years later I encountered it once again in Pennsylvania, where I was singing in the choir of Palm Lutheran Church, so named because it was created on Palm Sunday, though apt because it was located in Palmyra. The director was the organist, and was also Mennonite. I remember before the service that day he brought to mind news from Israel, bombings and war, and said this Psalm anthem was all the more poignant. He urged us to truly be in prayer "for the peace of Jerusalem". Last year I participated in our Women's Spring Bible Study, in which we studied the Psalms of Ascent in a devotional series by Beth Moore called Stepping Up. It was truly a turning point in my life, about which I wrote on this blog. I learned to put myself in these Psalms as the travelers to Jerusalem would have. I learned so much about their richness, which we miss without knowing their history. At that time I was feeling a call toward home, in more ways than one. I had just visited my childhood haunts in Southern California, and was full of homesickness, and I was feeling the beginnings of a great nesting urge that comes at this age, some have told me. And still I was feeling the homelessness I've felt since we first left the places of our childhood. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, my heart thought it caught a voice calling me home to my faith. In the year that has come between these intuitions and my present situation, so very much transpired that seemed to lead in the opposite direction from home. Multiple musical opportunities, which I would have given much for in prior years, especially when the children were babies, presented themselves without my asking. I seemed to have reached a plateau where I found myself interacting with the best of the best in my field, and without so much effort as in the past. They and I were simply there, together, on the same plain. Was this not a sign that I was supposed to take that direction? So much happened in our family since that time last spring when I knew exactly in what direction I was meant to go. Everything that happened made me doubt. I doubted my intuition. I doubted my abilities. I doubted my identity. I doubted my usefulness. I doubted my marriage. I doubted my God. I followed the rabbit of self-fulfillment down his hole for many months. I leaned unto my own understanding. In the midst of my explorations, I completely forgot the lessons learned in Stepping Up, totally lost the peace and fellowship of my sisters bonded by that time together in study and prayer. My words about the Psalms of Ascent lay fallow on my blog, and I forgot my own writings which sprang from the depths of my innermost soul. And God let me wander. Someone has said God gives us enough rope to hang ourselves; or He gives us just enough to go as far as we need away from Him to realize we want to turn around. And when we do, the rope is there. I believe this after this year. God let me go so far down those rabbit holes! But then by grace I turned around. I heard a whisper, felt a nudge, came to the end of the rope. There was no other choice. I turned around. I remember the sheer joy in the voices of the choirs I've sung this Psalm with. For years I've wished our director would choose more of the old anthems, as we certainly have the choir to handle them. Last spring I asked her about this one, but haven't seen it emerge. Maybe one day she will think of it, but I remember well enough for myself. A great shout and a holy joy: "I WAS GLAD..... I WAS GLAD..... I WAS GLAD when they said unto me ......!!" Yes! I am GLAD!! "Our feet are standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem! Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They prosper who love thee. Peace be within these walls...." Amen!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Waiting....

Psalm 130:6 (New International Version)

6 My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

"My soul waits..." and waits.... and waits...... "How long, O Lord?" I need an answer TODAY. I needed it YESTERDAY. But You give nothing. I seek advice among the beloved friends You gave me, but their advice sets my head spinning.

"Listen to the Lord's voice."

"Just Do It!"

"Follow your heart."

"Do what's good for your kids."

"You need that on your resume."

"Be yourself."

"Shut down ALL the voices and listen only for HIS."

I try to follow that last one especially. But there is nothing. I shut down all the voices still spinning in my head, and there is nothing.

I lie on the bed at 3:00 am and wait.... and wait... and wait.. There is nothing. I turn toward the window when I hear the birds begin to wake up and sing. There is light coming in the sky, beginning to turn the few leftover clouds to that magical morning color someone once called "sky-blue-pink", with a touch of gold: God's gold, I once read in a beautiful book. And the birds sing.

"My soul waits for the Lord." I pray. And pray some more. I try listening again, but one of the voices suddenly begins to chatter. I roll over, shutting it down once more, and another begins. Back to the window.

"My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen wait for the morning." I'm waiting for the morning too.

Perhaps that's my problem. I'm waiting for the morning, when I need to be waiting for the Lord.

How I love the morning! Especially in summer, and today is like summer, after the rain...

"...like the tender grass springing out of the earth, by clear shining, after rain, after rain, after rain...."

I've been waiting for the morning when I could have been waiting for the Lord. Nevertheless He comes, waiting or not. Just like the sun, after rain.

The answer has been lurking around in and through all my questions the whole time. It was in my counseling sessions twice, it was in a conversation with my sister. It was in my initial decision. And it's still there. I'm just afraid to take it.

So I wait for the Lord. Now the morning's come. I wait for the Lord. More than watchmen wait for the morning.

And He is faithful.

"He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.

"And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.

"Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow." 2 Samuel 3-5

I'm waiting...

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Hey again

Ok, so I have no idea whatsoever how that last post had its font changed to whatever those symbols are, and I can't even find an edit button on my blog page to fix it! I just came back to this annoying blog site because a friend mentioned how easy blogspot is, so I thought maybe I was missing something. Strangely, it seems worse than before, when I decided it costs me too much time to make it readable. I will have to just explore around till I can make something worthy of looking at out of this. I've got the hang of Facebook so well, though, I may not bother with this at all, if it keeps bugging me. I may shut it down and start anew with something else entirely. I dunno.

Aha. I think I'm finding it all again, maybe even better. Gotta go address announcements to my daughter's graduation. Ciao!