This is my kitty, Emma. She is more precious than silver. She's also a little pain in my backside...and front side...and anywhere she can dig her claws in. But isn't she cute??
Something you can pray for: This cat needs to be declawed. Please pray that God will miraculously provide the funds, and thereby save our skins from her vicious (but always playful) attacks.
In WORLD OF WONDERS, Robertson Davies observed the following: "An infant is a seed. Is it an oak seed or a cabbage seed? Who knows? All mothers think their children are oaks, but the world never lacks for cabbages." I like to think that "momma didn't raise no cabbages." Hmm.. I wonder if I'm the only person in the world to have ever thought that? Likely. So there you go; already I have excelled beyond the level of your average ball of vegetable.
Last night I received a swift kick in the teeth as I sat through an unexpected worship service and was not only having trouble keeping criticism at bay, but I was BORED. BORED. And as I was driving home, I started to consider why that might have been.
The more mundane answers: I was tired (VERY tired - like, doing long division during the service just to keep myself awake, tired). It had been a long day. I had been misinformed about the nature of what I was attending (I thought it was a ministerial MEETING, not a SERVICE). I was wearing high heels on a sloped floor, and I was uncomfortable standing for as long as we had to.
The more truthful answers: Of late, my most profound worship experience occured watching Extreme Makeover, Home Edition. I'm not being flip, either --- it was an incredible God-time for me. Music, while I like it, just doesn't seem to be the thing that prompts me to bless God. I mean, I do it on Sundays, as I lead worship, but that's more as a SACRIFICE of praise. But when it comes to formal worship settings, I'm more likely to be led in worship by a turkey dinner then by a worship leader. (Again, not being flip -- sometimes I'm just so overwhelmed by God's provision and faithfulness when I sit down to a meal that I can't help but bless Him.)
Maybe it has to do with vocation --- as a music pastor, so much thought goes into what I do that when OTHER people do it, my mind is conditioned to think it through and either adopt things or "trash" things and learn from them either way. Or maybe it's something else. And you know what? I think it's kind of okay. Because I DO worship God, in my own way. It's consistent, it's genuine, it's spontaneous. So the problem isn't necessarily with my own worship patterns, but with how I have been charged to lead others in worship, and how hard I can sometimes be on them (at least in my mind) when they don't seem to engage God during a service.
It's one of those days where I remember things I had forgotten, about people I had forgotten, too. Specifically, a friend I had switched places with --- a girl who had loved Jesus when I knew he couldn't be real. Now I'm a pastor and she's an atheist.
And yet as I read through her blog and follow her journey from then to now, it just blows my mind to see words right from my own head and heart... not THEN, but NOW. Minus the explitives, of course. I am (present tense) just as disillusioned, just as disgusted, just as just-plain-mad after seeing an experiencing just the same kind of crap (and the same kind of GOOD) that she did.
But I'm a pastor. And she's an atheist. There but for the grace of God go I?
I developed a theory as a little baby Christian (with my cynicism still in full bloom) at Bible college that if a college student didn't get a job in the church within the first little while after graduation, the likelihood was that their faith and their walk would head down the toilet. Find a way to keep something in focus (like making it a career) and why shouldn't you not suck at living it? But leave the bubble and be forced to survive without being force-fed the Bible and worship music, how well are you going to do? First you find yourself doing laundry on Sundays, next you find yourself doubting if any spiritual experience you'd previously testified to was the result of anything but the bad cafeteria food you'd been trying to digest.
There but for the grace of God go I.
More to come. For now, I'd best go back to forgetting, if only for awhile. I have to go be a pastor.
There are so many important people in my life that I haven't talked to in ages, and no doubt they believe that since I got married I no longer NEED them. What they don't know is that I DO. Need them, I mean. Or at the very least, MISS them. In fact, once a week or every few days, I think of them and make the move to connect with them. Which I do. I walk alongside them through their musings and foibles and major events. On the inside, at least, I laugh and cry and ponder with them.
The problem, of course, is that they never know. The other problem is that when people don't update their blogs, I miss out on the connection.
Thus, we encounter "the downside of keeping up". I HAVE been a faithful friend --- really I have! I'm just not the type to leave shallow comments after every post on someone's blog. I wish there was some way for people to know that I've been there - know that I've shown interest, without having to manufacture some witty or ridiculous comment just to make my presence known.
Maybe a hiatus from the internet to elimiate the feelings of false/one-sided intimacy and a good long distance plan would solve the problem.
