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.
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats f restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question … Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— [They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”] My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— [They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”] Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all:— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare [But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!] It is perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?… I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep … tired … or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.” And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.”
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
