The Bittersweet Symphony/The Life Lesson/An addition to "Because there is Beauty"

Some of you may know that my Uncle Rick recently passed away, it was less than a week after I wrote, "Because There is Beauty", and so I really had to put my money where my mouth was as far as seeing the bigger picture, and believing that his legacy lives on through the lives that he touched and the people who loved him and so he will never truly die...and all the other bull crap that always sounds alot better on paper and in theory than it does to our hearts! That particular emotional and spiritual roller coaster is still having the kinks worked out of it and is still a little too fresh to discuss here so, and is not the focus, instead it is a backdrop for another lesson/awakening/heart issue/discussion with God. I do have one thing to say before I get started though, as a sort of disclaimer: Please do not offer condolence as a result of this note, at least not in the typical "I’m sorry" or "How are you doing?" kind of way. I will not know what to say back and so will probably not respond. I would, on the other hand greatly appreciate your prayers or thoughts or whatever it is that you do, on behalf of my family and everyone who loved and will miss him. If you can, please pray specifically for his wife Jan, daughter Deena and his granddaughters.
So, at the funeral, my sister and I were talking about how blessed we are to have such a large family that is so close, especially during times like that. And yet, looking around at all those people who are the most dear to us, we were struck with a pang of grief to come-when we would have to say goodbye to each of them. This is not meant to be particularly morbid or depressing but rather to set the stage for the truth to come. What I realized at that point was this; the more joy you take in those around you, the more compounded the wound at the end. Intrinsic in having all things, is the knowledge that you can really keep nothing. And so we are either resigned to give and take as little as possible so as to avoid this bittersweet experience altogether; or we give ourselves over to the giving and taking (some do more of one than the other but that is a different conversation altogether) and simply hope to break even in the end. The desire to avoid pain at all cost means we pay the price of loneliness.
I don’t think it was directly related to this particular situation, however, the way that God decided to apply this to my life came up in a love lesson. I love people; my family, strangers, friends, acquaintances, hitchhikers...you name it. I love to meet new people, and share life and laughs with people, and so, I am not at risk of shutting out friends and family in order to avoid the pain that comes with the loss of them. However, I did find myself saying something not long after the aforementioned conversation with Ashley that caught me off guard once I began realizing what it was I was actually insinuating. First let me say, I have never been in love, and have gone back and forth the last few years counting the cost of what it means to allow yourself to be known in that aspect. Tonight I heard myself saying in prayer that I’m not sure I want to allow myself to be vulnerable to someone and their humanity and all that that entails, physically and emotionally. And then I realized, this is the common thread of anything worth having or loving, I suppose, that at some point, there will be an end to whatever it is, either death will part us, or any of the other billions of things that go wrong in relationships. But this is not a good enough reason to attempt at completely protecting myself from love. Instead, I must welcome it with open arms (and a discerning spirit) in order to learn the most bittersweet lesson of them all...the lesson of love.
Now, I’m not saying that you won’t find me back here in the blog medium within the next few months complaining that love was even uglier than I could have imagined...I’m just saying that if that kind of love is anything like the love I have already experienced in other areas of my life, then I just might find myself echoing Tennyson that, "it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." I have a feeling, though, that anything lost in the process or even in the end, will be worth all that I have to gain in the meantime

Because there is Beauty: An Apology

So...I previously prayed a prayer for the people closest to me that, in hindsight, may or may not have been a bit too harsh. As I sat writing that prayer out, I was in a place of coming out of some hard lessons in my life and so, was merely looking back with fondness on all that I had come out of. I could see that the pain I had experienced was worth the lessons and truths I was receiving and was empowered by the promise of a fresh start. What I hadn't planned on was the inevitable time when troubles would again find me and I would be forced to, put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. So I don't take back what I prayed for you all...I'm just sorry for all of our sakes that for some reason, this is the only way that we learn, unfortunately!
The great thing for me about going through hard times, is that I get all existential and try to figure out the meaning of life and all that that encompasses. In general, I like to beat the dang heck out of the horse in order to get every last inch of truth out of the lesson so that I never have to do it again. This desire for preemptive strike has not really guarded me from circling the same mountain time and again, but it does make for some interesting conversations with the people closest to me and between God and me too! So this is what He said to me last night as I was driving home from Stephenville, TX while I was asking some of those ever illusive "why" questions...
Because there is beauty in having, there is beauty in losing. Beauty because having the thing was sweet and good. And beauty in the promise of having another.
Because there is beauty in hope, there is beauty in despair. Beauty because hope keeps us holding on. And beauty because despair shouts to us that there are things worth holding on to, otherwise the loss of them would not grieve us so.
Because there is beauty in life, there is beauty in death. Beauty because all life comes from Him and so all life is for Him. And beauty because death is not the end and does not have the final say for in all death is the promise of new life. Just as winter holds the secrets of spring, the end of one chapter is the beginning of another, and we are told that in order to gain eternal life, we must lose ours in Him, so we know that all death intrinsically points to rebirth.
The problem for most of us is that we want only to find him in the beauty. We don't want to see the beauty and promise of the brokenness around us. We see only what we have been trained to see and not what really is. Therefore, God is not skewed in His intentions and treatment of us, rather, we are skewed in our image of what goodness is and so, will never really understand Him unless we pick a different vantage point. And so, I will not be happy when He corrects me, or uses tragedy to teach me, or takes what I want from me...but I will rejoice in the fact that His heart and intentions are noble and honorable toward me and therefore, I will rejoice in the promise of where He is taking me, not necessarily where He has me.
So, my prayer was not wrong, it just fell a little short...I pray, not only that you would struggle and hurt and be lonely and heartbroken etc. I pray that because of that pain you would draw near to Him so that those times would become bearable. I pray that He would speak to you in those times, that He would grow you and that you would understand Him in a way you never have before! Again, sorry, because this still isn't going to be easy or fun...but the truth and balance of it is the sweetest thing I have ever known!

Jules!

That woman may be the most precious individual known to mankind! In case you don't know who she is, she's my mom...oh but she's so much more! For those of you who don't know her-well this really isn't for you. Don't get me wrong! I hope you enjoy it and I'm sure it will be entertaining...but those of you who do know her, know that she has that special something that you just can't explain! So I'm not going to try. If you know her...enjoy these little nuggets, if you don't-hop to!!

Scene 1

Jules: I hope we don't see killer whales.

Me: Why not Jules?

Jules: Because I don't want to watch them kill anything!

Scene 2

Me: Jules, why do you have to record every medical show that comes on TV?

Jules: Because I think I'm a doctor

Scene 3

(Scene opens with Julie drinking a coke Icee)

Jules: I haven't had a coke in two weeks.

Me: Mom what is in your hand right now?

Jules: I don't consider this a coke!

Me: Jules, when you go to a restaraunt and order a coke, they bring you a cup of coke and ice...what you have in your hand is a cup of coke and crushed ice...

Jules: Yeah, I don't buy that!

Scene 3

(On the highway in Orange County)

Jules: Man! There are alot of red cars out today!!

And that's just the last 48 hours! There's plenty more where that came from and new material is coming in all the time! I just thought for those of you who were needing a little Jules fix in your life, you might enjoy this!

Addition 1. 12/5/08 "Speaking of the Jews, the lady who cuts my hair is Korean..."

Open with caution: Raging Soapbox Inside

You guys have gotten pretty used to my major quotage so this will be different, and not to take anything away from the people that I quote, but they can only give me a shadow and a glimpse of the truth that is in my heart. Just as the words that you read here can only inspire and change you so far as there is already something awakened in your spirit that rings very similar to this, so I am not trying to dazzle you with my wits, only to add kindling to the spark already so graciously placed inside of you. May you burn…

It would be fair to say that I am not the most serious girl in the world; in fact there are many situations in which someone might find themselves saying of me that I am downright silly! I love retarded movies, sneezing, spider solitaire, The Simple Life, Sudoku and just about anything; pretty, frilly, shiny, pink or sparkly. And there are times in my life where the simplest of pleasures and fulfillments can take over for days and even weeks at a time. Times over which I find myself looking back and asking, "what did I accomplish?" Times where my moral and emotional and spiritual and mental self seem to suffer because I am feeding myself with the breadcrumbs of these menial, time-consuming things. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of the trivial things that have the capacity to demand so much of my attention and have the ability to entertain me so well, and yet I stand at a place today that I have stood many a day before and wonder where to go. Those things can entertain, sure, but when the silliness doesn't feed my passion for life anymore, I hunger for substance that I find rare and in short supply in those around me. Even those who I know to possess the substance that I need to share with other human beings seem to have trouble awakening themselves to it. It is harder to live with this gnawing and raw weight than it is to be flippant about life and demand nothing more than what can be grasped by human hands, and so we silence the cries that take from us the illusion of control that we have and we simply numb ourselves to truth. It is simpler, some would say (and those who wouldn't say it, still seem to be screaming it with their actions) to stay on the surface, to protect ourselves, to ignore that unsettled feeling or, even more commonly, to silence it with other, less substantive things, than it is to be open, exposed and vulnerable to something that has the ability to change us so. I have found a way to find this substance in God, that's not the problem; I don't wonder where to find "it"! I've got "it"! The part that gets me is that I have no one with which to share these things! As frustrated as this situation is to me, I know that there is no way for me to show anyone what I have seen! The very things which place the desire for Him so deeply inside of me are the struggles, battles and hardships that I have had to "overcome" in my life. If I had not been to the extremist of extremes in certain areas of my life, I would not know how to find Him in everyday life. If I had not fought battles that most would flee from, I would not know how to battle the daily grievances that plague me. And so, I will pray a prayer for those dearest to me that most of you will probably want to shoot me for later; and which most Christians would probably call borderline heresy, but, let's get em all riled up shall we??…I pray that you struggle, that you wrestle, that choices not be easy, that money not be always in full supply, that malcontent would reign in the midst of your worldly pleasures, that health be bestowed and not due, that your road be marked with suffering and pain, that loneliness would permeate every fiber of your being, that people would let you down, that your heart would be broken, that you would fail, that you would cry, that you would yearn, and most of all that we would cease to be anesthesiologists to ourselves and those around us and that we would instead be catalysts that spark change and growth with every word and deed. A long shot? Maybe. But anything less drastic just wouldn't do the trick of overhauling this morbid apostasy now would it?

C.S. Lewis is such a pimp: Chapter Part II

So I am reading Lewis' The Problem of Pain and, well, I don't know what else to say except HOLY FRIGGIN CRAP!!!!! I can't even get through the introduction without feeling like an unlearned, uneducated goober! As I suspect most self-aware people do, when faced with such sweeping genius as Lewis possessed.

At the beginning of his first chapter, he addresses the "problem of pain" in this way, "If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both." This, as he puts it, is the problem of pain in its simplest form and the popular belief of most non Christians in the world and unfortunately a painful seeming paradox of the nature of God to even some of the most sincere Christians. He goes on to drop this amazing concept on us, or rather, to put into words exactly what most Christians wish we could say in response to this problem of pain, and yet find ourselves pitifully unable to do so. Later on in the chapter he makes this splendid assertion:

"His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit on His power. If you choose to say 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it', you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words 'God can'. It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God."

Chew on that for a while! And then imagine the fact that that is one of the simpler pragraphs in the book. And then feel sorry for me that, dangit, I am getting through this book even if it kills me...and it very well might!

C.S. Lewis is such a pimp!

Ok, so I'm afraid that headline may be a bit misleading...you're possibly thinking that this will be lighthearted and jovial (anyone who has ever read anything by Lewis should immediately know better), however, this will be nothing of the sort. I am re-reading a book called The Sacred Romance, for those of you who are used to me telling you that I am currently reading the most amazing book I've ever picked up and that you have to read it...well suck it up because I am telling you again! This is one of the most life changing things I have ever read...enough so to drive me to read it a second time!! Anywho, in this book, the author (John Eldredge) quotes a paragraph from Lewis' book, The Problem of Pain, and it's phenomenal! I don't think I have ever felt more like someone was reading my mind than I did last night when I read this part! So I'm not going to preach...I know you're shocked...I'm just going to let these words speak for themselves.

"Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of-something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water on the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it-tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest-if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself-you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say, "here at last is the thing I was made for." We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeaseable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all."

One word: Forgiveness

Forgiveness: a word so underused and misunderstood it has become virtually obsolete! I myself refuse to ask for it and offer it as freely as I should. If I did, if we all did, this place might seem a little less painful!

I journal often, and by often I mean 3-4 times a day, most of the time it is me talking to God, putting my thoughts on paper, trying to make sense of whatever mess I am most assuredly in...and God's subsequent response or thoughts on the matter. But sometimes, out of nowhere, He hits me with something out of the blue, that hasn't been on my mind in quite sometime (which is probably why He hits me with it in the first place). As a general rule, no matter where I am or what I'm doing, I stop and write down whatever it is that He has said because if not I am sure to forget it. So here is what He told me while I was ringing on register 4 at Old Navy Grapevine Mills on Tuesday Nov. 7, that I wrote down on the back of some receipt tape and later transfered to my journal...

"Forgiveness is the key to your future because it unlocks the doors and breaks down the walls of your past."

"With the ability to forgive, comes the capacity for true self-evaluation"

"Forgiveness is vital to life, without it, you are not free to be human!"

Wow! Holy crap that is amazing! The first one was pretty good and I was going wow God, that is so true because, as anyone who has done any deep forgiving will know, forgiveness is 99% about the person doing the forgiving! Not that it's not beneficial to be forgiven, it's one of the greatest things in all the world but there is something inside of you that is freed when you open your heart to forgive someone that you have every right not to!

The second one was amazing because we can never fully see; ourselves, our shortcomings, and the way we hurt others when our eyes are constantly focused on the shortcomings of those around us!

The third one is my favorite because it is sooooo ambiguous and awesome in it's scope! It encompasses so much and makes sense of alot of my own heartache! I love that He used the word "vital"...I think it gives it a sense of urgency because we are not just missing the mark with each other, oh no, we are failing to, not only ask, but receive true forgiveness for ourselves from Him! When we walk around with a burden of guilt that we were never meant to carry, we constantly find ourselves trying to dump it on the people around us and it is generally the people we care the most about who take the brunt of it! But when we are free to be forgiven and to walk in that freedom, we are free to give of ourselves to others and to offer that freedom to them! I also find that people who refuse to accept forgiveness (ie ME) feel the need to compensate in some way for their faults, the result is generally a pride in the things that they CAN accomplish in order to take the focus off of the things they feel they CAN'T!

So forgiveness frees me not to live however I want to because God will forgive me anyway, but to be human and live by trial and error and walk in His mercy and to truly enjoy and indulge in what He has given me without constantly trying to prove myself to Him, me and everyone else I come into contact with! He knows that I am human and He doesn't expect the impossible from me...just the improbable! Learning to accept His forgiveness will free me to forgive those around me...man what a difference that would make, oh what joy that could bring and what peace if we were half as hard on each other as we are. The funny thing is, we think it's hard to forgive but it's harder work to hold onto something that ugly than it is to let it go! A wise woman once told me that holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill the other person! I don't know about yall but that's some good stuff! I could go on for days but yall probably don't want to keep listening to me preach and I have to be at work at 8 am so I'll stop here but there is plenty more where this came from so stay posted!