Sunday, March 31, 2013

Keith Green - Easter Song

E. Stanley Jones, a Methodist preacher and missionary, once wrote about his first time preaching - before a large crowd of well-wishers. He got off to a good start, but when he was just a few sentences in, he made a mistake and was so mortified by it that he completely forgot the rest of his sermon. He stood in front of the congregation for several moments trying to regain his thoughts. Eventually, he gave up, apologized and started down the steps from the pulpit, completely deflated. What a terrible beginning to his ministry! But something set it back on track; as he writes:

As I was about to leave the pulpit a Voice seemed to say to me, "Haven't I done anything for you?"

"Yes," I replied. "You have done everything for me."

"Well," said the Voice. "Couldn't you tell them about that?"

Instead of taking a long walk of shame to his seat, he said to the congregation, "Friends, I see I cannot preach, but I love Jesus."

He proceeded to explain how a man who had once been a "wild, reckless" youth in the community had been given new life and a determination to serve Jesus.

Jones wrote that this experience of initiation into ministry taught him an important lesson: God did not need him to be His lawyer with great arguments and fancy words; God needed a witness.

Isn't this what every Christian is supposed to be? We cannot prove that Christ is who he said he is except by the love he has given us, that love that is meant to overflow to those around us.

I have been stumbling toward God from childhood, sometimes doing my best, sometimes doing a poor job of it. But it seems to me the best witnesses for Christ are often the prodigal sons; they know how to witness for God. They understand in detail the darkness, the poverty of human existence; they've experienced it, and they want to pull as many as they can from the clutches of quiet or not-so-quiet despair. Think about the great Christian evangelists, teachers and writers. The Apostle Paul, St. Augustine, Edith Stein, Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis: they all experienced conversion, and then they devoted their lives completely to Christ.

Another man who understood that God needs no lawyers, no great debaters - but passionate witnesses - was Keith Green. A former drug abuser, hard-living musician and believer in "free love", he had a terrible experience while on tour in a foreign country that devastated him. He pulled himself out of the abyss through the grace of Jesus Christ and began using all his talents for the One who had saved him.

Here is a video of the talented Keith Green singing the joyous Easter Song by Annie Herring.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/Z3kc1jDahU4


Our Lord has risen. Happy Easter, my friends, readers! He has risen. Alleluia! Alleluia!

Friday, March 29, 2013

Built to Last...a year or two

I'm going to drive this car into the ground, people say. I've said it with every vehicle before it got annihilated in a car accident a few years later, and what I mean is, I'm going to drive this thing until it can't drive no more.

You don't hear people say similar stuff about major appliances:

I'm going to load this dishwasher into the floor.

I'm going to toast this toaster into the counter.

I'm going to eat this refrigerator into the basement.

But the frugal among us cherish such resolves. We will eek the usefulness out of every major purchase for years, and dare we hope that it will be for dozens of years? We don't replace things simply because they are out of date. No, we replace them when they are falling apart, not functioning at even 1% of their potential and are an indictment against the style choices of an earlier age. We firmly believe that a major appliance should last a minimum of 20 years, even if we are the Arch Queen of Accidental Disaster.

This is why I detest my expensive, energy-efficient dishwasher. It and I do not hold this truth to be self-evident: that all dishwashers were created to wash dishes.

A year ago we had to have an intervention, as it had lost its sense of purpose in life because it was no longer WASHING dishes. The blasted thing was only three years old. The manufacturer's repair man came out (shudder) and thoroughly scrubbed out our dishwasher, all gunked with soap, and replaced all its hoses - gunked with soap. We paid the price of a new dishwasher for this service. In exchange we were given specific instructions for our high-efficiency dishwasher:


Use only the best, most expensive powder dish detergent
 
Buy expensive dishwasher residue fighter to compliment pricey detergent. Use EVERY SINGLE TIME.
 
Always use high-temp setting
 
Run tap water for several minutes to get it really hot before starting dishwasher
 
Keep water heater at 130 degrees or greater to enable dishwasher to dissolve soap
 
Stroke dishwasher. Compliment it often. Assure it that it's doing a great job, and wash all nasty dishes thoroughly before loading them into its fancy interior.
 
 
Okay, I made up that last one. But I'm understandably bitter, because the stupid thing recently had another identity crisis. The top arm wasn't moving, soap wasn't dissolving and our dishes weren't getting clean. My husband wanted to replace it, but when I pointed out it was only four years old and that we had already invested the down payment of a house on it, he reconsidered. Instead, he called a friend over, and they took it apart bit by bit and found NOTHING AT ALL WRONG WITH IT.
 
Stubborn, I resolved to die under a crushing pile of my own dirty kitchenware before replacing the damn thing, so I began to hit a special, top-secret combo of buttons before running each load, tilting its door at a 35 degree angle while pouring in the soap, whispering sweet nothings through gritted teeth before setting its cycle, and performing special rain dances for it as it filled with water. All this followed by embarrassing supplication on my knees. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. 
 
As I see it, if I finally give up on this thing in which we have invested blood, sweat and tears, there is only one course of action left to me. I must leave it by the curb with a fifty-dollar bill, some homemade chocolate-chip cookies and this note attached:
 
Please take our dishwasher. Late model, energy-efficient piece of c--p will only run with constant coaxing, flattery, caressing, coercion or by an Act of God. Will gladly accept old, steel-door, last century, water-guzzling dishwasher that actually works in exchange. Delivery negotiable.

Monday, March 25, 2013

There's nothing I like better than a snake...except a Tornado

My friend invited our family to go hiking with hers and added as an incentive, "It's rattlesnake season!"



Incentive? you ask. INCENTIVE? Well, it should never....unless like my friend and me, instead of running away from danger, you creep near for a good looksey. Post-hike, I took a lot of flack for oogling that rattlesnake last spring. People I love and trust, persons of good sense, made the perhaps justified assumption that I was temporarily insane or permanently stupid. All I will say in my defense is this: you just don't know how you'll react to a poisonous snake until you see one (though I really do recommend backing away...Quickly!)

Usually, I am no crocodile hunter. Sure, I might keep a pet tarantula if the rest of the family would consent, but I flee cockroaches. My brother-in-law told me horror stories of centipedes that gave me an absolute paranoia. Every night I diligently check my bed for scorpions. I would never play catch with a javelina, and I don't believe I would ever stoop to pat a Gila monster on the head; if I did a photo of me with a Gila monster in a venomous steel grip on my appendage would be circulated with a caption that read, And this is why you don't play with wild animals! Daredevil, I'm not. No thrill-seeker. So why did I suddenly turn snake charmer? I suppose it is this: put me out in nature and, confronted with the unusual or the dangerously beautiful, I feel inclined to do the darndest things on the spur of the moment.

This impulsiveness is why I am currently fascinated by the show Storm Chasers. These crazy meteorologists stand outside their vehicles oohing and ahing at a twister 10 feet away when most people would be hunkered down with hands on head, eyes squeezed shut and praying.

I have asked my husband if he would consider chasing with me when the kids are grown. Nope! He doesn't think we'd get along. I'd probably be the Reed Timmer of our team, using exclamations like, "It's beautiful! A beast! Look at that rotation!" followed by, "Let's get in the path of this thing!" as I push hard for the intercept of the mile-wide funnel, risking my face getting cut up by my shattered vehicle's window. He'd be the more practical Joel Taylor, weighing the risk of loss of limb or life for a one-time shot. The only difference is, my husband would win the battle of wills.

Like snakes, I have found tornadoes fascinating since my childhood in Tennessee when my family would march down the rickety basement steps as soon as the reception went out on the TV amid the anchors' talk about watches and warnings. That vast cellar, lit by one weak, dusty bulb, had all the welcoming atmosphere of Mordor and could have harbored Shelob in its recesses. Maybe that's why we were each allotted a favorite stuffed animal before the descent. Nevertheless, the adrenaline was rushing as eyes scanned the shadows and the tiny rectangular window and ears strained to distinguish something greater in the whistle of the wind.

Living now in the Southwest, the closest I'll likely get to a twister is by twirling the Tiny Tornado maker on my desk. It was my man's first gift to me as romance blossomed. It cures some of my funnel-lust...it and watching Storm Chasers.

My enthusiasm is tempered each time the show reminds me that tornadoes, in all their ferocious beauty, have the power to do great harm to human beings. The meteorologists and scientists point out time and again the huge emotional swing of being on an adrenaline high while getting a great shot and salvaging data, and then minutes later coming to towns that have just been hit by nature's awesome monster. It's a wake-up call. They have to help the shell-shocked and injured.

Snakes are like tornadoes - dangerous, best viewed from a safe distance. Unlike twisters, however, I am quite likely to encounter them in these parts. Next hike I plan to give them a wide berth. After all, that's why rattlesnakes have their own special warning systems. Just like funnel-generating super cells.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Conquering Myself Through Christ

If there were no one who said, "I die, but I shall live," no one who said, "I and the Father are one," then there would be no hope for those who suffer mute and devoid of hoping. All suffering would then be senseless, destructive pain that could not be worked on, all grief would be "worldy grief" and would lead to death...
A person's resurrection is no personal privilege for himself alone - even if he is called Jesus of Nazareth. It contains within itself hope for all, for everything - Dorothee Soelle, On This Gallows


I have sworn off the news. Long ago I swore off watching the news. Now I complete the division: no more reading distressing, disturbing, feel-bad stories. Because I don't let go, the ingested information festers, and I begin to feel worse and worse about humanity. I agonize over the injustice and harm people I perceive as innocent have suffered. Of the perpetrators of evil, I think, These people are ruining the world for my children!

Yes, I'm an arrogant sinner. Bear with me.

Earlier this week I finally got to reading the news in the Sunday paper, and I deliberately read stories I should have avoided. I just couldn't believe I was reading about the same horrific sins that repeat and repeat...and repeat. My anger and repulsion and self-righteousness exploded.

That night I dreamed about zombies, zombies everywhere. I floated above their clawing fingers until finally finding refuge in an iron-clad prison with other bedraggled humans. I could see the zombies outside through the bars, but they could not get in. We could not go out. Two young girls were waved into the fancy car of what I knew was a monster, right outside the metal slats. I wanted to wave them in to safety, call them back from a dreadful mistake, open the heavy metal door, but I wouldn't do it for fear of granting entrance to what I abhorred.

I woke up at the edge of that dream in the morning, my wrong side of the bed, and I knew exactly what my brain had done. I hate zombies: I hate the entire idea of that, the imagined look of them, the portrayal of such things and their methods of survival for "entertainment". And my subconscious, fermenting in the pool of my distress, anger and disgust, had given me zombies.

I am an arrogant sinner. I am like Elijah in the cave, crying, I'm the only one. And how did God respond? I have left me seven thousand in Israel. (1 Kings 19)

Before I have justified reading the news by a shaky belief that to ignore it is to ignore that there are people suffering in this world. By reading it, I can at least suffer with the victims, acknowledge their pain. But what do I do with the knowledge of others' suffering? Nothing except to mourn their circumstances, nothing but detest their tormentors and the crime, nothing but feel bad about the perpetual violent inclinations of my race, nothing except align myself with the Pharisee (Luke 18: 9-14) who prayed blindly and falsely, "Thank you, God, that I am not like this publican - a sinner!" That endangers my soul, and it does nothing to improve this world, only increasing the burden of sin by heaping my own upon the pile.

Who does accept the suffering of others, who said, "Cast your cares upon me"? Who was a victim of the violence of this world? Who removes the scourge of sin in the willful act of final sacrifice? Jesus Christ.

Suffering is consecrated to God by faith - not by faith in suffering, but by faith in God.

Only the sufferings of Christ are valuable in the sight of God, who hates evil, and to him they are valuable chiefly as a sign. The death of Jesus on the cross has an infinite meaning and value not because it is a death, but because it is the death of the Son of God. The cross of Christ says nothing of the power of suffering or of death. It speaks only of the power of him who overcame both suffering and death by rising from the grave - Thomas Merton, To Know the Cross

Someone I love dearly told me recently, "If you remove Christ from the cross and hang yourself up there, you're just dead and the rest of us are doomed."

I cannot suffer for others. I cannot remove their pain or "work on" their suffering and bring any good from it. I can only give love and work as a laborer in my Father's harvest, striving to find ways to alleviate others' suffering instead of merely feeling badly for them, and all this requires hope. If I strangle that hope by exposing myself more and more to the knowledge of evil, without acting to reinforce good in this world, what use am I?

So I aim to keep myself from sin and from despair. And let me not pray as the Pharisee but as the Publican, not raising my eyes even to heaven as I plead honestly, "God be merciful to me a sinner."

Friday, March 15, 2013

A Wee Bit Irish



I used to walk with my baby nephew, Patrick, in my arms and sing:

Away...across...the...sea
 
Away...in...the...Isle...of...Greeeeen
 
 
Oh, Patrick B
 
You should be a little Irish lad
 
You should dance with pretty Irish lassies
 
Oh, Patrick B!
 
He always smiled for me, the sweet boy. He must have been dreaming about the pretty Irish lassies. At any rate the day I took him for a school picture with his preschooler brother, he wouldn't smile at all despite our energetic efforts. I thought about singing the song but chickened out in front of the teachers and photographers. Later my big sis, I remember, was irritated with me for not doing it, because her baby Patrick looked grumpy or bored in all the sibling photos.
 
My nephew's first name pays homage to his bit of Irish heritage, and his middle name is the decidedly Irish surname of my great-grandfather on my dad's side, my grandmother's maiden name. I hope Patrick dances with Irish lassies on this St. Patrick's day, if his parents allow, because in theory the boy's more Irish than any of the rest of us.
 
Now, my nephew will thank me to stop embarrassing him, so I'll tell you my plans for the weekend: throw a St Patrick's Day party...on Saturday, the 16th of March. Sunday is my lazy day; I'll toast St. Patrick in my pajamas and reminisce about how all my friends got tipsy at my party the day before (just kidding, you guys.....Not! Hahahaahahahahaha! No, seriously - I'm kidding) Of course, my friends might need that Guinness to drown the taste of the Corned Beef and Cabbage and the Creamy Potatoes and the Irish Soda Bread I'm serving, none of which I have ever made before. Should be an interesting gathering. I have a CD of bagpipe music to inspire them all to get up and do a jig, bellies stuffed with corned beef and Guinness, or else to drive them absolutely batty.
 
And now my friends will thank me to stop embarrassing them. There's only one more person left: me. And that reminds me of the best St. Patrick's Day party I have ever been to.
 
It was thrown by a few Catholic parishes in San Antonio. They pitched in to rent a large space for a bring your own beer and food affair. I was not at that time a lover of beer, but my husband had brought along some Woodchuck Apple Cider, a sweeter "feminine" beer for me. That was a mistake. We had only been married several months; he didn't yet know what a light weight I was with alcohol.
 
We sat at long rectangular tables and watched the band tune up, and then our very own priest, Father O'Gorman, got up and greeted everyone and began to sing some traditional Irish songs. He had a fine voice. Of course, we were none of us surprised. Every year on Mother's Day, he asked all the mothers to stand up during Mass, handed out carnations, and in a strong baritone he sang them a beautiful Irish song about somebody's old Irish mother that made them cry.
 
The dancing started, and several nuns got up to join in the crazy spins and kicks and wild linking of the arms. Never the great dancer but not afraid to be thought a fool, I did my best with unknown material while some middle-aged women stole my husband and spun him around so fast that he looked a little sea-sick when he returned to me.
 
During the breaks I was sipping on that spiked apple cider and not eating enough to make a difference. Halfway through the cider I, a lightweight, was feeling pretty good and making eyes at my husband. By the end of the first bottle, I was periodically draping myself across his shoulders and nuzzling his cheek while whispering sweet nothings. My man, not a lover of PDAs, patiently removed my arm again and again, glancing at all our fellow parishioners. Part way through the second bottle, I was smacking my lips by his face and attempting to nibble his ear - at which point he removed the beer from my reach. But then the middle-aged ladies were back for an encore dance, and I got myself a new Woodchuck Apple Cider when he wasn't looking. When he reappeared I was just as lovey-dovey as ever. Fortunately, another group dance was beginning; he pulled me to my feet, and I had to sober up and de-romance in order to keep time with the steps.
 
Oh, it was a grand time! And it taught my husband something he won't ever forget: never give his wife beer at the multi-parish St. Patrick's Day celebration. When tipsy, I'm not one of the fighting Irish. I'm the amorous kind.
 
In conclusion of this post, I wish to say that whether your name is Patrick or Hillary or Jose or O'Connor or Smith or Green or anything in between, I hope you too will celebrate all things Irish this weekend with good friends, good beer, and good designated drivers. We're all a wee bit Irish at heart, so from my family to yours:
 
Happy St Patrick's Day, ye lads and lasses!
 
 

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Three Funny Things

Half a mother's wrinkles are from stress, lack of sleep, worry, and non-vocal disciplinary warnings. Thank God the other half are from laugh lines:

1. It was getting out of hand. Another uneasy gathering of minds, a new exchange of hard stares and rude exclamations, "It's your turn! Go!" Sighs and grunts and shouts of indignation and dice scattered under the couch and people's legs. I had to do something to promote peace.

"You guys, let's all try to remember how Jesus would want us to behave," I gently reminded.

My husband responded wryly, "I don't think Jesus had Yahtzee."

2. We have a chandelier in a bad spot. It hangs low over a cramped space between the dining area and living room. So many people have hit their heads on it, my husband always gives a shout and applause to any new victim. "Congratulations!" he exclaims. "You're part of the family! You've been initiated." It seems a little late when, after such an exuberant display, he asks if they're alright.

The other day I found my littlest guy, Danny Sammy, standing on a dining chair hitting a toy against this same chandelier to make tinkly music - again.

"You get down from there right now," I said firmly as I walked past with an armful of laundry. Instead of doing what I asked, I saw him lift the toy again out of the corner of my eye. "Don't you even think about!" I called, dropping the load into the washer.

A moment's silence...then I hear my little boy confess, "I'm thinking about it!"

3. The rain was coming down hard, but it had to be done; toys and chairs and bikes and skates needed to be rescued from the elements. My 10-year-old thought his mad dashes into the yard protected only by his papa's rain slicker were a joyride, even as I shouted for him to hurry up out of the storm. But when there came a mighty clap of reverberating thunder, my brave boy launched himself indoors with a shriek, slipping, sliding and arms flaying until he lay stretched flat on the floor, laughing up at me. I joined in gratefully, my first good belly laugh of the day.


This list was loosely based on Clare Law's blog, Three Beautiful Things. I always enjoy visiting her site, because I never fail to be reminded to enjoy each day and to take the time to relish all the silly, cute, sweet, unusual and beautiful things my kids do. It's all about accumulating the laugh lines.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Just cook, dame! Cook? Damn!

Yeah, I know. I know. I'm being redundant....

Every time I stand in the kitchen around mealtime, I should start singing Adam Lambert's song, "What do you want from me? Uh, what do you want from me?"

It should be my culinary theme song. Because cooking a messy meal at the end of a busy day when the house looks like orcs pillaged it? It's like purgatory at the end of a hard life.

Have I said that before?

Supper? From mwah? Here are the options:

Tuna, pickle and hard-boiled egg (crackers instead of bread on special days)

Oatmeal and scrambled eggs

Pancakes and scrambled eggs

Blueberry muffins (homemade!)and scrambled eggs

Eggs....fried? with oatmeal, pancakes or blueberry muffins

Spaghetti

Chicken noodle soup

Nachos, multiple ways

Bagged salad with Mystery Meat


How about dessert? Would you like some? Your choices:

Sliced apple (without skin)

Whole apple (with skin)

Orange, sliced

Orange, peeled and sectioned

Carrot chips

Carrot Sticks


I roasted a chicken a few months ago, a whole chicken. I even took out the organs and showed them to my kids for an impromptu science lesson. When my husband asked that evening what we were having for dinner, I answered somewhat briskly, "I made a chicken." Couldn't he smell it? Uh, yeah.

"But what are we having with it?"

"I don't know," I replied as I bustled off to address laundry. Then realizing he didn't grasp the enormous effort involved in removing the innards of a bird, slathering its cold, clammy skin with olive oil, butter and spices, and shoving vegetables into its business end, I called back emphatically,"I made a chicken!"

What do you want from me?

Friday, March 1, 2013

Conquer

People seem to think that it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars. On the contrary, consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred...the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce men and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity. Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain


I am seeking the Prince of Peace. He said In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. Today I have read about tribulation that isn't even mine, yet I find it hard to be of good cheer, to be brave.

There was another shooting. There is rampant abuse by vile people of the youngest, most vulnerable and impressionable among us. I want to give up - build a fortress, sail away, take the next rocket to the moon with my children and my whole family. I want to give up on humanity, that race so capable of producing monsters - and not the ultra-hip, hyper-sexualized ones with which they spin all manner of mindless entertainment.

What I speak of, this despair, it is cowardice. Sometimes I am appalled by my own selfishness and inertness. What can we do but strive? We stop striving to live morally for ourselves and to live bravely and proactively in the world, and we die spiritually. I have no choice but to put my head into the wind and surge forward despite fear and despair. There is no good option but to respond with love. By the grace of God only can I do this. By prayer and fasting and searching.

I feel overwhelmed by what I see in the newspaper and on the Internet. Sometimes like today I walk about my home snapping at my children because my thoughts plague me; a storm cloud sits on my brow; and my mind is preoccupied with evil that I cannot battle personally, evil that I cannot undo for those who have suffered its consequences - those whom I love and ache for though I don't know them.

Like Martha in the Bible, I am troubled by many things, but on days like today I wish I could sit at Christ's feet, cling to his robes with a steel grip. He would remind me, no doubt, that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. I should not worry about tomorrow.

Perhaps He would point out that sometimes a simple game with your children can dispel the blackened skies and remind you to live in love and hope. I wandered around my house today, seeking shelter for myself in some distraction. Only when I crossed my legs on the floor, responded to my kids and bent my mind to a game of Candy Land did I find it, and I was so grateful to have it. I cannot give in to hopelessness.

What right have I to be selfish in my despair? I am extraordinarily blessed in the purest blessings of life, and I thank God for it daily. But there are those in the world who have no shelter, who are blessed with next to nothing. I have heard some of their tales of survival and victory, and I have learned through them that triumph over evil is possible and necessary. Like the Jamaican runner, Olympian Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who grew up in a harsh neighborhood where young girls are not often given the chance to reach potential, sometimes pregnant at 12. She went to college, and she won another gold. in London. Like the elderly woman who lived next to my husband before we were married. She was abused at age 3 but as an adult became a missionary in South America. Like the Olympian Lopez Lomong who was once a child soldier in Sudan and now helps operate a charity to provide clean water and other necessities in his homeland.

If this world were glowing, coming up roses everywhere - a fairyland of love and laughter- there would be no need to exert ourselves, to show love to strangers, or to use our talents selflessly for others. The weeds affect the wheat and visa-versa. Both must grow together until the harvest. The evil in the world ignites the light of good people and the flame of great deeds. Without this struggle there would be no Mother Theresa, no firemen rushing into the World Trade Center, no by-standers tackling a gunman outside a Tucson Safeway, no policemen removing the threat to innocent people outside a Sikh Temple, and no brave men and women working tirelessly to save children from exploitation and horror. I wish for no evil, but it exists. Through God's guidance and mercy, I pray that I will be brave in having my own role in overcoming it. And we cannot doubt that those who love their children and do their best to guide them in the way they should go are doing their lion's part to make the world stronger, a better place.

Even a smile can do that in some little way. So God bless you, and God bless all of us in our endeavors - in overcoming evil with good and hatred with love.


I have felt this way today, so though I wrote this a long while back, it seems like the best post for my mood on this unique and challenging day I experienced. Sometimes I am absolutely disgusted. Is it better to avoid the news, the internet and be ignorant of the corruption and vulgarity in the world and so manage to maintain a greater hope, a more charitable view of your fellow creatures? I don't know, but I do understand it is unforgiveable to lose hope, charity or love.