Funny about those mirrors...

It's Thursday night before our 4th of July holiday and I'm feeling rather free to just do what I want to do. I was just going to go to bed but decided to check the blogs I follow. What a phenomenon blogs are--a virtual mirror into what drives people's passion and reflections! I find myself reading my kids' friends blogs and wishing I could sit down and drink a Sonic cherry limeade with them and continue the conversation.

My stream of consciousness leads me to reflect on mirrors--OK. A pun intended. John and I recently accompanied Hayden to a most remarkable workshop recently where we learned to tell stories. As storytelling goes, I proved to be the least of these. In fact, my first experience with a "story" from James 1 about mirrors was a total disaster. It really wasn't much of a story--my excuse for drawing a total blank when I got up to tell it, but darned if it hasn't stuck in my mind like glue. I've probably thought of it every day for the last couple of weeks.

You likely have heard about the curbside disaster recently where John's 2002 Ford Escape decided to commit suicide, as John likes to tell it. Last Saturday, we spent the day standing in asphalt parking lots and test driving several potential replacements trying to find just the right one. By mid-afternoon, we were heading down College in one we really both liked and I made the comment: "I love this one on the inside, but I can't remember what it looks like on the outside." Oh look, those mirror thoughts are back: something like when you're inside your own skin, looking at yourself only from the inside, you can't remember what you look like from the outside. Everyone else can see what you look like as they watch you come and go but you may have forgotten. If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror, for once he has looked at himself and gone away (or retreated inside), he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. I acknowledge this isn't a scholarly thought or maybe not even inspired, but I say this to provide evidence that those stories really do act like the velcro loops on our grey matter.

Thanks, fellow bloggers, for the reflections. Sonic happy hour is 2-4 every day. Maybe I'll see you there.

April Showers, May Flowers, June Craziness - Part 2

I—who pride myself in hardly ever getting sick—had been fighting a cold since last Thursday night pulling out my arsenal of natural remedies and being only moderately successful. Tuesday night about 3 a.m., I headed into the kitchen to get a drink of water and was surprised to see an orange glow in the window. My first thought was that the condos up the hill must be on fire, then I thought, “no, it’s my car!” Then “no, it’s John’s car!” All sorts of things ran through my mind, mainly “how can a car just catch on fire??? Did someone set it on fire???” The hood looked like a huge sparkler on the 4th of July. I gathered my thoughts then yelled to John who, of course, suddenly awoke from a deep sleep, “Can you come in here? Your car is on fire…” The front tire exploded which made me realize the gas tank could do the same thing and I threw all caution to the wind—sleeping neighbors or not—in yelling at John to “back up—that think could totally blow up!!!” We are just around the corner from the fire department who showed up in no time and put an end to the adrenaline rush. It’s the first time we’ve been thankful there is too much stuff in the garage to get the car in. It’s still slumped over on the street, waiting for its final rites, and shocks us every time we exit the house. No explanation, but since then we’ve heard that if you have a Ford Escape, you’d better sleep with one eye open. And park it on the street, whether your garage is full or not.

Thursday was fun. Hayden gave our staff a Bible storytelling demonstration in his creative way, then we all packed up and went to check out a potential place to move our office. Another one of those glorious days, none of us wanted to go back inside so we found ourselves back on the square for a while waiting for the maintenance crew to come unlock the door and we people-watched down on the square, watching a film crew and several visitors who were obviously in town for the Walmart stockholders’ annual meeting. Happily unable to do work on my still-disengaged computer, I went shopping for the grandkids and home to heat up the ginger-noodle soup. That night, it just seemed right to use the movie gift card that our dear friends the Flynn’s had given us for Christmas to go see Up, the cute 3-D Disney movie-- amazingly entertaining and we highly recommend it.

Another thing we recommend is making sure you know where the airport is when you’re flying out of a new one. It had thrilled our frugal souls to find $67 tickets to Atlanta. All we had to do was drive to Branson, of all places. The purpose of this trip was to pick up Lyle’s old faithful Maxima for Hayden to drive for the next two months. Hayden looked up the directions online and sent them to my e-mail. When I printed them off, it just didn’t look right. So…I spent quite some time online myself, filling in the gaps with missing information and reasoning why that couldn’t be the right airport. But look over here—there’s a brand new Springfield-Branson National airport in Springfield. That MUST be it! So after sharing with John’s Friday morning Band of Brothers group, we rushed off thinking we would have the full two hours early before their flight departed. Still repositioning things in the car for the ride home, here come John and Hayden rushing back out to announce that the Air Tran flight really does leave from Branson, 40 plus miles south of there. So now, the light hearted chatter on the way over turns to deep quiet thoughts of “how could I be so stupid?” and “we’re going to have to eat these tickets and we still won’t have the car” and “is it better to take a chance of getting a ticket or drive the speed limit and watch them close the gate before our very eyes?” Also, no one pointed out that you can’t make very good time on five miles of twisty mountain roads leading you through a mountainous golf community to get there. God’s grace is sufficient—and there is no other explanation—they made it.

I am a little sad about them being in Atlanta and Greenville without me. I AM the grandmother of three children in that part of the world! But, I have to admit, a three and a half day blank spot on the calendar sounds like a bit of a vacation. Maybe it’s the perfect ending to a memorable week. As the Up movie suggested, I may just go have another adventure!

April Showers, May Flowers, June Craziness--Part 1

I’ve been reading lots of other people’s blogs and asking myself, “Why don’t you rein in your thoughts a little and just write about what you’ve been doing like everyone else does?” So maybe I will. But don’t think this is a normal week.

Seven days ago, almost to the day, Hayden took to the skies and landed in NWA. Being perpetually late and going alone to XNA because John was on an office float trip, I surprisingly showed up at just about the same time Hayden did. That was great, but unfortunately, it appeared that this could not be said of his luggage. Not too shocked, as he has had several special deliveries after the fact over the years, I pulled up to wait while Hayden filled out the necessary forms as he listened to 5 other unhappy travelers in the same predicament rant and rave. Just as we were leaving, luggage carriers from the back came in announcing—yes—it did make the trip but just now they were pushing and shoving the luggage stuck in the baggage claim passageway. Thirty minutes later, it was dislodged, picked up, and we were on our way to Arby’s for a late dinner.

Saturday morning, we visited the Farmers Market on the square on what was really the first really pretty Saturday of the spring, complete with funky Fayetteville bluegrass music, the usual cute dogs and their owners, bubble machines on more than one corner, and even a new thing I hadn’t seen before—gong therapy! Saturday night, we celebrated Hayden’s birthday with our staff at Las Palmas with bottomless tortilla chips and a birthday cake with a candle for every year we have not able to sing Happy Birthday in person—12! This time, he got it sung in Spanish and English and with a little merriment in almost having a bucket of ice poured on his head! Our dear friends really blessed him. John and I gave him a ticket to see Rain!—the Beatles in concert. Maybe not like it used to be but they’re still fun to watch.

Tuesday morning, we had our final discussion on all the Perspectives articles at work. Sometimes, we catch ourselves marveling at how God has meshed our lives and passions together with Hayden’s, making it easy for him to sit on the couch with us and join right in the discussion. We are really thankful for that. On returning from the Chinese buffet and moving toward my computer, a bright blue screen awaited me. Seemed like I remembered that wasn’t a good sign. Long story short—my barely broken in hard drive chose that day to give up the ghost. But something stranger would happen that night…

Moles

We first noticed it last fall. While trying to extract weeds from the flowerbed, the ground sank under our feet. What was that??? After asking around, we discovered that moles—those cute little furry gray things—had taken up residence on Warwick. They were not invited, and we have been trying to evict them ever since. Except for the unrelated clover that is popping up, the yard doesn’t look bad but we’ve been told that the problem will not go away easily and we really don’t want to have to start over growing a new crop on our Fayetteville hillside. We are putting on our helmets and declaring war—we want to make those little varmints turn and run! We want to restore the solid integrity of our grassy patch of real estate!

All things considered, moles are fascinating animals ...
A 5 ounce mole will consume 45-50 lbs of worms and insects each year.
Moles can dig surface tunnels at approximately 18 feet/hour.
Moles travel through existing tunnels at about 80 feet/minute.
Moles contain twice as much blood and twice as much hemoglobin as other mammals of similar size. This allows moles to breathe more easily in underground environments with low oxygen.

Two main sources of action have surfaced: get a cat (Mr. Zipper voted against that one) or take away their food source. (Won’t they just go next door, we asked?) Anyway, we are considering the first but actively pursuing the latter by ridding our yard of those nasty little grub worms.

Ah, yes, the grubworms of life. Sunday, since the speaker at our Alpha class was under the weather, they showed a Louie Giglio video on hope. It didn’t start out very hopeful, maybe even considered depressing by some as he read e-mails from students from his Passion Conferences. They had stepped out on their Christian faith but the ground had been burrowed under and had collapsed beneath their feet. Louis always finds his way back to the cross of Christ, the anchor of our souls—in our case, shall we say solid ground, unvisited by doubt, fear, discouragement, or hopelessness. Those little varmints, too, must be routed.

You cute but destructive little moles—turn and run! The master gardener has provided milky spore grub control for our spiritual landscapes. No procrastination—can we decide to encourage each other to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ? Then we can step out on any day—cloudy or sunny—on earth that will never give way.

Fresh Thoughts on Christmas

Yesterday, our staff team took off to paint the first new house of our newest staff couple, covering up the bright reds, blues, yellows and greens to make it their own. I ended up in the living room painting edges while the new owner came behind me with the roller. In the course of conversation, he began recounting his conservative heritage and his school memories of homeschooling with the Bill Gothard curriculum. He continued on to their leadership training with its unique character building program, which took him all over the world. Applying taupe paint over gold, we discussed the pros and cons.

Our conversation only added to my already turning brain about acceptance of unique approaches to our faith. We go to a great church where one of the hallmarks is that, while tenaciously holding to the Word of God, respect for differences of opinions on how the spiritual life is displayed and worked out in each life exists. (I Corinthians 14 discussed yesterday—who really has the definitive answers?) Even on our own very unified and loving team, we have differences of backgrounds and opinions on the finer points.

Just as Bill Gothard may not have gotten it all right, neither did St. Patrick with his interesting life with the Druids, Madame Guyon with her strange physical self-denial, St. Augustine with his Just War Theory, Shane Claiborne denouncing that theory today in light of the Simple Way, our very own forefather the devout Puritan Samuel Sewall with his office of presiding over the Salem Witch Trials, Martin Luther with his transubstantiation—so many more colorful characters like Jerry Falwell and Martin Luther King we have known in our lifetimes.

Include some Christians you know personally outside your own worldview. God likely has used each to lead many to the truth and it is 100% up to Him to take what He wants and vaporize (at least) the rest of it. He wants all of it He can to take into eternity with Him.

The bride of Christ will be an incomprehensibly beautiful mosaic of the best of each heartfelt view with all the quirks refined and burned out. That is why we do what we do as a team of mobilizers—there are yet colorful lives in every pocket of the world who, when they finally do embrace the gospel, will add their own still different and unique quality to the radiant church bride. Yes, there will be more strange customs and thoughts tainted by the world of injustice each one may have grown up with, but the Christ in Each of Them, the hope of glory, will be added to His complex, mysterious, dazzling, soon-to-be-revealed Bride fit for a Groom of Perfection.

That is what we celebrate at Christmas. Enjoy yours with a new expectation of what it will one day be like to share the Spirit in all of us as One!

It's Not So Bad

I love those people who say the glass is half full!

I ran across this article and he has many a good point. Here is his take on the Ten Blessings of a Recession:
1. More familes eating dinner together
2. Shorter gas lines
3. Less junk mail
4. More coupons
5. Free fitness - more walking and biking
6. Bargain SUV's
7. More entrepreneurial startups
8. Growth in the popularity of gardening and growing your own food
9. Musical inspiration - more heartfelt anthems
10. New perspectives - reflect and reassess the true meaning and goals of our lives

Read it for yourself at http://www.bankrate.com/bos/news/pf/20080625_reasons_love_recession_a3.asp

Intensely Happy

Not prone to introspection, this was an interesting weekend that ran the gamut of emotion. After two staff dinners at our house, an unexpected thaw of our freezer requiring “cook it or lose it”, a new project at work, and late night sessions watching the Olympics, my energy level was low. Still, I wanted to join in the Welcome Dinners for new international students by hosting them for dinner Saturday night. We also had an offer to join our old dinner group in Little Rock for Freddy’s famous fish fry, and that sounded really exciting to our sometimes homesick hearts. What to do?

GUILT: As is sometimes the case for us, who like to keep our options open, the options expired without taking action. First, the LR trip was checked off, then the Welcome Dinner. The consolation was that with forecast of rain, we could just stick around and work on our projects. I don’t usually work on Fridays, but last Friday was spent at the office until later than usual and I ended up sleeping on the couch during the coverage of Day 7 then sleepily slipping off to bed—no projects yet. Saturday morning, I got up early to wrap a birthday present for Tozer’s Birthday Party #2 and I was glad we could be in town for that.

FEAR: While wrapping the little package, though, an alarming thought gripped me with fear. “Where are those two (sizable) checks I swept up and stuck somewhere when cleaning up the house last Thursday?” A quick look around in the usual hiding places yielded no results and my anxiety level cranked up a notch or two, but I was due to pick Liz up for the party. I kept telling myself it didn’t make that much difference, but that occasional fear that is not only in your head and heart but also moves down to your stomach was taking hold.

DISCOURAGEMENT: Here it was already Saturday approaching noon, we had missed the opportunity to go home in order to stay home and catch up, but now I was doomed to scouring the house for the missing checks. What do John and Gloria do in circumstances such as these? We took off for an outing to the A-Z store in Alma (45 miles) for an afternoon adventure to get our minds off of the lost checks.

ANXIETY: “Should we try to get back and help our friends now with their international dinner?”
occasionally checking my watch. Another expired option—pizza special picked up from Papa Murphy’s—more watching of the Olympics with one sleepy eye open (still no projects).

ELATION: In the middle of the night, I woke up and passionately asked God to remove the distraction of the lost checks and bring to mind where they might be. (I had tried this to no avail earlier in the day.) In a few minutes, after “walking backwards in my mind” as I used to remind our guys, the thought came to me that I had put an open shoebox on the floor by my bed, so in the dark, I reached over there and immediately put my hand on the blessed box. A quiet trip to the front room confirmed that the missing checks had been there all along, so it was easy to go back to sleep.

MORE FEELING A LITTLE GUILTY: Sunday morning, John’s ongoing sinus congestions was really bothering him. We were on the schedule to greet at church, so we took our positions at the door and decided to sit on the bleachers at the side since he was afraid he might need to get up and leave. Halfway through, we decided he would be better off in the open air (always the case) and on the way out decided we ought to try to redeem the weekend by going on a Sunday afternoon outing to check out the fishing spots he knew about and try to discover new ones. Lee’s short message (to be followed by an interactive activity) was on the Beattitudes, saying “blessed” means “intensely happy”. Being a good Perspectives graduate, I know we are blessed to be a blessing, but “intensely happy” seemed a bit illusive.
INTENSELY HAPPY: The trip to Beaver Dam proved to be just that kind of experience. The weather was near a perfect 10. We sat and listened to the horn blast and watched the water start to flow and felt the cool air moving up toward us. We finished off our picnic on the rocks, laughed at Zipper doing his cute things, and took a few crazy pictures. On the way back through Eureka Springs, we stopped off at Thorncrown Chapel and took more pictures to send to Easton for his “forget me not” book with the chapel in the background. Two often unphotogenic people actually produced some great pictures in the idealic setting. We returned, energized by the day and actually set out to paint the garden benches, clean the grill and do other outside projects.

DISAPPOINTMENT: Downloading the pictures on to the computer is something I’ve never felt very confident in doing, but I wanted to surprise John and do it without asking for help. I’ll spare the details, but—long story short—I forgot to save them and uncharacteristically erased them from the camera. My dear persevering husband spent a very long time trying to retrieve them, but the images were as fleeting as the happiness of the day. After the up and down experiences of the weekend, it was quite a blow to both of us.

So…we both seemed to be processing hard the state of blessedness. This is the life laboratory where it is mixed and the holy compound is produced. I want to record this to recall later because—like fish caught below the dam--we tend to remember the big events but the little ones get away, even though they are daily building blocks of discovering the sufficiency of transformed thinking. Placing lost checks and pictures on the grid of the constancy of the joy of walking in the light is the essence of walking in the Spirit. Monday morning, we find we are a little stronger in our resolve to walk by faith, a little more familiar with our heavenly Father, with a little more insight into how blessing overflows in the most unexpected places.