Battering...

I wrote the last post an hour or so after I heard the news about Cheryl. As raw as the emotions are in my writing I am sure a few days would have been a bit wiser. I wish I could say that in these few days my thinking and emotions have changed. They have, simply because it takes a lot to keep that intensity of emotions...and in the end it matters nothing how I feel about any of these issues. It is like raging at the ocean because it caused the Tsunami...Me raging at God doesn't change anything. There is a bit of a conundrum here...wanting to change the Immovable, Omnipotent, Un-changing, Omni-everything God.
So this battering myself against the immovable just makes me battered. So quietly I'll slip away from the fray and mourn deeply the loss of a good woman. Mourn for Jonny and Christi and Peter the loss of their wonderful mother. Mourn for Jim who wishes for one more day, for the Hispanic community who loose their spokesman, the friends in Bolivia , the daughter, the sister, the friend...How much one life makes such a difference in the simple and humble way that she loved.
So there it is...

I'm done

Cheryl was...and that's it. I'm done trying to make things better. I'm tired of thinking of ways to make sense of this broken place where people die too young leaving sons and daughter and husbands. I don't know if I can do this finding hope in hopeless. I'm so mad I can hardly breath, I'm so sad I can hardly think. I can't pray...maybe it's won't. I will not find the good in this...I will not somehow see how this was all in God's providence. That would make God so petty...
I'm weary to my very soul heavy with the grief of it all.

Whew !

It has been a while since I have had a moment and even now I am stealing a moment when I should be planning for my next class. To be honest...I spent the whole weekend reading when I should have been planning. I think even for me this was a banner weekend for reading. I consumed four books as if I was reading for my life. This is what I walked away with from this inundation of information: Dogs are a souls best friend, aphasia recovery is remarkable and especially so if she is a friend, being attentive to 1000 gifts from God will help restore my soul and last but not at all least suicide is not a subject for good prose.
Spring is coming and our trees are in bloom. Contracts are coming out for next year. Scott is waiting for work. Nick is playing soccer. Mijo is driving on her own back and forth from a busy social life. We are busy full and it is all good.
I have to go back to work...thank you for reading me :).

She prepares her meat, mixes her wine...

and sets the table( Proverbs 9 cont.)

That Wise lady...thinks of everything for the quests she is about to invite. She send her maids, then goes herself to the high place in town and calls out...Hey, simple people, come sit ad eat with me....Come, you won't be disappointed. In fact leave your simple ways and you will live.
Folly also goes to the highest places but she is sitting and waiting and calling to the same simple folks. She has not prepared her meal, she has stolen it. But the seductive nature of folly is that because it is stolen it tastes sweeter and is more delicious. These ladies are at every decision, calling out for attention. One leads to life the other..."but little do they know that the dead are there, that all her guests are in the depths of the grave".

Every day I walk the hallways of my little, remarkable, private Christian school and see these ladies providing a choice . I am so sad to say that Folly is loud, undisciplined and without knowledge and in High school, she is lazy, unmotivated and seductive. Folly offers the immediate gratification with a taste of the defiant...stolen and secret. Folly seems to be winning and it may be because those who are choosing Wisdom's way are consistent, dependable and winsome. She isn't loud, destructive nor defiant. She doesn't revel in but removes herself from. She brings life to the classroom not restless activity and noise.

Folly sucks the life out of a classroom, a marriage, a friendship, a church. Wisdom feeds, refreshes, enlivens...brings hope.

Wisom builds a house...

One things she will have in her house is 7 pillars Prov.9 hewn out. Love that word hewn...

1. Chop or cut (something, esp. wood) with an ax, pick, or other tool.

2. Make or shape (something) by cutting or chopping a material such as wood or stone.

To tell you the truth when was the last time you have ever hewn something. We cut wood to burn but hewn has the idea that you are making something useful, beautiful and solid. Wisdom, she build her house and she has hewn out 7 pillars. Wood or stone, I am thinking stone..why, because that seems what wisdom would do.

Houses are such a reflection on their owners. When I go in someone home I try and sense what it says about those who live there. I wonder what guests think about me when coming into my home. I hope it is warm and inviting and the perfect Dutch work..gezelich. I think Wisdom's house is magnificent and reflects the grandeur of creation and the intimacy of good relationships. I think it would be simple but elegant, practical in its use of space and at the same time spacious.

Wisdom builds a house...Wisdom takes time, forethought, preparation, insight, creativity and permanence.
I am sitting on this subject for a season...Proverbs 9 is my template. Lady Wisdom and Woman Folly: she builds, the other sits.

The sound of noisy silence

The alarm goes off at 6:20 to KGMI radio, I get up after the blurb of international news is finished. In the bathroom while I am getting my face together I listen to the Canadian news channel to fill up the rest of the news. When I sit down at school I plug in my Ipod to my speakers and listen to music while I do school work. When I come home in the afternoon, the radio comes on so I can listen to NPR while I fix supper. After supper, the TV comes on and I catch up with what I missed. When I go to bed, I turn on my Kindle and read till I get sleepy.
There is no silence...it is all noise. No wonder I am anxious.