Just like that....Irene comes rolling in...

Intentions are wonderful because they are usually made with no opposition. At New Years we make resolutions to eat less with full belly's and at the start of the new school year, intentions to be positive and joyful are made when summer still has a residual hold. We really haven't even started school , just meetings, and I am already frustrated and disappointed and that chossing joy I was talking about...right out the proverbial window. Just like that...I haven't given up ...just realized that it will be much harder then I polly-anna thought.
The thing is if you are positive you get taken advantage of. If you have a BA kind of attitude you get what you want. What is the balance of standing up for yourself and still be good company?
Good intentions are just that...great ideas in good weather making plans for how to behave in bad. What I need to do, now the storm is rolling in, is figure out a way to stay the course. Irene has got nothing on school politics!

Choosing

"As sick as it sounds, cancer has significantly improved my life in many ways." This is a young man with brain cancer and not a very good prognosis. Read his blog...it's on my list, the one called It's OK ...
To be honest I really don't want to be that thankful. Having seen the ravages of cancer on so many lives I wonder what my attitude would be...
It is about attitude though...and though this man has struggled as any one should he has chosen a perspective that is not of this world. Should I not do the same in the circumstance I am living? I am healthy, my children are healthy, my husband is healthy...even our dogs are healthy. We have enough to pay the bills. We have people who love us. We have a roof over our heads jam packed with too much stuff. We have cars to drive, school to attend, clothes to wear, places we can go and church. We have a country we can complain about and not get imprisoned. We have so many choices in our stores that I can't go shopping for too long before I am overwhelmed. This is just scratching the surface...I haven't even started with my history and legacy or even begun to broach salvation and a divine relationship...

It is easy to complain. It is easy to be negative...it seems the default setting in most of our conversations. At the start of this year I am a bit overwhelmed with all the new responsibilities of my job...but I am grateful for the opportunity. I miss my husband as he works in Montana..but I am grateful he has work. I want to choose a different default setting...it isn't cool or edgy but it is refreshing. Each day...This day...I will ...I choose...to rejoice.
Thank you Phil for the reminder and the example.

If cats can change...

You may not have known but we also have a cat. She was given to us right after Curtiss died and she has endured a lot in her nine lives. We have moved. She has endured a near fatal attack from a dog. She lived in a barn the year we were in Papua. She has had to welcome stray cats who have attacked her and for the last 8 years...dogs. She has stayed in the basement since we moved here and has stayed as far away from the hub bub of upstairs. About 6 months ago everything changed, she started coming upstairs and sitting on the fringe.
Then she started sleeping on our table...high enough away from the dogs. Then she walked right in the living room and took over the couch which has always been Mocha's territory. Chino has a little bit of a crush on this cat but she keeps him at a distance, though I have seen him come pretty darn close. He thinks when she hisses she is just inviting him to play.
This cat is on the old side of life...what made her suddenly decide that life was worth the effort to face her fears and dive right into company? She makes me smile every day because we find in her in the oddest places all over the upstairs. It is as if she is making up for all the previous years of hiding. This can't be normal cat behavior to change so drastically but what a metaphor for me.

Love enough to be unafraid...to speak the truth and be unafraid, to grow old unafraid, to let these children go unafraid. Love casts out fear.
I don't think our cat loves anything...but she is now unafraid and is living much more free. If she can...I can.

Looking down or Looking ahead

I try and wand walk the dogs every day through some farm land and inevitable I find myself doing this...looking at my feet while I am walking. I literally tell myself to look up.
Do we live a day at at time or do we live with the future in mind?

Thy Word is lamp unto my feet...
Give us This day our daily bread...
This is the day that the Lord has made...
Do not be anxious about tomorrow...

Looking ahead gives us the impression that we are in control. Planning ahead frames what we should do today or how we should feel today. My daughter is entering her last year of high school and I can't help but try and prepare for the inevitable absence. But the more I do that, the more emotional pain I begin to experience today when she is very much present.
Having been raised going to boarding school, starting in first grade, so much of my formative years were divided into good times to relish, absences to endure but each time tinged with the next. So Summer breaks were GREAT because we were home but they were gong to end too soon and school marked with such loneliness and longing was just around the corner. Parents coming to visit while in school was so much to look forward too but as soon as they came the counting of the days till they left ensued. Every time was marked with the days ahead and that marking was emotional. In the tropics we didn't have seasons to mark the time but the calendar was marked with parents and times without. So much of my life if the times are good I'm worrying about how it is going to end, awful way to live BTW.
So...back to my walk and looking at my feet. I do most of my praying when I am walking the dogs and because I am thinking and listening, I am unaware of what I am looking at. It is only when I stop and pause that I realize I have been looking at my feet. This is it...though... God gives us daily what we need. We want to be able to have what we need for what lies ahead...BUT He doesn't work like that. IT is as if He wants us to take in the day, THAT day, THAT particular specific day and trust Him in THAT day for all that we may need. Enjoy THAT day for what it is.
I can live a day at a time to enjoy OR to endure. My inclination isn't daily as if I can prepare for what lies ahead. I have no idea what lies ahead.
Looking at my feet , while I am praying is exactly how I should live. This Day...This very, never to be repeated, day is the day the Lord has made.

The orange background and the start of the Hoopla's

I really do like orange but this background is a bit much but in lieu of all the celebrations in the month of August it seemed appropriate. Today is the beginning and it all starts with our anniversary. 9 years for my Scotty and me, only 9. It really seems longer maybe because we have packed so much into them.
First year...I lost my job as Assistant Principal, very difficult.
Second year...major trials and arguments between the both of us to begin with but much more significantly, Scott's wonderful mother passed.
Third year...Scotty works away for most the year in Tacoma
Anyway...not really knowing what has transpired in each year, needless to say...Scotty has lost both his parents, I have lost jobs, we went overseas, we had major injuries and medical bills, we have argued and fought and argued again trying to figure out how to live with each other { we were old when we married each other :) } Scott has worked away 3 out of the 9 years and every year has had significant absence except for he year we were in Papua. I also finished my MA in the middle of it all and changed job titles every year.
We have packed a lot in nine years and we have come through better, leaner, kinder, and more in love then when we began.
I love being loved by this man...He holds me in and lets me go. I am so so grateful.

Safe Place

I was talking to a friend the other day and she told me about a church in Oregon that described itself as a safe place to struggle. If there isn't a better definition of what a church is supposed to be then I don't know what is. If you have followed my blog for any length of time you know I have had a struggle with church. Not the body of Christ church but the local American church we all attend. Instead of struggling with church, church is/supposed to be that safe place to struggle.
Think about everything we struggle with ...marriages, parenting, finances, sexuality, singleness, significance...wouldn't it be great if we had a place where we go with all our struggles.
A Pastor in a large city told me that what he listens to in his daily counseling by far is sexual sins... that seething underside of every person's outside calm demeanor.
Church...a safe place to struggle. How that looks in the every day functioning of the church...I guess it is the face we portray. How clean do we come, or how clean do we become.

15 year old boys

15 year old boys trying so hard to be 18, at least.
So full of anger and bravado , shaking their collective fists at all those ahead who just won't listen.
Riding bikes with contempt, it isn't the wheels they want to ride. So close to freedom but months divide the coveted vehicle.
Screaming for respect with every awkward argument.
15 year old boys,all potential.

Hope you all are still here ....

It is already August 7th and it has been a while since I have posted. I am in full swing summer mode where I have mastered the art of puttering a day away without a moment of guilt. Morning and evening have moved into each other seamlessly not broken up with lists and events and places to be. It is quite lovely with warm weather to accompany these wonderful days of summer.
I am also looking forward to Fall and my students and the new school year...and Winter with its cold rainy days and warm fires and holidays and the business of a schedule. There is season for everything under the sun and I will no longer wish one over the other but dive in the joy of each one.