This man

I traveled to Southern California to go to a symposium for my job. What an excellent time of learning and reshaping my ideas on how to help the students and the host parents in their separate but similar journeys.  The fly in this ointment was that I traveled by plane and for me, that is my specific and annoying fear. I can do, snakes, heights, tight places and overcrowded elevators...but flying...I become stupid. This man knows me well, took a week off of work and accompanied me to this symposium just so I had a rock in the storm of my fear. I am ashamed and frustrated that this is my reality and for the life of me have to figure this out but I am so thankful for his man who does not seem to be afraid of anything...well, maybe spiders but he kills them.
The flights were calm, uneventful but you would never know this by looking at me. On one portion, landing in Portland the weather channel told me we were going to fly right into storms. A half hour before landing, I was gripping Scott's legs and doing my breathing exercises. There was no turbulence at the time, I was just preparing.
 How sad is that...because the reality was that it was really the smoothest landing of all the landings...and there were 6 of them.
I think I live in a lot anticipatory anxiety. Wait...isn't that what worry is...an anticipation of what may happen but usually does not. We are preparing for turbulence when it is smooth sailing...as if my death grip on Scott's leg would alleviate the fear or even the turbulence.
We are not to worry...fear not fear not fear not fear not fear not....
Now when the reality of the storm is at hand...ie: Sandy, accident, bad news....we can in reality do things to make a difference when it is real not imagined.
 It all comes...we should enjoy the ride when its turbulence free...bumpy comes.

Useless purpose

Remember how short my life is. You have created all people for such a useless purpose. Psalm 89:47

We are like the grass of the field, here today and gone tomorrow...

Are you discouraged yet?  I can imagine the verse from Psalm 89 isn't used for many sermons or picture captions. I am sure if this verse was someones favorite life verse we would wonder at the mental health of this tortured soul.  This Psalm is a strange one, it is so full of the power of God, His faithfulness, His strenght, His goodness, His Might, His Rightness and near the end...it seems that Ethan the Ezrahite. after extolling the wonders of God and virtues of David looks at his own life and wonders quickly...who am I anyway?  I love that about scripture...it speaks what not only is true about God, but what is true about us. I can't be the only one who has wondered in the grand scheme of life how short it is...and how useless it seems.  What is amazing about these 10 words is that the blame for it all is on God. You have created all people for such a useless purpose..You, mighty God.  Not some, all people...all of us are created for such a useless purpose. I wonder what Ethan was thinking that one purpose was. 

I am going to chew on this verse for awhile...not because it is encouraging but maybe because it seems to be spot on in the babble of all the wonders of who we think we are or have been told we are.  A cold shower of reality...I wonder what joy God gets from these broken vessels that try so hard to carry around any bits of glory.
 It seems He does....I just wonder why when the truth is from our viewpoint is that we are useless.  Our view, though, isn't always the one that matters.

Canning Hotness

So...we have tomatoes all producing at the same time so Scott and I decide to make salsa and can it all.  All goes well until our last batch. Scott loves it spicy so we make two batches, one with hot and one mild.  We did not grow the necessary peppers so Scott went and purchased the add-ins and I just chopped and put in the mix, chopped and chopped and chopped. During the milieu of throwing whatever Scott purchased into the batch...something sinister was happening. I got a whiff of it when I tasted a bit and my  tongue burned.

"Scott, what king of peppers did you buy?"
"You, know...the normal non-hot kind you like."
" Really, because something tastes really hot."
"No, you are just sensitive."

So we continued and interestingly after washing everything and putting all the pots away, my hands began to burn. When I took my contacts out, I burned my eyes and 2 hours after I fell asleep I was awakened to burning, aching hands. I quickly put some coconut oil on my burning hands and was able to fall asleep.
I am a little afraid of what we have concocted in those recent salsas. I will not try them...I will watch Scott closely and see how flushed he becomes because we  have made something powerful.

My Niece says it well...

Eliminate From Your Routine

1. Any book, web site or television show that gets you thinking you’d be a lot happier if you could just have ____________;
2. Any food or drink that makes you feel sick after you consume it;
3. Any way of thinking that promotes you to favor ideas over people;
4. Any belief that causes you to see yourself as fundamentally worse or fundamentally better than anyone else.

Kara vanderBijl

A picture

As far back as I can remember, this picture has graced a prominent place in our living room and continues its place of honor in Dad and Elfrieda's home in Saskatoon. It is so familiar to me but still I always pause to look at it again when I am in their home. You would think it is a maple tree in a fall setting but rather it is a tranquil very tropical, Indonesian home with this extraordinary red tree.
 I don't know anything about where it was purchased, who painted it and where it is...yet, it has graced all our homes in Indonesia, Holland, Pennsylvania ( 2  houses), Tennessee, back in Indonesia, Saskatoon, Kelowna and back in Saskatoon.
I have always liked this painting...it's the red tree that draws you.

We dropped Mijo off at Caperwray Harbour just this past Friday. It was 32 years ago I arrived at the same Harbour, a year younger and weary already with the weight of the world. As we said goodbye at the dock and we left her crying and uncertain, I realized how much stronger she is and how much more whole she gets to be starting out her own life.

Like this red tree so prominent in this picture so is the baggage of my life. I wondered as we made our long way home, when would I be free of that residual baggage. Is it a choice that I have to make? Or will it always be present in every 'home' I settle?  Have I been so marked that every goodbye and every transition will be fraught with so much anxiety? 

Big Sigh... I have no idea except that leaving her there was hard on me. Her taking her first steps away from me...makes me feel that the best of my life's work is winding down. I hope this is not true...but it is how I feel. When Nick leaves...will I be finished with all that is important? 

Maybe the red tree is what also defines my strength...even as I see it as my weakness. What I have called my wounds has been what has made me resilient and adaptable. Maybe, but more often I think it makes me brittle and unforgiving. I guess that's the choice I have with that ever present red tree.

What should have been said...

What Obama should have said…

As Americans we have always dealt with people in our midst who believes in awkward, divisive, inflammatory and rude opinions. As a government because they are allowed to say it, produce it and celebrate these inconvenient and often times stupidly wrong ideas, I cannot apologize for what I have not said or believe.  I will acknowledge with you that this person’s opinion and his expression of his opinion has offended you and enraged your beliefs.  As an American, I acknowledge his freedom of expression but wholeheartedly express my opinion that what he said and did was offensive and stupid.

I, personally, find it offensive that you have taken this one man’s  obscure, asinine expression as a wholehearted disregard from the majority for what you honor and hold sacred. We are not a target for your anger; we are not an expression of this one man’s opinion. And though we allow his expression of stupidity, we will not allow your expression of physical brutality and anger toward innocent Americans go unanswered.  You may tell us we are stupid and ignorant, but you cannot kill us because you think we are. 

If your governments cannot tell the difference between the two, maybe they also do not need the financial and economic support we have given over these past months and years and decades. We want to be a good neighbor in our global economy but we cannot be held hostage by violence from your radical groups because of some radical ignorant  thinkers on this side of the world...  You may be angry, you may write and scold and harangue…but you cannot kill and destroy, for that we will hold you accountable.

random opinionated thoughts

I am so tired of playing nice to the radical Muslims of the world and in saying that am I now a target?  I would ask as God says, that revenge belongs to God...is theirs not big enough to take care of being insulted? Revenge is mine says the Lord...Why do they believe it is theirs?

Politicians cannot tell the truth...don't know the truth...are unable to see the truth...don't care about the truth. It is hard to believe anything that comes out of any of the talking heads.

I think the biggest misunderstood aspect of Obama is that he is not of this culture or of any, really. He is a third cultured person, being raised in a culture not his own and really not knowing where he belongs.  Being a TCK myself, I get his ambiguity because fundamentally he has no loyalty. Loyalty to a culture is what differentiates those from being on the outside and those who belong.  He has always been one looking in. It isn't right or wrong, it is just what it is. IT is hard though if you are the head of a country where your loyalty to its cultural heritage is ambiguous.

Marriage is hard but worth every and all effort to make it spectacular...it is a direct road to being content.

Trusting God is the hardest aspect of faith not because He isn't trustworthy but because our discomfort doesn't seem to be an aspect of high importance. 

Money, the need for, the desire for, the necessity is a god that runs closest to our need for an idol.

Being a middle age woman has to be the most powerful, overlooked age group in our country. When our looks become secondary to our influence, we seem to garner less attention but more respect.

No matter how much Romney seems the be an answer to some of the woes , it bothers me that he is and will be so easily influenced by the man he thinks is a direct apostle from God, his Elder. That his faith though moral in its behavior is exclusive and secretive in its membership.