day one

God grabbed me. God's Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. he led me around and among them - a lot of bones! there were bones all over the plain - dry bones, bleached by the sun.

he said to me, "son of man, can these bones live?"

i said, "Master God, only you know that."

~ ezekiel 37:1-3, the message

i sometimes joke that my job has sucked the life out of me. i'm eternally exhausted from the long hours and the constant craziness, but more than that i have allowed my work completely take over my soul. i spend all day at work then i come home, sit on the couch and work some more. i moved to a village so i could spend less time commuting and more time actually working.

i could blame all of this on my employer, but the truth is that i allowed this to happen. everyone is overworked these days. everyone has been charged to "do more with less, better." each time i sold a bit more of my soul to my job, i stole more and more of it from it's Originator.

back in the day, lent wasn't about losing weight or cutting out coffee. lent was a period of dedicated study of the catechism in preparation for baptism and admission into the orthodox church at easter. over the next 40 days i'm committing to dedicated study and prayer in preparation for my own re-admission into the church. over the next 40 days i'm asking the Creator to create in me a heart worth loving and a life worth living.

tonight i pray that my dry bones would find form through the words of my Maker. tonight i pray that my soul would find life in the breath of my Sustainer.

rope bones, part two

i bought pete a new rope toy yesterday. it wasn't your typical twisted and knotted at each end variety. it was shaped like a bone and had no frayed edges. i haven't bought pete a rope bone in many months, but this one looked so neat and strong that i thought i'd give it a try. a rope bone was his very first toy and he has always loved them, he just destroys them so quickly that i can't afford to give them to him anymore. well, i was sure this one would last longer than the others.

as soon as i got home, pete sniffed through my bags and discovered his new toy. i quickly cut it free from it's wrapping and pete ran off with it tucked
inside his teeth.

the bone was shredded in a matter of minutes.

 i should have known.
(remember pete's history with rope bones?)

i threw the shredded pieces of yarn in the trash can, hoping pete wouldn't find them.

he did. and it wasn't long before tiny pink and brown threads littered my bedroom floor so densely that i could barely see the carpet. after finally cleaning up all of the pieces, i put them in a bag and threw them out in the trash can outside in the rain where pete couldn't get to them.

i'm just like pete. i fell for someone years ago. i refuse to ever say that i loved him, but i definitely fell into something... (as the civil wars song says, "i don't love you, ...but i always will.") for years i thought that he had me under some sort of spell. i thought about him all the time. even though i knew we were bad together, i couldn't help but accept him into my life time and time again. i'd shut him out, only to let him back in the very next time he came around. i'd lie to my friends about who was texting or where i was going. he was like a drug to me. i was addicted.

a couple of years ago, circumstance separated us and despite similar friends i kept from seeing him for a year. when he resurfaced, i convinced myself that we could be friends. that i could somehow put the past behind me. that i could forget the way he looked at me and i felt like i was the most beautiful girl in the world. that i could forget all of the crazy fun times we had together. that i could forget all of the ways that he hurt me. that i could move forward with the man that had once been my friend.

i was wrong.

i saw him a couple of weeks ago and everything i had suppressed for so long all came flooding back to the surface. i danced with the devil and the younger, stupider havaleh came out to play. i joyfully jumped over lines and flirted with territory i hoped i'd never see. i made all the poor choices i made years ago, only this time i knew better. i knew better and i chose not to care.

around the time when i was lost with this guy years ago, my friend dawn sent me this postcard that read, "she threw herself eagerly into the paths of unsuitable men". i thought it was hysterical. she thought it was fitting. i've kept the card for the last 5 years. about a month ago, pete chewed it up and for some reason i kept the pieces that remained.

maybe it was to remind myself of the person i was. maybe it was to remind myself of the person i didn't want to be anymore. maybe i was simply holding on to the pieces that remained of an epic romance.

like pete, i held on to the trash that remained after something i loved was destroyed.

well, now it's time to throw it all away. it doesn't matter how many different kinds of rope bones i bring home to pete. he will destroy every one of them until he swallows dangerous pieces of yarn. it doesn't matter how many years go by, my relationship with that man will always be toxic. not because of him, but because of me. sure, he might be my drug, but i'm the one with an addiction.

friends of mine would like to make him a villain. they like to think that he's this horrible person who waltzes into my life like a tornado on steroids and laughs at the wreckage as he whirlwinds out, but that wouldn't be fair to him and it wouldn't be fair to me. i'm not some damsel in distress. i am a strong, educated woman who makes my own decisions, even the bad ones. and i'm not just some victim of crazy voodoo tactics. as much power as he may have over me, i have just as much power over him. as much as he has abused that power, i have too. tonight though...tonight i say goodbye to it all. tonight i relinquish my power over him and i relegate his power over me.
tonight i threw away the remnants of that postcard, along with the remnants of hope left inside of me that one day i could salvage this friendship. (tonight i don't just write about throwing away burnt cookies. tonight i actually carried them to the trash bin outside in the rain.)

tonight i let that piece of my past die. tonight i let that piece of me die.

lent will begin later this week. lent is my favorite season of the year and it centers around this concept of death. during lent, we die to the things that separate us from our Maker and Sustainer. sometimes people give up something for lent. this year, i've given up someone.

i'll also be working my way through a lenton study - writing to god. those writings will take the place of my usual blog. i know some of you have ordered the book and will be doing the same. please feel free to comment throughout the 40 days about how you interpret the scripture prompts each day. i look forward to our time together through this season of holy reflection. what needs to die inside of us? what will be pruned from our habitual living? who are we becoming?

i should have felt something

i should be angry. i should be considering throwing my computer across the room. i should care that microsoft word just screwed me over and the program proposal i've been working on since last tuesday won't open correctly, that i'll have to start over and have it finished in approximately 40 hours.

i should have been frustrated. every decision i made at work this week was contended. i was countered at every turn. by tuesday, when my boss asked my opinion on a student matter my unusual response was "do whatever they want," knowing that what they wanted and what they needed were two very different things.

i should have been happy. all weekend. my best friend came to visit. he drove hundreds of miles, just to spend the weekend with me. we slept in late and we spent all day relaxing with little to do. truth be told, if drew weren't here i probably would not have left my bed all weekend.

i should have felt something.
i should have cared.

but i didn't. i don't.
i'm numb.

last week i wrote about motivation for major change, but today i write to you to confess that i haven't budged an inch. physically, with the help of a close friend i'm developing healthier habits, but mentally...well, it's like i turned off a switch and i'm simply going through the motions. sure, i've pretended to be angry when it was expected and i've faked laughter when appropriate, but those moments were only practice for a future in theatrics.

the truth is that i'm hurt. i'm broken and i'm bruised and i'm simply in survival mode. i don't have the energy to fight, but i've got to fight if i'm ever going to find my way out of this.

defining moments

"this is a defining moment, but it doesn't have to define who you are" she said. it was exactly what i needed to hear...

we've all experienced defining moments in our lives. moments that shaped the person we've decided to become. for better or worse, they've altered us and sparked some clarification of who we are.

there are good moments. like that art course in wv that grandma and grandpa enrolled me in one summer. oh, i dreaded it. i was young and shy and awkward and i didn't know anyone, but eventually i loved it. i loved that it brought me closer with my grandpa. i loved that it sparked creativity i didn't know i had inside of me.

there are even great moments. like the over the rhine concert i wrote about a few entries ago or the summers of mission work in chicago that broke my heart open to the hurting of this nation. i was forever changed by those experiences. so much so that friends in grad school named me the "social justice queen" because of my constant cry for the poor.

there are powerless moments. like my car accident or the assault of new years eve several years ago. moments when i felt like i was dead inside. moments when life felt like a blur. moments when i felt like giving up.

and then there are the shameful moments. moments when, despite all my good judgment and right teaching, i made poor decisions and surprisingly lived to see another day.

we can let these moments define us and label ourselves: shy. awkward. artist. friend. mother. child. saved. lost. hypocrite. failure. broken. numb. or we can let them define who we are in those moments, but not who we become.

instead, they can be catalysts for change. they can be catapults for chasing what is good and pure and holy. in the hours, days, and weeks that follow, we don't get to decide whether or not those moments will change us, but we do get to decide how that change will be manifested within our souls.

will i let this latest failure define me as a disgrace, or will i take what i've learned and do the hard work of redemption and reconciliation? i'm hoping for the latter.


"it takes some silence to make sound.
and it takes a lost before you're found.
and it takes a road to go nowhere.
it takes a toll to show you care.
it takes a hole to see the mountain.

life is wonderful.
life goes full circle.
life is wonderful.
life is so full of...
life is so full of love"
~jason mraz 'life is wonderful'

i refuse to settle for burnt cookies

two dozen cookies in the trash can. that's how my baking extravaganza began.

well, let me rewind a little bit... the baking really began when i had to borrow a mixer from a friend because mine finally bit the dust. then i had to go to the store because i needed some ingredients for my favorite cookie recipes. i mixed everything together, taking extra care to get it right since these were for students from my alma mater who are visiting the queen city for a swim meet. i spooned each dollop of dough onto my baking stones with precision then put them in the oven to bake.

unfortunately, my kitchen timer decided it didn't want to work properly and i ended up burning the cookies. thus, two dozen cookies in the trash can.

i hoped that they only looked burnt on the outside, so i broke one open. still looked hard.

i hoped that they were only hard, not really burnt, so i took a bite. tasted burnt.

i hoped that if i dunked it in cold milk before eating it that the yumminess would somehow be revived. no luck.

finally, i threw the lot in the trash. there was no hope for those cookies.

i was discouraged. frustrated. tired. and out of eggs. i had used the last of my eggs on the burnt batch of cookies. somehow i gathered up the energy to go back to the store.

i baked all evening and ended up with 10 dozen cookies that were well worth the wait, all soft and chewy and delicious.

part of the reason i'm single is because i refuse to settle for burnt cookies. i've done it before, but i'm not going to do it again.

i thought that maybe the relationship just seemed bad, but it really wasn't. if i just broke it wide open and dove in deep that i could fix the relationship. if i could saturate them in love that the burnt taste would go away. eventually though, it ended up next to the cookies in the trash.

it's hard to go back to the drawing board. i hated that i had to go back to the store for eggs. i had used up so many ingredients in that first batch of cookies. i had put in time and energy that i will never get back. i didn't want to have to start all over again, but i did. and i ended up with something pretty tasty in the end.

are you settling for burnt cookies? are you scared to go back to the beginning - to those awkward first dates and uncomfortable set-ups? are you telling yourself that your relationship just looks unhealthy from the outside, even though it really is unhealthy at the center? are you afraid that you used up all you had inside of you on this other person, and you won't have enough of the right ingredients to start over?

then stop. breathe. take a moment to regroup and throw it away. gather up everything you need and start fresh. you might be amazed with what you can create with someone new.

secrets secrets are no fun

requiem for a dream is one of my favorite movies. the movie depicts the many faces of drug addiction in such raw honesty. i was just telling someone about it the other day, and as i told them, if it weren't for some very graphic scenes i would push for every high school to show their students the film. in time, i believe that would put an end of drug use in america. unfortunately, those select scenes are so horrible, so graphic, that even in my early twenties i wasn't ready. i saw things i wish i could un-see.

it's amazing how simple moments can completely alter you. images of that film burned in my brain, haunting my nightmares for days, even weeks after the film. tonight i learned something about a friend that, although it is still fresh, i foresee it forever altering the way i view him.

curiosity got the best of me and, as they say, you can find anything on the internet. after knowing someone for so many years and not knowing this part of his life, well, it's clear that he wants to keep it secret.

have you ever stumbled upon a secret about someone you love? something they would not want you to know. something that it seems no one close to them knows either. something that makes you cringe in disbelief.

what do you do? do you confront the issue? do you pretend like it never happened?

like the moment she tells you it's cancer or the moment he tells you he had an affair.

you can't undo it. you can't press rewind. and if you're like me, you desperately want to avoid the issue but it will rot you from the inside out if you try to keep it inside and pretend like nothing's changed.

unfortunately, like the scenes from requiem for a dream, some things you just can't un-see or un-know.

with my face pressed up against the pain

"oh, i guess they'll say i've grown
i know more than i wanted to
i've said more than i wanted to say
i'm heading home

yeah, but i'm not so sure
that home is a place you can still get to by train

so i'm looking out the window
and i'm drifting off to sleep
with my face pressed up against the pane"

with my face pressed up against the pane.

with my face pressed up against the pain.

"with the rhythm of my heart
and the ringing in my ears
it's the rhythm of the southbound train"

where is home? where is that place where the comfort and the ease of life makes the pain drift away?

for me it's the mountains. i love little mountain towns. i love mountain craftspeople. and Lord knows i love mountain men :)

i love the mountains.

i think it goes back to that idea that mountain people have a richer history than the rest of the country. i know that's just a myth i made up in my own mind, but who cares. (as i write, i can't help but hear alabama's "oh play me some mountain music like grandma and grandpa used to play") i think of families tending their farms, children playing in the wood, mamas making homemade bread and daddies making moonshine.

there's this beautiful harmony of liveliness and tranquility of the mountains. even in the silence of hiking through the woods, i can't help but sense the trees wishing to tell me stories of all the things they've seen in their hundreds of years of growth.

tomorrow, after a long five hours of work, marisa and i will make our way to asheville to spend a couple days in a mountain retreat. i can't wait. i need this. my soul is ready to be revived.

i wasn't born or raised in a mountain town. i have no family or friends who live in mountain areas. still, the mountains are where i call home. it's in the mountains when i find the peace that passes understanding, where i find the joy that overflows, where i find the grace of life everlasting. it's in the mountains where my mind finds rest and my soul finds rebirth.

"i'm headed home
yeah, but i'm not so sure
that home is a place that will ever be the same

so we gather up our things
and we head out in the cold
and your eyes are where you carry the pain

when i hear the whistle weeping
it's crying to the sky
it's the rhythm of the southbound train"

~jon foreman "southbound train"

grace

i grew up in a church called grace. seriously. the church was named grace united methodist church.

interestingly, though, it wasn't until i was in my twenties that i really learned the meaning and the magnitude of marvelous grace.

"the faithful love of the Lord never ends
His mercies never cease.
great is His faithfulness.
His mercies begin afresh each morning."
~ lamentations 3:22-23

God's mercy is new each morning.

each morning.

each morning?

really?

thank goodness...

i screw up daily. i need grace. i desperately need the mercy God so lovingly gives me. not begrudgingly, not half-heartedly, not because it is a rule but simply because God loves me.

as john mark mcmillan writes, "if grace is an ocean, we're all sinking."

i am drowning in grace. there are a million reasons why i should be dead right now. a million poor choices that should have completely altered my path in life, but instead God stepped in and gave me mercy that i, in no way, deserved.

thank God for the free will to make poor decisions and learn life lessons, and thank God for grace.

thank you

the first manners we teach our children are to say "please" and "thank you". these are relatively easy things to teach a child, as it comes with repetition. before you give them anything, you require a "please" and you don't let them leave the situation until they say "thank you". consistent repetition and positive reinforcement and you've got it down.

teaching children to say the words might be easy, but learning the meaning comes with age and experience. someone was telling me recently about their daughter lily. lily is 18 months old and very graciously says "please" every time she wants for something. the problem is that she believes that "please" means "now!" because she has often received what she wants when she has said the special word, she thinks that if she says "please" that she should get whatever it is that she is asking for and that she deserves to get it immediately.

i know some adults who are just like lily. lately, i've been hearing a lot of "please" but very little "thank you", and a "please" to me is negated without a "thank you". i keep getting e-mail and voicemails to "please do" this or "please do" that, but the message never ends with even a simple gesture of gratitude.

when i say the word "please" i am recognizing that i am asking a favor of someone. i recognize that what i am asking may not necessarily be their job (as a coworker, a friend, a family member - whatever the case may be), that what i am asking will take time from their day and/or energy that could have been spent elsewhere.

but all of this is nothing if we don't follow it up with heartfelt gratitude. when we say "thank you", we invoke a sense of service to our neighbor. when we don't take the time to acknowledge the work and say "thank you" then we aren't just displaying bad manners, we are proving to others that we don't recognize their worth.

i heard a story today about the mayor of dillsboro, nc. every year the town comes together to decorate the whole mountain town for christmas and, although no one ever noticed, the mayor always put the lights on the center light post in the town. well, they got a new mayor last year and this christmas the light post didn't get decorated. the people were really upset about the oversight, but no one had ever paid attention to the fact that the previous mayor had always done the job so no one had told the mayor that it was his responsibility. if you've ever done something that people take for granted, then you know what it's like to be asked but not thanked.

a friend of mine got a divorce a few years ago. his wife had a lot of expectations of who he should be and what he should do for her, but never took the time to recognize how hard he was trying and how much he loved her. she gave out a lot of "please"s without saying "thank you". if you've ever been taken for granted, then you know what i'm talking about.

i'm in the south where people claim to have better manners than the rest of the nation, but i have to say...we're failing. sure, we've got "sir" and "ma'am" down and, heck, we've even mastered the perfect tone for "bless their heart" but we still haven't figured out how to truly appreciate one another...

a staring contest with change

choices. every day is filled with millions of them, most of which we don't even recognize. but every so often we're faced with a choice that could really change our world.

recently i was having a staring contest with one of those kinds of choices.

i felt like it was snickering right back at me saying, "so, what's it gonna be? are you too chicken to leap into something brand new?"

i am a creature of habit. deeply seeded habit. it's not that i dislike change, it's just that i love consistency. i love knowing where to find my toothpaste in the morning (1st shelf on the right in the mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink) and predicting when pete will finally get out of bed (at the very last possible moment). i love that i created a monthly budget plan in 2008 that is detailed through April of 2013. i've had four different pairs of hot pads in my kitchen over the past several years. they are all the basic tan variety from target. same exact ones, over and over again.

so there i was this weekend, with an incredible opportunity for catastrophic change in my life, not knowing if the hesitancy in my heart was my gut telling me that it wasn't right or if it was simply my fear of change. how do you tell the difference? i made pro/con lists. i prayed. i sought guidance from friends. i looked to worship and Bible study for signs. i tried everything i knew but, as it turned out, i was just as confused as i was when i started.

in the end, the confusion was the answer. if i was that unsettled about this opportunity then the answer was "no".

i'm comfortable. i've settled in to my life here. i know what to expect. and when an opportunity comes along that doesn't get overpowered by my deathly allergy to change then i'll know that it's a good and right opportunity for me. until then, though, i'll keep playing 2 games of yatzee on my phone before i go to sleep and counting the steps as i race out the door for work each day.

you may call it ocd, but i call it my regular routine. :)