Post Christmas

Wow! It's been a year since I've written anything on this blog! Life is so busy, and there is always something important to do or a place to be or dog hair in the corner or cat barf on the floor in the living room. This Christmas season has been wonderful, though (emits a happy sigh).  Now that the holiday season is winding down, I'm trying to stay focused on the reason for Christmas, and on keeping some of that wonderful grace appreciation in the forefront of my mind. 

I'd love to say that the last year has been one of certainty and full on God devotion.  The truth is a bit cloudier, however.  I've struggled for many years with faith. I've never had much trouble with spirituality; I love learning about religion, about the different things people believe, and the idea of some sort of higher power existing has never been a strange concept to me. Before, anyway. Over this past year my studies have taken me into more Pagan places, and some of the experiences I've had have been wonderful, but there has always been a little voice in the back of my head (in the back of my heart, maybe?) questioning the validity of what I was doing. As the year continued, I began struggling with the idea of God existing at all, which had never before been a concept I'd entertained.  This, of course, lead me toward depression and quite a bit of internal anguish. If there was no God, then..what???? Ironically, it was a tragedy that occurred later in the year that turned me back around.

The Sandy Hook school shootings threw me for an emotional loop. Along with the rest of the country, I mourned children I'd never met, as well as the adults who tried to protect them from the violent actions of a young man whose motives I'm not sure we will ever clearly understand.  I cried on a daily basis; my heart shattered as I considered the families enduring the holidays (and every day) without their loved ones.  As a parent, I ached for those whose children were taken from them so suddenly and so horribly.  I poured over the internet and railed at God, angry that something like this could be allowed to happen and desperate for answers.  I read page after page of stories detailing (as much as was  possible) the lives of this disturbed man and his family, trying to make sense out of an event that was senseless.  Slowly, I began turning back to the God I was so angry with, the God who once filled me so completely, the God whose existence I'd begun to doubt. Ironically, I realized in the midst of my sorrowful rage that if I was so incensed at this God, then I must believe in His existence.  Although I'd spent the past year searching out other Gods and Goddesses, here I was, talking to Him like I knew He was the big Cahuna, the one in charge.  I began to wonder why, if in my heart I believed in Him, I kept feeling the need to wander into other areas of belief.  I'm still not sure about that; maybe it's something spiritually negative creeping into my life, maybe it's my attraction to nature and my desire to incorporate nature with spirituality (which can be done outside of a Pagan context), maybe it's that I've encountered so many  self rightous Christians over the past year whose ideas I didn't agree with.  Whatever the case, I found my comfort back in the arms of the Father whose love carried me through my adolescence, whose presence had guided me closely until I entered college and began learning about the occult.  It might sound silly, but I found myself standing over the sink in our bathroom, sobbing as I listened to a Calvary Chapel webcast that was centered around the issues our country is facing, among them the type of violence that occurred  in Connecticut.  As the Pastor spoke about the children who died there, and about the young man who was responsible, a tiny bit of light came through the fog for me. For the first time, someone was saying something about the tragedy that made sense and offered a glimmer of hope and some real solutions.  We haven't been abandoned on this planet by God.  He is with us all the time, covering us with His grace and suffering with us through the moments of life that seem unbearable.  We live in a broken world, one of imperfection and spiritual warfare.  The important thing is that, in our brokenness, we know that we can turn to Him to be made whole again.

There aren't any answers to what happened a couple of weeks ago, or no simple, absolute answers. Even if there were, I doubt that they would offer the parents of those children and the families of those teachers much solace.  Sometimes we have to accept things that, at first glance, are completely unacceptable, with the knowledge that we just don't know why. 

Heart Guides

When we left our house to run errands today, our eyes were met with the sight of several ibis, wading in the lake that has settled at our driveway's end. My daughter and I stood for awhile, quietly watching, not wanting to frighten them into flight. I snapped a photo and edged forward. Snap! Another photo stolen, this at closer proximity, and still those graceful birds remained.

"Why don't they fly away?" whispered my daughter.

I wasn't sure. Could it be that they had some sort of inner radar, letting them know it was okay to trust? Even as we started down the driveway in my car, the birds stayed calm. I slowly edged past, and they meandered to the other side of the drive, unbothered by our intrusion, focused on the business of gathering food.

How often during my day am I distracted? How frequently does my heart stir at something I read, something I hear out on the street, something my soul is nudging me to recognize? How often do I ignore the deepest cries of my heart for true and meaningful connection with God because I'm afraid? I have trust issues with God, to be sure, but this is something else. This failure to fully engage comes from being frightened of who I might offend, who I might shock, who might think me a hypocrite. And this lack of trust that things will work out okay, even wonderfully, if I can only keep taking baby steps in the right direction, keeps me hungry, unable to fully nourish my spirit or feed anyone else's.

My heart has been deeply touched and stirred over the past three months. I don't think I can walk backwards for long because my eyes keep searching for that glimmer of peace I discovered back in August, that tiny spark. And that shimmer of light and love is right up ahead, waiting for me to contribute, to add to that wonderous light that is God loving the world.

'Tis a lot to ponder on a Friday night late. I'm blaming it on those trusting birds.




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Keeping an Inner Peace

It was 5:45pm and I was rushing my daughter to finish eating her hot dog and brocolli, the quickest meal I could make and still leave the house in reasonable time to make church at 6:30. As I woofed my own meal down, I tried not to get frustrated as I watched her savor over every bite, push her silverware from side to side next to her pretty melamine plate. At a little too late past 6:00, we were on the road and on our way. Everything was going great. And then we got to the exit. Traffic was backed up onto the highway-not a good sign, even at the tail end of rush hour.

As we crawled down the exit and, finally, made our way to the road which leads to the church, it became apparent that something was amiss. As I listened to the radio, the service in question began to broadcast and my anxiety increased. Here we were, so close, and yet something was keeping us from getting from here to there, and the radio broadcast a service I longed to be a part of. As well, my girl had been looking forward to taking part in the kids' program again. This routine is still new for us, but it feels good, like taking positive steps to join in a spiritual community and partake of a valuable message. Like listening and feeling the vibe and making an effort to say,"Yes, I want to hang out with you and your people, God."

As it turned out, the gates at the railroad tracks were stuck into place; no one was getting past them. Adding to my frustration was the fact that the police officers who had been sent to the scene were making no effort to direct us toward a solution, other than to abandon plans. Reluctantly, I drove ahead back to the highway and home. I thought once to take a different exit, but traffic at that exit was jammed up, and by this time the clock had meandered to 7. I turned up the radio and listened to the pastor as we drove home, my little one crying in the back seat.

Earlier in the evening, my neighbor and I were talking about how sometimes God, for reasons unknown and sometimes quite vexing to us, makes the path He wants us to take difficult for us to embark upon. Even though we feel in our very bones that we're on the right path, things are being thrown in our way, blocking that path, making that path downright uncomfortable to be on. I think that sometimes God does this sort of thing to test us, and if we recognize these tests they can lead us to growth and even to a greater appreciation when we finally acheive what we've set out to do.

For me, I believe this test was related to something I've been trying to teach our daughter. Lately I've been noticing that she has great difficulty dealing with situations when they don't go the way she'd like them to. Fists clenched tight, she shakes her way through such situations, eyes squeezing out tears. I've been working on this with her, this learning of coping skills, but isn't the best lesson taught by watching someone else "do"? I tell her that when something doesn't go according to our plan, we need to let go of the expectation and try to rework our plans into what is still possible. Tonight, I had a choice. I wish I could say that I passed this test without complaint, but I did not. What I did do was turn up the radio, listen to the Pastor, enjoy the sermon as my little car sped back down the highway. When we got home, I turned on the lap top and watched the live video, speaking words of gratefulness that this option is available at all. It wasn't as dynamic as sitting, singing, swaying in the sanctuary, but it was what I could do. And it was still good.




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Doggie Love

 

I waited a long time to adopt a dog. 

Years ago, living in a small apartment in the Fenway in Boston, I longed for a canine companion.  I would gaze longingly at others who would stroll up and down Queensbury Street with their own dogs, wondering if I would ever reside in a place large enough for the type of dog I wanted (I love big and small dogs alike, but imagined myself with a larger model, perhaps having been subjected to too many Levi's commercials in which big happy canines romp through streams with rugged looking owners).  A man down the road from me was father to a Great Dane, but I couldn't imagine leaving a large dog alone in an apartment all day while I went to work to earn the money for kibble (I'm not sure if the Great Dane's person worked outside the home).  Not to mention that my life at the time wasn't stable enough for a dog; I was never sure how long I would be living at said apartment, or even in Boston, and my emotional state at that time, passing in and out of bouts of sometimes severe depression, was not conducive to good doggie parenting. 

Now, these many years later, I find myself proud mama to a white German Shepherd beast, adopted from a local breeder whose family my husband and I sought out when it was decided that a white Shepherd would be the best dog for our family.  I'd perused the shelter down the street, and much crying and sharp words passed between the husband and I when I fell in love with a huge black Shepherd named Monty who was so eager to play and to come home with me. Hub was not interested in Monty, and I was heartbroken at the prospect of having to leave the shelter without being able to save even one dog.  Those places are like doggie prisons-sad, a bit smelly and filled with the sorrow of loss and abandonment.  After we returned home and my vows to disengage myself from the dog search had given way to the more pressing need for a canine friend, I began searching breeders.  Finally, we located a family who seemed to genuinely love their dogs, a family who raises white Shepherds as an additional job, which seems to be as much a love for them as it is a vocation.  Our boy came home to us from Foxhunt Shepherds two years ago last February, and he has been a great fit for our family ever since. 

Our Shepherd was a gift from God.  Seriously. With a reddish stripe of fur running down his back, he isn't a "perfect" white shepherd, which is truly perfect for us since we tend toward being a ragamuffin bunch ourselves.  Nobody in our home is a poster person for the perfect, Happy Days/Mulberry type of all American family member.  We tend more toward the all American camper/hiker/motorcycle rider type and we love it that way.  On any given day, it's questionable whether or not my daughter will don a pair of shoes, though we would never go so far as to leave the house without wearing any.  Our homeschooling lifestyle has lead to us being a more laid back family, with chickens strutting about the back yard, attempts at vegetable gardening underway, and digging in the dirt strongly encouraged.  Last week's treasured gift was a bug collecting kit which I found for our daughter in one of those bins set up by the door at the supermarket.

Yesterday morning we woke to find our dog sporting a swollen eye.  He'd been shaking his head all night long, my husband said (usually I'm the one to wake up when such things take place-I must have been exhausted that night, however) and it was obvious he'd gotten into something in the yard the day before.  I immediately suspected a toad, since our dog suffered the same experience about a year ago, and a quick trip to the vet had revealed that a toad was the most likely suspect. Every summer when the rains begin in earnest the Bufo toads arrive (or maybe they just come out of hiding) like one of the plagues in Exodus. Big, ugly things, they emit a toxin that is capable of killing dogs and cats, and every animal parent I know detests them.  Lately, I've been spotting them everywhere, but it's impossible to keep them from our yard and I'm constantly concerned  that our dog will find one, which, apparently, he did a couple of days ago.  For reference, here is an article about the wretched things:  http://www.fondrenpetcare.com/bufo_toad.htm.

Fortunately for us, our very large dog survived the night (probably due to his size) and we were able to bring him to the vet in the morning and obtain medicine to quell the swelling and a shot to counteract the effects of the poison.  I will be monitoring our dog's nightly, pre-bed pee runs in the back yard to help prevent future toad attacks, but am concerned that this is the second time such an encounter has been had between our dog and the neighborhood toads.  This type of incident really makes me grateful for all of the people and animals in my life today who I might take a little bit for granted.  This reminder is good.  But I still dislike the toads.

Childhood's Fleeting Way

Flipping through some old photo albums over the weekend I was struck by how much our daughter has changed. Pouring over the pages, I could clearly recall most of the moments in which each shot was snapped, and yet, the time between then and now has passed so quickly. My heart lurched as I fully understood just how quickly my girl is growing, how little time we as parents have to be parents to a small child. I've been feeling extreme frustration with regard to how much time is stolen from my time with her. I've felt angry and upset that I never can seem to balance everything in a way that makes me feel comfortable.

As the day moved forward and the laundry was folded and the business work was typed and faxed and filed away, my frustration only increased. I managed to squeeze a few minutes outside with my daughter, walking behind as she pedaled her bike up and down the road, but the heat was opressive, even at 4:30 in the afternoon, and we didn't have much time left before I needed to get dinner on the table before the Hubs needed to leave for a meeting with friends.

I'm finding myself very much looking forward to our trip up north in a month, when I can focus on my little one without so many distractions and really enjoy being with her. I know that we all have work to do in this world, and that sometimes doing that work can be a struggle. I'm trying very hard to do the work set before me with joy and a grateful heart. That said, year six is flying past at an alarming speed and it will never be here again.

Hearing the Word, Speaking the Word

I read a story this morning to which I could really relate.  It was the story located in Joshua, about Rahab, a pagan woman, running an inn and possibly a prostitute, who agreed to hide spies sent by Joshua's son, Nun, who were sent to inspect the land of Jericho.  Rahab had heard stories about the God of Israel, of the miraculous things He had done for His people.  One could say that she hid the spies (and thus saved herself and her family) out of fear of God alone, or because she feared these Israelite men. However, I believe that her heart was also moved by the stories she'd heard, by the stories of the Israelites and the lifestyle they embraced.  This was a time in history when harboring spies would probably, had Rahab been discovered doing so, lead to death.  She engaged in this activity at great risk to herself, but she did it anyway.  Because of her actions, Israel was able to acheive victory over Jericho.  The love of God had worked it's way into the heart of a pagan woman, saving her and all of those under her direct care.

I have never been a prostitute, nor have I ever owned an inn.  I have, however, been attracted by pagan lifestyles, battled with the demons of addiction, and spent many years observing how God behaves in the context of many different faiths.  I've prayed long and hard to be shown the right path, at times pleading with God for the answers that always seemed to illude me.  Practicing different spiritual paths did help me to understand people from different viewpoints.  I have always believed that in order to understand a culture, one must study the religious beliefs of that culture.  What my spiritual wandering did not do was lead me immediately to the answer I was seeking.  Standing in today, I can see how God lead me around many twisting pathways right to where He wanted me to stand.  While I was out on the roads searching, however, the paths often became twisted, dark and overgrown.  I always felt the presence of God, regardless of the names I used, and yet I felt there had to be a path meant for me, one way that I should take and focus upon.

I think that what really began leading me back toward the light was reading the words of another.  When I picked up Ann Voskamp's "1,000 Gifts" I entered into the world of a woman who is homeschooling, caring for a home, married to a man who works with his hands, and who earns his living through physical labor and the uncertainties that come with business ownership.  She doesn't glamourize the life of spirit, but speaks about life in the muck and struggles of life, as well as good times.  Being a homeschooling mom, married to a man who earns his living doing  physical work in a business he owns, keeping a house, sometimes wondering what life would have been life if I'd just gone back to school for art therapy and launched myself out into the bigger world, caring for animals and boo boos and preparing our daily meals, Ann's words were able to reach deeply into my heart.  The door was open just a crack back then, but  enough for me to read this book, to be open minded enough to believe what she said.

When my husband and I moved into the house in which we are now blessed to be living, we also were gifted with wonderful neighbors who homeschool their children through their church.  Nowadays, our kids run back and forth between our yards, and when they went away for a month of summer vacation, I missed the laughter and rucus of all of those children, their many and our one.  I have watched the way that this family live their lives, seen the peace the Mom always seems to hold deep within even when chaos is ensuing.  This doesn't mean she's always calm, or that her house is impossibly tidy (that would seem an impossible goal for me to reach).  There is something within her that shines outwardly, though.  One never knows how their own witnessing, even quiet, gentle witnessing (sometimes the softer type is better, actually) will effect another person.  For all of the book reading I have done, the rituals in which I've engaged, the prayers I have spoken, it was the way people acted that had the most profound effect on what I believe to be my spiritual truth.  Of course, the prayers were vital as well.  Sometimes the answers arrive in the words and actions of others, though. We need to be vigilant when we whisper (and shout, and cry) our prayers, on the lookout for the answers, which might slip into the most unexpected of moments and pass by unnoticed.     

Grateful

Today, I'm only grateful.  Grateful that we have business when this economy has become so scary.  Grateful for our beautiful neighbor, who sat with me yesterday in her back room, talking with me about how awesome God is (having a neighbor with whom I can talk about this sort of thing is miraculous and proof of His awesomeness all by itself!). Grateful for my crazy Cajun husband and the gorgeous, peaceful little girl we birthed into the world  almost seven years ago. Grateful that we have a God who picks us up out of the depths, no matter how far down into the canyons we've fallen, if we only ask Him for His forgiveness and open our hearts to the Infinite possibility.