A Selfish Fool

I will say this:
love is an action word.
music muscle flexing
cyberconnecting

I know
your heart
is rythym
broken beat
still
it's not yet

I'm always out there and sticky
bumpy
lumpy
learning
yearning

carrying my grooves
with me
everywhere I go

that's so I hear the music when it comes

you're always
silent waves
softened soul
polished smooth
too slippery
to stick
staying so still
even the music
misses you

I am four years old and I am having that same dream again. The one where I am running through a dense dark forest, running for my life from a large, hungry, brown bear, “California”. I am running through the thick branches and then I am in a tree and I am climbing as fast as I can. The tree is so tall it goes on and on and I am being chased. Now I am six. I go faster and now I see a boy above me, urging me on, saying, “Come on, you’re almost there, you can do it!” and I am almost reaching him and each time he urges me on, saying, “Just one more step, I know you can do it!” and I climb up to that branch and he is still one branch higher. I am climbing faster and faster but he is always out of reach and then, finally, I can see it, I am going to reach him this time, and I climb up to that branch and it breaks under me. I am twenty three now. The boy reaches out to me and grabs the tips of my fingers and I slip away and fall and fall and fall. I fall so far that eventually I look around and realize that I must not be falling at all. I am a baby. I am flying. I have total control of where I go and I can swoop down over houses and hills and by people and they don’t seem to see me. I fly over my hospital and then I circle around and look in the windows to see the children in my ward sleeping and the nurses walking around and it feels so nice. I keep flying, past familiar streets and houses. I come to my own house, and my family is there and none of them see me and I realize the will never see me in this state. I realize I must return to my body and I feel the jolt and wake up crying. I am confused. Even though I must be awake I don't know how old I am or where I live. I want to get back to the dream. I close my eyes and float, but the phone rings. It sounds distant. I go for the phone but find I can't move. I struggle and manage to reach it on the fourth ring. I hear my Mom and sister crying. I am awake.

A Bit of a Rant

Okay, let me start by saying that I probably should not be posting at this exact moment bec aue I am so stinkin mad I feel like my ass is on fire, but it must be done, I can no longer be silent.
I am innocently whiling away my hours listening to a little "Morning Edition" on NPR when I happen to glance at a link for this article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104107045. I start getting a little tight in the throat as I am reading it, so trying to distract myself, I glance over at my Facebook page and I read this post from my friend, Kathy: "Health care reform is not optional. As a former social worker, I can tell you there are numerous individuals in need of medical assistance and only able to get limited help if any. I had to deny or terminate benefits for folks that would probably die without it. In fact, I had a client who died a month after having to cut of his medical benefits. For him, I send this out. Get involved & make it happen." along with a link to this: http://www.healthreform.gov/. Needless to say I about blew my stack COMPLETELY when I started reading some of the pedantic, high brow, philosophical discussion of poverty I have seen in some time in the commentary after the "richless" article (I might add, I listen to NPR regularly).
My comments started out trying to be illuminating, but finally descended in to my typical hysterical defensiveness like I get when I am really deeply RIGHT about something that means a lot to me that others don't ever seem to get. So, if you're interested, you can read my comment thread (Obviously, I am Fndr Bndr). But in case you don't have hours to waste on the internet skimming over another's petty rant, I will sum it up thusly: While I didn't want to get in to a pissing match over who has it bad and who has it worse, on some level, when does it occur to you that your perspective on life is so skewed that you can't even conceive that REAL SUFFERING exists around you? Why does it never occur to some people that their highly educated, WASPy snobbery is not enough? When is buying lattes that protect the rainforrest or sending a hundred bucks once a year off to the World Wildlife Fund not enough to make up for the enormous, unfair disparity between people who have their basic needs met and those who don't? Is anyone even listening to what they are saying when they post about this stuff??
I must say, I thought that the mainstream media was coming a long way, when on Mother's Day on John King's broadcast, he highlighted a homeless single Mom and talked about Moms who do what they have to do to get by. (Sorry, I don't have the link to the story, but if I find it I'll put it in here later.) We don't use the term poverty enough in our media in my opinion.
Anyway, end of rant.
Here are a select few pictures from MY Mother's Day.

A Lesson in Smiling

Yesterday the junior choir sang in church. The kids range in age from about six to about 13. I love watching the children sing. Not because they make beautiful music or because they are cute, (in fact, some look painfully uncomfortable and self-conscious) but because a few of them display true pride and joy in what they are doing. These kids seem to intuitively understand that they are generously giving, channelling a gift to the congregation. I try to listen with all attentiveness in order to humbly receive their gift. I love to look for the children that are in Little J's Sunday school class and smile broadly if I can catch their eye. Since we are usually running late, we sit towards the back, and most times it is a one way exchange. But yesterday, I received the most beautiful smile and enthusiastic waive of recognition from one little girl from Little J's class. She made me feel so special I almost blushed. I made sure to thank her afterwards and I told her she made me feel special. She seemed to understand what she had given me. But more than that, she set a powerful example. It was a big risk she took: a little girl standing up there in front of dozens if not hundreds of people, waiving enthusiastically at one specific (adult) person.

If even one out of a hundred smiles I give makes someone feel the way she made me feel, then why should I ever fear giving an unanswered smile? Spread the joy, and smile!

Lollipop Eats Kid

Adult Confirmation

I just completed a class offered at my new church and run by our Pastor, Pete. Five of us met once or twice a month over the last six months or so and discussed God, Jesus, the bible, the history of the Christian religion, the structure of our services, discipleship and community to name a few. Last night we had our final discussion at a cozy little Italian restaurant. We drank delicious red wine, ate an amazing meal, chatted and finally, we each read a one pager we had written on what we got out of the class. I went last and here is what I read:

When I started this class I thought I might try to figure out whether or not I believed in God. My thinking was that belief and understanding went hand in hand and were a prerequisite for truly belonging in a religion. I have always liked the idea of having a religion. I think it felt to me like it would be a structure or a framework that would always be there, unyielding and strong to hold me up against whatever tragedy might blow me over in the future. But as the class went on I realized that this might not be the best path for me to follow. Do I believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent being? Is there a God? The more I contemplated it the more confused I became until I finally heard the one thing I realized I had been waiting to hear: it is okay not to understand God because we are only human and God is that profound. This was new to me. The idea that God isn’t something pre-existing that I just never learned about, but that God is actually something I would have to define for myself. Of course, when you think about it it makes sense. As I began pondering that, it became obvious I could never understand it. I think the most profound moment for me came when Pastor Pete said that all our ideas of God are always wrong. Duh. How could we possibly understand God? By my own definition of God, he is not able to be understood. And, for some reason, this class made me okay with that. I began to realize that religion is simply a way of putting God in to tangible terms that a human being might be able to comprehend, work with and learn from. I also became aware that I had an understanding of religion based on prejudice, a cursory knowledge of history, but mostly ignorance. I thought of Christians as haughty, self-important, “righteous” people who were mostly imperialist conquerors who felt they had a mandate from God to rule the world. Perhaps this is even true, but there is a deeper understanding of being Christian that I had missed. Being Christian means being brave. It means standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. It means following a path that leads to harmony and peace, not war. As we began to learn about and discuss the evolution of Christianity and the bible through the ages I learned something more important than understanding God, understanding what God is for: the power to transform. Yes there is much suffering in life. I do not know why God allows it, but the question is, what can I do about it? What can God help me do about it? This class has inspired me to be a better person because it is possible and because it is important. This class has allowed me to believe in God with out understanding what that is. I can not think of a greater gift or a greater reason to contribute to the fulfillment of God’s kingdom.

Thank you,
Wendy

God is a Musician

Life is his music.

What song are you?