The Mystery Woman

Here I lift verses that have haunted me the last week or so. I happened upon them this morning during today's Bible study. Particularly this first one has been stuck in my mind, making me think I should look it up, remembering it was somewhere in Isaiah, then happening upon it as it was referenced in the part of Galatians I was reading this morning, (a New Testament reference that used it to compare differences in divinely decreed covenant ages.) Whether she is an individual or a people I do not know...maybe she is both.

This verse--this woman--is important, but I don't think she knows who she is yet, or else maybe I'd be able to "see" her. Still, she knows her grief well enough, for I've felt compassion toward her for a long time, although her personhood is as elusive as the Fly to my comprehending mind. Nevertheless, my heart reaches out to her. Maybe someday I'll know more about who she is...and my prayers for her will then become more concrete and maybe more than prayers. For now, I bask in the verses given to recognize, honor and reassure her. I feel them strongly and would hope my prayers open a door that will touch her spirit with hope and reassurance that this love gift will be made, despite its being beyond conprehension; it will be made because God is its author and finisher, and so it will move forward as smoothly as a hot knife cuts through whipped butter.

“Sing, O barren woman,
you who never bore a child;
burst into song, shout for joy,
you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband,”
says the Lord." Isaiah 54:1 New International Version © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society

"Fear not; you will no longer live in shame. The shame of your youth and the sorrows of widowhood will be remembered no more," Isaiah 54:4 New Living Translation © 1996 Tyndale Charitable Trust

"The Lord will call you back
as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—
a wife who married young,
only to be rejected,” says your God." Isaiah 54:6 New International Version © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society

For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:10 Revised Standard Version © 1947, 1952.


And these verses, are they also connected to her, or connected to those gathered around her, somehow?

Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”
And let not any eunuch complain,
“I am only a dry tree.”
For this is what the Lord says:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me
and hold fast to my covenant—
to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will not be cut off.
And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord
to serve him,
to love the name of the Lord,
and to worship him,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.” isaiah 56:3-7
New International Version © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society

Still, so much is dark. It is funny, a friend was asking me to go to God recently about his venture into ministry, and I sent him back my sense that I saw him like a priest in an Exodus moment, offering up the bowl of sweet-smelling incense to the Lord as was done every morning and evening by the ancients. This morning, I see as I amble over to peruse another friend's photo blog that on the same day I sent that email, the photo blogger, too, had olfactory stuff on the brain, although the "bouquet" he referenced and lives with is not so very sweet. Still the point stuck in my mind: channels of thought are led to bring all into focus on God's point of view, whether we recognize it or not. I feel so small and incapable of much comprehension in these things. I feel like Solomon:

Who is like the wise man? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed. Eccl. 8:1 Hebrew Names Version 2000 Info

But--
then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it. Eccl. 8:17 New International Version © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society

So I finish like I always do, saying: Thy will be done...both in the places illuminated, and in the ones still dark.

More from God for Mr. Fly...

Strange that only a few days after the Fly invaded my consciousness, I come across this in my reading...and strangly like God's economy, how it melds my dream of the Fly with your thematic ones about the airplane flights, my love. This is a quote from a Max Lucado book called Come Thirsty that I read beside the pool Thursday:

Come and keep coming. Drink and keep drinking. Ask and keep asking. "Your heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and continue to ask Him!" (Luke 11:13).
Don't make the mistake of the fly I encountered in the airplane. That's right, on a recent flight a fly buzzed about in the cabin. How odd. A fly flying inside a flying plane. Why would a fly fly during a flight? Was he helping the plane? Doing his part to keep the craft airborne? Why did the fly in the plane fly in the plane?
I asked him. Catching his attention, I inquired, "Mr Fly, why do you fly? Why don't you sit down and enjoy the journey?"
His reply smacked of smugness. "And let the plane crash? Why, this craft needs me. My wings are essential to our safety." And with a puff of the chest he flew toward the front of the plane. As he returned some moments later, he didn't look so confident. Fear flickered in his tiny eyes. "I don't think I can keep it up!"
"Keep what up?"
"The plane! I don't think I can keep the plane up. I'm flying as furiously as I can. But my wings are weary. I don't know how long I can do this."
I opted for frankness. "Don't you know it's not up to you? You are surrounded by strength, held aloft by power that is not yours. Stop flying! It's not up to you to get this plane home."
He looked at me as if I were crazy and told me to buzz off.
I so hope you won't. Some of you need to sit down. You fly furiously back and forth, ever busy, always thinking the success of this journey is up to you. Do you fear letting up?
Look out the windows. God's wings sustain you. God's engines empower you. You can flap like a fly and not accelerate this flight. It's your job to sit and trust: to receive.
Accept his power. You be the glove and let him get his hand deep into your life.
Surrender to his plan...

So if this is prayer-guidance for me to offer for us and for this one revealed as the Fly, then I offer this:

May we open ourselves to You, God, and become less self-reliant.
May we open ourselves to You, God, and become less locked in a hopeless sense of responsibility.
May we open ourselves to You, God, and receive all that is in Your hand to give us.
And,
May we open ourselves to You, God, and accept the assignment of being early starlight in a twilight world.

The Call to the Fly

(Another one of those stories/affirmations I'd give you on the phone because it is too freaky for the blog, except you're so busy this week, I'll put it here for you to read at your leisure. I wonder if we'd ever blog--particularly this stuff--if you didn't travel so much?)

You dreamed your airplane dream again the last time you were here at home...where you sat in the front of the plane and you and someone else voluntarily moved to the back when a need for such a move arose. This time, the cockpit was open so that you could see the pilot's activity when you were in the front. Your evaluation of the dream was that as God calls another alongside us to accomplish His purpose through us, you may not be the one chosen to convey the information to this other person...maybe not be the one to recruit, but rather be one to step back and accept this person's assignment in our mission. Maybe that person will hear directly from God, I responded, and will come to us by some strange providence. I can now say that I have had a dream, too, one that may confirm these assumptions of our forward progress in this thing.

I dreamed one of those short, mysterious-image dreams. In this one, I simply saw my right hand holding a cell phone, but my hand was surrounded by flies. Flies moving lazily, not exactly swarming, and never landing on me, but staying there around my right hand...the electrified hand of activity in the bread-cutting covenant dream I had, the hand marked by God in another dream...but here: flies around it and a phone in it.

I was considering this idea of flies, thinking Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub, all kinds of dark morbid things like that--a common starting point for a trek of faith: it starts slogging forward from a swampy entry point on its way to better footing soon enough. But then, I put just flies into the concordance of an online Bible and I found two verses that seemed to explain the dream...one a warning the other a prediction.

Eccl 10:1--"Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor." Good warning there: no folly. Been there, done that, didn't like it...so keep me from folly, God. Easy thing to ask. But then comes the mystery.

The flies in this dream were alive, not dead. So there is also this verse:
Isaiah 7:18--"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss (also translates whistle, call) for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt and for the bee (literally Deborah, as in my name, which is Hebrew for bee) that is in the land of Assyria."
I am the bee and you are the land, a rock crushed to mingle and mix with the water that marks the river of my baptism, things I blogged about not that long ago...the water that is apparently the home of the Fly. As I try to understand how this verse is being used to communicate with me, I feel like praying for this one here described as the fly: that the Fly might recognize himself as such, might hear the hiss of God even as we do...and not only that the Fly wil hear the call of God, but also that the Fly will respond, thereby giving honor to the One calling.

Chocolate Dreams

A few nights ago, I had a dream that never quite made it into my conscious waking mind. In it, I saw a globe with 3 or maybe 4 spots marked for activity. The only one I can remember is the last one: somewhere near the coast of China. But I know as each spot was marked, activity was accomplished there, resulting in the giving of a marvelous piece of chocolate. The chocolate was cylindrical in shape, with the two ends of solid chocolate and the middle section softer, with a crispy filling. It was wrapped in bright and colorful metalic paper. After each red dot showed a "mission accomplished" mark, a piece of chocolate was given. I woke regretting that I could remember no more than this. Partly, I wished I could remember the first few places marked for activity; but mostly I remember wishing I could remember the sensory impact of that chocolate. It had that hyper-reality quality that comes with these types of dreams, so the taste of it was literally divine. (smile) But I had a sense of God telling me that this dream wasn't really for my conscious mind at all, that sometimes a road must be made, a channel dug in the mind that is for later travel. So I appreciated what little I did get over in the conscious arena.
That was a couple of nights ago. Now today, I see this in the Saturday morning online news:

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. - As a chocolatier to the rich and famous, Martucci Angiano has posed with many celebrities — but on Thursday she held in her hand a figure that dazzles her more than any Hollywood star.
Workers at Angiano's gourmet chocolate company, Bodega Chocolates, discovered under a vat a 2-inch-tall column of chocolate drippings that they believe bears a striking resemblance to the Virgin Mary.
Since the discovery Monday, Angiano's employees have spent much of their time hovering over the tiny figure, praying and placing rose petals and candles around it.
"I was raised to believe in the Virgin Mary, but this still gives me the chills," Angiano said as she balanced the dark brown figure in her hand. "Everyone should see this."
Kitchen worker Cruz Jacinto was the first to spot the lump of melted chocolate when she began her shift Monday cleaning up drippings that had accumulated under a large vat of dark chocolate.
Chocolate drippings usually harden in thin, flat strips on wax paper, but Jacinto said she froze when she noticed the unusual shape of this cast-off: It looked just like the Virgin Mary on the prayer card she always carries in her right pocket.
"When I come in, the first thing I do is look at the clock, but this time I didn't look at the clock. My eyes went directly to the chocolate," said Jacinto, dressed in a hair net and apron as she paused from her work. "I thought, 'Am I the only one who can see this? I picked it up and I felt emotion just come over me. For me, it was a sign."
The chocolate, on display for most of the week in the front of the company gift shop, now rests in a plastic case in a back room and is brought out only for curious visitors.
The stack of hardened confection has a wide base and tapers gently toward a rounded top, giving the appearance of a female figure with her head tilted slightly to the right. The dark brown melting chocolate hardened into subtle layers that resemble the folds of a gown and a flowing veil.
A tiny white circle, about the size of a pencil eraser, sits in the upper center of the creation, just above a slight ridge that runs across it. Cruz says the white speck is the head of the Baby Jesus as he is held in Mary's folded arms.
For Jacinto, the discovery came just in time. Raising a son on her own, she has struggled with marital problems for months and says she was about to lose her faith.
"I have big problems right now, personally, and lately I've been saying that God doesn't exist," she said, pulling the dog-eared prayer card out of her pocket. "This has given me renewed faith."

I'm seeing under the water line on this iceberg again, I guess.

Spirituality and the Art of Preschool Soccer

When the baseball diamonds at the sports complex have grown their strong and thriving ant civilizations, you know it is time. Time to take to the grass and start kicking a soccer ball around. This hallmark season is our third one (as a family) for preschool soccer. I learn more each time I have a son go through the experience.
I learn things like:

When you go to practice, one of the first things you are taught is equipment care. You don't sit on the ball, even though at any given moment it might seem the most comfortable and therefore most logical thing to do. You know nothing about consequences like deflation yet, however you don't have to be smacked by a flat ball to learn, because you're still young and you trust your coach enough to do what he says. At least for as long as you can remember what he says...

And even though on some level you understand that the bright orange practice cone is for drills and skill building, you also know it makes a great mega-phone and--when put together with the ball--makes a nice imitation of a giant ice cream cone. Of course, you must display these discoveries for your teammates until the coach patiently comes and takes the cone away and puts it back on the ground. As soon as the coach turns to work with another player, you pick the cone up again.

You know that the ball is supposed to be kicked into the goal, but you also know that it is a lot more fun to go behind the goal and kick the ball so it rolls up the back of the net, arcing back at you...and many of your friends join you because they, too, believe this to be more fun than simply making goals.

While your team has a pow-wow with the coach, one player simply wanders off to socialize with another team practicing nearby. This teammate has not been launched as a spy; he just discovered that someone on that team has the same shin guards he has...and besides that team is not saying or doing anything worth a scout's attention anyway.

You discover to your amazement that it is possible to get kicked hard enough to bring tears; and even stranger, the kick is random and blameless and part of the game. No one was mad at you or out to hurt you, it just happened. So you learn to "shake it off."

And even with all that tortoise-paced advancement in readiness, you still somehow arrive at that first game day with your colors on. You manage to get through a real game; and even though you may not really know who won and who lost, you nevertheless know that you always shake hands with the guys in the other color at the end. Then, you get a pat on the head from the coach, and some mom gives you a really good snack.

And that's the end of that story...no moral. Because morals are for later...after a few more seasons...maybe when you're in the 9-10 year old leagues.

Another way to be bread...

Well, you're home now. The first flurry and thrill of being home again for you all has passed, but we have not quite arrived at the time where normalcy returns to its grooves of friction. Not quite yet....it never hits that friction for you and me...it is a thing for the kids...

No, with you and me, it is often just like it is now: I read a funny and tender book and chuckle beside you, you drift off into a Sunday afternoon snooze after a long week dragging stuffed animals and car seats along with you. You're the man! You're my hero! Really! And as you drift off to sleep, you mumble something. I lean over you, "What, honey?" You say it one more time: "I'm so happy to be married to you."

I forget sometimes to breath deep for the smell of bread baking is delicious! I forget that there are other kinds of bread, and other ways to engage in not-so-rich communion between lovers. Even laying here beside you, I read this young man's musings about his experience with the ideas of bread and a woman he loved:

"A beautiful girl. My first girlfriend and I miss her. But she and I were never meant to be. She was in between boyfriends and was too pretty to go without. I was there like a number in a bakery. She pulled the ticket, glanced at it, and waited to exchange me for some loaf of bread or cake or pie or feeling that she was beautiful. I'm just the sap who adored her and wanted to hold her hand or sit close or look into her eyes. But I gave her the slip. Came right out of her hands before she could claim her prize and I bet you, I bet you a million dollars she doesn't even remember that number. She'll just pull another ticket, glance at it, and wait for them to call her out. She won't remember the things I said and won't realize I had never said them to another girl. She'd heard them before and it all ran together like bad poetry. You could see it in her eyes when I talked to her. You could hear it in the way she said thank you when I complimented her dress or the color of her eyes. And I suppose if I'm honest with myself, truly honest, I'd have to say I loved her."

I forget sometimes to be grateful. I forget that there are other men in the world whose hearts are like yours and now and then it occurs to me to pray them well-wishes. As women, we are encouraged to think about all sorts of types of men and the things a world of men might expect from us; it is easy to find such a thought fraught with despair: I could never be all of those things! I heard Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade last night. It is like that sometimes...a woman like me thinks that each night--even up to 1001 nights--the story must be so eloquent, so engaging that it holds death at bay for one more day. But now it is not the particular sheikh that drives the feelings of pressure, it is sadly in some ways a Christian culture thing. And outside this small circle where women learn submission, I forget that there are women like the one above, and the men who love them to their own loss. I forget to be grateful that we have found a quiet cove where none of these waters seep in.

I guess some of my thoughts also come from my watching Shadowlands yesterday with its poignant theme: the elixir of love promises that for every ounce of happiness that flows into the cup there is also an ounce of pain, the awareness and then actual life of inevitable separation at the moment of death, and yet the love is so rich as to be worth it.

And some of my thoughts spring from the fact that you have all been gone for the week, but I have you back now...

And as I trace my way along every spoke in this stream-of-consciousness wheel, each one I see leads to the same center: gratitude. I'm so happy to be married to you, too.

And when I cast my list off, I see...

...I discover these things that have each visited me at least three, and sometimes more, times in random fashion over the last few days. Sometimes you defy me to make sense of the things that appear in your world. I extend to you, my love, the same challenge. Make sense of these things that keep floating up from the submerged parts of the iceberg:

• broken down cars with their hoods up: first evidence was seeing what I would have sworn was our son's car in this state, only to see the man walking down the road dejectedly was not after all our son...then happening by on my way home at the exact moment that he and his "savior" arrived to deal with his break-down. The probability that I should witness both his breakdown and his rescue are phenomenal to my mind, but it happened. And not just that, but stories of similar broken-down, hood left up moments... in books, cartoons, etc.
• the word "stain" and its counterpart "stainless" showing up an inordinate amount in multiple sources other than laundry soap commercials.

and finally...

• trolls...which were even in Dilbert this past week.

You say you're not good with the vague stuff that seems to be Divinely given to you from time to time, my dear. Now you see why I can sometime interpret for you those things that seem to have no rhyme nor reason, and why? Because these are the types of synchronicities that lurk in my world. At last, the premiere reason for the List: to serve as an anchor keeping me in the world of the sane. (I'd giggle here, but that might come across as crazy.)

Alone with My List of Things to Do

I talk too much. Actually, the way it expresses itself here is that I type too much. Today is my last Greta Garbo day...my family returns tomorrow. I counted back...it has been at least a decade since I spent all night alone in a residence. I've been in a hotel by myself a couple of times when my husband sent me on a "get-away" but this has been different, no one yelling just outside my bedroom door destroying the illusion of privacy. So now, alone--without anyone to interrupt me or start crying because they "forgot their word" while I was talking--alone like this I ramble on like a blathering idiot, making up for that decade of intermittent breaks in sequential thought.

Three days and nights with no one around. So who am I when no one is in my periphery?

I am a student who gushes essays into cyber space.
I am a minimalist athlete...biking and swimming.
I am a friend on both phone and computer forum.
I am a person who remembers how to entertain myself to the point of sloth.
I don't sleep.
I thought I'd be a cleaner and an organizer, but that ain't happening.
I eat very little, but pretty healthy.
I've basked in the glory of self-appointed activity, but...
...I continue to feel guilty about the things I've not accomplished these few days...

I guess I should now stop whining about this ethereal List of Things I'd get done if I only had the time. I've had three days and nothing on the List is done. Maybe part of me wants an unfinished list...but why? To have cause to wrap up in that scratchy blanket of familiarity called "you're a failure"? Bah. Maybe it is to have something to live for, to keep me waking up the next day. But that reason for the List is even more depressing. So bah to that, too. Maybe, just maybe...shoot, I lost it. I had a really profound reason for the List, too...oh yeah...power. If it is there and I can refuse to do it, then I am the one making the decisions and the work and the obligation are not driving me. (Whew, glad I was able to retrieve that one.) So I guess the purpose of the List is not so much what is on it as the fact that it exists at all, probably for all of the reasons above but mostly the last one. In the words of my oldest son, spoken when he was but five and not feeling so powerful: "At least I'm the boss of my coat." I'm with you, son, at least I'm the boss of my List.

I'll relinquish my list to God tomorrow. Well, I'll relinquish it today, but I'll talk about it tomorrow. For today, I've already talked enough.

The Water Dream Mystery Solved...

Back on July 10, I wrote here in the blog that you and Nolan both dreamed about swimming in street clothes, dreamed it on the same night of all things.
Your dream:
You know how we came to a sense of clarity and a type of resignation to how things were supposed to "work?" You know how you were laying this week in front of God for Him to make any revisions He might want before you went into action on what He has already said? Then you had the strange dream last night where you were ordering at a burger joint before going to a place that from a distance looked like hills and lakes but turned into a swimming complex of many pools. That this was a place where you had worked before, but now it was a lot more high tech. Nolan was there and tried to get into a frozen one. You pulled him back behind the fencing around this strange pool. As for your own interactions with the water, you jumped in fully dressed and surfaced to put your wallet and keys on the side.

Nolan's dream:
...Listen to what Nolan dreamed. He dreamed he was at something that seemed to him to be like an amusement park, only he couldn't see any of the rides. All he could see was a tall mountain that was in the center of a huge lake. You could jump off the side of the mountain and swim, or you could parachute down from the top to the lake below and swim. He had dreamed of this place before, but when he was there in a previous dream, he was alone. This time, you and Elijah and two men were with him. He said you worked at a diner affiliated with the park the whole time, but that he jumped off the mountain and swam. He said the funny thing was that none of you were wearing swimsuits, you just swam in your regular clothes.

You asked God to state His revisions, and He answered you, although we were too obtuse to see it's meaning. These dreams were His revision. Sorry it took me until this morning to see where that uncommon image connected with Scripture. Like I said the other day about revelation knowledge, when it is first given it is an image that seems odd or incongruous, but then when its meaning becomes clear, your first thought is, "But how did I not see this immediately?" It is the story about when Simon (meaning the impetuous) really became Peter, the Rock--not so surprising you'd be connected to him, eh? He'd been called Peter by Christ prophetically, but here he received his commissioning.

John 21:
...Simon Peter, Thomas nicknamed the Twin, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the brothers Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. Simon Peter announced, "I'm going fishing."

The rest of them replied, "We're going with you." They went out and got in the boat. They caught nothing that night. When the sun came up, Jesus was standing on the beach, but they didn't recognize him.
Jesus spoke to them, "Good morning! Did you catch anything for breakfast?"
They answered, "No."
He said, "Throw the nets off the right side of the boat and see what happens."
They did what he said. All of a sudden there were so many fish in it, they weren't strong enough to pull it in.
Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, "It's the Master!"
When Simon Peter realized that it was the Master, he threw on some clothes, for he was stripped for work, and dove into the sea.


That was from the Message, The King James says, "Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment (for he had removed it) and plunged into the sea." (John 21:7)

Significant things that followed in Peter's story are:

• When he reached shore, Christ already had fish cooking, but added more from their catch, from the 153 that He'd miraculously led them to find.
• He restored Peter in a way connected to the specific features of how Peter had denied Him...three times denied made for three opportunities to restate his personally perceived relationship with Christ.
• Immediately thereafter, Peter was commissioned to feed Christ's sheep. During the three times of asking for Peter's affirmation, Christ reverted back to calling him Simon, dropping the name Rock...giving the man the privilege of changing his position...but despite prior circumstances pointing to his continued destiny as a Simon (impetuous), he nevertheless did go on to became a Rock, just as Christ had predicted many days before that one.

No wonder you and Nolan both saw these things the same night...for it is indeed a great commission. Seems like whenever something comes by spiritual messenger to you or me in dreams, one of the children picks up on it and dreams something that adds even more depth and texture. (One of the coolest things about being family.)

What to think about from here? That you rose up to put your wallet and keys on the side is what has now captured my attention. Also, that Nolan saw you working in a diner the whole time, and in the Bible story Christ was cooking a meal for them.

What to pray about from here? These feeling you're having, feelings of restlessness about your occupation, a dissatisfaction that is larger than just your ache over being away from your family so much. Hmmmmmm.

Unabashed Plagerism

Shamelessly stealing this one from Wildman Vern, because it is too funny to lose in a less-familiar quadrant of cyber space...also because it is one you'd love, my dear, but is currently displayed in an area you don't frequent...and I figure this week--since you have the boys on the road with you--you could use every laugh you can get. (wink)

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on "THIS" side of the road before it goes after the problem on the "OTHER SIDE" of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his "CURRENT" problems before adding "NEW" problems.

OPRAH: Well I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here

DONALD RUMSFELD: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

ANDERSONCOOPER/CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am for it now, and will remain against it.

JUDGE JUDY: That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain. Alone.

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other side." That's why they call it the "other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side." That chicken should not be free to cross the road. It's as plain and simple as that!

GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together - in peace.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2006, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. Internet explorer is an integral part of eChicken. The Platform is much more stable and will never cra...#@&&^ ( C \..... reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken!

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

I love you because...

From a post on a forum that mirrors things I've been trying to verbalize and wanting to blog, but only found the words today...
This is a thought that has struck me, too, in the last few days...
I see it in the sentence "I love you because___________."
That from our earliest understanding we say to God, "I love You because You first loved me."
But that God has no "because" in His vocabulary, since He loved us "while we were yet sinners."

That my experience of love with people can feel heavy, being littered with so many "because" requirements--things meant to make me feel special but that often only make me feel tired.

But that my experience of love with God says He is one who makes flowers no one ever sees, and butterflies that come from cocoons to no applause...and because there is no because in the beauty of the world He made, I find rest.

The waters prepared for baptism....

I noticed the following comment on a forum I follow...
However, I know the Bible wants us to give all glory to God, and that we should strive to please Him, and not to desire the praise of men. Is it okay to want both? This issue has been in my heart for quite some time and, admittedly, I am ashamed of even considering it. Yes, I want to be praised for what good I do (through God's grace alone, for I can do nothing good apart from God...no one can), but at the same time, do I really deserve it? Is it selfish to want to be noticed when I serve others, or do good things, or am just myself? Perhaps also...is it possible to forsake men's praise and live on God's praise alone? Hm...

These thoughts seem strange and far away to me now, my love, as we have come to a place where human praise is naturally a distant arena. A great but private joy comes in times like these, when we are graced by startling revelation...your dream reversal being a case in point.

So now, we are here on a plateau after a steep harrowing climb, but we are not looking for crowds to be in this place not so that any man should see where we have been, what we have fought and conquered and so applaud us; no, not so that the things we do should be praised, but rather that the people we be should prove full of the essence of God, pure within us and given free expression through us. For a time, the praises of men may matter in this walk with God, but eventually they lose their savor, completely encompassed by this salt of higher flavor.

So here is the next step taken toward this baptism I am to know, this covenant I have been given. Yet again, the imagery is affirmed, not just to you, but also to me: I read a verse in Isaiah, and as I trace its Hebrew word meanings and their roots, here is what it says, and here is what it can say.

What it says: "In measure, by sending it away, you contended with it. He removed it with His rough wind in the day of the east wind. Therefore by this, the iniquity of of Jacob will be covered. And this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altar like chalkstones that are beaten to dust, wooden images and incense altars shall not stand."
Isaiah 27:8

What it can say in the Hebrew root words: By casting out or sending away the third that terrifies her, by your pleading it be taken away: you faced that hard servitude, that vain empty thing, that impatience, that unaccountable impulse driven by the feminine force sometimes put to describe--yet other times put in opposition to--the transfer of Shekinah (glowing) glory. In the heat of that day, the scorching wind brought by this (being a feminine pronoun) one will cover his "crime of ending." He will be pardoned, freed from charge. And the offspring or result of this atoning for his misstep will be to make for a sign: a stone shattered, dashed to pieces into powder and scattered to mark the ending of all false gods.

I think about the dream I had about the spiritual baptism I am oh-so-slowly in the process of receiving. I think of how in that vision, you were like glacier-made rock flour in the river that washed over me. For a time, I feared that because your place in this dream was as something inanimate and of the nature of dust-returned-to-dust, that this meant I would lose you in a human way; but the nature of faith is such that it tarries and does not necessarily believe the night-terror but waits for the dawn and the peace that comes with the light. Te light began to break on the horizon when I had the dream in which the Voice spoke as I woke and said, "Your sins of 2000 are forgiven, your sins of 2001 are not." In 2001, we made some permanent changes in life, things we never would have done had we seen them as usurping of Divine authority. When He opened our eyes, we laid all that before God, and He hit the reset button. The re-boot is finished, and the rock-flour makes sense. You became rock flour because you had attained the necessary pardoning and were visibly transformed out of any former life of self-interest and self-reliance.

....you are there now, my love, and very much alive...but now, not just a stone to be seen in its alone-strength. Instead, you are as rock turned to powder, no different in substance, but rather less visible in individuality, better because now you can bring that pewter gleam to the waters, and that unique aroma. Do you remember how I loved being near such waters in Alaska? How I could have stood there breathing the smell of them all day? I guess part of me knew, even then, that you would be in them this way.

Delight Doubled

A forum friend goes off to seminary. This photo comes from her blog entry called "Delight" and moved my soul so much I wanted to paste it here...to remember all the better the feeling I have today.

The grooming of a prophet...this is what I see happening to you, my love.
Ezekiel had his valley of bones:
Eze 37:1
The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which [was] full of bones,
Eze 37:2
And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, [there were] very many in the open valley; and, lo, [they were] very dry.
Eze 37:3
And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.
And you have had yours.

Isaiah had his cleansing fire and his calling:
Isa 6:1
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Isa 6:5
Then said I, Woe [is] me! for I am undone; because I [am] a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
Isa 6:6
Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, [which] he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
Isa 6:7
And he laid [it] upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
Isa 6:8
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here [am] I; send me.

And you have had yours. And we have had ours.


So today I am the one in this beautiful picture I found, glorying in the gold that you are becoming. That I am your wife is a wondrous mystery to me. For yours is every day a purer calling, seven times refined.

Invisible Ink

Yesterday I wrote this to a friend:
Here is what happened to me when I tried to read your document...only the title, scripture from Romans, and the words of Solomon showed up, the rest was invisible: dark words against a dark background; but when I highlighted it and pasted it onto a white page, it was all there.
This is a thing I've been seeing lately, not just in this instance, but also with white words disappearing against a white background...

Today I see this in the news:
Ancient Writings Revealed!After figuring out the answer to a problem, the mathematician and engineer Archimedes once shouted "Eureka!" and ran naked through the streets. The enthusiastic Sicilian lived between 287-212 B.C., and is widely recognized today as one of the most important minds of ancient Greece. At some point along the way, the science whiz recorded some of his ideas on a papyrus manuscript. In the Middle Ages, though, a monk wrote over the manuscript to create a prayer book. It wasn't until 1906 that the underlining layer of Archimedes' writing was discovered. And it wasn't until August 4, 2006 (today!) that an x-ray at the Stanford Synchotron Radiation Laboratory cut through the monk's notations to read the Greek text below. Or so the Exploratorium, Stanford University, and the National Science Foundation hope. Follow along on their live webcast as the x-ray examines the 1,000-year-old document and the results are transmitted simultaneously around the world. We'll be listening for shouts of "Eureka!"

So regarding the invisible words phenomenon, I see that You have indeed put before my love and me a page that we know contains words, vitally important words, but for now they are invisible ones, hidden beneath the obvious ones...and it is Your wish that we see these words. So I lift this song for us with the Psalmist who said, "Make me understand what you want; for then I shall see your miracles." Psalm 119:27 and this "I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path." Psalm 119:104. Help us see your invisible words. Help us understand Your will for each of us and each for the other. Help us look deeper than the question "why?" Give us insight into each other's questions and inspiration. Help us identify with each other in Your ways. You created us both, and You lead what happens to us together. Help us bring out the best in each other! We know the answers we need, both the obvious ones and the ones in invisible ink...ink scraped and written over with new words...these answers will nevertheless be found in You.

Prodigal People

(an update for those who have prayed with us for reconciliation of a father and a son)


Tonight for the first time, we can picture what he is doing.
the boy,
who sits drawing
at his kitchen table or on his bed.

For the first time, we know he wonders
about you
and how he may resemble you.
Did you (his father) like to draw?
he asked his mother.
His mother said she didn't think so.
But some day we hope he learns
that his half-brother draws
even if his mother and father don't.

Small things,
but huge
in the former context of hopelessness.

I think of a photo:
you holding him
when he was newborn.
Like all infants, he carried no distinction
but that which showed in the expression
of one who gazed upon him.

I didn't love myself enough back then
to see what your face was saying to the child.
I just felt threatened.
And you didn't love yourself enough back then
to trust me--or even yourself--
with the full knowing.
You just felt threatened.
But we are different now.

And so you had coffee with his mother this morning.
Do you ever remember when some good things happened?
you asked, and then gave
a tangible example of something long-gone.
A small thing; but still, her eyes grew distant,
and her remembering was not bitter.
So maybe she, too, is loving herself a little more.

And the pictures you have now are ones she just gave you,
ones he drew
...maybe even for you.

Small things,
but huge
in the former context of hopelessness.

"coffee and life"

In keeping with my reverie on coffee, especially in relation to spilling it being a metaphor for spilling grace and good favor, a new relationship with the wonderful stuff came before my eyes today via the forum where I have membership.

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the Professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups -porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for youto want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other's cups. Now consider this: Life is the coffee, and the jobs, money, clothes, houses, cars, motorcycles and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and do not change the quality of Life. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided." So, don't let the cups drive you, enjoy the coffee instead

The moral of the story for us I think, my love, is that whatever we do, it mustn't be driven by the cup we hold, but by the substance the cup contains. And this is not as easy as it seems.
Now reaching to my left on the desk I see it is indeed time to go get a refill...

...As for my favorite cups to use: they are the ones you bring me as souvenirs from all over the country, the big ones that I use so that I don't have to go up and down the stairs so often, the ones I use unless the kids have beaten me to them, using them as substitute cereal bowls. (grin)

The Waters of Hope

When the water comes we'll be a river
touching places we can not envision
as we serve here, at its source.

When the waters come we'll be a spring
notably hot or cold, but never tepid.

When the waters come we'll be a fountain
relinquishing all we receive to powerful diffusing jets,
jets that send the water places it could never naturally go.

When the water comes we'll be a river
crossing great distance
persistently getting around any barrier.


When the waters come we'll be a spring
glittering elemental
and unpolluted.







When the waters come we'll be a fountain
taking water at its most basic presentation
and putting it on artful, splashing display.

But for now,
I am the Samaritan woman,
standing by the well of Jacob
in the noon day heat
when no shame will confront me;


and you are David,
longing for the waters
from the Bethlehem well
as you are battle weary and thirsting.



But I will become the world's first missionary,
to those I assumed despise me,
but who instead believe.
And you will spill those waters the mighty ones bring you.
Waters of personal satisfaction poured out as an offering.


For in the end,
When the water comes we'll be a river
incorporating other branches as we flow
until we all become rushing power and invisible depth.

When the waters come we'll be a spring
a secret source who must be sought to be found
but who nevertheless will refresh distant lands.

When the waters come we'll be a fountain
splashing, sending ions of good feeling
into the air all around.








And in the very end,
When the water comes
we'll be a tide pool
whose memory and longing
to return to the sea
will be answered.