Wordless Wednesday 11/26/08

What's It All About?

A few days ago, my son told me that he was "the most sensitive." Okay... So I asked, "Most sensitive of who?" "Of all your kids. 'Cause I'm the youngest."

Maybe he is.

This morning, before we dressed him in his combat soldier costume (because that's what a sensitive boy wears, right?) he squeeked out a question: "You know what it's all about mom?" I had to come in close for this answer. I sat next to him wrapped up in his favorite blanket and asked, "What's it all about, buddy?"

"God."

Wow...

.

Small

Small (adverb): softly; in a low voice; without strength or force; weakly; into little pieces

Sometimes, I feel small and scared. Like I'm vulnerable to any harm that might come my way. I become insecure in my insignificance. As though I have no protection against the world. I think of my babies... the moment I first held them... knowing that it was my responsibility to take care of them and keep them from harm. It was an awesome responsibility. One that I wasn't always successful at. One that, in my brokenness and anger, I screwed up more than I care to admit.

And I wonder if I deserve to feel anything but small...

Sometimes when I sit on the beach, I'm aware of my insignificant role in the world. I'm dwarfed by the horizon layed out in front of me, so vast that my vision bends at the corners. On the edge of the world, I am still very aware that I am loved. And I try so hard not to project my human frailties and mistakes on the God of the Universe. Instead, I try to let the horizon comfort me. The waves always sound like the hearty laughter of a proud father. The sun always feels like a tender kiss on my forehead. In that place, where I am so small, I feel so wonderfully significant.

I feel like a precious daughter.

I don't know that I've ever been so concerned about the world in my entire life. I don't know that I've ever felt this vulnerable before. I don't know that I have ever been at a place where I can't choose a leader. When I didn't know that everything would be okay. And as scary as that is to me, I realize that I should never put so much trust in one fallible man. There is more... and we are more... and life is more... and God is so big...

And I am small... and vulnerable... and still precious.

.

A Dysfunctional Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a Sweet Little Girl who lived in a foreign land, trapped in a castle that was not hers. No matter how much she smiled or laughed, the King and Queen of that horrid land were rarely amused. They declared her a nuisance. How were they to be bothered with her needs with so many more pressing, more important issues to deal with. They had a daughter cursed to die and another cursed to cry about the people in infomercials about acne. "Go away!" they would say. The Sweet Little Girl learned early to keep to herself and especially...

not to bother anyone.

She spent time visiting with the Fairy Godmother that sometimes lived at the castle, depending on the state of her marriage. Some days, the Sweet Little Girl could find comfort in sitting with the Fairy Godmother, listening to her stories and learning her old ways. But other times, the Fairy Godmother's blood sugar would be too low and she'd zap her with the wand or emit nasty criticism and other harsh shreaking-eel type noises. This scared the Little Girl very much... almost as much as carnies... but not quite as much as circus clowns.

So she made up an invisible life all her own.

She made up stories. And people. And all kinds of grand adventures. She began talking to herself in the mirror, describing these wonderful tales. This odd behavior did not amuse the King and Queen. AT. ALL. So as not to be embarrassed, they locked her in the tower. But she was good with a paper clip and locks and soon escaped. Once she jumped to the ground (single level tower), she ran as fast as her Sweet Little Legs could take her. Unfortunately, during her escape through the Wicked Forest, she ran into lots of Lions and Tigers and Bears. No carnies, though, thank goodness. Escaping from the wicked animals of the Wicked Forest was pretty tricky, and sometimes, she got scars when she tripped and fell. Some of those scars were ugly... and deep... and embarrassing.

After what seemed like a lifetime (but really only the first few chapters), she came upon much nicer digs.

She found the New Land of the Wise and Caring King. She knew that he was the Real King (not the phony baloney ones that locked her in the tower). She longed to petition this benevolent Lord to rid her of the deep scars that she had been hiding. The ones that wouldn't go away. Even the really embarrassing ones. But she feared bothering Him with her insignificant needs. After all, He had more important things to do. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Solve our Universal Health Care issues...

Why would He want to help her?

Still, she wondered, "Could it be true what they say? Could He really take on my hurts and heal my scars??" She decided to step out in Faith. She asked if He could make the scars magically go away if she just volunteered enough. He said, "No, not a good idea." That wasn't at all the answer the Sweet Little Girl wanted to hear. He told her that she was forgiven. (Whew!) Next, she had to forgive others, after which she naturally replied, "You know... I kinda like these scars." But after a while, she thought, well that was stupid! So she began to forgive. The King and Queen that didn't know any better. The tempermental Fairy Godmother that didn't always take her meds. The Lions and Tigers and Bears.

And eventually, Herself.

And soon... the scars started to fade. Not completely. But you can barely see them anymore. Better than that, she began to live! She felt happier than she had ever felt before! She knew it wasn't always going to be a cake walk. But she also knew that whatever it was, she and the King could handle it... one hand tied behind her back, even!

The End. Oops! I mean...

The Beginning.

...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today is my thirty-eighth birthday!

I tell you the age because I am gloriously happy to BE my age and to look and feel like I do. I never thought it would be this good... not even when the "old" ladies I knew in my twenties told me that this would be the time of my life. They were right, of course. This is the time when life starts to make sense AND you still have the body to enjoy it! SWEET!

Last night, I went to bed with some words from Marianne Williamson's book, A Woman's Worth. I woke up with a smile on my face. I want to give a gift to all of the women I know and those that I have yet to meet. These are the words that lulled me to sleep on my last night as a thirty-seven year old:

"Joy is our goal, our destiny. We cannot know who we are except in joy. Not knowing joy, we do not know ourselves. When we are without joy, we grope in the dark. When we are centered in joy, we attain our wisdom. A joyful woman, by merely being, says it all. The world is terrified of joyful women. Make a stand. Be one anyway.

Joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things are. Joy is not necessarily what happens when things unfold according to our own plans. How often that's happened -- we married the [right] man, had the children, got the job -- and we've still known despair. Joy is what happens when we see that God's plan is PERFECT and we're already starring in a perfect show. It demands that we have the audacity to embrace the knowledge of just how beautiful we really are and how infintely powerful we are RIGHT NOW -- without changing a thing -- through the grace that's consistenlty born and reborn within us.

...Such an embrace is not arrogant but humble; it is not crazy but realistic. It is an appraisal of our lives through the eyes God gives us...

...Perhaps joy can be practiced. Perhaps we can decide to BE happy, to give joy before waiting to receive it. This is not denial but affirmation of the power inside us... Then we become the ones who teach the meaning of joy to our children, as well as allowing them to teach it to us. We bring joy to one another, to men, to children, to God. Just knowing we're meant to do this increases its presence within us. Our deciding to be joyful demonstrates our willingness to relinquish the petty and negative preoccupations that stand in the way. When we give these up, a more joyful life has a chance to emerge."

JOY IS THE GOAL. This day and all the days that follow are the beautiful journey. Much love and joy to you on this, my thirty-eighth birthday!

Hugs,
Sugar

...

When the student is ready...

I read an interesting Hero Quest story today about a woman who faces great challenges and overcomes fears in order to soothe an angry husband recently home from battle, wounded and desiring nothing but isolation. The woman asks for guidance from a wise person in her village to help her cajole her husband back to the sanctuary of their marriage. She is sent off into the unknown for a hair. Stay with me... she climbs a mountain, gradually gains the trust of a bear by feeding him, asks for a hair from his neck, is granted the request, and half scared but mostly optimistic, runs back to the village. All I want at this point in the story is to read about the magic elixir that will make my angry husband change and love our family the way we deserve.

Will she never learn, you ask?

When the woman returns to the village, the wise person takes the hair, inspects it to make sure that yes, in fact, this woman did do as required. That she did conquer fear and insecurity for the love of the wounded husband. The hair is then thrown into a fire, seemingly oblivious to the harrowing quest taken up by the selfless (and at this point, I'm thinking, stupid) wife. She screams "WHY?" The wise person says to now in turn do the same for the husband.

Huh?

What the hell? I'm supposed to risk life and limb to get my husband to come inside? Just because he's an angry jacka$$? What the heck kind of codependent crap was this storyteller trying to peddle? Is it just ME? I began to wonder if this was how "wise people" kept women in subservient roles for so long. But then as I read the explanation, I realized that I was once again reading with the wrong pair of glasses. The husband wasn't a husband.

He IS my psyche.

The husband is representative of the wounded part of us, wanting to isolate and wallow in our pain. The wife is the kind nature inside each of us who wants so desperately to cover the scars with the salve of love. It is in the quest, the scary moments, the times we rise above our fears and accept all of life's challenges, that we become stronger and more resilient. And in that strength, we are able to bring our wounded self back into the shelter. But who is the wise person that sends us on this journey to face a fear, knowing that we will be okay? That we will become whole?

God.

My life verse is found in the Old Testament, in Isaiah. It's an amazing book of looking back on the wounds and looking forward on the healing. It's the eternal promise of God to bring us back into the sanctuary of His Love. The things in life that we wanted might have robbed us of our innocence and brought home to our loving nature a wounded warrior. With the help of God and his written promise, His Logos, we are able to be restored to the wonderful beings we were meant to be. With His grace and guidance, we WILL bloom again:

Isaiah 51:3

"The LORD will surely comfort Zion
and will look with compassion on all her ruins;
He will make her deserts like Eden,
her wastelands like the garden of the LORD.
Joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and the sound of singing."

AMEN!

...

What Countdown?

Unlike the rest of humanity, I am not anxiously counting the minutes left to shop and cook and mail and blah-dee-blah-blah. I am enjoying the quiet of the New Mexico mountains, regardless of the grumpy in-laws that come with the view.

This morning, the kids decorated a tree that Grandma Kettle cut from the property. Once our homeschool lessons were completed, they warmed up with some chicken noodle soup and went out to throw snowballs at each other. I stayed in to read. I have been picking up, at every chance possible, Eat Pray Love and acquiring a new appreciation for eastern meditation. Every now and then, I text my husband with some small necessity I forgot. He'll be driving out in a few days to join us with a few gifts and the left-behind items. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I am trying to figure out how to get up to Madrid again... that funky little Marin-like town calls me like a mermaid to a sailor. All in all though, it's a very low key week.

I'm jolted back to the average citizens' realities when I see advertisement on TV with panicky announcements that there are only a few days and hours left to max out our credit cards and put ourselves into fiscal and emotional debt for the love of others. This is also the week that millions will stand in line for hours to mail packages that must arrive before the 25th lest the recipient on the other end only have nineteen forgettable gifts rather than twenty. Meals are being planned for fifty when only nine will be in attendance keeping Overeating at the top of our National Pastimes list.

It's at times like this that I truly appreciate my unconventionality.

I thought about the word so much last week... conventional. Convention. People... lots of people convening. Talking about and agreeing upon an idea... or thing... or ideas about things. All milling about in large echoing hallways shaking hands, smiling and talking loud and excitedly about their mutual purpose. Group think. Does anyone remember the Borg? Yikes.

Hussle and hassle all you want. I think I'm gonna go put my iPod in and go for a jog. It's so nice out. And while I'm jogging, I think I'll pray to my God. I think I'll look around at the beauty of this world and thank him for such a serene week. Oh yeah... and for sending his only begotten son so that I might live a beautiful eternity with Him.

Peace.