A Woman Scorned

Swore I Was Going to Charleston!

2012-01-31T19:37:00.000-08:00

The Day Before

2012-01-30T23:47:00.000-08:00

It's a quarter to midnight - almost the day before I start my new job.

I am up because I have the back-to-school yipps. You know what I mean, right? I am excited, nervous, scared and worried. Will the cool kids like me? Will I be the smartest kid in the class? What if I get lost?

Thank goodness I bought one of those suitcase scales. The first weigh in with my big suitcase it was 40# over weight. A good sign that I over packed, eh?

The hardest part so far...knowing that my traveling will make Ginger crazy. The Perkio's have Ginger for the next 11 days. Sweet Ryan sent me two photos already - one of Ginger playing ball in the backyard, and my favorite - Ginger in bed with Gavin. I hope she sleeps with him every night. She likes to cuddle and he is very cuddle-worthy!

Things are racing through my mind - mostly the desire to do well with what's left of my life.

A Whirlwind Life!

2012-01-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning and realized that I have just three days left at Amor. Three months shy of 19 years, I am leaving a ministry that truly shaped me into who I am.

This is an exerpt from a note I sent the Amor team:

I was able to be a part of an extended family of friends who helped me heal and love my family. I learned that love isn't conditional at Amor. I learned true grace at Amor. I learned to lead at Amor. I learned to believe in myself at Amor. I learned to trust the church again at Amor. I am who I am as a Christian, and I am who I am as an individual because of Amor. Especially because of Scott and Gayla's leadership and friendship. Because of our board of directors. Because of you. My faith was tested and grew stronger here. I am so very proud to be an alumni of this culture. And I have lived at the beach for almost 19 years (and going) because of Amor! My thanks go to each of you for the contributions you have made to make me strong and smart. I am a better person because of you.

Last July, I met with Scott, Gayla, and the Chairman of the Amor Board and informed them that I felt it was time to leave. We agreed that I would stay at Amor until August of 2012 or until I found a new position - which ever came first. Oh and for those who wonder what went wrong - nothing. My season at Amor closed when I heard God tell me to move on. Those who want to think something bad happened, there is nothing I can do to change your mind.

As you can imagine the job search is a challenge, but I was recently offered and accepted the position of Senior Enterprise Consultant with Blackbaud. Blackbaud is a leading provider of fund-raising and financial software for use in higher education and the non-profit community. Althought Blackbaud is based in Charleston, SC, I will be able to work from my home in San Diego, so life on the beach will continue - that is when I am home since the job requires a great deal of travel.

Even though my season of employment at Amor is over, my relationship with Amor will continue. I am helping edit a book Gayla is writing - due out in early 2013 - look for it! I will be leading the first of an annual Singles 3-Day mission trip to Tijuana over President's Day 2013. It will be fun to go from team member to volunteer. Besides I am planning to retire in Cienega. What's Cienega? Wait and see!

Open Secret

2011-12-06T14:06:00.001-08:00

God (and others) know I am not very good at keeping secrets about myself. I think too much out loud to maintain radio silence. For the record, I do my best to keep secrets that belong to others. The occasional error does happen; sorry if I broke that trust with you. I do try.

So back to me. I have been keeping my secret for a while now - since 2005. Six years qualifies as a personal best for me. Note to self: don't sprain anything trying to pat yourself on the back.

What has been a personal thought and concern has become a reality and an open secret.

open secret, noun: something supposedly secret but actually known quite generally.

After a great deal of prayer, consideration and tears, I made the decision in July of 2011 that it was time for me to leave Amor. You have no idea how simultaneously easy and difficult this was for me.

The ONE thing I am good at is knowing when my time is done on a project, in a relationship, and on a job. About six months (or six years) before I am sure, I start to feel the tug, and by the time I need to make the decision, I am so sure that I cannot be stopped. That was the easy part. I feel that prayer and wisdom have brought me to this point and it was time. I was and am at peace about my choice.

The difficult part was convincing others to be at peace with me. For 18 1/2 years, I have worked, loved, fought, hated, created, destroyed and served Amor. It is in my DNA. My best friend works for Amor. The most sage person I know works for Amor. The most creative leader I know works for Amor. I have learned from each of them and the rest of the team over the years.

So after some discussion, Amor and I came to the agreement that I would be gone by the end of August, 2012. The plan was that I would take a significant pay cut (along with the entire staff) go on staff at my church part-time and work part-time at Amor until I found another position. That didn't happen. So Amor kept me full-time for another three months so I didn't go homeless! Thank God!

In September, I attended a webinar about the job market and executive searches. The national average job search is 24 weeks. Average. I am no math major but I think that means for every person who falls into a job in just a few weeks, two people are looking for almost a year.

Oh and my favorite part...the average number of rejections - 200. Once again, using my primitive math, you have to apply to one hell of a lot of jobs.

Then, in November I went to 3/4 time (42% pay cut-gulp) still no other job, but stepping out in faith. Faith delivered my "holiday floor manager" at Macy's. They work me 25-37 hours per week. Between the two jobs, my ends "almost" meet. My family lent me money to pay rent in December...again thank God!

So I am 14 weeks and 84 applications into the process with 63 rejections. Not close to average yet! But I would be lying if I said this walk of faith is easy, because it IS NOT! I have been in the top 10 candidates a number of times, but never made it to the in-person interview. There are two positions that are currently courting me, but I am scared of both of them. What if I don't get it? What if I do get it? What if I need to move to another city? What if I stay in San Diego? What will I do if I can make more money? What if I cannot make more money?

So now you are in on the open secret! Cheers!

Happy Thanksgiving, Y'All

2011-11-24T14:33:00.001-08:00

Things I am thankful for today:

2 - 3/4 time jobs that may make the ends meet soon.
Great neighbors
My amazing family - wish I were there, but know I am supposed to be here
Incredible friends - LaDonna has stopped by twice to say hi!
More incredible friends - you know who you are...
Insurance - not crazy about the deductible, but hey at least I have insurance.
A clean house - used my vacation productively this year
Ginger - who just curled up against me, laid her head on my leg and sighed happily before she went deeply to sleep.

Stories from Macy's

2011-11-22T19:50:00.001-08:00

Okay, so some of my coworkers and even more of my customers are interesting. Some are hysterically unique and I COULD tell stories about them. Instead I want to tell you the unexpected aspects.

Toward the end of my 2nd week of work, I attended an onboarding class. Honestly, I probably could have taught the class after two weeks of floor duty, but I happily attended the 4-hour session.

There were 12 of us in the class ranging from 20 to knocking at 70's door. Socioeconomically, we ran the gamut from one end to the other. Some of us had work careers longer than two of their ages combined, but we were all gratefully employed by Macy's.

One of the cohorts in our little group had Aspergers Syndrome. This is one of the many types of Autism on the spectrum of Autism Disorder. Timothy (not his real name) had several tics including pulling on his fingers several times before he would pick up a pen.

He was totally invested in doing everything the right way. That meant understanding the employee entrance thoroughly, so the entire class went up the amazing long and steep sets of stairs from the basement to the ground floor. We discussed where exactly to park. How much ahead of our shift we can arrive and still get in.

"For, for example, I was scheduled for 9 a.m. yesterday, but when I arrived at 7:30 a.m. the door was locked and I had to wait until 8 a.m. to be let in. How do I need to do to get in?"

"Well you were quite early, Timothy. The store opening staff arrives several hours before the store opens to get ready for our day. Once they unlock the door - usually before the store, you can get in."

"Well, well, I find that arriving early to one's appointments ensures that one isn't late. So, you are saying that if I arrive more than hour before the store opens I cannot get in because no one is here to let me in?"

These kinds of questions and attention to detail went on for the next three hours. When we arrived at the section that applied to floor personnel, Timothy tuned us out because he was in the recovery, restocking, resigning area of the store.

Then, at the end of the class when the instructor called for questions, one of the other women in the class looked smilingly at Timothy, and said,

"Timothy, do you have any questions? I know you do! We want to make sure you are ready for the holiday rush."

"Oh, oh no, thank you. I feel ready now. Thank you for thinking of me."

Timothy and the woman across the conference room table from him became friends, and walked out together talking about their new jobs.

Sometimes people of faith think we have the lock on kindness, caring, and building community, but we are wrong. Our world is full of amazing, kind, caring people. I will introduce you to more throughout the holidays.

A Day Off

2011-11-22T16:13:00.001-08:00

Working two 3/4 time jobs means having a full day without work is rare. Using it properly, priceless.

Needless to say, I am SO not using it properly. Daytime television (meaning prime-time reruns) has me searching IMDB constantly to prove, yes the character from Las Vegas is in fact the same actor that appeared on Crossing Jordan just two hours ago.

I said it was a rare day off, right?

A Calling?

2011-11-22T14:09:00.001-08:00

I picked up my friend, Jen today at LAX this morning. On the drive there and home, I keep getting this curious wondering...I am supposed to be returning to church work?

Know Thyself

2011-11-21T22:54:00.001-08:00

I am beginning to think...wait for it....that I think more highly of myself or at least my capabilities than I should.

Everything I think I can do doesn't seem to be enough to do more. I know...rambling, but there has got to be a place for me.

I am humming songs from Disney movies right now....Somewhere Out There....

Looking. Seeking. Trying. Wanting.

I have used 12 weeks to get to this point; 23 weeks to go. Thirty-five weeks to make the biggest decision I have ever made.

Oh pray for me, please.

I Made Myself Cry!

2011-11-16T13:26:00.001-08:00

It's weird what makes us cry. Writing that last post made me cry. Talking about the changes coming in my life makes me cry. I am not sad, exactly. Okay I am sad. But what makes me cry is what I won't experience any more.

I miss my dad the most around the holidays. I miss my mom the most when I need someone to believe in me. Right now, I am missing them a lot!

Nuf said.

Home for the Holidays

2011-11-16T12:58:00.001-08:00

Well, not actually home. I am going to be staying in San Diego because I have a second job! Yeah! Boo! Yeah! Momma needs to pay rent, people, so I am happy! It means missing Thanksgiving because Macy's opens at midnight on Black Friday. I am not too put out by missing this part because while I love the food of t-day, I hate all the work. I'd rather cook the turkey and start on leftovers right away instead of the big sit down. Maybe I will cook a small turkey for myself...yum!

The harder part is knowing that I will probably miss Christmas with my sister and family. I have only missed one family Christmas in my entire life and they just delayed it one day so I could come home. Have I ever told you this story? It taught me a lot.

It was my first Christmas on a church staff, so you know the drill - multiple Christmas Eve services, right? Added to this was the fact that Christmas Day was a Sunday, just like this year. Normal church Sunday, right? Right!

In my ignorance, I asked the other staff members if they thought I could miss the Sunday morning service. Nothing doing! They thought it would do me good to experience the highs and lows of church work.

I was shocked that we would even hold a Sunday service given the fact that the majority of the church would be in attendance the night before. But again, ignorant that churches never (hardly ever) miss a Sunday service, we were going to open the doors.

So Christmas Eve, everyone was dressed in their Christmas best and attended one of the services. The last one at 11pm finished just after midnight with families hugging and choruses of Merry Christmas fading out until the custodian and I were left to lock doors and turn out lights.

I went alone to my apartment, watched part of "It's a Wonderful Life", and finished packing because I was going to drive the six hours to be with my family immediately after the Sunday service.

Sunday morning came and all four of us pastors, a smaller choir and director, the custodian, and nursery staff worshiped with the other 25 people who showed up (from the 400 we usually had on a Sunday) for church.

So that's the sad part of the story. I learned a lot.

Be sensitive to team members whose family lives out of the area when holidays come. They deserve time with their loved ones too.
When the other staff asked me what I did after church last night, they all were chagrined that they missed that I was alone. And really, what was I going to do between midnight and 9 am? I always ask people what they are doing for the holidays and try to ensure that they are doing what they want - be it alone or with friends if they cannot be with family.
I don't believe in the sanctity of the Sunday service. Especially when it doesn't make sense to open the doors on a Sunday.
I don't believe that pastoral staff should only get two Sunday's off a year. Everyone needs a break from the show now and then.
The biggest lesson that it took me another four years to really learn - I don't think I am meant to work at the church. I can work for the church but I don't feel the need to pastor. At least I don't think I do.

So here's the happy part. My dad was so distressed that I would be driving all day Christmas Day to come home that he flew into an airport that was "on my way". I pulled up at the terminal, picked him up and spent the next six hours having the best Christmas ever with just my daddy. He says I never shut up, which is probably true, but I say he never quit grinning and laughing with me.

The very next summer he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and we had just one more Christmas before he left us.

It isn't what you do that makes it a holiday; its who you are with!

Maybe I'll join the family via Skype? My sister says the worst part for me will be every time they go to the kitchen for munchies and I won't be able to!

ROI

2011-10-31T09:06:00.000-07:00

There is a point where the investment exceeds the return on investment. I have dedicated at least 16 hours per week looking into my future. Seventy-five times I have put an idea out there. The answers aren't coming quickly, however the few quick answers are always closed doors. I think I may need to take a break from this for a month or two.

I am exhausted. There are days where I feel so adrift that I cannot function. Those days are usually Saturday or Sunday because Monday through Friday, I pour myself out at work. I love my employer and the people I work with. That has been a blessing for nearly 19 years. It is also an all consuming passion that has ruled my days and nights for nearly 19 years, just like any other ministry job.

I am sad. Yes, I have a chronic depression, but this is the grief. I am grieving change. I am grieving the loss of friends who probably weren't ever really my life-long friends, but location friends. I am grieving choices I made in my past that are haunting me. I am struggling with change management in my job, my life, my heart.

I am not at peace. Because my life is in limbo, I don't want to do what I usually do to make peace for myself. Lack of money makes gardening lack luster when you cannot afford to buy seasonal flowers. Puttering around my home without knowing how long I can afford to live there makes it a chore not joy. My exhaustion, sadness and lack of peace make me poor company, but I try. Oh and I pray. A lot. And prayer is answered with many surprises - always good. I have no regrets, but also no peace.

Waiting has never been something I do very well. I like rapid change. I like to start right. now. please. However, God is teaching me to wait.

For example, I have applied at Macy's every year for three years during their holiday hiring fair. Every year, including this year, I have received a rejection, "Unfortunately there were more qualified applicants." Every year, including this year, I yell at my computer and any one who will listen, "Seriously?"

However I really need a holiday job this year because the hunt for a roommate is not going anywhere and momma needs to pay rent! So I did something I have never done before, I resubmitted my application to Macy's. Bold, I know.

Weirdly enough, they emailed me to come for an interview. In the course of the interview, the HR person suggested that she wanted me to interview with their General Manager for a special job. A few days later, I met with the GM and was hired on the spot for a holiday floor management position for far more than I would make as a clerk.

If I hadn't reapplied, I wouldn't have the job - and I think I am going to love it! The managers I have met so far are really professional and nice. And people, its in the Home Store - kitchen appliances, linens, bridal registry, furniture, and so much more that I love!!

The waiting paid off. God is good.

Now, I wait for what's next for me.

Silence Isn't Always Golden

2011-10-30T14:59:00.000-07:00

Lots and lots going on and yet, I am not ready to share.

It's hard to keep silent when it is one's nature to share, but this transition is so big in my life, that I don't know what to say yet.

What I can say is that I am in mourning. Did you know there are established stages of grief? I did, but that didn't stop me from going through them and some the psychologists didn't even consider.

More on that later - for now. Silence isn't always golden.

No, It's Not Easter, but Sunday's Coming

2011-09-27T18:47:00.000-07:00

"It is finished."

Jesus said it. (Hence the red letters - bible joke.) In the book of John, it is the last recorded words of a pre-resurrection messiah. The entire verse reads like this,

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

In the last few months I have seen these words come to life in different scenarios, but all with the same outcome. Once we know this is the end, we bow our heads and give up our spirit.

The most striking example of this is when we contemplate suicide. I listened to a podcast the other night about The Suicide Paradox from Freakonomics Radio. I highly recommend all their podcasts - fun and informative. Did you know that in some of the poorest and least developed countries there is virtually no suicide? One illustration given was when a missionary explained the concept of suicide to the people group he was with, they started laughing because it was such a ridiculous idea.

I have been thinking about that. Why is suicide more prevalent in developed countries? There are smart people who know better than me, but I can tell you why from my perspective.

When we say, "It is finished," and give up our spirit we forget that there is a resurrection coming soon to a cave near you. I don't mean just the bodily resurrection promised in the bible - which is a great promise of hope. I mean the light at the end of the tunnel is rarely a train - it is usually daylight.

Sometimes we have to give up on something or someone to get to the resurrection. I am not an advocate for divorce, but there are some marriages that don't work - e.g. abuse. The way out isn't giving up your spirit; its giving up the spirit of the marriage. There are friendships that aren't worth maintaining; give them up. There are jobs that have reached their time; let it go. There are phases in our lives that need to end; release it.

Then get ready for the resurrection, because once you are finished with that, and only when you are finished, will the resurrection happen.

Here's to the Sunday's ahead of us.

Things Seen and Heard Today

2011-09-06T23:10:00.000-07:00

I was getting on the freeway this evening when an unmarked, black police car came up quickly behind me. Since I have gotten two speeding tickets in the last year, I instinctively pulled to the right hoping he wasn't after me. That's when I noticed the pink hijab on the driver. I have seen lots of strange people driving in old police cars, but this image was one that left me smiling and shaking my head. Oh what an amazing world I live in!

Then I stopped at Trader Joe's for some organic vegetables and overheard this conversation between four college students. The two girls are the first speakers; the boys are the indented speakers.

Oh My Gawd, I cannot believe you are here.
Yeah, have to stock up on food sometimes, right. Cannot live on beer forever.
So...you on campus or what?
No, I am on vacation. Just thought I'd audit 15 units while I am here.
You are an ass! (insert two sets of giggles)
Yeah, well, so. We rented a place by the beach. You need to come over.
Sure that would be awesome, especially if tomorrow is like today.
You are not kidding. It was raining this morning, so I wore jeans and a long-sleeve shirt. Big mistake. When I got out of my first class it was muggy.
Then when I got out of my second class it was freaking hot.
It is so wrong we have to endure classes in this weather.
Oh Gawd I know. I went out to sit in the BMW just to have some decent A/C.

Oh Gawd, they are so privileged. Again, I was shaking my head.

Why I Still Follow Jesus

2011-08-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

Nineteen years ago, I resigned from my position as an associate pastor of a wonderful church because I was disappointed. In them. In myself. In God. Throughout the Christian church it seemed that everything was about making church attractive to non-believers: the service (the big event), the program (not the ministry), the activities, the community. Endless servings of milk sans meat.

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? 1 Corinthians 3:1-3

At the time, I had to make a choice between continuing as a "professional Christian" or return to the marketplace for what many call "a real job". In fact, at one point I had three churches looking at me for various pastoral roles, two para-church organizations, and two marketplace job opportunities. Nothing was too appealing, but especially not the two para-church positions: one with Prison Fellowship and one with Amor Ministries.

My mom, Lois the queen of pragmatists, told me, "You will never know if you are supposed to serve God until you give it another try." For a variety of reasons, the seven opportunities narrowed to one - Amor Ministries. And eighteen years later, I am still here. Still following Jesus and still serving God.

This morning, after an amazing sermon at MissionGathering about God in Film featuring "The Fighter", I realized that I have been on the ropes for years.

Since my mom died in 1997 I have been in limbo, purgatory, a living hell waiting for God to do something. Anything. I have taken punch after punch waiting for the ref to call the fight and give me some relief. This sermon woke me up. Big time.

I realized, like Micky Ward, that it was MY TIME. I am a fighter. Always have been, but for too long I have been taking punches instead of delivering a few of my own.

There is a scene in the movie where Micky wakes up to the sound of church bells chiming and puts on his workout clothes, grabs his dusty gloves and walks to the gym to go back into training. He owns his own fight now.

I was talking with a friend today and I realized that the reason I still follow Christ is because of Amor. I work with a group of people who get up everyday ready to do what it takes to serve the poor. They don't make tons of money. There aren't a lot of perks. No cool clothes; unless you love blue-striped mechanics shirts with your name on them.

The Amor team loves God and serves the poor. We don't agree on everything. Sometimes we only agree on one thing - Jesus. Bottom line - this group is responsible for me still following Christ.

If I had gone to another church job, well, I would have been disappointed again. And quit again. If I had gone into a marketplace job, well, I would have been an extremely moral C&E Christian. Instead I went to work with a group of people who serve first and always.

What about you? What has kept you in the faith? Is it Joel Olsteen's Hope for Today Bible? I sincerely hope not. Was it the weekly pot-lucks? Was it who was in political office? Again, I hope not.

Was it the mission trip you went on early in your faith? Was it the project that helped a special need in your community? Was it the help your family received from your church when times were tough? I hope so. In fact, I bet on it.

Now, in the midst of trials - all temporary and all based in our fear of being uncomfortable - have you forgotten what kept you faithful? Have you increased your giving to political causes and cut missions? Have you stockpiled supplies in your 1,500 sqft home when others are going hungry? I hope not.

I want to be found faithful when Christ comes to stand between me and judgment. Faithful to what? To what Jesus was talking about:

He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Paying the Price

2011-08-11T10:10:00.000-07:00

I am not political. Of course I have opinions, but I have never understood why people actually believe that our political system works. In fact, I have found it offensive when we (Americans) comment on the activities or actions of other country's politics or politicians in light of the fact we cannot keep our own country free of corruption.

We have been at war for YEARS, paying out billions to do so. benefiting no one except warmongers. Benefiting no one! $685.1 billion. In fiscal year 2009, the U.S. government allocated total economic and military assistance: $47.7 billion. To countries we "hate".

We spent less than half of this on caring for our own people. Look HERE if you think I am overstating the issue.

Taxation is as old as the bible. And as old as the Bible is the rich who strive to avoid paying their fair share. Their just share. Their proper share.

Cuts to the budget will come from the poor, not to defense, not to the military, not to the rich.

The gap between the poor and the rich is disappearing. At the cost of people's lives, health and future. Who will pay the price? We all will. All of us except the wealthy.

I Don't Know Why

2011-07-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

I feel profoundly alone. I don't know why.
Three insane dreams about my mom (long gone but never forgotten). I don't know why.
The sobs wouldn't stop last night. I don't know why.
My chest hurts. I don't know why.
I throw up nearly every time I eat. I don't know why.
There aren't enough hours in my day. I don't know why.
My closest friends. Well there are so few. I don't know why.
No one has ever fallen in love with me. I don't know why.
I make decent money and yet I am poor. I don't know why.
So many people care about me. I don't know why.
I believe I have something to say. I don't know why.
My family understands me the least. I don't know why.
My health has grown fragile. I don't know why.
Every day I think about death. I don't know why.
It is hard to manage depression and anxiety. I don't know why.

It feels so much better just to put this in writing. I don't know why.

Growing Frustration with Stoopid

2011-07-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

With my Google Reader, I keep up on hundreds of blogs, news sources and other feeds. Sometimes an article or story will prompt me to post a reply. Time and time again, I am amazed that people will write in "texting" language or worse, just not spell correctly.

I get that there is an occasional typo or missed word - I do that myself. but there is NO excuse for misspelling words - there are spell checkers built right into browsers. How hard it is to do it right?

Its more than the dumbing down of our world, it is, for me, that it makes a comment that might be very valid in content, completely invalid because it is unreadable. It makes people seem stupid. People who probably aren't stupid at all. Intelligent, kind, engage people who have a voice are completely overlooked because they cannot spell check or use a complete word. "R" and "U" are not words - they are letters. Adding two more letters you make a complete word. Amazing!

I know - judgmental and so menial of me. Oh well.

Just Whining

2011-06-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

Last month in Phoenix I started to develop this painful condition in my right ankle and foot that made it hard to walk down stairs. It peaked when I tried on a pair of really cute high-heeled sandals at DSW and it felt like something was tearing my big toe off of my body.

Enter the internet, and a tentative self-diagnosis of plantar fasciitis. Daily treatment of IcyHot and wearing a foot brace at night seems to help, but it never really goes away. Last night I wore a pair of high-heeled sandals, and I woke up in the middle of the night nearly screaming with that feeling again like someone is tearing my big toe off. Couple that with tennis elbow (right arm tendinitis from computer use) that is throbbing, and I just want to sit on the couch and cry.

Take Care of Our Own

2011-06-11T14:56:00.000-07:00

Once again, I have run up against that age-old attitude that asks, "Why are you taking care of the (insert the race, the nationality, the type of person here) when our own are suffering so?"

Great question - why aren't you? Forget about me what about you? Why aren't you helping your neighbor? You seem so concerned about what I am doing with my time, money and energy, so right back at you. What are you doing in your community?

Oh wait a minute. You mean why am I not helping the people who look like me? The white, Anglo-Saxon, conservative Protestant, heterosexual, church going people?

Silly me - I didn't grow up in the church. In fact, I was 20 before I ever heard a sermon or read the bible. So when I read this passage, I said well I need to be a sheep!

Matthew 25:31-46
The Message (MSG)
The Sheep and the Goats
^31-33"When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left. ^34-36"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

   I was hungry and you fed me,
   I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
   I was homeless and you gave me a room,
   I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
   I was sick and you stopped to visit,
   I was in prison and you came to me.'
^37-40"Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'
^41-43"Then he will turn to the 'goats,' the ones on his left, and say, 'Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—

   I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
   I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
   I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
   I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
   Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'
⁴⁴"Then those 'goats' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn't help?'
⁴⁵"He will answer them, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.'
⁴⁶"Then those 'goats' will be herded to their eternal doom, but the 'sheep' to their eternal reward."

Ready to Go Home

2011-05-23T01:12:00.000-07:00

No, I don't mean heaven...just San Diego, which is very close to heaven!

Eighteen days ago I came to Phoenix for ministry business. Prior to that I was home four days and had been gone for the seven days before that. So less those four days - I have been gone for six week already with just two-to-three weeks to go.

I cannot talk about why I am here, but I am so very grateful that my sister and family are here. I come home every evening to smiling faces and ears willing to listen to me lament about my day.

I miss the weather in San Diego. My bed that is lumpy in all the right places. My BRAND-NEW-BATHROOM that isn't yet completed. My next big project is to replace my fence and fill in where I will have lots of new space.

Mostly, I miss my church, my life, my grocery store, my couch, my yard, my kitchen, and my neighborhood noise. Don't get me wrong - I am living in complete luxury and pampered bliss with my sister - she is a laundry faerie who makes my clothes look brand new every week. But I want to go home.

That's it.

Some Final Thoughts Before the Scheduled Rapture

2011-05-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

Good-bye Cruel World....

Naaaa! I love being alive and cannot imagine Rapture is really going to happen. I would think that God would want his peeps to be a part of the battle instead of shielding them from it. I mean Rapture is like focusing on the family - its a nice idea, but the outcome may result in something different than what you want.

I don't want to go all exegetical and whip out my interpretation of the passages that others believe point to premillennial theology. Because I could proof-text the passages that also validate amillennialism and postmillennialism, it doesn't seem worth the argument. I had a professor who once said he was PRO-millennial - let's just bring it on!

Here's the reality - God has never saved his people from pain. Don't point out Noah. If he wasn't in pain for the year that it took him to build this big-ass boat to the chagrin of his family and neighbors, and watching them die in a flood where he was unable and forbidden to save them, then you don't begin to know pain. Job, David, Egypt, forty years in the desert, Jesus, Stephen, Paul - do I need to go on about God not saving his people from pain?

For the past several years I have been on a spiritual journey. One that has made me long for the Charisma of the Holy Spirit in Acts while still believing that the Charismatic Doctrine of some followers of Jesus is just wrong. How could I be a spirit-filled (Acts 1 & 2), emergent, open-and-affirming to all people, Christ-centered universal follower of Jesus? As I told a friend yesterday, "It ain't pretty!"

Two of my most Charisma-influenced friends told me recently that I was made for battle. They were talking spiritually, not about my remarkably feminine bully-body. I hope. It reminded me of when I was a youth pastor and my junior high girls were obsessed about end-times. Okay they were also obsessed about Johnny Depp, Light-as-a-Feather; Stiff-as-a-Board, and saying "like" like, all the time. So take that into perspective. One of the thoughts I shared with the girls was that I would be so sad to be raptured into heaven knowing that our church would be empty and people would come there for answers and no one would know the truth. I told them I would be happy to be left behind because I loved those who didn't follow Jesus enough to want to tell them what happened. Little did I know that there would be a book series by the same name, Left Behind.

Btw - was I the only one who found it odd that the people who wrote this series believe in the Rapture but made heroes out of those who were left behind and don't talk about heaven? Awkward!

So fast-forward twenty years and I still feel the same way - I want to be left behind on Saturday and will operate accordingly. I don't know anyone who has personally bought into the Saturday Rapture, so I will judge the success of their prediction when their radio station goes off the air - not soon enough for me, but that's not my point!

When I say operate accordingly, I want to live out my life pointing people to Jesus of the New Testament. The one who restated Lev 19:18, Micah 6:8 when he said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." The one who said this:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." Matt 5:3-12 NIV

I want to be a living member of the kingdom of heaven. I want to comfort those who mourn - regardless of what they believe. I think I have missed the mark on meekness as I understand it, but I do hunger and thirst for righteousness - not self-righteousness. I need mercy, so I will show mercy. I want to see God and believe that there are many who are pure of heart and don't know that they are following Jesus in doing so! Persecute me! Bring on the insults and lies because I love you anyway. I am happy to love you and rejoice that I can.

My Rapture just arrived. So be it.

Update on HOP - Lucky Day

2011-04-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

When I returned home last evening, HOP was right back where I left him - hidden under the tool box. I called LaDonna, the maven of bunnies, for a list of food for the bunny and headed to the store.

Twenty dollars later I had cilantro, parsley, kale and alfalfa out for HOP's pleasure.

So here's where it got weird. As I am putting things out, the bunny comes out from hiding and comes really close to me. When I get a better look HOP is a light brown and looks like sable fur. In other words, not a wild bunny.

I am talking to him when my new neighbor pops her head over the fence. "Hi, my mom was staying here over the weekend and one of her bunnies got out on Saturday. If you happen to see her, could you let me know?"

Ah, you might want to come see the bunny in my yard right now! Sure enough, my HOP is the run-away bunny, aptly named "Lucky Day". And he is a she. We picked her up easily and she headed home to see her friends. It was her lucky day indeed.

Blind Leading the Prey-Impared

2011-04-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

My morning behavior is pretty routine, hit the floor, blindly stagger to the back door and let Ginger out to go potty.

When I say blindly, its because, well, I am legally blind without my glasses or contacts. Everything goes out of focus at the end of my nose and gets progressively blurry to the point where only LARGE COLORFUL things are easily seen and subsequently, avoided.

No, that's not me in the photo, but my glasses are about that thick. Sometimes when I am feeling ungrateful, I remember to thank God that I was born in this time in technology. Little conveniences that make my life so much more rich and clean: contact lenses, tampons, running water, flushing toilets, a shower in my house, and so many more things we take for granted.

Back to this morning. Up. Staggering to back door. Open. Ginger, wonder schnoodle, dashes out and BAM! Something smaller than her and brown or black runs, make that DASHES away from her and hides behind the garbage can. Ginger gives chase, but doesn't bark. Ruled out a cat, immediately - she hates cats.

Besides rats there are only two animals that live in my neighborhood: skunks and possums. I do not want the G tangling with either. I scoop her up, dash back in the house, toss in the contacts, put on my fabulous pink leather sheep-skin slippers and head back outside on my own.

Please don't let it be a rat, skunk or possum, please, please, please. This is the prayer I kept uttering as I gently moved the dumpster away from the wall to see the fur of a live animal hidden there. It looked up at me with such scared dark eyes, that my heart melted.
It was the Easter Bunny!

HOP was a bit frightened and dashed further into my tiny, cemented back patio/yard and hid under my tool box. I put some sliced apple out hoping to lure him out.

Later, I stood in the bedroom looking out as he stuck his twitchy nose out and snatched the apple slice.

When I opened the back door again, Ginger ran out, sniffed right under the tool box, piddled and came back inside. So much for her prey-instinct that apparently both Schnauzers and Poodles are known for. HOP stuck his head out after she left and grabbed another apple slice.

I left the gate to the front yard open hoping he will be gone when I get home. After all, Sunday is Easter. Sure, sure - Christ rises from the dead, but I want an Easter Basket just like the rest of you. So get on it, HOP.

Dear Mom, I Am Sorry!

2011-04-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

Dear Mom,

It's been a while since we last talked. In fact, it was about this time in 1997 that we knew you were in your last days. In less than a month, you would be gone - just three weeks before you turned 70.

A lot has happened in the last 14 years. You would have really enjoyed my pain of turning 40 and needing reading glasses the same day! There is no doubt in my mind that you would have approved of the guys I dated and lectured me against dumping them. We never agreed on the men in my life.

I turned 50 last year. You would have loved/hated the party I threw, but I did it anyway. My 50th year sucked - job stress, bad health, uncertainty in my housing situation. Frankly this has been my worst year. I am glad it is almost over so I can start to enjoy life again.

Fifty-one is my year to get fit so I can do everything I want to do before I cannot do it. Since you and Dad died at 69 and your mom died at just 63, I thought it was about time! My knees hurt; my gut is just like yours; I have had my gall bladder removed; my skin is getting grandma-esque. Oh the things I see in me that I saw in you. Don't even get me started on the things I say and do that totally remind me of you - the parts of you that embarrassed me. Angered me. The things that I cannot prevent myself from doing just like you. In fact, Krista often looks and acts toward me the way I looked and acted toward you.

It was those things that started me thinking about what your life was like when you were 50 and suddenly I began to understand you better, to appreciate you. To forgive you. To forgive myself.

Dad was in the midst of yet another affair. You were working at his office trying to keep his business in line and an eye on him. All the while dealing with me, a 16 year old brat for a daughter. And still you managed to keep sane. Or as sane as you could.
You took FOREVER to do anything. How could I have known that it was because you couldn't see right through bi-focals, print gets smaller, and when you have so much on your mind even little things like getting out of the car takes longer? I know now.
Because your knees hurt and your vision was bad, things like getting on the escalator or walking down stairs took some extra time. Now I find myself taking extra care doing those same things for the same reasons.
Money was tight, so you made do with clothes that I wouldn't have allowed in public if I'd had my say. Now I understand - I am just grateful for clean, comfortable clothes and don't give a hoot if I am fashionable.

I never knew at that moment you were squirreling away money to run away from us. Every dollar you set aside was another day of freedom you would have when you left us just three years later. Little did I know that I would long for that as well. There isn't a day that I don't think of running away from it all. Like you, I think I would come back, but having three months where I wasn't responsible for everything is pretty appealing. Now I know why you did it.

For most of my life I have hated you. Every time the Kelly Clarkson song, Because of You, plays on my iPod I think of you as I belt out the lyrics in that tone-deaf way I sing. For all of my life, I have loved you. Its hard to separate them sometimes.

Mostly, I haven't been able to forgive you for all the shit you dished out on me. In my 50th year, I have learned that it was I who needed the forgiveness. I am sorry, Mom. Like all young people intent on living our lives, I pushed you aside early and often to achieve my own goals without regard to your life and needs.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss you.

Drafts - Just a thought

2011-04-02T19:50:00.001-07:00

I just sorted my blog posts to delete any drafts that are just hanging out collecting dust. Its probably a very good thing I didn't post some of them.

Article Worth Thinking About

2011-03-05T23:40:00.001-08:00

Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus

Unconditional Love

2011-03-05T23:13:00.000-08:00

Ginger is stoned in this picture. Totally wasted on pain killers from her 'little' surgery on Tuesday.

She went to the vet for a routine exam and SURPRISE they needed to remove a mass on her shoulder. $125 And send it to the lab for analysis. $150 Throw in another $75 for blood work and other unmentionables. Net cost: $350

Honestly, it was $250 more than I could afford, but how could I say no. She's my baby. My cuddle bunny. My pack.

Right now, she's out cold after a day of running, barking and a bath! Eeek! Which was followed by more running and some catch the ball. She is snuggled up against my leg as I sit here with my laptop making waves in the world and mindlessly paying mahjong.

She was a gift from my family six Christmas' ago. A 4# gift that could sit in the palm of my hand, which she still does at 15#. When she is ready to rest, it is beside me. Maybe just a paw touching me, but always pretty close. Even when she was itty bitty, she slept under the covers with me - her little furry self curled up behind my knees.

Ginger has all her trust in me. Even when I am the one making her unhappy (like giving her a bath), she crawls into my arms to get away from what she doesn't like.

When I am sad or in pain - like most of this last year - she comes to me and sniffs my tears and lays down next to me as if to say, "I am here for you. I love you."

So, for most of this week I have had the awful feeling that the lab test was going to come back with bad news - doggy cancer. On Friday evening, I called the vet's office and received a "well, I will have the doctor call you back to go over the results" speech. That didn't feel good. Then the message came - benign and totally resected so nothing to worry about.

Thank God because I honestly don't know how I would get to sleep at night if she was gone. I know I will have to face that one day in the future, but now I know it won't be soon.

Sum of All Fears

2011-03-05T21:13:00.000-08:00

It is a quiet Saturday night, and I turned to Showtime for some entertainment. I landed on the 2002 movie "The Sum of All Fears" starring Ben Affleck based on the novel by Tom Clancy. The basis of the movie is that some right-wing extremists decided the best way to promote their Fascist cause by turning the two biggest world powers on each other so that in the aftermath, their leadership will win. I just want to scream at the escalating responses to each act because it gets them further and further into war.

The scariest part is that I can substitute what is taking place in the movie with what is happening right now in God's church in America. The church is dividing on issues such as abortion, homosexuality and universalism with every side holding on to the firm belief that they are right ones.

Division isn't new to the church. Doctrine and dogma have separated us for years in Christianity. The Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant Church - each with 1,000s of divisions stemming from the complex to the mythological "color of the church carpet".

Today in America there is no more hostile topic than what is happening in Christianity and that is among Christians themselves. The old hymn, "They Shall Know Us By Our Love" is a joke. We cannot even love each other - why would those outside of the love of Christ trust us to love them?

I have made a personal choice to join an emergent church that believes grace comes to all. A friend who also attends the church remarked, "For years I have heard we should invite our neighbors to church. But when I think of inviting the gay couple in my apartment complex, I cannot take them to a traditional church because of the condemnation. Now, I attend a church where I can actually take my neighbors, and I am afraid to invite other Christians because they couldn't handle it."

The vitriol been hurled by Christian leaders hearkens to the decay of the Church and Christianity in the Dark Ages. Yes, the Dark Ages. There's a reason it is called that - the division of the church and linking itself to rulers resulted in wars and murders in the name of the church. We are in danger of tipping our world into another era where the church, instead of being a vehicle of God's grace will again be seen in the eyes of the non-Christian world as evil.

God alone knows what he will make of abortion, homosexuality and universalism. But we can know for certainty that God has made himself very clear about what we are to do with our enemies:

"You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that." Mt 5:43-47 (Msg)

I know it is much easier to hate than love - that's why Jesus made that our first job - to learn to love. Love God, then your neighbor as yourself. Love is costly - ask Jesus. Love is uncomfortable when people don't look or act like you. Love is hard - turn the other cheek. Love forgives- seventy times seven.

We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God will judge us for our sins - both personal and corporate. We don't need to judge each other on the sin spectrum. If God allows our sins to separated as far as the east is from the west - then he does it for the person who swears, who aborts, who falls to sexual impurity, who lies, who judges in God's place, who believe in universalism as they follow Jesus, who loves someone of the same gender, who covets what his neighbor has, oh..I think you follow me.

So the sum of all my fears is not that the church will embrace and welcome homosexuals, but instead that we cause someone to turn their faces from God and die alone longing to fill that God-shaped space in their hearts. Beloved, put down the hate.

How to be an Ass

2011-02-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

It appears I am an expert, so I thought I'd share my latest folly.

Buried up to my ears in deadlines, past due deadlines and numbers, I took a lunch break yesterday in the lunchroom. I walked out to discover a coworker queuing up something on the tv via the web. One glance at the web layout and I knew it was something from the Christian community, and I asked, "Is this Christian?" When he replied to the affirmative, excited to share it with me, I presume, I responded with, "I hate Christian crap."

Even as the words left my mouth I knew how it sounded and felt horrible, but I really meant it on so many levels. He played a sermon from Eugene Chang, an accomplished writer, pastor, and leader whose work I enjoy reading but had no desire to hear a sermon from EVER.

It was cut short when the video slowed down and we realized that some team members were on a web class up in the conference room. When we asked them if their feed was slowing, and they said it was. the feed into the lunchroom was terminated. I know at least one person who thinks I orchestrated that, but I swear I didn't.

So here's what I have learned in retrospect:

I am stressed, I was rude. No excuses - totally wrong of me.
My total absorption in numbers needed balance and I was looking forward to human interaction at lunch. The playing of a video totally negated that. My selfish needs weren't being met and I resented it.
Often our team will watch The Office or Modern Family at lunch, and because I don't enjoy those types of shows, I either quickly eat and leave or eat at my desk. When a group is in agreement on what to watch, the lone dissenter doesn't have a right to complain. I resented that one person decided what we would all have to see/hear on our lunch. His selfishness got in the way of my selfishness.

But wait there's more! (Just like an infomercial!)

As I sat there I wanted to ask one question: Why do you watch this stuff?

I have never seen the point of watching/listening to sermons given at big public events, revivals or other activities. Why, you ask? Because there is only one purpose - to reach the unreached. That is the most important purpose of those events and there is very little in a sermon presented at those events that moves me further along in my faith. I know, I know! WHAT AN ASS!

I watch/listen to presentations or lectures from all sorts of events such as Catalyst, TED, or lectures from Harvard Business, Pepperdine, Azusa, Fuller or Princeton because they are intended to challenge the listener. Oh geesh, I am an intellectual snob! What an ass!

I DO hate Christian CRAP. Since that can be said and interpreted many ways, let me be clear. I don't hate Christianity; I hate CRAP produced and marketed to Christians.

Let's take music: I don't care for Christian music. Historically, most Christian music is poorly written, sang by artists not talented enough to make it unless they play to this niche market, and follows culture instead of leading it. There are exceptions, I know. For me, music is entertainment unless it is praise and worship. I can no more listen to praise and worship music all day than I can listen to talk radio, death metal, or country all day - all things that entertain me from time to time.

Moving on to books: There are two types of books - entertainment and education. If I am going to read for entertainment, it better be well written. As a joke one year, I received a Harlequin Romance from their "Love Inspired" collection - a romance novel for women of faith. Just like all of the books from this publisher - it was a predictable story line and ending that I read in about 90 minutes cover to cover. It fell short of entertaining me by a great deal. When I read, I escape so I read crime or history. It entertains and enlightens me. The crime books usually show I am not smart enough to be a detective nor stupid enough to believe that could commit a crime and get away with it!

The other types of books I read are to educate and challenge me. I read authors I believe will challenge me to think more broadly -- many of these are not books intended for the Christian audience. In order to understand the world I live in, I read authors who disagree with my world view as well as those who challenge me to live deeper into my faith. I am more likely to read Christopher Hitchens than Charles Stanley. Not because of a lack of respect for Pastor Stanley, but he is writing to the saved; Hitchens is writing to the unsaved and I want to know what they think.

Right now I am reading these books, in case you give a rip.

Back to the point: I was ass to people I work with and care about and I was wrong. See, I can learn, be humbled, and even apologize.

A Moment in Time

2011-01-31T22:28:00.000-08:00

Both of my parents died when they were 69 years old; I am nearly 51. Worst case scenario, I have maybe 18-19 good years left before I die. Best case; a whole lot more. When the countdown to the end of your life starts, you begin to think about how you want to spend what time you have left. What memories, legacies, future do I want to leave behind?

When I was sevem, in the midst of a hellacious fight with my father, my mother faked overdosing on tranquillizers complete with a thudding collapse on the dining room floor in front of my sister and I. My dad grabbed her by the arm and dragged her down the hallway to the bathroom intent on putting her in the shower to wake her up. My sister, just 18, was on the phone calling the police. That was the moment in time when I knew I wasn't safe in my home anymore.

One cold evening, while on a camping trip with my parents my freshman year in high school, I sat on the swing set at the campground and unsuccessfully flirted with some teenage boys. As they left, the feeling of acute loneliness came over me and I knew that I would never know love the way other people do. That was the moment in time when I realized that I was going to be alone the rest of my life.

Listening to a sermon at the church I picked because it was a pretty building, I experienced God's overwhelming grace, stood up, and walked to the front of the church to declare I wanted to be a Christian. That was the moment in time when I felt whole for the first time in my life.

Tonight, I sat with a gay couple, a lesbian couple, a man and woman in a dating relationship, a married woman, and married couple in Mission Gathering's new member's class and knew that joining this church would be another significant moment in time for me. When I put my name and signature on the new member covenant, I stepped out from behind the comfort of my faith history to declare myself a member of this unique church that is open, accepting and loving of all God's children: gay, straight, homeless, fatherless, widows, orphans - neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, neither male nor female. This was the moment in time where I know that I am living a life dedicated living out God's new covenant and grace - wholly.

Everything Old Can Be New Again

2011-01-18T21:24:00.000-08:00

Just bought this awesome desk chair for my living room desk. It needs recovering and a little work, but I am so excited about the $5 I spent!

New Year! New Me!

2011-01-04T10:55:00.000-08:00

That's the theme for 2011 - so far, I don't like the new me. I have the remains of a head cold and resent those who got actual vacation over the holidays. I know - bitter doesn't help abate aging.

I am so ADD that I couldn't sit still today in any of the two meetings I was in attendance for. I wonder how much the nearly-empty bottle of Nyquil by my bedside has to do with this. I think I woke up every two hours and swilled another chug from the bottle only to return to the craziest nightmares I have had in a while.

On my way to the office this morning, I was listening to a 2006 replay of an Oprah show where she was talking about aging and that women fall into one of two categories: sinker or slacker. I am a slacker - my cheeks are headed south and making jowls near my waddle! Ack! Now I really don't know if I like the new me!

Actually all the changes I want to make in my life are internal, not external. I want to learn to embrace the Mary in me instead of thriving on the Martha. I want to KNOW God, not just wave hello as run on to do something "more important" with my life.

Okay and I have a couple of resolutions as well:

Exercise Ginger (which actually means I must exercise as well).
Ride my bike (washing Ginger's down coat so she doesn't freeze on the rides).
Find time to do the important things.

It's 3am In the Morning

2010-12-17T04:07:00.000-08:00

It started innocently enough on Friday evening with a twinge. We all have twinges in our teeth, right? Right? Nothing to worry about, right? Come on!?

Monday morning call to the dentist, who I adore by the way, got me in Wednesday afternoon. She looked at the suspect tooth which is totally obscured by a crown, tapped it once which sent me writhing out of the chair, and scheduled a root canal.Then I hear, "Oh Wendy! You have two other teeth totally cracked ready to break!" I never think about dental work without recalling the horrifying scenes in Marathon Man. It's right up there with the chain saw scene in Scarface. So you can see where my thoughts are going.

Thursday morning at the periodontist office was cut short when she looked at the tooth and said, "Oh that is huge, we will need more time. Come back at 1pm." I did; she did her job and by the time I got on the freeway headed home the pain hurt.

Not a "whimpering-wish-it-would-stop" pain, but a WHAT-THE-HECK-DID-SHE-DO-TO-ME pain. Was trying to decide if driving into the median wall would make it hurt less when I discovered the trick of screaming at the top of my lungs whilst holding my thumb up against the roof of my mouth as if it was going to push through to my sinuses. I think to the passing driving I look like I was sucking my thumb and singing. At least that's what I hope, but don't really care what they thought. I thought I wanted to die. Or at least tear my upper jaw off to stop the pain.

About 7pm the pain subsided thanks to Vicodin, antibiotics, Motrin and alternating heat and cold and I was exhausted. So I went to bed. Yep at 7pm. I felt like I was either 3 years old or over 80!

So at 2am when the pain came back, but not as bad as the night before, I got up to reproduce the happy combo of medicine and heat/cold. So far, so good.

Really excited to have this year come to an end. I am done.

What's it made of?

2010-12-06T15:02:00.000-08:00

To supplement my income (where exactly does my money go?), I have landed the job made for me - crazy dog food demo lady at a large pet chain known for their "smart"ness. (Subtle ain't I?)

This job is so boring it defies description so I find myself walking through the aisles and doing random acts of kindness for the actual store staff, like straightening up shelves and restocking my vendor's area. In the mean time, I am on the look-out for treats for Ginger who has too much protein in her diet that is adversely affecting her kidneys. Good thing she cannot have alcohol, right!

I saw this hanging around and thought, "interesting"!

And because I am watching her protein intake, I flip the package over to see the details and spot this:

Lamb Lung? (Wait, I am gagging a little in my throat right now just typing it!) And look at the protein content! Yeowzer. No Baa-Baa Q's in our future for both reasons!

Rant Irony

2010-12-05T12:58:00.000-08:00

The sermon series that started last week (while I was at my sister's for the holiday) is on family. Today I walked into a ironic twist to my earlier rant - the sermon was on trust and commitment. Hmmmm

Unloved in a Kay Jewelers Way

2010-12-05T09:39:00.000-08:00

There are two times a year I hate advertising - Christmas and Valentine's Day. The number of "if you love her buy her jewelry" ads makes me ill. And sad. And lonely. These ads remind me that I am alone in life.

Don't get me wrong - I am loved and I know it. My sister, her children, their children, my friends and even a few coworkers love me. And I love them in return. It's not something I do well for a wide variety of reasons, but I am doing better every year. Its not that kind of love I am talking about.

One of the overwhelming questions I ask myself - especially this time of year (and at Valentine's Day) - why haven't I met the man who will love me in the Kay Jewelers way?

As an aside, if any one buys jewelry from a mall jewelry store they should know that the mark-up is about 1,000-5,000 times the value. Take that same money, go to a good private jeweler and get a lot more for the buck. Plus do you really want to wear something that everyone else can buy as well? Not me!

This is the one demon that I cannot control - the feeling that I am unworthy of being loved. I have spent years explaining it away to myself. I am not pretty enough. I am too fat. I am too independent. I am too cold. I am too....too...too.... One explanation: I am too picky for my own good. Another translation of that: I think more highly of myself than I ought.

I know I am not alone - I meet men and women all the time who feeling the same way about their lives. So why aren't we "in love"? What's wrong with us? And why do we feel so incomplete?

Enough whining. Just sick of the jewelry store ads.

Filet what?

2010-11-11T18:38:00.000-08:00

I butterflied a filet that was in my freezer and put it on the grill for a yummy dinner.

Is it just me or does this look like a cross between Fozzy Bear and Mickey Mouse? Actually if it was lighter it could be Ginger Dog who is looking at my steak whilst I am writing this note.

You be the judge!

Joshua 7 - Entering the Challenge of the New Land Ahead

2010-11-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

Right at this moment I am sitting in the team spiritual development study at Amor. We are listening to our ministry partner, Phil Hulks from Urban Saints in Luton, England lead us through Joshua 7.

He has highlighted a few essentials I don't want to forget:

The size of the enemy doesn't matter.
Listening to God; more importantly asking God what to do and doing it.
The value of corporate prayer!
The sin of complacency - " If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!" Joshua 7:7b Not always doing the smart thing instead doing the thing God has told us to do.

We are in a new land - the stakes have gone up. What God is asking of us is new and greater challenge. God is adding a new string to our bow.

Are our difficulties something new? Or are they signs of God showing the way to new places - new lands?

The idea of Peter in the boat: sinking, nets breaking but Jesus came alongside. Our partners at Urban Saints are coming along side us.

Blessings to Phil Hulks for his words today - just what God wanted us to hear.

Exit Strategy

2010-11-05T23:27:00.000-07:00

Do you ever think about dying? I do. More often that I want to admit.

When I was young, my thoughts were the dramatic kind where I would leave a brief but pithy note letting my parents know they would be sorry when I was gone. Not sure how I would monitor that, but it was my exit strategy.

In college, I made plans to kill myself. I wrote letters to my loved ones (yeah another pithy one to my parents - especially my mom who was the source of all evil in my mind) and decided how to do it. Fortunately, my roommates picked up it and intervened. Enter anti-depressants and less of those thoughts.

This summer, the doctors gave me a remote possibility of having pancreatic cancer (instead of the more benign gall bladder issues that I do have), which was the cause of my mother's painful, quick death in 1997. It started me thinking about being done. Finished. Gone. I was pissed. There was so much to be done and dammit I wanted to live long enough to accomplish some of it.

Tonight a friend said, "I figure I have maybe twenty-five good years left - how do I want to spend them?" She wasn't talking about a bucket-list or anything like that - she was just talking about relationships and time spent on doing things that in the end weren't adding value or meaning to her life.

In my email today, I received a note my girlfriend, Kathy, who's husband has been given six months or less to live. She said, "My prayer is that if God is ready for him now, that's OK." I know she doesn't mean that it is okay that Ron is going to die. However, for her and her daughters, it is okay for Ron to be free of the pain, illness and disease that has haunted his mind and body for years to go home to God.I imagine every moment of every day for the rest of Ron's life, his wife and daughters will be thinking about how they want to spend it. They will store away all the great memories of the past and make some new ones to share with their children someday.

I figure I have 20 good years left (family history makes anything past 69 highly suspect) and there are some things that have to be done. Choices to be made. Stands to take. People to love.

What do you want to do before you die?

Awakening

2010-11-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

In the aftermath of my stolen purse, I am still getting my I.D. back with today's 6 a.m. appointment at SENTRI. That meant I got up at 4:45 a.m. to be there on time. Yeah, this from a woman who cannot find a way to keep 8-5 office hours!

It amazed me that several families were in the SENTRI office ahead of me with well coiffed moms, adorably dressed daughters, and wide awake. I schlepped in with bad hair, clean face and teeth and considered that a big step for me at this time of day.

As I waited, I could see the steady stream of people crossing the border to go to work. Up at what time to walk to the nearest bus/taxi stop where they jumped on a crowded transport to the border where they stood in line for many, many minutes - perhaps an hour or more - to walk across the border and wait for another form of transport - a bus, a friend, a jitney (private bus) - to ride another distance to the trolley or work for probably minimum wage or less depending on the job.

What were they doing for work? I watched landscape trucks picking up men, young and old. Women with plastic bags of lunch, change of clothes, maybe a uniform boarding the bus and jitney off to a job cleaning up after others. Some had on the uniform of the fast-food company that employs them while others were carrying aprons of restaurants and businesses that we frequent. At the end of the day, the commute is reversed accounting for 12-18 hours away from home to earn a living - a step up from earning an existence.

I know illegal immigration is a big issue. The operative word - illegal. I get that it increases burdens to our communities and systems. I understand that we (as in the U.S.A.) are not alone in our issues with immigration - the world press is full of articles from Germany, France, Sweden, Australia and England to name a few countries struggling with legal and illegal immigration.

However, I also know that our economy is dependent on the non-resident and immigrant labor. This isn't new - it is the pattern we have used for years. One relevant fact is that our own biological growth doesn't support the number of laborers we need as we move forward. As the baby-boomers (yea my peeps) start to retire the largest portion of the work force is aging out.

The first half of this book takes a backward look at the history of immigrant labor and the role our country plays in needing them, but not wanting to make citizens of them. Its our history - not an judgment - other countries do the same thing, but we need to learn, right?

Then there is the whole issue that we are content to only graduate 70% of the students enrolled in high school.Which of these do we think will lead to ongoing economic problems in the U.S.? How are we supposed to "retain jobs" when we cannot retain students in school? The problem of entitlements and welfare isn't just an immigration issue - it is a national issue. Unemployable/under-employed, undereducated poor draw as much if not more from our systems than the immigrant (legal or not).

I begin to wonder what would happen if we made the immigration legal process work, required our students to graduate from high school, and balanced education with languages (seems like Spanish, French, Japanese and Chinese should be required for international communication), arts, sciences (including math and computers), and we made new jobs with these talents. Oh I bet we would be the world-leader, for real.

Relationships

2010-10-30T08:27:00.000-07:00

Friday I had lunch with MYKatieQ after two weeks of not seeing her. What a blessing (and you know I don't say that lightly). Who is MY KatieQ, you ask? She is my friend, coworker, stand-in mom, the little sister I never had, prayer warrior, worrier, organizer, voice of reason, the boss-of-me, accountability partner, oh and my assistant. Katie is an anchor in my life that I just adore.

Two weeks ago, she reached her limit on being 8 1/2 months pregnant and started her maternity leave. Yesterday was another pre-delivery checkup when her doctor said, lets send you to Labor & Delivery to get this started. Her response? Sure, right after I have lunch with Wendy. So McFlurry's at McDonalds for us! Then she went home, got her bags, met her husband, and off they went.

Now you know why there is a "MY" in front of her name!

Seriously, Katie is a person who values relationships. And McDonalds. But relationships even more.

So where do relationships fit for you? I have spent years of my life saying things like - after I get this (insert very important task) done, I'll spend more time with (insert the name of someone who I say I care about). My recent health scare made me examine my priorities and decide which ones would I want to be eulogized for. Yeah that's right, I was planning my own funeral service. Sick. Ego. Sick. Would any of us want to be known for these accomplishments?

Her home was always so clean! (not me, but maybe you...?)
First in the office; Last out! (again, not me, but maybe you...?)
Knew how to get something done - usually killed us off in the process, but it was done!
Was never too busy to take on another task - she said she didn't need sleep!
We didn't get to see her often, but when we did, she was exhausted!

No, we want to be known for our love. And love is shown in relationship.

So next time you have time to fit in a trip to McDonalds (and a McFlury) before going to Labor & Delivery - do it!

Rediscovering Radio

2010-10-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

Way back in 1994, the forward-thinking burg of Moorpark, California had an AM radio station that broadcast nothing but comedy. It was old-time radio shows, album bits from various artists from Bill Cosby to Jerry Seinfeld. It was awesome! It went under. Of course.

Joyfully, I discovered Coast-to-Coast AM first with Art Bell and then George Noory. This was life-saving humor and conspiracy theory that sustained me when I couldn't fall asleep or even better when I was behind the wheel after 9pm any night of the week. However, it got old for me - stranger and stranger. And I have to admit, I have zero listening tolerance for people who call into radio shows. Deep sigh. In border lines, I found that 89.5 broadcasts our local FOX affiliate, so I 'heard' episodes of The Simpsons and The Office that I would have NEVER watched.

I moved on to pod casts. At first, I was all noble and downloaded anything that would help me with my work. Learn Spanish! GTD System! But thanks to the iTunes Podcast section, I found a HUGE WORLD of content from BBC, PRI, PRX, PBS, C-SPAN, TED and more, more, more!

When I purchased my Accord in 2007 it came with two features I didn't think I'd ever use: on-board GPS and XM Radio. The salesman told I would be addicted to both; he was right. Now I listen to XM exclusively in the car, and thanks to an extra $3 a month, I listen at home and at the office (don't tell my IT guy) via the internet.

As a person who lives alone, the television provides that noise in the house that fills the space like music doesn't for me. I either want to dance to music or listen to words. Occasionally I would get a book on CD from the library for trips and began really enjoying consuming books that way. Now, the radio is on more in my home than the television. Thanks to a DVR I can watch TV when I have time to sit down and enjoy it.

One of the tag lines for Book Radio on XM is, "The pictures are in your head." Its so true!

So I invite you to change your line-up on iPod and add some pod casts that enlighten, challenge and entertain your brain.

My Drama Continues

2010-10-15T12:46:00.000-07:00

Last October, I got sick and my life fell apart. It was just a gall bladder gone bad, but they didn't know that at first.

You're depressed - no kidding, but that's not causing the physical pain.
You're band is too tight - okay I will empty it out and gain 20# back in an instant to prove it wasn't the band.
You have bronchial pneumonia - yeah but that doesn't hurt here (pointing at the spots below my right breast and to the left of my belly button)
Three ER visits @ $150 each; 20 office visits at $25 each; 1 hospitalization at $400; 3 tests at $300 each; more lab work that even remember at $5 each; a MRI, and a CT scan AND I AM STILL SICK!
Surgery pending the week of November 15
Esophagus still partially paralyzed, the test for that on 11/2.

My purse was stolen and I have no ID: no license, no passport, no SENTRI card which means even if I had the $100 to get my band refilled, I CANNOT LEAVE THE COUNTRY.

Last month, my landlord had his 5th knee replacement and is in rehab hospital waiting for the 6th surgery this month. Naturally, his lawyer and family got involved in his business and discovered that my landlord hasn't raised my rent in 17 1/2 years. Nor has he paid for any improvements that I have done to the property to make it livable. Nonetheless, I meet with his lawyer who says don't panic. So I worry but don't panic. He suggests a deal that I think is reasonable, and consider the matter closed.

Now I get to panic. The lawyer called today and said, "Well, we'd like you to either take a significant rent increase or move at the same rent into the 1br house on the lot." CRAP! Here's the thing. I am already living in 600 sq feet. The one bedroom house is like 380 sq ft on a postage stamp of a lot.

If I move inland, I probably can find 600 sq ft in a 1 br for the same rent, but the cost of moving and downsizing is a bear. On the other hand, it will cost me the same to move next door for HALF THE SPACE for the SAME PRICE. All that to live close to the beach? The one I rarely go to anymore because I am an albino?

I don't know what to do. It is coming at a time where I am more busy than I can even describe. Oh and the poverty of my life makes moving elsewhere almost impossible because some places want 1st, Last and a security deposit (like $5000) to move in. Yeah, that coin I just have LAYING around.

I know being a renter means no security in life - but it also means no obligations. However living somewhere for 17 1/2 years without any changes made a Home Owner in Name Only - HONO! And HONO life she is changing.

Just thinking out loud, or rather in text, I guess they are making it easy for me to make my decision. Why would I pay that much for so little? Oh yeah, stability - but there is none now. I am still a renter.

Sigh - will keep you posted.

AND I PROMISE - this is the last time I will bring up this year's chaos and drama - I am so over it now.

It's All the Rage

2010-10-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

Bullying - the topic de jour. Oh how I wish it had been open for discussion when I was young. When I was in bible college. When I was a pastor. When I was middle-aged. Yeah, we've all been bullied, but just because it has happened to everyone at some point doesn't mean its right to allow it to continue.

One of my working theories about maturing is that we have strong opinions about topics we have no personal experience with, and only when we add intimate exposure to that same topic, do our opinions change to passionate beliefs. What do I mean by this? Thanks for asking!

Let's take war for example. In theory I can make a good proof-text case for the 'Just War'. e.g. The Nazi regime in Germany was responsible for the deaths of six million Jews, millions of gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, mentally and developmentally unfit, and another three million Germans who dared to disagree with Hitler's policies from 1933 to 1945. If the pointless murder of over 10 million souls isn't cause for a just war, what is, right? Except that I am a pacifist based on the words of Jesus. That is, pacifist in theory because I have never been to war or even affected by war - so I don't really know if war is ever just or unjust. I just have an opinion.

So as someone who has been bullied and has bullied others, I feel passionate in talking about this topic!

Bullying isn't limited to what straight people do to gay people - so please don't dismiss this as P.C. crap. Bullying it is what WE do to each other. Don't you realize that what you say over and over again that mocks, teases or demeans someone hurts them - even when they laugh with you?

I love this translation of Ephesians 4:14-16 from The Message: "No prolonged infancies among us, please. We'll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love."

Are your words drenched in the love of God? Think before you speak them - truth may hurt, but the words don't have to damage the spirit and soul. For every word you speak with hate, with unrighteous anger, with a mean spirit will result in your spirit and soul being damaged as well the spirit and soul of those who are hit with your words.

Bullying is abuse - pure and simple. We have been bullied. We have bullied. It has to stop.

For those of you who have bullied me - I hate you. I really do. I try to forgive you but it is hard. Just last week, I was crossing the street by home when you drove by and yelled, "Fat Ugly Bitch" at me. You aren't the first person to do it; you won't be the last. But last week was the first time I actually started walking toward you wanting to hurt you back. If I had a baseball bat in my hand, I probably could have dented your truck, broke out your windows and screamed at you. So its a good thing I didn't have one. Then I have spent this last week thinking about your words wondering what I do that makes you want to say this at me. Is my existence making your life more difficult? Does the way I walk cause these comments? Do I dress in such a way that people notice me negatively? Your words eat at my soul, my self-worth, my belief that I can be loved. If you who don't know me hate me so much, how can anyone love me?

In my head I know you think so poorly of yourself that the only way you can have esteem is to attack me. I wish you knew how much God loved you and cries about not just what you do but over what caused you to do it. As for me, it still hurts, a lot.

To those of you that I have bullied in my past, please forgive me. I was weak, lost and scared so I tried to make you small so that I could be larger. I am not excusing my behavior. It wasn't your fault, and you did nothing to make it happen. You were just the right target for my low self esteem to beat up at that moment.

Yeah, nothing makes the bullying feel better. It has to stop.

Rant Extra: Perez Hilton apologizes for being a bully - he gets it.

Friendships

2010-10-12T00:27:00.000-07:00

I listened to a podcast recently where the speaker said he liked to ask the following question at a party to encourage conversation. However, he discovered that the answers revealed more than he expected. He asked, "if you could have a super power - the ability to fly or the ability to be invisible - which would you choose?" He found that no matter which answer they chose the reason was rooted in pure selfishness.

Selfishness is such a core, fundamental part of our make-up for good reason. If we were just a little self-preserving, we would have died a long time ago laying down our lives for our friends. Oh wait, that's the biblical reason to be UN-selfish. Seriously, self-preservation is a good instinct, but like any good quality, used to excess it becomes a bad quality.

My friend found out today that his friend is a selfish ass. I say that will all respect to the ass, but that's the best descriptor I can give for him right now. My friend was told, first by a phone call and then by a very weird email, that a decision that he didn't make about an idea he didn't know about has severed their friendship. My friend is blamed and then accused of not being a good friend because of the decision, he didn't make. Follow me so far?

The truth, my friend was a friend in every way to his friend. Unfortunately, his friend has a terminal case of selfishness. In the history of their friendship, he has horned in on opportunities, suggested advice that he didn't have the wisdom or the invitation to give, and has leveraged his association with my friend for personal gain and fame. Okay, fame is overstating it, but he has used it to be "the guy's guy" in his little pond.

If my friend could pick his superpower, I know he'd take flight so he could go around the world to do good for people who are in need without depleting resources that were needed. That's just the kind of guy he is.
His friend, well, he'd take invisibility so he could sneak in and learn stuff to use to curry favor or to find out what people really think of him.

Hey friend of my friend, you don't need invisibility for that - I'd be happy to tell you. You have been shown hospitality, given an unearned seat at the table and a position to be the ear to my friend. And like Judas, you wanted 30 pieces of silver. You have them now. I pity you.

Hey my friend, once again, you have been faithful and a friend has betrayed your trust. Don't stop trusting. It is the greatest gift God has given you and although it returned broken to you, you are a better man for have trusted. I am grateful to know you and count you among my friends.

A few years ago, I stared to undertake a fearless examination of the kind of friend I am and the kind of friends have given sway in my life. Some of those friendship don't exist anymore because for some, I wasn't a good friend to them; others because they weren't a good friend to me. Now I measure the value of the friendship by asking one question, "Does my friendship with "insert name here" make aspire to be a better person?" If I cannot say, without hesitation that the friendship brings out the best in me, then I cannot invest any more time in that relationship.

It isn't that the relationship or even the person is bad; what it means is that I need the steel-on-steel sharpening and the gentle, steadfast love that comes from knowing me and loving me in spite of that knowledge.

A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. - Arabian Proverb

Premature Grief

2010-10-10T17:23:00.000-07:00

Met with my landlord's attorney on Friday. He is proposing something that will benefit me, respect the homeowner and keep me here in my little cottage by the bay for another 3-5 years. That's just awesome.

So, there are those who could say that I panicked prematurely. Na! Na! I Say!

My legion of friends and family sent prayers to God for the best decision for me and my life. God answered. In a totally unexpected way, as well.

One dear friend said this, "Wendy, this is a testimony to who you are and how you live your life. You have been honest, direct and respectful to your landlord for 17 years. Now you will receive a blessing for that." Really nice sentiment and actually so nice to have someone acknowledge your efforts, but to me that's the threshold I crossed to be a follower of Jesus.

I am glad I was consistent. I am glad it is going to work out. I am sure that even if it didn't, it would have been fine. I most grateful for the prayers, the offers of rooms for me and my wicked little dog too, and that we have answered prayers.

Change Is Hard

2010-10-04T18:33:00.000-07:00

Pulled into my driveway tonight and started crying: 17+ years of living at the beach is going to come to an end. Not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but my days of cheap rent and great living conditions are ending soon. I knew as my landlord aged it was inevitable that one day this would happen; just didn't expect to be yesterday!

Change doesn't scare me; and I can live just about anywhere, but I like to be in charge of those decisions and not have them thrust upon me. Too bad; so sad!

Now what? Tomorrow I see an attorney to make sure I understand my rights, then I sit down with my landlord's attorney to see what they have in mind for my future. I'd like one more year, but if not, I have no regrets for the days I have had here.

Theology of Challenges

2010-10-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

April 16 I celebrated my 50th birthday with over 100 friends and family members in attendance. Along with all the good wishes, I apparently invited six months of hell into my life.

Illness - hospitalization, emergency rooms, ambulances, surgical procedures and more on the horizon
House - property theft from my yard and garage
Car window smashed - purse stolen with ALL I.D. (passport, license, border crossing SENTRI card)
Money - all of the above exhausting all my cash, borrowing and gifted money from friends and family

Culminating today with CHP pulling me over for expired tags (paid for but never received) and discovering no license. The nice, and cute, officer tells me that he should arrest me for not having any ID and driving without a license. I tell him my tale of woe, and produce my chubby likeness on the back of my newly reissued Corporate American Express card. He relents on the threat to arrest me and instead issues me two tickets.

Then I come home to mail from my landlord's attorney about my "housing arrangements". I cannot afford to move but I cannot afford to pay more rent. Iknow I am not alone in these challenges, but I'd like them to stop. Honestly its been six months of pure hell.

However, after sharing this laughingly with two friends, I got two different reactions:

You must be separated from God for all this bad to happen. You need to repent and get right with Jesus.
You must be on the precipice of doing great things for the Kingdom and the devil wants to make you give up. Hang in there and trust God!

Who's right? Friend #1 or Friend #2? Both? Neither?

Pictures and Words - Power

2010-10-01T10:25:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have grown enamored of podcasts and satellite radio with SIX public radio options including POTUS, C-SPAN and the BBC, of course! Bliss!That doesn't even address my ongoing addiction to XM Book Radio. Oh the joy!

Among great finds has been the The Moth and Slam the Radio.

Here is a combo of one great poem, spoken in a performance, and a video of it. The message is as powerful as the visual of it.

Book Smart; Common Sense; Mix?

2010-09-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

My mother, the font of encouragement that she could be, would say to me, "Sweetheart, I never worry about you because you've got street smarts." My friend Bruce says, "Wendy, I think you are very intelligent, but you lack common sense." Bruce has a way that sometimes reminds me of mom.

This week had we our first fall spiritual formation study at the office - this is where our ministry team gathers once-a-week during the fall months to apply biblical principles to our work. It can be a time of challenging exchange of ideas - which I personally love, but I know drives some of my team mates absolutely bats. We are studying the concept of courage through the eyes of Joshua. We began with the last chapter of Deuteronomy and the first chapter of Joshua.

Like most followers of Jesus, I have read and heard the story of Moses, the wandering in the desert, and the Promised Land literally hundreds of times. Blah, blah, blah. Manna. Disobedience. 10 were bad; 2 were good. Moses dies. Joshua leads. I reread the passages prior to our meeting and took in the aspects of the story that I thought were germane. Then, in our small group and in the larger discussion I was totally blown away by the insight and depth that my co-laborers brought to the stories, the nuances and the details.I really learned a lot in just 30 minutes that I hadn't considered before. That is either an indictment on my theological education or my intelligence or both. Honestly, I have been thinking about how shallow my theological depth can be lately anyway, so this just reinforced it.

My other task this week was to tackle putting together the components of a 10-year vision for the ministry that our founders shared with the team and the mid-range issues that the executive team has been chewing on into a workable document that the operations team can turn into annual goals to move us forward. In addition, I am tasked (driven and burdened) by finding a way to restore, even incrementally, the pay cuts our team took last year from salaries that were already below the norm.

My days, evenings and even my dreams all night this week have been trying to wrap my head around formulas, estimates, contingency plans and real data to create a working budget framework for 2011. One component of the spreadsheet spreads from column A to column DC. Yeah, that's a-to-z, aa-to-az, ba-to bz, ca-to-cz, and da, db and dc, or 107 columns with at least 4,000 formulas in it. At one point I had a circular reference that I couldn't resolve and spent at least 30 minutes until I found it and straightened it out. In my head, this was a perfect matrix of information that was clear and informative. One person I was showing it to said it was too complex to understand. What!? It was simple.

I get that there are different kinds of intelligence, but I like to think I have common sense, a logical mind and a grasp of the theological issues. However, if you have read my prior post, you might question the common sense component...rightly so.

At the same time, I am working on a theory I have of spiritual development that involves perpetuating spiritual abuses that have high-jacked faith. (More on that later, and maybe not for a long time.) I shared with a friend that I was writing some material and exploring the idea, and received a, "are you sure you are qualified to do this?" reaction. It hit me in my solar plexus of doubt. I thought NO! I am not qualified.

I mean, I have locked myself out of my house three times this year, got my purse stolen by leaving it (with all my id) in my car on a public street, overdrawn my checking account so many times that the bank considers my fees into their asset column, and keep saying the meanest things when I don't mean to in front of a lot of people.

I never caught that God was totally pissed at Moses about his sin, and that's why he didn't get to go into the Promised Land. For goodness sake, I was in bible college before I realized that Christmas wasn't Jesus' birthday! And that is one of my issues - how do we keep the Christ in Christmas when it wasn't ever there! So quit fighting about a pagan holiday that we bogarted to honor Christ and act like its holy when it hasn't been holy in a LONG time as in EVER.

I don't see some of the pressing theological issues that the intelligentsia of the world see. Literal creation or evolution or big bang? 5,000 years or billions? Extraterrestrial life or solo creation? Ghosts or demons? "This Present Darkness" or "Left Behind"? I can explore them all.

I can be totally naive and bawdy in the same breath. Gullible and a mind like a criminal. I don't "get" geometry, and at the same time can map complex processes in my head from point A to infinity seeing and overcoming barriers. I am brilliant and not-very-bright; street smart with no common sense.

And for the doubters, the emotional and spiritual robbers, the naysayers, the critics, the genuinely concerned, the jealous, the envious, the competitive, the haters and those who just don't "get" me: say what you want; believe what you want; do what you want. But I have the right mix of brains, book smarts, street smarts, and common sense to do what my faith, my belief in God, my desire to follow Jesus has called me to do. Don't expect me to stop in order to validate or refute your criticisms of me.

It Found a Place to Happen

2010-09-17T15:22:00.000-07:00

My mother would give me affirming feedback like:

With your hair that short you look like a golf ball perched on a basketball.
You walk like you have a corn cob up your butt.
You are an accident waiting for a place to happen.

Well, she got that one right! I have to be honest, the last 18 months have sucked. Not just hard, but damned hard. In addition to being broke (mandatory pay cuts), I accrued some serious medical bills thanks to health problems that started on my birthday and haven't ended. The good news - I am not dying. Everything after that is still good news.

I am way over-committed on time and energy in addition to have more month-than-money. My calendar reads like I have a life, which I don't. Summer has sucked (hate that word, but its the only one that works here) weather-wise. Yeah, the cold breezes meant I don't have to whine about the humidity and heat, but it also means my vitamin D starved body hasn't seen enough sun this year.

That leads to mild depression symptoms over and above the chronic depression I already manage pretty well. Cannot sleep well; cannot stay awake and concentrate well enough; cannot shake the feeling that the proverbial other shoe is about to drop.

And DROP it did. I have this horrible habit of leaving my purse in my car. Been doing it for years and in spite of knowing the climate has changed with desperate people out of work, I didn't heed anyone's advice. So late yesterday afternoon I walk out to the street in front of our office to head to the grocery store and home and notice this pile of shiny green glass by my passenger door long before I notice that the rest of that glass is in my semi-missing passenger door window.

Yeah, some desperate fool broke my window, reached in and took my purse. He (assuming it was a he) got my favorite tweezers, reading glasses, a very worn and dirty Dooney and Burke wallet with matching cosmetic bag, and some Dentyne gum. Oh the wallet had some cards it in - my atm, the corporate American Express, and two Macy's gift cards I hadn't spent yet since my birthday. Net gain to the robber: 2 Macy's gift cards totaling $65. Enjoy.

On the other hand I lost my driver's license, my Sentri card (to get out of Mexico fast), and my passport in addition to my Kaiser card, Costco and Sam's Club cards, library card and who knows what else until i try to use it. Cost to me - more money than I have - seriously! And the irony - I have to have a photo id to get all of my photo ids back - someone tell me how to do that!

So I quickly canceled my atm and the AMEX, borrowed some cash and canceled my travel plans because I cannot leave the U.S. nor get on a plane without at least one of those IDs - Sentri, license or passport.

Needless to say - I am DONE. D.O.N.E. Done. Not leaving anything in my car ever again. Famous last words.

I've Been Thinking

2010-08-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

We had an intern this summer from Princeton - yeah, that Princeton who made me think. A. Lot. Because of our discussions, I took time to read "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. that he drafted in response to a letter "A Call for Unity" written by eight white clergymen published in local newspaper. Read the first letter and then King's response and not see the handwriting on the wall. I. Dare. You.

The most moving texts were to me:

"In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action."

and

"I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

Race continues to be a dividing point in our country - why? With the election of a black president you would think our nation and our people have reached maturity, alas, no! We have learned to hate the foreigner, especially the one who's story is told in a way that feeds our fears. "They don't pay taxes." "They are all America-haters and only come for the opportunity." "They clog our schools...hospitals...ghettos." "They bring crime." "They are all drug dealers." "You cannot trust anyone from (insert country name) because their government is corrupt." "Why don't they learn English, my ancestors did!"

Legislating morality has become our purpose. We are becoming a people dependent on the rule of law - man's law - to create morality than being people called by God's Law. It is far easier for us to rally to outlaw abortion than it is to provide a viable alternative to abortion - starting with sex education and ending when the white churches step up to help unwed mothers and their children with the same zeal they give to the ProLife movement.

And speaking of zeal - how about the whole Prop 8 thing? One thing yet to be well explained to me is how gays and lesbian being able to legally marry affects the heterosexual. As a single person, I don't get it. Dissolution of the family? That's where we are going? Puhleeze! Look around the church and show me a family that isn't already challenged by all the same issues that gay marriages will face. And the whole "confuses the children" argument is bunk! I know that no amount of same-sex relationships in this world will make be attracted to another woman. My heterosexuality is unaffected by someone else's rights to a full life. And don't go down the "slippery slope" argument with me because I can counter with those same concerns being leveled about Abolishing Slavery, Women's Right to Vote, Allowing Singles to Adopt, Living Together, De-segregation, Mixed Race Marriages and all the other "rights" issues that made us uncomfortable.

Oh and by the way, when I say zeal - I really mean money, don't I? As someone who has spent most of her career working with the poor and consequently being poor, I am shocked at the number of Christians who will write checks to keep the discomfort out but won't care for marginalized.

Yeah - It's been a rough summer for me and I am done.

Why Christianity Will Survive

2010-07-29T02:03:00.000-07:00

Tom Cruise speaking for 9 minutes about why he's a Scientologist.Totally frightened for his children. Totally.

Back to Being Me

2010-05-29T21:14:00.000-07:00

Sooo from the lack of comments I am certain that my political rants didn't endear me to anyone. Don't sweat it; I still love you and welcome our diversity of friendships. But I have to be honest - talking about the stuff makes me angry and I don't like angry. I am done.

Now back to being me. I just read a blog post at Dooce about showering daily. Check that - doesn't bathe daily. I wasn't really shocked by it, but Heather is saying she sometimes goes until she actually smells.

I have to be honest, I am a little obsessive about some things, but in others, I am more than lax.

In the obsessively clean category: Panties - sometimes 2x a day. There I said it. Panties. Not underwear which could include bras in my mind, but let it be known that I am obsessive about that too. Real Simple this month had an article about clothes that we are over washing. WHAT I can over wash? Yep there's another place I am obsessive. Put it on for more than one minute? Goes in the laundry basket (with exceptions noted below).I bathe every day. Every. Day.

Lax areas, and I am a little reticent to admit these: Washing my face only 1x a day, in the morning. Teeth brushing - at least once a day, but mostly morning and before going out. Pajamas - wear them often before washing. After work clothes (play clothes from my childhood mentality) wear at least two or three times if I am just puttering around at home.Dishes - not the first thing I do.

Areas where I used to be obsessive and am now lightening up a bit is hair washing only after many, many people telling me it is better for my hair. Now I can skip an entire day! Whoa! I do not balance my checking account to the penny anymore, but always to the nickle.

So here's my question what's your obsession? What are you lax on that would surprise those who know you? Come on...dish!

My Fellow Meicans

2010-05-19T15:37:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I stepped into my driveway to discover this note on my car. My nephew and his wife, who is Hawaiian, were visiting and it makes me wonder if the note was for her of the long dark hair and tanned skin?

There are so many things wrong with the note, that I don't know where to begin, but I won't let that stop me. Its my blog, after all.

The obvious problem is messaging, but the vehicle isn't even good. It is a photocopied note that someone put several up on a page and cut them up to distribute. His (or her) cutting skills are nearly as good as the spelling and photocopying skills. If you are serious about this campaign and distribution method, I recommend that you type it on your Commodore 64 so spel chek can help you. Support has 2 p's, Arizona's is a possessive and needs an apostrophe before the "s", and there is an X between the Me and the icans.

Unless of course you are referring to the little know tribe of Meicans, from which my albino great (to the power of 6) grandfather descended after being raised in wilds of the Caucasus Mountains. Yes, that's right I am of Caucasian decent. If that's the Meican you are referring to, the note was for me after all and word: I am not going anywhere. I am home.

What in your narrow, befuddled, fear-mongering, Glenn Beck touting, possibly home-schooled white of mixed national origin mind leads you to think that putting trash (both literally and figuratively) on cars telling Mexicans to go home is helping this issue? If I was Mexican did you think that I would walk out, see the note, smack myself on the forehead and say, "Damn, never thought of that! I should move out of the U.S.!" If I am a left-leaning, social justice Christian, (and I am), don't you realize that your actions reinforce my beliefs that you are a racist, lazy, gun-toting freak who really believes the South should have won (because I do!)?

I keep asking myself - what are we really afraid of?

The Only Honest Man in America?

2010-05-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

A phone conversation with a friend on Saturday ended with me screaming into the phone and eventually hanging up because I was so angry I couldn't speak. He started the conversation with the statement that Glenn Beck is the "only honest man in America." Thinking he couldn't possibly be serious, I said, "he's a character that profits on your fears much like Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern." Here's are the highlights of his diatribe:

This is a Christian country and we need to restore it to what our founders wanted. (My comments that our founders, for the most part were Deists fleeing state-run churches, that making this a Christian country is antithetical to what they would want.)
The Tea Party Movement makes sense. (When I quoted the Tea Party's 2nd value to him, he said I was listening to liberal media too much. I was reading it off their web site.)
Mexican immigration is the cause of our crime and tax problems. (Not the greedy white men running the companies that did illegal things with mortgages, Enron or the war "on terror" that has cost $992,254,480,000 since 2001. No one takes this into account when they discuss the $12,945,850,721,437 we have in national debt.)

In the course of that conversation and the hours since, my blood pressure has been so elevated that I cannot hear much other than the blood rushing through my head. So I am done on this topic and on to my new one:

THE ANSWER TO OUR NEEDS IS JESUS CHRIST RESURRECTED AND NOTHING MORE.

Anglophile

2010-05-08T20:34:00.000-07:00

–noun

a person who is friendly to or admires England or English customs, institutions, etc.

Thanks to IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base - if you don't know about...go there right now!) I am discovering that I love English men. No really! Every time I see an actor that I think, "hey, he's cool! I wonder what else he's done," and I go to IMDB to look him up - HE'S ENGLISH!

Who Do You Say That I Am?

2010-05-04T10:57:00.000-07:00

Jesus asked that of the disciples (Matt 16:15) and it was Simon Peter who replied: "Simon Peter said, "You're the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Jesus came back, "God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn't get that answer out of books or from teachers. My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am. And now I'm going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out. And that's not all. You will have complete and free access to God's kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven." (from the Message)

For me it is easy to get caught up in wanting to be known for things that are not of the kingdom. Politics, personal rights, freedom from oppression, money, fame, and power. I see the church getting caught up in it right now.

The Roman Catholic Church is facing a huge problem in reality and perception - they have pedophiles hurting children. Maybe this is because pedophiles always go where children are like schools, churches and clubs, but in most institutions, there are checks and balances. These are missing in the Catholic Church right now - in clergy. Perhaps they are in place for the laity, I don't know. But leadership is being poorly lead right now in this issue.

But for every one of these horrible cases, there are hundreds of God's servants (Catholic and Protestant) who are serving in ways we cannot even begin to understand. Their sacrifice, unto the point of death for some, has allowed the church to grow.

An op-ed column in the NYT by Nicholas Kristof entitled, "Who Can Mock This Church?" makes want to examine my life to answer the question that Jesus asked of himself about myself - who do you say that I am?
Am I an American or a Christian first? Am I a single woman or a servant of God first? Am I the church or am I an individual first? Are my needs more important than the needs of the "least of these"?

I started writing a series of blog posts on the political landscape of the United States, but I was stopped short by this op-ed column. It made me ask what I want to be known for.

So my question for you: Who do you say that you are?

Gun Shots

2010-05-01T01:05:00.000-07:00

It's 1 a.m. on a Friday night in northwest Glendale, Arizona. I am sitting in my sister's half-million dollar home on a golf course lot in a great neighborhood. And what do I hear? Gun shots - several of them. Guess what? No sirens. No screams. No panic. Why? Because owning a gun and the right to shoot it is embedded in Arizona culture.

When I lived here in the '80s, I played on a church softball league that usually played two or three times a week sometimes in so-so neighborhoods. One of the things we were usually cautious of was gunshots. Not because we were afraid of being shot...at least directly. It wasn't uncommon for someone to take out his gun and shoot it into the air to celebrate something: a raise, his team winning, his kid graduating from school, New Year's, 4th of July, Cinco de Mayo, just like the old westerns on TV. What they don't show you on television is that bullets go up into the air at a high velocity, but they come back to Earth with surprising speed and impact thanks to gravity. At least once a year a child is accidentally killed because a bullet shot into the air maybe two blocks away came down and penetrated a skull or hit a vital organ. So if we were playing and heard a shot, we'd watch the sky for 10 minutes or so to ensure we weren't hit by a stray bullet.

But hey...the right to bare arms is a constitutionally protected right, right? And nothing says "armed militia" like some idiot shooting his gun into the air with careless disregard to where the bullet will land.

In the time I took to write this - the bullets have landed and it's safe to go back outside. For now, until we hear another shot.

The Tea Party Movement Is Wrong for US

2010-05-01T01:04:00.000-07:00

Used with permission from "The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus"

Please click on the picture to see the site and be encouraged, convicted and charmed.

If you don't get a little nervous when someone says they can speak for another individual, perhaps you should!

My own skepticism started long before I followed Jesus, but came as a result of a Christian's words. In 1977 televangelist Oral Roberts claimed to have seen a 900 foot Jesus telling him to build a medical center. In his bedroom. With a ceiling. 900 feet. Seriously? The legacy of that was $40 million in debt when Roberts turned operations over to his son. So maybe Jesus didn't tell Oral as much as Oral told Jesus? My skeptics hackles go up anytime I hear someone claim they understand the original intent of Jesus' words which often is very different than his ACTUAL WORDS.

I started to worry about things last summer when John McCain selected a virtually unknown running mate, Sara Palin and the conservative women went wild with joy. First I was shocked because I was at a Christian Convention in the late '90s when Elizabeth Dole was a dinner speaker and was generally poo-poo'd as a viable candidate for President. Really? Mrs. Dole was 10x the woman Mrs. Palin is.

Now this whole Tea Party movement has me shaking my head. I went to the website of the Tea Party Patriots to try to read in their own words what they hold as values. They state three values: Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, and Free Markets.

It's the 2nd one that has me worried a bit: "Constitutionally Limited Government: We, the members of The Tea Party Patriots, are inspired by our founding documents and regard the Constitution of the United States to be the supreme law of the land. We believe that it is possible to know the original intent of the government our founders set forth, and stand in support of that intent. Like the founders, we support states' rights for those powers not expressly stated in the Constitution. As the government is of the people, by the people and for the people, in all other matters we support the personal liberty of the individual, within the rule of law." Red italics are my emphasis.

In order to believe that they know the original intent of the government set forth, then they know that the original founders viewed women as chattel and barred our right to vote. They know that only white men of European (specifically English, Irish and French) decent were free. They know that many of the founding fathers were Deists so many of the faith-based conservatives would have to give up their desire to influence government just as the Quakers had to give it up.

So what am I really saying? That if we truly are followers of Jesus we cannot put our personal rights, comforts or nationality ahead of doing what Jesus would do! The Tea Party, the Democrats and the Republicans are not right for Christianity - and they aren't supposed to be! Step away from politics, people. God is watching us, and how we vote means very little in light of how we live our lives serving the Church.

Licenced to Vent

2010-04-23T06:45:00.000-07:00

There are some harsh realities in life that is equated with age, but I have learned that there are also some licenses that come with it as well:

5: Licensed to learn (the first time you are allowed a public education)
16: Licensed to drive (with limitations)
18: Licensed to vote (and die for your country, sadly)
21: Licensed to drink (review ages 5 to 18 and think before you drive)
30: Licensed to be an adult (up until now people excused you because of your age)
40: Licensed to be honest. (Doubt me? Consider what you said before age 40 and what you say post age 40.)
50: Licensed to vent. (You've earned the right to be direct because you are too old to care what people think, but still too young to be considered addled.)
60: Licensed to be wise. (The patina of youth is gone and replaced by the aura of wisdom.

I am not sure what exists after 60 yet. I'll let you know. But for now, I have entered the age of vent.
You have been warned. Stand. Back.

It's Heeeeerrrrreeeee

2010-04-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

It's my 50th Birthday, peeps!

Little Addy

2010-04-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

Baby Adalynn was added to our family on February 23, 2010. She is baby sister to Aura who is one of my favorite five-year-old great nieces in my life. They are coming to see me for my birthday this weekend. Have I mentioned my 50th is coming up on Friday?

This is Aura holding Addy the day she came home from the hospital with Mommy.

Lynn (grandma Machie to Aura and Addy) tells me that Aura is very excited for Ginger (my dog) to meet Addy because, "Baby Adalynn is a little miniature human just like Ginger is a little miniature dog. Ginger will love that!"

Love that kid!

I'm Sick of Being Quiet

2010-04-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

Okay conservatives,I really need some clarification from you as I am trying to understand the issues as you see them.The Republicans and the Tea Party Movement are opposed to more government, right? Here's what the Republican Party has on their website:

"Republicans believe individuals, not government, can make the best decisions; all people are entitled to equal rights; and decisions are best made close to home. These basic principles are as true today as they were when the Party was founded. For all of the extraordinary leaders the Party has produced throughout its rich history, Republicans understand that everyday people in all 50 states and territories remain the heart and soul of our Party."

The Tea Party Patriots web site says this:
"Constitutionally Limited Government: We, the members of The Tea Party Patriots, are inspired by our founding documents and regard the Constitution of the United States to be the supreme law of the land. We believe that it is possible to know the original intent of the government our founders set forth, and stand in support of that intent. Like the founders, we support states' rights for those powers not expressly stated in the Constitution. As the government is of the people, by the people and for the people, in all other matters we support the personal liberty of the individual, within the rule of law."

So can you explain to me the following based on "what you believe":

Five states have legalized same-sex marriages, and yet, these states are being fought all the way to a CHANGE in the constitution. Isn't that that Federal government stepping in over states and individual rights?
Conservatives are adamantly pro-life, right? In Gallup polls from 2001-2004, over 80% of Republicans and 74% of self-identified Conservatives were pro-death penalty. How about being pro-life after the birth? Why do we spend more money on the war than we do to care for humanity?
The framers of the U.S. Constitution wanted a separation of church and state which benefits both, but when President Bush rolled out his "faith-based initiatives", the church lined up to received the benefits to help move programs forward, right? How did that engender original intent of the founders?
Farmers, Small Businesses and Students line up for grants, subsidies and highly endowed loans which is seen as a positive government hand-out, but people who receive Head Start funds, food stamps, WIC, or Section 8 subsidies are seen as receiving a negative government hand-out. Will the Conservatives be ending ALL hand-outs, or just the ones that positively benefit the economic bottom line?

Dear Conservatives - can you help me understand?

Sara Smile

2010-02-17T17:02:00.000-08:00

San Diego, besides being one of the best places to live in the U.S., has generously sponsored free wi-fi at the airport. It's enough to make me just drive here and work. I love watching people and boy oh boy the airport is full of them today!

So, Wednesday at the airport - business travel? No! Pleasure? In the words of a presidential hopeful, You Betcha!

I am headed to Phoenix to attend the wedding of Sara Huddleson - an almost niece. Best friends with my nieces since time began, Sara lived with Jenna in my tiny guest room after they graduated from college. Because of that, Sara is getting married to John O'Farrell this weekend and they asked me to officiate at the wedding. Honestly, I cannot think of a greater honor than to perform a wedding between two people you truly care about.

Sara has one of the best smiles and it always makes me sing the lyrics to a song she doesn't know. Sara Smile by Hall & Oates. "Sara smile. Won't you smile a while for me?"

I have been working on my sermon for the big day and I cannot stop thinking about how Sara wouldn't have met John in San Diego if she hadn't bravely moved, without a job, into an 8'x8' room with my niece for 9 long months. John was a coworker at one of her jobs and when she moved back to Phoenix, he followed.

Now, SEVEN years later- they are getting married because they cannot imagine life without the other in it. They have had their challenges - with life, not each other, but they are living up the best line in the song. "It's you and me....forever!"

Boarding time!

They Change Everything

2010-02-08T11:01:00.001-08:00

This is a professional photographer's photo of my niece, Aura taken at an event where she was being a model. And what a model she was in this picture. Click on the photo to be taken to the photographer's site - she does amazing work.

Anyway, this is really about how life changes, not just that I think Aura is stunning in this photo - btw, she's 5.

Aura's mommy, Chanelle is due for her second daughter right now. When I say right now, I mean she is dilated to 4cm but not in active labor yet. Adalynn, aka Addy, will be joining our clan sometime in the next two weeks.

Kids change everything. I cannot remember family being as rich without them in it. I was in Phoenix last month for a weekend of wedding shower, bachelorette party, and baby shower (for different people) and chose to leave my dog, Ginger at home.

It was fine until I ran into Aura and Mommy in the hallway where Aura was pouring on the tears. When I asked what was wrong, she replied, "I miss Ginger so much. I am sad that she is not here with you." Broke my heart and then I promised foolishly that next time I would bring Ginger with me knowing full well that I was flying and the Ginger-dog was staying home, yet again. But honestly, how could I tell her that?

When I was a child, my parents told me that I didn't have to kiss or hug anyone I didn't want to, so I practice that as an adult around all children even family members. When they are super little, you can nuzzle, kiss, and snuggle to your hearts content, but around 3 or 4, they start to decide on their own who they want to hug and kiss. Aura doesn't hug or kiss me often, but when she does it fills my heart to over flowing.

Now I will have two years to snuggle, nuzzle, and smooch Addy until she decides for herself. She will once again, change everything. Thank God!

All Girl!

2010-02-06T00:05:00.000-08:00

So earlier today I was working at home on the last touches for the board presentation tomorrow. No television, no radio and really the only sounds were the cars going by.

Ginger, my adorable 12# of furry, wanted to play. She cannot figure out that when I am clicking on this keyboard it isn't a call to "throw the ball", "throw the BALL", "THROW! THE! BALL!" So after 30 minutes of being ignored, she sat, much like she looks in this picture just where I could see her around the monitor.

Staring at me. With that face. Watching my every move.

Then it happened. She farted.

Not a silent but deadly. Nooooo that would have been no surprise. Instead it was perfectly formed, slight wet sounding, "pfffoooooot" that caught her completely by surprise.

She leaped to her feet, turned and pushed her nose a couple of times against the spot where she was sitting as if to test the floor for a squeak.

I admit it - I LAUGHED MY SELF SILLY. In fact, twelve hours later, I still giggle thinking about her pushing her nose to the floor as if to say, "It wasn't me, I swear! The floor must have a squeak!"

50 Things That Thrill Me - Pt 1

2010-02-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

Okay - so 50 is a big number for me this year and it's made me think about the things that have changed in my lifetime that thrill me. These are in no particular order and many will not thrill you as much as me - oh well! Here's the first 5 that have jumped to mind:

Microwave Ovens - think about lunches at work without a microwave. How many cold lunches have been replaced by yummy warm leftovers?
Work Wardrobes - when I started working in an office in the 70's women were allowed to wear pants only on "casual days" such as inventory and legs must be covered by hose at all other times. Maybe if I was a lawyer that would still be the rules, but hey, I am not a lawyer!
Career Choices - sounds lame, but unless you were a brilliant girl in school, you were encouraged to be a nurse, teacher, secretary, or go to school to be a hair dresser until you took your rightful job as a mom. If you were pretty you could think about model or stewardess for a little while. Up until I made my second job change in my chosen career, my mom would say things like, "Its a good thing you have strong secretarial skills to fall back on."
Choice - I know you are going to hate me for this, but legalized abortion has made our country safer for women. I remember the day in 7th grade when Roe v Wade was decided, and I came home from school to talk about it with my mom, who was a nurse. She told me then that my grandmother performed illegal abortions in the 1930's because women had no hope. Illegal abortions often resulted in death to women - and now women have choices for their lives like never before.

Choice has made us stronger because now, the ability to choose rather than relying on legislation makes us take a stand.

Not many people know that over 10 years ago I was raped. Because I was not sexually active, I was not taking birth control. For two months, I waited for the sign that I was not pregnant, and for two months I had to weigh the options if I was pregnant. Do I bring a child into the world who is both not wanted and the sperm donor was mentally ill? How do I carry a child for 9 months who is a product of the most violent act I have ever experienced and not have that adversely affect his/her development? What will people believe about me in spite of all the support (and proof) I had? Should I keep the child or place with a family who really wants a child of their own? Could I have an abortion and live with myself? If I did, would this be the sin that God couldn't forgive? Would it be the one the church wouldn't forgive and my ability to lead in Christianity would be lost?

While adamantly pro-choice, I know that I could never have an abortion and would have to deal with the consequences of being pregnant because it was the right thing for me. On the third month and literally dozens of negative at-home pregnancy tests later, I went to the doctor who told me that I was not pregnant and was probably amenorrhoeic from trauma. I am stronger for the ability to choose. I want that for all.
Under-wire Bras - The girls may be almost 50, but they can appear perky like a 20-something thanks to good bras!

Thoughts That Keep Me Awake

2010-01-31T09:51:00.001-08:00

A new year; new worries to plague my thoughts. Here's what keeps me awake at night:

When did national politics become the religion of American Christians? Aren't we supposed to be in the world but not of the world? How can we be so arrogant about our "national rights" when we know Christians in other parts of the world are dying just for declaring that they will follow Jesus? Shouldn't our priorities be broader than our tax credits and the legalization of things that don't change one thing about our beliefs? I often wonder if we were being killed for being Christians how many of us would recant because our faith is really not strong enough.
Speaking of laws - what is the stake in the sand regarding gay marriage about? If the church really believes in the sanctity of marriage, why don't we take a firmer stand on divorce? Or even better, why don't we take a firmer stand on what marriage is to us and stand out from the crowd. I remember in the 70's hearing my parents talking about how living together and having children out of wedlock would decay the institution of marriage - this is while Reno, Las Vegas and Mexico was making bank on cheap, easy divorces. But they are right - the institution of marriage has decayed and still, people want to get married and for more than tax credits. So what if the state decays into chaos - it has before - and Christianity has survived. What's more important to us - living a live worthy of drawing others to Jesus or ensuring that the laws of the land support our beliefs?
And really? Is legalized abortion the fight the church wants to be known for? How about we be known for alternatives instead of the arguments? Have you ever wondered why people think that the Amish have reasons to be admired? It's because they are true to their beliefs, even if we don't understand or agree with them. Wouldn't you rather be admired for being true to your beliefs than legislating the rights of others?
Citizenship - Greenpeace has been standing outside several of my favorite stores with petitions and are aggressively seeking signatures. Weary of their anger, confrontational ways and generally being in a bad mood, I told them once again that, "I am not a citizen" when they yelled at me for not signing their petition. I am not a citizen of the world they live in. I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God - where the lives of living humans matter more me to me than the air, trees and whales. Don't get me wrong, I think I need to be a good citizen of the community I live in, but feel that meeting Maslow's lowest level hierarchy of needs needs attention before I can give my attention to the highest levels. Staying alive (not just being born), food, water, shelter, safety and the ability to work to achieve those things and maintain life and love have to be met before we can move people to caring about anything. Anything beyond those basic needs, that is. My citizenship is invested in moving the living beyond those basic bottom two needs until the needs have been met. Yep that's right - I am dedicated to this first before I give a moment's attention to making myself or anyone else have more comfort. Sounds pretty extreme; it is.
Love - I do have selfish thoughts and the dominate one is wondering why I have never been loved or loved in return. Yep, I'll admit it - I have never "been in love"; never once said, "I love you," outside of familial and philial relationships. I look around and see some really physically unattractive people who have found love, so my looks aren't the only reason. There are some really unhealthy people who have found love, so my mental and physical state isn't the cause. I am not overly poor, have a nice car and all my teeth (even the ones I've paid for). My sister says 2010 is the year for me-the year for love. I don't know about that, but it's definitely the year I will admit that I want to be loved. That will put me at risk, I know. But if your uncle, father, grandfather, boss, mailman, tax man or other middle-aged male in your life is somewhat normal, totally straight, and often so funny that you cannot breath - why don't you fix me up?
Money - who isn't awake over that one, right? 'Nuf said.
Career - I have the job I have always wanted; the one I thought I wanted ten years ago that I got in May of 2009. Now that I have it I realize that I am totally under qualified, under equipped and under disciplined to do it. It's humbling in so many ways I cannot even express in words. However, I can say that I have never loved doing anything as much as I love working at Amor right now - the team is amazing; the purpose is powerful; the need is overwhelming; the potential is unparalleled. Now is the best time to be an Amor-on!
Perfect Storms - while this is becoming the most overused phrase, it really does capture the feelings I have. Challenges in the economy, at work, and in life coupled with health challenges, trials in my family's life and another baby due in just weeks plus a calendar that just doesn't allow for anything but meetings makes me nuts. Okay, more nuts than normal.

Okay - that's my rant for the morning. What's keeping you awake?

Toys Aren't Just for Boys!

2010-01-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

Like many of you, I have a wish list on Amazon.com for things I think I want and things I most definitely want in case a rich friend or family member wants to give me something fun. For Christmas this year, my family gifted me with some of the "hot" wish/want items on my list. Talk about surprises - it was MORE than I could have dreamed of.

One of the top addictions/gifts I received was this:

Oh yes. This! In pink from my nephew, his wife and daughter. With a game far too complicated for me to play, but I found Brain Age in the local GameStop. Can I just say how cool used game shopping is? Love it!

Regretfully, my first run at the game showed my brain age as 62, but I am down to 42 now, so I am well on my way to the recommended 20 year old brain.

The game has Sudoku on it. Oh my goodness is that fun! I spend hours on it every night before I go to sleep. Every night. Hours. I am so addicted.

Then, I received this:

Yes, this amazing set of pots and pans from my nieces. Not only they are beautiful, they are such a wide variety of sizes. Plus the pots have this cute bell shape that makes cooking just fun.

The bonus was that I gave my old sets (yes I have a cookware issue) to Tamara who will make sure they are loved. Love sharing the wealth.

The one gift that really set my heart soaring I was able to put to work today.

Yes that's what you think it is - it is a Toro combination blower/vac and it is AWESOME!

I drew an audience today while I was pushing the two tons of leaves in my yard that dropped from the city's tree back to the city! Then, quick as a snap, I converted it to the vacuum and cleaned my patios. Did I already say AWESOME? Because it was A W E S O M E!!

Now I have to update my wish list in prep for my 50th birthday/wedding shower I never had!

The 12 Gays of Christmas

2009-12-14T16:53:00.000-08:00

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

SAD

2009-12-10T23:52:00.000-08:00

The Scream (Skrik; created 1893-1910) by Edvard Munch

Welcome to the inside of my head. It's a scary and dark red place full of noise and silence all at once. There is so much going on I don't know how to get started let alone how to get it done.

Mostly, I am scared. And tired. Scared and tired. And sad. Yeah, scared, tired, and sad. And worried. Mostly scared, tired, sad, and worried. And fearful. That's all - just mostly scared, tired, sad, worried, and fearful.

I hate the word "stress". Actually I hate that people talk about being stressed. Yet that's exactly what I feel in every sense of the word. Work, family, finances, choices, loneliness, busyness, time, obligations and so much more - some of those are good and some bad. I know I am not alone with this, but that doesn't make it easier.

There's not just one thing that is pushing my life out of balance; it's many things out of balance all at once. It's as if I am trying to balance on a balloon - trying to stay upright while not bursting the fragile bladder of air I am standing on. I'll let you know if it bursts or if I get a stronger core from the workout.

Birthday Trip!

2009-12-08T20:27:00.001-08:00

Happy Birdy to You! Happy Birdy to You! Happy Birdy to my big sister! Happy Birdy to you.

Last year the Christmas gift I gave my sister was a trip to NYC for her 60th birthday which took place last weekend. Great idea, but who would have guessed a year would pass so quickly!

It wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for my amazing friend, Martin Andry. He allowed us to stay in his upper west side apartment - an amazing place. It was beyond awesome.

So other than Lynnie and I both fighting the crud, we had a great time. The weather went from a balmy 60 degrees to freezing rain and snow, but that didn't stop us from having a great time. I think the best part was giving something to my sister who deserves all the joy in the world.

And what a way to start the holiday season!

Yea, she will grow up to be me!

2009-11-11T17:28:00.001-08:00

Tamara sent me this saying this was probably me as a child. Pretty much.

Cruising into the 50's

2009-11-09T21:35:00.000-08:00

If lived right, life gets better - oh gee I hope so! So as I approach 50, I have been thinking about people who I admire or wish I could share some qualities. Olga Friesen is one of those women. Elegant and humble, strong and vulnerable, nurturing and self-directed, Godly and inspiring. Just one of those people who make you want to be better just by knowing her.

So I started thinking about the ways that women are viewed - the phases of life. I came across a blog post about the Ten Phases of a Woman's Life where the author gave this list:

0-7 childlike wonder
7-14 the beginning of hormonal activity
14-21 unfurling sexuality
21-28 being affirmed by a man-the desire to procreate
28-35 birthing, mothering, caretaking, putting others first
35-42 leaving self out but occasionally looking beyond
42-49 menopause approaching – is this all? a desire for self-love
49-56 birthing of a mature psyche – a desire to go away, live without rules and become more instinctive
56-63 choosing one’s true purpose, work, vocation, finding one’s individual reason for being beyond the roles
63-70 reflection – becoming the watch woman, recasting all that one has learned, being whatever one has become

I came across this one, which is amusing!

The five stages of a woman's life:

1. To Grow Up
2. To Fill Out
3. To Slim Down
4. To Hold It In
5. To Hell With It!

There is a mythology of a woman's journey that is Maiden, Mother, Crone.

What do you think about growing older?

Susceptible

2009-11-08T15:14:00.000-08:00

Susceptible: 2 : open, subject, or unresistant to some stimulus, influence, or agency

For a period of about five years, I caught pneumonia every October or November. Thanksgiving wasn't the same when I quit coughing up phlegm balls every three or four minutes. Then I went through this sustained period of pretty reasonable health when it came to things caught, but pretty poor when it came to things created. In other words, I was slowly killing myself by carting around way too much weight. So I did something drastic and now almost two years later - I am nearly 100# lighter. Okay, saying nearly is being generous, but it is my blog, so sue me that I think almost 90# is nearly 100#!

Now, in this era of pandemics, I have caught the flu twice. Not really, but again, it's my blog! I went down with high fever, body aches and bodily evacuation on October 15thish and floundered for about five days before feeling better. However, my allergies kicked in and started reacting to all the weather and time changes until everything changed on Monday, November 2nd when my temp spiked back up (102 degrees) and stayed high for five days. Everything ached and hurt. Everything. Today is the first day where reading printed words doesn't hurt! That's how sick I was.

My doctor says, "You never really fully recovered from the first bout of the flu which is why the 2nd bout took you down so hard. You are susceptible." So I had one MAJOR bout of the flu with a brief respite for my allergies to do their work. Great. And with Thanksgiving just 3 weeks away, I can only hope to not serve up phlegm balls again this year because, I am susceptible.

All of this time spent blowing my nose and fighting my fevers has opened up a Pandora's Box of things I am susceptible to in addition to the flu.

OPO (Other People's Opinions) - Yes, you are entitled, but why be so judging of me?
Guilt - Yes it was my choice, but does that mean I should feel bad about it?
Paranoia - Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!
Internal arguments - the ones in my head with you that I STILL loose!
Addictions - Hot Apple Cider with Caramel, creamy soups, and MMORPGs

What are you susceptible to?

Long Time Listener; First Time Caller

2009-09-21T21:03:00.001-07:00

It has been a long time since I have poured out my heart, soul and mind in this blog. Lot's of reasons: busy, nothing to say, too much to say, too many feelings that would be hurt, too many feelings already hurt, and a thousand other excuses.

Watching the season premier of "House" and remembering how hard it is have mental illness and live in an insane world that won't admit that it is sick, too. No one likes to call emotional problems mental illnesses but that's what they are. Maybe more shows like this one will help; probably not.

So why is that on my mind? Well, besides having the requisite mental illness(s) (depression and anxiety), it has occurred to me how I limit myself by labels I put on myself. I want to change the world, but fear becoming able to do it because someone might say something about me that hurts. It's not that it could hurt me, I fear that it might hurt what/who I love and live to do. From family to faith, they all would be in the line of fire.

A couple of friends recently encouraged me to run for political office (or start a cult, but that's just too much work!), and after I stopped laughing I told them that there was no way I would put Christianity, my family and the things that I love in that kind of harm's way. It's not just the choices I have made in my own life that would draw both friendly and opposition fire. Nay! Nay! I say! It is the choices of everyone within 100 yards of me that would draw the fire - often from those within the 100 yards.

When I started bible college, one of the first axioms I heard and hated was, "Christians shoot their own wounded." The second is "What did you come to bible college for? Your MRS (missus) degree?" Ironically, the very boys who said that were among the first to be engaged, so I don't know who was more interested getting a missus - them or the girls? Back to my point, Christians shooting their own wounded.

In June, two of my friends whose political views differ from mine took me to task over my lack of political concern at the state of America and my liberal views. At the end of a multi-day public Facebook battle of the barbs, one of them asked me, "Wendy, what do YOU want?"

When not concerned over the state of my personal finances, ministry health and family challenges, I have asked myself that question over and over and over again. What I discovered is that there are so many answers to that question that I cannot pour it out in one sentence like Shawn did. Albeit it was one mother of a run-on sentence, but there is so much more that I want. The answers keep coming like a floodgate of dreams, hopes, desires, pain, sorrow and despair that cry out to be heard and confessed and acted on. The search for the answers has changed me at my core.

Let me start answering the question here and in the posts to follow. When I am done, well, we will all know what I want.

#1) I want Christians to stop shooting their own wounded and it starts with me. Not the shooting at me - honestly I kind of like because it keeps me honest and often I deserve it. It's the shooting that I do that has to stop!

They say confession is good for the soul. Technically, "they" are people like William Shakespeare, modern philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein, and proverbs repeated time and again by old people; not that they are wrong. In James 5:16 says, "Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with." (The Message) (Emphasis is mine and probably will come up in a future point - so remember this.)

One of my favorites comes from Shakespeare's Hamlet, "Confess yourself to heaven, Repent what's past, avoid what is to come, And do not spread the compost on the weeds To make them ranker." I am so guilty of fertilizing the weeds that it hurts me to think of the rankness I have sown.

On more that one occasion, I have been delighted to see Christians who were held up as model citizens fall flat on their faces and take their followers with them. Dance on their graves? You betcha! Wait for the body to cool before I bury it? No way! Call it what it is - jealousy. Would I have liked to have what they had before they fell? You bet, and since I didn't, the only thing better was to see that person fail. Then I could do the "I told you so" dance. Jealousy. Coveting. It's old as the first brothers in the Hebrew bible and it's as current as the conflict in Iraq. It is wrong.

Our need to be right has tainted our ability to do what is right. It has to stop. So I am confessing that I struggle with wanting what others have that make them successful, happy, loved, powerful, rich, righteous, hopeful, and faithful. I will stop trying to climb the ladder of self-worth by standing on the backs of others. I will seek first to do what is right before I seek to do what is in my best interest.

Friends, hear my confession and pray with me so we can live together whole and healed.

Cheers!

2009-07-22T15:49:00.000-07:00

Yep, you guessed it! That's Gayla (the Green Goddess), Andy and me helping to grill burgers and sausages (they called 'em hot dogs) at Spree. This was the last of five weekend festivals held by Urban Saints, a UK ministry for over 100 years, as an evangelism event throughout the United Kingdom. This was Haywards Heath in the southeast section of England.

We arrived on Friday afternoon and really wanted to help - by 5 p.m. we were hard at work. It was raining, but we seemed to be the only ones who noticed. The kids kept playing on the trampolines, hot tubs, tennis courts, bounce houses, and so much more through it all.

One of the perks of being from the States and a guest was that we didn't stay with everyone in tents - praise be to the individual who decided that! We stayed at Desmond's Castle. This was not a real castle but a private home inherited by an Anglican Vicar who graciously allowed us to stay there whilst they were at their parsonage home at the church. Not only did we get to experience posh English living for two days, we had more fun than words can describe.

Of course, I want to move to the U.K. now. Just like I was willing to live in Seattle after my weekend visit for Forrest and Carrie's wedding at the end of May. Sorry family, but my trip to Phoenix in June didn't make me want to live there. However, I love my little beach shack in San Diego, still. IF a nice English man fell in love with me, proposed, I accepted and we married, I would consider moving there in a heart-beat! Loved England - the parts I saw - and I am ready for more travel overseas.

More to come, but just wanted to prove we earned our keep this last week in the U.K.

No Mo Breakfast

2009-06-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

'Nuf Said - Five Minutes

Well, He WAS 50!

2009-06-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

TMZ reported about 30 minutes ago that Michael Jackson had died. Our office came alive with cubicle conversations and exclamations of "Oh no! Farrah died today too!"

So when I heard Cristy, standing in the kitchen, proclaim in that-just-accept-it-voice, "Well, he WAS 50!" I came out of my chair with the speed that a 49 year old can muster to yell, "Hey, I am 50!"

She countered with:

"Think of his life. He's done drugs." (I point at myself.)
"He's had surgeries" (I point at myself.)
"He's lived a weird life." (Pointing again at myself.)

Then I point to my vitaligo, which I also share with Michael Jackson. She bowed her head in submission.
"You are right. I'll stop making comparisons."

Really all I ask is that if I drop dead next year, NO ONE says in that-just-accept-it-voice, "Well, she WAS 50!"

Throwing Stones

2009-06-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

For nearly a year, our ministry has been dealing with frightened people. Frightened of violence, frightened of a foreign country, frightened by the damned flu! Instead of coming to Mexico with us, they went to Houston, New Orleans, and other locations in the United States who are equally violent and have the flu as well. It has angered me, saddened me, and frankly frightened me for the state of the church.

Today, while trolling Twitter, I came across a blog post from Anderson Cooper about a Chicago ER:

The text accompanying the story says,

So far this year, Chicago Police say, nearly 700 people have been shot. Many victims have been children. Thirty-six Chicago Public School kids have been killed so far this school year.

Doctors here consider it business as usual: people come in every day with life-threatening injuries.

Why are we not actually doing something about the drug problem in our country? Do we begin to understand that OUR insatiable use, promotion and glorifying of the drug culture is what keeps poppy growers in Afghanistan, cocaine producers in South America, and marijuana growers in the US and around the world in business?

How about the Iran-Contra affair in the mid-80's where the U.S. sold arms to Iran THROUGH Israel (ask yourself - does this even make sense?) in exchange for money and the release of Hezbollah-held hostages in Lebanon. The funds were illegally given to Contra militants in Nicaragua. Oh by the way, the Contras used drugs to raise money as well, which they sold to US users. All of this was taking place while another arm of our government and concerned parties had the Contras on a human-rights watch list. "It charged that the Contras attacked purely civilian targets and that their tactics included murder, rape, beatings, kidnapping and disruption of harvests." Sounds like a good cause to fund because hey - they were opposed to the Marxist leanings of their government.

The Western world throws a lot of stones at the third/emerging world. We condemn civil rights abuses. We participate in economic boycotts. We fund the overthrow of their governments. And we continue to pay a price for it. It is not just the United States of America - all of Western/European countries need to own up to our colonial ways.

I am asking myself some hard questions right now about what I believe - not just my faith in a benevolent Creator but what I believe about the world I was born into. I don't like what I see or hear right now, that's for sure.

Is It Really Social?

2009-06-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

The Twitter tool allows you to link your Tweets to your Facebook updates, which is fun in oh so many ways. In others, it is not. I was listening to the news while in Seattle last weekend and heard some comments made by conservative talk show host, Rush Limbaugh that I thought were ridiculous. To vent my frustration, I twittered a comment about Mr. Limbaugh that went to my Facebook.

From there, all hell broke loose and 25 entries later names were called, frustrations aired, and conflict ensued. It culminated with a private message to me suggesting I was putting my ministry and Christianity in a bad light because of my comments. Seriously, I doubt someone will judge my employer or an entire faith by the sum of three off-hand comments on a social media site, but for nearly a week, this has dominated my thoughts. These thoughts will be in blog posts to follow.

When arguments are played out through social media it started me questioning should it be called social. So I looked up the definition of social on Merriam-Webster and found this:

1: involving allies or confederates
2 a: marked by or passed in pleasant companionship with one's friends or associates b: sociable c: of, relating to, or designed for sociability
3: of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society
4 a: tending to form cooperative and interdependent relationships with others of one's kind : gregarious b: living and breeding in more or less organized communities cof a plant : tending to grow in groups or masses so as to form a pure stand
5 a: of, relating to, or based on rank or status in a particular society b: of, relating to, or characteristic of the upper classes c: formal
6: being such in social situations

Of all the definitions, #3 probably covers the interaction on Facebook - a social media platform, but I think the other 4 definitions are out when it comes to how some people think of me via social media!

Oh well, such is life.

Cross-Linking

2009-06-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

I am writing a series on Millennials for Amor Ministries. The blog posts (and others even more interesting) can be found at Amor.org

I Need Your Support

2009-05-18T16:05:00.000-07:00

I have the opportunity of my career to go work with a mission agency in the U.K. for 10 days in July, and I need your support to make it happen. Please read my support letter and if you can make even the smallest of contributions, I promise you it will go a long way to changing lives. Thank you!

April 7, 2009

My dear friend,

If you know me at all, you know that my passion is to change the world and help others. I am coming to you today to ask for your financial support for a special project that will take me to the United Kingdom for a fortnight (notice my clever insertion of a British term) this summer to work with Urban Saints.

For the last sixteen years, I have experienced the most amazing opportunities through Amor Ministries to do things that are changing the world. In addition to being part of an organization that builds homes, schools and churches, we have started three food banks, distribute thousands of backpacks and school supplies that allow the poorest children to attend school, and started the Clean Water for Life program that provides a family with a filter that will give them a lifetime of clean water! We can do this for just $100 – imagine it! Our goal is to distribute 1,000 filters this year to change the world for 1,000 families.

Three years ago, Amor encouraged me to start the Center for Courageous Enterprise to provide leadership development to organizations. We have consulted with churches, businesses and corporations who desire to create a values-based leadership development program within their organizations. In May we took an international delegation to Mexico to build a home in just one day exciting the interest of organizations like Walmart. We are changing the world of business.

Then, last May, the Amor Founders and Board of Directors asked me to fill the role of Chief Operating Officer for Amor Ministries. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse, and we brought the Center under Amor operations. It has been a challenging year. My role as strategist and change-agent has been tasked by the perfect storm of circumstances that are hitting our ministry hard: the world economy, the well-covered drug war in Mexico that has struck fear in many who would normally come with us to build homes, and the H1N1 Swine Flu scare. Nearly 10,000 people cancelled; however, over 11,000 are still coming to Mexico this year to build homes for those in need.

As you can imagine, the need is greater than ever. Amor has been asked by the city leaders in Tijuana and Rosarito for our help relocating nearly 600 families who currently live in dangerous ravines where there is catastrophic loss of life every time it rains. Our pastors in Mexico told us that these are some of the poorest people they have ever seen. We are the first NGO to be asked to do this, and as people of compassion, we have committed to make it happen. We need to change their world.

In addition, we have our first two pilot groups building in South Africa: a group of 150 from the U.K. Urban Saints in April and another group of 100 from the U.S. in June to build homes for families stricken with HIV. Amor has been waiting 10 years for this opportunity, and we believe that caring for these families is our next greatest priority.

Like many other organizations, we have taken significant steps to cut overhead including reducing staff as well as asking our team to take a voluntary pay cut in an effort to continue to move forward. Our team rose to the challenge and I am proud to be a part of such a lean, compassionate, committed group. In spite of our challenges, we remain passionately committed to changing our world.

So, why I am so excited about this special project? Urban Saints, in addition to bringing work teams to South Africa, is invested in partnering with Amor to provide educational materials for the local churches we work with while helping us develop and bring short-term mission groups from Europe and Asia.

Since 1906 Urban Saints has been reaching out to children and young people with the good news of Jesus Christ. They are passionate about working with children and young people who have no church connection, helping them to realize their value and purpose as they journey from childhood to adulthood.

Whilst much of their work is in the UK and Ireland, by partnering with Amor Ministries, they will be helping indigenous churches within countries in the developing world to set up and run outreach work among unchurched children and young people providing education that will indeed, change the world.

A key leadership team from Amor has been invited to Wales to work alongside the Urban Saints team this summer to observe and participate in an outreach. It will give us a hands-on opportunity to work with them and their curriculum so that we can adapt it to Mexico and South Africa. It is one of the most exciting opportunities I have been presented with while at Amor.

This invitation comes at time when Amor does not have discretionary funds to send us, which is why I need your help financially to make this dream come true. We believe that our 10-day trip (June 10-20) will cost approximately $1,500 per person with airfare from San Diego to London, trains, outreach expenses, food and lodging.

Thank you for believing in me and my passions. My life has been shaped by your influence; your financial support at this time will shape the lives of young people for the future. Will you support me in this endeavor to bring to light the value and purpose of a child through education? Please return the bottom portion of this letter with your response by June 12, 2009.

Yours truly,

Wendy Johnson
________________________________________

Wendy, I want to support you and will invest in changing the world with Amor Ministries by:

[] Praying for you and the team every day while in the United Kingdom so that this trip results in life-changing opportunities for third-world children.

[] Purchasing your flight to London with frequent flyer miles. Please contact me with your dates and times.

[] A tax-deductible gift of []$100 []$50 []$25 []Other $________________________
Payable by []Check (enclosed) []Credit Card or []on the web at amor.org/staffsupport

Please enclose this portion or write WJOH in the comments/memo section. Thank you.
Send to:

Amor Ministries
Attn: WJOH
1664 Precision Park Lane
San Diego, CA 92173

Dear Mom,

2009-05-10T11:54:00.000-07:00

Hey Mom! Lois! Lo-Ass! Lo-Bottom! LJ! Ma! And all the other names I used.

Happy Mother's Day! This is the 12th one you've missed since you left this mortal coil in April of '97. Twelve times I have avoided the guilt of not doing something nice for you, but I always think of you, just like I did today.

You have been on my mind a lot. I used to complain that I got all the worst qualities from you and Daddy and none of the good. But lately, I have received compliments on my legs which is all you! You of the spiked heels, dyed to match leather spectator pumps and 9-NN shoes. Thanks! I never thought that would be an asset.

I remember the year I took you to the glider port to give you glider lessons for mother's day/birthday. You thought I was taking you into the desert to kill you. Some days I could have. We had a classic love-hate relationship right to the end. No one could make me cry more than you, but no one would have fought as hard for me than you.

You were the one who was afraid I'd be a chubby wallflower and pushed me into drama class. What a mistake that was! Unleashed the beast, didn't it? Too bad neither you nor Dad were interested in what I was doing with all that - you might have been proud of me.

You were the one who warned me that this boy or that girl wasn't really my friend. You were always right, but you didn't need to be. You could have learned to trust more from me. I have great friends now. Sure, some have hurt me along the way, but for the most part - they are amazingly loyal and loving.

Aura called and left me a voice mail on my birthday singing me "Happy Birthday". I wanted to call you and play the message for you so you would laugh and love it too. I wish you knew Chanelle and Aura - you would love them both so much.

Most of my self esteem comes from your mixed messages - either I was too busy or just lazy. I was intelligent but not as pretty as my sister. I was street smart, but not school smart. I should consider a career as an exterminator (bug) or hit-woman (people). You wanted me to be a nurse like you, but would never ask. Ironically, its the one career I am still considering to get on the mission field later in my life.

You never talked to me about love, marriage or even relationships. Unless it was to bitch about my father. He was never your husband when he was a human shit - he was just "your father" at that point. I think you groomed me to be an old maid. So far, you were right in your training. I didn't realize the last man to ask me to marry him would be the LAST man to ask me to marry him. It's okay because I cannot imagine having married any of them.

You were so cruel at times. I never understood that you were sick just like me. Depression that made you manic at times. Maybe you were bipolar and that's why you saw in Keith before anyone else. You would stay up all night sewing, reading, or writing thousands of letters of many pages by hand to family and friends, but never write me or Lynn. If the mania hit around Christmas, we had the best wrapped presents in the city. I have photos of amazing boxes piled around the tree.

I used to dread the sound of you putting dishes away at night, because it would mean you would come wake me up to show me what I didn't wash well enough. I'd stand there in my jammies, half asleep, rewashing dishes blindly trying to find what I missed when I had my contacts in never understanding that this perfectionism wasn't about me; it was about you. Your need to have your world in a sense of order where and when you could.

For a manic-depressive control freak, you let me have a lot of fun. I turned the living room into amazing furniture forts during 110 degree days when I was little. And later you let me rearrange the furniture on whim. Sometimes I think you did it to promote creativity in me and to keep me busy. Other times I think you did it to piss off Daddy who was even a bigger control freak than you.

You married two crazy men - Lynn's dad and my dad - who helped you stay crazy. I remember fights with Dad that frightened me because I knew you could hurt him one day if he pushed your buttons just the right way. Sometimes, I would provoke a fight between the two of you to take the attention off me, especially around report card time. I loved school, but hated homework. It was pointless and I procrastinated. Remind you of anyone, Mom? Oh yeah a little of you and a little of Dad, right?

You had an amazing sense of style and color that showed up in how you decorated our home, and the clothes you made us girls. You dressed beautifully until Daddy made you feel worthless, but you still had style. I like to think I got that from you as well.

We never really realized what an amazing nurse you were until you were gone. I was in college before I knew there was an emergency room in a hospital. I thought everyone got fixed at home: stitches, shots, minor incisions. You were the first responder in our neighborhood, not the fire department. I still remember when the mobile home fell on the man who was under it putting it on jacks. You were down in the dirt digging him out and treating him until the ambulance came. You were the neighborhood urgent care grabbing a bag and running down the alley to lance a boil, stitch up a head wound or patch up a battered wife. You were fearless when it came to helping people. I'd like to think I got a little of that from you too.

You encouraged me to climb higher, go farther and faster making me fearless when it comes to personal safety. Of course you were there to pull out the thorns of the cactus when I went too far or fell to hard. I used to think that my elbows and knees were just made of scabs because of how rough I played all the time.

You bought me my first doll when I was in 4th grade. The same year I got breasts and a period. Same year Lynn got married. I think you and Daddy were worried that growing up in an all-boy neighborhood where I learned to shoot guns, play trucks and build forts was going to make me a bit butch. I think buying my clothes from Sears BOYS section probably did more to enhance that image than how I played did. Just to be fair, I still would rather play boys games with boys than girl games with girls, but love being a girl. In fact, sometimes I am downright feminine - big surprise!

Mostly Mom, I want you to know that I always loved you - still do. In spite of your cruel streak, your inability to show affection, and your mental health issues, I knew you loved me most of all. Lynnie was beautiful and looked like you, but I was the reflection of the only man you ever loved. In fact I was so much like him, you hated me sometimes and that's okay. It didn't change that you loved me.

Sorry I let you down a lot because I, like you, couldn't show affection, had a cruel streak and had mental health issues. Thanks for giving me the rank sense of humor, love of all things puss-filled, no boundaries on social norms, great legs, and a sense of style.

I miss you every day in one way or another. Mostly days like I have had recently when I need to know someone was out there fighting for me. If heaven is real - I will see you there because if anyone needed God's grace and unconditional love, it was you. Thanks for everything good you tried to teach me and for some of the bad I learned anyway!

Happy Mother's Day, Lois - you deserve one!

PS - I still don't do a great job washing dishes late at night.

How Vulnerable Should I Be?

2009-05-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

This is a question I ask myself a lot. I am a leader in a ministry that values personal integrity and relationship. So I wrestle with the idea of being vulnerable. Am I displaying trust by being vulnerable or am I risking people losing trust in me by knowing what I struggle with in my own life?

Saturday while driving 150 miles to attend a wedding, I had a panic attack. I suffer from social anxiety, so it's not surprising that I had one considering what's been going on at work. That's where it hits the hardest. I want to be strong at work, and having an attack doesn't help that image, right?

So here's reality: Amor Ministries is struggling right now. It is a combination of the economy and a bunch of crappy events we have absolutely no control over. First the drug wars. The press went crazy with the story but didn't say that it was isolated to specific areas within the cities, so people were fearful to come within a mile of border. The drug wars are over but people still cancel their trips with us.

Then people got frightened by the flu. Doesn't that sound funny? I wish it was. 36,000 people die every year of the flu in the U.S. Last year, over 1,500 people died from malaria. But a couple of hundred of cases of the flu in Mexico sends the world into a panic over a perceived pandemic. Are we just looking for the signs of the end of the world? Over 600 people canceled their trips to Mexico with us in just one week because of the flu. Yes, because of the flu.

If we have 10,000 people come to Mexico with us this year, we will be lucky. Last year it was over 2x that amount. So why did 10,000 people not return? More importantly, why did 10,000 people let fear rule them?

There is nothing like fear - that's what my panic is rooted in - fear. I was afraid that I wouldn't make it to the wedding. I worried that there wouldn't be enough air and I would faint. I worried that what I was wearing was wrong. I worried that people would laugh at me. I worried that no one would want me there. All of that was fear. I had to push through it. And I did. I went to the wedding and there was plenty of air. I had on an appropriate dress. People laughed with me, but not at me - at least to my face. I was wanted and loved - so glad I pushed through it. My fears weren't realized.

Why do followers of Jesus succumb to fear? What does that say about what we believe? What's the worst that can happen? Death? Puleeze - we have a promise. Pain? Life brings pain doesn't it? Being hurt by people? Sure, but that happens all the time, so what?

I became a follower of Jesus after following evil for a long time. It's a period of my life I don't like talking about for a lot of reasons, but trust me - I saw, felt and knew evil. The cost of switching teams was risky, but it was worth it. Since then, I have tried to live fearlessly. It doesn't come easy to me, but I try.

Now faced with the consequences of people living in fear hurting our team financially and spiritually, I have to push my own chemistry down and lead from a place of trust, of belief and of hope.

Putting this down helps - it makes me realize that there is really nothing to fear because God is still God. He was there in the good times and He is sovereign in the hard times as well. What has changed is our dependence on Him. There is nothing to fear more in hard times than in good times. In fact, there is more opportunity learn to lean on our faith. My worst fears won't be realized.

1976 or 2009

2009-04-30T22:50:00.001-07:00

Now this is shepherding!

2009-04-27T14:44:00.001-07:00

My Obsession with 0s and 5s

2009-04-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

Found this photo on Flickr - showed the price as "YIKES!" and it is getting that way again. But that's not what I am talking about today - it's about my obsession with 0's and 5's.

My weight goals are fixated around 0's and 5s, and I don't enjoy it unless I bust below one of those.

Keeping track of on-line games, I must end in a 0 or a 5, and will play additional games until the number of plays/losses ends in a 0 or 5.

Then there is the pumping gas issue - I cannot stop unless it's a multiple of 5 or 0.

However, I don't do this while grocery or clothing shopping. I don't stand at Macy's and mentally calculate the total adding or subtracting items until I reach an acceptable number.

You won't see me at the grocery store adding items until I reach a magic number.

Yet, I obsess about zeros and fives.

What do you obsess about?

Boycotting Hilton and American Express Policies

2009-04-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

Ken Blanchard says the worst statement anyone can make when serving customers is, "That's our policy." Darn right, people.

I have a work-issued American Express card that shares an account with at least six other team members. In the post-credit debacle, AMEX lowered our credit limit not once, but twice to sadly low levels because we are a non-profit. (Do I need to point out that GM and others aren't making any profit, but I bet their AMEX accounts were not cut to 1/10th of their previous credit balance. Not to mention my employer will not be receiving nor asking/expecting a government bailout!)

While checking into the Hilton in Atlanta, the AMEX was declined. Three team members were just in South Africa, so I imagine we had pushed our account to the limit. The nice clerk said I could pay with my debit card (I don't have credit cards) for the night and put it back on the AMEX tomorrow after a payment posted.

Our CFO makes a payment to AMEX and I scoot down to the desk Monday morning to reverse the debit and encounter POLICY. The nasty clerk informs me that once an American Express card is declined it cannot be taken again, EVER, by a Hilton. It's the policy of Hilton and American Express by agreement. TO WHO'S BENEFIT, YOU MORONS?

THE CUSTOMER? I don't think so. ACCOUNTING PRACTICES for both companies? YEP!

Dear Hilton and American Express,

In the future I will be recommending to our organization to cancel our accounts (AMEX) and cease to stay at your hotels (Hilton). Thanks to your less than current approach to business, I am also going to recommend that our organization close our corporate acceptance account with AMEX as well. We do over a million, yes a MILLION dollars in credit transactions a year with our clients - many of them through AMEX. Since you charge a full two percentage points more for us to accept your cards, it will really benefit us and OUR accounting processes to do so.

Oh Hilton, by the way, we travel all over the U.S. and talk about things we believe in. Guess what, we will be talking about you and not in a good way. We have about a quarter of a million listeners, so that might take a toll on you and your income in a way that might motivate you to reconsider a policy that makes sense upstairs but just pisses off your clients on the ground.

Sincerely,
Me

Oh Regrets, I Have A Few

2009-04-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I ran a couple of errands before my trip, and unfortunately, I think I ran a red-light cam at Mission Valley mall. If the photo is good, I'll share it.

Back to Reality

2009-04-18T11:59:00.001-07:00

One of the things I am fascinated about is American politics and Christianity. There is a part of me that wish I gave to two figs about the first, because I think there is a lot to be said about the politics of America, but what really shocks me is how most Americans use politics as a test of fellowship.

In 1996 I protested at the Christian Coalition event at the RNC in San Diego. People laughed at me for my concerns about the church becoming a PAC. Now, my worst fears have arrived with Dobson saying he is influencing politics with a loud minority.

On April 15th conservatives all over the U.S. held Tea Parties to protest governmental taxation and debt. It was heralded as an American right - to free expression of speech. However, when people protested the Iraq war, it was unAmerican - and not a free expression of speech.

This email of Jim Wallis blog, really struck me as relevant and thoughtful. I hope you do too.

===============================================================================
Hearts & Minds by Jim Wallis
===============================================================================
A Christian Mistake

In ominous red and black, last week's Newsweek cover carried the
headline, "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." The
magazine's cover story by editor Jon Meacham provoked a wide
array of reactions from across the spectrum. Whether Meacham is
ultimately correct in his observance of these trends and his
interpretation of their meaning is yet to be seen. The 1966 Time
magazine cover that asked "Is God Dead?" could not have foreseen
the development of religion in American public life over the
past 40 years, and we shouldn't expect any more from Newsweek.
What the latter cover has accomplished is to raise questions
vital to both the health of the Christian tradition and for the
public discourse of our nation.

The question that struck me and the one I began to address in a
short piece for Newsweek was that of the role of religion in
public life and politics. Here's what I had to say:

The Religious Right was a Christian mistake. It was a movement
that sought to implement a "Christian agenda" by tying the
faithful to one political option -- the right wing of the
Republican Party. The politicizing of faith in such a partisan
way is always a theological mistake. But the rapid decline of
the Religious Right now offers us a new opportunity to re-think
the role of faith in American public life.

Personally, I am not offended or alarmed by the notion of a
post-Christian America. Christianity was originally and, in my
view, always meant to be a minority faith with a
counter-cultural stance, as opposed to the dominant cultural and
political force. Notions of a "Christian America" quite frankly
haven't turned out very well. (emphasis is mine)

But that doesn't mean a lack of religious influence -- on the
contrary. Committed minorities have had a tremendous influence
on cultures and even on politics. Just look at all the
faith-inspired social-reform movements animated by people of
faith. But Martin Luther King Jr. did not get the Civil Rights
Act passed because he had the most Bible verses on his side but
because he entered into the public square with compelling
arguments, vision, and policy that ultimately won the day. Those
faith-inspired movements are disciplined by democracy, meaning
they don't expect to win just because they are "Christian." They
have to win the debates about what is best for the common good
by convincing their fellow citizens.

And that is best done by shaping the values narrative, as
opposed to converting everyone to their particular brand of
religion. Rather, they are always looking for allies around
their moral causes, including people of other faiths or of no
religion. The story of Christianity in America in the coming
decades will be defined by a multicultural shift as well as a
generational one. "New" evangelicals and Catholics, along with
black, Hispanic, and Asian churches will now shape the agenda.
But also included are the millions of Americans who say they are
"spiritual but not religious," finding homes in non-traditional
churches, mega-churches that teach that true religion is found
in care for "the least of these." Making a real impact on the
values and directions that a democracy will choose is, perhaps,
a more exciting kind of influence than relying on the illusory
and often disappointing hopes of cultural and political
dominance.

Barack Obama stirred the pot around this exact question recently
with his comment at a press conference in Turkey that "we do not
consider ourselves a Christian nation." This statement is not a
new one for Obama. He expressed it clearly during a 2006 speech
to a Sojourners/Call to Renewal conference. He explained his
position this way:

"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate
their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific,
values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument,
and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for
religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the
practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or
evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some
principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including
those with no faith at all.

"Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the
inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a
pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on
our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a
common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's
possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for
compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken,
then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts,
regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such
uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our
policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing."

The shift that Jon Meacham describes may be the best news in a
long time.

It's My Birthday!

2009-04-16T00:05:00.001-07:00

Today I celebrate my 49th birthday and the start of my 50th year. I have decided to find 50 ways to celebrate this momentous year ending with throwing myself one hell-of-a-party on Friday, April 16, 2010. So mark your calendars, because you are invited to party with me.

So far I have several celebrations planned - mostly get togethers with old friends, young friends, family and some travel. I will be tagging onto other people's parties - like the weekend I am spending in Seattle for Forrest and Carrie's wedding will include some fun times for me to celebrate.

Mostly I am embracing the fact that both of my parents died in their 70th year - right before their 70th birthdays. That's just 20 years from now, for me. I intend on living past 70, but I also intend to live the next 20 years as if they are all I am going to have.

What do I want to do with my next 20 years?

Fall in love with a man who loves me back - even for just a little while
Change the world
Spend more time listening to friends
Love my family celebrating the force that they are
Change the world
Teach Ginger to ride in my bike basket and ride everywhere with her
Feel healthy - physically and emotionally
Find a way to turn people on to the God I love
Practice justice
Change the world
Keep hate out of my vocabulary and spirit
Change the world
Travel more; acquire less
Pay off my debts - financial and spiritual
Change the world
Become a foster parent, maybe
Speak boldly and aspirationally
Write a book that gets published
Raise up leaders
Change the world

House Church Launch

2009-03-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I met with my partner in church planting and we have decided to go forward with the house church planting process by holding an informational meeting. If you would like to be a part of a house church starting in San Diego, please RSVP to attend an informational meeting on Thursday, April 2 at 6:30 p.m. A meal will be served.

Correction - The meeting will be Thursday, April 2. Thanks!

Call Paranomal State!

2009-03-29T16:06:00.001-07:00

Thank goodness for cable tv or would have never known about Paranormal State. Now, I think I should call them.

It all started with Ginger, the wonder-Schnoodle, standing at the kitchen cabinet where I keep pots and pans scratching and barking. She doesn't do it every day, but often late in the evening. She will whine and growl. I have torn the cabinet apart looking for a mouse, mouse droppings or even a wayward ball to no avail. There is no reason why she does it, she just does.

Then suddenly the light next to the garage door stopped working. The light switch is still hot and changing the bulb didn't help. So yesterday, I got out the ladder and started to unscrew the fixture from the garage to replace it with the bargain one I picked up at Lowe's on Friday. It occured to me that this was hard wired to the garage and I should probably turn the fuse off.

I turned on the light interior light on the same switch and walked to the fuse box at the other end of the house to take a wild guess at which fuse was the garage light. I shut one off, walked back to see the light on. Returning to the fuse box, I turned it back on and switched off another when it happened just as I walked by the back door.

The light cover, an antique 3# glass enclosure, by the back door in the kitchen suddenly just fell off dropping seven feet and shattering everywhere. The shards of glass shot everywhere even outside where I was walking by. The pieces of glass hit my face and arms cutting me. After cleaning up all the glass, I went back to the ladder to resume removing the exterior light.

The ladder had not been wobbly before, but now it was and toppled to the left just as I jumped down to avoid falling. Given how my day was going, I stopped working on the rusty light, switched the fuse back on so the freezer would restart and called it day.

Fast forward to Sunday - Ginger is playing her annoying game of dropping her ball outside the picket fence so I can come out and get it for her. On my last trip, (no pun intended) as I stepped up the three small brick steps into the house I fell.

It was like my foot just went out from under me and I toppled forward onto my knee which landed on the edge of the step. Ouch! I put my hand out to break the fall and it suddenly jerked out from under me until my hooters hit the brick landing with the full force of momentum. Thankfully their abundance both cushioned and slowed my fall so that when the side of my face hit the bricks it didn't do any significant damage - just a sting.

So what do you think? Is my house attacking me? Have I talked trash about my parents enough that they have come to haunt me? I mean, my dad was dead for years before I moved here, and I didn't leave him a forwarding address, so is my mom doing this on her own?

And don't think this isn't possible - I remember once using the treadmill in their living room only to see them sitting there laughing at me. When I asked what was so funny, they wiped their tears and said, "You walk funny!"

What a Performance

2009-03-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

This is Kaylie, one of my dearest friends' daughter. She has autism, but God has given her another talent - singing.

Monsters Grow Old Too

2009-03-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

In a news release today, Reuters showed mass-murderer Charles Manson as he currently looks at age 74.

When I was 10 years old this was the boogy-man who I had nightmares about. His evil, his hatred, his insanity made me afraid to go camping and to visit California even though he was in custody.

Now, 39 years later - he is a sick, sad, old man.

Oh I Laughed

2009-03-19T14:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Dooce and ICanHasCheezburger

This is funny - click to see full size - my template is giving me fits, sorry!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures