Mitford Jewels

Books are like treasure-houses, spanned with room after room of contrasting but equaly magnitzing outlay and decor. Some are intriguing in their imagination-stirring newness, others are dark and noble, deep with recesses of inspiration and others are comfortable like a meal with old friends or the put-on feel of my favorite winter jacket. But my favorite books include all the rooms in a mesmerizing seemless tour. Such is the first of the Mitford Series: At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon. A yarn about a batchelor rector in a village. I'll include some conversational jewels.

"When it comes to feeding his sheep, I'm afraid my sermons are about as nourishing as cardboard."
"Are you resting?"
"Resting?"
"Resting. Sometimes we get so worm out with being usefeul that we get useless. I'll ask you what another preacher once asked: Are you too exhausted to run and too scared to rest?"

"That man is the' richest whose pleasures are th' cheapest!"

"...telling a lie is like eating peanuts. One leads to another. In no time at all, you've gone through a bag full...worst of all you become a slave to something that isn't real."

"I've learned not to live on any promises other than God's..."

To Please or Not to Please

I don’t remember where I read it…I don’t claim to be a fan of hers, but none the less I feel that she is more or less right. Marilyn Monroe was quoted as saying something to the effect that the Hardest Thing in the World is Pleasing One Person Completely.
I’m not taking about the reality that humanly speaking we can’t please each other completely…that you and I have a God-shaped hole that no human can fill. I’m just pondering the fact that it is a lot easier to please a lot of people superficially then it is to please one fully. Is this phenomenon just unique to me and Marilyn Monroe? I'm not inclined to believe this is so.
I understand that I speak from the window of my castle, from the vantage point of my experience, within the whirls of my personality. I haven’t always known this, I haven’t wanted to know this but it’s true, I find it easier to play the butterfly; fluttering around superficially pleasing others, causally commenting, always asking and delighting in discovering…sharing nectar so to speak. But more often than not, soul- nourishing, deep ties are wound around by others and not myself. That is not to say I don’t crave them or need them but I’ve realized through the help of another that somewhere in me there is a fear of intimacy: a fear that I will fail the other person, not provide what they need and want. The result is that I don’t intentional pursue enough what I really want: Soul deep, kindred spirit, David & Jonathon friendships. Don’t get me wrong, I initiate deep conversation, paradigm shifters and brain teasers but I don’t sustain them. I don’t couch them with every day consistent concern. I don’t intentionally keep them up. My fear of failure keeps me selfishly stuck. That’s it, isn’t it? Selfishness unmasked just again? For me that’s what it must be. Pleasing a lot of people is less time consuming, less demanding, less constraining, takes less of me then intentional pursuing an intimate connection. Smack me! Selfishness is just plain easier and just plain less fulfilling in the long run. I’ve even noticed that I tend to run around more easily in groups of three than I do in twosomes. The truth is that the twosome requires a lot more emotionally energy then the threesome…in one scenario, one person is depending on me, in the other two can keep each other company and I can do my thing more freely. Is this all bad news of what? Are there any positives in my makeup? Or do I have to completely resolve this by changing my natural niche zone? Marilyn might have spoken the truth about herself (and I relate), she did die alone, this goddess of millions. Isn’t that the ultimate end of selfishness…death?

...Metamorphsis...

Creepy, crawly caterpiller to glistening, graceful butterfly...the beauty of which almost makes one forget the slimmy, agonizing, exhausting interval when it is...neither. I know that 'neither' region. I know it well; know its seemingly endless clammy darkness that slowly transcends into a glimmering shroud of light. A shroud that covers a moist, tender, new identity. I can empathize...I sense a flow of freedom flowing through, awakening the wings I never knew existed. During the darkness, the skeletal construction defened me to hope of brand new things. All I felt was hammerings, poundings and shocking currants; and a growing cold wetness that pervaded me, hampered me. The sun is peek-a-booing, its gentle winks drying out the cold-wetness. And within me desires a desire to fly, to fly the heights of space and the lenghths of distance. To stretch to an embrace of a graceful beauty...

"If a man is divided, undecided, unsettled,
until he is sure that he will lose nothing,
he shows that he is a man God cannot use."
Testimonies to Ministers 403

The Cynic

With cryptic words and counted tones,
she'll show a flair for tossing phrases
as if not caring.
When truth be told it is her keen, ideal mind
that thumps a warpath beat
between her hopeful, love-wish heart that saw
the broken, rainwashed, spoiled world that
torked her mind and broke her heart.
And when the beats lounge out at last...
she'll skip the thoughts and dance out in freedom
and hope again...because the cynic never wins.

Country Musings

I could literally feel my spirit smile and uncoil before the gentle hills and dark woods that lay on either side of the highway. Inspite of the barren landscape and gray daylight, the open spaces of country living broke my intense mood and brought a rush of memories complete with smells and sounds. The buzz of a chain saw, the chop and splintering crack of the ax on the log that now lays in two pieces. The creaking groan and hisses of the gaping, ever hungery wood stove. A whif of the air and I think I catch the aroma of freshly baked bread as it steams on the counter. I feel like striding off with a loaf to roam the fields and woods like I used to. Pretending I was one at large discovering everything for the first time. My feet will be muddy, my clothes will have come from goodwill but my heart will sing a song of family and my spirit will soar with the magic of ordinary days.
I miss the magic of those ordinary days.
Things I never thought I'd ever miss. One thing is sure, the spirit thrives on things closests to humble earth. Those dirty finger nails after yet another hour wedding the garden. The straining muscles after 1001 attempts to clean up those acers of multi-color fall leaves. The less than perfect and too small bedroom that overflowed with the books and nicknacks of four growing girls. Even the teasing and pensive thoughts of brothers that first taught me all about boys. Those farmer's breakfasts and the work that brought a farmer's appetite. The family sundown worships...the songs and stories and loving tiredness of just being together.

The twinkle of a stream and my dreams float away...I'm buzzing down the highway into the city again...the lights, the people, the noise, the combusted smells and that everlasting materialism.
If I'm to survive in the city, I need more of these spirit-smile-moments...down country roads, past farms and fields to woods with winds of memories astir.

The B.I.C. Effect

Qualifier: What follows is a personal 'female' definition of the topic and is not meant to express the opinions of other females or even my final thoughts on the topic.

Disclaimer: The suggestions that follow do not take into account the status of that particularly maddening female cycle. Timing is everything sometimes.

Its perfectly obvious. Women are usually, comparatively speaking, more beautiful then men. I mean, with all due respect, a beautificious/handsome in the male gender (this is in no way diminishing their inherent attractiveness) is more of an exception than the rule. Now that I've said that I want to disagree with myself. I think I jolly will do. Whatever Diana! All right moving on. So...the point is that a woman is the definition of beauty not the man. With that in mind check out the following exaggerated equation.

Beauty is visual-duh.

Men are visual-double duh.

Men + Beauty: Attraction.

Think: summer and winter, cookies and milk, white on rice.

I am certainly NOT insinuating that all that men appreciate or even look for is 'scenery'. I myself appreciate good 'scenery'. I speak of a part and not the whole.
You understand of course, that in my perfect world I would be my man's perfect-all-absorbing-beauty...ah, its free to dream...However, since I'm neither resident of my-perfect-world or very consciously not any man's perfect-all-absorbing-beauty, what are men and woman to do with the above equation?
For starters and the upside for the girls in this equation is that the man that God leads you to will appreciate your beauty and your efforts to take care of it. If he does not, you have no business marrying him! I'm serious. Girls also have the responsibility not to inappropriately adorn a man's mind-you know what I mean.

For enders and probably the harder end of the bargain, men's visual nature. I'm suggesting the incorporation of B.I.C.

Bounce, Include, Create: B.I.C

1) The Bounce Effect: I'm taking the covenant eyes that Job talked about(Job 31:1). A consistent habit of not 'lusting' on beauty not only guards against degrading habits but also increases your contentment with your own beauty.

2) The Inclusion Effect: If Adam's raptured exclamation of 'bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh' and God's confirmation 'and they shall be one flesh' is to be practiced and honored. Then respecting your beauty's feelings (women compare themselves to each other and to the impossible air-brush models) will include you appreciating beauty in an appropriate way.
There isn't anything wrong with appreciating beauty or even commenting on it (heads up: what time of the month is it?) Just take her feelings into account and don't pretend you aren't attracted to beauty or worse yet blatantly or secretly be making a bee-line for the next ravishing beauty in whatever form that might be.

3) The Creative Effect: Your words create beauty. That's right, your affirming, gentle, thoughtful, patient words and actions express love to your woman. And a woman in love is beautiful. And that's a fact. Daily you have the opportunity to create a beauty. Now that's a beautiful thought.

That equation: its a beautiful things in marriage. (or so I hear+)

Max

I met him on a shuttle van in route from Atlanta, Georgia to Chattanooga, Tennessee. No ordinary charmer, the two hour journey found me seat-partners to Master Sergent Riden, a 20-odd year military man, a southern gentleman and a definite inheritor of the talent of WOO. He had it mastered to an art. A rare combination of mellowed confidence interspersed with endearing diffidence.
Designed to send me packing to the nearest recruitment office-out spun a fascinating array of stories and facts, from the personal pull of charisma to the usual financial and travel perks. At one point, out came a magazine prop that had him featured as a top, actually number one to be exact, pick within a magazine picture gallery trumping specimens of muscular military fitness. Suffice it to say that the man was a monument to washboard abs if there every was one.
Abbs aside, what has remind burned in my mind, was the telling of his personal motto. His mantra of sorts. The one he shares with new recruits along with the disclaimer that he's no 'pencil pusher': meaning there is going to be no sliding in by the skin of your teeth with this guy. This personal motto was printed on his stationary, his letterhead, and I could sense, his being.

Never train to Pass,
Always train to Max

He built a context than expanded. That way the military training system works, according to MSG Riden, is that the recruits have certain quotas with a pass and a max zone. If one has the repeated pattern of only training to just pass, then it stands that on a 'bad' day, i.e. disagreement with a girlfriend or wife (his example) or other wise mentally disconcerted or physically at odds, then you will score at lower than the 'passing' mark-and so fail. If on the other hand one strives to max out the max (is that possible?), then on a 'bad' day one will still perform way beyond just passing--and so succeed.
The implications of such an attitude and practice weren't fleshed out till days latter. And it was contrary to the original though pattern.
An etching of 'running the race with patience' and the Education quote: "Higher than the highest human thought can reach in God's ideal for His children. Godliness-godlikness-is the goal to be reached." conjoined to narrate a new idea. It would be easy to take a military stance on a works oriented max-out. But actually God-likeness is a living definition of God. And God is Love, I John 4:16. A strong, tough, working love, yes, but not the shallow, selfishly lazy, but sometimes flashy kind of love. Running the track of this kind of love requires that patience Paul described. It requires the determination to train to Max-It-Out. The fullness of living with this model of Maxing out love is really revolutionizing my life. Max love by making choices that reflect love in the way I treat myself and others. Max love and so succeed at love.
Yes, I gained a new inspiration to 'train' myself to push my supposed limits of physical and mental endurance (which was MSG Rider original point and living illustration) but most importantly to me. I will allow God to show me how to stretch my supposed limitations in Maxing out Love.

Remebered

In some its blatantly obvious, in others it gently simmers. The inherent desire to make a diference, leave a trace, be remembered. Even the compulsion not to leave a draining trace--think: not a earth-tearing ground hog but a touch-down butterfly--is another side of making a diference by not being the other, the expected; the pounding elephant or destructive, thoughtless human. A reversal of the norm, even in subtlty, is by its very nature a distinction; a statement of difference.
The solemn thought is that in reality everthing I do and say does make a difference. Is remembered. Is recoreded. I am not just taking about the ripling pond effect, the ever widening circle of influence that never real dies but cycles in cause and effect generation after generation. I am referring to the permancy of the eternal record (Matthew 12:37 "For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned" and Revelation ) and the choice of destiny they reveal. The fact is that the invisble and inherent exercise of choice is revealed by my words and acts.
No fear. You won't be forgotten. You are captured on the dramatic reel of eternity. And your film will play the story line you created. One that reveals the

The Earth is your Stage, the Universe your Theater, your Choices your Play and the Eternal your Judge.

May the final curtain find you draped with the laurels of

Not Me

That's not part of me...
I don't claim it
I don't want it
I despise it

That's not part of me...
Its intwined and
behind and
inside me

That's not part of me...

It's me.

Defining Catalyst

Inspiration sometimes chooses the most unlikely moments to spur me on.

I've been on my bed feeling for all the world like an over-aired ballon suspended in vibration on blasting rock 'n roll; a.k.a I'm like really sick. My head's pounding with a thunderbolt headache and my whole body feels like it was struck by a runaway wal-mart semitruck. Inspite of my deathly physical symptoms, my thoughts are very alive. In times like these my fingers are the ones that are slow.

It has been said that confession is good for the soul but hard on the reputation. But it occured to me that more often than not our confession is really a driven declaration. An acknowledgement to something that lay within the relm of our 'blindspot', self-imposed or otherwise but that most every other observant soul saw clear as day. With that in mind I asked myself why others have not more often checked me on some of my balatant inconsistencies, unbalanced opinions, and unhealthy patterns of behavior. I won't decieve myself into thinking that my actions or for that matter, my soap-box passionate speeches were really all that persuasive. Beyond timing, a willingess to question me or even my own questionable receptiveness; I realize the answer is not cut and dry.

I've grown to appreciate my own blindspots...after I realized what they were that is. Those areas have deepened my respect for the insights of others, encouraged humility and have become the areas where I grew the most...exponentially so.

I say all this to say this. God is the only constant. I'm the variable.

Dictionary.com defines Catalyst this way:

1. a substance that causes or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected.

2. something that causes activity between two or more persons or forces without itself being affected.

3. a person or thing that precipitates an event or change.

4. a person whose talk, enthusiasm, or energy causes others to be more friendly, enthusiastic, or energetic.

The Creator of the Universe, the Originator of the unique combination that makes up me, the Author of my salvation is my ultimate Cataylist. His unchanging substence is what causes any lasting reaction, any lasting change for the better.
But there is no doubt in my mind that He works through people to 'catalyst' to me. And so it is to the priviledge of 'mind sharpening mind' that I dedicate the random thoughts that will no doubt be posted here. No man is an island unto himself and I certainly don't want to be the first woman adrift unto myself. My desire is to verefy, affirm, and at the same time question and yes, challange our mutual thinking 'ruts'. I expect and accept the same thing back. Your insights might just catapult me into my next big paradigm shift or help deepen my convictions.

Here's to clear writing and thoughtful readers!