You Can Find Me at the End of It

I sat down last night to write my blog and I was totally unable to do it. My mind is so full of a thousand distractions and unanswered questions and what I really wanted to do was launch a full-on cyber rant with the hopes that I would feel better afterward. I opted for plan B and just unloaded in my journal. Oh, if those pages could talk. So this morning I have a crushing headache that my early morning exercise did not take away. The over-sized cup of tea didn't do it either. I said all of this to say that, people, I am at the end of it. I don't really know what "it" is, but I am so there. At the end. And that is all I have to say today. I will be back tomorrow with my jumble of thoughts and hopefully a head that doesn't hurt. I am overdue for a post on women so maybe next week I can pull that off. Hmmm. I guess this turned out to be a mini rant. Thanks for playing along!

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So This Is His Grace...

"God calls us throughout our life to severe grace, the grace of the cocoon. We are called to separate from the old, to die in order to be reborn. If we open ourselves to this severe grace, we encounter God in new places: in the cyclone, in the dark, in the crisis that shatters our old confining consciousness. It is this severity that makes us new."
-Sue Monk Kidd

When I was six, my grandfather took my brother and me to the local carnival where the rides are put together in a store parking lot in just a matter of hours and you wonder who in their right mind would really get on one of them. My brother chose the "Spider" which was a ride that went around and around while the bucket seats at the end of each spider leg would spin. And spin. And spin. I do not like to spin. This was the moment in my young life when this revelation came to me. The ride began and thus began my screaming. I screamed for the entire duration, begging the man running the ride to PLEASE LET ME OFF!!! He did not and it was then that I realized that there are consequences for the choices you make in life.

Fast forward thirty-four years and there you find me on another of life's rides that seemed safe, nonthreathening, benign even from the ground but once strapped in and the motion began, then came the moment of yet another fit of screaming. "I want to encounter you in familiar places, GOD!!!!!!!!!!" "You tricked me!!!!!" "I am not talking to YOU anymore, and I mean it!"

What? You don't talk to God like that? I know, it is irreverent, but I just figure that He knows what I think so I might as well get it all out there. He has never minded my honesty. It is I who mind His. Sometimes. And yet this past weekend I was thankful for His honesty as I stilled myself long enough to hear Him talking to me. And this is what I discovered. I don't really understand the love of God. I had thought that, to some degree, I did. I was wrong. As He "shatters my old, confining consciousness", I am finding that He plans to make me new, yet again. I don't know what this means this time. But I will surely keep you posted.

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Angry, So Angry!!

I wrote this great blog last night on transition. I struggled with it because the words weren't flowing. And then I hit that sweet spot and it all flowed out. But then the unthinkable occurred and stupid Mozilla shut down on it's own before I could save all that I had written. I was furious! Aaaagghhhhh!! I lost it and I couldn't remember what I had written. So, here is my meager blog offering for today. Important life lesson: always save what you are writing about every 30 seconds when you are using a crappy laptop.

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Angry, Mean People

Confession. I really can't stand mean people. I try to be tolerant and gracious when dealing with others who are not at all like me, but mean people don't deserve graciousness. They should be banished from society, exiled to a remote, deserted island somewhere without even the Professor or Maryanne to keep them company. What's that you say? Harsh? No, not really. Okay, maybe. This past Saturday I was in a grocery store picking up a few items and as I waited in the 10 items or less checkout line, my little bubble of peace was violently popped by a man waiting behind me in line. He was speaking rudely in a VERY loud voice into his cell phone (God help all those who are related to him). He was mad at having to wait so long in line, he was mad at the unfortunate person who dared to call him a second time and he shouted at his companions who were waiting for him at the customer service desk. Everyone around him was clearly uncomfortable at his angry outburst.
Why be so angry and mean? What good ever comes from it? It certainly doesn't improve your health, lengthen your life or endear you to others, so why live out of control? I find that when I am around that level of anger, I want to run away. I don't enjoy having the peace robbed from my little atmosphere. The thing I find most difficult is being genuinely kind to someone who behaves that way. I would love to say that the gentle love of baby Jesus spills forth from me on to all who are angry in my presence. Not so. It makes me feel angry instead. Why is that? How about you? What happens within you when anger is spewed out all around you?

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