Good Life

Ten Years

2006-10-13T06:23:00.000-07:00

I feel that I am one of the richest women in the world. My riches are not in stocks, bonds or property. My riches are in love.

Today I have been married to my best friend for ten years. (That sounds like an invite to a wedding many anniversaries too late.) I must say, the investment I made when I walked down the isle has come back with so much return I don't think I can measure it. All I know is, I love Steve more and I feel and understand his love more than I could have dreamed. The idealism I felt as a bride has been proven to be true, love sustains.

We have not been rich in things and often have felt rather poor in our means. The hopes and dreams we had 3650 days ago have been dashed, become dusty and have changed many times over. We have born the burdens of parental illness, heavy financial responsibilities, a disappointing career change, three years of grad school and infertility. Through all the storms we have always had the safety and comfort of our love for each other to keep us going and inspired. Neither of us have given up on each other no matter how frustrated we have been with situations and our reactions to them.

I still tell Steve I love him at least three times a day, some days it is in the double digits. I can't help it really, it flies out of my mouth each time we talk on the phone or I leave in the morning or kiss him good-night. Sometimes the love just wells up when we're sitting in front of a movie or talking about an issue and I wrap my arms around him in joy to be spending that time with him. I can't leave the house without kissing him good-bye and he patiently tolerates that I wake him up every morning to do so. And I don't know what we did before cell phones, b/c we call each other several times a day. We have a constant awareness of each other and meeting the needs the other has, so we need to check in.

Time has not softened me to computer stores and my husband finds some way to tolerate craft stores, but we pretty much like doing everything together. God's plan of the two becoming one really does work. Sometimes I forget that he is not me. Most times it is hard to ignore that we are different people, but I have grown to accept the breadth of who I am as part of who Steve is. We joke that we are on two different clocks and in our day to day, it is true. I sleep before him and wake before him. I like my dinner warm and as close to 5:00 as possible, he likes his cold and as close to 11:00 as possible. I love morning, he loves night. We seldom seem to naturally get into sinc. And I think this has made our life that much richer from the expansion of it. If he is awake he can do things I can't get done, if I am awake, I do the same for him. I cook, he cleans the dishes. I write the bills, he mails them. We have worked out ways to blend our lives even though we have to make conscious efforts to meet each other sometimes.

The phrase, "familiarity breads contempt" is an absolute lie. Familiarity with my love has bread respect, intrigue and comfort. I find my husband to be even more handsome than he was at 24 and I have told people that I think my husband can do anything. I am not exaggerating when I say it, I truly believe that he has abilities to learn absolutely anything and be proficient. He never stops amazing me with what he can do. And what I feel most when he does something new, is appreciation, because he usually sets out to learn a new skill in order to benefit me. When the sink needed to be fixed, he learned how to do it. When my computer stops working properly, he will take the hours to fix it. When we needed shelves, he built them. When we start to fix up our apartment, he will know exactly what needs to be done. That's just him, capable and motivated to make my life better.

I used to feel threatened when we were first married because he was so much more gifted than I. I wondered if I would become boring to him because I didn't have any new things to amaze him with. I was envious of his abilities to make things and feel instantly comfortable with people. Now I see those things as his gifts to me. Where I lack, he picks up. And as far as keeping him interested, I have come to accept that my humor, my cheerleading, my clumsiness, keep him enough amused to spend another ten years with me.

Marriage may be like a good wine that gets better with age, but having no experience with wine, I would compare my husband to a favorite movie. He is very familiar and I tolerate the bad parts because I treasure the good parts, that's why he is my favorite.

The Ocean

2006-09-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

I love the ocean. However, of anything in God's creation, the ocean has always been frightening to me. Paradoxes are intriguing to me, maybe that is why I love people so much.

While I was in Maine this summer I went to the beach in Old Orchard. This is not a new event, I have been going to the beach in Old Orchard since I was 8 months old. What was unique about this visit is how the Lord used that patch of sand to speak to me.

I drove myself down the four blocks from my parents' cottage on this particular morning. There was no question as to where I would go on the 7 mile stretch, the Forsters always go to the same block length of sand. I know that section very well, however as the waves crash loudly, haphazardly, harshly, I am always reminded that this is God's creation not mine. While I have lots of memories there and can tell you with my eyes closed where the rock outcroppings are and can describe how the sand slopes to the shore, I cannot tell you where the waves will crash. I can claim that space as mine, but never truly felt it was, until that sweet morning.

Within the last year, I have learned the value of walking slowly, meditating on what the moment I am experiencing is to mean, and what God is doing at that moment in my life. I walked slowly that morning from "Sally Rock" (as the Old Orchard Beach Camp Meeting faithful call the outcropping of rocks where we gather), to the next outcropping. I kept having these strange sensations of emotion, from elation to confusion about what being in this special place, near this very scary ocean was to mean.

I kept listening. I kept walking.

Soon I was hearing the comfort of the Spirit's voice, "I have etched this place onto your heart." I was happy to hear this, but wondered why He would tell me or for what reason it would need to be etched there. Then I pondered what it was I had come to the beach alone for,, it was for refreshment. Old Orchard Camp Meetings have always been my annual pilgrimage for refreshment and this year was not different. Here I was at the beach looking for it, listening for what God would give me and this was what it was, that I could tap into this place of refreshment always, no matter where I was, because the beach was in my heart where He resides. He showed me that with visit after visit, hours of playing, walking, thinking, dreaming, praying on that section of sand and water that he etched it into me. I crunched my toes into the sand with gratitude and inspected the rock for shells and creatures, in the comfort of familiarity.

If the beach was etched onto my heart, then I wanted to know about those ferocious waves. So I turned to face them. As I stood there I felt the pull of the tides on my feet. I walked deeper in, close to my knees. I could really feel the pull and the fear. I kept standing there listening and soon began to feel a cleansing. With each wave after that, I felt God was washing my soul. Some waves took my worries, the next few took my fears and soon my burdens floated away. I felt the power of His waves of grace washing into my soul. I welcomed the cleansing of that salted water on my legs and deep into my spirit. The pressure of the tide on my legs never lessened and the lesson kept being pounded in with the every push and pull of the tide. I felt the love with each crash I heard.

My fear of the power of those waves has lessened. They are still powerful and I don't plan to swim far from shore when I visit that beach again, but they belong to the hand of my loving Father who uses them as the metaphor for His refreshment. He uses whatever at his disposal to teach me of His love. Even now I feel those waves ebbing and flowing through me.

My favoirte Army song desribes my experience well:

O Boundless Salvation,
Deep ocean of Love,
O fulness of mercy, Christ brought from above,
The whole world redeeming, so rich and so free,
Now flowing for all men, come, roll over me!

My sins they are many, their stains are so deep
and bitter the tears of remorse that I weep
But useless is weeping, thou great crimson sea
Thy waters can cleanse me, come roll over me!

My tempers are fitful, my passions are strong,
they bind my poor soul and they force me to wrong;
Beneath thy blest billows deliverance I see,
O come, mighty ocean, and roll over me!

Now tossed with temptations, then haunted with fears,
My life has been joyless and useless for years;
I feel sonething better most surely would be
If once thy pure waters would roll over me

O ocean of mercy, oft longing I've stood
On the brink of thy wonderful life-giving flood
Once more I have reached this soul-cleansing sea
I will not go back till it rolls over me.

The tide is now flowing, I'm touching the wave
I hear the loud call of the mighty to save;
My faith's growing bolder delivered I'll be;
I plunge 'neath the waters, they roll over me.

And now, hallelujah! the rest of my days
Shall gladly be spent in promoting his praise
Who opened his bosom to pour out this sea
Of boundless salvation for you and for me.

William Booth (1829-1912)

New Life

2006-07-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

We have two little yellow chicks living in the nest on our fire escape now. Mama's sitting has been worth it.

My sitting has brought some new life as well. Some sweet times of breakthrough happened for several of my guys this week. Months of listening, nudging, cheering, have built trust which led to insight into what I have been saying.

God is the timekeeper, not I, and He has shown that in good time eggs well nurtured and matured, will hatch. Now I'll keep watching Mama Bird for lesson plans on flying.

Mama Bird

2006-07-14T16:21:00.000-07:00

Mama Bird continues to sit on her nest. It has been about 13 days since she layed her eggs. She is there every day, all day, except when Papa Bird relieves her to go find some food. She reminds me to be still and persistent.

I keep wondering how long it will take for the eggs to hatch. She doesn't look like she is in too much of a hurry. I gotta keep learning how to just sit and stop worrying about the outcomes, I'm not helping the ones I sit for when I try to rush things. I'm glad she's there as my reminder.

Some lessons

2006-07-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

I so often want to know things on the first try. I often used to quit something if I didn't get it the first one or two times. I want my life to be like a movie sequence, you know where the main character learns a lot in a lot of situations or resolves an issue probably over several days and weeks, but it all goes by with a lot of great music and is over in two or three minutes.

We do learn things over time and it can be as exciting as the movies portray, they just take longer and are not always our complete focus. Take my knitting for instance. When I learned how to knit, I learned on gigantic needles and yarn and it was prtty easy (thanks to my friend Christy). When I attempted to do a project with half the size of materials, I struggled. When I went to my knitting shop and asked them to assist me with a stitch so I could complete a project I was starting, wise Gerty told me, "Rome was not built in a day. Go home an practice this stitch before you think about a project." I was disheartened and determined to prove her wrong. I worked on my piece with the intention to get it right the first time. but after completing maybe 15 rows, I saw how horriblly I had missed a row and had to take the whole thing out. As I began again, my determination waned as I had to start over maybe 20 times easy, because I kept losing stitches. I kept hearing Gerty's voice in my head, "Rome wasn't built in a day." That phrase slowly became a mantra, much like the music behind a movie sequence. I knit to its rhythm in a way and with practice I improved. Now I can look back on my slow moving sequence of learning and see that I have succeeded and now am knitting like a movie star.

The other lesson I learned comes from my favorite Mets announcers. They always say that if someone has had a slump that they are due for a hit or a good pitching outing. I don't know if all announcers view it this way, but I'm glad these guys see the upside of the downside. It makes me think about how when I have not been very successful or proud of myself, I'm due for some success. When discouraged I hope I'll remember these lessons and keep trying, knowing that I'm due for a homerun and even without music, I'll have my own learning sequence to reflect on.

Sitting

2006-06-27T07:35:00.000-07:00

A mama pigeon has laid an egg in a nest on our fire escape. From our dining table we can see her. She sits a lot on that egg.

It made me think of what I do most of the time. I sit, hoping that my effort will produce good things. I sit on trains and buses for long periods of time, getting to the people I am scheduled to meet. Once I get to a location, I often have to sit again until an appointment starts or a group meeting ends. I sit in waiting rooms at treatment clinics at doctor's offices and court houses. I sit and wait, I sit and pray, I sit and settle myself. I sit and sit and sit until I can finally sit with the person I have come to meet. I sit to better concentrate on them and what they need. I sit to be clear minded enough to ask the right questions that spurs on the growth or the undoing that blocks their progress. I sit and listen. I sit and care. I sit and can see them eye to eye.

I always pray that when I get up from sitting that goodness will come of it. Sometimes that one sitting becomes a turning point and has effect. Most times I must plan to sit some more. Maybe I'll sit for weeks, months or a year, before some progress happens. Maybe I'll sit and the person I sat with and for, will only feel some remote comfort or some ease of distress while I sit with them. For all the time I sit for them, it will never be enough.

I am a mother bird of sorts. I think Jesus must be a mother bird too.

Happiness is..

2006-05-18T18:34:00.000-07:00

standing in my kitchen reading over menus before I delve into chopping, sauteing and simmering. I find cooking to be one of the delights of my day. It is a time when I think of nothing else, but the project I am working on and maybe the baseball game on the radio.

I came to cooking late. I've been married for nine years, and we have survived somehow, but I would not call what I did for at least the first seven years, to be anything resembling cooking. I saw it as such a burden to cook after working or studying all day. During graduate school we lived in the restaurants around Flushing. I can't believe I eat Boston Market food again because after three years of that being the only decent American food I could find, I was sick to death of it.

Steve and I have had conflicts over what food I could make, since we are trying to blend the east with west on our table. We had to agree not to be in the kitchen together either because that is where our differences are most evident. The use of fire and knives by our mothers and their mothers for generations created quite the divisions in our little kitchen and caused us to feel the tides of our homelands pulling us away from each other. In order to keep our marriage intact we made a pact to not prepare food in the presence of the other.

Now I have the kitchen as my place of soitude. I stand at the counter my sweet husband made for me (with a Japanese saw and American colonial hand tools) and feel empowered. I can take ingredients and make them into a meal. I can handle all the tools that surround me. I can make food that nourishes and tastes good.

I owe my interest in food to my cool brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and Paige, who modeled fresh cooking for me for years. (And I should mention Cook's Illustrated, their secret weapon.) They of course made me feel like a pea for most of those years, b/c I did not have a clue where to begin, but they let me test my abilities in their well-stocked kitchen on my visits.

With everythig in my life it was grace that brought me to this happiness. The Lord asked me for years to slow down. He put several things along my path to cause me to stay home more and take care of myself more. Cooking became a way to occupy myself and eat right. He gave me the desire and guts to try.

I do not have a lot of tangible accomplishments in my life, but cooking allows me to see the fruit of my labor, or the Chicken Marsala as the case may be (my new fav). Tonight it was chicken cutlets meuniere, braised fennel and almond rice pilaf, I think this east meets west thing has really turned out well. Yum!!

Challenges

2006-05-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago I put myself to a challenge. I biked 42 miles with only 8 weeks of sporatic training. I felt like it was more of a nutty thing to try rather than something I was challenging myself to do, but on the last hill, that seemed to never end with views of the ocean and the stong will that God has placed in me, it was me against the hill and I won.

It made me think how sad it is in our culture that we have facing challenges all twisted. People will challenge themselves with sports, career, education, art, music etc. I'm sure I'm not the only bike enthusiast who has become hooked because I beat the odds on a hill. People will spend hours training for events, working long hours at their jobs, practiciing, studying, diving into the achievement and yet when it comes to the emotional challenges, we have convenient societally approved exits. I think of the rates of divorce, the children who have gone poorly parented, the friendships that fall apart, the children who are born when not really wanted or aborted for the same reason. We as a culture do not have the strength of character to deal with emotional and relationsal challenges.

We cannot have this stamina, the will to deal with emotional pain, without the grace of God. I think He made us this way. We need Him emotionally. We need Him rationally too, but He has offered free will for us to figure out that we are nothing without His emotional fortitude in us. But, instead of going to God to learn of ourselves, we go find a hill to conquer and hope that emotional thrill will carry us through the rest of our challenges. Our emotional and relational challenges can't be met in 8 weeks of training, sometimes they take years. Our self-discovery will not come dawning as clearly as muscle growth or test scores or well polished licks of music. We may not even get one word of praise for personal growth. Yet there will be so much less appreciation of those earthly achievements if we don't get the eternal ones well sorted, not to mention the devastation we leave from unresolved conflicts with others.

I want to work on all the hills in my life, both internal and external. Keep chugging legs, keep chugging!

Joy

2006-04-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

I have been struggling with the concept of joy. If joy is how Jesus endured the cross, than it must be a pretty important thing to have. This year I have learned a lot about peace and out of peace has sprung euphoria, that I could identify as joy, but from what I understand, joy is constant. Jesus told his disciples that if they obeyed the commands , they would remain in His love, just as He obeyed the Father's commands and remained in His love. In obeying and exchanging love, their joy would be complete (John 15:10 and 11.)

It's interesting that joy follows love and comes before peace in the list of the fruit of the spirit in Gal. 5. I wonder if there is an order to what one receives first or if one leads to the next? If I have love then I will have joy which will lead to peace and it makes sense that patience would follow and kindness would flow from that...

If joy is the way that Jesus endured the cross, then I want to find joy so that I can endure and embrace my crosses.

Dallas Willard writes about the nature of God in his book, The Divine Conspiracy. He worte that God must be full of joy because he has so much to give him pleasure. He pointed out that we have sweet memories of experiences and sites, but God can see all of the tropical fish in the sea and every sunset and each blossoming flower and each of us in our attempts at love. I used to think that God would be bored with all of those things, but then I have to think about how much pleasure I take in the things He has made and in the things that I have made. If I am like Him, then He must act pretty silly about things He loves as much as I do. If I tap into this God who is in love with what He has made and finds joy in it, then maybe I can get some of that joy. It's all about perspective. My perspective of God has changed with this revelation, so now I can receive that aspect of his nature to grow me further.

Really, I have begun to enjoy my life so much since I learned how to be still and receive peace from the Spirit. I guess my awareness of good things will help me to increase my joy. I'll keep you posted on my experiment.

Embrace

2006-04-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

Recently I read Michael Crosby's book The Seven Last Words. In his section on the words "Into Your hands I commend my spirit," he wrote that Jesus surrendered and the outcome of that was embrace. He surrendered to the crucifiction and all that it entailed and then he embraced resurrection.

It got me thinking about what it would have taken for Jesus to not call down the crowd of angels that were at his disposal. If I am in pain, I want to be able to get what I need to get out of it. But I want to know how to stay in the pain, bear the crosses He asks me to, without trying to end it as soon as possible.

One way I think Jesus could have done it, is that He looked to the larger picture. He had signs of it and heard from the Father to remind Him of it, throughout His life. He had as Crosby pointed out the faith for the resurrection. Hebrews 12:2 says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the JOY set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." It was joy, it was the embrace of what was to come, that allowed him to endure the cross. (This last thought is not original, it came from Michael Vasquez, who was about 12 at the time. He was reading his bible and came out of his room to tell his parents that he came to figure out how Jeus endured the cross, he did it with joy. I have to give credit where the Spirit has illuminated first.)

I don't have that sight of the future that Jesus had. I don't know what will come of my crosses, but I do know Who is making the plans and I can trust in Him. I want to move from surrender to embrace in all that He calls me to. When I have surrendered in the past, I have felt relief from the battle and when I have embraced what I am called to, I have begun to see more clearly what He has. I often lose sight of that vision and now I think it is because I slack on my embrace.

Crosby writes:
"Unfortunately, most spiritualities seem to stop at surrender, at becoming detached from our attachments. They stress the cross, the 'letting go' or even the 'letting God' without talking about the embrace. While surrender represents letting go of the need to control, embrace is paradoxically the result of letting go, the experience of something new never anticipated. It flows from authentic surrender."

Good Friday

2006-04-14T05:09:00.000-07:00

I have taken this day off to focus on Jesus. I take my birthday off to take care of myself and I take my anniversary off to celebrate my life with my husband and I take time off at Christmas to spend time with my family and so today I take the day to focus on Jesus.

But this morning I woke up focused on all of the other things I could do on a day off. I have a list of things that I wish I had a month of Saturdays to accomplish. I started to get hard on myself about this and instead of bringing me closer to Jesus, it took me further away. Trying to change the fact that I am sinful and always will be, is not why He came. While he said that we can be born again and have new life and power over sin, he did not say that our temptations and weakness toward sin would go away.

Most of my life, I have tried to stop my sin nature. I have not been successful, b/c I was trying to do it on my own. I cannot stop the temptations and I cannot change that I will be weak to them at some points more than others. And in trying to be good on my own, I was ignoring what Jesus came to do for me. He came so that I could be united to Him and be given power over sin. I have no power unless I rely on Him for it.

Today i accept that I am sinful. If I keep fighting it, I am not living in reality. I will be sinful until He chooses for me to go home. And I accept today that I do not have the power over this nature, He does. This is my day to reconnect with the Source of my strength and life.

My Lover

2006-04-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

There is a song that has inspired me, witten by a woman I respect highly from her music and from her life. She has written a personal version of passages from Song of Solomon. The verse that reverberates with me practically all day when I listen to the song is:

"Going to meet my Lover..."

I was listening to her CD for several weeks on my way to work. That trip is an hour and a half from my home on a bus and three trains in most cases. I am usually packed into two and sometimes all three of the trains to the point that I cannot read much less have personal space. My commitment to my job means this uncomfortable awareness that I am doing this for someone or something, b/c for myself I don't think I would make such sacrifices. I love people and it slowly turns to hate when I am crowded in with others.

One particular morning Beth's song hit me in the eyes and I came to realize that I ride these trains and wake up at an hour that I would not choose, because I am going to meet my Lover. I experience aspects of Christ in my work that I would not experience if I stayed home cloistered away with Him.

The Quakers have a belief that there is "that of God" in each person. Based on this belief they are against violence and do what they can to promote justice and meet physical needs. I have come to see what they mean by looking for Christ in all the people I work with. I have come to believe this by what fruit I find in my life from interacting with the people I am privileged to know.

My Lover is found in each of the people I ride those trains and buses to meet. He calls me to romance Him by serving them. He calls me to take the risks of being spent by my journey to find true love in Him through the love I exchange with those who are lost in so many ways and yet have taught me truths by what they have learned in the chaos they know. They hold aspects of God through the reality that they force me to see. They teach me about the ramifications from not knowing God and then finding Him and the joy of having order brought to disorder. They teach me about who my Lover is, by showing me how there can be joy and peace out of having nothing to show for in this world. They exhibit my Lover's joy in who I am by their simple yet profound gratitude for what little I have been able to bring to them. This is love. I don't work, I love and am loved.

I meet my Lover every day, he calls me from my bed and I lift my aching old body up to get ready to go meet Him. I stand in the dark or the rising sun waiting for the bus to go meet my Lover. I wait on the crowded cold or stifling station platform for the train that will be crowded from the moment I step on to compete for a seat, "I am going to meet Him and this train will take me." I feel closer to meeting Him as I wait in the cold or early breeze of the elevated platform for the next train. After I've shuffled past crowds and found the stairs down to the third train, joy floods my heart as I finally quiet myself from the hustle and bustle to hear His call which is louder now. He tells me what we are going to do together for that day through the ones we are out to assist. We are going to enjoy our time of making their lives better. As I exit that train to meet them, I am anticpatory and so grateful for the privilege to meet my Lover in this way, through the individuals I know more intimately than either of us wish me to. Our lives are entwined because my Lover has brought us together to love each other.

I meet my Lover as a social worker for people struggling with addictions, living in the Bronx.

These are the words to Beth Keck's song and you can get her CD, which is raw and so real at this link:
http://www.bethkeck.com

"I lift my eyes up to the mountains and I see
My Lover bounding on the rugged hill
Not hinderd by the height or the dark of the night
he's been here, I can tell...see His breath there
on the windowsill.

And I hear his voice calling out my name:
'Arise and come... My lover... My beautiful one'

The winter is passed the rains are over
The mountains and valley are covered in clover...
I hear his voice echoing over and over and over
and over and over.

I'm going to meet my Lover
Going to meet my Lover
I'm going to meet my Lover
I'm going to meet my Lover

I lift my eyes up to the mountains and I see
My lover and He's dancing
Not hindered by the height or the dark of the night
He's been here and His thoughts are on romancing.

And I hear His voice, calling out my name:
'Arise and come... my lover...my beautiful one...'
The winter is passed....

About Me

2006-03-18T16:15:00.000-08:00

I have always tried to be good. In everything I have done in my life I have obeyed rules, my elders and as much as I could understand of what He wanted, my God. While this may sound admirable to some, it was all a downright lie. What I was doing was living for everyone else. I was not obeying, caring or doing things out of love for others, I was doing them out of fear. I was doing them to be noticed. I was doing them to get to Heaven.

The bible quotes Jesus as saying, "Love one another as you love yourself." I did not know how to love myself, so I could not truly, in purity love others. I came to learn that I was not even loving God, because I was not so much obeying as I was sacrificing to appease His wrath. With the gentle counsel of two lovely Christian counselors and hashing things out with friends, I have come to know myself. I acknowledged my past hatred of myself and fear of anyone knowing the real me and I began to get to know who God made me to be.

Now with this knowledge and new found love for myself, God and my fellow humans, I am trying to continue to live a righteous life in my "new clothes" and through my new perspective. This blog will be my attempt to express what I am learning and attempting to accomplish for the Kingdom. All for the glory of my Father who so kindly reached down to me in love through His son and through the servants He placed in my path.