11:10 p.m.
The promised snow started to fall while I was outside walking the dog.
The late night is silent and I could hear the flakes as they landed on the hood of my coat.
I could see their soft, downy-soft fall illuminated by the streetlight.
It felt like the Spirit descending.
It looked like what it feels like to be loved by Heaven
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Be Nice or Ignore Me
Walking in the dark. Walking in the rain. The moments slide off behind me. It is so much easier to walk in the dark. No one can see me and if no one can see me then I don't have to worry about not meeting up to some stranger's expectations.
This summer I spent a lot of time walking in a retirement community. Most of the people were friendly. A few looked at me like I was an unwanted trespasser (probably was).
But one lady, coming up the opposite side of the street looked at me with anger and began to mimic my walk. She swung her arms in great exaggeration like a power-walker and looked directly at me with the darkest disgust I've seen in a while.
Gee. It's pretty bad when even old people don't like you.
...O.k., and there was the time I made the mistake of walking in the early August morning with just my sports bra. Who knew a t-shirt was so important?
But tonight, in the dark, I don't have to be mature. I don't have to be well dressed. I don't have to graciously handle other people's offending nature. I can just be me in all of my me-ness. Maybe it is good that I can't see God. Maybe it is good that now I "see through the glass darkly". It is soooo nice to not have to be mature or well dressed or gracious. I like being with Him in my me-ness.
This summer I spent a lot of time walking in a retirement community. Most of the people were friendly. A few looked at me like I was an unwanted trespasser (probably was).
But one lady, coming up the opposite side of the street looked at me with anger and began to mimic my walk. She swung her arms in great exaggeration like a power-walker and looked directly at me with the darkest disgust I've seen in a while.
Gee. It's pretty bad when even old people don't like you.
...O.k., and there was the time I made the mistake of walking in the early August morning with just my sports bra. Who knew a t-shirt was so important?
But tonight, in the dark, I don't have to be mature. I don't have to be well dressed. I don't have to graciously handle other people's offending nature. I can just be me in all of my me-ness. Maybe it is good that I can't see God. Maybe it is good that now I "see through the glass darkly". It is soooo nice to not have to be mature or well dressed or gracious. I like being with Him in my me-ness.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Easy Does It
My big walk today was to the cabin. The temperature is 1 degree. The snow is ankle high and dropping into my shoes. But don't let that description fool you into thinking it was miles of fun. My cabin is about 15 yards out of my back door.
I stood out there, amidst my books, favorite pencils, inspiring writer-ly quotes and longed for the days of spring and summer...and fall when I can be an actual writer in the writer's cabin. But for now, the thought of heat draws me back into the house. It is easier to be inspired when warm.
I remember one summer day, when I took my Underwood typewriter out onto the porch of the cabin and began to write a complaint to God. Honestly, I was tired of being in the great big pool of humanity and as such, being loved via the group. God so loved the world.
I wanted the scripture to say, "God so loved Cindy, and only her, because she is His favorite..." Of course, these are not words you say out loud in your Bible study group. They are certainly not ones I confess to my friends, or family, or clients, or strangers. Well, maybe strangers because they don't know enough about me to be tempted to judge me.
Is that too much to ask? To be uniquely known and loved? Sure, I know the words from the pulpit. But I'd like to feel it, I'd like to see it, I'd like to live in it. So, you know what I did? Since no one knew I was feeling this way, then no one would know if I decided to do something about it. I decided to pretend that it was true. Make up little scenarios in my mind, about Him and me.
And guess what, pretty soon, they were coming true, and in this real world, I was experiencing them. Warm, inspiring, and constant. He likes the cabin as much as I do, we sit out there together and write. He likes to walk with me, we have so much to talk about. He likes that I listen. He likes it when I am warm.
I stood out there, amidst my books, favorite pencils, inspiring writer-ly quotes and longed for the days of spring and summer...and fall when I can be an actual writer in the writer's cabin. But for now, the thought of heat draws me back into the house. It is easier to be inspired when warm.
I remember one summer day, when I took my Underwood typewriter out onto the porch of the cabin and began to write a complaint to God. Honestly, I was tired of being in the great big pool of humanity and as such, being loved via the group. God so loved the world.
I wanted the scripture to say, "God so loved Cindy, and only her, because she is His favorite..." Of course, these are not words you say out loud in your Bible study group. They are certainly not ones I confess to my friends, or family, or clients, or strangers. Well, maybe strangers because they don't know enough about me to be tempted to judge me.
Is that too much to ask? To be uniquely known and loved? Sure, I know the words from the pulpit. But I'd like to feel it, I'd like to see it, I'd like to live in it. So, you know what I did? Since no one knew I was feeling this way, then no one would know if I decided to do something about it. I decided to pretend that it was true. Make up little scenarios in my mind, about Him and me.
And guess what, pretty soon, they were coming true, and in this real world, I was experiencing them. Warm, inspiring, and constant. He likes the cabin as much as I do, we sit out there together and write. He likes to walk with me, we have so much to talk about. He likes that I listen. He likes it when I am warm.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Too
I've google every place I can think of to see what the experts say is the "too cold" temperature to walk outside. When I started today it was 4 degrees. I lasted 5 miles. And the hardest part was the streets with no sidewalks. They had been replaced with piles of frozen slush from the street plow.
Why don't birds freeze, or squirrels. Why does the surface of hills seem to melt faster than the flat stretches? Why was I not cold, not for one moment outside? (I can answer that last question... I have a new coat!!!)
When I started walking in the summer, in Hawaii, I didn't need clothes. Wait. That sounds like I didn't wear any. Of course, the temperature in Hawaii is kind enough that you don't have to wear them. But I was modest, never fear. Back home, in the hot August humidity, turning to the warm Autumn months, I never needed much. My focus was on my shoes - and you can read my facebook posts about the adventure of buying shoes that come with a video on how to walk in them.
But as cold weather approached, I realized I didn't have good outside walking gear. After I wrapped up in my red sweat pants, a turquoise colored wind breaker and my my son's green ear muffs I looked like a bag lady - with great shoes. But today, O! today! I walked out in black sweats, knit cap and gloves and ....drumroll.... A space age, thinsulate, neoprene, hooded wonder of a coat as warm as a baby's bottom. The elements didn't bother me. I was appropriately clothed - and sylish!
How many times have I been ill-equipped? How many times have I had a genuine need and tried to fix it with old sweat pants and a windbreaker? More times than I'd like to admit. Mile after mile passed and I thought about my life-long pattern of trying to fix things in my life. How much of my own energy and wits have been used in trying to 'make it happen'. I came to this conclusion. I am a lousy god.
Why don't birds freeze, or squirrels. Why does the surface of hills seem to melt faster than the flat stretches? Why was I not cold, not for one moment outside? (I can answer that last question... I have a new coat!!!)
When I started walking in the summer, in Hawaii, I didn't need clothes. Wait. That sounds like I didn't wear any. Of course, the temperature in Hawaii is kind enough that you don't have to wear them. But I was modest, never fear. Back home, in the hot August humidity, turning to the warm Autumn months, I never needed much. My focus was on my shoes - and you can read my facebook posts about the adventure of buying shoes that come with a video on how to walk in them.
But as cold weather approached, I realized I didn't have good outside walking gear. After I wrapped up in my red sweat pants, a turquoise colored wind breaker and my my son's green ear muffs I looked like a bag lady - with great shoes. But today, O! today! I walked out in black sweats, knit cap and gloves and ....drumroll.... A space age, thinsulate, neoprene, hooded wonder of a coat as warm as a baby's bottom. The elements didn't bother me. I was appropriately clothed - and sylish!
How many times have I been ill-equipped? How many times have I had a genuine need and tried to fix it with old sweat pants and a windbreaker? More times than I'd like to admit. Mile after mile passed and I thought about my life-long pattern of trying to fix things in my life. How much of my own energy and wits have been used in trying to 'make it happen'. I came to this conclusion. I am a lousy god.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Oak leaves are, depending on your view, the first or last to fall. Tonight they played the raspy background music to my eleven p.m. walk. Powder soft snow greeted me, the absence of traffic, the muffling of the city noises, no one about. I admit it, I kicked my way through the glittery fluff like a school girl.
It is easier to be innocent at night. Innocent in the snow. There is nothing to know at night. There is nothing to know in the snow. And, nothing destroys innocence like knowing. I know what I've done. I know what has been done to me. I know what many people have done or have had done to them because of the sacred confessional booth called the therapist's office. Sometimes my mind staggers at the realization of the thousands of hours of distress my ears hear and my heart processes. (And I do, literally mean thousands.)
Sometimes I notice my mother watching. She has mentioned that in her medical career she has noticed those who work with the mental patients start to become a little kooky themselves. Ah, what I wouldn't give for the freedom of a little temper tantrum. But no, I am simply the helper, and I help by knowing much more that I was designed to know.
So, I walk, and mile after mile I shake off the knowledge, peel off the sorrow and grind the corruption into the dust under my shoes. The way out is cleansing. The same road home is so full of possibility and life that I feel as if I have shed my skin, molted the itchy feathers, washed off the tears.
The trees see me passing below, before and after. They remind me that they too cry out. Creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. So I'll pretend that the oak leaves are waiting on me. They hang on through wind and rain and storm and snow. They hang on through dead of winter and fall off quickly in the spring as the new leaf buds push them to the ground. Those oak leaves don't want to miss a moment. It just may be the moment that I am fully and finally at last innocent and alive. Oak leaves have faith. I left my snow boots by the door, ready for tomorrow's chance at metamorphosis.
It is easier to be innocent at night. Innocent in the snow. There is nothing to know at night. There is nothing to know in the snow. And, nothing destroys innocence like knowing. I know what I've done. I know what has been done to me. I know what many people have done or have had done to them because of the sacred confessional booth called the therapist's office. Sometimes my mind staggers at the realization of the thousands of hours of distress my ears hear and my heart processes. (And I do, literally mean thousands.)
Sometimes I notice my mother watching. She has mentioned that in her medical career she has noticed those who work with the mental patients start to become a little kooky themselves. Ah, what I wouldn't give for the freedom of a little temper tantrum. But no, I am simply the helper, and I help by knowing much more that I was designed to know.
So, I walk, and mile after mile I shake off the knowledge, peel off the sorrow and grind the corruption into the dust under my shoes. The way out is cleansing. The same road home is so full of possibility and life that I feel as if I have shed my skin, molted the itchy feathers, washed off the tears.
The trees see me passing below, before and after. They remind me that they too cry out. Creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. So I'll pretend that the oak leaves are waiting on me. They hang on through wind and rain and storm and snow. They hang on through dead of winter and fall off quickly in the spring as the new leaf buds push them to the ground. Those oak leaves don't want to miss a moment. It just may be the moment that I am fully and finally at last innocent and alive. Oak leaves have faith. I left my snow boots by the door, ready for tomorrow's chance at metamorphosis.
How can a person use words to explain bliss? Is there enough ways to mix up these 26 little muses to adequately describe the golden flow of feeling contentment. How do I express amazement that the very thing I did not want to do is the cause of this heavenly delight? In one of my many attempts to find a way to lose weight, I stumbled on it. Walking. And how did it become such paradise? I began walking in Paradise. And He began to talk to me.
Hawaii, North Shore of Oahu. For some unexplained reason I had the unfamiliar desire to walk. There was a beautiful path to follow. Gloriously overgrown and sumptuous as a botanical garden. I desperately needed the alone time. As the days passed I walked 2, then 3, then 4 miles. I would have walked further, if I'd had the time. The combination of the miles of hibiscus,plumeria , and plumbago; the pounding of the surf; the gentle trade wind breezes; the unexpected and welcome misting rain showers. The environment was perfect. There was no one on the path. And He began to talk to me.
Because of the time difference (my body still thinking it was in the Midwest) I would awaken about 3 in the morning and wander out to the lanai, and be lured a few more steps out onto the darkened beach. The stars, the full moon, the billowing and moving clouds coming off the island. My senses were awakened from their dull everyday living stupor. Fresh fruit and fine fish met my morning taste-buds. I was stripping off the scales of protection from life, disconnecting the multi-tasking circuits. And He began to talk to me.
I am sure, completely and utterly sure that He talks to all of us most of the time. We are too dulled by our life to hear Him. But as the gray flesh of life began to peel away, I can only suppose that I was more open and uncluttered than I realized. He spoke to my heart, clearly, loudly, and startled me. What He said to me was so beautiful, so tender and so ultimately unexpected that I began to cry. And He continued to talk. I never wanted to stop walking, because He was so clear, so close, so available. He answered questions I have wondered about myself and my life's painful experiences in clear simplicity. He spoke of personal things, uniquely individual things.
This is one of the three golden times in my life. The three times (so far, I hope they continue) in which He very clearly met and talked to me. And after walking with the sole intent to hear Him, I lost ten pounds in ten days. How was this possible? It is not without Him. But with God, all things are possible and I truly had been with God. Those golden moments are transcribed forever in Heaven and I am eager to see them and know them again someday. But suffice it to say, I couldn't stop. I had to have that golden connection daily.
I began my walks at home, in my own dowdy neighborhood. But with Him, I was determined to be positive, pleasant and thankful. I discovered small charms beyond the trash in the ditch. Cool breezes, the house that is all garden and no yard owned by the man in the floppy hat, the ebb and flow of the creek under the bridge, the surprise discovery of an unreachable bunch of bittersweet. I discovered the cemetery, an amazing place I save for the best days. I found the park, the public rose garden, the shelter of the old rock pavillon on rainy days. He spread dew drops out like a diamond carpet. He asked me questions about the cemetery dead. He gave me gifts, He chastised me, He loved me. He told me to be quiet.
And O! How He has loved me. The bridal path, the bridal day, the bridal veil. The shooting star, the stone heart, the seed of light. All of these recorded in heaven for your curious mind to examine in the sweet by and by.
July 29th was the 30th anniversary of an auspicious day between us. So that is the date I labeled as the official start day. Now, on January 2nd - some 6 months later I have walked about 200 miles and have lost about 25 pounds and a lifetime of regret, sorrow, wounds and melancholy. The day I don't walk, pray and allow myself to be loved is a miserable day for me, for us all. I am frustrated, pre -menopausal, blue and questioning...no, whining. On the day I walk, pray, be loved and write I am fulfilled, golden, velvet, delighted and delightsome.
I didn't think I could make it eight miles a day, but I have. I didn't think I could walk in the rain, but I have. I didn't think I could walk in the cold, the snow or the wind, but I have. Now I am facing my greatest obstacle. A week of winter temperatures in the teens. Wind-chills making it below zero. I could pay for a daily pass to the fitness center, or drag the treadmill out of storage and put it into my tiny house in the middle of the room, or even trek out to the mall with the elderly mall walkers. But, in any of those environments can I pray? Like I do in the great outdoors where there is no one to see me murmur, cry, laugh. Where my mind can stay on Him and not grasshopper around to the new sights and distractions. Being faithful is so much easier in paradise.
Hawaii, North Shore of Oahu. For some unexplained reason I had the unfamiliar desire to walk. There was a beautiful path to follow. Gloriously overgrown and sumptuous as a botanical garden. I desperately needed the alone time. As the days passed I walked 2, then 3, then 4 miles. I would have walked further, if I'd had the time. The combination of the miles of hibiscus,plumeria , and plumbago; the pounding of the surf; the gentle trade wind breezes; the unexpected and welcome misting rain showers. The environment was perfect. There was no one on the path. And He began to talk to me.
Because of the time difference (my body still thinking it was in the Midwest) I would awaken about 3 in the morning and wander out to the lanai, and be lured a few more steps out onto the darkened beach. The stars, the full moon, the billowing and moving clouds coming off the island. My senses were awakened from their dull everyday living stupor. Fresh fruit and fine fish met my morning taste-buds. I was stripping off the scales of protection from life, disconnecting the multi-tasking circuits. And He began to talk to me.
I am sure, completely and utterly sure that He talks to all of us most of the time. We are too dulled by our life to hear Him. But as the gray flesh of life began to peel away, I can only suppose that I was more open and uncluttered than I realized. He spoke to my heart, clearly, loudly, and startled me. What He said to me was so beautiful, so tender and so ultimately unexpected that I began to cry. And He continued to talk. I never wanted to stop walking, because He was so clear, so close, so available. He answered questions I have wondered about myself and my life's painful experiences in clear simplicity. He spoke of personal things, uniquely individual things.
This is one of the three golden times in my life. The three times (so far, I hope they continue) in which He very clearly met and talked to me. And after walking with the sole intent to hear Him, I lost ten pounds in ten days. How was this possible? It is not without Him. But with God, all things are possible and I truly had been with God. Those golden moments are transcribed forever in Heaven and I am eager to see them and know them again someday. But suffice it to say, I couldn't stop. I had to have that golden connection daily.
I began my walks at home, in my own dowdy neighborhood. But with Him, I was determined to be positive, pleasant and thankful. I discovered small charms beyond the trash in the ditch. Cool breezes, the house that is all garden and no yard owned by the man in the floppy hat, the ebb and flow of the creek under the bridge, the surprise discovery of an unreachable bunch of bittersweet. I discovered the cemetery, an amazing place I save for the best days. I found the park, the public rose garden, the shelter of the old rock pavillon on rainy days. He spread dew drops out like a diamond carpet. He asked me questions about the cemetery dead. He gave me gifts, He chastised me, He loved me. He told me to be quiet.
And O! How He has loved me. The bridal path, the bridal day, the bridal veil. The shooting star, the stone heart, the seed of light. All of these recorded in heaven for your curious mind to examine in the sweet by and by.
July 29th was the 30th anniversary of an auspicious day between us. So that is the date I labeled as the official start day. Now, on January 2nd - some 6 months later I have walked about 200 miles and have lost about 25 pounds and a lifetime of regret, sorrow, wounds and melancholy. The day I don't walk, pray and allow myself to be loved is a miserable day for me, for us all. I am frustrated, pre -menopausal, blue and questioning...no, whining. On the day I walk, pray, be loved and write I am fulfilled, golden, velvet, delighted and delightsome.
I didn't think I could make it eight miles a day, but I have. I didn't think I could walk in the rain, but I have. I didn't think I could walk in the cold, the snow or the wind, but I have. Now I am facing my greatest obstacle. A week of winter temperatures in the teens. Wind-chills making it below zero. I could pay for a daily pass to the fitness center, or drag the treadmill out of storage and put it into my tiny house in the middle of the room, or even trek out to the mall with the elderly mall walkers. But, in any of those environments can I pray? Like I do in the great outdoors where there is no one to see me murmur, cry, laugh. Where my mind can stay on Him and not grasshopper around to the new sights and distractions. Being faithful is so much easier in paradise.
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