the arsenal

It is a truth universally acknowledged that it is more preferable to maintain wellness than it is to combat illness. But on the occassion that some sneaky rhinovirus up to no good should penetrate one's defenses of wellness ... well, basically you're sick.

I have a cold. Or should I say, a cold has me. This one has some good-sized claws. I am nearing the end of Day 6 in my fight against the virus. I fear the virus may currently have the upper hand. But I am not giving up; I do have a battle plan.

Behold the Arsenal

From L to R: Ricola Honey Lemon with Echinacea throat drops, Echinacea supplement, Bija Cold Stop Tea, Airborne

Not pictured are: clear fluids, my pillow and bed, Kombucha, and all the good people who have told me to go home and get some rest. Speaking of which, it's time I lay down. Your regularly scheduled intelligent posting will resume once the virus has been subdued.

table scraps [selected thanksgiving snapshots]

Hello friends! Welcome back from the long holiday weekend. I hope you found ample blessing in time away from the norm in however you chose to spend it.

It's a rarity when the whole extended clan gets together, so it's a privilege to be able to post these. What follows is a sampling of a few of my favorite shots from the day. It's so great to have the little chilluns around; Kim (my cousin) & her husband Gil's children Campbell (6) and Gunnar (2) added much life, energy, & laughter to the gathering (not to mention bubbles!!).

enjoy!

family
love

color me grateful

Campbell summed up the day best ...

thank you

gratitude [a heart filled with wonder]

For friendships forged & re-forged through blogs & e-mails ...
It blows my mind that through something so manmade & intangible as the internet, people can speak to me & my heart, can connect to me with where I’m at & I to them.

For expressions of love, for prayers offered by those I’ve never met. I’m in wonder of it all.
Blessed doesn’t even begin to cover it.
My cup overflows & floods around me. May its rivulets, its streams bless others.
Across continents, state lines, though I’ve never seen some of your faces, we have here a little community that I have come to love.
For you my friends, I offer most humble thanks.
I’m certain I don’t deserve you, but are glad that you stop by all the same.
[can you imagine what it’d be like if we all got in the same room??]

For a job that challenges & stretches me, meets my financial needs, the kindest (& also most challenging) manager I could hope for, & for the space & freedom to embark upon my creative pursuits outside of that.

For my friends: for laughter & tears & silent presence over coffee, sushi, adult beverages, phone lines, or nothing at all.
I love you.

For my amazing family: for understanding, for trusting, for holding me up;
For offering arms & shoulders when I cry, for making me laugh till it hurts

For good books, amazing blogs, & music that begs to be cranked up.

For the miracle of improved health & increased energy.

For sunrises, sunsets, summer days & falling leaves.
For the ocean air, a crisp breeze, & a warm home to come to at the end of the day.
The tea I drink, the food I eat, listening the thrum of rain in the dark from the warmth of my bed.
For the unexpected bloom defiantly piercing through the sidewalk crack.
For fleece pajamas, red wine, the Starbucks drive-through, and the color green.
For mountains & birdsong, for the moon, & the neighborhood kids that wave as I go by.
For fresh seasonal vegetables, gluten-free vegan cupcakes, Castelvetrano olives, organic coconut milk ice cream, Kombucha & the infinitely amazing local Food Co-op that makes it all possible.
For Larabars, long weekends, hot baths, & sand between my toes.

For love in all its manifestations.

And to Elohim, God on High
for Yahweh
Emmanuel [God with us] …
I don’t even know where to start.
It all began with Your redeeming work on wooden crossbeams
& your work in me continues
through your Body the Church, through Your own divine & mysterious means.
You’ve used the most unexpected channels, people, & circumstances to draw me deeper into Your heart
You’ve gently led me, allowed me glimpses as Your mysteries unfurl & unfold before me,
within me;
I’m in wonder that You care for someone as small as me,
That you choose us as varied & imperfect as we are to accomplish a divine purpose.
I’m in wonder. I am thankful.
I offer you an open heart & my open hands.

mon coeur & the blender

i have been facing my days lately with nearly equal parts hope and dread. oftentimes, the scales noticeably favor one over the other, but the net result keeps me teetering somewhere in the middle. to say "a lot is on my mind" doesn't pay due diligence to the heart that churns, the mind fatigued with the flexing of weighty thoughts.

i am not someone who finds life altogether horrid or beyond bearing when i don't get my way. this is not to say that i don't get frustrated or angry, but i very much recognize the active movement of God in the dark (perhaps now more than ever); i trust He knows exactly what He's doing, but feel that i need to give whatever this is the space to breathe instead of keeping it tightly bound within my skin; i need to bring it into the light & open air. i need to call it out, spread it out in front of me, step back & get a good look at its many facets. maybe it will help. so as much as i hate to write about being sad & confused, my dislike for artifice is just as profound.

and now i hardly know how to begin. i hardly know what i expect or hope for from putting this out there, except to put it outside of myself. maybe this is, as a friend said, one way i can run to Him, one way i can lean into Him, put my weight against Him, know that He understands.

it's startling what can happen when you invite God to have His way with you. i remember just a few short months ago praying for Him to show me where i was in error; i asked Him to enlighten my intellect & strengthen my will to follow it. He certainly took me up on the offer, and life now is hardly the same as it was before i prayed that prayer. just a few weeks ago, i wrote about how i am in entirely foreign territory; my understanding is insufficient to guide me & the comfort i once gleaned from my relationships cannot meet me in this place. i did not realize how much i relied upon those things until i came to be in this place, stripped of them. it's as if i am learning to walk again, only this time i am being guided by an Unseen Hand.

even the one God used to bring me to the trailhead of this new way of faith, while still a welcome presence in my life, is in it now in a different capacity. and so i find myself unattached once more. this is territory with which i am achingly familiar. i am learning to trust God even in this, trusting that His timing is good. sometimes the truth buoys me, sometimes i hold securely to Him. but when not on my guard, i lose my grip & become overwhelmed with a profound & poignant sense of aloneness, the kind that comes when you've trusted your heart fully & made yourself transparent to another, believing this to be home only to find that it's not; at least not now.

and so i find myself in this tenuous place, awkwardly learning friendship. i need this friendship, need someone to whom i might unburden my thoughts, need to know another who has made this path, this way of faith his life. all the while i want the timing of this to be different; i feel guarded & cautious of my heart, fumbling about as i learn what it needs, trying to shed the residue of the more i wanted & simultaneously trying to behave as if i don't want it. if you'll allow me to be so colloquial, it's just plain weird sometimes.

solomon said hope deferred makes the heart sick. the second half of that proverb about a longing fulfilled seems to taunt me like a dangling carrot yanked out of view when i get the least bit close. this is certainly not the first time i've faced disappointment where relationships are concerned, but it is the first time i permitted myself to believe that the hope might find satisfaction. in my least charitable moments, it feels cruel that such a hope should be permitted to persist. its fulfillment appeared to be within reach, but i was wrong again. and yet this longing is looming about, attaching itself to me as firmly as ever in spite of being denied its fill once more.

i've brought this one to the altar again & again, desiring contentment with my single status, but concurrently unable to make it stick. i'm at an age where all but a handful of friends have married good men, settled into their respective homes. and here i am, a nomad in search of someone with whom i may settle. it feels as though i've been denied a seat at the grown-ups table, or remedial as if i've been held back a grade or two in school. sometimes i wonder if i'm the woman who can't get it right, who just doesn't get it, missing the big hints sent my way in blaring neon: this is not for you. get a clue!! it makes me feel so pathetic sometimes, this pleading, this vain banging of my fists on the floor.

i admit i've indulged this sadness, held it close as i would something precious. it's as if i held it tight, turned it over in my hands again & again, reluctant to let it go. not even really knowing what letting it go would mean or even that i was clinging to it so unremittingly. i attached myself firmly to what i felt was lacking & then asked God why He permitted the sense of loss to persist & thrive.

and then He brought me gently to the knowledge that once again, i am at the end of myself & my understanding. i cannot know what the future holds for my relationships, my writing, or anything that lies on the road between here & heaven. so i offer Him this large & vacuous heartspace, unable to fill it & utterly powerless to make it go away. here Lord, is my hope; here is that which i long for most. i was offering myself to Him in the midst of manifold unknowns, having been stripped of former comforts & dependencies. so in offering Him this additional piece, i offer Him something utterly empty yet again. i wish i had something of substance to give Him; He certainly deserves more. but i know that He specializes in filling empty things, in taking the vacancies we bring to Him & offering His abundance in return.

so there is some pain in this offering (who does not ache when God is about the work of excavation?), but this small sacrifice is very much bathed in & prompted by His mercy. His presence is pervading my days, even when the emptiness pricks & scrapes against my insides. i cling to Him knowing that while i know not where He leads, i can trust that He knows where He's taking me, that He is good, & that He knows what i need so much better than i do.

i'm putting all this this-ness out there not knowing quite what it is or why, not understanding what (if anything) might come of it; i don't think it's comfort & i'm certain it's not advice i seek. i guess i'm just hoping He'll use it: make something of the confused mess i bring Him, take my pathetic offering & turn it into something good.

this is me not knowing, not having any answers. this is me running to Him.

he understands

grab the tissue & listen to what logan has to say ...

the link to the KSBJ's morning show is here.

grrrlfriend gratitude

today
i thank God for my grrrlfriends!

the older I get, the less friends i have who are single and/or otherwise unattached. i count all my friends as assets beyond measure, but today i offer up particular thanks that i still have those who really are my rowing companions in the increasingly shrinking boat of 30-something singleness. i am really, terribly, & insanely grateful that we have each other.

my friends anna (on the left) and elyse (the brazilian beauty in the norwegian sandwich) are two such friends.

i met them both through work & both have blessed & continue to bless me with their friendship, humor, generosity, and willingness to stick beside me whether it's an i-need-a-truckload-of-kleenex kind of day, or an oh-my-gosh-i-think-i-laughed-so-hard-i-just-ruptured-a-vital-internal-organ kind of day (& everything in between).

when elyse was in town last week (she works in our corporate office in the seattle area), she & anna & i had an impromptu dinner at my place. we enjoyed food, good wine, and ridiculous amounts of laughter (as you can see).

so this post is a shout out!! to these two incredible ladies, these two with whom i can be completely unrestrained and unselfconscious, & who won't hold it against me the next day. if i have to be in this little boat right now, i'm so very glad it's with you.

By yourself you're unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope isn't easily snapped.
- Ecclesiastes 4:12 (The Message)

coffeeshop prophet

A funny thing happened on the way to Mass this morning ...

I went to Seattle yesterday to meet with Fr. C for catechism. Since the friend I was intending to stay with last night was working incredibly late, I decided to get a hotel in south Seattle. It seemed senseless (not to mention ecologically unsound) to make a 200-mile roundtrip twice in one weekend.

I checked out of my hotel this morning with plenty of time to spare, so I stopped in at a Tully's and ordered my double-tall soy latte, opened my laptop, and sipped my hot drink contentedly while checking e-mail and perusing blogs. Just two other people were there.

Opposite from me sat a 40-something man who, it appeared, was doing the same thing I was: enjoying hot coffee on a brisk autumn morning, checking e-mails and sending out some of his own. From his friendly banter with the baristas, I figured him for a regular.

I don't recall precisely how our conversation started, because I am still floored by what happened next. Having never met me and without knowing my name, he spoke with a stunning amount of accuracy about my life: about my faith, spirituality and the journey I'm on, my current challenges and worries, my education, my work, my interests, my writing, my relationships, and very specific and recent heartaches which I've disclosed to very few people. He told me that a friend had mistaken my goodness for weakness.

He had me pegged. Each word he spoke was an arrow that hit the bullseye. "Disconcerting" isn't quite the right word for what this was. If he hadn't been so correct in what he spoke, it would have been creepy. But it really wasn't; it was just true.

Am I that transparent that even a perfect stranger could read me from across a coffeeshop?

I introduced myself before I left. His name is Curtis. He shook my hand and smiled broadly at me before I walked to my car. He told me I'd be blessed, that I'd find what I was searching for.

Anyone else have something like this happen to them? What do you make of encounters such as these?

give me everything

The Christian way is different: harder and easier. Christ says, "Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there. I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: My own will shall become yours."
C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity

As I wrote last week, I am still finding my way through the darkness, leaning into the mystery that is God and His plan. He is good, leading me further and deeper by degrees, giving me moments of rest and light. He teaches me slowly, by steps. Patiently chipping away my defects (He has a lot of work to do). Extending my patience by moments. Challenging my ability to trust.

He's asked me to trust what He's already revealed, to put my weight against it. To find it can more than bear what I bring to it.

**and now He asks more of me**

I've recently encountered another impossible situation; one that [by my own assessments] seems to be without hope, one which I cannot reason my way around or through. [this is where I very maturely & wisely throw up my hands & ask why!?] This has had me on my knees, beating the floor, only able to utter the very feeble but starkly honest prayer of

help me

please please

help me

He's also asked me to sacrifice a very particular desire. One that is good, one that He Himself planted. I've had it my whole life. Most people do.

Yet He says
Let loose your grip on it, child.

but it's mine. I want it.
mine mine mine
is what I say.
I need it to be happy.
if I let You have it, it won't be mine anymore.

I've got His gifts in a vice; I've got a deathgrip on what I want.
It's disconcerting to realize how much I've put myself first in this relationship;
God has been unremittingly patient.

I must leave these childish ways behind: demanding my own version of goodness which [**no surprise here**] falls far short of what He will author if I let Him.

it's a small but dangerous word: if

so then.
I keep coming back to the question:

will I trust Him with it?

if I say I will, why am I so reluctant to hand it to Him who gave it in the first place?

will I trust His goodness before my own pathetic assessment of my "impossible" circumstances?
will I trust Him with the desires He gave me, trusting He knows better than I how best to satisfy them [or turn them into something even better]?
and why, oh why must I stamp something IMPOSSIBLE! before I push it in His direction?

Is He not the One who:
divided loaves and fishes, feeding thousands
turned water to wine
healed lepers & paralytics
walked on water
brought Himself back from the dead
???

And I'm concerned about how He'll handle my issues?
really??

I think that just maybe, when I say "impossible!!", God rolls up his sleeves & says:

Ha!! I'm just getting started ...

So I say:
I let it all go [something I will need to do again & again, no doubt]
do what you do, God. I want to see what You're up to.

stellar autumn day

instead of typing, my fingers have been busy snapping photos.

we had a beautiful autumn day here yesterday; it seemed about half the city turned up at my favorite local waterfront park to take it all in. [hard to believe this, as things were so very different a year ago at this time ...]

taking the opportunity: i stopped, i looked, i listened

raucous laughter on the playground

park bench affections

leaves crowding around my ankles,

crunching underfoot

fiery displays of red, yellow, orange

sun piercing through the chill

clean sharp salty air

wide open space in which to breathe deeply

thank you, LORD for bathing me in this goodness
these moments of light.