Yup. A Day.
Wherein I am about three seconds and a file cabinet* away from quitting my job, selling all my worldly goods, declaring myself Mother Superior High Priestess Patootie of the Church Of the Wayhootle, and collecting alms to take myself to Las Vegas and ‘bless’ all the buffets with my tax-deductible presence.
*Don’t ask.
A peculiar artifact of my family culture is the widespread belief amongst the matriarchs that I am unable to make good decisions.
This was decided when I was five years old.
Therefore, as I was incapable of making good judgements and decisions, they were made for me. What I would wear. What I would eat. When I could talk.
Every so often, my mother would attempt some self-determination thing and ask me to make a decision for myself. The most memorable one was senior year in high school, where I was told to decide where I would go to college.
I had a nervous breakdown.
My mother found the hidden stash of applications under a pile of dirty laundry well past the due date. After some berating (see, Mom didn’t know about the nervous breakdown, I was spending 10-15 hours a day at school for various activities and my friends were doing their best to shield me as I went mad), she asked, “What do you want to do now?”
“I want to go to Hayward,” I said. I had friends going there.
The flat response: “You don’t want to go to Hayward. It’s ugly. Let me call Chico.”
I’ve got a BA from Chico State. Not a bad school, mind you, I enjoyed it there, but I have absolutely zero friends from that time. I was too shy to talk to anyone without the social buffer of another person I already knew.
Moving to Portland came out of left field, and I think that’s the only reason I got away with it. Getting up here was easy. Learning how to make decisions for myself was hard.
Learning it’s okay to make mistakes? Even harder. I’m finally getting a grasp on that, though. I’ve become rooted in the new (damp) soil here in the Northwest.
A long stretch of green faces those of us who use liturgical calendars. Ordinary Time. A time of growth, theoretically. Growth can be another word for ’slow’, though, in a Church context it can mean tiny steps.
That’s good for big trees that have been stable for several centuries. But for the little plants, the ones just barely rooted, they don’t grow in increments. They grow exponentially, turn around and they’re taller again and again.
It’s growing season. Let’s see what comes up.
My family sets a fair amount of spiritual stock in dreams. It’s part of our culture, even though we are as thouroughly assimilated as any family in America is going to get.
I dreamt last night of comfort. The details are blurred, as in all dreams, but I remember the overwhelming feeling of comfort and love. It wasn’t a solitary comfort, it was one shared between people, and the act of sharing doubled and redoubled it.
(Yes, I have been reading Dame Julian of Norwich’s Showings on the bus, in between playing Lego Star Wars on my DS. Much like C. S. Lewis, I am finding her v. v. dangerous. Like John of the Cross, I’m finding selective quoting by theologians and greeting card writers has softened her into something almost wholly unrecognizeable from the firey, flowery, passionate [in all senses of the word] woman who wrote in that cell in England.)
It’s not hard to trace where this dream came from. I spend pretty much all day hooked into my RSS reader. One of the last things I read last night was this post at Elizabeth+’s place.
A long time after watching the video, I thought to myself, “Only Methodists would protest in harmony.”
I didn’t think that at the time. It’s hard to think when your heart is breaking.
Especially when you thought it couldn’t break any more. Especially when you thought you’d come to terms with the rejection and built a new family just down the theological block.
Incompatible. It’s a word you expect out of the mouth of a Dalek, or a Borg. HAL, maybe.
The people who raised me, who blessed me, who loved on me every chance they got and saved me (and we’re not talking metaphorical happy-clappy-Come-to-Jesus saving, here, we’re talking if I hadn’t gone to that Methodist summer camp in 1993, I would be dead and long buried), have once again declared me incompatible.
I am incompatible.
I ask God for an answer, I get a dream.
I ask God for a Word, I get Isaiah 40.
Ok, you’re mostly Episcopalians. I’ll take pity on you. This is out of The Message.
“Comfort, oh comfort my people,”
says your God.
“Speak softly and tenderly to Jerusalem,
but also make it very clear
That she has served her sentence,
that her sin is taken care of—forgiven!
She’s been punished enough and more than enough,
and now it’s over and done with.”Thunder in the desert!
“Prepare for God’s arrival!
Make the road straight and smooth,
a highway fit for our God.
Fill in the valleys,
level off the hills,
Smooth out the ruts,
clear out the rocks.
Then God’s bright glory will shine
and everyone will see it.
Yes. Just as God has said.”A voice says, “Shout!”
I said, “What shall I shout?”“These people are nothing but grass,
their love fragile as wildflowers.
The grass withers, the wildflowers fade,
if God so much as puffs on them.
Aren’t these people just so much grass?
True, the grass withers and the wildflowers fade,
but our God’s Word stands firm and forever.”Climb a high mountain, Zion.
You’re the preacher of good news.
Raise your voice. Make it good and loud, Jerusalem.
You’re the preacher of good news.
Speak loud and clear. Don’t be timid!
Tell the cities of Judah,
“Look! Your God!”
Look at him! God, the Master, comes in power,
ready to go into action.
He is going to pay back his enemies
and reward those who have loved him.
Like a shepherd, he will care for his flock,
gathering the lambs in his arms,
Hugging them as he carries them,
leading the nursing ewes to good pasture.
Jesus doesn’t want me for a sunbeam; Jesus wants me as a raging bitchmonster of doom.
My coworker P has been in and out of the office over the last few months taking care of aging parents in another state. We received news today that his father died. Please pray for P’s family.
And please pray for us here at our office, with vacations and such we’re down four people for most of this week, that’s about half of the workforce that keeps Big Ol’ Hospital in material goods and services.
I just counted up; I believe 16 impossible things before breakfast!
That’s from the Apostle’s Creed.
The really weird thing, though, is that most days, my impossible believing stops right there.
I gotta work on that.
Jews: 5.1-6.5 million
Soviet POWs: 2–3 million
Ethnic Poles: 1.8-2 million
Roma: 220,000–500,000
Disabled: 200,000–250,000
Freemasons: 80,000–200,000
Gay men: 5,000–15,000
Jehovah’s Witnesses: 2,500–5,000
May the great Name of God be exalted and sanctified, throughout the world, which he has created according to his will.
May his Kingship be established in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of the entire household of Israel, swiftly and in the near future; and say, Amen.
May his great name be blessed, forever and ever.
Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, honored elevated and lauded be the Name of the holy one,
Blessed is he- above and beyond any blessings and hymns,
Praises and consolations which are uttered in the world; and say Amen.
May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and life, upon us and upon all Israel; and say, Amen.
I will not use obscure and vaugely obscene in-jokes from high school as subject lines on Holy Days of Obligation.
I will not use obscure and vaugely obscene in-jokes from high school as subject lines on Holy Days of Obligation.
I will not use obscure and vaugely obscene in-jokes from high school as subject lines on Holy Days of Obligation.
‘Scuse, I have to write this a 1000 times in penance….
I’m not sure I’m ready to talk coherently about it, but here’s an article from Girl Maven Media about Stockholm Syndrome in Media.
EXCERPTY!
Like an iron grip in a velvet glove, the hypersexualization of girls in the media holds actual girls hostage under the pretense of entertaining and informing them. And, like in the Stockholm Syndrome, it’s not surprising when girls start to identify with the all-powerful culture that’s holding them hostage.
…[snip]…
The images viscerally teach “the importance of being sexy” if you are female. The images teach all of us that acting sexy is how girls/women can have power without being rejected as domineering or bitchy[.]
…[snip]…
Now imagine the extreme confusion girls feel when they are surrounded by images promoting the power of female sexiness and at the same time are told that it’s bad for girls to be interested in sex, to act sexy themselves, to dress sexy, etc. The real message being conveyed, of course, is that girls shouldn’t want to be powerful.
Y’all need to see this collection of church notices over at Passive Aggressive Notes (dot) Com.
I can’t describe them and really, I don’t want to spoil the surprise.
 | Mary Sue on I’m having A Day. |
 | Padre Mickey on I’m having A Day. |
 | Judith Vaughan-Sterl… on Growing Season |
| Judith Vaughan-Sterl… on Comfort, O Comfort my peo… |
 | honeybones on Comfort, O Comfort my peo… |
