Becoming Vera

I can remember when I turned into my mother.  Without desire and without direction, I turned into my mother.  I can remember my mother never owned a pair of blue jeans.  As a matter of fact, she was not a big pants wearer except when she was working.  My mother's staple item was a dress.  I don't ever remember her wearing sweat pants or even shorts.  Sundresses were a bit too risque.  She was trained to be modest in appearance even if it did not reach her heart.  About three years ago, I began to ditch wearing pants.  I picked up wearing them for the same reason my mother did.  They were functional for where I worked.  When it was clear that my job title was changing, I stopped wearing pants.  I looked just like my mother.  I donned a wig, painted my lips red and became the woman she always wanted to be.  My mother would turn over in her grave if she could see me living the life she never got to live.  I guess, I am living proof that curses really can be broken.

Dixie Cream

I can remember a time when I would save up a few coins and go to the Dixie Cream for a few donuts before school started.  Just one dollar could get you two donuts and a milk.  It was the breakfast of champions.  Last night, I dreamed of going back  home down south and I went into the same routine that I had when I was a young girl.  The only exception is that I was not a young girl.  I was a grown women who had not been back to that town since I was eighteen.  I looked for the Dixie Cream in the place that I last remembered it.  I was certain that it was where I left it.  It was not there.  As a matter of fact, it had moved a number of times.  By the time, I found it, it was on a block that did not even exist when I lived there.  I began to think how strange things are in our memories.  People and places get frozen in our minds like snapshots.  Not only has it not changed, but it remains in our memories as a moment that stretches as a lifetime.  We go back to those old places and look for the picture in the snapshot.  I woke up and thought about how disrespectful that had been.  It was like I did not give the place the chance to change like I changed.  Why did I expect them to remain the same when the person who went there when she was a young teenager did not exist anymore as well.  I can remember when an old college friend graduated.  Her father came and gave her a gift that was more fit for a child than for an adult, but that was what he remembered her as.  She was still his little girl.  He was still stuck not realizing that all the years of neglect had painted an ancient picture.  When he came with the gift, we all gaffed and wondered how he could still think this was appropriate.  I think that is what I am doing with parts of my life that I have been longing to go back to.  I think the place only exist in my mind.  I have been back home, in reality, momentarily for funerals and quick trips.  It has changed.  Houses that I used to live in have been torn down and most of my network of people have died.  I guess, I will don a black dress and have another type of funeral.  I guess it is time to bury the memory in my memory.  It is the only place it can and will live.

I go back Kenny Chesney
http://youtu.be/MdeSLxz5TTE

 

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He doesn't lead me to brown pastures

I grew up as a gypsy of sorts.  We were always running from one place to the other.  I can remember the year when my mother put all our belongings in a plastic bag and we fled to the city of Cleveland.  Now, Cleveland is not a bad city.  My family members come from there and they live and do quite well.  It was their place of empowerment.  It was not the place of empowerment for us.  My mother could not find a job because her nursing degree was incomplete there.  She had to go back to school.  In the meantime, we lived on 83rd street in an apartment building that had seen better days.  We did not have money for anything.  There was sicknesses and disease.  It was the only Christmas where we were not able to have anything.  I don't call that a green pasture, but then again, the Lord did not lead us to that place.  That is where my mother went.  She led us to that insufficient place. 

The Lord lies me down in green pastures.  When he is in control, he takes me to places that are sufficient for me.  He does not lead me to places where I am in the cold and struggling to survive.  He does not lead me to places where I am hungry with no food to satisfy the hunger.  God lead the children of Israel to the desert, but the desert was a place of provision.  They did not have to worry about food and they did not have to worry about Pharaoh.  I know it was a desert, but God can make even your roughest place provisional.  If He lead you there, He will sustain you there.


The Lord is My Shepherd by Helen Baylor
http://youtu.be/DkUptcnCkN8

Apples and Oranges

Apples and oranges.  Aging is a beautiful process.  Once upon a time, I looked at my foot and it looked like the hundreds of cute feet that graced a pair of sandals in my second grade class.  Now, at the age of forty-one, time and hardship have shown up on my feet.  They are marked by spills I took in a pair of high heeled shoes.  They are marked by hematoma's that left me scared.  They are marked by muscles torn by falling arches.  I look down and I wonder about my feet.  These are not my feet.  I don't remember these feet.  I look at my hair and I see that this is not the full head of hair that I once had.  I look at my shape and I see bulges where they did not exist and then there is that backside.  Where did it come from?  I am being made unique simply by the fact that time has chiseled out a whole nother' person.  I am truly and not the same person that I used to be.  No one told me that when I reached this age, I would not be an apple anymore.  I would be something so different than what I once was.  I realize that I can't even go back to where I once was.  The person who enjoyed being in that place no longer lives.  Just like my body has responded to time, my emotions have as well.  Somethings, I can't cry about anymore.  I still feel grief, but I can't cry about that anymore.  Some desires that consumed my younger days, are being replaced by other desires that I never knew I would be left desiring.  My goals are different.  I am different.  It is like I woke up and realized that the person who laid down the night before must have died in her sleep.  Who is this person that I am now?  What do I want now?  Where am I going to go now?


Theme from Mahogany
http://youtu.be/c3uatcJqt54

Lawless

Luke 6:46-49

New International Version (NIV)

The Wise and Foolish Builders

⁴⁶ “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? ⁴⁷ As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. ⁴⁸ They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. ⁴⁹ But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Lawlessness is the state of being unrestrained by the law.  The law is a keeper.  The laws of God are the grace of God.  It is a loving God that will tell you that the stove is hot, watch you touch it anyway and then help you deal with the burn.  When he tells you that the stove is hot, he is laying down the law.  He tells us through his precepts what we can and cannot do.  He draws the line in the sand, but he never forbids us to peek over into the other realm and he certainly does not restrain us from going over.  That is the work of the law.  It only can restrain you if you allow it to.  I have stepped over that line and then ran back so quick, it looks like I never left.  I asked God, "Why did he let me do this?"and that is not the correct question.  The question is, "Why did I do this?"  Why did I choose to disobey the law and have my house floating downstream.  In the scripture, both houses were beaten by the torrent.  In the scripture, the flood came for both houses.  Only the house built on God's word stood.  Then the other question to ask is, "Why do I call him Lord, if I don't do what he says".  Is is fashionable to call him Lord?  Is it your tradition to call him Lord?  His laws can save us from a world of hurt, even without his hand.

My funny Valentine

Today, I am thinking about how hard it is to be friends with someone who is not, somewhat, your equal.  When you are walking hand in hand with someone who has enough money to solve your problem, it is difficult not to use the relationship to get your natural needs met.  There has to be a mutual understanding that I am not going to come to you for your luxuries because we are friends and the wealthy one knows that they have the right and the duty to say, “no”.  The poor have to understand that the relationship is not their answer to their problems and the rich have to understand that the poor are with you always.  You aren’t God.  In this, I find it hard to have friends who aren’t financially, emotionally, and physically somewhat equal.  When I think of God, I wonder how he has a relationship with us.  He really does have all power in his hands.  He really can change our lives.  The relationship between him and man is indeed unusual, but God makes it work.  He does not always answer prayer.  He does not have to.  To be in a relationship with him, you must understand that he has a will and it does not revolve around you.  He can say, “No” and still be in relationship with you.  We have to understand that the answer is not always in his hands.  He made us, equipped us and empowered us to solve some problems without his petition.  As with an unusual rich friend, there are parts of their world where I will not have access.  It is OK.  God has a part of his nature that is sovereignty at it’s best.  We as human beings simply will not be able to comprehend all of who he is. 

With those boundaries, I believe  I have found the secret to being in relationship with God.  It is allowing him to express his Godship without demanding that He does it solely at my beck and call.  Thus, when he says, "no", I simply agree and wait until the next time I can meet him again. Thus he remains the love of my life, sometimes near, all the time far and touchably untouched.  He is the joyous source of my greatest pain.  He makes me smile and laugh until I cry my brown eyes blue.  He is my savior who was loyal to my cause as the big bad wolf blew my house down. And I still love him. We are not equal but we walk hand in hand like the greater and lesser light.  My funny Valentine.

My funny Valentine
http://youtu.be/jvXywhJpOKs

 

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What a fool believes

Tonight I am thinking of a threat the enemy often uses against me.  He says, "If you would not have pursued ministry as a young woman, you would have been married by now".  I have heard this threat so much in my life, that I just don't want to hear it anymore.  I began to fight back.  I told the enemy that it is easy to say what could have been but the reality is that no one knows.  You don't know what your life would have been like unless God opens his mouth and tells you.  Guess what.  He didn't tell me, so an assumption is a lie on it's best day.  A fool believes in things that never were as if they existed, but I am no fool.  If I missed something and my existence was my own fault, then I take the blame.  I can't.  For every reason someone would come up with for these lonely nights, I know someone who had the exact same reason and they got married anyway.  You can't speculate about what should have been, like it really was.  Time has judged it and the moment is past.  I, like Robert Frost, stopped wondering about the road not taken years ago.  I did not pursue that path.  It did not happen for me at that time.  Notions about people that you never had in your life, are what a fool believes.



What a Fool Believes

http://youtu.be/Y7-BBADPAvE

Trade you a Barnabas for a Silas

Acts 15:36-41

New International Version (NIV)

Disagreement Between Paul and Barnabas

³⁶ Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” ³⁷ Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, ³⁸ but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. ³⁹ They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, ⁴⁰ but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. ⁴¹ He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Often times, the pain of separating is compounded by the fact there may not be an immediate replacement for the one you lost.  You can actually hold on to what is left of a relationship because you fear walking the rest of your life alone.  God knows that we are relational and are made to fellowship with mankind.  He did not create man without some sort of counterpart.  God said in the book of Genesis that is was not good for man to be alone. He then created woman and through that union he created family and through that union, he created community.  You don't have to exist by yourself when someone decides to go their separate ways.  By the shear exponential multiplication of Adam and Eve, we have towns, cities and countries full of people who can grab your hand when you need one to hold.  Now, the enemy, who is a diminisher, wants you to take your desires and put them in a fishbowl and then say that no one loves you.  Sometimes, we place ourselves in such small and insufficient places and complain that we are lonely.  You are only lonely because where you are is a lonely place.  Relationships could be one system away.  Reach out to someone and create the community that you need.  James Taylor sung a song about a woman who not only lost the relationship with her husband, but lost the community that came with it.  In the aftermath of living, someone calls to let her know that she still has someone to love her, even if it is not the one she thought would love her.  It is good to know that God always has a ram in the bush.  He truly indeed is a good savior.

God, I thank you for such a beautiful morning and a great time to realize that my life is not as empty as I previously thought it to be.  Help me to see the great and vast amount of people who are in my life everyday.  Help me to visit other systems that can be as close as across the street and as far away and the local IHOP.  God I pray that you take the blinders off and allow me to see all that are with me.  Amen.



Her Town Too
http://youtu.be/DQj2jJSfZP4

Separate Lives

My mind is turning to a place where relationships are built and others torn down.  I think about people that I have walked with and I thought of such a person who I gave everything I had to.  Every gate was open and every door unlocked.  Every secret of my being splat for this person to see with the hope that, in anger, no one would ever know.  I met this person for the first time in a long time and I found that my conversation was guarded.  I did not want to say everything.  I  did not want to talk about me and the past for those are things that I don't talk about anymore.  I built that wall that never existed between us, but I did not feel comfortable without it.  Even the tone of my voice cried,"I need some space".  The tone in return was one of a place no longer held.  That place has been void for years and if it is filled, it is no longer filled by that person.  What to do when boundaries that were once blurred become clear as crystal in a cabinet.  It is the acknowledgement that a lot of water has passed under the bridge, so much so that the world we met in is no longer the world we live in.  Everything has changed and we only exist together in memory.  The conversation was general like I was talking to a stranger on the bus.  In this, I learn, that moving on is exactly that.  No one has the right to question where I am, if you no longer are in the position to question where I am.  My gentle prodding was just to make sure everyone knew what position they were in.  When we parted, I knew that the world was definitely in different systems and that this person would return to their world and I to mine.  We would go on living but......................................separate lives.


Separate Lives
http://youtu.be/Q_4w3-CPP6E

Can you get it back for me ?

Pirates are miscreants of evil design who live off of others gain
They wait to steal your hard earned cash, and leave you in the rain
They lay in lairs and coves and hamlets that you somehow think are havens
That's when they darken the sky with guns and steal the meat like rabid ravens

Now I worked so hard to earn so little my treasure bitterly taken
My world is dark, my eyes are dim and I am visibly shaken
The power of the air has exercised his dominion be it small
How can I with such feeble hands without sin recover it all

The key to the riches once held in my grasp lay at the feet of Christ
Only he can save my beloved treasure from this evil, horrible heist
But alas, he sits on the right hand of God, his work on earth is finished
He has left the ministerial gifts to the world and it cannot be diminished.

So I went to the teacher she was at school and the prophet was in the valley
The apostle left town the night before in a ship, on the sea, in the galley.
The evangelist preached and now is gone, who stays to tend the sheep
Well that is the Pastor, the shepherd of the house, it is he, my soul he must keep

So I petition you with all the strength you can muster, and with a sorrowful sigh
Can you snatch it from the the one who snatched it from me, and placed it in the sky
Can you reclaim my gift, it was yours for the taking, and tell the devil no
Can you take this stick and beat him up and tell him where to go

For if you do the fate is sealed.  The blessed not one, nor\ two , but seven
for in the air is a gift for you, your wive, your baby and Heaven.

Want

Have you ever stopped and realized that the one thing you don't want to do is want.  I am sitting here in my room and I just don't want nothing.  Seems like those surprises that came in little boxes and rocked my world were sometimes good and sometimes bad.  They both tore my world apart.  I don't want to know what is behind door number three.  I don't want to know what is beyond the horizon.  I don't want to foreshadow the morning, I just want to be in a place where I am not wanting.  Wanting is the state of lack that I have been running from for the last six months.  The minute one thing breaks down and I get it fixed, something else takes a turn.  When I stopped and added the mishaps since July, it totals almost 5,000 dollars that I did not have.  The only resource I had was God because I just did not have it.  I did not want to be in the state of lack, but it just chased me.  What I can say about God is that God chased it.  Every where poverty turned, God had a solution and God had a plan.  It is October and I think the flood has ended.  If it has not, God is ready.  He never gets tired of intervening for me.  He is my shepherd and I shall not want.