Learning to Swim

I woke up this morning and prayed: Dear Lord,Thank you for goggles. Amen.I would have never dreamed that at thirty-six I would be learning to swim. It is a secret of mine that I started to tell people and they have been laughing, so I am just going to turn it back in and keep it between God and me. I have always hated swimming. Even when it is hot and the only way to stand the outdoor scorching summer sun is to swim, even then, I would typically just rather not. I don't really care for air conditioning either – but if I get into that I will sound like a complainer, so I will stop right there with hating to swim.I've been thinking back at being seven, since my girls are now. And this is what I remember of my summers: never being able to see. And I realized it wasn't so much the swimming that I hated, it was what happens when I swim. At about seven years old I suddenly needed glasses. It is weird to me to think that one day I came home with glasses because I swear they were instantly coke bottle thick and needed for everything. I never had the glasses just for reading or the light pair that a child would even need a glasses case to carry. Since first on my nose, I never remember being able to see without them. And so, here is the answer to my distaste for the pool: water and glasses don't mix. The glasses get set on a pool side table or on a towel edge, and from that point on as a child, I dreaded the time in the pool. My list of worries:1.What if someone steps on my glasses and breaks them? There is no safe place near a pool edge.2.Where are my friends? At a public pool I could literally not tell the difference between the grandma floating and my friend's raft. Marco Polo was the only game I could handle because it didn't matter if I tried to peak – I still couldn't see.3.Where are the cute boys? As I grew up, that became the only reason to really go to the pool anyway and I couldn't even get a good flirt in! No googly eyes? What was the point of my cute bikini?!4.What if I can't find my towel when I get out of the pool? What if I walk over to the wrong group of friends?5.The glasses fog up at an indoor pool. I hate that.Okay, you get the picture. It is quite simply, miserable. So as I grew up, I had an aversion to swimming. If you are as blind as me – which is, can't-see-the-alarm-clock-blind – then you understand my distress. So I did the lessons, and I managed the pool parties as best I could, but I grew up hating swimming.In high school, I got contacts. You might think this event would change my abhorrencee for water sports, but au contraire. I remember going to swim for the first time with my “new eyes” and being so excited inside-ready to enjoy the pool with the invention of vision! On the edge it was immensely better. I no longer worried about having my glasses broken and I was free to scope out the boys. I could even wear sun glasses! Glory be! But jumping in, my fears and frustrations returned. Any sort of splash or attempt to swim stung my eyes and made me feel like my contacts were going to fall into the pool. So, now I could handle the shore and even wade a bit, but the real fun and adventure splashing out in front of me still did not seem inviting. I resigned to be a dog paddler, keeping my head up and looking nonsporty. Fast forward twenty years. Here I am today, watching my daughters learn to swim. And they have goggles. I chuckle every time they put them on – their little bug eyes popping out. But they dive down deep and they enjoy the water like mermaids. And I sit on the edge, with my contacts in, and watch them splash and play for hours. I get to thinking: Goggles. Me. The thought cracks me up because I can just imagine my eyes popping out of my head like theirs. Then I realize, Hey, why not? I am already horrified to be wearing this swimming suit. My days of impressing the boys are long gone. So I grab an extra pair of goggles, and I jump in. Low and behold, I can see the bottom of the pool! I can see my daughters as they play and I can splash back! I do a lap across the pool and apply every thing I have heard their swim instructors tell them – and what do you know? I can swim! I never sunk before, like I said I was a great dog paddler. I once even treaded water for 20 minutes in a bet with my dad which was supposed to get me a horse in the end (never did). But swimming! Now this was new to me. It felt amazing to glide through the water and to turn my head and breath. I did the "Bubble Bubble Bubble Breathe" stroke in my head and the freestyle was exactly that – freeing!I climbed out of the pool like I had discovered a secret. Now, I know it's too late to be a Missy Franklin – but I just may try a triathlon someday. I just have to laugh because, like I said, I never thought I would be learning to swim at thirty-six. And it gets my thinking...what else did I hate as a child? What did I hold myself back from for some silly reason? I suddenly am realizing that my list of things I want to do with my life can be bigger and bigger. It is like I have just heard a graduation speech with inspiration and a “Go forth!” message. Maybe skiing, mountain biking, orienteering, even water slides! My mind is reeling at the possibilities. For the first time in a long time, I feel like trying new things instead of perfecting the old. And I realize, I am starting to like being old because now I can wear goggles and just jump in without a worry in the world about what that Barbie on the beach towel is thinking of me. And I am thankful. Thankful for goggles and thankful for growing old. Amen.

Momentary Afflictions

For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. 2 Corinthians 4:17 This perspective can be hard to swallow. Even harder to explain to a child. Last night I shared with Katie and Lexie the story of Abraham and Isaac. Lexie stopped me twice to ask, so he was going to die? So he was going to be burnt up? Katie could answer yep and get on to the rest of the story. I wonder if she has the faith of the child or if she was simply caught up in hearing the end of the Bible truth. Either way, Katie was moving forward and ready to hear how God stepped in and saved them. Lexie, though, she was bothered – as am I still- that this father would play chance with his son's life . Bothered that God would ask it. Now in my adult brain I have reasoned and figured that God was teaching people his love. The request by God of Abraham always had an out, it was never a last minute salvation. For He created time and knows all things, so he knew the last breath would be years in coming. What he needed was for Abraham to walk step by step, no matter how dangerous or how heartbreaking the steps would be. Abraham believed and showed his belief with actions, with obedience. In the end, he learned that God would never forsake him and so faith is not explained but established. This lesson was so hard for Lexie, though. I watched her little brain work and I saw her unable to get to the end of the lesson because she was caught up in fear. In this moment I learned several things. 1. I am not the best Bible storyteller. I became immediately thankful for Pastor Michael and for crazy Aaron who works with the youth. My answers to her questions were muddy and I left her wrestling with God's goodness instead of awed by his grace. 2. Fear is a hang up in my life too. It was fear that kept Lexie from seeing the end. She missed out on the beauty of the story and the sacrificial allusion to Christ because she was so worried about the fire and the knife that Abraham was toting. I need to trust more and go step by step obediently, even if it looks dangerous or uncomfortable. And 3. Jumping to the end means missing the lesson just as much as stopping half way. Katie, maybe not scarred with the vision of a father burning a son, missed out on something too. She didn't recognize the weight of the glory because she shrugged off the affliction. In true twin fashion, my girls pulled from different ends of the story. The appropriate balance is hard to find in life. Maybe the tug in one direction, though, is the lesson that God is working on in me at the time. I often get hung up on the idea that I am too much this and not enough that – but perhaps God is teaching me in those times. He is weighing down and isolating the spiritual muscle that needs growth. This is freeing for me to consider. Part of being obedient is to follow God's daily workout plan and to accept the strain is to be gifted with the result. This morning I thank God for momentary afflictions. I thank Him for the workouts so I can be part of His glory.

God Listens

Jeremiah 29:12 Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen.

I love knowing that God listens to me. One of the most comforting and humbling parts of my faith lies in the knowledge that the creator of the world also decided to create me. To know that He cares and hears my thoughts shakes me when I really pause to consider it. Because, if he cares enough for me that he will move mountains and calm storms and heal in response to our conversations, and I multiply that by roughly 3.2 billion other living voices, you must be awestruck that he can not only keep our prayers straight, but that he has plans to prosper us as well. 3.2 billion is a lot to keep under control. I have a hard enough time with my own two children and their big ideas and needs. Thirty in a classroom is often beyond what I can handle as a teacher. But God, he has billions to love, nurture, discipline, and save.

When I was little I remember being confused about how the police use 911. I think I pictured the Mayberry police station – with Fife and the few other workers employed there- and I imagined their phone ringing whenever a kitten got up a tree or a burglar broke into a home. I would wonder what would happen if someone called 911 and there weren't any people there to respond. What if the police man was already helping someone and then someone else needed help? As a kid, I worried about stuff like that all the time. Because at some point, we just have to run out of helpers, right? It isn't mathematically possible to guarantee that a 911 phone call will be answered immediately. If there are enough simultaneous calls, then someone has to wait. Not with God, though. It is part of God's awesomeness that I can't even begin to comprehend how he does it, but somehow he keeps it all straight and offers such undivided attention that I feel like I must be the only one out here talking to him, because I can feel all his attention is on loving me. And yet, others feel this too.

I love the scene in movies when producers want to show a global image by starting with a picture of a house and then zooming out to show the street, the neighborhood, still zooming out – the city, the state, the country, the hemisphere, the globe, and then finally space. It reveals humanity as such a small portion of the world and creates an insignificance. Sometimes along with the zoom out there will be an audio clip of one conversation piled on top of another and another and another until there is a loud buzz of multiple languages, all indecipherable amongst the chaotic noise. In the end, the God's eye view of the buzzing marble makes the viewer feel small and insignificant. I like to be reminded of this – I think it is healthy. But I also think it is all wrong, because if God was truly that distant, then it suggests that he is not truly listening or a part of our plans at all. But He is not a hands off God who flicked the marble into space and let it fall and then sat down on a heavenly curb to watch. We aren't his wind up toys either. I have found in my life that God is ever present and hovering in a way that is more like a sticky, humid air all around than a distant Hubble-like viewer of earth. Humidity can be uncomfortable too, I know. I meant for my analogy to show that having God with you all the time and accepting this image can sometimes be uncomfortable. But I decided long ago I would rather have Him with me always than have to phone in a sudden 911 and worry about getting patched through, past 3.2 billion others needing miracles. Hearing all our prayers, I think, would get annoying. But God doesn't ever ask us for silence. He says to pray continually – like he wants more and more voices to address him. I love this about my God.

This week, though, he showed me that he is always listening, not just to my prayers. I was talking to my husband after reading in Genesis about the tower of Babel. I told him, “One thing I will never understand about God is why he wanted to destroy the tower.” He asked me what I meant and I continued to explain my confusion – about why God would feel threatened by a measly little pyramid. My husband shrugged and we agreed that if God was angered enough to destroy, scatter, and confuse the people for that little tower, then it seemed odd that today we have so many towers that are standing which he hasn't destroyed. Then, Sunday morning my pastor took the podium and jumped right into a sermon on Babel and how God wasn't threatened by the tower, but the tower was a picture of their self idolatry. Perhaps he destroyed the one back then so we could see today all we do must be in gratitude of Him instead of in honor for ourselves. I looked at my husband and we nodded our heads, thankful for answers to questions. What is so amazing about this story is that it was an insignificant, minor detail. We had simply been wondering about God – not praying for insight and answers. And the next morning it was as if God said, “Oh, about that Tower...” and then he filled me in on the back story. I sat through that service feeling like we were chums or BFFs, God and me. We finish each other's thoughts and sentences. And I love that about my God. He is big, but he knows me. He is busy, but he hears me. He is powerful, and he loves me.

In Defense of the Good

Those who are trying to do good, don't need criticism from those who aren't. It is odd to think there would even be people in the world who are not trying to do good. But some will even ADMIT that they could care less about what happens to other people. And if someone says that, then they mean it. Because it takes a selfish person to say it aloud. There are probably some borderline people, too, who feel that but don't actually verbalize and commit this gross admittance aloud, so if someone does say it....then they must mean it.

My point is this. So many people have been criticized for telling stories and “not doing enough”. Invisible Children, Three Cups of Tea, Soles for Souls, even sweet Ishmael Beah, the child soldier who daringly shared his heart in his memoir A Long Way Gone, has been called a fraud because his map wasn't to scale and perhaps his recounting of his years as a child soldier don't exactly line up with where reported skirmishes were said to have happened. Really? Is it that hard to believe that a child, strung out on cocaine, who has been given a gun and placed in front of Rambo for hours on end might mess up a detail or two?

  People: look at the big picture – the real picture. Our society is deranged if we can hear these stories and turn around and criticize their work because, while we were sitting on our couch eating pizza, these story sharers were finding ways to make change.

I want to write a defense on their behalf.

I want to ask them how hard it was to get started. How they got going..and when did they hear their first criticisms? Did it affect them like it affects me? Advice for others? Why do you think people attack like this? How damaging is it really to your cause? When will you know to move on? When should we? Did it ever stop being about others and start being about you? Did you “Frankenstein” about it? What is the cost of selflessness?

All of these questions loom around every news coverage I hear trying to expose truth. In reality, they are only covering it. Quieting a long struggle and pulling away a mic from an already quiet voice.

This is the coward's response: to take away the ugly because we are uncomfortable with it. If we can just wake up and drink our Starbucks and jump into our day, then we are content. When a story is heartbreaking, it is sad and we can nod or pray. But when the empty worthless character becomes a hero though, the story changes. Ideally, it changes us. But, along with the inspiring nudge to be more, comes the guilt of having done less. So there is a faction that will dig for a way out without ever gaining courage. Hiding the picture, twisting the image and shifting the focus so that the hero is gone. Taking away Superman means it is okay to be satisfied with Clark Kent. After all, he is attractive and intelligent looking with those glasses. And when Superman is gone, we decide that we are okay. We don't even know there is a train falling off a cliff over there. So we can go back to work, make dinner, clean our homes, and rest our heads with self esteem and safety. It is a prettier picture. Because not knowing that Ishmael, or Elie Wiesel exist makes us safely ignorant of pain. And not knowing of Jason Russel or Greg Mortenson means that some problems are just too big to tackle ourselves. We can take our $200 and just pass go.  I argue that this is the uglier picture and it is a snapshot of ourselves.

Marjorie, Marian, and me

I came across a book of my grandmother

and am so glad I did
I must confess that at first I chuckled
in a 2012 superior, English teacher-
so not farm house wife- kind of way
The jacket cover crisp and in tact,
not like it has never been read,
rather, like it has been handled repeatedly with care.
It didn't crack open and desire to flop shut as if it sat on her shelf for years
No, it has rested, nicely, kept on an end table.
Always the book lover, I can remember Grandma's house and her books-
so many Bible study texts and prayer books.
I'm sure I even have a faint memory of it,
or at least of it's spine.
I don't remember a single novel, a single fiction tale
But I remember church books being everywhere.
I've inherited these books from her
and am only beginning to see their worth.
I still feel “not-ready” for many of them-
but I am seeing that some day each will be pulled from my shelf,
dusted and touched with tenderness
as I learn from her.

This particular book is green and flowery on front,

reminding me of the emblazoned golden wallpaper that dressed dear grandma's farmhouse walls.
I've Got to Talk to Somebody, God: A woman's conversations with God
I pulled this text for it's title matches my not so witty blog: “Conversations with God”
This morning I am looking for something to connect with me
and to see Grandma owned this book,
made me think that maybe she was quite like me.
-And she so strong and so able -

my curiosity grew.

I opened the the cover and eyed the author image

Ms. Marjorie Holmes-
Quite like my grandma I suppose.

And again

in my 2012 mind of a busy intellectual working mother

I belittled her writing style and prejudged her prose

as I read the back flap jacket cover:

Seven novels, column in the Washington Post

(jealousy)

teacher of University courses

(big twinge here)

Mother of four

(bitterness)

and then – as she summers in Virginia -

it says she “swims, canoes, and water skis”

I allow myself a thought about her figure in a bathing suit

to help me feel more qualified in any category,

but her photo is slimming and she probably succeeds in wearing that too.

How pretentious of me.

I hardly want to read this book because I am so tired of feeling all the things I am not.

Until I flip to the table of contents

and turn my thoughts from the lovely writer to my grandmother again.
And all my jealousy and incompetency washes away as I see
that I am she, I am Marjorie,
I am my grandma
and she was me.
And suddenly I want to hug these two women so tightly.
I want to be in their weekly Bible study

and I long to ask them for a casserole recipe...just so I can be near their confidence and togetherness and let all their graces wash over me

because I am certain that I could learn so much from them.

And it makes me want to run to Nebraska.

And I sigh, remembering that as a child,
this is where I always longed to be.

So simply written,
this little text will be lying on my end table and tucked into my purse for many days to come.

With prayers and thoughts and questions posed to God,

there is a prayer for everything.

“On Doing Dishes,” “On Ironing,” and one “On Making Beds”
Prayers for children, prayers for neighbors,

prayers for every need

My eyes lingered over words on husbands

and I sipped my coffee while I saw she knew me inside out-
My fears, my angers, and my loneliness.

And so it eased. All my tensions eased in thinking

Marian, Marjorie, and me,
there we sat,
a gathering of three.
And so my prayers were strengthened.
I'm moving this collection to my bed side shelf-
the prime time spot for books
Last summer it was St. Augustine who held this noble place
but this summer I am going to be brushing up on my Marjorie.
And now I confess all my judgments
and only feel affection, affection, affection
for this woman, this writer, this intellectual being.

And I wonder, where are you now?

Do you write still? Are you whole?
Do you live on that lake? How long since you've water skied?
Ms. Marjorie Holmes,
wherever you are,
you inspire me.

*Post script:  A google search told me that Ms. Holmes passed away at the age of 91 in 2002.  According to the L.A. Times, she had "a knack" for making God accessible to everyone. 

I Will Conjure No More.

I discovered a habit of mine and it is one of which I am not too proud. Honestly, I am rather embarassed this morning when I think of the way I have been talking with and about God. And I am so greatful that my friends are either so full of grace that they are simply nodding and praying for me or else God has hedged me into a cove where my bellowings boom into silence and my voice has been falling away for all my shoutings - yes, I am thankful for having not been heard. I have a tendency to blah blah blah. Like Charlie Brown's teacher, my whawha has got to be annoying. I pray no one would hear and learn or even hear and remember my words when they are not King glorifying. Lately, they haven't been.

I have been stuck in a pray, whine, grown, complain pattern for quite some time. I meditate on my dreams, pretending they are the voice of God. I think of this world - which I would be better to remember is not my home - and then I conjure ways to win it. (Kind of proud of that verb choice there - CONJURE.) Truly,I have tried to influence the outcome of my life by invocation disguised as prayer. I have made wishes for another child, for adoption, for entrance into grad school, for new jobs, for time at home - all of these "things" I want are good things. I guess that is where it all gets confusing and muddled up in my head. I have made the desires of my heart become longings that surpass my longing for God himself. So that when I lay my head, I dream of ways to get my heart desires. When I have a few free minutes, I try and try to make things happen and help God with his plans.

Because we are Americans living in 2012, and we have so many freedoms and so many miracles, it is easy sometimes to imagine we must "help" God, as if a magic potion could result in Him choosing my desired plan. Let me explain- for five years we tried to have children. It was frustrating and I felt broken, but I never gave up. We went to doctors and dropped gobs of money to try and make our plan work out. In the end, after a second try of invitro, we were blessed with twins. Now, I am simplifying the events because there was much prayer and resolution before the birth of my children. I would never doubt the hand of God and nothing else placed them in my womb, but to explain my point, do you see how it could appear to an outsider that I became pregnant because I wanted to become pregnant? We keep doing that - taking God out of magical equations - and it is so dangerous. What we would have then is life without a Source and beings without Makers.

So, make the analogy work and look back at my life and you will see that I am trying to do just that. I, in effect, have been taking God out of my equation for living and have beem trying to invtro other things for myself. Again, good things, but still things born of myself. And that, my friends, sounds gross and ugly because I have taught Macbeth and have seen about 7 different film versions. In all of them, the conjuring witches are bearded and repugnant. I, therefore, will conjure no more.

I have decided this and feel confident it is a wise decision, but I am not sure how to avoid it. For if I am not dreaming up futures for myself and if I am not trying incessantly to achieve something, then what, preytell, am I doing? I know I could be paper grading and lesson planning and praying and reading scripture and dressing children and washing clothes (I will stop at ironing because I will not go there)but I still am restless. Perhaps this is my true confession - that I am restless and not content in life and I find it ugly.

When I sigh and try to figure out why, I must blame my career. I spend all day long encouraging high school students to dream. Most of the kids I encounter seem like they need someone to believe in them, so I do. I help them think of magical plans for their lives. I would rather help them pray about finding God's path, but after all I am in a public school and while I can pray for that, it is something else entirely to speak of that. I follow Caesar, and mute God, and puff them up so their dreams aren't dried up raisins. That I go home and pump air into my own future visions seems to be an occupational hazard - a side effect, if you will, of being 100% peppy and perky, ready for teacher observation day. But when I go home at the end of the day, I have spill over dreams, residual energy and ideas that I cannot place anywhere purposeful, like my children, my home, or my marriage. Rather, I spend it all on me, me , me and ask for "good stuff" for my life.

So, if this is what I do, I want to know now, how do I undo this picture of my life? How do I stop wanting more and how do I settle for what I have without feeling unAmerican? For mustn't I achieve? On a day off, I want to feel like I can put my feet up. On a day on, I want to come home and cook dinner and feel good in the moment. I want to be content.

Maybe what I am figuring out as I write this is that I will never be able to do these things on my own. I will never, in my own strength, be able to stop doing. Just as I have called upon God's strength so many times to try to enact a result, I must once again call upon his strength to find the peace. I want to practice just being. And it is going to be perhaps one of the hardest things I have ever done.


I must take all of this longing, all of this aching desire, and find God with it. I must let all the world fall away and desire God only. This sounds hard. I wonder what it will do to my classroom and my home. I am content though in thinking that it will do wonders for my life. This must now become my new dream, my desire for my life is to not have desires...

I am content on becoming content.