I think this is plagarism

I sat beside my friend Tammy in chapel yesterday morning... and had the following experience with her. I went home and told my husband about it - the best part of my day. When I read Tammy's blog I stole it and reprinted it here. She says it better than I could:
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If you can talk, you can sing
So, today I went to chapel...it was a great service.

At the beginning of the service, we sang two songs. I had a couple come into the pew behind me and sit. They had what seemed like 12 children....I think it might have been 4. Anyhow, we started to sing, In Christ Alone.

The congregation begins to sing...what I heard next was absolutely breathtaking. One of the little boys behind me....he was maybe 3...he begins to sing. He knows the tune, but he only knows maybe 2 words in every verse. But it doesn't stop him from singing....he sings....he belts it out.....saying words that made no sense to me, sprinkled with a correct word here and one there....I had to close my eyes and listen.

There were so many things going through my head. First off, why is that we adults over-think everything....why are we not free to worship, really worship....belting it out with all our hearts as loud as we can with no regard to the person in front of us. Next, I listened to this little guy's mom....he sang just like her....she was belting it out, of course she knew all the words. This little guy has been in church with his mom, watching, listening and now following after her. She is teaching him how to worship. Last I wondered how this little guy's song sounded to God....was the Father closing His eyes, drinking in the pure worship of such a sweet soul. Then I wondered, what does my song sound like to my Father.

If you can talk, you can sing;
If you can walk, you can dance.

HOW TO RECOGNIZE GRACE (with bracketed additions from my life this summer)
It comes in odd packages(like a headache that wakes you in the middle of the night and you get up and see the moon shining)
It sometimes looks like loss (like the passing of my friend Nancy)
or mistakes (like getting stuck in rush hour traffic in Chicago with BS)
It acts like rain (like a pan of BBQ pork from Tammy's kitchen to make a meal easy)
or like a seed (like our son Ben in Indonesia helping his kids love us)
It’s both reliable and unpredictable (like Rachel, my daughter)
It’s not what you were aiming at (a perfect restful summer)
or what you thought you deserved (like presents on Mother's Day)
It supplies what you need (like a hug)
not necessarily what you want (like no problems to deal with)
It grows you up (like learning you are not the most important person in every room)
and lets you be a child (like me and Joy watching fireworks in the rain on BS's jeep)
It reminds you you’re not in control (like seeing Vincent find his world)
and that not in control is a form of freedom (like me 'n Steve on the front porch at the end of the day.)

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies by Marilyn McEntyre.

sudden insight

sitting on the porch with Linda ... telling her that her husband's smile on Sunday made me happy. To put it into context, the men's chorus sang on Sunday - some rousing patriotic song. Whatever. But something nice happens in me when twenty or so good men do that.

But how I expressed it to Linda was, "When the men get up and sing, I forgive them!"

Then I laughed.

Then I said, "OH NO! Maybe I'm a groupie! That's why I like the men to sing~!"

ARGH~!That's it. I used to like guys in bands - guys who are musicians, in groups, with guitars and drums. Or violins.

Oh dear. Is that still me? Where are the guys my heart used to follow? It isn't a good image in my mind. I hope they are all insurance agents and not trying to be cool any more.


How bizarre, how bizarre.

so what is it with my brain?

This morning at five fifty six a.m. NPR radio news begins to sound beside my bed. Now this is news, but not 'news' to my brain. In fact, my brain planned this to happen. "We will get up at six," my brain declared to my body last night. So this is the plan.

Therefore when morning noise broke my rest one would think my brain would say, "Okay body, this is a good thing. I direct you to get up." But oh no. My brain recants the plan and begins the negotiation.

"OOOOOOOOH. NO. PLEASE. I will not let you get up. I will not allow it. Hand, go press the snooze button." And the obedient slave does as it is told.

Six O'nine. Brain, "Just be late today. Say you are sick. Say you were on your way to work and you came upon an old man with a broken leg and possible scurvy and you drove him to emergency, much like the morally superior Samaritan." Then, "Okay, well if not that, at least hit the snooze button." And the obedient slave does as it is told.

Six twenty five. Brain, "Get up if you must. But come home at noon and sleep. Sleep all afternoon. Work 'at home.'Put an inflatable woman in the chair at your desk. It is summer. No one will notice."

My body finally wrestled my brain to the mat. The shower was good, and a morning coffee on the porch (shortened today by the wasted time in bed), lovely.

My brain is still at it. "Skip Jazzercise tonight. Take me home to bed."

Clearly my brain has a mind of its own.
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Best comment, from Sarah - in case you don't look at them:
I live this post every morning! The newly awakened brain has an entirely different rationality from the brain at bedtime. Often it can be coaxed out of bed with the promise of a nap that rarely actually happens, because while cunning, my sleepy brain is also quite gullible...HAH!

girlfriends

In light of my last post - which was this morning - I decided to celebrate another experience of life : womanhood. And I know womanhood pretty well. Me'n my buddy Joy watched the Fourth of July fireworks on the hood of Steve's jeep. May I say, we were indeed on a slippery slope and our womanhood became a pile of hilarity in the mud more than once when our quilt became a soaking wet sled. And we lost all decorum and laughed ourselves SILLY ... all for a pretty good fireworks display. All that without liquor. Or men. Well, we did need the man for the jeep - and a lovely man he is.


Clearly life would be desolate without my woman friends. But my men-folk are pretty fabulous too. So here's to men whose only fundamentals are those their women use to sit on the jeep hood, whose leadership in the home means making coffee in the morning when they could sleep in, whose TULIPs are brought home as a promise of spring and who would defend a woman's point of view with a pointy stick. If they had the chance.

not my usual

So this morning I received an email from 'emergent women' - I have some interest in the emergent church, and they mentioned a blog - I have an interest in blogging and being part of the conversation, so I clicked on it.

Bad idea. Very bad idea.

I began reading ... and came upon ideas from the 'new reformers' if you know who they are. A major 'plank' in their theology is the idea of complimentarianism... which means, put simply, men on top. It isn't so much their view - I am all about freedom of views - but their certainty that those with other views are not Biblical, heading toward or in immorality, and on the outside.

Life is only known as it is experienced. My mountain of abuse in these arenas is substantial. It happens, then, that many feelings are triggered in my soul when I read 'christian thinking' that is legalistic, controlling, and patriarchal.

So I went for a walk in the sun to shake off the sick feeling it all gave me. This experience makes me feel displaced and hopeless.

On my fridge I have a quote from the former president of Greenland, a woman. She said, "There is no glass ceiling. There is only a thick layer of men." I would rephrase that, "There is no spiritual ceiling, only a layer of thick men."

Tell my children who I am

We have been having family time for two weeks with our granddaughters. On Sunday I had a premonition that I was going to have to speed up ...that the rhythm was going to change. Do you ever have a strong sense of things?

Well, things have changed. My life has three, maybe four lifetime friends. These are the people who have been part of my story so long I can't imagine my life without them. These are the people who will be my ghosts or companions when I reach my end.

Nancy Bailey is one of these friends. She was my cohort in mischief when I was a (too) young mom with the burden of life already heavy on my shoulders. Together we were just girls who played and laughed and tortured our men with silliness. I loved her children and her husband with fierce purity. She loved mine. We could complain wildly about our lot in life but then returned to our people with willing hearts and hands. We were good for each other.

Nancy was the first woman I 'fell in love with' ... had heart pounding excitement when I knew we would see each other, laughed more than my quota when we were together and experienced her as brilliant, thoughtful, maddening, beautiful and fierce. Before her I thought being with men was ultimate. I just didn't know. Have you come to love women like that? ... you women, I mean!

Of necessity and sometimes choice, our contact was remote for some years, but she lived inside me. Friends do that. They move their stuff into our rafters and there it is ... quietly steadying our fears and strengthening our resolve just by taking up space. At least, that's what my friends do for me.

Well, Nancy died last night. I can't really believe she is gone. I talked to her daily until she couldn't talk any more and then I talked to her husband Joe about her. I feel like there is a big wind tunnel in my life, a tunnel that used to be full of 'stuff' and now it is empty and a huge fan is blowing wind down it.

So BS and I will make the grueling drive to Regina to be part of her funeral. She asked me to speak. She said, "Please, Mare, tell my children who I am." What a lovely thing to ask of a friend. I will do just that.