Good Stuff from Other People

I have joined the long defeat
that falling set in motion
all my strength and energy
are raindrops in the ocean

so conditioned for the win
to share in victor's stories
but in the place of ambition's din
I've heard of other glories

I pray for an idea
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

I can't just fight when I think I'll win
that's the end of all belief
and nothing has provoked it more
than a possible defeat

I pray for an idea
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

We walk a while we sit and rest
we lay it on the altar
I won't pretend to know what's next
but what I have I've offered

I pray for a vision
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

I pray for inspiration
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave.

Sara Groves, The Long Defeat

I lay down what I cannot hold in my hand,
every sorrow and hope spinning out of control-
here I find sweet resolution
that comes in letting go-
We will find shelter here.

Sandra McCracken, Shelter

Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."

John 20:29

In Response to Lindsey

Yesterday I forgot my cell phone password and today I forgot my blog's username. I also forgot to post once a week, a pledge I made to this blog, and something my friend Lindsey reminded me I hadn't been doing. So, in effort not to forget anything else, a thing I think I'm most scared of as an adult on many levels, I wrote this little poem. I miss writing and painting. I've been spending a lot of time "not thinking" and "just doing" as life often demands. I spend all day Saturday with my cross country team, and I've been finding out about coaching, mostly by watching our head coach. I've also been finding out about how much kids just want encouragement... I wish I was in better moods in the morning and after work to give it to them. I'm pretty sure running and enduring, and hopefully God through those things, are teaching them a lot without me.




The Trip Back

I miss writing-
7:14 a.m. and the space
between leaving
and arriving on a yellow school bus,
plastic seats soaked from last Friday’s football team.

I sit watching-
front seat behind the driver,
me unsocial and not
making friends or eating candy with teenage
cross country runners
because it’s too early.

I sleep memories-
April in 2000,
my own socks soaked
and muscles aching
with the pleasure of pain riding through a race.

I switched places-
somewhere between
16 and 24 my name slid into “coach,”
asking me if I really was one, or if I
liked the one I had become.

I think maybe-
here’s not a bad place to be,
watching their drama and gossip,
their loving new trends and sad songs
as they wonder why bad things happen.

I wish simplicity-
to take their black
and white together with the grey
and let them believe.

I wish the same for me,
8 away from 16, hoping to throw some
light to at least one of them
as we all ride home.

Embracing Technology

iMovie. Websites. You name it, I was scared of it...until Technology 300. Yes, I created my own website-by force, of course, for a final grade to pass my summer course. But just for the record, I have posted it here as a reminder to all that if I can do it, anybody can do it.

http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~edoss/

Something I Found while Studying...

The fairies came to his christening. One said, "My gift is early hardship; as a child he shall know the ugliness of life." The second said, "My gift is his abandonment; he shall be a castaway." The third, "His school shall be the streets." The fourth, "I will give him a sentsitive spirit, so that he may feel early pain sharply, and remember it vividly all his life." The last fairy said, "I will give him genius. Out of the hardship shall come the power to live a hundred lives. The castaway shall have the freedom of the whole world of men and women. The education of the streets shall provide him with boundless treasures of comic and tragic invention. The humiliations of the child shall fertilize the imagination of the poet."

~R.J. Cruikshank

Letter to a child on friendship (plain word for loyal):

It takes two when it used to take one, someone once said. It is good to be loyal, because, bottom line, people need friendship. You can be loyal when everyone else is not, when everyone else makes plans and breaks them, when everyone else gives you an afternoon when you wanted a day. Most parents, like myself, want you to be more loyal than dogs.
You can be loyal and wait all day into the afternoon and only get thirty minutes of a phone call. Didn’t God make all people to be loyal by human nature? Yes, most people will know the rules of how to be nice and share and listen, but many people still want their days tied in neat little packages with their own care and planning, just for themselves.
You can be loyal because you feel it’s the right thing to do and everyone else knows that too. But that kind of loyal can also rob your days when you could have got on with your day, painted a picture, or gone on a bike ride. That kind of loyal can also make you feel disappointed when you expected to spend a day doing fun things you normally can’t. That kind of loyal can make you sad, or what grown ups call bitter if you are not careful.
You may find yourself making that kind of loyal a neat package of your own, one that you only give to a few people that know how to receive it. That kind of loyal is for those that truly love you and will stick by you. When you find that kind of loyal in other people, it is a gift. Then, you realize something about being loyal: when others don’t see it the way you do, it’s not like they stole the gift away, it’s just that they didn’t need it. And more, it reveals you just may be the kind of person that needs that kind of loyal, which is a tender thing.
So, if you find that kind of loyal in about three people besides your parents in life, it is a huge gift. The others that have a little of that kind of loyal are still decent people; they just probably have other people giving them that kind of loyal. And what most adults forget is that God makes the rules on being loyal; He calls it love.
Who do I want you to have that kind of loyal from always? Your best friends, of course, and me. But what’s more, I want you to have that kind of loyal from God. He won’t ever take your loyal and leave you hanging high and dry. In fact, He will give you even more loyal than you have in yourself, so much that you will find it flowing out of you onto others. He will show you He is the source of all your loyal and showed you how to give it before you knew He was there. Yes, your little packages of loyal will discarded or broken, but that little fact about Him holds you together when they are. Child, He gives you Himself.

just another post

you look darkly on the day
memories to light your way
they're all sad but that's alright
we are living in twilight.
no one knocks upon your door
till you don't care anymore
a little alone but it's alright
we are always living in twilight.
living in a dream,walkin in between
sunset and sunrise
sunrise and sunset.
you get tied up in your day
so I let go and walk away
so it goes till no one knows
you like they used to do.
have a drink, the sky is sinkin
torn up deeper blue
and you're still alright
step out in the twilight.
so I stumble home at night
like I stumbled through my life
with ghosts and visions in my sight
we are always living in twilight.
-the weepies

When I heard this song and got past the "twilight zone" image in my mind, I realized this song, at least to me, is about those odd and hazy gaps in life-those gaps where you feel like you are stumbling through life clueless although not completely off path. I just saw Prince Caspian, so I can't get the image of Susan riding through the forest of dancing trees knowing she's going toward Aslan but realizing everyone else is back fighting the battle. In moments like these, strangely I'm satisfied by playing tennis for a couple of hours, because at least I have a goal and a clear opponent. The funny thing is, I, and most people I know, hate real conflicts and listen too much to fear when they sneak into daily life.

When Susan realizes that she didn't believe they would see Aslan again, she says, "I really believed it was him tonight, when you (Lucy) woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I let myself. But, I just wanted to get out of the woods--and --and oh, I don't know. And what ever am I to say to him?"
Aslan says her name, to which she does not respond. "You have listened to your fears, child," he said. "Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?"

If we could only know that in the middle of the twilight, He is there. Sometimes, I think, waiting for us to just let ourselves believe He is. Then we will fight the battle with Him.

It's Friday

Microsoft Office 2007 Word is old hat now. Who would have thought that it would be so easy to use now, only one year after I told the salesperson at Best Buy I wanted to throw it out the window because Vista was driving me crazy. It has been one full year since I started grad school, and I’m about to finish my second year teaching. And today, I felt younger than I have before I even started all of that.
Today I greeted a high school tennis team who showed up to play mine. I coach junior high. Enough said. Intersquad was my only option to supply some competition, which came to a quick halt as the rain clouds rushed in. The parents wanted to gloss over their frustration by getting to the end of the season party before five. I was just glad I made it through an hour of smoothing things over without crying…too much.
So when do you ignore the thoughts of, “So when am I finally gonna get fired” when you feel more like a child who couldn’t organize their sock drawer if they tried? I did feel adult-like on the way home when I considered using the $180 gift card to purchase a GPS instead of some Banana Republic items. After all, I could reclaim my reputation as a decent coach if next year I actually got our team to all the matches without getting lost.
I find it’s better to laugh at these things than any other options. It’s like the day that you try really hard to do something right, like exercising after work, and suddenly you hear sudden sirens and get stuck in a hail storm a mile from your car (personal experience, last week).
“What do these situations say about us personally?” we sometimes ask. I decided today that none of it really is personal. The fact is, we do not control our lives, and we get older and maybe even less smarter every year. But somehow, by the grace of God, we still learn things somewhere in between the hail and accusations of monster mommies that makes us a little stronger…and a lot more that I’m hoping will surface later.

Marley Catherine Doss

Here's a picture of the very real, my new niece, Marley.
Derek, my brother, loves his new daughter Marley. There are many stories he should not tell her, but there is much love he has to give her.

15 Years Later

What do you do when your best friend from 15 years tells you over a glass of wine at 5:00 on a Saturday...during a conversation about, "What do I need to hear to put me in my place?" ....

Especially when I thought I already was in my place...

Says, Margo to Emily: I think you know how to do things, how to get the job done, how to get what you want. The knowledge is there, but it's getting you to actually do it that's the problem. You are afraid of failure while doing whatever that thing is, of falling flat on your face after you try and really risk something.

But you know what I think? She's impulsive and thinks she's right all the time. Just kidding, she knows me better than anyone else.

Wow, that was a vulnerable post. Thank God for best friends, especially the ones that are good at interrupting people and just thinking they're cute.

The Letter

Dad makes Valentine's Day worth it
despite the drowning flood of choking chocolate hearts.
Dad reminds, subtly, of passions behind the heart that beats to one rhythm
alone.
Dad remembers his daughter is a teacher,
and that she wants to be everything he was
to her,
to others,because he taught her all her life.
She wants to remember the people,
it's the people that matter,
it's the people she wants to look at,
not herself.
Still, he reminds her of who he's helped shaped her to be,
and she feels like herself again,
today, even if for a minute, even if she forgets,
he'll remind her again in his own way.

Sunday Nap

Sunlight dancing on old carpet.
3:00 Sunday. Still sick and aching with leftover flu.
Ready for leftover muscle pain from a run.
The left knee laughs as it aches too.


New music tries in vain to bring sleep.
On my side. On my back. No help.
My stomach cramps up for no apparent reason,
as if it could ask, demanding an answer, what is going on
outside the world of this sunny apartment with a sick girl inside?
That question, falling and rising again, just before dreaming, stirring a million others.

It is quiet,
yesterday’s tasks tucked away,
resting in corners of her mind.
The papers sent. She writes remembering she’s in school again.
Strange how the comfort of learning wraps her heart warm.
Always showing a new tilt the world has.
Sometimes she could sit in a hard plastic seat for the rest of her life
(sometimes she thinks)
just to learn.
Of course she would have no friends.

A teacher curled in a quilt wants to be sixteen
or at camp. In bed sick trying to remember
what’s its like to be a little girl playing outside.
That path in her mind--wooded, sunny, warm with wind and so many green leaves.
So she writes looking for the way there,
or at least looking for the voice to bring it back.

For Now and Next December

Here's some of those lyrics that really just say what you can't about the reality of human stuff we all go through. After I heard this song I though, "Whoa, that's true." I like how the song hits home how sometimes there are just no answers but that change always comes, even though we know we're all messed up. Lastly, we have to be loved by Somebody because of that fact before we can love other people and not suck the life out of them...


"Savior"

Love's not a savior when your messed up,
when you're messed up forever.
You feel like you're drowning in red hearts
wrapped in red ribbons and blue skies.

Then somebody pulls the plug
and it all goes down the drain
but don't we all change?

There's no good answers to your questions
I had a feeling and now it's gone
It seems like your waiting on some verdict,
but it's a mis-trial
please go home.

Rain won't dull your hurt,
but change is today,
like a barrell of a field
filling up with rain-
not a photograph,
you're only afraid
and don't we all change?
don't we all change?

love's not a savior when your messed up,
when you're messed up.

~The Everybodyfields


Though I'm not nearly as brave and upfront as this band, or Steve Brown, I've been hooked on reading his letters over these past long and wonderful Christmas vacation days. One left to go, I settled down with his letter for Christmas and all the ways we look at Jesus, especially when we forget He's there. This song reminded me to look for Him, too.

Enjoy.

Getting Young in a New Year

I got an ipod for Christmas- one of my first grown up toys in a while. The funny thing is, as I was importing all my music and trying to figure out the stupid complicated thing, I turned it into a job instead of fun. I even felt a little guilt in spending a half a day organizing the darn thing, at one point even considering if having an ipod was a waste of money that could be used to feed poor people. I was crazed with forgetting how to have fun-on Christmas vacation. Such a tragedy...until I came across this quote from Steve Brown after realizing I needed I needed to get out of the house or get distracted by something worthy of attention.

"I want to be really important. I don't like that in me; but, there, I've said it and feel a great deal of relief. Paul said that he was crucified with Christ and that he (Paul) lived because Christ lived in him. God is doing stuff in our lives and the more we pretend that we are something different than what we are, we truncate the image of Christ—the very image that is naturally and supernaturally being formed in us."

He nailed it. So maybe wanting to be important by being good at technology, or maybe good at using money from sold technology to help others is just a cover up. Maybe it's just thinking of what's expected of important people. If you can't relate to either of those, just check out the site and see for yourself and just quit reading this. But, I think we've all felt some way or another that feeling of wanting to rip up your grown up clothes and put on your play clothes...but not knowing how to do it without breaking rules. For instance, we are approaching once again those days like we're in now with a "new year" and all its goals (which I tend to shy away from) maturing adults should all have. But somewhere in between all the important things we think we "should" do and be like is us sitting crosslegged like a kid saying we just want to do what we want to do. The fact is, we hardly admit that last part to ourselves and carry around neatly packaged load of guilt for feeling that way instead of preparing our business face for the next work year.

So what will we not admit? What we really want? What do we hate? What do we think God would strike us down for saying, thinking, doing?

I'm still trying to figure that out, because I usually like being a kid, and I miss child-like faith. I think that faith occurs somewhere in the middle of admitting all those things to God and being ok with it.