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.