Permission Granted

I have given myself permission to miss everything – mother, father, friends, lovers, once-in-a-lifetime-opportunities, everything – except this.

Somehow

Listening to Jamiroquai, Never Gonna Be Another on ABC Lounge at weebly.com, my heartstrings are troubled. Images – not quite memories – arise of me seated on a velvet sofa, light streaming in through a window, surrounded by music. In this not quite past I am reading but mostly being with another, at peace. I wonder if we will give ourselves the chance to discover what being together requires in this present gift of time. Not infrequently we approach this possibility. Most times we are stuck in the three-steps back phrase of separation in some inarticulate Cha-Cha, the chasm between us widening, yearning to share any rhythm at all, no longer caring for one familiar, losing even while leaning in the direction of the echo.

Inspired and Encouraged

Thanks, Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus, not to mention today’s NaNo words of encouragement! Your email was just the ticket! This phrase liked me:

and now it is all grown-up and book-shaped and published and bestselling

I feel like you were speaking prophetically about my current project. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it. Since there was no way to respond to the NanoMail you sent, I thought I’d blog my appreciation and question: Does Scrivener come with a pricetag? No need to reply. I discovered the free trial option.

Paradox

If love is not access and patience is not waiting, why do we wait and seek to enter in?

Million-Line Poem, Day 23

Million-Line Poem, Day 23. Visit. Participate. Evolve.

Happy National Day on Writing

…For the Holy Spirit to facilitate God’s work and purposes in us, He must first (re)define our definition of reality, and our priorities. Rachel Olsen

It’s a new day!
In celebration, I wrote 661 words toward a new project, ate breakfast with my husband, googled and found a title written by someone I shared an airplane ride with more than a year ago, split some phone time with a colleague in another state with whom I plan to build a support group for writing colleagues and sent a promised Parker Palmer chapter containing a Theodore Rothke quote to a beloved and beleaguered BFF in Arizona. How ’bout you?

The Company We Keep

She was of slight build and too much lipstick. A light-skinned woman of about my age approached me in the parking lot of the shopping plaza this afternoon. I had gone there seeking refuge from the strange reaction I’d had to the ramped up efforts to solve the uneven and extreme temperature issues we’d been having in my wing of the building. My nose got sensitive and my head got light. I shared my concerns with the administrative assistant whose desk was outside my door, and the two gentlemen who’d greeted me upon entering my office this morning and who’d met me at my classroom as the bell rang at the end of the period. No, we don’t have bells any more. It’s just a figure of speech. At any rate, they avowed no possible connection between the pneumatic system and the gas lines, so I prayed and left to get lunch and some fresh air.

She angled her way in my direction after coming up $22 short at the window of the next nearest motorist. Admittedly, her story was compelling. It involved blowing an engine, a ticket for being improperly parked, and a failed attempt to get something off a credit card at Walmart. Her enthusiasm was palpable, her plight not quite so much. She seemed a little too rehearsed at maintaining a stiff upper lip. Though experience can do that to someone well acquainted with adversity. The old adage, ‘never let ‘em see you sweat’ seems out of place somehow in the desert yet she was doing her level best to do just that. In the end the $4 I gave her was not so much an affirmation of faith in her tale as an inoculation against my own rising sense of desperation. After all, aren’t we all next?

Silencing the Flesh

I don’t know where I get the chutzpah sometimes. The following string of complaints actually came out of my mouth in response to the generic, how are you, while making a donation to a woman’s shelter today.

I’m sorry the bag burst as I was putting it in the truck and there’s more on the patio where I used to live, but I couldn’t carry the last big box. I just moved and didn’t place the order in time to have the gas connected before the holiday so I’ve been showering at the gym since Thursday. I just put my dog up for adoption and I teach online but my internet’s down.

Instead, I should’ve given thanks for all God made possible for them to do, for me to give, for the jobs we all have and that I had the company of a precious pup for two years. I immediately saw my half-empty response as a ruse of the enemy and returned to praising God for every tear, trial and triumph. I recalled Jesus’ invitation in Oswald Chambers’ devotional yesterday. Watch with me.

At-One-Ment

It was a tough call selecting only one phrase from today’s My Utmost For His Highest.

…beware of anything that is going to split up your oneness with Him and make you see yourself separately. Oswald Chambers

Read the whole thing. For me, the tallest challenges offer the greatest hope.

Responding to Norway

A friend responded to the tragedy in Norway with an encouraging post at this link. My hopes are in agreement with hers. Let all the lives wasted at the hands of extremists not be in vain. Let those of us who live and witness unite in prayer to defeat hatred which is the common enemy.