ash wednesday

image by carl spietzwig - after carnival

as a compulsive over eater fasting is a complicated issue for me. i have learned to fast items instead of days. it has become an important spiritual discipline in my life. i have found great life in choosing to give things up.

another spiritual discipline that i use to balance my fasting is commitment. again, this isn't done in sweeping large ways, vast measures usually reduce me to failure, so i find 'items' if you will, to add to my day to create balance in the fasting. i have found this positive/negative to bring a lot of wholeness for me.

considering lent this year i prayed and reflected through the filter of "centered" which is my watch word for this year. what discipline could be added/taken away that would help me toward living a more centered life? i prayed for weeks, nothing it seemed fit.

this weekend liam and i spoke about lent in quite a few conversations. he too had been considering his own lenten discipline and we realized that the moral support of working together on a discipline would also bring some partnership that we are trying to regain in healthy ways in our marriage.

other conversations this weekend kept surfacing around finances, the state of the union here at the flat and our seeming loss of a discipline we came to know and love in years past - simplicity. somehow not having to live on the edge of life, moving and financial ruin allowed us to stray from that simple place we had come to know and love. enough somehow wasn't anymore - and we both felt it's loss. we have also found that having a bit more than 'enough' in the bank account has left us quite undisciplined and getting sloppy financially. we were both feeling the stress of the fear of the unknown in that area of our lives too.

then a light turned on, almost at the same time - we realized that this would be our discipline for lent. simplicity and enough. i know in my own life that i use "things" to pull my focus away from the important aspects of life. i settle for good in trade for better.

i find i loose my center quickly when our finances are sloppy. it doesn't matter if there is enough money in the bank to meet our needs, bills and even wants - if it is sloppy and unknown it floats through my life like an ethereal specter haunting me and the choices i make throughout the day.

so we have chosen to use these 40 days to simplify, organize, clean-sweep and ask ourselves regularly 'is this enough?', 'is there a more simple way to do this task i am given?' - and most of all to do it with a view to the eternal - how can i choose today the best instead of the good?

i find that these choices and intense time of intentional discipline gives life and legs to the rest of the year.

so happy lent, i pray your choices for these next 40 or so days bring you light and life and wholeness.

self-care christmas

this was the first christmas since the kids were born (pink is soon to be 11) that we haven't been in ministry, traveling or moving for the christmas season. it seemed so indulgent. almost selfish. when i look at reality it truly wasn't. but we have gone so long for 'others' that we had forgotten what caring for ourselves looked like.

we had intentions of announcing an open invitation to anyone at church who didn't have plans, but one second before i stood up another woman stood to invite all to their home. we considered going but there weren't any children out kids ages and knew that taking them away from their just opened presents to sit with adults and babies would be a long journey of "is it time to go home yets".

so, we decided that our turkey dinner would be just for us. on christmas morning liam blessed us all with crepes and a lovely cheese filling, topped with a three berry compote. it was incredible. for dinner i baked two pies, splenda pumpkin and splenda apple/pear. there was one packet of yeast left from the st. lucy buns, so i decided that i wasn't going to be afraid of it and made clover buns to go with our turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, ginger sweet potatoes, broccoli salad, and local cranberries.

the whole time i was preparing i kept getting the impulse that this was too indulgent for "just us" - we rarely cooked a roast, or actually went to the trouble of preparing a real meal in my home growing up unless company was coming.

i serve my family real meals and cook regularly, but somehow putting this much work into a meal that "no one else was going to see" just seemed almost silly. i had to keep reminding myself that we were worth it, and that modeling that for my children was so important.

it was the most enjoyable meal, no pressure, no stress, just us and an abundant meal, prepared with love for those i cherish most. it was truly a lesson in self-care. we learned that we are worth it, this pace of life honors us and our personalities and we figured out those things that give us life, put us in touch with the sacred things we long for and reminded us of what is truly important.

it was a truly, merry christmas.

christmas power post

good christmas eve morning!

no, i am not in a puddle in the corner of the room, honest. sorry, life has just gotten full and i am truly enjoying the holiday season and emotions. even the melancholy ones.

i am way behind in my correspondence, book reviews and blogging. please know that i am not ignoring you, but my computer has decided to crash and i have wanted to wait until after the holidays to bug our good friend here who might be able to fix it for us. i don't think it's fatal, just more than we can manage on our own.

my christmas present is on it's way - a new screen. i will take a picture and post of the ANCIENT screen i have been using - it is HUGE and cumbersome, and my new flat screen will give me lots of space on my desk to do art now too!! and i won't have to play the "oooh, let's guess what the capture is on the typepad blogs 15 times so i can post a comment..." (that has been going on for almost a year now...)

we have had fun this season using our surprise baby bonus check from the government and are putting it to good use. i think it might be a bit of coping going on, but we're not going into any debt, so i'm not going to feel guilty, well, i'm not going to let the guilty feelings stay. we're being generous with it too and have got to help out some other families in our community have a christmas too.

pink and i celebrated our first 'santa lucia day' - she did so well and was a shining light in her white gown and wreathe (we need to get a 'real one' next winter). i've included a picture of the saffron/current buns we made together. we have also decided to embrace st. nicholas day next winter as buck felt very left out of the preparations, so we are doing research and finding traditions we can embrace that will allow buck to have 'his day' like pink has her's now with st. lucy day.

i am just loving the rhythm and flow of this first christmas without ministry or moving in the way. it is simple and beautiful and we are finding the things that truly matter to us. i do miss family, even liam's family, but i think our choice to stay close to home this season has been a good one.

i promise i'll write more soon. i've put together my top 5 post and will get that up as soon as bob launches the blog. you're invited to join - and this year blog readers can join too - find the top 5 posts (from any blogger) that you've read this year and send it to bob at the corner blog and he'll add it to the list!

have a wonderful next couple of days - please know that you have made this year more rich and far more interesting for me! merry christmas!

glorious, lazy days of summer

good books, 75*, lovely breeze and not much required from me at all... oh how i love this pace of life! i feel so indulgent - keeping my house running, family fed and interacting with my community - i know far too many people have to do far too much more than i do - but i love this simple life.

today i sat at the neighbors pool while my daughter and her friend swam and i read and sat in the shady breeze. lovely, lovely, lovely.

the picture was taken on the 4th and i have no idea what kind of plant it is, but it was far too interesting and beautiful not to capture.

hope you are all taking a slice out of life to enjoy the flowers!

reason escaped me

these past couple of weeks have been hard. not just the tides, but some storms of a financial sense have taken their toll. end of the month i guess. it feels all too familiar and i don't like it.

you see about 6-7 years ago the church we were at nearly bankrupted us. going into ministry ruined us financially. it was a very scary time. we were eating out of the food bank and buying diapers for pink and buck on credit. no one cared and we were very alone.

for the past 5 years we have determinedly crawled back out of that financial hole and became debt free, learned to save and had a steady income and lived simply and generously and within our means. i don't say any of that to pat ourselves on the back. i just need to lay a groundwork so that you might understand my fear, confusion and downright anger at god these past couple of weeks.

i truly believed we had planted seeds of generosity, that the overarching laws of the harvest would come to bear in our lives. i didn't want or even expect wealth or windfall, just not to go backwards. i truly believed in my heart of hearts that it worked. live openly and generously and it will come around if and when you need it too. moving up here was an exercise in letting go. free-cycling so much stuff that i had strangers emailing me to thank us for being generous instead of selling things. i love living like that. it is an area of gifting for me. i learned it at the knee of my father. he is one of the most generous people i know. hold things with an open hand. i wanted to be that type of person. i wanted to model that type of life for my children.

when much would not fit in the moving truck i sadly let it go. said goodbye to the oak claw foot table and press back chairs from my mom knowing, really knowing in my heart that god would supply exactly what we needed up here. that is why the junk we ended up with wounded me so deeply. it feels like lack. it feels like scarcity. it feels like poverty.

i loathe going backwards. i hate it. deep within my heart it makes me feel like i wasn't smart enough to learn it the first time so i had to have the lesson repeated for me because i didn't catch it the first time through. i pride (yes, and i have to admit, pride is the right word here) myself on extracting the truth from an experience. i ponder much. i chew and dwell and rehash nearly everything in an attempt to draw out meaning and learning. i don't want to go backwards.

this all felt far too familiar. this felt far too close to where we had been years ago. i figured if god didn't open one of the 45 doors to job postings and resumes sent that he would provide in other ways. i literally expected that somehow someone would be moved to share with us financially. someone would be moved to give so that we didn't have to go back into debt to make our bills. i would watch for the mailman, wait expectantly for that 'brethren handshake' (yes, our church tradition had a secret way of giving. someone in the church would shake another's hand and there passed folded bills or a check. it was their way of following what they believed to be the biblical way of giving. i have many times been the recipient, and even sometimes the giver of those handshakes), or some ray of light in the dark hole i could see us heading toward.

nothing came. nothing. no jobs, no checks, no handshakes. no light. and i was angry. so very angry at god. i mean spitting, swearing, wailing kind of angry. shake my fist and take my ball and go home kind of angry. and i told god. i told him how i loathed going backward. how we would gladly do any work put in front of us. how we knew his arm had not grown short. how we were living as simply as we could. freezing in 3 layers of clothing and sleeping with mittens on. what more did he want? how do you exercise any generosity, use this gift if you have nothing to give from. people in debt cannot live generously. and i wept. i confessed. i wailed and railed. and i felt like writing about it would betray my husband. like it might wound his already wounded self, so i was silent.

even among friends who called, family members didn't know how angry i was at god. how ashamed i felt for going backwards. it's not the kind of thing you can tell anyone without them feeling like you're asking. i didn't want them to provide out of guilt. i wanted god to step in and prove that living generously works. that planting seeds of a generous lifestyle reaped a life that when lived simply doesn't go backwards.

it was friday that it all crashed in on me. the bills got paid by the credit card. no miraculous interventions happened and i had to facilitate a celebration for my son who turned 8 on saturday. standing in the dollar store with my daughter so we could get buck his birthday presents and buying the 6 things i needed at the grocery store and having the cashier say 'oh, that's a credit card. i have to run the credit card through' like i had either stolen the card or was too inept to do it myself. the look she gave me was like 'charging milk are we?' i felt like trash. both stores reduced me to near puddles. if it hadn't been for pink along with me i think i would have just dropped to the floor in an ocean of keening wails.

liam and i spent some time that evening praying together on our knees at the couch. i begged god to make sense of this. to help us learn what we obviously missed the first time. to speak more clearly this time, more slowly so we could catch it. because obviously being held back in the school of kingdom finances was necessary. i'm not proud of my anger, of the words i said to god, but i do know that he can take it. i do know that my lament was necessary. i would endure this if i could just understand why. make some sense out of what seemed to me to be incredibly senseless.

yesterday before church liam and i were having our coffee. it felt like the cloud had lifted, if not financially, at least emotionally. as we were talking things started to fall into place. lights turned on and i realized that part, if not all of the reason that this was necessary was that if we are truly meant to minister in this part of the country that we need to understand first hand how difficult it is for so many of the families in our community to truly make ends meet. to find hard goods (table and chairs) and hold your head up in places like the grocery store when the world looks down on you. i was given great compassion instantly for those who have far less than i've been complaining about. and with the light came the mission. with the light came the conception of the plan. and making sense of the senseless gave me hope. and hope is all i really wanted in the first place.

2 weeks!

14 days doesn't make it sound any longer does it? we move our whole lives, family and stuff to another country in 14 days. yikes.

the other day liam and i were making our many lists and he looked at me and said 'whoever thought we were responsible enough to handle something this big?'

we've both been looking for grown ups to take responsibility on some of this stuff - i can't believe that it's 'us' who are really the grown ups here. hard to believe. i think you know you've grown up when there is nobody left to blame but yourselves.

we got a really good deal on the moving van and it's guaranteed to be a new model truck. it's the biggest offered, so i know we'll have room. i was afraid to go for a smaller vehicle in case we ended up having to make too many really big decisions at that late time while we're exhausted and frazzled.

we have cut our belongings in half - sometimes only keeping 1/3 of the stuff we've accumulated. pink and buck have been amazing at clean sweeping and sorting through their things to find only the things they love.

we're seeing a bit of anxious behavior in buck. tears are more frequent and his frustration level is much lower than usual. pink isn't sleeping well (but i remember that as a problem in my own childhood, so it might not be the move...) and she's a bit more desperate in her clingy-ness. please pray for them. this is still an adventure, but i'm afraid that they could be participating just to please us and covering up their sadness. i really want them to get stuff out if it's bothering them. unfortunately i find they are just at that age where they don't have the ability for critical thinking yet. so 'other things' are verbalized as what is really bothering them.

i know christmas and new years, and bon voyage pizza parties for them in between the next two weeks will give them lots to look forward to in the mean time.

again, we covet your prayers. liam and i are holding up pretty well. my dad's a much calmer man since i helped him to verbalize his stuff and make some plans for his life. there were times last week that i felt like he wasn't going to make it through all of this emotionally. he just gets so very overwhelmed. it's like dealing with a 13 year old sometimes. gosh i'm gonna miss him.

well, i best get my act together here, thanks for listening.

maybe next year

click on image to enlarge

this is brilliant. i wish i would have had time to prepare our family for it this year. we're too far along to begin it now, but i think this is a concept that needs to catch on.

we're simplifying in our family, this may be drastic with young kids, we've got 12 months to decide as a family for next year, but it seems like a much better idea. it's not anti santa or super spiritual, it's just not buying into the materialism and commercialism that has run rampant in our world.

we've run a simple, credit-free christmas for the past couple of years and that is really a step toward simplifying life. i just know we're still so caught up in the craziness of it and it is stealing the joy. hmmmm... lots to ponder.


click on image to enlarge

a simple life

no, not paris and nicole. bobbie and liam.

simplicity is one of the spiritual disciplines that has basically been foisted upon us. we lead a very simple life. it hasn't always been that way. during the many years of infertility and two incomes we kept every restaurant in our area in business. i never cooked, rarely cleaned, and we were never even home.

going from 'there' to 'here' seems like 2 lifetimes ago. when we were driving on our way to the big move into ministry i looked at liam and gasped 'oh no, this means that pink and the baby i'm carrying will be pk's (pastor's kids)!' i was serious. i had never even considered that our vocational choice would directly effect our children in such a grave manner.

i had seen far to many mk's, pk's, faculty brats, and camp urchins in my life to know that i wanted better and more for pink and buck. too many children who's lives were destroyed by their parent's call to 'serve god'. i was terrified.

one of the observations i've made since being in ministry is that the 'called' are usually the 'broken'. i wish i had the education and know how to do a study, because i think that one would be fascinating. many are in ministry to meet the deep dark needs of their own soul by helping others. real co-dependency masked by a servant's heart.

it was at that point i knew that i needed to stay at home with pink and buck and attempt to restore balance and simplicity to our lives so that they were not two more statistics shipwrecked on the rocks of church ministry.

god's timing for heading into ministry was definately not ours. we had tried for the nine years after college to open any and every door we could find, and god slammed them all shut. we had finally resigned ourselves to the fact that we weren't 'fit' for god to use. the worker's were few, but god wasn't desperate enough to need us.

the call came less than a year into the purchase of our first home, and into our first child's life, and when i was expecting #2. i had just started my own home-based business, and was doing well. definately not 'our timing'. we put our home on the market and lost our shirts in the sale. god was driving us to give it all up for him, and we did it willingly.

we moved into a rented, broken down, bat-filled farm house on a dirt road in the complete middle of nowhere. and we were never happier. well, at least at the beginning. the church told us when we moved there (to 'part-time' ministry) that they weren't able to pay us a lot, but we would never starve. they lied.

by the time we entered our second year there we were eating out of the local food bank and existing on our credit cards. liam had just gotten a position at the high school to supplement the meager income the church paid us, but it was too little too late. we were in debt up to our eyeballs, even on our basic subsistance life. family vacations were to camp to work with the teen staff. they paid our gas and took care of our expenses, clothing was all second hand, and our groceries bill was only the things that weren't supplied by the food bank.

it seemed as if god was stripping away each layer of excess and forcing us into a place where we had no other choice but to rely on him. then the hurricane hit and that tiny church decided that we were no longer 'fit' to minister.

that next year was filled with even more winnowing and lack, but also health and healing. i again found recovery, liam wasn't working 70 hours a week any more. and we were visiting churches that actually were feeding us. our marriage which had fallen into great disrepair was beginning to thrive again, and when the move stateside finally materialized we were healthier, happier and more grounded than we had ever been. but we were in severe debt.

we were totally transparent with our new church during the interview process. they knew it all. my addictions, the past history at our previous church, and our financial situation. breaking through the shame of all of those issues and 'coming clean' allowed us to face our problems head on and not isolate ourselves and try to solve them on our own. and the fact that they knew all of those things about us and hired us anyway redeemed that place in our souls that said we weren't fit to minister.

the church paid for my therapy and found us finacial counselling. two of the elders took liam under their wings and have mentored him for the past couple of years. pouring their lives and love into him and restoring what the locust had eaten.

with two tiny payments i can excitedly say:

TODAY WE ARE TRULY DEBT FREE!!!

the tears are rolling down my face as i type this. it has been a LONG haul, filled with hard choices, and simplicity, doing without and saying 'no', but it has been worth it. just for today.

when i started into recovery i was very skeptical, i read the promises aloud at meetings and thought 'ya, right...' but truly today i can say that they have been, or are being fulfilled in my life. today, especially #9, #10 & #11. finally free.

As a result of working the Twelve Steps:

The Twelve Promises

1. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

2. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

3. We will comprehend the word serenity.

4. We will know peace.

5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

6. The feelings of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

8. Self-seeking will slip away.

9. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change.

10. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.

11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

"Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us -- sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them."

- From the A. A. Big Book.