2009: Elephant Season

I don't normally duplicate the posts from theparsonshouse.blogspot.com.  But the Elephant Season discussion is one that I felt needed to make the leap over.  So...here you go!

At the beginning of 2009, "Elephant Season" was declared in the Lives of Shocks.

Now that may sound a little bit daunting, or a little bit militant, or a lotta bit confrontational.

What it has been is very liberating!

All of us have elephants in our lives.  And our houses.  And our churches.  And our jobs.  Those big, clumsy, giant situations that suck all the air out of the room and cause tons of damage to their environment.

It is amazing to me how much we tiptoe around them and try to pretend they are the same size as everything else and spend large sections of time (which are then gone forever) trying to clean up the messes they create and repair the breakage they have incurred.

Well, finally, we got tired of them.  So, 2009 = Elephant Season.  We didn't start out deliberately and systematically attacking the elephants.  We actually told God that He could see them, too, and would He please help us.  If He would kill them, we would cut them in small pieces and remove them.  He said "Okay."

We now have an elephant graveyard here at The Homeplace.  It is a delightfully free and airy spot to which we invite all to come.  We also encourage all to create your own.

We even have eight weeks left!

Thoughts from the Chair on the Sabbath

The concept of the Sabbath is something that has been gnawing away at my spirit for a long time.  Eating at it, picking at it, cropping up when I'm very, very busy doing the Lord's work...

Not Sunday.  Not the day of worship and work...the hardest day of the week...the one at which we sigh in relief when it finally comes to an end...the day of measuring for Christians...not that.  


Sabbath.  The concept which is referenced in the Ten Commandments.  The premise upon which God himself operated when creating Creation.  You know...the one which is outdated, out-of-fashion, irrelevant, not cultural.


This is a nice little thought provoker I recently ran across.  Ponder it a second before you hurry on to the next...thing.


If there is no Sabbath- no regular and commanded not-working, not-talking — we soon become totally absorbed in what we are doing and saying, and God’s work is either forgotten or marginalized. When we work we are most god-like, which means that it is in our work that it is easier to develop god-pretensions. Un-sabbathed, our work becomes the entire context in which we define our lives. We lose God-consciousness, God-awareness, sightings of resurrection. We lose the capacity to sing “this is my fathers world” and end up chirping little self-centred ditties about what we are doing and feeling.

The Most difficult command to keep, a most difficult practice to cultivate. It is one of the most abused and distorted practices of the Christians life. Many through the centuries have suffered much under oppressive Sabbath regimes. And more than a few of us have been among the oppressors.

Thoughts from the Chair on Approval

I recently posted this on Facebook:  


Approval addiction is a killer and destroys the pursuit of truth.  It is insidious and relentless and we rarely acknowledge that we deal with it.


I didn't get a lot of feedback from it.  It was game day after all and LSU was scheduled to play Florida in 3 hours.  So, a lot of people were not in a deep pondering mode, I'm sure.  But what I believe happened in many cases is that people read the statement, felt a sting as it tried to drive deep into their consciousness, and shook it off defensively as memory pictures flashed across the screens of their mind that they summarily dismissed.


Embroiled as many are in the changes sweeping through lives in our religious organization as well as many of our close friends and family members, opinions and life-changing direction decisions are rattling the panes in the windows of all of our homes.  This one is going this way.  That one is going that way.  This one "isn't going to live under this any more."  That one "is stating my claim as to where I stand."  


Running throughout all of the rhetorical hoopla (which is emanating from 360 surround sound) is a not-so-subtle thread of "THIS is where I want to be accepted.  It is from those sharing THIS philosophy that I want my identity and acceptance."


All of it is quite disturbing.  


In a lot of cases, it seems that alignment with a school of thought depends much on the approval of those ensconced in that particular camp.  Or the need to make a wide, black line of demarcation between the camp with whom one totally disagrees and one's present thought processes.  To remove oneself from all defined ares of thought doesn't seem to be an option.  One must choose..one must step into one box or another...one must align here or align there.  To not do so risks disapproval from ALL areas.


Not many people are strong enough to do that.  


Not many people are secure enough in who they are and in Whose they are to do that.  


Not many people have enough of a true concept of what the approval of God looks like to do that. 


It would be very interesting to know how we would live, how we would act, how we would look, and what our relationship to God would be if we lived on a desert island with no one else watching us.  Just us, food, shelter, God and His Word.  


Nobody to police us, nobody to judge us, nobody to instruct us, nobody to clap for us.


Nobody to tell us how anointed we are, or how right on we are, or how far off we are.


Nobody to impress, nobody to win, nobody to be an example for, nobody.


Just us and God.


Living for the approval of One.


What would life look like then?


I would like for this chair to become my desert island.

Thoughts from the Chair

Here is the chair:

Why this chair?  Well, because it just happens to be the most comfortable one at the moment.  And having been sidelined unexpectedly by a torn calf muscle 14 days ago, I have been spending way more time than I have wanted to in this chair.  I've been very creative in dreaming up ways to occupy my time.  I have:

• read a LOT on my Kindle
• paid bills on my computer
• played Boggle on my iPhone
• worked overtime Facebooking and Twittering
• found new templates for my blogs
• prayed
• read the Word
• made out all my Christmas lists
• watched a documentary about the Holocaust
• listened to millions of songs on iTunes
• finished my taxes for 2008
• caught up on conversations with my children and husband.  (However, I still have lots to talk about with them.  Won't EVER get caught up on that!)
• thought.  And thought.  And thought.  About lots of stuff.

Some of those thoughts I will share.  Here.  Others you will never know about.  :-)


So, my blogs may come closer together in the next few days.  I still have quite a bit more down time in this chair.  And a lot more thoughts.  Stay tuned...  

Where were you?

It was Tuesday morning...I was standing in my kitchen, washing a few dishes...preparing to leave for the church. It was going to be a hectic week. Today was the day we had been diligently preparing for...we were tired, sleep-deprived, and extremely excited. Mickey Mangun and I had talked for months, advertised, planned, worked...and the S.H.E. conference was scheduled to officially begin in about 10 hours.

When the phone rang and I heard the voice of James Owens on the other end, no alarm bells rang. James had been working diligently, also...he was doing all he could to make the conference a success from the technical end. But his voice sounded a little funny...."Ummmm....have you heard anything?" "No, about what?" "About the twin towers?" "No...what?" "A plane just flew into one of them."

To be honest, my first thought was "Why did he call me about this? This is really bad...I hate it...but I'm about to see him at the church..." I didn't grasp the magnitude of it. I said that was terrible and those poor people and I'm going to see what's online about it...and hung up.

Five minutes later, he called back and said the second tower had just been hit.

Something started churning then in the pit of my stomach...

When I got to the church, the towers began to fall. We were horrified...we were mesmerized...it was hard to put one foot in front of the other and hard to think and impossible to process.

Should we cancel the conference? Should we continue? I just wanted to go get my kids from school and hide in my house. The calls started coming in. Air traffic was grounded...hundreds of preachers wives were stranded in airports...some were caught in the Lincoln Tunnel in New York City...what to do? The decision was made to carry on for those who could get here....

Through the years, we've heard stories from so many of the women who were en route and became stranded and stuck in crazy places across the United States. One preacher's wife went through the Atlanta, Georgia airport and gathered up everybody she could find that looked like they might be traveling to the conference...they got together and rented a van and drove the remaining 12 hours, arriving at the end of the first night's events. Some turned back...all they wanted to do was to get to their husbands and children and hug everybody close. Some said they felt they HAD to get here.

Did we do the right thing by continuing the conference? I don't know. It totally drained us, physically, mentally, and emotionally. It took us weeks to recover. But testimonies from those who came have been incredible. They still ask if we will ever do it again. They were strengthened and encouraged...

Isn't it amazing? This incredible world-changing event...and we talk about where WE were, what WE were doing, and how it affected OUR lives. We want to personalize it. We want to make it part of who WE are. We want to become a player in the drama. Not so much that we are hurt or suffer, but we want to share in the impact of the event...we want to emerge unscathed, but we want the world to know that we participated.

Is that why Christianity sometimes seems so shallow in the lives of some people?

The cross was a major event. The resurrection was a major event. Pentecost was a major event. The life of a Christ-follower is major. Here I am. Pick me. I believe. I'm a part. I don't want to hurt...or suffer...or lose any part of my life in the process...but I'm participating!

What does it really mean to remember 9-11?

What does it really mean to remember His death?

Betrayal

I'm reflecting on betrayal today.

It happens to everybody...quite frequently. The Bible said it is inevitable that offenses come. It also speaks of "wounds of a friend." (It says they are "faithful"...but the word "wound" still implies pain to me).

We are able and encouraged to grieve death. It is a painful loss and a wound to the human spirit.

But grieving betrayal isn't quite as accepted. There is an unspoken message that we are to "just get over it." Oh it's okay to talk about it to somebody once or twice...but after that, shut up and move on. So we do.

And then, just when we think we've conquered it, something jumps back over the wall and here we go again.

I am wondering if the pain of Judas' betrayal was just as deep to Jesus as the pain of His crucifixion? He's definitely been there...He knows...He's felt the heavy stone of the loss of friendship and love and camaraderie deep in His spirit, too...

I don't really know who said it first, but I love it..."Bitterness is the poison pill I take hoping you die."

You aren't the only person in life to have been betrayed unfairly. Neither am I. Every person who has ever lived on this planet has experienced it. Even Jesus.

And the truth is, it will happen again--to you and to me--until life is no more.

So I purpose today to deal with it as it comes. Grieve the loss, ponder the motivation, search for my part of the process, and forgive. If I have to do it all again tomorrow, I will.

But what I will NOT do is allow it to tie me to a stake of insecurity, or distrust, or isolation, or lack of love, or bitterness.

Betrayal is an often understated, powerful tool of the Enemy.

Knowing that, I will face it head on and love a little deeper...forgive a little quicker...and continue to give of what I have to those who are in need. And know that there will be some who will take what I give and use it to become stronger...and then turn around and bite the hand that fed them.

They did it to Jesus. He knows. And He still died for them anyway.

I Am Sad

My friend...my dear, dear friend...Barbara Ann Willoughby...entered the gates of Heaven yesterday.

I'm supposed to be happy. She is no longer suffering. Her battle with cancer is over and she won! She is dancing around the Throne of the eternal God at this moment.

But it's hard for me to be happy.

My heart hurts. I ache. There is a tightness in my chest and a big round ball in my throat.

I will remember her with joy. When I say her name, I smile. But my smile quickly fades because I am still human. I am still here. I am still on this side of the river. And she is not. We are separated by an expanse called Death.

I am not tormented by questions...God is sovereign and He does all things well. He said "no" and He knows why. I learned years ago that He can be trusted no matter what.

Faith, to me, is defined as trusting Him serenely even when I don't understand or agree.

But I am sad. I am sad for her children. For Meghan and Barak and Mikayla. For the fact that she will not see them married nor hold grandchildren still to come. I am sad for Steve, who will continue his fight against his own cancer alone. I am sad for Tabernacle of Joy in Singapore who loved her without restraint. And I am sad for all of the ones who will never meet her...never experience her infectious joy or watch her graceful dance or hear her incredible laugh. I am sad for me and for my husband...for the fact that we four will never again ride the back country roads with no destination in mind just to talk and laugh and share vision and feel God and friendship and love.

My heart hurts.