3 More Reasons to Kiss "Dating" Goodbye

It's the morning after...after our local elections, that is. I work at avoiding overt references to politics here--well everywhere mostly--because it rarely serves my purpose. And probably like you, I can't stand to follow all the news of the day for its own sake. But as an occasional player in the game of ideas, I value the opportunity it presents for me to think about what I think and how I got there (and to pay attention to current trends in an effort to avoid embarrassing my kids and grand kids).

In fact, the 1990's (speaking of current...) Sister Act anthem instructs:

"If you wanna be somebody, if you wanna go somewhere, 
you better wake up and pay attention..."  

So, for instance, a while back the Washington Post published a guest piece by someone who described himself as liberal, writing on why a certain round of tax changes didn't look as attractive as many of his colleagues at first thought. Seems that when it was discovered who was holding the football at the bottom of the pile, the other team had it. Alas, the middle class that the changes were supposed to protect, (that's apparently both of us...) is really the loser. I wouldn't know that if I wasn't paying attention...not that that makes me somebody or gets me anywhere at all...!

It Keeps It Friendly
Jeff Goins, who is also concerned with being somebody, getting somewhere and paying attention, says in his post 25 Writing Tips for Beginning Bloggers, that he omits the date from blog posts, that it's a plus..

"Write timeless material," he says, "that does not get dismissed as irrelevant out of the chute."

This is an epiphany for me for this reason: One of the advantages of giving up dating is that I can honestly explore some controversial subject without sparking a round of shots regarding a current event, activity that equals a pointless gunfight resulting in a smokescreen that obscures real issues. And that leaves dead bodies strewn about the battlefield where the root cause of the conflict remains conveniently undisturbed. (And no I'm not referring necessarily to gun laws...though one might reasonably infer such a relationship...) It's just that I'm no good as a lightning rod for opposing points of view, given my bevy of friendships on the political continuum.

It Doesn't Grow Old

My thoughts tend more toward the general underpinnings of things than the mechanisms and tangible outcomes of their implementation. And really, that's good, because details are not my forte. For example, you do NOT want me crunching the numbers necessary to balance anyone's budget--though I can argue all day for the importance of having one. I prefer putting my energies into something more philosophical than the last round of line-item veto threats, not simply reacting to shrapnel that flies when an issue surfaces revealing a foundational disagreement, a systemic divergence.

It Builds Long-Term Relationships

Losing dates has a residual effect: It forces me to think about whether what I contribute might be anywhere near as relevant in May as I believed it might be in, say, November.
And that causes yet another pleasant ripple in the pond: it requires that I stay on substantial topics and focused on the theme I've chosen, which is always harder than it seems. 

There you have it. That's why I love the idea of dateless posts. I can comment on the Superbowl in August or canning apricots in December or the ineptness of Congress. (Wait. That's timeless anyway...)

Now, along with being clueless (as occasionally alleged), I am opting for dateless in an effort to become timeless.


What's your view on "dating"?

Do the Preachers of LA know about this?

“Christ Jesus, though his state was divine, did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave and became as human beings are.”

A friend recently asked if I had seen Preachers of LA, a reality show about the lives of a handful of mega-church TV preachers. I hadn’t but as of this morning I am educated. Ironically, I ran across the above quote from my daily meditation just prior to locating the celebrity crew online.

Maybe it’s just me but I’m having a little trouble reconciling the two. Hmmm.



*(From www.prayasyougo.org. Oct 22, 2013. Paraphrase Phillipians 2)

"Ethel! You get your clothes on!": How the Mundane Becomes Sacrifice and Sacrament

Mundane
Getting dressed in the morning is painful for me.
It is also sacrificial, sacramental.
It integrates physical and spiritual realities in a way nothing else does.

Maybe you're like me. I hate stopping what I’m doing to start something else. This includes sleeping.
(And it only applies to intention, not distraction--in which case, starting something else is easy!)
But if I must stop sleeping, instead of getting up and dressed, I would rather begin writing down thoughts with which I waken, or read something that currently has my attention. Books, pen and paper are always stacked next to my bed on the blue chair, a relic of my grandfather’s homestead, which serves as my nightstand.

What could be wrong with this?, I defend myself. Julia Cameron says in The Artist’s Way that it’s a necessary practice, to write three pages every morning. I’m not sure, though, that waking at 7:15 and sitting up in bed writing and reading until 11:29 (which sounds better than noon...!) is what she had in mind.

Nonetheless, from this hallowed space, as I have listened to construction and the rest of country life taking place outside my open window, I have also:
-- Conducted the business of afterschool transportation with my grandson via text
-- Facebook messaged a friend with a passage from my reading which I think she will find
           helpful to her book project
-- Practiced 30 minutes of centering prayer
-- Worked on an upcoming retreat presentation
-- Planned dinner
-- Written a couple of blog posts

Still. It seems more legit if I’m writing at my desk, makeup on--or at the least dressed, with breakfast and outdoor chores behind me. Instead I’m propped up with three pillows, books/papers/phone strung across the comforter, dental appliance still sitting on the bathroom shelf (which I’ve worn for years, thanks to a teen car crash), and fending off the early September chill in my ever-present black chenille robe.

Eventually there will be tasks for which I will have to be what Mom called presentable.
-- Like dinner at 5:30 with my in-laws and their visiting cousins.
-- Like meeting my granddaughter’s bus at 4 p.m.
-- Like answering the door for the UPS truck.

How can I leave this sanctuary without begrudging the act?
Sacrificially. Sacramentally, I tell you.

Sacrifice
I’m a morning person neither by design nor by conditioning so having to get dressed upon rising just adds insult to injury. For years, as a career musician and minister, my working days rarely started before 2 p.m.—except on Wednesdays when there were meetings scheduled according to bankers’ hours. And the few gigs I held at public schools when I had to be on site at the “crack of early”—a phrase I borrowed from a generous friend who just happens to be my husband, who laughed like a school girl when I told him my required arrival time, and who holds a very different view of both mornings and getting dressed than I.

I could live contentedly in this space between my ears surrounded by authors and ideas. But as wise others have said, art exists to support life, not the other way around. This assumes there are other vital elements to said life, like keeping good tax records, laundry, meeting school busses and eating dinner with relatives.

It’s true. My current work is writing and reading and praying and thinking and creating.
But it’s also dirt, and laughter and exercise, and bills. And [most of] that requires getting dressed.

So I try.

Sacrament
I try to stop sleeping and smile in the morning—through scratchy eyes and monster breath.
And once in a while I remember to say thanks for the increasingly-rare nights of restful sleep.

I try to write just briefly enough to capture what I dreamed or woke up thinking about—
And when I don’t forget, I offer it up as prayer.

I do stumble to the bathroom for whatever needs doing…
…thanking God that it all works.

I try to exercise a bit, stretching my limbs.
Remembering days in physical therapy reminds me to be thankful I can move.

I try to wash my face—usually. And bathe if I didn’t last night.
I give thanks that there are people in my life whom I love, who support and surround and suck
life from me, for whom I will put on makeup and fix my hair…or at least moisturizer and a hat.

I will don whatever is needed for the day’s demands.
I will give thanks for provision and meaningful work to do, even if it’s just tending the tomatoes.

“Present your bodies…a living sacrifice…holy...(wholly?)…acceptable to God…your reasonable service,” I read.

I guess this starts with getting dressed.
Sacrificially. Sacramentally.
So I try.
---------------------------

The Conversation:
What is something you dread doing that you have turned into an act of love?
Is there some ordinary task that could become an extraordinary expression of love if you began to consider it as both sacrifice and symbol?

"I feel the earth move under my feet..." 4 Principles for Paying Attention

August 27, 2013. Did you feel it?
The earth shifted a little on its axis today, not because it’s Mom’s birthday, though she had a way of making the earth move. And not because it always does anyway--predictably, thank God.

Staying Awake
Today it shifted ever so slightly away from summer and toward fall the way a crayon is more green-blue than blue-green. It stepped across the line between summer being more summerish to summer being more fallish. I stepped out my front door and inhaled it.
Deeply. Grapes fragrance the air, the pears are harvested and hops will follow shortly. Sometimes it just smells like skunk but not today. The morning sun was just ramping up, but the rising temperature harbored a hint of cool. An almost imperceptible breeze whispered its secret or it may have gone undetected.


Now and Not Yet
I almost missed August this year—which is alarming because it’s my favorite month. Just one out of twelve. You’d think I could pay attention. I’m not sure how it happened. I suppose it’s the eternal battle I wage against my propensity to live in the not yet instead of the now. Like when my father-in-law used to tell his kids who, like all kids on a long trip, ask “Are we there yet?” with each passing milepost:
“Almost…just over the next hill.”
Of course the next hill, like tomorrow, never exactly comes. Somehow we get there anyway, like I got through August almost without noticing.

Perspective
I’m thinking more these days about the fall—September, October, November—of life, about the second half of the trip. I have help. Last night just before dropping off to sleep, my husband remarked, “Do you know we’re closer to the end of our lives now than we are to the beginning? I confess, I found it less than comforting. I had noticed, actually, since I’m in the throes of menopause and already question on a daily basis just how much closer I am. Plus both my parents have passed on. His, on the other hand, are both in their 80’s and just beginning to experience the salient effects of their mortality. He gets to watch.

Prompts
When I was little and sitting in church, if I was doing something distracting, Mom would snap her fingers so I would snap out of it. My kids say I inherited that gene. Maybe today’s shift was Mom snapping her fingers so I would remember to live now. At the least, she must have had something to do with it.

I wonder if heaven will be like August, or like long trips to Texas; if we’ll all get there and see that we were complaining a lot and not really paying much attention?

What have you missed or nearly missed?
What helps you to pay attention?
How can you welcome these helps into your life...now?

How can James Joyce help keep your ideas from being stolen?

Inspiration comes to me from many random places. Here's the latest.

In How to Read Novels like a Professor (not your average coffee table reading, I suppose, but I currently am...did I mention I'm a bit of a geek?), Thomas Foster says:

"...despite a 20-year gap, [James] Joyce copies [someone else's] style exactly for many of Leopold Bloom's monologues in Ulysses. Joyce finds and capitalizes on a style of narrative by Edouard Dujardin in a novel which he says "lapsed into neglect and was largely forgotten." (Too bad for Dujardin!)

The point is not that what eventually became James Joyce's trademark style was first attempted by someone else. The point is rather that when Jim discovered a gem, he acted in response.