Sometimes, is Beautiful

Sometimes, is beautiful, the scene out the
dirty motel window: a billboard says
“Report Rape” in wide, poorly aligned
capitals, six columns of tires that
almost look Corinthian flank the side
entrance of a boarded-up auto shop.

All it is is life. Things grow. Things spoil. To
be rotten means to have once been ripe. There
is no rotten without ripe, no beauty
without ugly, no good without evil.

If darkness is the absence of light; if
evil is the absence of good, then rotten
is merely the absence of ripe, and
sometimes, is beautiful: rotten, death,
reminds us that there once was life, a gift
undeserved, unrequested -- a gift I
now hold, precious, in my soul. It is sweet,
ripe, like the perfect peach, but should it rot,
I will not scorn the giver. Is the tree
responsible for the fate of the fallen
fruit? No, but he still gives life in spite of
the rotting flesh around him, and sometimes,
is beautiful.

Hi Honey! Please Don't Come Home!

From the moment we're born, we're self-centered, and yes, I mean from the very moment we are born. I was listening to the radio Tuesday, and I heard that a university recently conducted a study proving that newborns cry out for the manipulation of others around them just days after they are born. Although I've never doubted it before, now I have clinical proof -- I'm self-centered. If you're reading this, you're likely human -- and if you're not, you're a spam bot and need to get off my blog -- so you're self-centered too. That's right. It's all about me. Not really surprising how that became a literal fashion statement.

Fighting against self-centeredness is necessary, and when I say "fighting," I really do mean fighting -- sometimes resisting the urge to please only yourself to live only for yourself can be physically exhausting. Many people I know try -- and with God's help -- we manage to make a reasonable attempt at banishing our self-centeredness, but it's amazing how self-centeredness can creep back into our lives in such little ways.

Basic Training Graduation - Yay!

Like for instance, the phrase, "I wish you would come home."

And that, my friends, is a phrase I  use quite a bit. For those of you who don't know, my husband graduated Basic Training in March (yay!) and is now at Ft. Benning, GA at Officer Candidate School. This means that I get semi-regular and semi-frequent phone calls from him. Near the beginning of those phone calls, I almost always say, "I love you. I miss you. I wish you would come home."

Yep, I'm a jerk.

Here's why. When I tell my husband that I wish he would come home, I am speaking from my own emotions, desires, and needs. I wish he were here with me -- not following his calling, not doing something far greater than both of us combined. It's like I'm saying:

 "Yes, dear, I know God called you to do this, and I know people need your help, but don't you think you should, you know, give all that up and come home and hang out with me? Because, after all, it's all about me. I mean, even you should be all about me, right?"

 
 By saying, "I wish you would come home," I also create tension. I realized this when he responded, "It's not up to me." I wasn't trying to be self-centered. I was trying to show him how much I love him. What I did, though, was make him feel a tension between what he was called to do and the desires of someone he loves.

So, Aaron, I don't want you to come home. My self-centered nature might wish you were here to interact with, to talk with more regularly, to spend time with our daughter, and to make the day-to-day to do a little easier, but I don't want you to come home. I want you to follow the calling on your life, and to be able to focus on that calling. Not only am I proud of you, but I'm thankful for the chance to learn again to put myself aside for something bigger than you, me, everybody -- yes, even you spambots!

Being Human is Hard

This week, my to-do list was a mile long. Between copywriting, grading, teaching, and trying to feed my child, life got hectic. After several nights of only a few hours sleep, I laid down on the grass at the park per my daughter's request and was tempted to stay there. And this morning, after a thirty minute fight to get Charity to use the potty, I was ready to give up. My apartment, which I had paid to have cleaned the night previous, was a wreck. My child was screaming. My to-do list still hadn't been completed, and to top it all of I couldn't find the shin guards, and our soccer game was in an hour.

Just a few days ago, I was teaching a lesson in my Bible class about how God calls us and equips us. He never fails to provide the means for us to do what he has asked us to do. He not only gives us all the unique talents and abilities that we need to fill the purpose that he has set out for us, but he also gives us tools after he has called -- tools that allow us to accomplish a specific purpose.

But why does God so often call us to complete tasks that aren't -- seemingly -- within our skill set? I've often wondered why God gives us talents and abilities, only to call us to do something that has nothing to do with those talents and abilities.

For example, you can put me in a classroom, a non-profit, a planning committee and I'll exceed your expectations. My intuition will kick in, and I'll be able to solve problems without any stress or frustration, but give me a home to manage, and I'm breaking out in a cold sweat. The fact of the matter is that I'm not very domestic. I am easily overwhelmed by domestic tasks. Planning menus, figuring budgets, cleaning, and doing all of this wile simultaneously spending quality time with my child seems impossible -- now throw a career on top of that.

Yet God not only called me to be a mother and a wife, but he called my husband to serve in the Army Reserves, leaving me now in the initial six months of what will likely be many absences. My initial inclination to this was to say, "Why? Things were working out well the way they were. I had help. I was able to operate in my strengths and still follow my calling as a mother and a wife."

But I see two flaws in my logic here. First, following God shouldn't be something we squeeze in. We shouldn't treat God like a vegetable -- choking down what he wants us to do so we can get on to the good stuff.

Second, when I really look at the situation critically, I realize that things weren't really working out well the way they were. Sure, I was getting to "have it all" -- the career, the family -- but it was more stressful than anything. I felt like I was constantly trying to simply keep us together. I was in constant panic/disaster mode.

And this is where the "being human is hard" comes in. Unlike other species, God has given us the capability to play multiple roles. In fact, he has charged us with this -- he tells us that sometimes we must play roles that we are not used to or that we are just starting to understand. Yet, in all these roles, he calls us to follow him -- we are required to play multiple roles but all for the sake of the gospel, for the purpose to which he has called us. In 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, Paul says that he has been called to be all things to all people -- but not to advance his cause, not so that he can "have it all," but for "the sake of the gospel."

The multiple roles we play cause stress -- or rather, discord among the roles we play cause stress. Psychologists also often point to something called cognitive dissonance, which causes stress. Cognitive dissonance occurs when we say one thing, but do something that is contrary.

What I want to suggest applies to my life and perhaps others is that stress comes not from multiple roles but multiple roles in discord. Stress occurs when we have different roles and when all those roles aren't focused on the same thing -- "the sake of the gospel." I don't think we always know why God gives us certain talents and then seems to call us elsewhere. Maybe we needed those talents to develop the talents he would eventually equip us with. Maybe we really used those talents and weren't aware of them. Whatever the reason -- he does equip us, but we have to be open to that equipping.

Occupy...My Desk Chair

First, let me go on record saying that I agree with much of what is going on in the Occupy Wall Street movement. A lot of people have expressed their frustration with the movement because they believe people are simply rejecting personal responsibility and trying to blame their poor financial decisions on others. 

I can respect that. In fact, I'm sure a lot of people are blame shifting right now. But I don't think it invalidates the entire movement. I take responsibility for a number of bad money moves I made over the years, but I still think major corporations tend to implement unethical policies more than they implement ethical ones. Big business sells our information, promotes a buy-now-pay-later culture, sometimes actually prevents people from learning responsible financial skills, doesn't show empathy and is sometimes just plain immoral. (Or have we forgotten about Dead Peasants' Insurance?) 

Still, I'm not sure how much good an Occupy Wall Street movement is going to do. First, because a lot of people involved don't seem to know exactly what they are protesting and, second, because I am willing to bet most of them aren't willing to do what rejecting corporate culture really means. Because it means quitting your job with the big company, giving up shopping at the big box, paying off and not reopening your credit cards, staying on top of and advocating for ethical policies in corporate America and throwing your investment dollars to the most ethical not the most successful companies.

I'm a person who has avoided shopping at Wal-Mart for years. Capitalism: A Love Story, though I admit hyperbolic at times, changed me. And still, I couldn't do everything up there in the bold. What I have done is to reject a life of working in corporate America. Every day, I put together a hodgepodge income consisting of writing and teaching  revenue. Have I done some work for corporate giants in the past? Ish.  I've done some contract work that was published on Discovery Health. I've done web content for Cash4Gold. Neither of these could be described as "Mom and Pop" organizations. I regret doing work for Leading Insurance Quotes. Now that I look back on it, I'm pretty sure that was a less than ethical decision. And that's the point, this culture is pervasive. To deny it completely would be a little bit like a story I heard on NPR a few months ago about a family who lives off the grid. Is it possible? Of course. Would it be difficult? Definitely. 

So what's my point? It's this: that there is no perfect solution. That the "personal responsibility" advocates and the folks marching on Wall Street are all trying to do something to change our culture. They can't do everything, they can't choose scapegoats, but they can do something -- hopefully they realize that. Hopefully they all realize that for real change to occur, we're all going to have to do just that -- change. 

As for me, I'm choosing to occupy my desk chair. If anyone would like to come protest by doing some editing for me, let me know.

Cracked

The title of my new blog comes to you via my cracked computer screen. It's a 13.3-inch macbook, the beautiful white kind. The LCD screen is bright with vivid colors -- except only about 2/3 of the screen is visible. A large, black blob of cracked pixels coveres the upper lefthand corner. It does a pretty good job of marring the screen.

Marred brilliance. Limited function. Beautiful imperfection.

In reality, isn't that what we all are -- cracked computer screens? We are beautiful, innovative people designed by God to do something great but limited in that ability by our cracks, our scars and our imperfections. Thankfully, God has the ability to use us in spite of and sometimes because of our imperfections.

Did you see Bruce Almighty? Do you remember the scene where Bruce acting as God allowed a young man to avoid teasing in gym class? Morgan Freeman's character, the real "God," says that the boy would have been a wonderful poet whose teasing would have enabled him to write beautiful poetry. Bruce's sparing him of the teaching cost that young man his future.

Luckily, we're not relying on Jim Carrey. God won't "slip up" and accidentally prevent us from being used for his purpose.

Ok, now I have to do that declarative thing where I tell you what this blog will be about. As an English teacher, I hate that. Yuck! But I guess there is no way around it, so here it goes.

This blog will be about...EVERYTHING!


So stay tuned! I'll be posting everything from how-tos to why-comes.