Haven't written much lately.
A summary: a lot of heart ache. disappointments. Too much drinking. New discoveries, or rediscoveries. New strength, less alcohol. Feeling better. Hope for the future. And now I am planning a trip to Istanbul with Jon.

That pretty much sums up last year.

Dear 2014,
I know you can do better.
Please & Thank you,
Laura

Today I am so tired. Today, I don't want to be a foster parent. I want to be someone else. I don't want to be a punching bag for a child whose only mode of communication is relentless anger. I don't want to be responsible for the mental health of children who have been tortured, deprived, abandoned and abused in inconceivable way, first by birth parents, only to be handed over to ruthless people who are in it for the check. I don't want to live around people who shoot to kill.
I don't want to drive by boarded up buildings, too numerous to count. I don't want to be asked to wash my car windows for change, or to pay for a child to bang out a beat on a plastic bucket, and I sure as hell don't want to be forced to see someone's ass hanging out of their pants.
Today, I am so tired.
I don't want to drive 20 minutes to the grocery store, and I don't want to buy gas at a station with a variety of blunts taped to the window. I don't want to slip my money through the drawer or the carousel of bullet proof glass.
Today I am tired. So tired.

Merci pour le petit cadeux.

What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

Bob Dylan

Italie

On days when you feel like you wake up already face down on the mat, you have to learn how to be the coach in your own corner.

What he got Right

"Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
Matthew 14:29-30

How far do you have to sink?

Let me explain. I have been in church forever . . . well at least it seems that way sometimes. And I have heard many many preachers expound on the story of Peter stepping out of the boat to walk on the water towards Jesus. I have heard it used as an allegory on keeping our eyes focused on Christ in the midst of a trial rather than looking at our circumstances. I have heard it used to talk about faith, having it and the lack thereof. I have heard preachers use it to talk about fear versus faith. But there is one thing that Peter got very right that I have never heard anyone talk about. When Peter began to sink, he cried out to Jesus. He didn't cry out to the other people in the boat. He didn't try to swim back to the boat. He didn't try to save himself, work it out on his own, think it out, cry it out, or sulk it out . He didn't wait until salt water stung his eyes and water filled his nose and mouth. Peter saw Jesus as a first response rather than a last resort.

 How far do you have to sink?

I am the Clay

Some days, I don't want to be the clay. The clay gets pinched. The clay gets squeezed. The clay gets molded, and even sometimes cut. I've heard for years, that as the body of Christ, we are called to be His hands and feet, to allow Him to live His life through us, and that we are called to yield to the process of being transformed into the image and likeness of Christ. Sometimes I approach this process with great passion. Sometimes I want to run in the opposite direction. And then sometimes, I want to flop down on the floor like a stubborn child, poke my lip out and say "no." Sometimes I don't want to be clay. Sometimes I don't want to be Jesus with skin on, His hands and feet... Sometimes I don't want to think one more thought about poverty, racism, or any of the other "isms" our society is infected with. Sometimes I don’t want to think about anything more serious than whether to cut my sandwich on the diagonal or straight across.

We talk about being transformed into the image and likeness of Christ. But which image are we speaking of? Is it the image of a son so submitted to the will of His father that he was willing to become a helpless infant in the hands of strangers? Or is it the bruised and battered Jesus, spit on, despised and rejected of men? What about the victorious Jesus, returning on a white horse? How about the image of Jesus kneeling in agonized prayer in the garden asking, “Father if..,” Can we choose which Jesus we become? I suspect that just as all of these images and so many others are all parts of the whole, we have to experience all of these aspects of Jesus as parts of our whole experience of being transformed into His image and likeness. And when I go through my “garden” experiences in the process of transformation, I am so glad that the Bible doesn’t try to clean up the story for the more “sensitive viewing audience.” I’m glad that it records that Jesus whispered an “if”. I’m glad that it tells the truth that there were moments when Jesus didn’t want to be the clay.

Crossing

Can you see yourself crossing it?

The finish line?

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

2 Timothy 4:7

Boat People

Today was one of the those days - the kind I hate, where I wake up on the wrong side of the world and just want to go back to sleep, dream of something pleasant, and try waking up all over again. But through sheer force of will, I got up and went out to the forest preserve to walk. It is beautiful, and there is one trail in particular that is very isolated and private. I chose that trail, because I needed to talk to God, and I did not feel like being quiet about it. I needed some answers, dang it.

I told God, "I don't understand this strange existence you have given us. We are spiritual beings, housed in these temporal, fragile, broken jars of clay. We are placed here to live out our lives in this spiritual universe, in the midst of a relentless battle - caught between heaven and earth. And we seem so clueless, fickle and tossed. It seems crazy to me." 

And I felt God speak to me, "But I have given you all the power."

I don't pretend to be a saint. I don't see people that way. And I feel God is much more likely to hear the sincere prayer of the non-churched, than the self- righteous prayer of the religious. We are all pilgrims, boat people, trying to reach the other shore. Some days we swim against the current, other days it carries us. But we have the power to help each other, to encourage one another, to keep one another afloat. One day you are strong - the next day I am. Let's get there together.

Ecstasy

One of my favorite memories of childhood on the farm was an event that took place every spring. My father would plow and then til the fields for planting. The plow dug deep and turned the earth in big long furrows. After this he would till it. This process broke up the furrows, and evened and flattened them out. When the soil was newly turned, I would take off my shoes and walk in it. It was unbelievably soft, almost like baby powder. I am as convinced now, as I was then, that there was no feeling like it on earth. It was ecstasy.


The exposure of the topsoil to the elements of this world made the soil hard. Much too hard to receive new seed, so it was very necessary, this plowing and tilling. And I find that in my own life now, I'm still reaping spiritual lessons from those memories of my life on the farm. It didn't take long for the newly turned soil to get hardened. I remember my disappointment the next morning after plowing when I would go out and take off my shoes only to be met with hardened clods of soil. Oh well. Fortunately, seasons changed, and I knew that in another year spring would come again, and I would once again experience the delight of bare feet in freshly plowed soil.


Another cherished memory from the farm was the granary. I remember as I got older I would climb up to the top floor of the granary via a ladder. It was a long narrow room housing nothing but a long conveyor down the center. windows were at the opposite end and they would fill the space with golden sunlight. I would sit in that long silent empty space and and do nothing but think. Even now I crave and cherish those kinds of spaces, naked and peaceful. I've spent countless hours in my church's sanctuary and can't seem to pass a church in Europe without stepping in the door. Maybe it is just my overactive imagination, but in those kinds of spaces it's as if all I can feel is God's kiss on my forehead - his breath on the back of my neck. And in the silence of man, I hear God sing His song.

Uncle Bert (from Unfinished Story)

He called me blondie. I would hide behind the coats in the hall and blush. I remember him crying out when he came in the door, " There she is, Blondie!" I was a cotton top when I was a little girl. That is about all I remember of my Uncle Bert. I know that he lavished attention on me because of my blond hair. I know that my parents had one picture of him as a child. It was a black and white photo of a little boy with a big collar and long golden curls. That was the style for little boys in that era. And I know that he was married to a very good woman, a Roman Catholic, and had a daugher. Even after years of abandonment his wife refused to file for divorce because of her faith.
I also know, that like so many of my Uncles, his life was a tortured one. He was an alcoholic and a nomad. He wandered his whole life.
He finally ended up in New Orleans, and it was there that he fell drunk in the street and was killed by a truck.
What else is there to say?

The Thing about Bees (from Unfinished Story)

When I was in elementary school we had a great science fair program. Every year we would choose a subject then read, cut, draw and stencil letters like petite mad scientist as if our lives depended on it. The science fair wasn't just a big event - it was the event of the school year. Every year we would go through the local competition, the district competition, and then on to state if we were lucky. I chose honey bees for my topic, not out of any true scientific interest. I thought they were cute. And they used flowers to make something sweet - how do you beat that in the mind of an 11 year old girl?

I'm not quite sure how on earth I won a ribbon the second year. My focus was purely on the artistic side of the whole presentation. I had a cute little bee's head peering down over the top of the board. I had drawn colorful presentations on my poster board. I had honey in several forms. But to be quite honest I knew very little else about honey bees other than they collected pollen and made honey and there was a queen and they did a little bee jig to show their peers where the pollen was located.

Nevertheless - I did take home a ribbon. And no one was more pleasantly surprised than I. :)

consolidation

I've started writing on my blog again because I am tired of quipping for Facebook. But I have no idea why I ever thought it would be a good idea to have two blogs, so I am consolidating them. Whichever post I think are worth saving from Unfinished Story, I will post on Inexpugnable. Trust me on this - there are only a couple.

My family moved frequently when I was a child. I lived in four different states and attended 7 schools between Kindergarten and 12th grade graduation. Perhaps that is why I seem to consistently place myself in the situation of being an outsider. It is all I have ever known - being the new kid on the block, the outsider, the different one, different race, different nationality. My father had the wanderlust, and was not above loading the family up and heading to Florida for the weekend on a whim.
It was actually quite wonderful. We spent many weekends driving to historical homes and museums in the area. And being in the Cumberland Gap area of southeastern Kentucky, there was an abundance of such places to explore and visit. We saw so much. the homesteads of pioneers, war officers and presidents. Indian museums, caves, cliffs, settlements, and Indian Reservation Territory in the Carolina's. Florida Missions, the Smokey Mountains and Gatlinbourg. Niagra Falls, Maine, all the Great Lakes, and even Canada.
Maybe that is where I get it from.

Grandma Clara

My father rarely spoke about his mother. But he carried the pain of her death everyday of his life. A death so tragic, so horrific, the circumstances are not to be repeated except on the rare occasion it is an absolute necessity. Through the years, I have heard bits and pieces of her life. I know she sang like an angel, that she was noted to be the most beautiful woman for miles around, and that her nickname was China Doll. I know that she kept a spotless house while living in abject poverty. I know that after being abandoned by her husband, she would line up her 9 small children and march them down the street to church, for a while . . .

But I don't know the things I want to know. I don't know the sound of her voice. I don't know how she moved across a room, or how she smelled. I don't know if she was gentle, loud or soft. I don't know if she was funny or shy. I don't know the smell of her cooking, or the sound of her footsteps. I don't know her embrace. I don't know her dreams, or her nightmares. I don't know when she lost hope. I don't know what made her so fragile.

The bad thing about going to Paris is that unless you are well off, or well connected enough to actually move there, eventually you have to come back home. When I board the return bound jet, I die a slow, agonizing 9 hour emotional death. I never feel more like my true self than when I am in Paris, but when that plane begins to descend, I feel myself drain rapidly away, like sand sifting through my fingers. Within a couple of days, nothing is left of that woman or the spirit that rang so true within me. And I struggle to believe my memories were even true. Did it really happen? Was it really that beautiful?

When I return, the sunlight I so joyfully celebrated takes on a cruel intensity. It highlights everything, the poverty, the dirt, and the utter not - ness of how this place is so unlike Paris. It makes me want to shrink away, pull the blinds, pull the blanket over my head and ultimately my mind. I hate it here, because it is not there.
I try, and barely contain my resentment of everyone around me. The only reason I am here speaking to you is because I am not there. And you are not my friends from Paris. You are not the ones I miss. You are not the ones I connect with on a level I never before felt possible.

I chide myself. I tell myself I an suffering from nothing that a big dose of maturity and adulthood would not cure. It does not work. I rack my brain trying to think of ways to make my dream a reality. I scour the web and read over and over how nearly impossible it is for an American to find work in Paris. But I don't need a lot of jobs, just the one.

Hi Blogspot. I think I miss you. I think we need to spend more time together. Wait here, I will be back soon.

Jack in the Pulpit

January 7, 2011

For much of my childhood, we lived on various farms. My most enjoyable memories involve solitude and nature. Hours were whiled away, wandering fields and woods, dabbling in springs, creeks and ponds, playing with animals, and soaking in the beauty around me. It was everywhere with a lushness I would not appreciate until city living made me aware of the acute absence of it. Nature and solitude. Except in my dreams, waking and sleeping, I see precious little of either in my present life.

I travel back there though in my imagination, and it is nearly as real to me as it was when I experienced it as a child. My feet travel swiftly across the hardened dirt paths trailing across the shaded yard, alongside the flower beds, and past the crab apple bush. Then along the tractor path back to the woods. Queen Anne’s Lace, moss, Jack in the pulpit, clover, trees, goldenrod, mustard, milkweed, cat tail, and tiger lilies, black walnut trees, black cherries, elderberries, mulberries, wild strawberries, everything around me was living, thriving, growing!

Now my world, more often than not, feels like a walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Children come and go to school not knowing which of their peers may not return the next day. Instead of gardens, there is the corner store. Make sure you check the sell by dates on your purchases. There are vacant lots, cracked sidewalks, potholes, boarded up stores and businesses with hand painted misspelled signs. There are drunks and gang bangers and the occasional lady of the night meandering down the street. And there is the harshness of a world that can’t hide the reality of its barrenness in the unforgiving daylight.

A news report, the death of another child to gun violence, the harshness with which people inevitably treat each other in such a social landscape, all set my heart longing for the reality of my youth. I close my eyes and there I am, watching Jack Frost work his mischief on my windows, rubbing my pony’s nose while watching his frosted breath hang suspended in mid air, laying on my back and watching the sunlight scatter through dancing leaves. It doesn’t last long. It is only a matter of time before my daydreams are banished by a siren, a gunshot, a police helicopter, squealing tires, loud music or loud voices.

A different life, a different calling.