August 6, 2011
March Forth!
My childhood was a fairytale.
I say this because, as in fairytales, there were monsters, villains, injustice, and bad things happened after sundown.
It was ugly. Frog-in-a-blender ugly.
Recently, I shared with someone close to me a memory that had been bobbing up from the depths. Their one-word response: “Repulsive.”
My story, however, is not unique. So many of us are survivors of some sort. We trudged through it and we came out on the other side; a little bruised, a little scarred, but we made it.
Some of us haven’t made it out yet. Stuck in the woods of our past, afraid to move forward, afraid that the clearing on the other side is no more than a mirage, a false oasis where no comfort is to be found, only pain.
My birthday is March 4. When I was little, my birth date became a totem for me. It became a way of life.
I was watching tv one day with my stuffed lion, Liony. (Yes, I named him myself). There was an old war movie on. The screen was filled with images of soldiers. Suddenly a cry went out “March forth!”, and onward went the soldiers, to complete the mission ahead of them.
Now, I don’t know how the same brain that came up with the name “Liony” was able to make a connection between March 4 and “march forth”, but it did. That scene from an old black and white movie gave me direction. I felt like it was a message especially for me. When bad things happened, I marched forth. Liony and I were little soldiers. We didn’t do anything heroic, Liony wasn’t a great strategist by any means, mostly he just looked at me with his shiny button eyes. But, we marched forth together.
In school, I learned that on March 4, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his inaugural speech, in which he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself…” I thought again, that there may be a message in there for me, although the words were spoken 39 years before my birth.
Years later, I continued marching forth. Out of an addiction, out of an abusive marriage, out of a lengthy divorce. I came out on the other side, a little rough, a little scarred, but I was out.
Recently, I’ve been struggling with my relatively newfound faith. I questioned my salvation, my worth, my usefulness. Do I belong with this body of believers?
The answer is a resounding yes. Yes I do belong. Yes I am saved. Yes I can do anything through Christ. My faith returned, and with it, the understanding that where faith resides, fear cannot.
Fear Aint In This Heart. F.A.I.T.H.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7
If you have survived, but not come out of the woods of your past, if you are still paralyzed by fear, if you are afraid, I invite you to share my birthday with me and March Forth!
When you cannot walk alone, God will carry you- if you let Him.
July 27, 2011
Holding out for a Hero
To quote a song from the 80’s…
Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where’s the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream
of what I need
I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight
===============================
Oh yes, whether he’s on a silky white horse with a shining uniform, or fresh from a brawl with a little blood on his face and a torn shirt, every woman has a hero in her mind.
It starts with Disney, filling our impressionable little minds with visions of Prince Whoever fighting all the odds to come to the rescue of Princess Whatsername so they can live… want to say it with me? “Happily Ever After”.
Mention Amanda Seyfried in a room of teenage girls and you’ll hear a collective swoon. Seems she’s in every sappy love story filmed in the past 5 years.
A few years ago, my daughter’s friend told her “Oh wow! You’ve found your Edward!” Now, I am a pretty cool mom if I do say so myself, so I knew when she mentioned Edward, she was speaking of the main male character from the “Twilight” series. I thought about it, and Megan’s boyfriend didn’t have a fast silver Volvo, he didn’t sparkle in the sunlight, and he wasn’t an undead vampire. So, how do they compare? He was dangerous. He was dark. Most mortals stayed away from him.
In the story, and in most stories, the male lead is dark, dangerous, misunderstood. But he loves his girl. He’ll never hurt his girl, never leave her side. The love they have is a bond unbreakable by time, space, parents, or death. And they will live happily ever after.
So we are in the world, looking for our Edward, looking for our Ren (from the movie I quoted at the beginning), looking for our Beast. Well, here’s the thing: they are all made up characters! There is no human love that equals the love written about in these stories! To try to replicate it is an exercise in futility. To hold out for a hero is to waste a heart. We are human. We are flawed, we are broken, we are full of sin. Even our love is not perfect. Our love is fleeting and conditional, a flower that begins to die even as it blooms. And when our simple, human love dies, we are left feeling betrayed, fooled, cheated by Disney, 20th Century Fox, most publishing houses and magazines because it didn’t turn out like it was supposed to.
A Hero? A real hero, a man considered dangerous, who walked in a different direction than the rest of the world, who loved me so deeply, so passionately, so fiercely that he allowed himself to be beaten, mocked, tortured and killed so that I don’t have to know a fraction of that pain. Only one man ever loved me that much, even though I prove daily that I am not deserving of that love. There is only one love that the little-girl-heart in me can find all the comfort and acceptance I crave. That’s the love of Jesus Christ.
July 14, 2011
How much Heart?
We've all heard that notion that humans use only 10% of our brain.
We’re told that the human mind is so vast and complex that if we only increased our brain power by a smidge, we could all be supergeniuses.
There are pills, videos, books and apps that all claim to help us increase our intelligence. In fact, a quick inventory of my ipod and my droid reveals 13 apps between the two devices focused on increasing mental acuity.
13? Really? Gosh I should be smart enough to create my own app by now…
I found myself wondering, what percent of my heart do I use?
Am I using it to its fullest capacity or am I only using a tiny percentage? If I increase my heart usage just a smidge, could I change the world? If my ability to love grew, what could I do with it?
What if, instead of trying so hard to use a bigger percentage of our brains, we focused on using a bigger percentage of our hearts? What would the world be like if we all increased just by 1, 2, or 5%?
Then could we change the world?
How many apps do I have focused on increasing my capacity to love others? Another quick check of the ipod and the droid… One app on each.
Just one. The Bible.
July 7, 2011
Fear Ain’t In This Heart… (F.A.I.T.H)
I am reviving my blog, giving it a new lease on e-life.
I’ve renamed it F.A.I.T.H , which stands for Fear Ain’t In This Heart. I have found that where Faith lives, Fear cannot.
Faith used to live in my heart. A few questioning moments, some situations that I cast off as coincidence instead of divine, and Fear crept in. It didn’t take long for Fear to take over, and Faith was only a dim memory.
I couldn’t write. I couldn’t read my bible, I couldn’t listen to sermons because the big booming voice of Fear mocked me, mocked my desire to be what God intended me to be, and reminded me of all the ugliness inside me.
I had to start pursuing my faith again. I had to be purposeful, deliberate and sincere. Finally, it’s returned. Returning. I have found inspiration to write again. I have doubts, I have worries, but they’re losing strength. Doubt and Fear will paralyze me, but only if I give them that authority.
January 9, 2009
Don’t you give me that look!
There comes a time in nearly every parent’s life in which they fully believe the curse works. You know the curse. Usually it’s from our parents, but I also got the curse from teachers and other adults when I was a teen.
Say it with me: “I hope you have a kid that acts just like you!”
Powerful stuff right there. I have not just one, but two kids that are just like me.
Just. Like. Me.
They look just like me, well, except they’re taller… Their personalities couldn’t be more different from each other, but somehow each one reflects me fully.
Just. Like. Me.
I remember, upon hearing the curse, thinking, “Wow, a kid just like me? That’d be awesome!” I was so stupid.
As a teenager, I was not only mouthy and rebellious, I also had a knack for being sullen and quiet. The sullenness seemed to infuriate the adults around me even more than being mouthy, so sullen was usually my go-to attitude.
As they would lecture me, yell at me, threaten me, I would sit and look at a spot on the wall, just above the person’s shoulder. My eyebrows would be arched, ever-so-slightly, and my mouth would be held firm in a not-quite-a-smirk position.
It was a good look.
The longer I held it, the more the adults would lose their composure. When finally I would be told “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”, I would gaze at them with eyes that were all but dead. No matter what was said, I wouldn’t flinch, drop my gaze, or change my expression. I was untouchable when I donned ‘the look’.
Well, as I said, the curse works. A couple years ago, my now-16- year- old started morphing from a perfectly reasonable, respectful young lady to a walking attitude. The attitude slowly grew until it was all – out hateful, and came to the boiling point a few months ago. The last few weeks of the attitude, she gave me the look every time I spoke to her.
The look. THE look. MY LOOK!
I found myself saying “Don’t give me that look!”, and in reply, in a voice that could have been mine 20 years ago, she would innocently reply, “What look?”
Thankfully, we seem to be past that phase. I haven’t seen the look directed at me for a long time. I have seen her give the look to her boyfriend. I feel kinda sorry for him. He’s got no armor against the look. He is defenseless. Poor kid. But, I’m not getting the look, so I’m good.
Around the time my 16 year old seemed to come back to her senses and start behaving like a normal member of society, it seems that she passed the Attitude Baton to my 13 year old daughter.
Now, my 13 year old with an attitude really floors me. The older one, well, she always had that glint in her eye, even as a newborn. That “I’m the boss” aura around her. But not my ‘little’ one. From the time she was born until very recently, she’d been no problem. I could tell her something once and never have to bring it up again. She could look at situations that her friends or peers were going through and say, “I’ll never do that.” and I believed her.
A few months ago, she started “seeing” this boy she met at church. He’s 17, she’s 13. Um… yeah. I don’t like that math. So, I said, “You can be friends, you can be acquaintances, but nothing more.” And my little girl, to whom I never had to say the same thing twice, looked at me with those great big green eyes and said, “Okay Mommy.” She still calls me Mommy. Ain’t that sweet?
I just found out that she not only is friends with him, but somehow, she’s his ‘girlfriend’. He gave her his class ring, which she wears on a chain around her neck at school. Not at home. I didn’t know this ring even existed, until circumstances brought the ring into my possession. By then, I had been putting more and more pressure on her to end any relationship she had with him because it had clearly become more than ‘just friends’. I had even involved the leadership from our church to be on the lookout for inappropriate behavior from either of the two. I had already talked to the boy several times and explained that I did not hold anything personal against him, that I just felt that the relationship was not a good idea for either of them at this age.
So, the ring comes into my possession, I find out more and more details of this clandestine romance, and my composure begins to erode. My little girl with the big green eyes and even bigger heart is in even bigger trouble.
At the time of this writing, she has lost some privileges. For instance, I took her door. Yep, I took her bedroom door. Right off the hinges. I also took her cd player, cd’s, personal dvd player, dvd’s, her makeup, her perfumes, her hair straightener, her nail polishes, her digital camera, her iPod, and her whiteboard.
She had this whiteboard in her room, she used to write bible verses on it every day. Over the course of the past few weeks, she had taken to writing other things on it, such as “Life Sucks.” “I Hate Life.” She had written some quote about doing what your gut tells you to do, no matter what anyone says. Below it, I replied that perhaps her gut is not as wise as her parents and the other adults in her life. She erased it and wrote a note on it, suggesting I refrain from reading or writing on her board. That’s why I took that too.
We had a long, loud ‘discussion’ about rights and property ownership. It is my belief that it’s hard for life to suck when you have an abundance of electronics at your fingertips. I did offer my phone (I took her phone too) so that she could contact the authorities, to make sure that I was within the boundaries of the legal system. She did not take me up on the offer.
She did, however, give me the Look. Those beautiful green eyes lost their luster, her perfectly shaped eyebrows arched just a millimeter higher than normal, and her mouth set in a not-quite-smirk.
To that, I gave her the only reply I could come up with. “One day, you’re going to have a kid that is just like you, and I hope I’m around to see it!”
Ah, the cycle continues…
December 8, 2008
Teenagers + Free Will
I don’t get to talk one-on-one to my pastor very often anymore. When I do get the opportunity, I’m always thankful for it. The guy is pretty daggoned smart.
Yesterday, we spoke for a few minutes about the trials of parenting teenagers. He saw a fairly tense moment between my 13 year old daughter and me at yesterday’s service.
We shared some horror stories about our little darlings, and he said something that made me feel so much better about what I have been chalking up to my failure as a mom.
We are being the best parents we can be. We are teaching them, equipping them with all the tools necessary to live as they should. The problem is, they have Free Will.
I felt so much better thinking of it like that. I’d never considered it in that light before. In my mind, each action, good or bad, that my daughters took was a direct reflection on my ability – or inability – to be a “good” parent.
God has given us all free will. We know the path that leads to Him. We have all the tools available to get us on His path and to know Him better. Our free will gets in the way. Well, speaking for myself anyway, my free will has gotten in the way plenty of times.
Stupid free will. Ugh.
I don’t mean that. I understand that free will is a necessary part of this whole Christian thing. If there was no free will, how could we choose to do the right thing?
We would just do the right thing because that’s how we’d be programmed. Being programmed to do the right thing isn’t the same as choosing the right thing. I’ve been struggling a little bit with the idea of free will in the past few months, so this really helped me put it into perspective.
So in a matter of a few moments, and some casual conversation, Pastor Darrel gave me a refreshed outlook on both parenting and free will in general. I told ya, the guy is pretty good at this stuff!
November 24, 2008
So Sick of Being Sick!
Argh!
I hate the first cold of the season! It seems to hang on forever! What started out as just a head cold has now morphed into something far more sinister.
It always starts with a little scratchy throat, and a lot of denial. The denial doesn’t wear off until the pounding headache, runny nose, eyes, and ears show up to party with the scratchy throat.
The good news is, there’s not much to do besides fill up on the Quil (Day or Ny’) and go to bed.
The bad news is, there are still meetings, phone calls, kids, and chores. If I’m only feeling bad for a couple days, I still try to go on with my day to day stuff. After about day 5, I call in sick to life in general, and stay in bed, daring anyone to question my decision.
Well, I’m so far beyond my ‘day 5′ milestone, I may have developed a slight addiction to my ‘quil & advil combo, and I’m starting to wonder if there is a point where orange juice consumption becomes dangerous.
I went to the doctor yesterday, though I didn’t want to. I hate going to the doctor. That’s where all the sick people are. I don’t want to catch something worse!! Besides, there are few things in life I find as annoying as a visit to the doctor. I made sure to show up early in hopes of getting seen and getting the heck outta there. I made myself as comfy as possible in the waiting room with the hard plastic chairs, as far away from the rest of the sick people as I could get. I grabbed the most recent copy of “Real Simple” magazine, which was only 5 months old.
Speaking of “Real Simple”, shouldn’t a magazine that’s called “Real Simple” be less bulky and cluttered than it is?? It is jam packed with ads! WHY? “Real Simple” – living simply – less clutter – do more with less! And yet, I have to flip through 18 pages of advertisements before I get to the first ‘feature’! To top it off, the advertisements aren’t even for things that could help one make one’s life simpler! They are for the life-cluttering, credit-card-maxing, throw-it-in-the-closet-and-forget-it-exists junk that clogs our lives and makes us feel compelled to buy big heavy magazines dedicated to making life simple!
Ugh, I get terribly crabby when I’m not feeling well. Sorry.
So, they call me from the waiting room to the second waiting room. When did this become the norm?? It used to be, you go to the office at your appointed time, and when the nurse opens The Door and calls your name, that’s it! Your name has been called! YOU get to see the doctor right NOW! Those days are gone. I’ll be telling my grandkids about those days, and they’ll walk away rolling their eyes.
Anyway, I’m waiting in the Second Waiting Room, and just for fun, the nurse decides to see how much I weigh. I’m not sure, but I think they were taking bets on my weight. So, I schlump up onto the scale, my shoulders rounded in defeat, my head hanging low. I felt like I was a contestant on The Biggest Loser. The dramatic dink-dink-dink of the numbers, the slight gasp from the nurse looking over my shoulder, followed by the sympathetic tongue-cluck, a single tear forming in the corner of my eye…
Then I’m sent into the exam room. The doctor comes in, looks at my chart and does he ask about my symptoms? Ask how I’m feeling? Nope. He looks at my chart and says “Ah, getting a little heavy, are we?” Little jerk. I wanted to say “Ah, getting a little bald, are we?” but I figured that would be bad, him being in charge of the prescription pad and all.
He spends all of 3 minutes with me, writes me a prescription for amoxicillin, and walks out of the room. Doesn’t say, “Good day, Chunky.” or “Hope you feel better, Fattie.” or anything – just walks out! Hmph. Fine. I coughed in his general direction as I left.
I figured since I had a prescription, I should go back to work. So, I gave that a shot. That was stupid. I felt horrible. Then I had to drive all the way back home!
And what bout of sickness would be complete without the fever dreams? I don’t know if it’s just me, or if it happens to everyone, but when I’m sick, I have dreams that would give Tim Burton the willies.
I dreamed that I saw my pal Rick on the back of a sea turtle. He was wearing one of those umbrella hats, and shouting “Yee-hah!”.
Wow. Weird.
Then I dreamed I was being chased through a field by a faun. Not a fawn like a baby deer, no. A Faun, one of those creepy half-man half-goat things. He was playing a wooden whistle thing and laughing… Ugh.
So, I shoved my ipod in my ears, hoping that some soothing music would help me sleep. I have a special playlist for all my relaxing songs. I have Antonio Vivaldi on there, he’s one of my favorite composers. Well even Ol’ Vivaldi screwed me up, his music invoked a nightmare that I don’t even want to recount here!
So, 17 days after the first hint of a scratchy throat, I’m fully on the road to recovery. Yeesh!
November 17, 2008
A Time to Pray
At church yesterday, Pastor Darrel’s talk was about prayer. Just the day before, I was talking to some friends about praying.
My friend Terry has a book called “Praying in Color” . I said that I’d gotten that book from the library a few weeks earlier. It’s a wonderful way to look at prayer.
We were talking about how easy it is to lose focus while we’re praying. I said that a lot of times I get flustered because I can’t find the words. I worry that my prayers sound ‘dumb’. Then again, God knows my heart, He knows what I’m trying to say even when the words don’t come. He also knows how dumb I am, and loves me anyway! 
Growing up Catholic, leaving my faith, then eventually coming back to God left me in a real state of confusion when I began to pray again. I remembered some of the prayers we said in Catholic school. There was the morning prayer, before we started school, there was the prayer before lunch, there was the prayer in the cafeteria, there was the prayer when we came back from lunch, and the prayer before we went home. On Fridays, there was the prayer before going to confess. There were the prayers after confession, and of course, there was the rosary. As a ‘new’ Christian, I wanted to pray, but I didn’t know how. I went to a Christian bookstore to see if I could find ‘non-Catholic’ prayers. I found some, but it didn’t seem like there were standard prayers, special words to say for specific situations. I couldn’t figure out how in the world I was going to pray! Then it dawned on me: just talk to God!
As I began speaking to God daily, my prayers definitely had a Catholic dialect. I imagined the prayers to sound to God like a Southerner would sound to someone in New Hampshire. I had an accent! As my prayer life went on, and as I found myself sending little prayers up all through the day, I noticed that my accent had begun to fade.
I still worry about how my words sound, but I know that God doesn’t care what words I use. I know what He cares about is that I bare my heart to Him. The most important thing during a prayer of thanks, a prayer of confession, or a prayer on someone else’s behalf is that I am honest and I don’t try to hide any of my feelings. It wouldn’t work anyway!
I’m also finding that the idea to “pray without ceasing” has come into my heart and taken hold. I have found that I have an almost contstant dialog running through my brain with God. Big and small things, I am speaking to God. I am asking for wisdom and strength as I look for a new job, I am asking for patience and an open heart when I talk to my children and my husband. Of course, there are the constant prayers of confession as black thoughts begin to cloud my mind daily.
One of the things I miss most about going to the gym in the mornings is the special time of prayer I had at the end of my workout. Before I hit the shower, I would cool down and stretch. I had the playlist on my ipod set so that the song “Here I am to Worship” (Tim Hughes’ version) would be the last song to play. As the song began, I would be in the yoga position called the “child pose” . I would remain in that position for the entirety of the song, absorbing the lyrics and thanking God for the numerous blessings He has poured on me, even though I don’t deserve them.
Now, some of my friends used to raise a bit of a stink that I would practice yoga postures, especially while listening to Christian music. In my opinion, any activity that allows you to tune out the world and helps you focus on God can only be good. Anyway, that’s a debate for another post.
November 3, 2008
When the ‘Levy’ Breaks…
I am a band parent. Yep. It’s true. A band parent.
I stand in the endzone at football games, where our band plays to support our football team. I take home the color guard uniforms and wash them, dry them, mend them as needed. I take home color guard flags and mend the silks.
I help my drum major daughter print and hang up signs for the band’s upcoming competitions. I ride the busses with the band kids to different destinations. I pull pit equipment onto the field, I carry flags, rifles, instruments, you name it.
At competitions, I keep tape, safety pins and windex handy, as well as a couple extra dollars for any band kids that might have forgotten to bring money for something to eat.
I can name all 80 members & instructors.
Yeah. Band Parent. This is what happens to band geeks when they grow up.
Our marching season is over. On Sunday, our kids took the field at Welcome Stadium for the state finals. They played their hearts out. They walked away with a Superior rating, the highest possible.
Now I’m wondering what’s going to happen to our music department, and more importantly, our kids that are involved in the program. We have a levy coming up on the ballot tomorrow. It’s an operating levy, and our school hasn’t had one in 13 years. This will be the 4th time in two years that the levy has come up. It’s been voted down each time.
So far, we’ve lost the gifted education program, we’ve lost school transportation, and we have pay to play fees that have just about cleaned out my bank account. Clubs have disappeared, and the ones that are left are terribly expensive and are limited in the depth of their activities. We’ve lost teachers, school resource officers, and other forms of support for our kids.
This time, it seems that we are going to lose more teachers, athletics, clubs, and music education if the levy gets shot down again.
As I rode the bus on Saturday with the band kids, I took some time to think about each one. There are a lot of kids for whom the band organization is the one thing that is holding them together. We have a lot of musically inclined kids, who otherwise may not be in any other positive social group. Our band is a family. These kids know each other and trust each other in a way that surpasses all social divisions outside the band room. We have kids of all social statuses, all GPAs, all backgrounds.
I’m wondering how some of these kids will spend their time if they lose band. How many kids’ lives are going to be affected long term?
I’m wondering, why this levy has not passed. Yes, we have several residents in our city that are in their golden years. I know their plight, I know that fixed incomes do not allow for rising taxes. Our levy bill will be the equivalent to the price of 1 pizza per month, per household.
I know that economically, we’re in the midst of some really tough times. However, the long term cost of paring our schools down to the bare minimum is what none of us can afford.
I’ve talked to several parents who are planning on taking their kids to another school district if the levy doesn’t pass this time. There goes a lot of talent, right out of the community. The current real estate atmosphere in my town is pretty bleak. People can’t sell their homes. More homes are going to be for sale when people move out of the district. Sellers are going to have to come down on the prices of their homes just to get them sold.
A community that is dying is a community that is vulnerable to crime. While I sympathize with those on fixed incomes who say they can’t afford a tax increase on their homes, I wonder how they’re going to get by once our city starts going the way of other communities that have lost funding. I can go 10 minutes south, and on the main street of another city, I see businesses that are boarded up, a shopping mall that is closed, restaurants that are closed, with parking lots that are cracked and pitted, and weeds and wild ivies covering the buildings. I want to take all of our residents who have voted “no” in the past to these communities, and give them a glimpse of our future.
Good communities, growing communities, all hold our children and their education in high regard. Good schools will bring progressive businesses, progressive businesses will bring consumers. Good schools will bring good families, good families will continue to invest in their children’s futures, which is the cornerstone of our success.
I’m a band mom. I’m also a volleyball mom, a basketball mom, a guard mom, a track mom. I love to watch my kids get involved. I love to see them learn life lessons on the court, on the field, on the track, in the arenas. I love to see them bond with their team mates, their coaches, their instructors. I am watching them grow up with lessons and values that will stick with them as they grow. I have continued to shell out hundreds upon hundreds of dollars in fees that seem to get higher every time the levy fails. I am not wealthy. There are days when I just want to scream because someone needs a check to take to school for one fee or another. But I won’t hold my kids back because of high fees. If they have an interest, I want them to pursue it as far and as long as they want to. I can’t stand the thought of these interests, these opportunities being taken away from them.
Just had to get a little bit of that out of my system.
For anyone who is reading this, in any community, any state: please support your local schools. In doing so, you can change lives and enrich your own life by maintaining a safe, healthy, growing community.
