No Problemo

In learning to play a new song on the piano, invariably a "hard part" comes along that makes life difficult. More than a snag, it is a great big snarl that has to be worked through, bit by bit, repeat after repeat of the troubling section.  Lately I have had to perfect about 10 hymns each month for a hymn sing, so I have struggled with quite a few tangles. Usually they're not too bad. By slowing down, seeing what is going on in the different parts, playing each hand separately, or even listening to someone else perform it, I can most times get control of a hymn pretty quickly.  They're generally not very hard.  However, with most classical pieces, and even the occasional hymn, a point of frustration lurks, waiting to test my self-control.

I remember not long ago playing the same line of music over and over probably more than a hundred times.  Finally one night, I had had it.  I banged on the keys, stomped, shrieked, and yelled like a three-year-old.  My husband happened to be in the room and made the mistake of commenting on my behavior.  Surprisingly, I replied with something that actually made sense (to me).  I said that, yes, I was extremely frustrated; that after practicing a song that many times and still messing it up, any normal human being would lose it!  It was kind of a turning point for me, in terms of my bad temper.

I have always had a volatile disposition, and have felt bad about it.  Really the worst part about it is you make a fool of yourself.  So I guess it is at least humbling.  But I realized that night that there was a real point of exasperation, and I had reached it.  It wasn't so much my defect of character this time, but a reasonable response to hitting a wall.  And I even felt good about getting there, because for the majority of my life I have avoided frustration and humiliation by not persevering.  Here I was, doing the work, which involved plowing through this antagonism.

So I didn't feel guilty.  And after that, I sat down and played the piece through.  I don't even remember what it was now because I can play it without thinking.

Playing piano is one thing I love to do because it allows me to release what is deep inside, even if I didn't write the music.  It can be someone else's ideas I am expressing, with a bit of my personality thrown in.  The other day someone told me I play "beautifully," which I thought was funny because she has only heard me playing out of a hymnal.  There is not much room for artistic interpretation in that!  But maybe it was the beauty of the hymns themselves she was hearing. 

There are hard parts in life.  There has been one for me in comprehending the Gospel.  It is that Christ died for our sins.  He died for my sin.  That is the one thing about Christianity I have had trouble grasping.  It doesn't make any sense.  Once, for a flickering moment I thought I understood it.  Sitting in Pastor Brian's office as he was explaining it to me, unfolding God's righteousness, taking me through Hebrews and the Old Testament, expounding on the sacrifices...  It was enough for me --the Holy Spirit was there--my heart was sealed. That was 17 years ago.

Since then I have to admit it has been a recurrent problem.  I have studied and asked and listened and read.  I have thought and prayed and talked and written.  Still, it is inexplicable. And yet, it is what I base my life on--by faith. I will never completely understand what Jesus Christ has done.  My brain cannot contain it. But I am walking, walking by faith not by sight--like when you just forget what you're doing and the song seems to play itself through your hands.

"Abandonment never produces the consciousness of its own effort, because the whole life is taken up with the One to Whom we abandon...John 3:16 means that God gave Himself absolutely. In our abandonment we give ourselves over to God just as God gave Himself for us, without any calculation. "--Oswald Chambers

Vermont Sugar Free Syrup

The title comes from the first item on my shopping list, which also happens to be scribbled with blog ideas.  I have few uninterrupted blocks of time to do this, so I have to jot down my thoughts and hope to remember what they mean later on.  For instance, I have "pets--fish" written, and have no clue what that was about.

I do find it funny that the sugar-free pancake syrup I buy is called "Maple Grove Farms Vermont Sugar Free Syrup," as if it came out of a real tree in some idyllic northeastern landscape.  Not a big fan of artificial sweeteners, but hey, gotta have my low-carb gluten-free pancakes.

Okay, I also have "bullies" down here, and don't know what that's about either.  But ah--here's one: "card catalog."  Now that will bring me to a topic.

I was a lover of the card catalog.  If you don't remember, it was a great oaken bureau found in the library. On the face of it were rows of small, but very long (when you pulled them out) drawers. Each one had a bronze handle and a label of the alphabetical section contained within it.  The drawers were stuffed with 3 x 5 typewritten cards that told you, by author or by title, where to find the book you wanted. It was a great system.  It worked.  But then came computers.

I am not against technology.  Writing on my laptop is ecstasy.  It might even be possible to make a helpful  program to use as a substitute for the card catalog.  However, the likelihood of our town's public library selecting such a system was about as likely as me winning the Pulitzer Prize.  For a time they kept both.  I did try the computer search on many occasions, as a test for my blood pressure.  It could bring a man to tears. I would type in the correct author and title of a book that I could see on the shelf and the computer would say it did not exist.  I remember it clearly.  It was D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths.  

Well, one day the inevitable finally happened.  I entered the public library and beheld the empty space. My beloved behemoth was gone.  I had begged them to keep it--just as a back-up.  I had even volunteered to personally keep it up to date.  But they were determined.  All was lost.  My hopes of ever finding a book easily and efficiently again had disappeared--poof!  

But you know, something positive has come of this tragedy.  Now forced to wander the stacks, hoping against hope I will find what I'm looking for...I have discovered...a whole bunch of cool books I might not have seen otherwise! 

It's My Birthday and I'll Blog if I Want to

It's been an interesting year.  Things have not gone the way I had hoped, but much better.  We were intending to move, but didn't. My walk with the Lord has been rejuvenated.  It took some sitting still. There is something to Jer. 29:13--"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."  I had a plan--something I really wanted.  But my desire for what God wants has finally grown to where it took a stand.  Amazingly, I stuck my toe in the water of obedience which for me was, simply, to wait.

I have become weary of forcing my will.   Though God has been merciful, there are real consequences for my foolish stubbornness.  There is also something to Acts 26:14--"...it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks."

Recently I confessed to a friend that I have not been a good wife.  I have been critical, controlling, and crabby.  I didn't want to be this way, but like many other sinful habits I found it hard to escape.  She recommended I fast against this stronghold.  I've been having some problematic issues with fasting lately, so we decided that a week long fast off "treats" might do as a substitute. It went really well.  This friend is actually a mentor and she has steered me right many times.

One of the things she has taught me that has helped immensely is to spend time praising God. I had known the formula "ACTS" for prayer time (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) but had kind of struggled with the "A" part.  My friend told me that she would put on worship music and praise God that way.  I really don't care for most "contemporary Christian" music, so I kind of thought that wouldn't work  well for me...but what I do like are hymns.  One morning I decided to take my hymnal off the piano and began to sing some of the lyrics in praise to the Lord.  I cannot begin to express how this began a WAY closer walk with God than I have ever had before. 

Psalm 100:4 says, "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name."  I have felt this verse come alive, as though praise is actually a key with which to enter into his courts.  It has been for me, time and time again, whether I feel like it or not.  I "just do it" and am blessed.

Very recently I have begun considering being resurrected with Christ.  Before, I was so busy trying to "put to death" the "old" and not even thinking toward the "new."  Always looking at my sinfulness and forgetting to look up at Christ.  These are central verses to me now:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.--Gal. 2:20

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.--2 Cor. 5:17

...for we walk by faith, not by sight.--2 Cor. 5:7

They all speak of living, being, walking...not sitting on a fence.

My Trip to San Diego

Well, after many, many years, I finally made it back to California.  This is entirely because of my husband, Ron.  He knows how to travel.  Well, I did have a part in it--got us $600 in airline ticket vouchers.  So, with our two boys in tow, we made the trek to a land where I had always dreamed I'd live one day.

The photo is of course not San Diego, but Anza Borrego Desert.  It was so weird and cool.  Never would have gone there either if not for Ron.  Didn't think it would be worth driving two hours through the mountains... Wrong! The mountains themselves were equally fantastic.  Gigantic whitish boulders scattered over grassy hillsides, towering earthen peaks looking like enormous brown folded blankets...indescribable, really.

San Diego was also an alien world.  Hundreds of plants I had never seen before--the breeze smelling sweet with them.  Where would one even begin learning to identify all this completely unfamiliar stuff?  And of course the beach was perfection.  The continuous pulsing roar, sandy shores, waves of blues, greens, purples, luscious foamy whites....  Surfers were everywhere, even though it was in the 50's.  And I could see why--to be in those waves--almost like part of them.  It was tremendous just watching them.

We stayed in a well-furnished southwestern style townhome, which had two lovely porches overlooking the neighborhood. It was clean, comfortable, and in an interesting and convenient location.  We found plenty to do and most of it was free, or at least affordable.  (Ron made many trips to the French bakery around the corner!)   He had also rented a convertible for our stay and that was fun.  It had satellite radio so we sometimes found great songs to listen to, old breezy hippie-ish tunes from the early 70's.  Part of me started to hearken back to the old desires of my heart--to be unencumbered by all this uptightness which now pretty much fits like an old glove, or a sock, or a uniform, or a vice.

An internal struggle began to arise as I tried to fit the feelings I was having with my life as a follower of Christ--what I was soaking up from the California-ness around me, and the yearning for happiness and a carefree spirit that was welling up from deep down inside.  I knew that part of it was right and part of it was wrong.

The setting was thought provoking to say the least.  To be away from my midwestern-bent ways and to see things from another point of view was bracing.  It was extremely helpful to actually experience it--to breathe that other air. I am still taking all this in, but I think the temptation is classic: to glorify myself or to glorify Him.

 

Fragmentation

Kids are destructive.  It seems my boys cannot not be destroying property at almost every minute of the day.  They bang their toy swords on the edges of the kitchen counters (you know, the part that chips), or on the cherry dining table. They scrape their transformers across the upholstered furniture, or dig their smelly feet into the springs and bore their pointy elbows and chins into the arm padding, or flop down like it's a trampoline. They dent the floor with heavy wooden blocks or sharp metal race cars at every opportunity.  They hang on doors and bash into walls, windows, and pull on curtains...  I probably say, "STOP THAT!!!"  100 times a day, at least.

A long time ago I figured out I would probably never be able to have anything nice. I was the oldest kid of four, and my little siblings had to wreck everything, unless the dog already did.  And then, I actually ruin a lot of my own stuff as well.  I cannot not spill on my shirts.  This is one reason for floral patterns.  I drop things a lot, which is better than throwing them, which I sometimes used to do.  And sometimes things just happen...

Like, I had this beautiful antique vase from my Great Grandmother Raymond.  It was one of the few things I've held on to over the years that had remained intact.  Until one day the shelf just fell off the wall, for no apparent reason.  If you were ever in my house, if you looked carefully at most of my nick-knacks, you would see that they have been painstakingly put back together with Elmer's Glue.  When I saw my precious oriental vase, lying in a zillion shattered orange and white pieces all over the floor, I cried.  But then, I girded myself up, and began piecing it together.  It was my biggest challenge--the shards were tiny--but I did it.  I still have the vase.

Recently I saw a picture of a broken vase that was "glued" together using gold.  This is an actual technique used by the Japanese. The golden cracks then become part of the design, and it is considered even more beautiful than the original piece. I get that concept.

Several years ago our concrete front porch and sidewalk were beginning to shift.  Instead of replacing them we decided to try "mud-jacking."  This is where they drill a hole in the concrete and push clay underneath to raise up the slab.  It worked sort of, but it did crack the porch slab slightly, and left these ugly battleship gray plugs all over the place.  Not a very attractive solution.  Being somewhat artistic and a lot cheap, I pondered the situation and came up with an idea.  I decided to paint the concrete.  Not just a solid gray, but in a colorful tile-like pattern.  I did it, and it worked.  I have to touch it up it every couple of years, but overall, I have to say that I actually like it better than just a plain, "perfect" concrete sidewalk/porch. (Not everybody agrees, but some do.)

Many times I feel like I have been shattered.  Maybe everyone does. Some days I am so fragmented as a person that I can barely function.  Although I have done the best I could to "glue" myself back together, I am not quite right. I need a better solution. This is a good realization, because without it, I might have missed out on the greatest news there has ever been.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men...--Eccl. 3:11

       

Singularity

In the last post, it seems  I overlooked the fact that precious stones and metals are also valued because of their rarity.

You know how kids always fight over the thing there is only one of?  If you have two of the same things, nobody cares about that, so don't even bother buying them each the same toy.  It doesn't work.  One thing that used to drive my parents crazy was when we'd cry, "It's not fair!"  That also infuriates my husband. "Life is not fair!" he says. He's probably right. He's smarter than me.

Although, recently a good friend of mine commented that she thought I was smart.  And then she said it again several days later.  (Perhaps she confused "muddled thinking" with "deep thinking.") Well in any case it was plenty for me to get a little puffed up.  But then I started reading a couple of books: The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis, and Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias.  The illusion was punctured.

These two books, along with another one I'm reading with my kids: God's Names by Sally Michael, have been helpful in getting the magnifying glass off me and my sin and onto God, where it belongs.  There is SO much more to God than I can begin to hope to imagine.  I am extremely thankful for teachers who help to stretch my brain so I don't just stay stuck with the little things I see.

In God's Names, the author states, "(God) always does what is best for His people. (bolded Italics mine)  I don't know why this hit me like a ton of bricks.  It should have been obvious.  A good thing about children's books is that sometimes I understand them.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I guess I must have thought that God sometimes does what is maybe best for some people.  Hm.  No wonder I have trouble trusting Him.

Good teaching is rare, because it has to be true, and it has to be understandable, and it has to be useful. It has to line up with Scripture. It is of great value, and yet it may not cost (me) a dime.  I may have to search for it, though.  I may have to spend some time listening, thinking.  I may have to feel a little pain in my ego.  Sometimes, though, it's just like a waterfall of blessing, pressed down, flowing over. Free.

My husband, Ron, was telling me that, as a kid, he used to find lots of fool's gold near the canal by where he lived--big rocks of it.  That would have been fun to find, I think.  To this day I don't think I'd know the difference.  I don't know a real gem from a fake, nor would I know real gold from fool's gold.  I just don't care that much about jewelry. (But I do find other ways to spend my husband's money, lest I look too innocent.)   

The truth is that God is the rarest thing of all. But He's not a thing, He's a Person. There is only one God. And yet, He is available to everyone, everywhere, all the time.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.--Matt. 13:45-46

Perish the Thought

In our Bible study last night we were reading in 1 Peter 1 that as Christians we are to "prepare our minds for action" or, as the King James puts it, to "gird up the loins" of our minds; and that we are to be "self-controlled," or "sober" in the KJV.  So we were discussing what that means and how we need to take control of our thoughts.  Paul also mentions this in 2 Cor. 5 when he tells us to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

On another tack, I was just pondering the other night, why are gems and certain metals so valuable?  I have wondered that many times, why is gold considered precious? But then it finally dawned on me (I know I am slow) that these things are practically imperishable. They pretty much won't rust or mold or burn up. Their value is perhaps not only in their outer beauty, as I had suspected but not understood. Their worth is greatly magnified by their inner stability, their near incorruptibility, at least compared to most other things on this earth.

Back to 1 Peter 1, I was reading something amazing about our inheritance as Christians. Inheritance is an intensely personal and important concept to me.  It is because I realize that God is my inheritance.  In the Old Testament, the tribe of Levi was chosen to be the Priesthood, and as such they did not receive a portion of the promised land of their own--God Himself was to be their inheritance! I have always resonated with this because I know that this is true of me.  God is my inheritance, my cup, and my portion. There is no better inheritance than this.  

I receive this blessing not because I am a Levite, but because of Jesus, who has brought us "into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade"--1Pet.1:4  

This inheritance is imperishable.  It is of  infinite value.  My inheritance was bought for me, but "it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ."--1Pet.1:18-19.

I am going to paraphrase something my pastor once said, and I've done it before but it warrants repeating.  Do you know the true worth of your own soul?  Do you realize that it is worth more than the whole world? It is to Jesus Christ, and it should be to you. Perish the thought that says otherwise.