On Going Blogless

Sober.

That is how I feel.

Because I said two little words that changed my week.

I said, 'So what?'

That was Sunday morning. Sunday is a day I've personally decided will be computer-free. No blogging. Not even email.

On Sunday morning, before anyone else was up, this is what happened...

I flick on the computer. I love that little sound it makes when it's booting up. My heart speeds up a bit. I feel light. A thought comes, 'It's Sunday you know.' The thought is maybe from my own brain, no voice from the Universe or anything. Still, I reply as if to Someone. 'So what?' I say in my head. I check email. Flit to a few favorite blogs. Decide to start breakfast. Pick up a mug full of water and take it directly over the keyboard, which I NEVER do. I'm home free. Even stepping towards the kitchen now. I pause. Why? I tip the cup backwards, in a most awkward and unnatural movement. I am surprised. Bizarre, this thing I've done. And now I see it. Water all over the keyboard. I tip the computer, wipe it off. I go back on-line to check things out. The machine seems okay. I push the 'Off' button. Hours later, my spouse asks what is wrong with the computer. How can I say it could be just this.... I said two little words to Someone. 'So what...'

The rest of the week was the answer to my bold and unwise question of so what? This is so what, when we compromise our commitments... isolation, loneliness, ruin, inconvenience, cost.

I should have known this of course. I had just finished a talk I would deliver on Tuesday, called Stone Upon Stone (hat tip to Ted Gossard by the way, for the phrase 'praying through sin', which I used in the talk.) One verse I hadn't included in the talk but which fit the imagery was from Proverbs, 'A man without self-control is like a city without walls.' On Sunday, I chose to go wall-less. What was I thinking?

I should have known.

(On a lighter note, here is what came of going blogless: I read Coming Home to Your True Self: Leaving the Emptiness of False Attractions. A REALLY good book. I started Keeping House, another excellent book. I kept house. I lost weight. I started playing my guitar after 15 years. Not the best, but you can hear proof below. Going blogless was painful, but life offered good things in exchange.)


Riddle Song, sung (not well, but hey, I'm a writer not a singer : )







Riddle Song Lyrics, spoken






Abstract Sculpture photo, by L.L. Barkat. Taken in Washington, D.C.

STONE CROSSINGS:

Ted's book club Heron Road, suffering discussion

Stark

Responding to the last post, Maria commented that she resists silence. Surely she is not alone.

Why do we resist?

Barton suggests that our "normal distractions...keep us out of touch with our interior world." Then she quotes Willard, who says, "Silence is frightening because it strips us as nothing else does, throwing us upon the stark realities of our life. It reminds us of death, which will cut us off from this world and leave only us and God. And in the quiet, what if there turns out to be very little between us and God?" (p.48)

This past weekend I had time to be more alone than usual, and I chose to go with it. I found myself feeling lonely. I was carrying some kind of sadness in my soul. Would I have noticed if I were distracted? Perhaps not. In my sadness, I found myself seeking God, leaning into His comfort. The sadness didn't really go away. But neither did the stark reality of my emotions leave me in despair.

In this way, I felt a strange hope. Not a happiness, surely not. But a hope. And that is a reality I can live with.


Red Berry on the Thorns photo, by L.L. Barkat.

NEW LINKS TO THIS POST:

L.L.'s The Gift of Sadness

Naming It

Beloved.

That was the name of the murdered child in Toni Morrison's disturbing novel Beloved. Of course, there's great irony in the name. Is a child, murdered by her mother to save her from enslavement, truly beloved? On the other hand, isn't it a strangely brave act of love to put that child away from worldly danger? These odd, contradictory thoughts come together in the name: Beloved.

In the bible, names are also points of tension, irony, paradox. Gideon is called "mighty warrior" when he is nothing of the sort. Abraham is called "father of a multitude" while he is simply an old man without a son. Mary is hailed "blessed among women" when indeed she will watch her son die upon a tree (cursed, says Deuteronomy 21:23, is the man hung on a tree).

We each have names. Family names. God-given names. Maybe we are living in our names and they are making sense, or maybe there is tension, irony, and paradox.

What's your name and how is it feeling today?


Leaning Field Grass photo by J Barkat. Used by permission. Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.


RELATED:

LL's latest talk Beloved Child

Blog Traffic: Who Needs It?

All over the blogosphere, well-meaning bloggers tell me how to increase my blog traffic. Sometimes I get sucked in. I spend two hours (when she promised it would be less than one) to add "Most Popular Posts" to my sidebar. Apparently, this "simple" exercise increased her traffic. But me? It simply ate two hours of my precious time.

Other times, I remember who I am. A writer first, a blogger second (or maybe tenth). I'm not about traffic; I'm about words... finding them, tackling them, molding them, sharing them. And when I remember who I am, I go read (again) a portion of V.H. Wright's The Soul Tells a Story.

I read things like this...

Embrace your personality. Study it, love it, exploit it to the fullest. Find the angles that are specifically yours, and work from them. There are stories only you can tell, because they are intrinsically tied to who you are and who you have been. Keep working on the flaws, the weaknesses, the neuroses. But do it with love. (p.176)

When I read such advice, I get this urgent sense that I must, one more time, go out to my Secret Place and study the pine, which is just now shedding puffs of bronze. I lie on my red plastic sled and pray, "Search me and know me..." I listen to the warble of birds I haven't heard since spring and realize that some things are only here at certain times, and I must be ready when they come.

Blog traffic. Who needs it? At some level, I suppose I do. But I also need to park myself in the little woods and listen to God's voice on the wind.

Driving Me

If you happen to see a driver taking extra wide turns and avoiding parallel parking, it might be me. Ever since I received the "you're stuck in all-wheel drive" diagnosis, I've been engaging in avoidance driving. Sharp turns make the car shudder. Parallel parking is the worst of the worst, as my wheels almost skid me into a space. My wheels are working against each other, which could cause permanent axel damage. So I'm trying to live turn-free.

Of course, all astute readers are thinking, "GET THE CAR FIXED! YOU CAN'T DRIVE IN A STRAIGHT LINE FOREVER!" Right. True! So I plan to go to that scary T place (the transmission guy), but life's requirements are precluding that option for at least a few more weeks. In the meantime, I'm living in a state of anxious control.

It struck me, as I was trying to let inertia move me into my driveway, backwards, uphill, that this is somewhat a parable of my life. There are ways that my childhood experiences have gotten me stuck in all-wheel-drive. I often live in a state of anxious control.

Indeed, I'm feeling the deep cost of trying to live turn-free.

There is no transmission place to cruise into, to fix this chronic problem. But I am using my time in the Secret Place to place myself before God. Mostly right now I'm finding a well of emotion and sorrow when I show up there. But it feels like the beginning of discovery. Diagnosing what's driving me.


Tire in Drive photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.

Filtered

This photo by Gail Nadeau is filtered. And colored. (Not with crayons I imagine.)

When I think of my life, I realize that it too is filtered. Through a lens of grace.

Now there have been times when it was all too different. When my life was filtered through the identity of "victim". Or when everything was interpreted through issues of power, loss or gender. And I suppose these still creep in to veil my days. Memories have a way of shaping and driving us.

And yet. Grace.

The other day Scot McKnight mentioned that he'd done a talk on the restorative aspects of grace. I commented, "Yes, grace is often seen as a one-time offering to the sinner who takes it up and is saved. But grace is wider, longer, deeper, isn't it?"

Indeed. Grace is my filter. It colors my days.


May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy... Psalm 126:5


Photo by Gail Nadeau. Used with permission.

Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.

RELATED:

Inihtar's Grace

Halfmom's Strange Word Post

Special Effect

My daughter Sonia was playing with a friend. Who knows exactly what the "game" was? But I heard her shout to the boy...

"You're not a real person! You're just a special effect!"

There's some kind of wonderful lesson in that, but I am too tired to pull it out. So I will just let it stand... as something that came out of the mouths of babes. And I will try to remember to be real.


Photo by Sonia.

Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.


NEW LINKS TO THIS POST:

Spaghetti Pie's Community


RELATED POSTS:

Aegialia's Only Human