Single Slice of Cheese

A hearts Cry –

“We live until we die” …this whole prospect regarding life and death is interesting… One minute we’re here and then, in the next moment, the heart stops beating; the electricity gets disconnected, and everything goes black. 

Once it goes to black, the chance of it coming back is reduced, but not impossible. That is where it becomes complicated. In the end, this thing called death takes us all in one way or another. Some intentionally choose the time they will breathe that last, beautiful, complicated breath, and others don’t they let life take its course. Thoughts of suicide are a fight within the self, it becomes an “option” because we choose when the heart stops beating, and consequently asks the brain to stop responding to the emotion of the electromagnetic current running through us. 

The full ripple effect is unknown and likely often unknown and untold. The emotional toll on others is not easily gauged or understood. I know people who have experienced loss in this regard, and they often have a visible reaction to the conversation and yet, I don’t think it’s ever fully explored and expressed how they are truly feeling about that loss. All I know for sure is, from the expressions of others, it hurts in ways that other things don’t, both in them and in the one contemplating…

Yet, the depth of anger, anxiety, and the other 164 emotions cascading at any given moment is also often under-explored. Our culture has virtually demonized, definitely dismissed, and diverted attention from our inner world. Granted, mental health has become a “hot topic” of late, but it took a breakthrough starting with soldiers coming back from the war-torn desert battlefields of Iraq to get our attention. Prior to this revolution in health care, the prevailing winds were to blow the dust off the feelings because we were Americans, and those colors didn’t run down our cheeks. 

In the gospels, there is a simple and complicated instruction. “Love your neighbor as yourself. This is not saying as you “love yourself”, rather it’s as if we are one organism. As if you were a part of me that I cannot live without. 

What is this “Love” then? A deep guttural heart cry. A cry for Him who blew into the dirt and gave it life, a heart cry for God, for something, or someone bigger than themselves. This is not a piece advocating for any specific deity, historical figure, messiah, etc. Why not? Because of one word. Choice.  Without choice, division ensues, and love dies the horrible death of loneliness because of subjection. When “love” is demanded and forced, it is no longer love, but enslavement.

I believe we have failed to recognize the impact of how the most iconic cultural hero, Jesus, wept too. We like to theorize about why he did, rather than focusing on that he did.  He was wrought with emotion, and he expressed it. Likely in such a way, the gospel writer felt it viscerally. We would do well in allowing ourselves to experience and express our emotions so we too felt them viscerally and others knew the depth of our grief so they could help love us, and we them, back to health. To view the emotional state of others as something we can or will inevitably identify with and experience. Emotional expressions of grief and despair are not something that needs to be “gotten over”, they need a neighbor to love them through the difficult time. Allowing them to express themselves and not be made to suppress them further.

As people, there are many things we can live without, including some of our internal organs. However, we cannot live without water, a heartbeat, or each other.

In the surreal scenarios where the question is asked “What would you do if you found out you were the last person left alive on earth?” The simple answer is, that you would die, and it would be the worst kind of death, from loneliness. Deprivation of the knowing and accepting love from another.

The sad reality is, that we are “too busy” to see this requisite need for each other.  To love our neighbors as ourselves is in part to recognize this need and then to act accordingly. To listen and respond to the heart cry and desire for connection of others to us. 

If then, we extinguish our feelings, deny our desire for expression, or worse deny others their turn to express themselves, we will lose our way. Potentially driving the proverbial bus off the frontier in a spiral of despair. This often has another name, suicide. Sometimes it is a quick death, often it is a slow painful one, through drugs or alcohol. We do not choose to label those as suicides though as they were not the immediate, heart-stopping, electric shock kind. Though, maybe we should revisit that conversation. Or better yet, we should attempt real dialogue filled with love, empathy, and a desire to see ourselves in another, flourishing.  

Perhaps we should look at another side of this block called suicide. Those who are close to making that leap, those who feel they have nothing more than a paycheck to live for, and yet keep fighting the uphill battle looking for some reward, for love, no matter how tiny a morsel it ends up being. It is in this fight, I believe, that they are unconsciously loving their neighbor as themselves. They are choosing to stay alive for those they care about, perhaps it is just one person. One person whom they do not want to disappoint.

Sadly though, trouble awaits. Waiting to disrupt the intimacy of one, separating us from “true love.” Shrouding us in a veil, one that covers our eyes and blocks our ears. One that keeps us divided from true, whole, and perfect love. One that keeps us separated from each other. Yet the veil which separates us from each other separates us from ourselves as well.

How, what, then can we do? We can mourn the loss of innocence and fight the injustices that steal it. We can stop and look. Really look at the person across the world, country, state, city, room, and table, and then see them, and ourselves in one fell swoop. See them as that integral piece of ourselves that is missing. I can stop and see you and me and what makes you and I different, yet the same. We can stop. Stop looking for what makes us different, stop the us vs. them. We can learn to love our neighbors AS ourselves. We are to love each other as if one. As if I am you and you are me…

True love cannot be divided, but it can be manifested. True love can be shared, felt, and experienced, it is the glue of unity and unification. It is the force that drives us to our knees as we bow in desperation, thirsting for, and desiring this quality, action, and emotion, for this wellspring to fill our cups, and run over our lips. It is the embodiment of the word “abide”. To come together as one, to live as one… It is the universal spirit, that binds us together, it is what drives us to the point of being willing and able to fulfill a mission and give up our lives in deference to an ideal, a value, or another virtually held virtue.

Conversely, it is also that same zeal for love and its cousin acceptance that drives us apart, that drives us to the extremes of saying, I am right, and you are wrong. I will love these in my camp as myself, but I cannot see me in you…thus I will call you a terrorist…

Yet, we are them and they are us. We are all capable of doing great and dangerous things alike. Thus, we need then to do as my friend says when we part ways, “Take care of yourself out there.” 

In that small sentence, what she is saying, is, “Take care of the you I know and the one I don’t. The one I see regularly and the one I never will” … May we then choose this day to love our neighbors as ourselves…

Hey all y’all my five readers THANK YOU so much for your love and support!! I would like to say this milestone is a big deal, only, it kinda isn’t because I have not written anything out here in a REALLY long time. I would like to say that will be changing in the near future, and if I can get a few things organized in my “new world”, then yes, it will definitely be changing.

Alas, until said time, here I am in all my presence, in my fullness of folly. and self and mysteries as deep as the ocean blue, where my beloved octopi lie!

Until next time my 5 friends, be blessed, be well, and take good care one for another and the earth. Let us learn to live and breathe together, taking the time to actually come to a full stop at the sign and while there, taking in the deepest breath of life. With that parting thought, keep calm, and carry on with the rest of your day, and do not forget to stop and smell the roses!

When I look in the mirror, I don’t see words on a page, or a bearded Jewish man with very kind eyes looking back at me. Instead, I see a woman in her mid-40’s with greying hair, blue eyes and emerging crows feet. 

However, my desire as a follower of Christ, is I want to reflect His essence. I want others to see Jesus in me.  So then the question becomes, how do I, how do we, make this happen? Especially when in our Western civilization, individualism is highly prized. Yet, scripture says it is more blessed to give than receive. (Acts 20:35) HCSB

While we are responsible for our own spiritual growth, there is no replacing the need for others. This not only includes those in our regular circles, but those who are lying outside of our “gates” (home, church and work).

Proverbs 27:17 (HCSB) speaks to this principle. “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. In other words, I need community, I need to share that which has been entrusted to me, my life. Yet, for me to succeed, there needs to be a “we” in this equation. I have to be willing to throw off the cloak of fake heroism which says “I must bear this burden alone.”

Those of us who claim Christ as savior, yet don’t share Him in tangible ways outside of our four walls are like the rich man who neglected Lazarus, as he lay outside the man’s gate. Jesus told His disciples “All people will know you’re my disciples if you have love one for another”. (John 13:35) HCSB

As people of faith who live and work in a world ever consumed by fear, it is, now more than ever, our time to stop and see who is lying outside our gates, asking for our crumbs. It is our time to show the love of Christ in tangible ways. 

Many reading this might be like me, living in nice, and affluent small towns where the needs are not so apparent; it is easy to become encapsulated and insulated in our own cocoons of our work, church and family.  However, in order to become the church, the living, breathing, collective body of Christ, we need to band together. In a time of division, it is time for those who name the name of Christ, to set down our fear and physically lift up our fellow mankind. In so doing, we cannot forget, nor forgo the importance of (appropriate) physical touch. A hug, handshake or touch on a shoulder, shows those who are hurting, you are valuable to me. It builds a connection, a bridge mightier than words alone.

The question then becomes what is “Love” and how do I live it like Jesus did?  “Am I supposed to tell certain religious leaders who are creating a new form of slavery, they are wrong?” “Technically, we have hospitals and doctors for ‘healing” the sick…’ where does that leave me?”

Jesus Himself went against the grain and rules of the religious leaders of His day and He touched those who were dying from the inside out. So too can, and must we find those who are dying from the inside out; freely giving the salt and light which have been entrusted to our care. More than ever we need each other and the rest of the world needs to see a bearded Jewish man when they look into our eyes. 

We must love freely, openly, meeting people where they are. We must view others like the wine of Cana, drawing out the best in them because of our genuine love for them. If I have not love, I am but a resounding gong. We need to set down our weapons of, labels, fear, snap judgements and wage peace one with another. Embracing their brokenness, while infusing them with His wholeness.  However, we cannot do this, if we continue letting fear rule our faith.

In order for others to see Christ in us, we must love ourselves and our neighbors. We have been conditioned to embrace our brokenness, I am suggesting we let go of our limiting beliefs about our imperfections and start embracing our identities as whole, new creatures in Christ. When we claimed Him as Lord and savior of our lives, we invited Him to have dominion in our lives. In turn, He invites us to partake in communion or common union. Becoming one with Him and the Father, through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Because we have been given new life, we must now share it with our neighbors.

Sadly,  it is those in the closest proximity, who are the most estranged from us. In virtually every community there are various opportunities to volunteer.  In the workplace, we can try engaging with different co-workers, especially those in less desirable positions. By engaging with those outside of our comfort zone, and in the trenches, we will meet the real superheroes of any operation, as well as meeting some awesome people along the way.

Most of all, we must become missionaries within our neighborhoods. Yes, I mean those who live next door, and across the street. Often, when we think of a “missionary” the first thing that comes to our mind is Africa, and how we don’t want God to send us there.  

For the record, no, I don’t mean every encounter we have one with another needs to be an overt evangelistic effort. Realistically, those overt efforts are usually less effective than simply befriending someone. In order for others to see Christ in us, we must see ourselves as the “pearl of great price the true value of ourselves, that we can in turn impart that same value to others.

Let us now focus in with a few practical ways to get to know and love our neighbors. Try hosting a small bonfire in the backyard complete with makings for s’mores. If fire is not your thing, try hosting a block party, or a community game night. Other, low key options include, inviting one another back into our homes. Knock on a different neighbors door once a month and ask them to come for popcorn and snacks. For something low maintenance and yet rewarding, send random gifts to your neighbors, highlighting an attribute of theirs. The list of possibilities is endless! These are just a few suggestions to get the creative juices flowing!

In a moment, as a movement, we have abandoned our power.  

In a world of color, we have blanched, faded, and folded. Unless, that is, we can answer the age old question of “why”, we will become void, an entity of no value.

This time, the question at the end of the “why” is not “…am I here?”! Rather, it is “why do I go?”

Go where? Work? That’s obvious, to collect the participation trophy at the end of the week and enjoy the weekend. 

Go where then? The answer is, to church. Why do I, why do we, go to church? 

We file in like drones, sitting in rows like clones, we sit there staring, pretending to listen. What are we actually hearing? 

We have our bibles on our phones so we can pretend to be following along when we’re really following the feed…we gaze and graze on whatever is streaming, when in reality, the life and live event is being presented in front of us. Yet we’re nowhere close to being present. 

When it’s done, we file back out to our cars and wonder why nothing changes. Our hearts may burn for a moment when our ears catch a shortcoming, a longing or desire, a guttural flutter, a momentary gnawing of why…what did he just say?

The former moments of engagement have succumbed once again to estrangement. 

Again I am left wondering why…?

We’re given words of wisdom on how to get to Heaven when we die, how to be moral, how to run faster and try harder.  But in the end what do they produce? Is a yield present, can it be found in our abundance? Or are we simply indulging a primal need for acceptance and belonging?

Has the rhetoric been reduced to  dictation, or perhaps an incantation. Does it serve the greater inner need? 

Is there more for us in this hour of unrest? 

Are we looking to check the box and say “I did my best!” Did you really? Were you really there?  That’s not fair one may say, I ask, did you feast or simply graze off your feed? 

We have come so far from shore we’re not even sure why we go. We say the right thing, and we might sing along, if we know the song. 

How can we be Christ to the world when we don’t know who we are or why we’re there? How do we recharge and reclaim? Be engaged rather than estranged?  That, my friends is where you come in! Answer the question of why? What is your real reason, not the platitude “To worship God”. 

How is sitting in a pew listening to a skew of words and grazing on the feed – worship worthy? 

The hardest gauge to read, is the love gauge one has for another…

One of the most interesting dynamics in life is that of relationships.  We come into this world by no choice of our own, to two people who have chosen to come together in a moment. Whether or not they remain that way is as variable. Yet,  this is unrelated to our place in this new dimension. We simply arrive on the scene, screaming for all we’re worth, nine months after the “moment”.

With this action & arrival, a family is created and new relationships formed. There may be other children or other partners in the grown up realm… What makes this all so interesting and complex is what we do with these (new) relationships. Meaning, we call those to whom we have been born our parents and if other children, our brother, sister, siblings…

Yet, we’re all individual… Single, autonomous beings who are alone when it comes to thoughts, feelings, actions etc. But wait, we’re all connected too, how does that work? DNA or Deoxyribonucleic acid, is how we’re connected within the family unit. Yet there is more to this…friends and “other” people…

Friends as opposed to family, are another form of relationship which creates a tie, a bond, but more loosely connected than blood. Generally, they’re the back up squad to the family, they’re the ones you call right after calling someone who’s blood. Yes, in many cases blood also creates a friendship – but others it doesn’t and goes horribly wrong…It’s as if there’s no real balance to this dynamic, either family is close or its cold. Lukewarm and tepid also come to mind, but they’re not in the cycle of balance, making for a 3 legged stool.

On the other hand, friends can also be the missing link of a family, the un-biological sister or brother, a bond can form so deep only death could part it. Friends are of tremendous value, sometimes even to the point of being chosen over family, because they are  the ones you hangout with and have all the best times and laughs with.

The question then is, how do two (or more) complete strangers come together as friends? How can one draw out the personality of another, to the point of being a “truth serum” simply by being there, while another is seen a just a fixture, something sturdy and reliable?  How does one have such significant, silent effect on another? We call it chemistry, but what does that really mean? 

Sometimes, friendships can become family via marriage… the ultimate of two atoms colliding… I am by far not a chemist, nor an alchemist, yet, I see all around me the effects of this “chemistry in motion”.

The initial two form a tie based on this mystery called chemistry, which has its base in, interests, expectations, social need and personal desires. This foundation forming combination seems to be the most solid and yet most vulnerable to breakdown and disintegration…Yet, all relationships are at risk for this seismic shift. Interests, expectations – people change…

Once again leaving us to be the single autonomous unit we already were. Or simply put, alone again. 

Clearly, blood is thicker than water, yet, blood consists mostly of water…

What makes this unique and not at the same time is, the whole dancing dynamic is comprised of one common denominator – people.

People are everywhere, spilling out of every corner of the earth. Population experts claim the number of people in the world is around 7.5 billion people. However we don’t seem to invite all of these “other” random strangers to our family functions or to hangout with our friends, until they become one… But wait, they are people too! Just like, but not quite, just not “us”…

To further complicate and even confound the issue, technically, we all are related in one way or another. We all originated from two people. Some could possibly make the argument for coming from 10 people. They being, the original two, Adam & Eve and  after the flood, Noah & his wife or from one of their 3 sons and wives. How did so many come from so few? 

How is it we get along one with another with so many different  personalities?  We’re the same, yet different, alone yet connected…no wonder the earth spins!

Unless you’re like some who prefer to think of themselves or perhaps just others as descending from monkeys who evolved from random protozoans crawling out of the primordial soup kitchen… If that is the case, then really, we’re all here by random chance, despite the chances of “us” being here as ourselves is one in 400 billion and then we’re not connected at all, but simply alone. Or are we connected via that single cell – that decided to divide..?

As it stands, at the end of the day, we are all still people, and a family of sorts. Some of us are even friends – 

Fin

Silence, is the sound after the noise…

Have you ever stopped to listen? To reeeaaalllly listen? Most of us “listen” to respond. To get OUR point across, we don’t really seem to care about the opinion or points of others, we just want to be heard.

What I have noticed more and more is how much “visual noise” there is in conjunction with “regular noise” and then there’s the chatter noise; those conversations & voices in our heads. The ones we don’t talk about, the things we “want” to, but don’t say. Those things, which really, are probably best left unsaid.

Let’s take a look at all this noise. Often, the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is look at the time on my phone, and speaking of my phone, because it’s in my hand, it becomes visual noise….Facebook, Google, Candy Crush, some other random search for how to make self rising flour.

While driving on the highway there is even more noise, road noise, sirens, and more visual noise. Bumper stickers about honor students, stick figure families and save Mother Earth. Plus, billboards, construction barrels, and my least favorite, speed limit signs. I realize construction barrels and speed limit signs are not really visual noise, but they add to the “other noise” category, the chatter going on in our heads. We grumble about construction or the fact we want to go an entirely different speed than the posted limitation…

Or how about this excerpt of a conversation, “It’s obvious we’re bringing humanities children back in”, in conjunction with, “ wow…those shorts, they could pass for underwear…”,  “yeah, I would be tugging on the hemline of that skirt too…” “she’s only wearing that bandage for attention”. 

The trouble is, this wasn’t a conversation being held by two people, it was the chatter noise in my head. I was silently judging a specific group, and their decision trees regarding their “out the door outfits of the day”.  “Do I wear the flowered shorts and my Marine Corp. Hoodie, or do I go with…?” “I hurt my wrist 3 weeks ago, but I think I will wrap it again anyway…”

That’s when it ALL hit me!  Who are these people I was silently judging?  The answer is, they’re the younger versions of ourselves. Kids, whose parents surrendered them for a couple hours of peace on a Sunday morning. Some of whom will go into the service industry, some writers and artists, some will become parents and others felons. 

They may have different faces, mannerisms and quirks. But deep down, in their core they are us. As we were those who came before us. Given this revelation, one would think we would or should be tripping over ourselves trying to make sure these younger versions get on the right path in life, to make sure the one didn’t really become a felon. Yet I, like most others that day, are not really listening. We are not looking into their silent eyes and hearing all they have to say, all they want to become. Why not? Because we are too enthralled with our own noise. We like being inundated with information, gossip and conspiracy theories, why? Because it’s comfortable. Silence is not. Seeing, those words being silently spoken by the eyes of another is not comfortable, it’s rather frightening to be exact, especially when it’s being said by “humanities children”. Yes, those younger, different versions of ourselves…

_{*Photo Credit: Reka Jellema}

Have you ever really considered what it means to be human, to be alive? I was looking at my mom the other day, and wondered about the marvel of how we’re all so different, yet alike at the same time. Sometimes I reduce us to “walking bags of electrified salt water”. Other times, I marvel at the engineering that went into each and every one of us.  How is it, I can live happily with her, yet, my siblings could not? What drives one person to be angry all the time and another to be laissez faire?

With some 7+/- billion of us walking around down here with different personalities, it’s truly a wonder how we have made it this far.  We talk about having “chemistry one with another”.  Often, this is code for did we find the “one” or when making new friends and acquaintances, did we mesh? Why are some people not able to get along with themselves, let alone anyone else? What causes anger, or frustration, or happiness? Yes, circumstances play a part in them, but it’s not like at the autopsy we can find these emotions within them.

Why is it when I met one person in the winter of 2016, I felt an instant connection with them on that particular day, when I felt something completely opposite towards them earlier in late 2015 at our initial meeting?

Much of what happens in life feels like it is outside of our control, outside of our ability to predict, to rationally understand. I had a dear friend die of cancer, in the summer of 2018 who was still making a difference in many lives when hers was cut short.

Perhaps her calling had been fulfilled….Truth be told, her legacy is residing in each of the lives she touched – she too is like this flower, the seeds which she planted are blooming (more) abundantly.

But…what does it really mean to die? Is it when the electricity is cut off from a body? Does a massive short circuit happen and then boom, lights out? Or is there something more? Some it would seem, die before they lived. But what does it mean to be alive? Is it simply because your breathing or when you discover why you’re here in the first place? What if you never make that discovery? Are we then to brace for impact should our paths cross?

How is it life can be framed from the perspective of beauty and joy coming from loss? We want everything to be perfect, to be pain free. We want to have the people we care most about with us forever, however, reality provides just the opposite, so what is it that allows for beauty from the ashes? Is it because we’re made of the same substances – carbon and energy?

Perhaps it really is that, nothing grows on the mountaintop…but, wild flowers decorate the valley floors with their blooms popping out in vibrant colors — After a rain, a releasing of even more carbon and energy into the atmosphere. Let us then just be here in the now, that we might hear and live before we die, before the lights go out.

• Fin

I have always been fascinated with bags. The fact you could put something in another thing and carry it conveniently was always appealing.

Backpacks in particular have always been my “go to” bag, quickly followed by the uber cool messenger bag. Their particular allure was all the places you could go with one of these sleek, stylish bags slung over your shoulders. The things you could put into them…oh you know, the THINGS!

Back then, the more pockets and compartments, the cooler the bag. As kids shopping in K-Mart one day, my cousin and I found our dream bag; a turquoise Jordache backpack, complete with an insulated lunch box & thermos! Talk about the epitome of cool to a couple of ten year old girls growing up in the 80’s!

However, as a young lady in waiting, I also had a fancy for purses. I was an adventurous sort & I would go to garage sales and look at all the bags and unwanted “valuables” of others.

One day, on such an adventure, I found a purse, and as I was exploring the depths of this treasure, it rattled. There was buried treasure within the treasure itself!

The garage sale purse had holes in the very fabric of its being, yet the structure was sound, however, the lining, that which was entrusted to keep the valuables in place had failed. It allowed for the valuables to slip from their place, and collect and congregate in the structure, but they no longer had a specific place to be in the garage sale purse; it soon belonged to me!

An entity in my life has been vexing my soul of late. An ancient verse in the seldom-studied book of Haggai came to mind when thinking about this particular structure, entity and treasure… “You earn wages to put money into a purse with holes in it….”

The entity itself, and the structure, is not mine, but I am a part of it. However, much like the garage sale purse, I feel like the fabric has lost its ability to hold its valuables in place. Some are now floating aimlessly while others have found a new place within the structure.

Continue reading The Garage Sale Purse –