Archive for the The Journey Category

So I was cruising the internet this morning, my face glued to Facebook like some kind of zombified drone, when I happened across a friend’s feed and saw this “hilarious video“. It was funny for a minute. My son chuckled over my shoulder and I laughed too. I laughed in that way people do when they see something true and totally disturbing and don’t know how else to respond. Go ahead. Follow the link. Watch it and come back. This post will still be here.

Okay, now that we have the same point of reference, I want to tell you what I really think about the attitude behind this video. I used to have this attitude. It’s actually really fun. Until you are forced to deal with reality in the form of another pair of too tight pants. Tight pants are my nemesis. The Moriarity to my Sherlock Holmes, The Borg to my Captain Pickard, the Blob to my Shawnee Smith(if you haven’t seen it, watch this quick recap. It’s totally grody and rad if you are from the 80’s as I am). All of that to say, “funny” videos that make fun of exercise and eating a healthful diet really tick me off.

Why, you ask? Well, if you are still reading and I haven’t completely offended you, stay with me here. I will explain my position. While on the surface, poking fun at the hard work of living a healthy lifestyle is funny, mockery and sarcasm are hateful. People, by nature, like to justify their behavior. So you like to eat McDonald’s fries. Great. Eat it. But we all know there is nothing healthful about McDonald’s french fries. Let’s set aside the whole controversy over pink slime for just a minute and focus only on the white potatoes(pure carbs) that are dipped in hot fat(that, incidentally, slows down the way the body absorbs carbohydrates) and cooked until they are mush. We all like to eat them. They are tasty. But they are truly bad for the body. They slow down digestion(is that why they cause indigestion?) and cause the body to gunk up and work furiously to get rid of them. Just like candy bars. And cookies. And pizza. This video is a glorification of the worst kind of excuse: I don’t feel like eating right or exercising so I’ll make fun of those who do.

Why put off today what I can do tomorrow? Isn’t that frequently our attitude? I mean, I really need to clean my bathroom. But I’m tired. And my kids are getting on my nerves. And I really dislike scrubbing the toilet. And I had a hard day at work. And I have jelly beans I need to count.

Let’s be real for a minute, I just don’t feel like cleaning the bathroom. I can either go ahead and clean it and get it over with or I can put it off until it gets so bad I can’t stand it any longer and then clean it. For that matter, procrastinating over cleaning the bathroom is a bit of a luxury. Preparing a report for my boss, on the other hand, is a whole other ball of wax. Procrastinate over the bathroom and it stinks like little boys who missed the toilet. Procrastinate over the report and risk my paycheck. Either way you look at it, procrastination is not good.

With all of that in mind, many people make a New Year’s Resolution. They look at the new year as an opportunity to change bad behavior or make new healthier habits. One of the most popular resolutions to make is to lose weight. Obviously our culture understands that each generation is getting fatter and lazier. The weight loss industry capitalizes on our foibles and gladly takes our hard earned money every January. That is why my recent trip to Aldi produced an entire aisle of workout equipment (Yes, I did stand there staring and salivating, but that’s another blog post). It’s there every single year. Because people like to make promises to themselves that they can’t keep. But if you are serious, if you really want to loose weight, if you want to be healthy, I would like to know why you would wait until January to to get started? And why, when you fail to live up to your own goals, do you resort to mocking those of us who choose to take care of our bodies?

And that is why the video offends me. I’m just as full of excuses, procrastination’s and resolutions as the next gal. But if you ever catch me glorifying them, please find me–poke me in the eye–and direct me back to this post. It’s wrong. It’s hateful. And I don’t like it. Not even a little bit.

Next time…. Necessary First Steps For Living a Healthy Lifestyle

The Lost Chord
words by Adelaide Anne Proctor

Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wander’d idly over the noisy keys;
I knew not what I was playing, or what I was dreaming then,
But I struck one chord of music like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight like the close of an Angel’s Psalm,
And it lay on my fever’d spirit with a touch of infinite calm.
It quieted pain and sorrow like love overcoming strife,
It seem’d the harmonious echo from our discordant life.

It link’d all perplexed meanings into one perfect peace
And trembled away into silence as if it were loth to cease;
I have sought, but I seek it vainly, that one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the organ and enter’d into mine.

It may be that Death’s bright Angel will speak in that chord again;
It may be that only in Heav’n I shall hear that grand Amen!

Music plays an important role in my life. When I’m running, I like something upbeat like Switchfoot, The Original. I like to pump and jab and jump. Sometimes I even twirl around. When I’m cycling and observing nature I oscillate between Andrew Peterson and Chris Rice. These are my go to artists because they combine words that have depth and meaning with soulful tunes.

But sometimes I lose the music in the cacophony of noise. I search for a soothing sound to comfort my world-weary heart, and I hear only silence. A dull, listless numbing sensation creeps into me and I find myself searching for something, anything to fill the emptiness. Sometimes, as happened yesterday and the day before, there is nothing that comforts. I sit and breathe because that’s all I have the energy to do. It is a frustrating madness that comes over me–one I am pretty much helpless to defeat in myself.

So this morning when I heard the poem by Adelaide Anne Proctor recited, I perked up. She put words to the longing in my heart for that one chord to end all chords. It gave me a reason to hope again. She reminded me that beauty doesn’t cease simply because I am unable to appreciate it. It flourishes in the darkest places, like the concentration camp where Corrie Ten Boom languished, or in the generosity of strangers who fill sandbags when the world is flooding.

One of my friends knows I have not been feeling well. I have been fighting illness for what seems like many months. I was looking forward to the New Year’s holiday because I knew I would be able to rest with no obligations. No yard work to be done. No meals to prepare. No presents to buy or work stress to bog me down. I intended to take full advantage of the opportunity to sit on my bottom. So this morning she sent me a text message that read, “Even Wonder Woman needs to reboot every once in a while.” She said, “Keep resting.” I don’t consider myself anywhere near Wonder Woman territory, but I was glad for the reminder. Still, there is this restlessness in me and a longing for comfort. So I did what I always do. Crunches. Squats. Weight lifting. There is something very soothing to me in the routine of exercise. I didn’t do anything that made me out of breath, I just practiced the steady stream of movement that orders my cluttered brain. Physical activity reminds me I am not hopeless or helpless. I can still move. So in the middle of that exercise, when all of my words were drowned out in the dead feeling of mental exhaustion, I told my God, “I don’t trust my feelings. They lie to me. I trust you. I choose to trust you.”

“Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord–how long?” -King David via Psalm 6:2-3

Christianity defies logic at times. I believe in this invisible God that supposedly loves me enough to come to earth, sacrifice his life for me, and then die on the cross to save me. Sometimes when I hear the gospel message I think to myself, “that is so weird.” But in the night, as last night and the night before, when my dreams take me to troubled places, and my heart beats hard enough to leap from my chest, I wake to tears and fears I didn’t even know I had. I cry out for someone to save me and He is there. He is the refuge for my troubled soul.

I have a friend who has also struggled with depression. I came to know her through a Facebook post a few years ago. The post was short. One or two sentences. She is someone who attends my church that I didn’t know other than through casual conversation. But the few sentences she wrote that day struck my heart. She said she was struggling with serious health issues and needed prayer. I reached out to her and came to understand the deep pain she was fighting against. Her body had become her enemy in more ways than one. She despaired of life, even though she continued to fight. I know exactly how that feels–to choose hope against all odds, even and especially during episodes of greatest despair. She became one of my companions in suffering–an ally at heart, a confidante. Natalie is one of the few people I trust enough to call when my world turns topsy turvy. I trust her with my life because we have plumbed the depths together and found solace in shared suffering. We also cling to the same hope: Jesus.

Natalie has a blog called, Blessed are the Broken, where she sometimes shares her heart. Lately, she is sharing the hope she has found through music. Today, I find comfort in the songs she has written and sings so beautifully. My cracked and dry places feel a little less so when I hear the words to Refuge and You Will not Forget Me.

Today is a beautiful day in more ways than one. I love that the rain has stopped and the flood waters in St. Louis are receding. I am glad the sun is shining and I have had the opportunity to rest and reflect while sipping hot tea and watching a fat and ornery squirrel try to steal seeds from my “squirrel proof” bird feeder. I am glad for the complaints of my children, “Mom, why won’t you let me play the Xbox?” because that means they are still healthy and happy (generally speaking) even though they think I am inflicting cruel and unusual punishment. I am glad for physical weakness. It reminds me I am not enough and that’s okay. I am glad for rest. My body needs it. And I am thankful for music.

One day I’ll hear that lost chord and all this stuff I write about will be a distant memory. I’m really looking forward to that.

I woke up this morning to the sound of thunder. A loud crash of sound accompanied by a deluge of rain sharpened my senses. I peered out of the window to make sure the world hadn’t ended and groggily fumbled for my glasses. As the rainy world before me came into focus, I sighed. I had hoped for snow this Christmas.

But I quickly remembered, Christmas is over. The gifts have all been opened. The sweet treats have been consumed. (Who am I kidding? We still have a gazillion left to consume or sneak into the trash when no one is looking). My children rumble around the house with their assortment of creatures and toys. Everyone is happy, but I feel this sort of discontent in my spirit.

I assumed it was the excess sugar I consumed yesterday and began my strength training regimen. Abdominal crunches. Excruciating butt lifts. Planks, lunges, squats and weights. But the malaise lingered. That is, until my friend Laddie hopped over to visit with me. I rescued this rabbit from a woman on Craiglist a number of years ago. He is a Holland lop and weighs all of 2 pounds. He makes strength training fun because he hops all around my mat and tries to cuddle with me. He insists that I pet him and nuzzle him. If I don’t, he nips me or attacks my mat with his paws–digging and tugging with his sharp teeth. Sometimes I playfully swat him away, but not today. Today I just stopped and kissed the top of his head. So he repaid the favor and licked my nose, and we cuddled. I snapped a picture of him mid-bliss. There is nothing he loves more than when I cuddle with him.

And in that moment I just felt safe and warm. Because of a sometimes ornery, often bewildering, mostly lovable rabbit.

On Christmas day my husband’s father came to visit. In his youth he worked at The Humane Society. He began to tell us tales of his experiences there and it was heart-wrenching. He spoke of the people who dropped off puppies in boxes and asked, “These will get adopted, right?” He said the staff would say, “We can’t make any promises, but we do our best. Then they would walk them to the back only to euthanize them because there wasn’t space to house them. There were just too many animals and not enough kennels. He spoke of injured animals and confiscations and cruel veterinarians who didn’t want to mess with “another stupid cat” so they would euthanize it. I looked at my rabbit and considered how fortunate he is, and how many are not. I thought about the kitten I saw at my vet’s office recently. A woman had picked it up(a stray) and brought it in because it was bleeding from the nose. Another casualty of man’s indifference to the animal kingdom. I thought about how so many people consider animals as amusement rather than a living creature that thrives or dies at our whims. And finally, I thought about the cat who loved me–a cat I had grown weary of–and how I sent it to the pound because I was ignorant and couldn’t figure out how to get rid of its fleas. What a broken, messed up, world I live in. And look at how I contribute to the mess.

How I long for this world to be redeemed. How I long to be redeemed.

I got what I wanted for Christmas. My oldest son is home for a brief stay. I got to see him graduate. But he leaves again in a few weeks. The satisfaction I feel in spending time with him is fleeting, just like every other Christmas present I have ever received. So today, as I feel this pensive, reflective contentment, I also feel the need for the permanent–the solid–the conclusion to my deferred happy ending.

I know I can’t save myself. I can’t save all the rabbits or kittens either. This is why I follow One who can. I know my life is temporal. I only have so many days and hours to live. And I know this world is a dark place, even if I do see light refracted through the clouds on a regular basis. So on this gloomy day when there are no leaves on the trees and my heart is a little heavy, I am glad that my hope is not in myself or in all of the distractions this world has to offer. Christmas may be over, but Christ is still risen.