Larry D over at Acts of the Apostasy tagged me in what is only my second meme ever. I liked the concept, though I discovered, my ability to use good judgment goes way down when not in the presence of others; and now, Ten things I did that scare the hell out of me, and probably my Mom.
10) Rode on a motorcycle sans a helmet on my 20th birthday up and down the Beaumont freeway. (I know, I'm pretty tame but it was scary and cool to me and also if Mom is reading, yes I know, very stupid).
9) Doing lots of flips, back dives and back flips off the High Tower (25 feet up) at the YMCA.
8) I volunteered to have an elective tracheotomy under local anesthesia the day before my first child was born to ensure his and my safety. (I wore head phones, so to this day, the Blue Danube brings back flashbacks of that surgery).
7) Taking 8 children to the March for Life by myself.
6) In 1991, I was living alone for six weeks in New York City finishing out my contract with NYC public schools and the "Mother of all Parades" happened. I wanted to see it so I parked myself on the Brooklyn bridge with dinner and stayed for the fireworks. It was great until I realized, when the show was over, I had to take the subway back to Astor Place in Greenich Village and go through the park to get back to my apartment and it was after 1 am.
5) While living in Houston, I found a man standing on the ledge of our third story apartment with a long drop to hard concrete below just outside our door. After calling 911, I talked to the guy who was strung out on something until help arrived. It still gives me shivers.
4) I did stand up comedy at the Erma Bombeck Conference in 2008 and now, it's permanently on Youtube.
3) While in Paris, I climbed on top of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and onto the roof of a spire to pose as a Gargoyle for a picture.
2) I used sign language to persuade the Swiss Guards to let me go into the special area for guests when I was in Rome and at the Vatican, allowing me to get a picture of Pope John Paul just three feet away.
1) I have caught a 20 pound shark in the surf. (And cut it up to eat, very tasty).
Hmmm.....perhaps this should have been at least in part, ten stupid things I've done....Now, five bloggers I need to tag. Let's see...
Haus Frau over at Cheaper by the Half Dozen
Violin Mama over at Rosey School
Heidi over at Extraordinary Moms
Simcha over at I Have to Sit Down
Munchesmom over at Four Blessings Academy
Monday, September 6, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Yes Beloved
As a child, one night in 1974 in the middle of winter in Beaumont, Texas, as part of a YMCA Father Daughter Indian Princess group, we closed the meeting with a prayer for snow. My father worried on the ride home and talked about how sometimes the answer to our prayers was "No." because it NEVER snows in southeast Texas. However, the next morning, it snowed. It covered the ground, it closed the schools, it was thick enough for our neighbors to make a decent sized snowman even if he was speckled with leaves and pine needles and their yard lay bare and brown as a result. That night the weatherman on the news said he couldn't believe it.
In 1984, after graduating from high school, I stood at the railing of our family's beach house and in a half whine, half prayer aloud wondered to God if I would ever meet someone who would love me just for me. I saw my future husband the first day I was dropped off at college, and began dating him on the third day.
A few years later, a college friend was battling cancer. She asked us to pray for a miracle. Amongst those witnessing her suffering from afar, a debate emerged. The discussion focused on "Should we be encouraging false hope by asking for a miracle?" "Should we be limiting our prayer?" Talk got a bit tense, if only because none of us wanted our friend to die. Her family told us that a miracle had happened, in that she was able to say goodbye to all of her family, to those she loved, rather than drift out without that one last beautiful smile.
But the argument stuck in my head, "If you can't be unreasonable with God, who can you be unreasonable with? Who to ask for a miracle but God?" And recalling the potency of God's responses to my high school summer prayer, to snow and countless other occasions, it was hard not to feel awe. Even though the outside world would say, there was no miracle or the answer was "No." because she died, even though the logical and sometimes cynical part of me tried to argue the point, I couldn't shake the deep knowledge in my heart that the answer to all our prayers is always, "Yes beloved." and that this was a "Yes beloved" even if it took time for us to discern how.
More recently, in 2001, I remember taking assessment of my adult world and praying, asking God to help me find friends; not casual people I liked saying "Hi" to in passing, but real solid friends. That year, I met one of my first long term friends in Maryland. We talk. We spend time laughing as we trip over each other discussing common loves like books, food, education, Catholicism, our kids and our kid's school and dissecting and debating Washington politics and seeking hard truth. She was and is part of the beginning of an answer to that prayer. She is also a reminder to me to be unafraid to speak my heart's desire; to do otherwise, is to lie to myself and God and others. Four other women who are dear in my life have been what I would call immediate responses to subsequent prayers to God for a broader community, for friends. All of them have been like mana in the desert.
Miracles happen daily, small discreet ones that we blip over in the midst of trying to get through all that needs to be done in a day and dramatic gorgeous ones that ought to be proclaimed for the outrageous acts of love and courtship of our souls that they are. These gifts from God, be they a much needed job, a healing of a relationship, a solving of a problem, or an unexpected pleasure are just that, gifts given freely by God. They are given to us not as proof, not as a show, not as a means to win the lottery of life, but because we are fallen and we are broken. Some days, we need that lavish outrageous extravagant generosity of God to shine through and pour over us and coat the world like snow or a lifetime beloved spouse or a friend. When sin and despair and suffering threaten to rob our daily life of joy, love, beauty and truth, miracles are God's love rendered in an unmistakable worldly visible manner. And I think of my friend's goodbye smile, of the endless patience of my husband, and of all the steely friends I treasure.
Jesus tells us to ask and we shall receive; our children ask us for countless things on any given day because they remain secure in the knowledge we love them. They ask for drinks, for food, to go out to a park, to go to a movie, they ask, ask, ask, ask and they are not ashamed of asking. And all our answers, yes, no or maybe, if we are parenting correctly, if we are not asleep at the switch, are a "yes beloved." even if we deny them the actual requests. They do not cease asking, being children, and perhaps that is God's means to remind us that neither should we.
Most of us fear asking God because of what God's response might mean for us or require from us; or wait to ask until we think the time is right, or we've built up sufficient lag time from our last petition of God, as if we can somehow balance the scales of when we ask and keep God from crashing into our lives too intimately. Sometimes we play mental games with ourselves about God, opting not to ask for ourselves because we know there is so much more than what we have here that matters; this is vanity. We don't want to ask because we sin and we are sinners and we fear being otherwise. Inviting God into your life so intimately is hard. It cannot not mean something profound, to be willing to ask. Asking will by it's very nature, asking must invite healing and forgiveness and the opportunity to be closer in communion with God. Jesus heals all ten lepers, not just the one who returns to give thanks. He says "Yes beloved." to all ten. All ten souls have the chance to return and none lose the healing that took place for not returning to say, "Thank you, thank God."
The truth is, we need to ask more than we need not to; a humble innocent heart asks, a penitent heart asks, a loving heart asks, a fearful heart asks, a hopeful heart asks. God considers who we are here no matter where here is, infinitely valuable, infinitely of importance, and He answers every prayer from every heart; "Yes beloved."
In 1984, after graduating from high school, I stood at the railing of our family's beach house and in a half whine, half prayer aloud wondered to God if I would ever meet someone who would love me just for me. I saw my future husband the first day I was dropped off at college, and began dating him on the third day.
A few years later, a college friend was battling cancer. She asked us to pray for a miracle. Amongst those witnessing her suffering from afar, a debate emerged. The discussion focused on "Should we be encouraging false hope by asking for a miracle?" "Should we be limiting our prayer?" Talk got a bit tense, if only because none of us wanted our friend to die. Her family told us that a miracle had happened, in that she was able to say goodbye to all of her family, to those she loved, rather than drift out without that one last beautiful smile.
But the argument stuck in my head, "If you can't be unreasonable with God, who can you be unreasonable with? Who to ask for a miracle but God?" And recalling the potency of God's responses to my high school summer prayer, to snow and countless other occasions, it was hard not to feel awe. Even though the outside world would say, there was no miracle or the answer was "No." because she died, even though the logical and sometimes cynical part of me tried to argue the point, I couldn't shake the deep knowledge in my heart that the answer to all our prayers is always, "Yes beloved." and that this was a "Yes beloved" even if it took time for us to discern how.
More recently, in 2001, I remember taking assessment of my adult world and praying, asking God to help me find friends; not casual people I liked saying "Hi" to in passing, but real solid friends. That year, I met one of my first long term friends in Maryland. We talk. We spend time laughing as we trip over each other discussing common loves like books, food, education, Catholicism, our kids and our kid's school and dissecting and debating Washington politics and seeking hard truth. She was and is part of the beginning of an answer to that prayer. She is also a reminder to me to be unafraid to speak my heart's desire; to do otherwise, is to lie to myself and God and others. Four other women who are dear in my life have been what I would call immediate responses to subsequent prayers to God for a broader community, for friends. All of them have been like mana in the desert.
Miracles happen daily, small discreet ones that we blip over in the midst of trying to get through all that needs to be done in a day and dramatic gorgeous ones that ought to be proclaimed for the outrageous acts of love and courtship of our souls that they are. These gifts from God, be they a much needed job, a healing of a relationship, a solving of a problem, or an unexpected pleasure are just that, gifts given freely by God. They are given to us not as proof, not as a show, not as a means to win the lottery of life, but because we are fallen and we are broken. Some days, we need that lavish outrageous extravagant generosity of God to shine through and pour over us and coat the world like snow or a lifetime beloved spouse or a friend. When sin and despair and suffering threaten to rob our daily life of joy, love, beauty and truth, miracles are God's love rendered in an unmistakable worldly visible manner. And I think of my friend's goodbye smile, of the endless patience of my husband, and of all the steely friends I treasure.
Jesus tells us to ask and we shall receive; our children ask us for countless things on any given day because they remain secure in the knowledge we love them. They ask for drinks, for food, to go out to a park, to go to a movie, they ask, ask, ask, ask and they are not ashamed of asking. And all our answers, yes, no or maybe, if we are parenting correctly, if we are not asleep at the switch, are a "yes beloved." even if we deny them the actual requests. They do not cease asking, being children, and perhaps that is God's means to remind us that neither should we.
Most of us fear asking God because of what God's response might mean for us or require from us; or wait to ask until we think the time is right, or we've built up sufficient lag time from our last petition of God, as if we can somehow balance the scales of when we ask and keep God from crashing into our lives too intimately. Sometimes we play mental games with ourselves about God, opting not to ask for ourselves because we know there is so much more than what we have here that matters; this is vanity. We don't want to ask because we sin and we are sinners and we fear being otherwise. Inviting God into your life so intimately is hard. It cannot not mean something profound, to be willing to ask. Asking will by it's very nature, asking must invite healing and forgiveness and the opportunity to be closer in communion with God. Jesus heals all ten lepers, not just the one who returns to give thanks. He says "Yes beloved." to all ten. All ten souls have the chance to return and none lose the healing that took place for not returning to say, "Thank you, thank God."
The truth is, we need to ask more than we need not to; a humble innocent heart asks, a penitent heart asks, a loving heart asks, a fearful heart asks, a hopeful heart asks. God considers who we are here no matter where here is, infinitely valuable, infinitely of importance, and He answers every prayer from every heart; "Yes beloved."
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Truth in Advertising
Every year, there is a report that calculates the cost of government based on the burden per individual in federal, state and local taxes including sales and property taxes designed to show exactly how much the existing bureaucracies in their multiple hydra head like forms, takes away from the private sector. The date in 2010 when a person meets all the obligations imposed by all of government this year, was August 19th.
With that in mind, I submit the following truth in advertisement slogans for the existing government entities to use free of charge; presuming they won’t figure out how to tax me for satire which in Philadelphia, they’re already trying to do vis-a-vis a $300.00 registration fee for bloggers. Apparently online writers in the city of brotherly love make out pretty well to warrant that sort of a grab from the state. For the curious and the public record, I’m still waiting here for my first two cents from AdSense and my blog is approaching the tender age of three.
Ten Proposed Bumper Sticker Mottos for the Government
10) We spend it all so you won’t have to.
9) Cost of running the government for this year; 3.5 Trillion dollars. For everything else, there’s taxes.
8) Defying the laws of country, supply and demand and common sense.
7) What? Me worry?
6) Reading the bills first? How quaint.
5) Greece did it first.
4) Land of the not so free.
3) We spent 1.3 Trillion Dollars and I didn’t even get a lousy t-shirt!
2) Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
1) Relax. We’re From the Government, and We’re here to help.
At least, we haven’t reached the irony point of finishing paying for all of this on Labor day.
With that in mind, I submit the following truth in advertisement slogans for the existing government entities to use free of charge; presuming they won’t figure out how to tax me for satire which in Philadelphia, they’re already trying to do vis-a-vis a $300.00 registration fee for bloggers. Apparently online writers in the city of brotherly love make out pretty well to warrant that sort of a grab from the state. For the curious and the public record, I’m still waiting here for my first two cents from AdSense and my blog is approaching the tender age of three.
Ten Proposed Bumper Sticker Mottos for the Government
10) We spend it all so you won’t have to.
9) Cost of running the government for this year; 3.5 Trillion dollars. For everything else, there’s taxes.
8) Defying the laws of country, supply and demand and common sense.
7) What? Me worry?
6) Reading the bills first? How quaint.
5) Greece did it first.
4) Land of the not so free.
3) We spent 1.3 Trillion Dollars and I didn’t even get a lousy t-shirt!
2) Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
1) Relax. We’re From the Government, and We’re here to help.
At least, we haven’t reached the irony point of finishing paying for all of this on Labor day.
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