Deja Vu

We are evacuated for the second time this year due to wildfire. It is surreal. It was surreal the first time, but re-living it is somewhat worse. Although we are under mandatory evacuation, I'm not that worried about our home. I'm worried about a community that was just healing from the November fire. It's just too soon and we're not ready for this trauma upon a trauma. My heart goes out to this city...to all the people (30,000) who are displaced. Everything has been cancelled, on hold, and yet some things continue...very bizarre. We're in a hotel and the girls are having fun...too young to really get the impact of what's going on. We watch a little news and they've seen images, but they feel safe. Plus they get to stay up late and watch Sesame Street in the morning and hang out by the pool. There was a benefit scheduled tonight to raise money for a beloved monastic community that lost their home in the last fire. The irony is deep and all around. I'm trying to stay positive. I just hate not being able to go home. I'm trying to think of it as a forced vacation, but it's hard. I know all will be well. But we just had our house painted on the inside to get the smoke smell out from the last fire. Hmmm...maybe it's time to move from this beautiful place that is just too fire prone.

It was Love that wrote this play

Snippets from my Sunday morning:

- puppy barking at something invisible outside.
- girls on the floor behind me playing with their toy jewelry.
- husband sleeping in.

Sounds pretty peaceful. And it is. But I've been so anxious lately. Like the air around me that I breathe in is full of static anxiety. Sometimes I get this way. Maybe it's just that I'm breathing in the collective anxiety that is so pervasive in the media...our world is in fear and anxiety. It's hard to not let it get to you. But the thing is, most of my moments are not anxious at all. If only I could live more in the moment. It's so easy, really! ;)

A few nights ago I took Husband on a date to hear David Wilcox sing live in a nearby town. He's one of my favorites. And he's completely different live. It's his gift. He doesn't just get up there and sing songs....he PRESIDES. Seriously. It's his priesthood. He is completely connected to God through his guitar and through his music and he bravely and vulnerably opens himself up to that Spirit, and it overflows onto us, the audience. It was healing. And I needed it! I've been walking around my days with my ipod listening to his music and using it like a talisman against this anxious air. There's one song, in particular, that made me weep as I listened. I'll post the lyrics which will fall short without the music...not at all the same, but nonetheless, here they are:

You say you see no hope,
you say you see no reason we should dream,
that the world would ever change.
You’re saying love is foolish to believe
‘cause there’ll always be some crazy
with an army or a knife
to wake you from your day dream,
put the fear back in your life…

Look, if someone wrote a play
just to glorify what’s stronger than hate,
would they not arrange the stage
to look as if the hero came too late?
He’s almost in defeat,
it’s looking like the evil side will win,
so on the edge of every seat,
from the moment that the whole thing begins,

It is Love who mixed the mortar
and it’s Love who stacked these stones
and it’s Love who made the stage here
although it looks like we’re alone
in this scene set in shadows
like the night is here to stay
there is evil cast around us
but it’s love that wrote the play…
For in this darkness Love can show the way

So now the stage is set.
You feel you own heart beating in your chest.
This life’s not over yet.
And so we get up on our feet and do our best.
We play against the fear.
We play against the reasons not to try
We’re playing for the tears burning in the happy angel’s eyes

For it's Love that mixed the mortar...etc.

Ready to be Ready

The title says it all. I'm tired of discerning. I'm tired of being wishy washy. It's just my personality to never stop weighing all sides...at some point ya just need to take a step. So my discernment committee is done (recently), they're writing their report and I'm taking the next step towards the diocese. It's right. I think I'm just afraid. And I need to do it anyway. I feel good about it. And worse case scenario is painful, but survivable, ya know? I don't plan to begin seminary for at least a year and a half, maybe two and a half, cause of the age of my youngest.

I'm preaching in a few weeks for the first time. Anxious about it. But again, it's a good step and one that just needs to happen. when a door opens, you just have to say yes. But YIKES. I feel this pressure since everyone knows I plan to get ordained. And I know it's not about me. It's about the spirit and the scripture and the moment but still.....kinda terrifying.

My husband is traveling for 3 weeks soon to do some teaching and I'll be home with the girls. Then we'll join him for 21/2 weeks. Then he flies home and I get to go to Iona in Scotland with my best friend. Woooooooo hoooooooooo. I don't really believe this is going to happen. But apparently it is.

I have met recently some role models of mothers with young children being priests. It is inspiring. And I don't feel so alone and confused.

I'm going to be B R A V E.

Other than that, life is good. Puppy is good, though I've been lazy training her. I need to prioritize this cause I want a good doggie! And I enjoy her so much more when she's behaving herself. She's almost 5 months now.

heavenly music

I just returned from a wonderful choral concert. When I was first invited, I wasn't that excited to go. I have memories of being pretty bored in too long choral concerts. But this was a good reminder of how wonderful it can be. It didn't hurt that we were up front and very close to the orchestra and the singers. It was Mozart's Requiem in the first half, but it was the second half that I really loved. Have any of you heard of Lauridsen's "Lux Aeterna"? Beautiful beautiful contemporary requiem. Truly heart movingly gorgeous. It was interesting to note the differences in tone of the two musical pieces. Mozart's piece is full of fear...Lord save me from the fires of hell. Eternal damnation. Please please have mercy on me. But Lauridsen's focuses on the miracle of the Light of Christ coming to the world. Of the beautiful mercy and hope. Very interesting.

Jesus silhouette

Wow. My last post was December 14th, 2008, and even that one was after spotty blogging. I'm not sure why I am so resistant lately to blogging. Not sure.

This has been quite a time. And yet, from the outside, life has continued as usual. My daughters continue to grow in beautiful ways; I go about my daily tasks as always...but it has been a deep time of discernment. And in thinking back with the calendar, I am dumbfounded that I have been in "discernment" for years now. Sometimes I think if it takes me this long to discern a call, then it's not a call. But on the other hand, it's just taking me time. It's like I have to shed some layers and grow some new ones before I can take the next step. My committee has stuck with me all along.

The latest conversation we had was the age-old "process" question of what do you need to DO that you can't DO unless your ordained. This way of phrasing the question is impossible for me to answer. Because my sense of call to the priesthood is much more about personhood...about BEING a priest more than DOING priestly duties. Of course, I am drawn to the priestly duties, yes, but this is not my way of expressing the call. But people seem to harp on this.

I've also been in therapy and it's been uncomfortable but good. I think. It is very hard for me to be real and not self-conscious in the room with her. I know this is normal, but it is squirmy time.

But I've been doing a lot more work in my particular church and it's been wonderful! Full of joy and challenge and creativity. But it's not enough. I have the opportunity of preaching on pentecost and I think I have to say yes, but SCARY!!!!!!!!!! I know it's not about me. Most certainly not. But when everyone knows I'm discerning a call to the priesthood, it's hard to just do the job up there and not try to come across "well."

We are still in the aftermath of the november fire, but all is fine. Just still dealing with insurance companies and an inept dry cleaning company that lost a lot of our things. But they're just things.

I miss reading the blogs of others and I look forward to doing that again. I'm going to try.

We just had a wonderful intergenerational beginning of Lent. We were tired of the separation of "adult ed" and the "children ministries" so we combined them. It was a big experiment...will the children be bored? distracting? distracted? Will the adults be engaged? Will anyone show up who isn't a parent. and it worked! We played around with the parables, acting them out in different ways...improvisationally on stage, in small groups of threes....it was just great. And we had a huge silhouette of Jesus up at the front where people were invited to place post-its with questions. There were no answers given, of course. But the community posted there questions on the silhouette of Jesus and then we broke bread. That's church, isn't it?

Gifts at my doorstep

One of the things that has come of the fire, is that we have many many empty boxes from all the stuff that was taken out of our house, dry-cleaned, then returned to us folded and smoke-free. One of my daughters' favorite games is taking one of the big boxes, putting it on our doorstep, and climbing inside. They're both small enough so they actually fit, like little sardines. Then I come into the room and say loudly to my husband, "Honey, there's a big box on our doorstep. Do you know what it is?" Then I open it and behold, there are two gorgeous little girls pretending to be babies who have been sent from the "orphanage." Then I exclaim with delight and take them into my arms and show them their new home. "Oh my! What beautiful little girls! Can we be your new family? Can we love you and cuddle you and help you grow up?" "Yes!" they exclaim in baby voices that sound slightly demented. Then I show the around their new home. It's the best game. ever. And it makes me realize as I open the big cardboard box, what a huge gift they are!

Catapulted into the Present

Wow, has it been quite a few weeks. I haven't blogged in forever. Basically, I live right smack dab in the middle of one of the neighborhoods heavily hit during the recent southern California wildfires of a few weeks ago. Unbelievably, our house was spared. You cannot believe how close the flames came and how random the fire was that night. Our next door neighbors' house burned to the ground. As well as the one kitty-corner. We have a street that is a small loop and 2/3rds of the homes burned down. We now live in a devastated neighborhood. But there is hope. So many of the families (we know all of them cause our commuity is all faculty who work at a nearby college) have been so lovingly cared for. It's amazing to see how our community has rallied to help. We've had to be out of our home for 16 days to clean it up, get the smoke smell out, and now I'm back and it feels like home again. The black hillside behind our home already has green things shooting through the ash. My daughters have to drive and walk by ruins of friends' homes every day, but they are resilient and they still feel safe. It's crazy how a crisis like this creates an immediate shift in perspective. My focus has shrunk to my little nest. It's all I want to focus on these days. And only now, do I feel my head coming up out of the water and being able to look around and remember past cares and responsibilities. I bought some new plants yesterday to replace the charred ones. I'm getting used to the sour burn smell in the air. I kind of like only having a few clothes, since the rest are at the dry cleaners. Thank God for insurance. Some didn't have it. So that's what's been going on. It's been a fascinating experience of being forced to live in the moment. We never knew when we'd be able to move back...we had to rely on the generosity of others...we stayed in 7 different places during those 16 days. We learned to find the sense of adventure and surrender and gratitude in all of it. But I had my grumpy stressed moments. And I learned about my attachment to things. The night I thought our house was gone, I told myself it would be okay. It's just stuff. I had my little family in my arms and safe and that's all that mattered. But when I discovered my stuff was all there, just smoky and dirty, I was relieved and guilty, then very burdened by it. Everything teeny thing had to be cleaned and it made me obsessive. Suddenly this stuff was feeling very heavy. So interesting, this whole journey. phew. Glad to be starting to move on. And then reading about Mumbai, etc...this world is just so fragile and unpredictable. I am catapulted into the present because anywhere else is too scary. And God is in that place. Thanks be to God.