I love the playground... Its digging in the dirt with precious little people who get excited when you dump the pail over and its a perfect mold and hence a perfect sand castle. We take turns using the blue shovel. Its cool to be out on the playground with other classes... You get to meet other kids. You sit down on a kid's level and you start hearing.."I'm Connor" or they just stand in front of you smiling. Some little girl on the jungle gym says, "Hey grownup, can you get this sticker off me?" "She called me a crybaby!" "Well" I say, "Are you a crybaby?" "No"..."then ignore her and don't worry about it." Another child who's sharing the shovel with me looks at me and says, "My friends call me a crybaby but sometimes I do cry when I get hurt." We continue digging and building until its time to line up and we sigh and drop our shovel and pail and look forward to our time together again.
thought you had all the answers to rest your heart upon but something happens*
I teach at a school in the middle of a neighborhood where many would not choose to frequent. The kids there are similar in that their lives are peppered with instability and alot of pain which you and I may never experience in our lives.There's a teacher at my school that I really love. He's a big ole guy who loves his class like his family. His class is filled with life and love and a rabbit that just hops around on its own around the classroom all day. I was hugging him on Monday morning after I heard that a little girl in his classroom had been shot in a drive-by shooting over the weekend. This little princess was four years old. He looked at me and said, "She was one who was going to make it. She had it in her to get out of the neighborhood." He spoke of questioning alot of things. Everytime I saw him on Monday his eyes were swimming with a sadness for a little girl who he felt had hope, a hope of breaking free of a hold that so many around her would be bound to all the rest of their lives. I am thankful to be working where I am and as I go down the hall and tickle one little girl here or try to make a little boy laugh over there I just pray that we will all make a difference for these little soldiers who never enlisted in the war they face everyday.
From " In The Deep" by Bird York (from the movie Crash)
Carry on love is coming, love is coming to us all*
So...just wanted to let everyone know that I am fine... I have gotten some really precious emails from you guys and it just really got to me...Thank you soooo much..really feeling the love... ...be back soon...
when you're dreaming with a broken heart the waking up is the hardest part*
Well, I am up late as usual. I stopped by Scott's blog where he reminded me of the cross. It seems silly to say someone had to remind me of the very crux of why I live but sometimes I have to be reminded of the simple and powerful beauty of that love and how I want to pick it up everyday. Sometimes I don't want to pick it up...you know...and that bothers me. Scott thank you for reminding me of this.
Once I dreamed about the cross. At the foot of this cross were piles of broken hearts and there were people in a line as far as the eye could see holding in there hands their broken hearts and then placing their broken hearts at the foot of the cross where the others were piled and then walking away whole. A friend of mine who is an artist said she would paint that picture for me. I think I'll ask her if she could paint it now.
Philippians 2:5-8 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!
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I want to, as Scott said, go back to the cross placing my broken heart there and leaving with a pure heart like His...a forgiving heart like His...a loving heart like His and most important...a humble heart like His...
From my new cd that Laurie sent to me yesterday..thank you Laurie, it meant the world! "Dreaming With a Broken Heart" by John Mayer
Its pretty obvious in the previous post that I offended at least a couple of people and that just breaks my heart. This blog is never intended to do that. Believe me, I want to walk as Jesus models for me to walk and any questions that I bring up here are those I ask myself...
Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with what seems to be religious fads?
Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with the words written on the cover "How to Get God to Bless Your Life"?
Do I get God to bless my life? ...umm..I'm already overwhelmed by the blessings that I see in my life. And dang..isn't the fact that He dropped His son down on earth and watched Him die and the gift of grace I receive from that action enough for me?
I may be way off base but I am suspect of those in the religious arena who talk of seeking to be "blessed."
and ....does it only take me 40 days to have a purpose driven life..?
Please don't take this as cynisism, only wondering what you think?
Did they have religious books back in the first century so that they may understand God more? Sometimes they never even had letters from the apostles. They were in hiding and ate up moments, I'm sure, they were able to spend together. They didn't have the luxury of sitting in their big easy chair reading the latest amazing book on how God loves them. What more do we need?...I have a big black book that tells me of His love for me...Forgive me, I am just tired of hearing people tell me of the latest conference or the latest book or they have the latest what they think is the real truth and somehow think everyone should follow suit.
Don't get me wrong...I have read some wonderful books but I just wonder if that might just be a way that maybe satan can distract me from walking out my door and doing something. I have this picture in my mind of this person sitting in their chair reading a book on How to Feed the Hungry surrounded with food and a real man is lying at his feet starving to death.
"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." Matthew 25: 35, 36
Talk, talk, talk..words, words, words...i grow weary of it all...
Sometimes...we don't see the forest for the trees...sometimes, most times, actions speak so much louder than words...
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. I Corinthians 13
"Words (Between The Lines Of Age)"....Neil Young
Someone and someone were down by the pond Looking for something to plant in the lawn. Out in the fields they were turning the soil I'm sitting here hoping this water will boil When I look through the windows and out on the road They're bringing me presents and saying hello.
Singing words, words between the lines of age. Words, words between the lines of age.
If I was a junkman selling you cars, Washing your windows and shining your stars, Thinking your mind was my own in a dream What would you wonder and how would it seem? Living in castles a bit at a time The King started laughing and talking in rhyme.
Singing words, words between the lines of age. Words, words between the lines of age.
I think if Jesus were here today He would hang out at the Dollar Store.
I walk the aisles of the Dollar Store listening to the voices of real people. Big stories are told through interrupted coughs of maybe one too many cigarettes. The people I meet in the aisles smile at me and the only clue to their pain are their red eyes from too much crying or too much whiskey the night before. I stand in a long line. Those in front of me and those behind me talk of their excitement over what presents they have bought their loved ones. One lady, painfully thin, grazes over the brightly colored feathered pens littered in a box close to the cash register trying to find the perfect one for maybe her grandaughter. Something I find in this line, that I didn't find at the mall, was the stillness of their spirits the patience they are showing with only one cashier and a line as long as the Isrealites approaching the Red Sea. The cashier's bottle out of box dyed hair falls down around her ears where old earring holes have grown over. She smiles at me as she gently puts my finds in a bright yellow bag. I walk out of this experience hungering for more. To be with these real people fighting for existence in a society that dictates their order in a line of power and worth. I will go back and back again to be reminded that we are all brothers and all the same. You should go today if you have never been. It must be a little Dollar General store usually nestled in a strip mall like a pearl in a clam. The big nice Dollar Stores don't have the same atmosphere.
*From "Border Song " by Bernie Taupin and Elton John
hmm... I'm Beverly, I love my kids and my dog...I love the ocean because it screams to me the awesome power of God....I am really afraid of heights, but I did go climbing and rappelling once...I love for people to make me laugh and I love to make others laugh...I love really scary movies but when the lights go out and I go to bed I find myself checking under the bed, and kicking myself for watching them..I love rain hitting the windows of the car..I absolutely love thunderstorms..I love children and how Jesus took snotty, loud, little kids on His lap, even at the protest of His followers...I sometimes jump in too quickly and that gets me in trouble...In my life, I had to actually touch the stove to believe it was hot..
