Like a weaned child

So most who might stop by and read this know I am the uber proud granny of 4 amazing grands.  They are my very breath and captured my <3 at the first I saw them.  My most recent bundle of pure joy is little Lele (Leela).  At one year old is definitely earning the nickname Fusaki. (I have no idea of its true translation but for us means hard to handle).  I so desire to sit and snuggle with her .. esp in those times when she is having distress over being tired or hungry or overwhelmed (esp my #3 bundle of joy .. her brother Johnny).  As I pick her up and put her down and pick her up and put her down  pick her up and put her down (you get the idea) I come to realized she is having nothing of the comfort I freely offer.  Now you can laugh at my plight (and I often do too) but soon we all have to realized that is WHO WE ARE.  Our Good Good Father wants nothing more than to comfort us.  For us to sit calmly with Him and lean our heads to His chest to hear His heart beating  .. beating just for us!  But instead (at least for me) we get up .. we get down .. we get up ... we get down .. we run and throw ourselves on the ground .. we stomp and fuss and we refuse to be comforted even tho it is the one thing we most need!  And so my sweet LeLe .. when you come later today I will keep trying just like my Good Good Father does with me and maybe your hard to learn granny will take a lesson too!

Psalm 131:2New International Version (NIV)

 But I have calmed and quieted myself,
    I am like a weaned child with its mother;
    like a weaned child I am content.

Long line of leavers

I come from a long line of leavers .. people who abandoned all in search of the next great thing. They never found it .. they died still looking .. died still unhappy! Even tho they "lost" me I've tried hard to see what they were looking for. I have never been able to see it .. only the backs of their heads as they left.  

Today I listened to video a wonderfully wise young man who just stirred up some thought about this ... Trent Shelton - Missing Nothing

I heard a song a VERY long time ago and even tho I have not heard it in years the lyrics burden my heart more often than I can tell you .. so if you are out there today "listening" (and I know not many are) stop and look around .. love what you have in your eye now .. not what is bigger .. better .. faster .. more ...

I come from a long line of leavers

Out of the garden gate with an apple in their hands

I expect and I believe

You're gonna run out of love

You're gonna give me the shove

'Cause that's the thing that lovers do

Then there's you

You found me cynical and jaded

You lifted my mask and lightened me up

And when my black eyes have faded

I found they were not gouged

Had the coal in my mouth

I've never seen the old age new

And then there's you

You're the only one

Who knows my secrets

You're the only one

Still you're the only one

Who never leaves

And I wake up to this mystery

I betrayed you with a little kiss

I thought you'd find someone better

And you forgave me even for this

Came to the upper room

You dragged me from the tomb

There is none both good and true

Then there's you

Only One

Wedding of the Lamb

Oh I am a wretched bride.  

My garments torn and stained!  

Prostrate I bring my repulsive dowry … all my good works.  

I am presented to my groom so unworthy that I cannot even lift my head.  

He speaks, I lift my head and looking into his eyes I find my true identity... 

His Beloved!  

He gives me the fine raiment befitting my groom and I am to ready myself for the supper. 

 “Hallelujah!

    For our Lord God Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and be glad

    and give him glory!

For the wedding of the Lamb has come,

    and his bride has made herself ready.

Fine linen, bright and clean,

    was given her to wear.”

 

Revelation 19:6-8

Just keep swimming ???

When I was a young woman I got caught in a strong rip tide while body surfing. I was in the water a long time before I realized that I was in trouble .. I had been drawn way out .. so far I could barely make out my frantic friends on the shore. My friend Peter threw caution to the wind and entering the very dangerous current swan out to me. He got me to settled down and focus ... to see what dire straights I was in. Then with totally illogical advice he then guided me out of the current and on to the safety of the shore and my friends. He took a risk to help me .. he put himself in danger of the current AND in danger of a frantic swimmer dragging him under. Today I have been thinking (always a dangerous thing HUH?) about how sometimes life that is like. We are either like I was and look up and realize we are farther "out" than we ever imagined we could be .. in danger of being swallowed up! Or we can be my friends who watched frantically and did nothing ... or we are like Peter and we see someone we care about in trouble and take (an even risky) action to help. If you look up today and see you are in dire circumstances take the help offered! If you see a friend in trouble take the risk to help it could mean the world to them later. AND Peter .. somewhere out there .. THANK YOU!

Something to say about St Patrick's day & my old Grandpa

(This is an entry from a long lost blog I had started and promptly lost LOL ... I finally found it and decided for the sake of my sanity to just re-post it here)  

I read the gripe about the mass celebration of St Patrick’s day by many who are only Irish for that day and the rest of the time you hear nothing about their heritage.  My friend I heard you and here is my NON St Patrick’s day response.

This am as I pulled one of the last pieces of soda bread from the wrapper my mind went back to the days of eating “fried” soda bread and bacon with my Grandpa.  MMMM he made the most FABULOUS soda bread (sadly the recipe went with him to his grave).  I remembered sitting the tiny (busy) kitchen of that Detroit brown stone sipping tea and having a wee bit o breakfast.  We used to have tea at that table every night before bed … grandpa and I!  Those were wonderful happy times.  I knew I was totally loved.

My dear Grandpa Thomas James McMaster immigrated here from County Dunmurry in the early forties (Great Famine time). A part of the fair isle (Ireland) that is popular with golfers (as he told it – and he did love golf). Never having visited there, I know very little of Ireland.  The stories told to me by my Grandpa, the tales of an intern (lovely Lauren-Michelle) and the recollections of a wonderful book (can’t remember the name of it – hey I am old) that I read long ago when I did readings from a book list for a local High School teacher are all I know.  I do hope one day to visit and see this place of my heritage myself!

I do know his heart was rooted in Ireland.  Every Christmas Day Grandpa would pull out the ancient bottle of Bushmill’s Whisky and drink a quiet shot to his homeland by himself.  We would all be quite respectful in this time. Unlike the popular caricature of the drunken Irish man, Grandpa was a teetotaler.  He never talked much about the early days of his American experience.. he had been quite successful in the auto industry when I was born.   I do know it must have been hard.  No group was considered lower than an Irishman in America during the 1850s.  Most who came here were so very poor.  They had heavy heart of shame and longing for their homeland.  It is said that the ships they arrived on were so crowded and the conditions so terrible, that they were referred to as Coffin Ships.  Many called this their American Wake for they feared they would never see Ireland again.  Grandpa did get to return a couple of times and I so loved those stories of my Aunt Mable and Uncle David!

LOL those stories were amazing.  He told of a wee little man in Ireland that could run so fast that the rain did not make him wet.  Embarrassingly I believed that story until I was 12 .. when He laughingly told me it was a tall tale!  When I was a teen we would have the most wonderfully heated Irish debates.  Me with all my vast knowledge and he (in my eyes) just an Irish rube!  One day I recall arguing over the difference between socialism and communism ..he was not seeing my point so I got the Dictionary out to prove myself.  He looked at me and said, “who the hell is Webster and what the hell does he know I say …”  LOL OH I loved that man.

He also taught me of faith.  He was not an avid church attendee but always got me spiffy’d up for Easter and took me to the local African American church services. One of my dearest memories were of him sitting at the piano singing “The Old Rugged Cross” in a brogue so thick that you had to know the song to know what he sang.  No music has ever been that wonderful to me!

He lived in Detroit and as long as I have memory all of his neighbors were African American.  He and grandma were the only white people who lived in their neighborhood that I have ever known of anyway – he hated the white flight – thought people should learn to live together  Our neighborhood was extremely impoverished.  He never seemed to notice and so we followed suit. I remember learning all the jump rope games from the neighbor girls.  Grandpa would just smile!  He loved his neighbors and they fiercely watched out for him and Alma when they had gotten too old to do it themselves.  

He also was very fond of  Oldmobiles and had a new one every year (really) til he was very old.  He took such good care of them.  I would love helping him wash the cars.  I will never forget a time washing the cars and I was playing with the hose .. he said “now Lisa you would not spray your OLD Grandpa would you??  Sadly I did.  I can still see the SHOCK on his face!  Another time my sis Deb and I “drove” one of his new beauties into the ditch near my Great-Grandmas house.  That poor man!  Nope we did not get a spanking .. he did not ever spank us.  (forgive the poor quality of this pic)

So why do I celebrate ... ‘tis true that my family LOVES corned beef and cabbage … but do know that it is not necessarily Ireland that my heart commemorates on St Patrick’s Day!  It is for that dear man who took me in as a tiny infant and provided for me til I was 11 when my dad remarried and then re-assumed that responsibility for a few years after that – I was a very ANGRY kid who used to runaway but he always took me in.  He called me his Miss America!  Even when I had fallen to my lowest and arrived at his house homeless and addicted to heroin he took me in.  (He wisely sent me a one way non refundable ticket from New York City to Detroit) He made me stay by his side 24/7 (literally) for nearly a year til I was clean!  Then he let me go.  When he lay dying of pancreatic cancer he called me to him and said “Lisa when I get to heaven I am going to ask God for special permission to watch over you.”   I look forward to the day when I see him again to hug him and tell him he has done a great job! The I will sit with him again and have that nice wee spot of tea together!!

These days as I look at the lovely family God has given me it makes me sad that he never got to meet them BUT I do think Grandpa would approve!  

We saw grapes in clusters fall ...

We saw grapes in clusters fall ...

The story starts in Chapter 13 of Numbers.  Twelve men were sent into explore Caanan. First ten report in and brought back a negative report ... (Numbers 13) 31 But the men who had gone with him said, “We cannot fight those people! They are much stronger than we are.” 32 So those men gave a report that discouraged the people. They said, “The land we saw is full of strong people. They are strong enough to easily defeat anyone who goes there.  
  
Then the two of them reported in ... (Numbers 14) 6 Joshua and Caleb became very upset. (Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh were two of the men who explored the land.) 7 These two men said to all the Israelites gathered there, “The land that we saw is very good. 8 It is a land filled with many good things. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land. And he will give that land to us.  

And so came judgement for the nation ... (Numbers 14) This is what will happen to you: 29 You will die in this desert. ... 30 So none of you will ever enter and live in the land that I promised to give you. Only Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun will enter that land.  ... 34 For 40 years you will suffer for your sins.  

The 40 year wandering in the desert INCLUDED the faithful Caleb and Joshua.  I guess the implications of that had never struck my mind  in the way it has this past week. It really makes for some interesting contemplation!!  How frustrated they must have been .. full of whys (after all they were human). The entirety of this is not something I can fully grasp.  It just was not time for them yet.  We can go on to read in the book of Joshua of the many wonderful exploits they had as the settled into the land after that LONG wandering in the waste land.

Bottom line (for me) is to reckon with the fact that sometimes we can find ourselves in the desert of wandering due to no fault of our own.  In those times God has not forgotten us, He is not asleep and What He has said He will do He will do .. (remember plans to prosper and not to harm) .. lift up your head .. what is that on the horizon .. yep that is Canaan ahead!

BUT I am not feeling thankful?

This AM a friend on FB posted up a statement about not feeling thankful yet today.  This got me thinking about how many times I do not FEEL thankful.   So many of us use this month to post 30 days of Thankfulness and the reality is that on some days we might not feel all that thankful.    I suspected that Biblical thankfulness was an action and an attitude not a feeling.   So I looked it up.  There are `133 instances of the word (and its variations) THANK in the NIV version of the Bible.  I looked at all of them (TY BibleGateway) and did NOT find even one instance of the need to feel thankful. 

What I did find was:

That thankfulness is primarily an action word. 

An act of conscious will .. thank offerings sacrificed to God.

They gave thanks and we are told to give thanks .. over and over and over. 

They were also to stand every morning to thank God. 

Many times it included singing and praise songs … songs of thanksgiving (I like that).  The idea was that the action of thanking brought the joyful heart not necessarily the reverse. 

LOTS of times (esp New Testament)  it involved food .. the breaking of bread was a time for thankfulness (the Bible tells us that Jesus did that a lot).

It was not an implicit suggestion it was a  command … BE thankful

Its purpose is to glorify God and to edify the hearer (that last bit from Paul in 1 Corinthians 14).   AND again stated here in

 

2 Corinthians 4:15

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁵ All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

This also from Paul .. ‘Then many will give thanks on our behalf” .. I found that quite interesting … we give thanks on other’s behalf??

That it is proper for God’s people AND we “season” our petitions to God with the attitude of thankfulness (by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.)

It is not just here on earth that thankfulness happens … in Revelation the angels, the elders and the 4 living creatures cry out their thanksgiving at the throne of God. 

NOW this is the hard one (and you knew it was coming) it is extraneous of circumstance ..

 

1 Thessalonians 5:18

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Please be sure this is not to slam my friend who posted (he is a strong man of God and I respect him and the situation he may find himself in and he has a beautiful family so I imagine he will find his reason to thank without much effort).  It is to acknowledge my own lack of feeling thankfulness and to be thankful that I don’t need fuzzy feelings to be thankful.  (To be sure they are nice when they come tho).  AND maybe to help you when you share my malady. 

For you 30 days of thankfulness posters .. you will be glad to know that it is indeed a very public declaration in most Biblical instances.  So post away my friends .. I will join you!! J

Psalm 69:30

New International Version (NIV)

³⁰ I will praise God’s name in song

    and glorify him with thanksgiving.