Black Friday and Solitude

A lack of  contact with people is solitude.

If you were a Black-Friday shopper, you may be over-due for a little solitude.

However, one doesn't need Black Friday to be inundated with noise and activities. Entering a sports bar one evening, we heard conversations, music, and at least fifteen different television sets with various games and sitcoms.

In our homes, we have television--some of us, 24/7-- where actors or talk-show participants interrupt each other. Movies provide action-packed shoot-outs, accidents, etc. with complementary NOISE.

Phones blurp or sing to let us know of calls and text messages; computers do likewise. Depending on your work place--noises vary from ear-plug demanding sounds to constant chatter where cubicle offices are lined up for long stretches. Games? Concerts? Does anyone think all this noise is over-done?

When is the last time you heard the gurgle of a brook, the rush of the wind through the trees? Can you hear the tick-tock of your clock? If it were quiet enough, could you hear the snow fall?

Solitude
Saturated with quiet
And comfortable in my skin
I'm down to earth
Above the clouds
And somewhere in between
I'm content.

Be still and know....    

Yes, the shopping will get done, the decorating will be good enough. Drop what you're doing and rest a bit. You may catch a snowflake or two or feel the sunshine on your face.              

Extravagant? Perhaps so....

One doesn't have to be wealthy to be extravagant....

During breakfast, I flipped on TV to see "Beautiful Homes and Great Estates." I was fascinated and appalled. The master bedroom had more square feet than our entire house. Shoes, clothing, and jewelry filled room-size closets. Even though I was fascinated, I could not live comfortably in such a house with multiple fireplaces, bathrooms, and waterfalls.

 At times, I've considered myself frugal, a minimalist knowing that things do not bring me happiness. However, I looked at my breakfast and reconsidered the word extravagant.

My meal contained eight different items: coffee, grapes, carrots, salmon, multi-grain bread, almond butter, kale, and oatmeal (with wheat germ, flax, cinnamon, dried blueberries, walnuts) topped with almond milk....

Extravagant? Seemingly so when there are persons who eat rice three times a day. And, we're not talking "Survivor."

Still curious about my frugal life, I counted the number of items used in my getting-ready-for-the-day routine. Let's see, there was toothpaste, floss, mouth wash, shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, body lotion. Okay... I'm forgetting the makeup today.

Something to consider-- Jesus tells us to care for widows, orphans, the poor. Although my food items are keeping me healthy and my getting-ready-for-the-day items are keeping me easier to look at and be with, I need to re-consider how I use my resources.

It's Thanksgiving week. Let us each be thankful for our many blessings and with joy give freely to others who are in need. .... and always, always give praise and glory to our Creator God, the first and greatest giver.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Relationships and All Reality

“One of the most important scientific ideas to emerge in the 20^th Century showed that all reality from the atom to the universe can be understood in terms of relationships.”

Cassandra (from DO NOT BE DECEIVED) struggled with her many difficult relationships—her father, her classmates, a boyfriend. However, some of her relationships were positive-- a best friend, a church lady, the witch across the road. She took what she had—her relationships with the people in her life, the place she lived, her perceptions of life—and tried to understand what was happening and why. She goes further and works with the “so what.” In that, what do I do with what has happened to me; what is my message that can help others?

The above quote provides enough information for a day-long discussion. Think about the flowers in your back yard, the mountains in the distance, the brewing thunderstorm, cancer, an emotional outburst. They each have to do with interactions.
      Considering all this, what an amazing Creator we have. Knowing this, we can understand things differently.

Psalm 16 reads, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;…”  Cassandra, like you, had people in her life, she had a place to live and grow up, she had God’s spirit within her. What she did with all this became her legacy.

Something to think about.

You Are Light in the Lord!

Although DO NOT BE DECEIVED is a 300 page novel, Cassandra's life could be summed up with the verse from Ephesians 5:8—“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.”

Abandoned by her mother and left with an abusive father during her growing-up years, how could she possibly live “as children of the light” when her world was so dark….

As we each are in our individual situations, Cassandra was frail, susceptible—shaped by her life circumstances. However, she never gave up seeking something bigger and better than her personal trials. Through these struggles, significant characters came into her life—one of them being Pastor J who gave her several type-written sheets of prayers. Cassandra thought he had over-done it! She didn’t even know if she knew how to pray.

However, she took the prayers from Paul’s book of Ephesians and started to pray, “I ask God, the glorious Father, to give me the Spirit who will make me wise and who will reveal God to me so that I may know him. I ask that my mind may be open to see his light so that I will know what is the hope to which God has called me…and how very great is His power at work in us who believe….”

There were other prayers. Cassandra prayed them in the morning, in the evening, and when she thought she could no longer take what her life offered and came to understand that God’s word was crucial to her existence.

Praying is simply talking to God like you would a friend. However, the Bible has some pretty neat prayers, too.

Need a prayer for the day?

 For once I was full of darkness, but now I desire light (truth) from the Lord.  Feelings change, minds change; I am frail, susceptible—shaped by my life circumstances. My conscience sometimes changes in the heat of anger or times of great emotional stress. Help me to go forward trusting God’s word, the unchangeable standard, the Light and Truth essential to my life. Amen

 

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones....

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” A childhood chant from long ago has stuck with me. I know it is not true.

In the novel, DO NOT BE DECEIVED, Cassandra is ridiculed by childhood friends.

“She’s a liar! She’s such a big, fat liar that her mother and that strange sister left her. Just took off on her. Probably deserved it.” Cassandra is made fun of because her house has a tree growing on top of it. She is called “loser,” “white trash,” and “witch-girl.”

She is also made to feel small and insignificant by her father.

“What kills the skunk is the publicity it gives itself.” … and “Better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

Insignificant? Unworthy? Unloved? An unknown? A mistake? Some of us can relate to Cassandra in that we have had moments in our lives when these feelings surface. However, when we seek God, we see a different perception. Significant. Worthy. Loved. Purposeful. From Psalm 139 we read, “You formed my inward parts…. I am fearfully and wonderfully made... and my soul knows it very well…. In your book were all written the days that were ordained for me…”

Yes, sticks and stones may break your bones, but the Word of God helps, guides, instructs, heals all things. Please know, that he did form you, that he knew what your life would be like before you were born, and that he has a plan for you. Time to seek Him….