Hello. So nice of you to stop by. Sorry I missed you.
It’s spring break here in Wichita. I’m unplugging for a few days to spend time with the family.
God willing, I’ll be back on the blog next week. See you then.
Now go. Get out there and live the gift that is your life.
And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:8 NIV
Sometimes what I really need to do is run away. Travel can hold the ticket to a clearer, better perspective.
over Alaska
I may go to a faraway place and detox from the real world. But there are closer, shorter voyages that achieve similar, lifesaving results.
Drive 200 miles to see an old friend. Spend the hours alone in the car. Singing with the radio. Turning it off to discuss things with God. Questioning. Talking it over. Being heard. Listening.
Or take a long lunch to catch up with someone I haven’t seen in a while. Break down the state of the world as we know it. Pick up where we left off as if the time never passed at all.
Or simply bow out of the room for five minutes. Walk around the block. Step back. Breathe. Remember what’s important. Re-engage with peace.
on the beach in Bali
My favorite psychology professor in grad school once told my class a secret. He said he recommended depressed people go to the mountains or the ocean. I imagine the plains, desert, or forest would work as well.
It is in such places they could come face to face with how small they are and how big God is. Surrender to it and find refuge. Then come home able to move—even if ever so slightly—forward.
Perspective is easy to lose, but not so hard to regain either.
Here you thought it was gone forever, but look. There it is a few miles up ahead.
God’s love is meteoric,
His loyalty astronomic,
His purpose titanic,
His verdicts oceanic.
Yet in His largeness
nothing gets lost;
Not a man, not a mouse,
slips through the cracks. Psalm 36:5-6 The Message
The incredible photos in this post are compliments of Janis and Jeff Jones, my traveling friends who see the value in venturing.
Traveling with the Jones
Between the two of them, they’ve traveled to 80 different countries, all 50 states, and 175 cruise ports around the world.
“Travel, for us, is about personal growth,” says Janis. “It gets us out of our routines and our comfort zones; it broadens our horizons and breaks down our misconceptions. Through our travels, we’ve found people are basically the same despite living under vastly different circumstances and cultures.”
Ryan Goodman riding horseback on the west slopes of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming
There’s a new everyday epistle post out. But it’s not here where it usually is. Today we’re taking a field trip. A blog-cation.
Saddle up and click on over to Ryan Goodman’s excellent site Agriculture Proud.
Ryan is a real cowboy. Comes from the hearty stock of an Arkansas cattle ranching family. Smart, too. He’s currently in graduate school at the University of Tennessee.
And Ryan is social. His Facebook page I am Agriculture Proud has more than 1,400 followers. Find him on Twitter at @AR_ranchhand.
Ryan Goodman is Agriculture Proud
Ryan is also tall. He’s six feet four inches of tall, dark, and bachelor. Said he’s not ready to settle down yet. Single ladies, see if you can help him with that, will ya?
Humor and matchmaking aside, I’m honored to be guest posting on Ryan’s site today because he has a passion for telling the true story of American agriculture. And he’s invited some friends to join him this month.
So come along with me to Ryan’s cyber ranch. Meet a real cowboy and find out why I’ve been known to follow ag blogs, write about farm stuff, and collect photos of barns and livestock on Pinterest.
The first time I visited Chicago I was in my early 20s. A lovely, drunk Chicagoan took it upon herself to counsel me in a bar.
choose your color
“You’re cute,” she said. “But your nails just ruin it! You must get a manicure.”
Nothing like one woman’s criticism to motivate another woman to action.
I don’t get manicures every week. I get them when I can. When I must.
And I throw in a pedicure. Need it to exercise. How can I be expected to do yoga with unpolished toenails?
As you know, we recently relocated. Had some free time one Friday. So I’m thinking, I’m in Wichita, the largest city in Kansas. I’ll just pop in somewhere and have my nails done. No problem.
No appointment, no service was more like it.
“We’re booked until 4:30 p.m.,” said the first shop.
tools of the trade
“How about next week?” said the second.
“We don’t have time to do both,” said the third. “Manicure or pedicure?”
I have to choose? But I’ll be unbalanced. (Please hold all comments until the end.)
My free time was evaporating. Desperate, I tried one last shop.
“How long for a manicure-pedicure?”
The row of women paused their filling and filing to stare like I was from Mars.
“No, wait!” said one woman as I turned to leave. Must have been the owner.
“She can take you now.” The owner pointed across the room to a beautiful, young woman reading a magazine.
The young woman looked up and rolled her eyes. Red flag number one.
“No. No. No,” said the little voice inside me.
pedicure station
I sat down in the pedicure chair anyway. I needed to have my nails done.
As the young one began removing my old polish, I smiled and said, “I’m so glad you could take me today.”
She looked up and snarled. “You’re lucky you got in,” she said. “We usually only take appointments.”
The little voice inside me whipped around and wagged a finger. “No, you’re lucky I’m sitting in your chair, sister!”
In real life I was stunned silent. My feet literally in hot water. Better not to speak lest I lose a toe.
Forty-five minutes later, I had ravishing, plum toenails. They were shaped kind of weird, but they were all still there.
We moved to the manicurist station where the young one placed my hands in little dishes of water. Then she disappeared into the break room. For 10 minutes.
The skin on my fingers pruned and the little voice shrieked, “GET OUT!”
candy dish
Back in St. Louis at Ladue Nails I would have been done with all this in less than an hour. No coffee breaks allowed if you have a customer in the house.
Should I call her out of the break room? Pay the owner for the pedi and leave? Run screaming from the building?
Finally she reappeared, all smug and caffeinated.
“You know what?” I said. “I have to pick up my son from school. Let me pay for the pedicure and go.”
“Are you sure you can’t stay?” she said.
“You’ll listen to me next time?” said the little voice as we drove away.
Count on it.
Discretion will protect you,
and understanding will guard you. Proverbs 2:11 NIV
Despite this experience, there are many fabulous salons in Wichita. For example, I found a terrific manicurist at a friendly salon that boasts of the best candy dish in town.
Nini, at Nails and Spa on Central near 127th, advises me to be on the safe side and always make an appointment.
A good week finds me at the Y two mornings for yoga and two for pilates.
I have four different instructors affectionately nicknamed to protect their identities: the Boomer, the Ballerina, the Brit, and Grace whom you may remember from Namaste.
buffalo as seen on Manchester
The Boomer is my intelligent, sandwich generation yoga instructor. In true Boomer fashion, she delivers a hefty dose of unsolicited, often humorous, expert advice every week.
Tells us how we should put our handbags in our grocery carts when shopping to preserve our shoulders. How we must strengthen our quads so we don’t end up in nursing homes, unable to take care of our own bathroom duties.
It’s a fun class. Really.
One morning, she said, “There are two kinds of people in the world: Vikings and temple dancers.”
We giggled. “Vikings are the people we hear above us in the weight room grunting and dropping dumbbells on the floor,” she said. “They like the taste of adrenaline. They want to lift, sweat, and pump iron.”
“Then there are those of us who are temple dancers,” she said. “We like to bend, stretch, and feel the gentle flood of endorphins.”
“It would be good for the Vikings to dance and the temple dancers to lift weights,” she said. “But we have our preferences. We start with our strengths.”
what a feeling as seen at Sears
My Y-appointed trainer wants me to go to the Body Blitz class. Add the Muscle Pump hour. Do something called CORE in all caps.
Says it will help me “burn” faster. Speed up my metabolism. Thinks yoga is all cardio and no resistance. I’m avoiding her for the time being.
I pine for chiseled arms like Linda Hamilton’s in Terminator, so I may add weights. Vanity, oh vanity. But my metabolism is fast enough already.
And there’s a lot of resistance in yoga and pilates. It’s nuanced. You push against your own body rather than a free weight or machine.
It’s like a dance with yourself. A temple dance of bending, stretching, and wonderful, glorious endorphins.
You did it: You changed wild lament
into whirling dance;
You ripped off my black mourning band
and decked me with wildflowers.
I’m about to burst with song;
I can’t keep quiet about You.
God, my God,
I can’t thank you enough. Psalm 30:11-12 The Message
Dancing with Myself by Nouvelle Vague. If you’re used to the Billy Idol version of this song, you’re in for a treat with Nouvelle Vague’s cover. Fantastique!
Disclaimer: In case it isn’t blatantly obvious to you, I’m not an authority in health or fitness. I write of my own experiences and impressions. Nothing here should be construed as health, fitness, or medical advice.
Yesterday my first grader explained to me a squabble he was having in school.
school bus
“George (not his real name) says one hundred AND fifty,” he said. “I told him it’s one hundred fifty.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s one hundred fifty.”
“Yeah, but then everyone said, ‘Nu-uh! It’s one hundred AND fifty,'” he said.
I grabbed a piece of paper to illustrate.
“You write it like this: 150,” I said. “Not like this: 100 AND 50. See?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“So you say it that way, too,” I said. “One hundred fifty.”
“Well, George says it’s one hundred AND fifty,” he said. “I’m going to tell him again he’s wrong.”
“Honey,” I said. Deep breath. “You can tell him, but he may not believe you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “He probably needs to hear it from his parents.”
“Unless his parents also think it’s one hundred AND fifty,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. You know what’s right and you told him. Even if the whole class disagrees, it’s still one hundred fifty.”
My son was quiet.
“I’m going to tell them it’s one hundred fifty,” he said. “And then when they say, ‘Nu-uh! No, it’s not!…'”
Pause.
“I’ll just say, ‘Oh, forget it.'”
He has a point.
Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. Matthew 7:6 NIV
Forget About It by Alison Krauss and Union Station. What unforgettable talent. Enjoy the weekend!
I’ve gone to church all my life, except for The Wander Years between 18 and 24.
visitor parking
During that time, I was guilty of all sorts of unspeakable atrocities, including voting for Bill Clinton in 1992.
I jest. Sort of. My super smart PoliSci roommate was right about him all along.
Those years are replete with fascinating stories. Alas, that’s another post. Or maybe a book.
This post is about church.
Since relocating, we’ve been visiting churches. We’re weighing several factors: the doctrinal soundness of the teaching, the content of worship, the children’s ministries, how naturally we could fit it and participate.
Finding a church is a little like finding a doctor or hair stylist. There are a lot of good ones out there, but only a few you’d be comfortable seeing regularly.
Having been in church so long, I’ve experienced some vibrant, healthy, edifying communities. And I’ve seen my share of scandals, splits, legalism, and hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy. With trepidation I list it. The trespass all of us commit because none of us is perfect. That’s an important lesson I began to come to terms with to emerge from The Wander Years and give church another try.
first time guest parking
People will fail you. It will happen.
One pastor I know said people often ask him if they will be hurt by becoming part of a church.
“Yes,” he said. “If you stick around long enough, yes.”
So why go? Well, that’s part of the lesson too. People will fail you; God will not. I go to church because it’s an integral part of following after Him.
My individual walk, my personal prayers, my Bible study are imperative, but incomplete if I’m not relating with other imperfect people who are also following after God.
As surely as some of those people will fail me, I will fail some of them.
More often on this trajectory though, glimmers of Christ-likeness shine through. We support one another. Pray with and for one another. Learn together. Stand together as a smaller community and as part of The Church, the greater congregation of believers across the ages.
Looking for a church is not easy. Some weeks I get discouraged. But I’ve been around this block before. I know the search is worth it.
If you’re looking for a church community, take heart. Don’t give up. Keep visiting. Pray for wisdom. Trust God to provide. Follow after Him.
If you’re in a good church, by all means go. With thanksgiving and gratitude, go. Be a participant, not an observer.
And if you’re in a church where you’ve prayerfully done all you can and it’s still not working for whatever reason, it may be time to move on. Quietly, without making a fuss, leave in order to find a healthier situation.
white cross on blue ground
Being part of a good church is too important not to pursue.
Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near. Hebrews 10:24-25 NLT
Earlier today I commented on super blogger Rachel Held Evans’ post. She addressed the latest upset about Rush Limbaugh and how Christians are responding. Her post got a whopping 325 comments before they were closed because of trolls.
Rather than have you rummage through all that, here’s an excerpt of my lengthy comment:
As for Rush, his delivery is faulted, even distasteful. Like it or not, he’s protected just like you and I are under the First Amendment to speak and have a place at the table of public discourse. I would argue that some of his political points are spot-on in line with an evangelical perspective, especially regarding right to life issues. And he has a platform and an audience.
Tonight I revisited to see if Evans responded. She didn’t and I didn’t expect her to. But a couple other bloggers did.
Here’s the reply that zapped me back to the U.S.S.R.:
“Like it or not, he’s protected just like you and I are under the First Amendment to speak and have a place at the table of public discourse.”
Actually, he’s not.
The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
No one is petitioning Congress to make a law about Rush Limbaugh. No one is trying to get the government to intervene. People have asked political figures their opinion, but they have not asked them to legislate on the issue.
No one is guaranteed a podium from which to spew hate speech. They are simply guaranteed freedom from government intervention.
first amendment got your back
Actually he’s not? Again I wonder, what country is this anyway?
The spirit of the First Amendment means everyone may speak even if we disagree. It’s the backbone or at least the ribcage of our other freedoms.
Am I to understand it’s en vogue to toss that spirit on a technicality? It’s now okay to censor as long as it’s not the government that does the dirty work?
Lawyers, scholars, law-abiding Americans, I need you here. Someone, anyone, weigh in, please. I’m listening.
What do ya’ll think?
You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. James 1:19 NLT
How do I know Twitter scooped the story? Read it in a link from someone I follow on Twitter.
The fateful Saturday of Houston’s death, I’d been unplugged all day. Decided to log on before turning in for the night.
Checking Facebook when it popped up. A link to an AP article with the status: “Whitney Houston, dead at 48. So sad.”
Before social media, this news would have been brought to me by a more traditional means. Television. Radio. Newspaper. Grapevine.
Take the Saturday night of Princess Diana’s fatal car accident in 1997. My husband and I were watching Early Edition. Network news broke in announcing the Princess had been in a car crash. We stayed up for a while, hanging on the plodding, painful drip from BBC, then went to bed.
It wasn’t until Erwin Lutzer announced Diana’s death from the pulpit the next morning in church that we knew she hadn’t survived.
Presently, we are without a television. I mean we have one. We just haven’t hooked it up to cable or satellite since we moved.
It’s not that we don’t like television. We just don’t miss it all that much. We certainly don’t miss the mammoth bill.
We instantly access news online. Connected friends send us play-by-play on Facebook and Twitter. When we need to know, we do.
That said, we’d like to watch real time college basketball in our own living room rather than a sports bar. This year’s Olympic games, presidential election, and severe weather alerts in our new Tornado Alley home will likely force our hand.
We’ll have to accept the dreaded bundle from cable.
a whole new way, as seen at Best Buy
My dream is to pick and pay for only what I want without the excess channels and shenanigans in a prepackaged lineup. Digital cable holds the technology to make my dream a reality if only providers were willing to work out the kinks and offer cable a la carte.
I’m not the only one dreaming this dream. Devin Coldewy of Tech Crunch writes, “These days people can barely bring themselves to pay for anything online, and that philosophy is leaking into the cable world.”
Coldewey forecasts a “death spiral” for cable companies if they refuse to meet consumer demand.
Joe Flint of the Los Angeles Times writes the holdup is with large cable operators like Time Warner and Comcast who also create programming. They want “their channels in the homes of all their subscribers, not just the ones who want them.”
Cable companies, if you’re listening, let go and let the market decide.
If you choose to drag your feet, suit yourselves. Some ambitious startup will eventually earn my business by offering me what I want to buy.
You see, with or without television, life goes on. We may surrender to the bundle for now. Or we may continue to find ways around you.
We can borrow movies from the library. Watch the games at Applebee’s. Catch sitcoms on Hulu. Stream coverage on the iPad. And get our headlines in the quicksilver morse code of social media.
They do not fear bad news;
they confidently trust the LORD to care for them. Psalm 112:7 NLT
Graphique de France creates the most deliciously charming stationery and gifts like the whale notecards featured in this post. Their tag “classic. chic. trendsetting.” is spot-on. Click to visit their Graphique Boutique.
Was reminded this week of one of the many reasons why need each other and the blessing of friendship.
dillon’s daffodil
Friends speak truth into my life. Truth that may be obvious to everyone except me. Truth that frees me indeed.
Alex was that kind of friend. I remember the first time I saw him in my old neighborhood. A cheerful, elderly gentleman walking his dog Bo.
He reached out. Always had time to speak and to care. Left anyone he met along the way with a kind, “God bless!”
Alex refused to talk politics or religion with me. The fall we met nearly 10 years ago, I was knee-deep in a rigorous study of the Old Testament history of Israel. Alex was Jewish, and I was dying to dish with him. But he wouldn’t have it. Didn’t want anything to risk a rift between neighbors.
Fast forward to the next fall. After years of infertility, my husband and I were thrilled by the birth of our son. Then colic put a quick damper on our joy for the beginning months.
By spring, the colic was over and all was well again. I was out with the baby one day when Alex came by with Bo. He stopped and talked with me in my yard among the daffodils and hyacinths.
I told him about the discouraging experience of dealing with a colicky baby. How my son cried and cried. How there was no way to comfort him. How I felt like a bad mom.
“It’s sad for you after waiting so long for a child,” said Alex, “to lose the first months with him to colic.” His wise eyes soft with empathy.
No one had said that to me until then, at least not in a way I could hear it. No one had tapped into the emotion of the experience and spoken the truth of it. Colic is sad, even devastating. For the baby, yes. But also for the parents. Also for me.
The content and care of his words was powerful. Alex called out what happened. Gave me permission to feel the pain. Freed me to move on.
Other friends—new and old, close and far—have done this throughout the years and even this week in matters big and small. Probably without realizing it.
Out of nowhere comes that lightning bolt sentence. That straight shot of truth.
It was legalism. You were hurt in ministry by legalism.
Look at the color! It’s perfect! I love that cranberry.
Recently Amy of Using Our Words blogged about the travails of grocery shopping with children. The corporate groan arose from parents.
She invited us to share our stories in the comments. I got a little carried away (hard to believe, I know), and wrote nearly a post about my best-worst grocery store excursion with my son. It’s one of my favorite early motherhood memories.
Why pass up the opportunity to post a perfectly good story? That would be like throwing away a perfectly good cereal box when my son can make a turtle house out of it. In the spirit of reduce, reuse, recycle, I’ll share it again here with you.
shell game
The story takes place in the Mexican food aisle of our local grocery store where I looking for a certain brand of taco shells or something, which of course I couldn’t find. My son was still very little. I’m not even sure he could walk yet, but boy, could he move.
He didn’t want to sit in the cart. He didn’t want me to hold him like a normal baby. He wanted to climb up as high as he could on Mt. Momma and cliff jump off my head.
Where are those cotton-picking taco shells?! Must get out of this store…
My son’s gymnastics were commonplace to me. Without thinking, I hoisted him up over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I held him firmly by his leg as he dangled down my back cooing with glee.
Finally I could study the shelves of processed Tex-Mex in peace. Ah, there were the shells I needed.
Then I felt it. The pressure of the heavy gaze of judgment.
I turned to see two older women frozen stiff, staring at me in horror. How could I hold my dear, sweet child in such peril?
My blood pressure spiked like a jalapeño’s heat. Without skipping a beat, I pulled my little one back from the brink of imaginary disaster and thrust him out toward the gawkers.
“Would you like to hold him?” I said. “Didn’t think so.” We grabbed our shells and away we went.
Adiós, señoras. Things aren’t always as they appear.
chip on my shoulder
The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7 NLT
