Tick-Tock: The Love Clock

I spend an obscene amount of my daily allotments of clock ticks considering what I'm not good at. Like ending sentences in prepositions (gah!), there are some habits my stubbed and lazy toe just refuses to give a good kick. Thinking is one of those.

While thinking, on its own, ain't so bad (hello, vapid damsels needing a shot of "Aha!"), too much thinking is a killer. It is the assassin of simple conversation, the wrinkler of a smooth line. And I am guilty of such murder.

Still, I consider what I'm not good at (Preposition again), and I can't seem to kick the habit. So I think, and I think about love the most. Really. Not money: I'm a pretty good saver and thrifty by nature. Not time: most days, there's enough of it, and I'm content that I did not fritter. Really, my list of not's is longer than not. But love. Ah, now there's a rub.

I don't think I'm exactly bad at loving others, myself, and God - Who must sit atop all lists always. It's more like I'm assuming my line of good can become better; that better can increase to best; and that best is a term dependent on how far out I draw my line of definition...which means "best" can always be stretched to new limits. The danger may lie in never being satisfied and, I reckon, I'm sometimes guilty of that, too. But if I remain unsatisfied, my glass is raised to a sentiment expressed just like this:

If my definition of best be short of Yours for my heart, for my time, for my hands, God, then make me think about more. About better. About stretching my line of best.

I want to love like Him.
Here's a guy who gets that, too.
So I thought I'd share it - just in case you want to think about it, too.

“The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing--to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy--love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world.”
                                                                 ~ Frederick Buechner

Don't Go On Road Trips with An Herbalist and A Pet Detective. I Mean It.

I've lost count (hey, what comes after 4?) how many times the buddies have sent this my way.

It's so nice of you all to notice that - by extension of the Loosed Red Pen Plague called comp teaching - I'm locked in The Great Debate.

Boring? That yawn threatening to pop your jaw?

Can't say I blame you.

Wait! 

Yes, I can!

Because this wee mite of punctuation packs a powerful punch - especially if you end up in one of those awkward moments where what you meant to get was a giggle, but what you actually got was the Facebook block and email drop.

Here's a not-too-shabby lesson. But let me hit their bullseye.

Oxford: Amanda found herself in the Winnebago with her ex-boyfriend, an herbalist, and a pet detective.

No Oxford: Amanda found herself in the Winnebago with her ex-boyfriend, an herbalist and a pet detective.

Just punctuate.

If you end up on a road trip with an herbalist and a pet detective (um, or worse), 

it's entirely your fault.

Don't say I didn't warn ya.

116

The Bard penned it best.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

But this is not a bad rendering, either.

  I hope I may never acknowledge any reason why minds that truly love 

each other shouldn’t be joined together. 

Love isn’t really love if it changes when it sees the beloved change or if it disappears when the beloved leaves. 

Oh no, love is a constant and unchanging light that shines on storms without being shaken;

 it is the star that guides every wandering boat. 

And like a star, its value is beyond measure, though its height can be measured.

 Love is not under time’s power, though time has the power to destroy rosy lips and cheeks. 

Love does not alter with the passage of brief hours and weeks, but lasts until Doomsday.

 If I’m wrong about this and can be proven wrong, I never wrote, and no man ever loved.

Disturb Me

Disturb: to destroy the tranquillity or composure of;
      to throw into disorder;
           to put to inconvenience;
                  to alarm.

About a trillion years ago (15 in real time), I was in a Bible study. I'd been a believer maybe a month. Two if I want to stretch it. I also lived in a dorm; a giant dorm, in fact, housing about 1200 souls just wading through the grit of a life season spent trying to discover what in the heck they're all doing here.

I trekked to college to get a degree. 
Maybe gain a few friends.
Discover myself.

I discovered Christ instead. 

And, one day, about a trillion years ago, I ended up in a Bible study - the singular last X I would have ever marked on my map. Into that teeny 11x11 pad, though, we all squeezed. Searching. Seeking. Gazing at each other, asking, "What the heck are we all doing here?" 

I could fill pages with what I learned in that room from Him through those young women, but this is the nugget for today.

Never - ever - ask in prayer for God to do what you do not want Him in life to actually do.

If you ask Him to break you, sturdy your back. 

If you want Him to change you, prepare to adjust your dial. 

If you want Him to move you, pack your bags. 

If you want Him to show you, take off your shades.

If you want Him to disturb you, say goodbye to your tranquility. Diss your composure. Kiss off your lovely little order and say "Pleasure" to inconvenience. Alarm is about to be your new reality.

What made me think of all that?
This. From here.

I am stirred in the deepest corners of my soul.
I am moved to move.
I am paused to reconsider.

Which reminds me of another nugget.

If you can't look away, can't put it down, can't shake it from your fingers, close your fist: He's asking you to do it.

Fishing With Moses

Yeah, that's funny.

Fishing is serious business though. It can feed you, you know - and not just in the way you're thinking. Sure, we can fish for dinner. But we can also fish for a soul. And that's where my friend, Mandy, and The Adventure Project comes in.

She - and perhaps you right along with her - are going to train a well mechanic in India.
You heard me.
A mechanic.
For wells.
In India.

Check it out.

And avoid fishing with Moses.

How to Guard a Heart

Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23

The thing is, when you're a little girl, you don't know much about the heart. Which isn't to say you don't have feelings: little girls are surely aware enough of those to express them in all sorts of manners...streaming tears, stamping feet, pouting lips, and toothy grins all come to mind. But they don't know much about from whence those emotions come.
They just live.
And wonder.
And later, maybe, worry.

The thing is, when you're a little girl, you don't know much about guarding the heart. Seems to follow if you don't know much about the heart, I'd say. And what's all this talk of "the wellspring of life"? Can an unguarded heart lead to death? What, then, becomes of the befuddled lass who knows little of the heart and even less about guarding it?
She just lives.
And wonders.
And, perhaps, worries.

Well, not if you've got one of these...

       
  to teach you about this...

 

so you never end up like that.

If these are the times that try men's souls (thank you, Mr. Paine), they must be the days of absolute peril for women's hearts. Each generation seems less sure of the ins and outs of love and value and self-worth - probably because the rules of the game seem to change with each turn of daughter-become-mother.

And maybe that's where we get it most wrong. Perhaps mothers can't teach the lesson their own hearts are wearing on torn, mended, and torn again sleeves. Perhaps it be the fathers - who maybe have done some tearing of their own - who see most fully.
Teach most effectively.
Guard most rigorously.

Recently, Grace got dressed up for a date with her father, a Daddy-Daughter Dance to be exact.

 
Amidst great excitement, she painted her nails. And curled her hair. And buckled her first pair of fancy-heeled shoes.

Her earrings were dangly, her lips just a bit glossed.
She felt grand, I think - a child-turned princess escorted to a ball.

But her "date" wasn't a perfect prince: neither was he a warted toad.

You know, the stuff of the real-life heart is rarely so simple as streaks of black or ribbons of white. We are all flawed, broken, mending, and growing...men included.

So, if you're taking lessons about the heart, why not from a teacher who loves you the most? One who's flawed, true, but nonetheless captivated by your authentic beauty.
That particular curve of your jaw.
Or the way you hold your pen.
Or your giggle when he makes you laugh; your frown when he 
     makes you mad.
How he watches you so intently when you tell him your story.
And reminds you to continue when all within you longs to stop.

The thing is, this little girl is learning about her heart from the one  showing her how to guard it...one giggle, frown, glance, and reminder...one dance...at a time.
Incidentally, he's also the same one showing her Him: the Father
    who gave her a heart in the first place.

So she can live.
And wonder.
Without worry.
And hopefully a bit less harm.

For a little girl, the heart is risky business, a perilous journey of rise and fall, win and lose.

But this business of learning and guarding: well, maybe that's not so bad.

Especially if the lessons come by dancing with her Daddy.

How To Build a Boat

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.  ~Leo Buscaglia

To me, parenting and mothering, in particular, is a never-ending, always-winding string of touches, smiles, kind words, listening ears, honest compliments, and small acts of caring...that don't often feel, in and of themselves at the time of their execution, like life turnarounds.

Sunday last was a good day to remind me how wrong I am.

This is Elijah.

This is Elijah's daddy.

This is Elijah's daddy baptizing him.

This was a day when the little came 'round to the big: a big decision from a big boy lived out in the hands of a big guy, both honoring a big, big God.

It was a day that turned our firstborn son's life in direction anew. It was a marker of "before" and "after". It was his day, a reminder that though children come from us, they are separate from us. They must go their own way while we stand on the docks, watching them set sail...

 and remember how our touches, our smiles, our listening ears, honest compliments, and small acts of caring have, in fact, built their boats and carved their oars and steered their rudders.

Yeah.

Did I mention it was a good day?

                                                                                   

Brevity Is Its Soul

 Found this today on Pinterest.

Keeping it light today. 

And STILL laughing at the wit.

I love wit.

"Brevity is the soul of wit."
William Shakespeare