Reflections

Categories Reflections

Hearing History

2 Comments by

I live within minutes of my “home” office, but I drive around five hours a week to consult with my other two facilities.

This gives me plenty of time to listen–

and since I decided to be ambitious and include audio works that are an independent work of art in my “read every book” goal, it gives me a chance to breeze through Eiseley’s compact disc collection.

I’m almost done with the Christian music section–and I’ve made decent headway in classical and jazz. With trepidation, I’ve checked out a few rock and roll CDs.

But when I was trolling the library during my last visit, I happened upon a set of discs that fascinated me greatly.

The Words and Music of World War II.

“Cool.” I thought, and threw it in my basket.

If only I’d known.

As it was, I didn’t open the case or bother to look at it further until several weeks later when I’d just finished my current CD and was ready for another for my commute.

I happened upon this title and popped it in to hear something spectacular.

An air raid siren sounds.

A crackling radio voice informs me that Pearl Harbor has been attacked.

Music fills my car, forties swing reminding me to remember Pearl Harbor.

President Roosevelt begins his iconic address “a date which will live in infamy…suddenly and deliberately attacked…”

Forties swing takes me away again.

Back and forth it goes, a narrator describing the events of the war–then a song from that era. A radio reporter tells of flying over Germany with a group of bombers–then music. Announcers tell British parents exactly what items their children should carry in the hand luggage they take to school the day they will be evacuated to the country to escape the air raids. Another song fills the airwaves.

Two full discs, a drive to and fro. Music and memories, sad and sweet, crazy and comical.

It was a much different look at the war than the picture I’d been reading from inside Germany. This was the home front. America. Great Britain.

This started much later, only after Germany had invaded Poland and Great Britain declared war, making it an official “World” War.

But it was a necessary look. A reminder of how others’ lives, so far away, were affected or not affected by what was occurring in Europe and the Pacific.

And it was fun–swinging, rollicking tunes. Sad, sentimental songs. Hilarious bits like “Atom and Evil”.

Hearing History, almost like living history–a tiny piece of what life was like then.

Categories Reflections, Relationships

Are you my brother?

2 Comments by

“But he’s like a brother” she said.

“Except that he’s not.” I thought.

It’s a sentiment I hear a lot–and use plenty myself. I talk of brothers and sister in Christ. I quote the Scripture about treating young women as sisters. I talk about not causing my “brother” to stumble.

But sometimes I think we take the analogy (or even the spiritual reality) too far in our everyday lives.

We forget, perhaps, that there’s at least one critical distinction between a brother-in-the-Lord and a brother-by-blood.

You can’t marry a brother-by-blood.

Which allows a certain liberty to be taken in thought and action.

I don’t really think much about whether my brothers-by-blood like me or how they’re reading my behavior towards them. I don’t have to. My siblings all know that none of our intentions towards one another are sexual–or heading towards marital intimacy.

As such, I am often candid with my brothers-by-blood when discussing my heart or even my body. I share my heartaches with them. I talk about my cycles in their presence (not that they’re ever too pleased by that line of conversation.) Likewise, I punch, pinch, tease, or hug my brothers-by-blood–with little thought to how it is perceived. So what if I sit on my little brother when he beats me to the chair I wanted?

But this is not how I ought to treat my brother-in-the-Lord who is not my brother-by-blood.

Even if my intention towards my brother-in-the-Lord is completely platonic, there is no guarantee that our relationship will always be platonic.

There is nothing biologically keeping me from having a more than platonic relationship with my brother-in-the-Lord.

And there’s nothing biologically keeping him from thinking or feeling towards me in a manner that is not platonic.

Which means that treating my brother-in-the-Lord as a brother means more than just treating him the exact way I treat my brothers-by-blood.

I need to not lust after him (just as I would not lust after my brothers-by-blood)–but beyond, I need to take deliberate steps to guard his heart (the heart that is not guarded by the natural platonicity that siblings-by-blood have towards one another.)

I need to act deliberately towards my brothers-in-Christ.

It’s not enough to dismiss them as “but he’s like a brother.”

He’s also a single man that could potentially marry me (or want to).

Which means I need to treat him not quite like a brother.

I realize that some people do struggle with physical attraction towards their brothers-by-blood. In these cases, extra caution should be taken with them as well. But the normative experience is that siblings not only have the implicit understanding that they cannot marry by law but explicit biological deterrents to sexual awareness of their siblings. One famous study found that women were “turned off” by the sweat of their biological relations, while the sweat of unrelated men (believe it or not) can be aphrodisiac (related to pheromones found in said sweat.)

Categories Everyday Life, Reflections

Romancing the Sun

2 Comments by

I drive west in the morning, the sun rising behind me.

In the evening, as I drive home, the sun sinks until at last I see it in my rearview mirror, bidding me farewell.

I am blessed to never have the sun in my eyes, to not have to squint into its unrelenting gaze.

But sometimes I feel as if I were running from the sun, turning and fleeing instead of chasing it, embracing it as I would like.

I’d like, for just once, to stop my car, to stop my purposeful retreat from the sun’s glare.

I’d like to step into a cornfield and dance with the sun’s warm touch on my face.

I’d like to play hide-and-seek with the sun, dashing through the trees that line the river.

I’d like to read a book as the sun peeks over my shoulder, reading a few sentences ahead.

Romantic thoughts, perhaps, dreams of me and the sun both quitting our day’s work to merely play.

But in the wistful thought of such an idyllic day, I cannot forget the quiet romance of this, our day-to-day.

The sun’s soft hand upon my shoulder as I drive to and fro. His gentle kiss to my cheek when the road’s curve let’s us speak.

The kind service he offers me in illumining my way. And the fiery, passionate, sometimes wistful way he waves goodbye until at last we fade from each other’s view.

Categories Reflections

Friction

2 Comments by

I adore Three Star Night’s fantastic web-comic format

I was contemplating friction on one of my commutes on perilously icy roads…

and I just knew I wanted to share it using TSN’s format:

You can move in a low-friction environment...but you can't steer. Friction makes movement purposeful.

Original Photograph: by treedork found on flickr under CC2.0 This work is released under the similar CC3.0 license.

In the interest of full disclosure, said incident (driving on icy roads) was last month. It’s been lovely weather here recently–and my commute has been smooth with just the right amount of friction to keep me safely on the road heading in the right direction.

I only recently made the time to find a photo to stick my reflections on–which is why you’re enjoying(?) this post in the midst of an unseasonably bright and sunny February (that is scheduled to end today, if I read my weather report right.)

Categories Reflections

Who has time?

4 Comments by

“Who has time?” Lisa asks about a couple who kissed for 46 hours.

I ask myself the same question when people talk about, well, just about anything these days.

“Who has time?”

Certainly not I.

I don’t have time to clean my house. I don’t have time to watch a movie. I don’t have time to do the projects I love. I don’t have time to read the books I so enjoy.

My work manages to take up as much time as I allow it, and I find that I might be a bit of a work-a-holic.

If I were an hourly employee, I wouldn’t have been able to come to work today because I’d already have exceeded my 40 hours in the week (Our pay periods end on Wednesdays.)

But I’m not an hourly employee–and I had some prep to do for a meeting at 10:30, so I was at work at 7 this morning.

Ten and a half hours later, I slung my bag onto my shoulder and left work.

Who has time?

Certainly not me.

I intended to only work 8 hours today.

I knew I had to be early. I knew I had to stay late. I planned on taking a couple hours out of the middle.

I realized my plans for long lunch were futile when I’d barely made a dent in my list of people to chart on by the time lunch rolled around–and I still had two meetings to attend in the afternoon.

Who has time?

Not me. Not two hours, definitely.

But I decided that even though I didn’t have time, I’d take some time today.

Usually when I go to work, I work from the moment I get there to the moment I leave at night. I eat at my desk while looking over weights or brainstorming new systems or talking over some detail with my dietary manager.

But today, I looked at my schedule and decided I’d make time.

I’d make what time I had.

I jaunted out to my car, put on my socks and tennies, and went for a walk.

I wandered the neighborhood. I found a road that took me to a corn field through which I could see my church (but that unfortunately did not go through, though that had been my original aim). I waved my hand and toodled a cheery hello to an old man out raking his lawn.

I returned to my desk refreshed, rejuvenated, alive.

I didn’t have the time. My list for tomorrow may be longer for having taken a half hour to walk today.

But my heart is lighter, my step springier, my life more blessed and more willing to bless.

I may not HAVE the time.

But I’m discovering that I HAVE to MAKE the time.

There’s not enough time to not take time for what’s important.

Make the time.

Make the most of the moments you have.

And head over to Lisa Notes… to read the reflection that inspired my reflections.

Categories Reflections

Incomprehensible Awe

4 Comments by

When I look at the works of men, I am overwhelmed with awe.

Skyscrapers.

Supercomputers.

747s.

Beautiful artwork. Soul-stirring music. A well written book

It is too much for my mind to conceive.

Yet somehow, all these things were conceived of by the minds of men.

If I cannot comprehend the immensity of these works of the mind of men, how can I begin to comprehend, to conceive the mind of God?

For He not only comprehends the minds that conceived these works which I find so awe-inspiring and incomprehensible–He conceived the very minds that were then capable of conceiving such incomprehensible (to me) works.

Thus does my awe at man’s creations put me even more in awe of man’s Creator.

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.”
~Psalm 8:3-5

Categories Reflections

Being Real

8 Comments by

There are two kinds of bloggers I hate.

The perfect ones–

and the perfectly awful ones.

The former never have a problem, float through life, always seem perfectly in control, always have a perfectly spiritual answer to everything that comes up.

The latter have lives composed of nothing but problems–they go where they’re thrown by circumstances. They emote directly into their posts and never self-edit. Their blogs are full of disappointment and venom and angst.

I have too much pride (and desire to stay employed) to be the latter, so I choose to self-edit. I write about my frustrations, but not in my frustration. I try to be wise with what details I share. I wait until I’ve cooled down to write.

But as a result, I fear my blog occasionally gives the impression that I’m the former–that I’ve got it all together. Sure, I talk about problems, but always in the past tense. I fear I’m like one of the small group members John Acuff lampoons on Stuff Christians Like for confessing “safe sins”:

“Someone will say, “I need to be honest with everyone tonight. I need to have full disclosure and submit myself in honesty. Like ODB from the Wu-Tang Clan, I need to give it to you raw!” So you brace yourself for this crazy moment of authenticity and the person takes a deep breath and says

…

“I haven’t been reading my Bible enough.”

So, just in case I haven’t been real enough, I’m ready to share a less-stellar, but really real incident that occurred about a week ago.

I intended to set up my computer, enter some grades, then go to sleep. Two hours later I couldn’t get connected to the internet, whatever I did. It felt like the end of the world.

I’d been doing some reupholstering of my computer chair since my computer was taking forever trying to connect to the internet–but one thing kept going wrong after another. The axle slipped from my hand and left a grease stain on my carpet. I was tacking in the new fabric and repeatedly hammered my finger and thumb. Then I couldn’t get the newly upholstered piece back into place. My screwdriver slipped and I gouged my hand. I was alone and I yelled my “ARGGH!” through clenched teeth into the empty house.

Now I’m crying again, bawling with anger, snot running down my face.

It’s not fair, I tell myself, the world, God, anyone who might be listening. It’s not right. Why does life have to be so hard? Why can’t anything go right.

I can’t handle it, I say, enumerating what must be done. Grading to finish and grades to enter–except, oops, my computer won’t connect to the internet. A lab practical to write and study tips to give my students. A shopping trip to complete, an angel food cake to bake, a lecture and a quiz to write. Don’t know how I’m gonna get that all done, seems how I don’t have the internet on the computer that has all my class files.

And then there’s the work I still need to finish up at my other job–sometime before I leave for Lincoln. I can’t work from home just now, since I can’t get internet on that computer. And there’s the matter of the house I have to get clean before Wednesday–the house I’ll now be cleaning with bruised and bloodied hands.

Lovely.

My self-pity goes further–I dredge up all the unfairness of this last year, of the choices that others have made that have impacted me greatly, of the hopes raised just to be dashed.

I write in my journal that I quit.

I can’t do it. I can’t. I really, really can’t. It’s too much. I can’t handle it. I need a break, I need some sleep. I need life to stop being so stinkin’ unfair–Yeah right. I don’t see that happening. You know that old saying, “Life isn’t always fair?” It doesn’t go far enough. Life’s never fair.

I hate it.

I really wish I could quit.

But I can’t. URGGHHHHH!

That was after I’d cooled down considerably, by the way.

Categories Reflections

Gratituitous Solidarity

1 Comment by

Last week was National Healthcare Foodservice Week, or as they called it at my facility, “Dietary Week.”

Our dietary services manager did a great job of organizing activities for her staff. She arranged games, a scavenger hunt, special snacks, and multiple prize giveaways for dietary staff.

And she had some t-shirts made up for the dietary staff to wear on “casual Friday.”

I was given one of these t-shirts and invited to wear it on Friday as well.

I’ll admit that the shirts were cute.

But that didn’t keep it from being a t-shirt.

I don’t wear t-shirts.

Ever.

Okay–I wear them to bed and to change my oil.

Definitely not to work.

What was I to do?

I’d been offered the t-shirt as a show of solidarity. Even though I am not really a part of the “dietary staff” per se, I was invited to celebrate as though I were.

So I took the t-shirt home and modified it, only confirming the gratuitous nature of my solidarity.

Modified t-shirt

Not that tapering the waist and redoing the sleeves and the neckline of the shirt was necessary to prove that I wasn’t quite the same as the others wearing the shirt. The skirt and hose I wore with it, and the white coat worn over top probably were sufficient to make that clear.

But the shirt became an object lesson of the nature of gratuitous solidarity. “See, I’m just like you. Look how hard I’ve tried to be just like you. We’re all in this together. Can’t you see how I’m in this together with you?”

The chasm widens as the attempts at solidarity grow.

Gratuitous, a half-hearted attempt to prove I’m one of the gang when all of us know I’m not.

I realize this end bit sounds rather melancholy and depressed–it’s not. I have no problem with my “station” at the facility as member of the clinical staff. I just realized as I was modding my t-shirt how false the idea of showing “solidarity” with a group that you don’t actually belong to can be–and decided it was worth blogging :-)

Categories Reflections

I Bite My Tongue

1 Comment by

Every day, I bite my tongue–er, still my fingers on the keyboard.

I desperately want to make snarky comments, to express my frustration, to let the world know how I feel.

They’re thinly veiled criticisms, one-liners that would be sure to meet their mark.

They refer to personal habits, individual quirks, things that drive me absolutely nuts.

Things about people I love.

Things that would hurt them deeply were I to speak.

Every day, I bite my tongue.

But not because I love them.

I bite my tongue because I love me.

I don’t want to disturb the peace, to have to actually deal with the issues–the issues that I know aren’t really that important but which bug me anyway.

I don’t want to have to undo the hurt I’ve caused.

Mostly, I don’t want people to see the real, ugly me.

If I said those words out loud, you’d all know how mean, how nasty, how spiteful I can actually be. And I don’t want you to know.

I want you to see me through rose-colored glasses. I want you to perceive me as super-spiritual, practically-perfect. Sure, I’ll share my struggles, so long as they’re big existential struggles (and I have plenty of those to keep blog space filled, it seems.) But I don’t want you to see my pettiness, my unlovingness.

I bite my tongue.

I do the right thing.

But not because I love.

Because I care what people think.

Categories Reflections

Flowers without leaves

3 Comments by

I generally park off-campus on the side kitty-corner to where I need to be, instead of going with the nearest parking. The 3/4 mile walk on and off of campus ensures that I get at least 15 minutes of moderate exercise per day (I know, pitiful!)

It’s a walk I almost always enjoy. Sure, my ever-laden bags start to get heavy after a while–but the distance there is great for reciting my memory verses in quiet rhythm with the staccato of my feet on pavement. And the walk back is perfect for offering the day’s burdens to the Lord in prayer.

I vary my route every so often, and once I found myself walking besides the most unusual flowers.

Flowers

Huge clusters of pink flowers soaring high above the mulch, with nary a leaf in sight!

The first time I saw them, entirely by accident, I merely stopped in shock and then resumed my walk.

On my return trip I took the same route and snapped a picture.

Flowers

How can they live like that? I thought. Flowers without leaves?

How do they gain their nourishment? They have no leaves to gather energy from the sun.

The next day, I had my answer. They don’t live long.

Today they are merely dead heads on swaying stalks–

A flower without leaves
can’t last long