Five Minute Friday - Small

Five-Minute Friday writing fun-ercise from Lisa-Jo Baker 
Prompt: Small

Today I was scheduled to be at a conference. I’ve attended this conference for the past three years, but this, the fourth year, my enthusiasm is waning. After dropping 'the kid' off at the airport this morning I started making my way through town to get to the location of the conference. I missed the exit from the freeway. I went the wrong way off the second exit. Siri had to guide me to the location. Once there, it was another ten minutes before I found which building I was supposed to be at. But even after I checked in and was sitting in the second (my first) small group session, I wasn’t sure that I had found where I was supposed to be – not really. I listened to stories and struggled with feeling small. Why am I here? My small life isn’t making an impact. Am I willing to abandon my life and move to faraway lands to make a difference? My faith is too small, my vision too small, my selfishness too big.

Perhaps, I am not too small – but rather I have not found where I belong; I have changed and no longer fit, not too small just a different shape.

Note to self - Don’t compare mandarins to grapefruits, and judge yourself small, you’re just different. 

{side note: I left for the lunch break, and just didn't quite make it back. I found a sunny spot at my favorite tea shop and a warm, delicious sweet mug of chai and decided to take care of myself.}

Writing as Shoveling

Five-Minute Friday writing fun-ercise from Lisa-Jo Baker 

Prompt: write

Today is a snow day, a beautiful, white, quiet, work from home, snow day. While cozied up under a blanket, working away, and drinking cup after cup of tea. I could hear a neighbor shoveling and my heart was saddened that someone would want to do away with the snow, blemish it, and toss it aside. Looking out the side window of my front door I saw my neighbor Bob, not only shoveling his driveway but our whole alley way. My annoyance at his dislike of the snow was melted by his generous heart to serve all of us in the building. An hour later I decided to go for a walk, to get fresh air and enjoy the snow first hand. Bob was still out there shoveling. We chatted and I teased him that he was fighting a losing battle; the area where he had started was already blanketed with fresh snow. He knew that it would need to be done again in the morning, but that it would be easier than doing it all at once. And it struck me that writing isn’t so very different than shoveling snow. Sometimes it needs to be broken down into manageable tasks, just when you think an area is done you need to go back and do it again covering the same ground again and again, that it can often be an act of service to others, but also, sometimes, it can wait until morning.

FMF: Race

The doctor taped up my right ankle, pink and green, and I thought somehow he knew that would make me happy and please my preppy aesthetic. Later that day I taped up my left ankle with more pink tape. I continued to prepare for race day despite the agonizing pain in my stomach. Stupid ulcer. I didn't know how I'd complete 13.1 miles of the Portland half marathon in the morning, but to get the goodies I had to finish the race. It was completely foolish; my stubborn pride would not allow me to quit. I refuse to let my body keep me from doing what I want, living my life. I felt fine in the morning, and all during the race. Frequently, internally saying, "Take that you stupid ulcer! You can't keep me down!"
I finished the race.
Improved my time even.
And, I got the goodies - a pretty finishers medal, coin, pendant, and a not so pretty finishers shirt.

But I wonder, where is that same tenacity for my spiritual life? The determination to overcome the obstacles and hurdles? The perseverance to log the long hours training and building the foundation? Is my focus on the finish line, my goal on the best goodies - to hear "well done, my good and faithful servant?"

Which race am I running? Which one really matters?

{This post is part of Lisa-Jo Baker's Five Minute Friday's}

Five-Minute Friday: {Dance}

I remember going to the Lakewood Center for the Arts at the tender age of 8, maybe it was 7, for ballet classes. It was a love/hate relationship. I wanted to feel pretty. I wanted to have ballet slippers - the kind with the pink satin ribbon that would wrap around your ankle and up your calf, criss-crossing until tied off in a quick knot. But I distinctly remember not liking the teacher. Or the fact that every other week someone new joined the class and we seemed to start all over again. I was already keenly aware that I was big. Too big. And not graceful. I was already self-conscious and wanting to hide. My mother had made a deal with me that if I stayed in the class for a month (or was it three?), then she would open a savings account in my name and put $10 dollars in it for me. That seemed like a fortune and I patiently served my time in ballet class and the moment my sentence was up, I quit the class.
The ironic thing is, thirty-ish years later, I've gone back to dance and ballet class. I'm still not graceful. I'm still aware that I am 'bigger.' But it doesn't bother so much anymore. Instead I love the way it feels to move my body in the rhythmic flow and the way I can express myself without words, interpreting music with movement. In dance I have found another language - a heart language that I wish I had found years earlier. Like maybe thirty years earlier.

(A writing exercise from Lisa-Jo Baker, Five-Minute Friday)

Connected

I spotted her walking onto the platform, the opposite side of the tracks from me at the Beaverton transit center. She stuck out with her well coiffed hair of white, set off by the lovely dark turquoise blue scarf around her neck - the only color in her all black outfit. She wore a black pea coat jacket, black slacks, flat black dress shoes, black nylons and carried a black patent purse. She did not fit with the rest of us commuting on the MAX in the frosty morning air. She was elegant, refined  - and I couldn't stop watching her.

We boarded the same car of the train. As I stood at the opposite end with my earbuds in, Christmas music entertaining me on the ride. I continually glanced down the aisle to where she sat, trying not to stare. What connected me to her? What drew me to her? I wanted to sit down beside her and hear the story of her life. I tried to be rationale, that appearances can be deceiving, behind the demeanor that I envied for it's polish and poise, she could be venting poisonous words silently at the young street kids who sat beside her in their tattered clothes, talking loud and crassly. Maybe they didn't even register with her, because she was wondering why the girl in the black coat with red earbuds was staring at her. The grip on her purse remained tight and her gaze forward the whole trip.

She exited at the Galleria stop. As we pulled away I looked for her, to see which direction she went, hoping for a clue about her. I spotted the turquoise scarf as she walked along the sidewalk, in the direction of Nordstrom's. Ah, that would make sense. I could see her working there, lending her class and refinement to the perfume counter. I am tempted to go to Nordstrom's on my lunch break to see if I can spot her, but that is just too stalkerish, even for me. But why has this woman captivated my attention? The answer comes slowly. She reminds me of my grandmothers - both of them - with their well-behaved, regal presence, and I miss them.

Tiredness is a Master Thief

Tired...

Tired. Weary. Exhausted.
Bone-crushing, mind-numbing, joy-stealing, anxiety-growing - tired.

And so I caffeinate. Sacrifice much needed sleep in order to keep my crazy schedule. Substitute coffee for water, for Living Water, so that one more thing can be done, one more commitment kept, one more, one more.

But what have I done this week for the One. The One who is my only audience. The One who this Advent season is preparing for, and is my tired hectic self preparing for him? I'm too tired.

Yet, there is grace and comfort. While my anxious heart constricts so hard I hunch my shoulders over to ease the tension, Christ is there asking for me to trust him with my burdens.

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If I am too tired for the One and Only, then something is really out of whack. Father, show me how to find rest & rest in You.