Being Rescued

My brother thinks some of my blogs are strange. Maybe they reflect the "real me." Maybe he's the one who is strange. At any rate, here goes another one.

I started thinking about the word "rescue." I've been told I shouldn't "rescue" my children when they get themselves into messes. I have to agree that if a person keeps doing the same thing over and over and doesn't really want to change, rescuing him/her probably has to come to an end. I've done stupid things many times and God has always "rescued" me. Sometimes it was the same mistake twice or three times. He still rescued me. Think about the mountain climbers, the people who manage to be in the arroyo when a wall of water comes down on them, and other people who take chances with their lives. Don't we send out teams to rescue them from their own foolishness? What would we do if we knew we would never be rescued if we made mistakes?

I'm glad I can be a rescuer when someone needs me. Even if I didn't want to, I don't think I could turn my back on someone who needs rescuing. And I wonder if the people who say they would could really do it if they were faced with a person who needed to be saved from their own mistakes. When I made my mistakes, I was doing the best I could do at that time in my life. I didn't know at the time what I knew later, did I? If I had, then I wouldn't have made those choices. I think it's important to give people the benefit of the doubt before we judge them.

Yes, I may write strange blogs, but as I said, that's how my mind works. Surely my brother has known me long enough to know that!

One Day At A Time

If you are reading this, then you can see a blog on the right hand side of the page belonging to a literary agent. In it he sends the reader to an opinion concerning a novel about Muhammad. Because of the fear of retribution from the Islamic community, the book was pulled and will not be published. I wonder if this story was about Jesus or Bhudda or Joseph Smith or some other religious figure, the book would have had the same outcome? Of course not because those followers don't hold society hostage with threats of violence.

Everything in our world seems to be turned upside-down right now and I don't know how to change it. I'm reeling from what's going in the lives of my immediate family and friends, and in the world we live in. Is this still the right time to pray God's will be done? Should we be more specific? I've been in churches where we fought the devil all the time. I know that's not the answer because he's already been defeated by Jesus on the cross. I don't want to hide from the problems, but I don't want to be worrying all the time either.

So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to wake up every morning and thank God for another day, for our lives, for the wonderful family and friends we have. I'm going to keep writing, keep watching American Idol (and whatever else we like to watch), keep reading fiction and non-fiction, keep going to church and small group, keep knitting for hospice patients and keep trying to show God's love to everyone.(I fail at this a lot, but that doesn't mean I should stop trying.) In short, I'm going to keep in mind that life on earth isn't the end for any of us. There's something way better down the line, and until then, I'll take one day at a time, cover each one of those days with prayer and just go on living.

The Best Prayer

8-08-08 A special day. The Chinese say eight is the perfect number and to have three eights is even more perfect for them. As you know, the Olympics begins today in China. In a number book I have, it says the number eight represents New Beginnings.

Whatever it all means, today is special because it's Reid's birthday. He's such a jewel that he's outside helping my daughter do lawn work, has been to Sears twice (once to buy her a shovel and the other time to take it back because it immediately broke), and when the right time comes, he will show us how to set the sprinkler system. I used to know how it worked, but even reading the directions now only confuses me.

Our grandson and great granddaughter both have pink eye and some kind of respiratory stuff. He goes to the doctor this afternoon.

It's been a strange visit, but good, I hope. At least now I know how to pray--God, do whatever your will is in their lives.

That's probably the best prayer we can say when we don't have a clue.

The Other Side

Emotions can be tiring. That's what I'm going through right now--a lot of emotions and I'm tired.

We attended a wedding of one of Reid's niece's daughters last Saturday. It was an interesting Jewish wedding, and the family isn't Jewish. The bride has converted and the groom's mother came from Tel Aviv to attend. Sunday morning the bride's mother had a brunch, and it was there I heard something that made me want to go on over to the "other side."

The bride's father recently had a massive heart attack and as the medical team was working on him, he coded. Suddenly he was out of his body and observing the scene around him. He had difficulty explaining what it was like which reminds me of when Jesus said he had more to tell his followers, but they wouldn't understand. And Paul said he'd seen things when he was carried up to the third heaven that he couldn't describe. He struggled to put into words what he'd experienced.

I don't know if I can explain what he said, but I want to try. He had an awareness and was without emotion. He could see the people around him and knew what they were doing, but he had no emotion about it. He knew the body he saw them working on was where whatever he was now, had lived. He couldn't say he was a spirit or a soul, only that he was more himself than he'd ever known before. If he thought of someone, suddenly that person was beside him. But he had no emotion about it. The greatest feeling, if you want to call it that, was peace. Since he wasn't experiencing anything through his senses, it's hard to say the "feeling" was peace. He said it was just there--deep, profound, perfect peace. He had a great awareness of God and knew that without the emotions there was no punishment, no retribution (his words exactly). I asked him if he wanted to stay there and not come back, but he said "wanting" was an emotion and he had none of that. Even when he came back into his body, he just wondered why he had been one place and now was in another.

Listening to him describe his experience made me want to be there in that dimension, a dimension that he said is all around us. I want to go there because I long to not have to be buffeted by emotions. I want to go there because I want to live always in that perfect peace, and to not be constrained by time or age or tiredness. I'm not saying I want to go any time soon. I can deal with today and tomorrow and know "this, too, shall pass," but it's so wonderful to know what's awaiting us when that time comes.

This man said he had never been afraid to die, and I don't think I am either. Of course, no one wants to suffer pain before dying. As my husband says, "I don't mind being shot before I die. I just don't want to be wounded first."

A Perfect World

After writing the blog this morning, I talked to my daughter. For the first time in months she and I were able to communicate. I was right, and she is hurting, but she let me be "mom" and tell her how much I love her and try to give her some comfort. Her situation, as well as her son's, is serious right now. I'm not hiding my head in the sand this time. I'm talking to the One who can make good come out of all of this.

We don't realize that the actions we take don't just affect us. It would be different if we lived in a vacuum. We're tied to others by blood and by love. Whatever we do reaches out and grabs hold of other people--especially the people who love us. Whether it's something wonderful, like the wedding we're going to this week end, or a failed marriage, an addiction, a crime--if it's someone we love involved, we rejoice or suffer with them.

In a perfect world everyone of us would be thinking of what our actions will do to others rather than fulfilling our desires at the moment. Some day we'll live in that perfect world, and then it won't even matter. We'll just love each other.

Boy! Am I looking forward to that!

He's Not An Ostrich God

I don't know how some people handle stress, but I'd like to be able to handle mine like an ostrich. In my own mind I see myself as strong and able to handle just about anything head on. I've done just that when I have come face to face with tragedy, pain, death--something I can see, touch, feel. I don't turn away. But if it's just out there in the netherworld, I want to hide my face. It's easier to be like Scarlett O'Hara and say, "I'll think about that tomorrow." Or never.

I remember feeling so much compassion for people when I was about 14 years old that I made a conscious decision to close my heart. People on the street who looked sad or poor or crippled. I couldn't stand it because it hurt too much. That became my Ostrich Period. Somewhere during my life journey I allowed myself to begin feeling again. But the "ostrich desire" didn't die. I would still rather hide my face from what I can't change. I want to be Pollyanna and look at life through rose-colored glasses--don't think about it--don't look at it and it doesn't exist. But I can't do that. It does exist and it hurts.

My "waiting for sugar" daughter is hurting. I wish I could help her, but I can't. She hasn't asked for my help and may not. I probably couldn't stop the hurt--definitely couldn't stop it, but I could hold her hand and love on her and hope that would give her comfort. I can't hide my face from this, but I wish I could. It would be so much easier to not know about it until it's all over.

I'm not a coward. I'm just a mom who hurts when one of her children hurts, and who can't do anything to help--except pray. And maybe that's all I'm supposed to do. Daddy God loves her more than I do and He doesn't have any "ostrich" in Him.

Spoiled?: Maybe, but thankful to be.

We went to Taos Tuesday and came back Wednesday. Before we left we heard from the #3 son that he was having hand surgery. He'd gotten a thistle in his finger. It got infected and the poison was moving toward his palm. A person can lose his hand, his arm and his life if the infection isn't stopped. It's done and he's doing just fine.

Back to Taos. We and our friends, the Buck's, had read Blood and Thunder. It's the story of Kit Carson, the southwest expansion and New Mexico history. It's excellent reading, keeps your interest all the time. Kit lived in Taos when he wasn't riding back and forth across the continent on his mule. While we were in Taos we visited his home and the home of Governor Bent. Bent was killed by Indians who thought he was responsible for the deaths of some braves. They shot arrows into his face and scalped him alive.

We visited Taos Pueblo, too.
Taos Pueblo is set in the foothills of the largest peaks in NM. Among the smaller, one story adobes is a multi-storied adobe building that has been continuously inhabited for over 1000 years. On the half million acres of Pueblo land stands a burned out adobe church where the Indians went for shelter from Mexicans thinking they would be safe. The Mexicans burned it to the ground.

Yesterday we visited the Martinez hacienda outside of Taos. This was the largest home we'd seen. Severino Martin (later changed to Martinez) brought his family to the northern boundry of the Spanish empire in 1804 and opened a trading post on what was the final terminus for the Camino Real. The Royal Road went from Mexico City to New Mexico. He enlarged it several times. It was built around two courtyards. Many rooms could only be entered from the inside walkway around the courtyard.

Why am I writing about all this? My brother wrote a blog yesterday about everything he's thankful for, and seeing these places made me thankful.

Josefa Carson, Kit's third wife, bore seven children. He already had one daughter by his first wife. Josefa lived in Taos and most of that time it was without her husband. Kit traveled from one side of the continent to another and wasn't at home as much as he wished (from what we read.) I'm thankful I only had two children and had a husband around all that time. Just a note about Josefa and Kit: She died giving birth their last child in 1868 and a month later, to the day, Kit died.

Seeing the homes, the adobes that had to be re-adobed twice a year to keep them from falling down, made me thankful I live in a home that doesn't require that much upkeep.

None of these places had bathrooms, and boy, do I love having good bathrooms! Information about Martinez said the people never bathed and most people had lice. I know that in England the people didn't bathe either and wore long sleeves and high collars to hide the sores on their bodies from not washing.

Maybe we're spoiled, but I like it that way. I'm thankful for air conditioning and heat in my home, for showers and bathrooms and the ability to get clean. I'm thankful for doctors and surgeons who know what to do about raging infections. I'm thankful we don't have to wear clothes (most of the time) to hide sores on our bodies. I'm thankful we don't have lice and if we did, we could get rid of them. I'm thankful for microwaves and electric ovens and cook tops, for washing machines and dryers, for electric lights and telephones (even when it's someone asking for money), grocery stores and computers. I'm thankful we are able to travel comfortably in a vehicle on paved highways or fly across the ocean. I like living in the age of television and computers and electricity and busi-ness all around me. Because of all these conveniences I can talk to my family every day--even when they live hundreds of miles from me.

I wouldn't call this being spoiled. I call this a good life, and I thank God for every minute of it.