FlowerDust.net

i am so ready for the holidays.

sunday, sunday, sunday (sorry, i’ve always wanted to do that…)

i’ll be teaching along side pastor joe carmichael at community of hope church in mansfield, tx.

community of hope is in a “…like dummies” series and this weekend will be “working like dummies.”

we’ll be talking about the effects of stress and burnout, what happened to some people who got burned out in the bible, and steps you can take to prevent it and heal from it!

very mad church disease types of stuff!

so, if you’re in the area (or want to take a drive!) here’s the info. i’d love to meet you!

community of hope
1800 e debbie lane
mansfield, tx
(directions here)
9:30 am & 11 am services

not in texas (or not willing to drive here? i don’t know why you wouldn’t!) check out my speaking schedule here…maybe i’ll be somewhere around where you live in the next couple of months!

(prayers also greatly appreciated…please leave them in this container as you exit the blog…)

miles from home, i write from my lower greenville third place. i’ve watched people come and go. i’ve watched the sun set. my focus is lacking tonight as my list of things-to-write increases ever so slightly.

my heart; fickle as of late. questioning things. what? here? now? when? how? what? where?

i love the fact i cannot be spontaneous. it runs completely against my nature.

otherwise?

i’d be on a coast somewhere looking up at the stars. and nobody would know.

settle down, wandering mind…quiet yourself, duskdreamer.

For those of you who ordered the “be.” t-shirts, they were a little late in arriving than I had originally planned. We do have them and are preparing to mail them (it’s a lot of shirts!) however some brilliant person out there used my PayPal account to take money out of the savings account (to which it is linked) and until this “investigation” is done, I can’t access my PayPal account - which means - I CAN’T ACCESS YOUR SHIRT SIZE ORDERED, QUANTITY ORDERED, or MAILING ADDRESS.

If you are cool with waiting a while, let me know but if you feel comfortable sending me that information, please use the contact me link on the right either way.

Sorry about this. And I must say as frustrating as it is having your (small) savings account wiped out, Bank of America is handling the process quite professionally.

there are a few different thoughts out there on church membership. some people think a formal church membership (through taking classes, signing forms, and being listed on a record of some kind) is biblical. others think that church membership is subjective, meaning you are a member of a body of believers to whom you are committed, but no formality is required. others think it’s completely nonessential to technically be a part of a local body of believers. a “between god and me” kind of relationship.

what are your thoughts on church membership? if you have contextual Biblical references for such, don’t forget to leave them.

a pile of laundry awaits me to transition it from dirty-to-clean. our apartment needs a good vacuuming and dusting. i have quite a bit of writing i need to accomplish today, but with our second car sporting a fresh flat tire, i cannot drive to my favorite writing spot in the west village until after my husband gets home. words flow out of the woodwork there.

a year ago this week, chris and i were finishing the little things for our fall trip to scotland. i can’t believe it’s been a year. i miss it terribly. this year, we have been attempting to pay down our debt (credit cards - almost gone…medical…well, we still have a long way to go. thank you gallbladder.) our leisure travel has been limited to destinations on I-35…austin, oklahoma city, kansas city.

so, here i am…sunday daydreaming of three places i have never been, and desperately want to visit (american-ly speaking):

-new york city
-boston
-seattle

what 3 US cities would you like to visit?

every three years, i am supposed to have an EGD (esophagogastroduodenoscopy) because i have some nasty acid reflux and supposedly it’s wise to have doctors stick cameras down your throat. tomorrow’s the big day. it isn’t as terrible as it sounds…you get some really good drugs which put you in a “conscious sedated” state - meaning you’re awake, but really relaxed. on top of that, they give you a drug that makes you have short term memory loss, so you don’t remember what happened.

several years ago when i had my last one done, evidently i thought i saw squirrels in the corner of the recovery room. i asked chris several times what the results were. a nurse handed me some grape juice, and i kept saying, “where’d i get this juice from?” i don’t remember a bit of it.

i’d appreciate your prayers tomorrow morning. it’s totally routine and not a big deal, but i’m not a fan of hospitals or swallowing cameras.

sometimes, i see things that make me think,

“WHAT THE CRAP?!”

This is one of them.

The “Daddle.” The idea…potentially cool. But let’s make it a little less creepy, eh?

Daddle.com if you’re interested.

what brings 30,000 people a weekend to a spiritual center in india?

Mata Amritanandamayi is known as the “hugging guru.” Some days, she will sit for up to 20 hours straight as tens of thousands of devotees line up to feel her embrace and hear her whisper motherly advice.

Mata Amritanandamayi, aka the “hugging guru,” embraces everyone she meets in an effort to spread love and healing.

Followers come from all over the world to Amma’s ashram, or spiritual center, in Kerala, South India, to get a hug; many choose to stay.

“There are two types of poverty in the world, financial poverty and the poverty of love; the second is more important,” says Amritanandamayi, who goes by Amma, which means “mother.”

read more here at cnn.com…

we read so much about what’s being done in the world; how much money is being given here — or there — and that is not a bad thing.

but there is a poverty of love that is world-wide in its spread. even in our iPod loving, “TiVo LOST for me, I have to meet my coworkers for $12 martini-nite, but email me what happens-i’ll get it on my blackberry” kind of society…we are so emotionally and spiritually impoverished.

how can you show love this week? how can you serve?

more importantly,
will you?

perfectionism has always been a large part of my personality. in first grade, my teacher, mrs. nelson, busted me for throwing away my homework when my grade was below a 97. i was afraid to take anything lower than that home - not because my parents are psycho - but because i didn’t want to let them down.

a couple of years ago, my husband and i were watching old family videos from my third/fourth grade era. i played in a piano recital, received an award and was “interviewed” by my camera-weilding mother after we returned home.

[off camera] mom: you did so great, honey! first place! hold up your beethoven (i won a plaster bust of beethoven) so we can show your grandma and grandpa.

me: (looking flustered and with a gap in my front teeth) sigh. i didn’t hit all the notes on that one movement.

mom: but still, you did great!

me: it wasn’t perfect… (walks away upset)

chris pointed out that i beat out middle school kids…i was a 9 year old in a sea of teenagers. my mad mozart skills had trumped them all.

however i was reliving the fact i missed a note on one of my scales twenty years ago.

needless to say…always the perfectionist.

lately, i’ve been realizing how unhealthy this method of operation is. it stresses me out. eats away at my sanity, my sleep, my free time (what’s that?). some discussion on the swerve blog lately has been talking about it, and then today, i received a nugget of wisdom from someone i’ve respected for a long time and it really kind of kicked me square in the pants…he said (my paraphrase):

“Don’t always make things perfect. Perfectionism doesn’t leave room for imagination.”

wow?

well.

here we are.

evidently the issue of my choice to start capitalizing correctly was brought to the forefront.

and with this post, i will allow you to cast a vote…

whatever’s winning when i post next, will be the way i continue…

the future of this blog is in your hands…

(i’m not sure if the poll will show up in RSS feeds, so click here to cast your vote)

ok…the comments have slowed down (wow - thank you!) on me asking you what your greatest fear is. your honesty and transparency in sharing such powerful things with the public has just blown me away. now that it’s time for me to reveal mine, i can feel the hesitation many of you probably felt before pressing that “submit comment” button.

mine is death - more specifically, someone i love or myself dying tragically and unexpectedly. out of all the people i have ever known and loved who have passed, all but two have been unexpected. my close friend matt dying on his 31st birthday, my aunt who had ruptured a blood vessel in her head…or dying young…we had two funerals this week for a 20 year old and a 23 year old. a year and a half ago, my friend’s husband brandon passed away with NHL (read about it here and here). he was only 26.

so, all this fear…how can we combat it? fight it? how can we not let it rob us?

faith.

before writing this, i was reading a story on cnn about how a church collapsed in peru during a funeral. over 60 people are buried under the rubble.

the reporter notes the calm and peace shown by the nuns and the priest. he writes:

I couldn’t understand how this man and these women of the cloth could remain so calm, their faith so apparently unshaken while they contemplated the ruins of the church and the loss of people so dear to them. I asked them about that faith.

the priest replies:

“It’s difficult times like this that it [faith] exists,” the priest said.

wow. how frickin profound is that? without fear, doubt, question, turmoil…there would be no need for faith.

reflect on that a while…

“It’s difficult times like this that it [faith] exists,” the priest said.

have a good weekend…

what is your greatest fear? really. that secret one you never talk about. you’re almost embarrassed to say it. it seems so…petty.

i know i have one. i’ll share mine at the end.

your greatest fear is…..

some friends and i were talking today about the stereotypical contemporary church pastor. the summary of our statements was:

Pastors-With-Shiny-Heads-Or-Just-Have-Cool-
Spiky-Hair-And-A-Goatee-Sporting-Rob-Bell-Type-
Rimmed-Glasses-Who-Wear-Embroidered-
Flowery-Shirts-And-Dirty-Washed-Dark-
Denim-Jeans-On-Stage

now please know, we say this in total jest. you have to admit…it’s pretty close to truth!

anyway, this got me thinking how easy it was to come up with this stereotype and it made me want to take it a step further. i wonder now, how would we stereotype the contemporary church?

so, based on the culture we live in today, the cards from churches you get in the mail, the signs you see, the stuff you might watch flipping through TV or see on the shelves at a bookstore…if you were to walk into a modern, American church today…

what would you expect? what kind of stereotypes have been created, and how true are they? good? bad? ugly? who cares?

(disclaimer: i realize i don’t have a blogroll. reasons for this being one… i am too chicken to deal with the drama and gnashing of teeth that sometimes results from having said blogroll, and two…ok, there’s really just one reason. now that i have labeled myself a hypocrite, let’s continue, shall we?)

i am subscribed to 80ish blogs, but peruse so many more when time allows. i do love the blogroll feature and would not have found many of your blogs otherwise. it also allows me to see what kind of stuff you like to read and in turn inspires me on what to write.

mandatory introductory paragraph aside, there is a SERIOUS lack of estrogen on ministry blogrolls. i know there are a ton of great women out there who blog about ministry, but why the heck aren’t they showing up on anyone’s link love?

most pastorish types have links to the other pastorish types from those churches that make it on the lists of which (in good humor and love) i like to poke fun (please also note: the church i am employed at was on two of those lists, therefore allowing me such a right). occasionally i’ll see a few ladies sprinkled in, but seriously - where is the love?

who are some female bloggers you like reading? DON’T KEEP THEM TO YOURSELF! show them a little link love. i am having a hard time finding their blogs, so my challenge to you is this…add some estrogen to your blogroll!

bring on the girl power… what girls are you linking up? and no, that is not a euphemism, dirty.

it’s always been a battle. i like the cats to sleep with us (my logic: who wouldn’t want two fluffy, purring balls of fur on your feet as you dream the night away?) and chris prefers them to sleep outside of our room (chris’ logic: who wants a cat butt to plop on your face when you’re sleeping?)

last night, i won. the cats were in. and i paid the price. at 3:04 am, i was awakened by a loud sneeze, and then realized my face was covered in cold cat snot.

Hebrews 5:22~Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

yeah, i’ll remember that next time.

as i was linking up the last post, i realized…wow, i am almost at 500 posts! this one is #494 (including all private ones).

if we were all together geographically and it was a milestone event, we would of course throw a party, right?

i’m left wondering, what should we do for post #500? my mind goes to the easy “donate $500″ to a worthy cause (which, by the way, those of you who ordered “be” the church shirts - they are printing now and will be on their way soon along with thank you notes from the family you helped!)

…but this little blog wouldn’t have gotten near 500 posts if it wasn’t for YOU…all of you…lurkers and all…(ahem. cough, cough. reveal thyself.)

my resolution: starting post #501 i will be using proper capitalization.

i am personally all up for people sending me airline tickets and going out to meet as many of you as possible. but that’s a little egotistical and selfish, ain’t it? :) anyway, do you have suggestions for what to do to celebrate the big #500?

(on a side note, flowerdust.net has had a little makeover. if you’re an rss reader, click here to see it! if you’re not, make sure you hit refresh and see the new look!)

today…

what can you do, wherever you are, to make the world a better place?

it seems as most of my adult life, i’ve had a laptop, usually work-provided. the same was true with my current job, except i was extremely spoiled. i had an iMac desktop AND an HP laptop. but, as part of the focus of my position changed, the laptop was put to use in a more effective way (meaning its owner as of a few months ago was no longer yours truly.)

first, i went through a freaking out period. i had no other computer at home except the laptop. my phone (which is back in working order, yay!) has microsoft word and email on it, but could i really write a book using those little letters on the keyboard?

fortunately, a friend saw my need and let me borrow a mac mini (and another friend lent all the peripherals) so at least i had something at home until i got my big fat (realistic and very modest) book advance (which one must have a publisher in order to get) and with that advance (from currently up in the air publisher) and my husband’s approval, a new laptop would be purchased.

as fortunate as i am to have such generous friends, my mind is not being so generous with sharing its creativity with me. i realize how spoiled rotten i have become with mobility and technology…the fact i am confined to my little ikea chair (which after sitting on for any extended amount of time will lower slowly…slowly…until one is awkwardly low to the ground)…and the gentle whirring and humming of my borrowed CRT monitor has somehow convinced me that i need the mobility in order to be productive. that i cannot be in one spot all the time and be productive.

which is a lie.

but is still very hard for my personality to sit in one place…especially when the cats jump up on the keyboard and what was an intelligible sentence turns into someiopdufthing lik3897e thcjjlskis.

all of this nonsensical rambling (which should have been put towards book-use) to ask for your prayers…i have a deadline in less than two weeks…i am struggling on a part of the proposal…my brain is fried…and as i type this, my husband is snoring on the couch and i just might go steal his laptop and run away for a few days.

hmmm….

i never really finished the dream thing. there was this great thought behind it but being an overanalyzer, i pretty much sunk it. however, this post is about dreams too…so, i figured what the heck. my personality is one that won’t let a “1 of 2″ go incomplete, so here is 2 of 2. :)

yesterday, i was wiped. putting someone with ADD (no, really, i have it) in a big dark room to watch people talk for 8 hours day (the leadership summit) can be challenging. thursday ended great with marcus buckingham - he’s truly captivating to watch as a public speaker so i was feeling pretty alive after his session. however, yesterday morning, my friend lauren and i decided to hit starbucks early before the summit started. we are not morning people. but i wouldn’t have traded the time i spent with her for sleep…she is incredible!

anyway, we ended up coming in about 45 minutes late, and although i enjoyed all of the sessions, especially john ortberg’s, my brain was toast. i went home, had dinner with my husband and then crashed on the couch for a couple of hours.

and i had an interesting dream. i dreamt i was out with a friend and he felt like he needed to get some kind of vision or something from god. we were on a beach, and he decided the best way to do this was to swim out from the shore, into the deeper area, and wait for a big wave to smack him and carry him off somewhere. (yes, i realize this is weird)…so he does just that.

i wait and wait and wait getting a little worried after the wave did take him off, but soon enough, he swam back to the shore and flopped onto the beach, completely exhausted. i asked him what he learned. by the time he could catch his breath, he told me,

“i realized you don’t have to do something huge in order to find out what god’s trying to tell you. in fact, it was really stupid. i could have died…and now i’m just completely exhausted.”

then i looked up and saw two butterflies…one was real, and one was a kite. i don’t think they had anything to do with the story…

but my imaginary dream-friend has some good points…

1) god doesn’t have to hit you upside the head in a big way to communicate with you

3) after being swept out, he had to swim farther and against the tide in order to get back where he should have been in the first place.

i don’t know about you, but this dream is really applicable to me now. pretty cool.

i needed control over my email…so, i made a separate email account giving very, very, very limited people access to it. my other account (the one most people have and that is linked on my blog) i’ll check and respond every so often. problem solved, right?

no. this did not remove my addiction, my need, to check my email. most of the time, i check it on my phone. i have turned into quite the text-messenger too. so, the heart issue of the condition - my need to constantly be plugged in - was NOT resolved.

until today.

my cell phone (the account, not the actual phone) has stopped working. no phone calls. no texts. no internet.

thank you, cingular-now named at&t-for forcing me not to be able to check my email 1238 times during the leadership summit. or while i’m out on a date with my husband.

and, uh, if you need to reach me…um, good luck. the best way is to probably comment here. i have no idea (nor do they) when the issue will be fixed.

huzzah!

freedom forced by technology.

having huge (blogging) writer’s block. brain empty. the last two days, we got to have the honor of this young man staying with us. never met him before in my life. and yes mom, that means we let a stranger stay with us. he only made off with the tv and one of the cats. he is actually quite fantastic. and that new bio picture over there (click here for you rss people), he took that for me, with some more i’ll get to posting one day.

anyway, since i can’t come up with much to write about right now, i thought i’d ask you guys a question. if you could meet three people in the bloggoland, who would they be? and please, do not say “you, flowerdust. of course, you” unless you mean it. my feelings won’t be hurt. i’ll post mine soon…

happy thursday!

first: the confession

i have a prescription. i take it every night with my sleeping pill. the instructions? take daily for stress. yup. and guess what the first question my doctor always asks me when i visit…“how’s your stress level?”

to be honest, i am not doing very well with this whole “simplification” process. granted, i have cut out a few things. but after a routine doctor’s appointment yesterday (for an asthma check up), my respiratory therapist flips through some stuff and gets concerned that my resting heart rate is never, ever below 80. it usually is in the 90-100 range. and when i exercise, a good five minutes in and i’m already hitting 180-190. i joke it’s easier for me to do cardio that way. he gives me a dirty look.

if you know me personally, you know i can be pretty intense. hyper-esque? tightly wound? i’m not really sure how to describe me. “cracked out” was the term i used yesterday when i was talking with our worship pastor, danny. to quote him on part of our conversation, “oh i get it - i thought you might be burning out because of this big book project on burn-out…writing a book definitely does not fit under ’simplification.’”

yeeeeah.

so, a talk with the husband late last night and i will be doing more pruning…and not putting so much pressure on this book thing.

======

second: the tip

email is my addiction, my weakness, and my biggest enemy. it’s the first thing i check when i wake up and usually the last thing i check before i go to bed. i have it on my phone too, just in case i am more than four feet away from a computer at anytime.

lately, i’ve noticed what i will call an email explosion in my inbox. lots of questions, comments, book stuff, thoughts, and things i really need to respond to. to help navigate through all the email i have done one thing that has helped a ton…

UNSUBSCRIBE.

goodbye pottery barn, ikea, white fence, west elm, overnight prints, feedblitz, blockbuster, etc., etc., etc. anytime i get a promotional email now, i unsubscribe. it has helped some. if i can’t live without it, i subscribe under another email account i have just for that purpose.

however…or should i say…HOWEVER…i am still finding myself overwhelmed. fifty-some-odd emails a day (and please, if one of them is yours, do not feel guilty!) and i am having a very difficult time finding the time necessary to respond.

i used to think pastors who had assistants email for them was really dumb. now i give them the biggest props for being able to let go…i would totally dig an email assistant to help me organize and reply to the ones who maybe didn’t necessarily need a personal response.

but oh, therein lies the dilemma. i pride myself on the personal response.

oh, there’s my problem.

hmm. your turn to give me some advice…

the reason i asked about the “30 days to live” is because my friends over at lifechurch.tv are starting a very compelling and original series this coming weekend with that title. i love lifechurch, and since chris works saturday nights (when i’m usually home writing or cleaning or something) recently i’ve been watching their service at 7 pm via the internet campus.

anyway, what makes this series so compelling? every week, they sit down with people who have very limited time left on earth…people who actually know that they may just have 30 days to live. wow. wow.

you can check out the website for the series here. i know i’ll be tuning in at 7 pm on saturday (and i’m usually in the channel 1 “guest lobby” for a few minutes beforehand.) i’d love it if you’d join me!

thank you all for your very thought-provoking responses. and man, are they all over the place. if you haven’t had a chance to read through them, check them out.

as someone who regularly struggles with fear and “what ifs,” just the concept behind this series has caused me to really think through why i worry so much….and wonder where my boldness has gone. it doesn’t cause me to live in regret, but i guess tune in a little more to what is going on around me now, in the day-to-day…and how the day-to-day is part of a really long time we’ll just call eternity.

what would you do…

if you had only thirty days to live?