my web hosting service has been a piece of…poo…lately. so i am moving my business. evidently my site’s back up for now but i am going to be moving it just as soon as i can. if you run into random downtime, just know it’s for the betterment of humankind. or at least the betterment of my sanity.

thank you, dear ones, for bearing with me. let’s call them growing pains, shall we?

and if anyone out there has a host that is wordpress compatible that you would recommend (aka doesn’t go down once or twice a month) please feel free to let me know…and if you can’t refer a host, please leave me a hug. i need it today. :)

sometimes, a little al green is good for the soul.

what’s playing in your ears?

i am hanging out in lifechurch.tv’s internet campus this morning after a roller coaster week. i woke up late from crashing hard last night but not late enough for god to speak some amazing words to me…at the end of the message, craig was reading this quote:

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. (From a Franciscan Benediction)

this brought tears to my sleep-crusted eyes as i feel these exact words have been circulating in my spirit the last several months. i think it probably started when we went to austin in early march, and only intensified through each step chris and i have taken since then. last night, sitting alone in the chapel at the airport in dallas for several hours, i was reading and journaling and i promise you half of those words i scribbled down; yet more in question form than answer.

so to hear these words today as a confirmation of what our hearts (both mine and chris’) have been burdened with is both terrifying and exciting. as a couple, we are both slowly, prayerfully reconsidering and reevaluating so many assumptions we have made in our lives - what it means to die to ourselves, our wants, our so-called needs. what it means to find your tribe (please read that post if you haven’t). and to be honest with ourselves about what god is stirring up in our hearts, sacrifices he is requiring us to make.

what’s god been saying to you lately?

do not disrupt a mainly simple, vegetarian diet with nashville/bb king/bbq/soul food.

reflection #3: washed away

i think in some of the comments in previous posts, people have said they don’t like taking baths because in essence, you’re sitting in a pool of your own dirty water. i agree. completely. which is probably why i haven’t taken one in 3 years AND why i showered after the bubble bath.

as i let the water out of the tub, my feelings of baths were only confirmed by the ick left after the water had drained.

“all that was on me?” i wondered as i looked down at the bottom of the tub. personal hygiene is pretty important…even with my daily habits, i still had all this dirt left on me. turning on the shower, i watched it all wash away…never to be seen again.

i thought i was pretty clean, pre-bath. i do shower every morning, so how could i not be? well, i was wrong. and many times in my life, i’m operating in routine mode, my spiritual disciplines often becoming spiritual to-do’s which i must check off. dirt slowly and discreetly collects on my soul, and in my mind.

it’s still mind-boggling to me how we are promised are sins are removed as far as the east is from the west, never to be seen again. taking the time out to sit and soak and i guess really clean off was essential. it revealed the dirt i didn’t even know was there. but with a quick shower to rinse down all the ick, i never had to see it again…and in my spiritual life, i know his forgiveness is like that final shower - cleansing, purifying, and recharging.

[the end]

reflection #2: warm water cools

japanese relaxation theorists think the ideal temperature for a bubble bath is 100-104 degrees fahrenheit. i am thinking mine was closer to 400 degrees, as my skin went from its normally pasty white to a lobster red fairly quickly. a little too hot.

i let some of the more scalding water out and turned on the faucet to straight cold water until the water was no longer boiling. however, for some reason the cold water wouldn’t turn all the way off, and trickled down the place where i laid my feet.

instead of being a normal person and putting my feet back in the comfortable, bubbly water, i kept my feet set underneath the faucet, allowing my senses to feel the tension between the warm water which enveloped most of my body, and the chill of the cold water which trickled down my toes.

just like this little sensory experiment, it is so easy to want to be surrounded by the warmth and peace all the time. in our spiritual lives, oswald chambers refers to it as the mountaintop experience. god’s presence is completely felt and seen. we are enthralled by his beauty and our hearts leap knowing we’re safe. i’ll let ozzy take it from here in a beautiful description of the warm water…and the cold -

After every time of exaltation, we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they really are, where it is neither beautiful, poetic, nor thrilling. The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God - that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at some heroic level of intensity, simply because of the natural selfishness of our own hearts. But God wants us to be at the drab everyday level, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship with Him.

eventually, my bubblebath would have gone cold, and probably a little sooner than i would want assuming the cold water would have kept dripping out of the faucet. and a lot of the time, i’m not on that mountaintop. but where it’s a little colder in the valley, a little foggier, a little less pleasant…this is the place where the father truly works through me…and in me.