Category: God

The Hard Work of Resting

ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

August 5, 2017

20170805_093237-1I am technically resting, sitting in a comfortable chair, wondering what it really means to rest. It is Saturday, which always reminds me that there is a seventh day of the week, at least on the calendar we use. And on the seventh day of creation God rested. He looked at all his work and was satisfied, and then he rested, or stopped working. He didn’t stop because it was the seventh day. He stopped because he was done with a project. Resting is fun when you are done with a project, but what if you don’t feel done?

Of course, I am not God. I need to rest for other reasons like being tired and needing to refresh and recharge. I’m enough “in God’s image” to wish that I could look at my work and pronounce it good, finished to a satisfactory point, so I could rest. But I’m more like my human composition – I have to be commanded (kindly) to not work myself to death.

To rest must also have a deeper meaning than to do something that I consider fun. I pepper my time every day with fun. I knit, I do solitaire challenges, I sit and read, I ride my bike, I watch TV. I have a lot of fun, restful activity. In all of it my mind is engaged in something other than work. But none of that requires me to engage with God or my own mortality. What does that is aging. The longer I survive, the easier it becomes to think about God and what his plans might be.

I become more interested in looking back, trying to see a pattern, a progression. I become more interested in the clues in my environment that inform me of how God works. I become more impressed that he actually has a written word of instruction – one that has surpassed the effects that any of its scribes could have imagined.

This week we had a storm. It wasn’t a particularly bad one, but it cleaned a lot of dead wood out of the trees. I suppose that is God’s purpose in a storm, whether it be in the woods or in my life. Today, as I rest, I’m going to think about how it is that things become new, with dead stuff removed, and appearances changed.

 

My time is your time.

Shirleyjdietz1 Comment

A somewhat philosophical recount of a fairly common day.

Frankly, I do not want to be in charge of my schedule. I am often an idiot when it comes to knowing what is important to do, urgent to do, not needing to be done and all that. Knowing this, a long time ago  I made a deal with God for him to figure out what I should be doing and in return I would just do it and be okay with whatever. This works well for me, especially in all those out of control situations where I pretty much have to hope God has it figured out, because it makes no sense to me.

People say I’m always so calm, and that really is the secret.  This is always my message to myself as I sit gridlocked in traffic, as I wait for the husband to get ready for things when we’re already late, when I lose hours of writing to an errant computer.  I say, “my time is yours, use it, waste it, end it – I’m not in charge and thank you!”

But there are some days that are… tests, yes, tests. God wants to see if I mean it.

We are in the process of selling a condo that we’ve had since right before the real estate bust. Right before, meaning that we bought high and have been paying people to rent it ever since. Under water, they call it. Our realtor told us yesterday that the light in the kitchen was out and we had a showing coming up. I knew I needed to buy some buy some fluorescent bulbs and tend to that little chore, in case this buyer might just be the one to set us free.

I guess I left home in kind of a hurry, having not thought things through. I got to the hardware store and mentally pictured myself trying to change the light on an eight foot high ceiling.  I had forgotten a ladder. The apartment was empty – no chairs or anything to stand on. Going back home just seemed like such a waste of time when there was a store full of ladders right in front of me. So I bought bulbs, and a ladder.

Arriving at the condo and climbing the three flights of stairs (no elevator), with my ladder and bulbs, I felt pretty smart. This was not going to take long at all. I would be done well before the showing time.

So, I got the ladder open, climbed up and got the plastic lens off the 48 inch fixture. I thought it would just hang on the side while I took the bulbs out – the way the ones in our garage do.  A minute later as I wrestled with the stupid tubes the lens fell to the floor and got quite cracked up.  I did finally get the bulbs in and they did work. But the wrecked lens was a whole new problem.

I went first to the association office to see if perhaps they stocked things like that lens for common repairs. No luck though. They sent me to another hardware store that they had heard carried them. Crossing town, I arrived at the store, and started looking for replacement lenses. I had taken pictures of the fixture and thought I was picking out and purchasing a lens that fit. Maybe, I should have brought the broken lens to compare. That would have been a good idea.

It was the wrong one. That became apparent, after about five minutes on the ladder, struggling with the stupid fixture.

I spent another half hour going back to the store. There was one more possibility, and though it looked a bit small, it was the only one.  Pay again, drive again, climb stairs again, and finally on the ladder again, I ascertained that it was not the exact size either. I made it go on anyway. I just hope I never have to take it off.

I had only minutes to spare, so I folded the new ladder quickly and made my way down the stairs for the third time. The last thing on the agenda was waiting in the “returns” line at the first hardware store with the ladder. I really didn’t need another ladder.

It was almost like one of those jokes about how many blondes it takes to change a light bulb, except it was minutes (too many of them) and I have gray hair. I haven’t heard how the showing went, but I know they had light in the kitchen. I did my part.  And I remained calm, and accepting, maybe…

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Has nothing to do with the story but is a picture I like to look at to keep myself calm, because it’s really pretty. 

 

 

#AtoZChallenge: My Favorite Things S

Shirleyjdietz6 Comments

Scripture

I love scripture. I am in awe of it. It is the lens through which I view the world. It is a gift.

Growing up, I was blessed with regular stories from the Bible, read to me by my mom, from what I have to say now was a good, engaging perspective. I don’t remember the publisher, but the facts were there in each story without a lot of extra interpretation. As soon as I could read, I wanted to read it myself. We went through the book many times, both the Old Testament and the New. I had the story down pretty solidly, but never knew what it meant. Not completely.

Through the years since, the stories have become more important, have taken on new meaning. They are not stories, they are one story.

The Old Testament tells me there is someone behind all that I see – a Creator. It tells me that a plan is in place to help me become something that I am not yet. From the record of people and their dreams and ambitions, I learn that I’m not going to get where I’m meant to be by my own efforts. People have tried and even at their best, it has not worked out too well. Just watch the news…

In the middle, kind of between the two “testaments”, is Jesus. He ties the stories of the Old to the stories of the New. He is all about new things because he is God. God is about making all things new again. He has been since the beginning because that was the plan even as far back as Adam and Eve. Jesus makes that possible. Without him, there will be no “new” anything.

In the New Testament I see the possibilities of how the “newness” might look. The people writing those stories were thinking a whole different way. They were still people with problems, weaknesses, bad stuff happening to them and around them, but now they understood what their true value was. They were not defined by their varying circumstances. They felt free in some very important ways. They were full of hope right to the end of their days because they knew the end was just the beginning.

Scripture has the ability to surprise. It can respond to my question of the day in a totally new and unexpected way. Something I’ve read dozens of times can suddenly contain wisdom I didn’t see before. It’s true that there are many wise writings that have this quality. I think it’s because all wisdom comes from one true source. You can find bits and pieces of it sprinkled in lots of places, but never quite complete. When I go to read scripture, I have an eerie feeling of expectancy, like I am approaching something alive and never know what it might do.

Through God’s message in scripture, I value the life he is putting me in/through. I value the lives of people around me. No one is insignificant. Through scripture I feel compassion for people, for nature, for the struggle we are all in. Scripture tells me who the real enemy is – the one who is behind everything that is not right. It tells me the enemy has already lost what he fights for, and that is the root of violence and anger in him. He tries very hard to transfer that to us.

So for now, the story continues. We are part of the story. There is hope and it ends well. Read it.

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#AtoZChallenge: My Favorite Things D

Shirleyjdietz11 Comments

D for Diamonds

 

“Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” Leo Rubin

“Diamonds are best plain set.” Rolle

“The diamond has been always esteemed the rarest stone, and the most precious of all: among the ancients it was called the stone of reconciliation.” Lewis Vertoman

“It’s hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.” Dolly Parton

“Diamonds are forever.” Ian Fleming

“Diamonds are trumps in the game of hearts.” Robert Elliott Gonzales

“I never hated a man enough to give him diamonds back.” ZsaZsa Gabor

“No pressure, no diamonds.” Thomas Carlyle

“A girl never cares who casts the first stone at her – as long as it’s a diamond.” Evan Esar

“The diamond is the hardest stone – to get.” Evan Esar

“A diamond on a dunghill is a precious diamond still.” American Proverb

“…the hardest known substance yet has the simplest chemical composition, consisting of crystallized carbon, the chemical element that is fundamental to all life.” Marijan Dundek

“Diamonds cut diamonds.” Tamil

“A diamond with a flaw is worth more than a pebble without imperfections.” Chinese Proverb

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I have two diamonds. I can’t really say that either of them are my best friends as they have always been rather impersonal. I do count them among my favorite things. They both happen to be gifts from my husband.

The first one was in an engagement ring, and I guess it was what “pushed me over the edge” into a marriage commitment. It wasn’t particularly large but it was very high quality – no visible imperfections, with dazzling white sparkle. It spoke to me. It said that he who bought it was willing to risk his future by promising to spend it with me.

Over the years, whenever I would take it to the jeweler, I would hear how the prongs had worn down and I was lucky the stone hadn’t fallen out. The setting was rebuilt a couple of times. Later, working as a nurse forced me to put it aside, as the prongs would catch on things and could scratch my patients. As my hands aged I found that the ring no longer fit over my arthritic knuckles. A few years ago, I got lonely for it and made the decision to have it redone in a setting that would not wear down and would not catch on things. The quote about a diamond being best plain set resonates with me. I love its plainness and I wear it all the time.

I also love the quote about diamonds being stones of reconciliation. My diamond reminds me that I have committed to the work of continual reconciliation to the person I married. This is the second most important thing in life to me, and it’s not easy, which is why diamonds have to be hard, I guess.

The second diamond is set in the center of a cross. Crosses were instruments of death and they were cruel, awful symbols. I am often uncomfortable seeing them as jewelry. But the diamond in the center reminds me, again, of a commitment. It is about the love of my creator for me, the only thing that could make a cross beautiful. It symbolizes a complicated, mysterious way of living and looking at the world. It has become the first most important thing to me.

All diamond quotes taken from http://www.notable-quotes.com

Ordinary Times and Travels: Signs

Shirleyjdietz3 Comments

I was in danger of becoming discouraged yesterday.  My job for the last two days has been to give an outside look to the house listings being sent to my daughter from the realtor. There are so many variables to keep in mind and each variable has a priority assigned to it. Price, distance to work, adequate space, animal friendliness, resale value… I could go with this list, but you get the idea. I went south of the city the first day and north of it today.

The first place today was a no show. I could not find a house or a driveway at the supposed address after driving for 30 minutes to reach it. The second place was somewhat less disappointing but certainly not a place Dr. J would have liked to live. I was stoked for the third place to be really awesome. How could it not be? It was time for some good news. After many turns, roads getting smaller and smaller, this is the sign that marked the last gravel lane.

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Some people have welcome signs, then there are others…

 

With that message in mind, I started thinking about what I’d read that morning before setting out, a specific message in scripture that is pretty commanding. “Don’t let your heart be troubled.” And along with that were words from Jesus promising to love me and send the Holy Spirit to guide me.  I’m not saying the Holy Spirit was looking over multiple listing for the perfect house for Julie. But it does seem to be a promise from someone who is faithful and loves me, that I will have guidance when I ask for it, if I love him, trust him and am obedient. The question is not whether God is guiding me in this small thing. The question is what is he guiding me toward or away from. In this instance, if God were a realtor he would be saying “location, location, location…”

As Julia and I look over listings on the internet, I see our focus changing a little. Maybe we are listening to guidance. It’s interesting to watch for signs, of all kinds.

I saw another sign the other day. I pulled in to fuel up the truck for my day’s adventures and got stalled at the gas pump looking for the credit card slot. There wasn’t one. There was a sign which surprised me enough that I had to post a pic on Facebook.

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I paid the cashier and told him I didn’t remember the last time I saw a “pump first” sign. He very calmly told me I had been traveling in the wrong neighborhoods. Sometimes I do get the sense that the climate here is a little quieter, less oriented to crime and its prevention. That would be nice, just saying…

What is a Church?

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I could also call these thoughts “My Struggle with the Bride of Christ”.

I would like to say that the church is a group of believers that show the world around them what God’s love is like. It’s a group of people doing loving things that people shouldn’t be able to do, in fact can’t do, without God doing those things through them. God’s true church is loved by each individual in it, and in turn, the church has a selfless love for each individual belonging to it. I’m wondering if that’s possible this side of heaven…

I’ve been thinking about heaven, and about the church, a lot lately. Tonight I couldn’t get to sleep for the thoughts that kept troubling me.  Heaven, I thought, will be a place where I won’t have to wonder if I’m in the right place.  All around me will be a community of believers with no doubt who they’re worshiping and no disconnect with those they’ve come to know and love.

I have been blessed with a pretty close family all my life. We have significant differences but we are bonded together, having the same parents, the same close proximity to each other during our formative years. We sat alongside each other at the table, in the car, at church. We did life together. It wasn’t necessarily our choice, but it made sense and it was good. We’re grown now and our lives are less connected, but in our heads and hearts, we are still family. We make efforts to spend time together. We have grown to love each other. Where else can we go for that sense of who we are and how we came to be?

I think I want my church to be like my family. I want my church to be the place I belong because people know me there.

I try to imagine the first Christian churches, like the one in Philippi. We’ve been hearing sermons about those people, the Philippians, in the church I attend. In Philippi, a city in biblical times, some very unlikely first converts were drawn together by a God, actually a spiritual parent, who suddenly gave them a chance to know their life’s purpose. A wealthy business woman (with a house big enough to share with other believers), a Roman policeman and his family, and a formerly demon possessed slave girl were suddenly bonded by love for that spiritual parent. They started spending time together as they learned. They probably ate together, went places together and came to know each other’s stories as they talked. They had to have had some pretty divergent viewpoints, but there wasn’t another church just a few miles away that was more “their kind of church”.  They were the only church, until such a time when church growth separated them into communities based on locale. Even then, they probably kept in touch.

So that’s what a community is really – people who live next to each other, doing and sharing life. I wonder if the reason Christian believers don’t always do church well is because they don’t do community well either. That’s what I’m struggling with. I don’t do community well, not even in my own physical community. I share a driveway with people living in five other houses and rarely do we connect over anything. I know their names, but I guarantee, if they moved away I wouldn’t know where or why, or even care. We haven’t spent time together and are only bonded by… a driveway, I guess. Our cars and our preferences allow us to shop in different places, work in different places, be entertained by different things.

And although some people try to make it different, our churches are very similar to our poorly connected communities. When I live half an hour’s drive from the church I attend, it’s pretty safe to say I’m not doing life next to anyone else from church.

It’s a struggle to know and be known. And I think God is going to get tired of me not doing it.

God can arrange times when transportation isn’t easy, when choices are few, when knowing and working with the neighbor next door is a matter of life or death for me. He will do that if that’s what it takes to teach me to love my neighbor.  It’s probably so important to learn to love and get along because I will have to do it, like forever.  “Like forever” is my description of eternity. And although, I’m not going to attempt to give a description of heaven, I think it will be a place where I don’t have to wonder if I belong and I probably won’t be driving 20 miles to church either.  Just sayin’…

 

The way I always thought it should be…

Shirleyjdietz3 Comments
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Rain on the window, gray in the sky, blossoms on the trees

Seattle in early spring is the way I imagined it before I had ever been here.  Today was cool (50’s ) and rainy, clouds rolling through. Everything green is glowing, in contrast to the grays and browns of wet rocks and trees. I am usually here during the one week in summer when there is a heat wave, so this sweet chill is a treat for me.  I am prepared for this visit with my sweatshirt hoodies and scarves, and of course my walking shoes.

I took my friend Charlie the dog for a walk on one of our favorite routes from last summer. I couldn’t stop looking at all the things that were visible through trees that hadn’t leafed out yet. Surprisingly, there are a lot of houses hanging precariously on the sides of the ravine above the park’s lower trail. I did not know they were so close. In spite of the cold, there are flowers coming out all over, and they are different from the ones in the summer or fall. And the lush moss grows everywhere. 20160327_103349.jpg20160326_151859.jpg

We walked up to the top of the ridge over Alki Beach (what a workout, gasp..) and I was glad to be here, grateful to be seeing it all. I couldn’t help wishing that my friend Karyn who followed my stories last summer was still here to read again. I was grateful that it was a day when resurrection, physical resurrection, was on my mind. As unexplainable as it sounds to modern ears, a man came back to life never to die again.  Because he did this miraculous thing, Karyn will too. This is not a hard thing for me to believe, because I see life coming out of what looks dead all around me.  It’s right there in front of us, if we have eyes to see and hearts willing to consider.

Thanking Jesus for doing what he did – the first of many.

Sitting in it…

Shirleyjdietz6 Comments

Today in church was awkward.  Not that it hasn’t been before.  I often am hit with this feeling of being an invisible sponge-like being, hoping to pick up on whatever God has for me, whatever I have asked him for. I have friends there, good friends actually, but I’m gone frequently and nobody really knows if/where I belong in the faith community.

I appreciate being able to sing, to listen, to enjoy church in a way that leaves me free of feeling critical, disappointed and upset. I go to a good church. But, wow, when I feel awkward it’s difficult. I question my presence there. I feel alone. Isolated. It’s so easy to sing the last song, pick up my stuff, and be gone.  No one stops me.

God stops me. I can’t get past the part where “the church” is a major player in the story. SHE’S THE BRIDE AT THE WEDDING (excuse the all caps). I must not only try to identify with her, I must try to be her. I have a clear picture of what that “church” means – it’s not a denomination, a particular group, a specific behavior or costume. But it’s real. I find evidence of it across the board, in different cultures, in unlikely places, at odd times, the invisible church is there. identified by mutual love of Jesus (THE GROOM, excuse the all caps).

Anyway, today being one of the awkward days, I sat in it. I know the devil (who wants to be a major player but doesn’t get to) would have me feel estranged in that environment and to wallow in the feeling and draw conclusions from it. Feeling awkward is not fatal. It can happen to me and I survive. I can fight back and seek out someone else who looks awkward and persist in conversation with them until we’ve both felt included in something bigger than ourselves. We’ve made small steps toward community.

I give the “feeling” of discomfort up to God, who reminds me that feelings are fickle. Next week I might feel incredibly part of it all, connected to everyone. Church is complicated. Church is necessary. Church is part of a bigger plan and I don’t always “get it”. But I will sit here, learning, until I do. But today was awkward, just sayin’…

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But you would have none of it…

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Sometimes I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.  I wonder if the reason my life is filled with routine, sometimes mundane activity is because I’m not a good enough tool. Maybe I wasn’t listening when instructions were being given. Maybe I was playing spider solitaire or watching tv? Maybe I was over invested in my to do list for the day, or riding my bike to allay my worries about hypertension. Maybe I just didn’t want to sit and write about something I had learned or felt – something that might have brought hope to someone desperate for a word.
Okay, I’ve come to recognize this train of thought. Left unaddressed, it gathers force and eventually has me sort of despising myself for not being something greater than I am. I could wallow in it, but don’t have time. I could go talk to a counselor, but don’t have that kind of money. I could talk to God…, yeah, I actually do that. Today it went like this.

“Help me. This angst and unrest is insanely uncomfortable.  I know you wanted me to solve the world’s problems, lol, instead I’m not even solving my own.  Should I be able to do something more than this?”

It occurred to me in the middle of this that God is probably able to put me where he wants me. Indications are that he likes it when I give him credit for that. So I started thinking that way, and it felt right, good. Felt true.  I also read from him – it’s something he told someone else, but it’s a principle that shows how he does things.

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It also records the response he got which was not so great.

Whoa! Could I be doing that? I’m told to be quiet and trust and instead I’m having none of it and looking for some action?  I’m going to worry about it and figure out what to do? It’s pretty ridiculous, but it happens when I forget who God is and who I am and how different we are.

I thought about this, off and on today, and my conclusion is that I want all the quietness and rest God wants to give me. Bring it on.  I want to be alert and ready, but content, storing up that strength I’ll probably need later.  This is one of many answers to personal cries for help, from God’s word to my intellect, resulting in a kind of peace.

What does this mean in a world that doesn’t believe in a personal, relational spiritual Creator who works with people for their betterment?  God could easily say to this culture “but you would have none of it”. We fit the picture, just sayin’…

No Fun Today

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I typed that and realized immediately that it wasn’t true.  I am quite sick today but in spite of it, there is fun to be had in resting, reading, doing quiet things that never get done while I’m able to work.  I’m having fun being sick, who would have thought…

Before anyone gets envious let me say that it’s difficult to concentrate when my head hurts, throat hurts, chest rattles with every breath and the aches and pains of fever make me feel weak.  This feels more like pneumonia than anything I’ve ever had before and it came on very fast.  Most likely I will recover but just in case, I want to say that it is very freeing to realize that things go on without me.  I know some people feel like they cannot take a day off when they are sick, or for any other reason, because they are indispensable. Well, nobody is indispensable.  I’m glad I’m not. I stayed home from everything today and plan the same for tomorrow. Nobody wants to be exposed to what I’ve got.  Staying home when one is sick is a way to show love to others.

In between naps I’m getting some reading done, catching up on my blog reader, cleaning out my inbox, and thinking.  How glad I am that I am here in my own bedroom rather than in Cambodia like I was last year when I got sick.  How strange that it has happened two years in a row after many years of not being ill.  Hmm…

I’m especially thinking how God uses sickness in my life to remind me that I am not in control, to increase my compassion for others, to get me quiet and listening,  I’m not afraid of being sick, whether it leads to recovery or not.  I love being here on earth, but I would also love not being here.  Thinking about dying is not a fearful thing, and I thank God for that. As I get older my most common thought about dying is wondering how it will happen.  Accident? Cancer? Pneumonia?  I have preferences but they are between me and God, and I doubt I’ll get to choose.  I think it’s very wise of him not to let me know ahead of time.

This is kind of a stupid post and I’m not terribly proud of it, but having this much time on my hands I had to write something, and these truly are the things I think about while being sick.. Just sayin’…