It Never Hurt Anyone

"You gotta get it, while the gettins' good,"

comes to mind right now. Don't ask me why, I have no idea, but there it is.

A friend told me recently to "do something fun" and I realized, it's possible I may be so intense and going so hard right now that I'm not sure what fun is. I mean, I have some ideas. I feel like fun would be seeing the ninja turtles movie, and sneaking Carl's Jr. in my purse. Fun might be jumping off the cliffs over at Sunset Cliffs, right by the water. Fun might include a person, place, or thing. Or it might just be a state of mind.

Are you having fun yet? Are you gettin' it while the gettins' good?

I mean what is life really all about if we are not having any fun in between all the going to work and paying bills and sleeping in and listening to people argue. That's not a question, more like a rhetorical thought.

I'm getting ready to watch a 2 part mini-series about Harry Houdini on the History channel with my little cousin. No, he's not so little any more, and I have said that before and I'm just repeating myself for no reason.

I wonder if when Jesus was alive if He had anything fun He liked to do. Was it really just all retreating to desolate places and praying but then not getting to pray because He had to heal somebody who needed healin' and then when He wasn't healin' He was walking to the next town over to eat in a stranger's home and then do it all again the next day? I mean like, what about everything else?

What if He liked skinny-dipping in the moonlight? Or staying up late and making Indian calls with his disciples? Maybe they had their own version of Jenga back then. I don't know.

But my point is this--

Are you having fun yet?

Sundays

Sundays are for relaxing. Except when they're not, and they're actually for working.

Sundays are for peeling your sunburn.

Sundays are for studying.

Sundays are for running down the street with a can of corn in one hand and a Thomas Kinkade calendar in the other.

Sundays mean waiting.

Sunday is for burying an idea so deep inside your heart, like a bad seed you had to swallow, and couldn't bear to choke, that when it finally planted itself where it belonged it grew and grew and grew into a massive tree of life that stemmed from your throat--and quit.

Sundays are for sadness.

Sundays are for princesses. They are for you. They are for me.

They hold onto the hope of what could be--between you, and I. The belief of knowing someone when you actually don't. The hurt and the understanding--of what is at stake. What could be and if it was what it would mean--really. We both understand what it could be, the pushing, and the pulling. The "something's gotta give" mentality with my legs crossed and your childish grin.

We decide to let it go.

Until next Sunday.

Bravery

My hands hurt at night.

I work day in, day out, with glasses. I type at computers and text on my phone. I move from screen to screen to screen. At the end of the day, my hands just hurt. Maybe it's part of getting older. Maybe it's part of real life and I just never noticed.

I realized today that there is a pattern in my life. Or the lie of my life.

I have to push aside every distraction just to say what it is. You see, I'm the kind of woman who can have anything she wants.

Except that one thing. The one thing I can't have.

No, it's not that someone else has it, and I want it because they have it already. It's different. It's another kind of pain. It's one that cannot be contained in sentences but we try to anyway.

The days are hot lately and the nights are too. I think it's the Summer's way of trying to have the last word in the conversation, even though we're the quiet ones.

My hands hurt.

Prepare for Shut Down

Probably what I miss most about living with my dad is him cooking breakfast for me. I just can't master cooking omelets like he can. Dads have a way of doing things only dads can do. No matter how good you get, they'll still be good-er. Why? Because they are dads.

I've been thinking. My problem is I'm just too graphic for what this world is accustomed to. I think Robin Williams must have felt that way too, some what. You can't be the life of the party all the time. Eventually you wear out. Of the party, and, yourself.

I just feel too graphic. Too sexual, too "look at me", too curious and concerned and contemplative of what other people think. I say things like,

"It doesn't matter if you don't like me because I already like me,"

which is just the Lonely talking. It's me trying to be bigger than I am. I am really so so small.

There is a verse in Hebrews where it says the Lord is not unable to sympathize with our weaknesses and our needs. He is a high priest, who can do a lot.

So what is your weakness? Is it wanting more than you have?

Maybe you feel like you sold out on your dreams to fix glasses instead. Oh wait, that's just me.

Maybe you carry a deep dark secret that's not that dark and not that deep but still sucks because it defines how you see yourself on a daily basis.

Maybe you have a blister on your pinky toe the size of Minneapolis. Oh wait. That's just me too.

My point is this--do I have one?

How determinedly unhappy are you?

Did You Know?

In the past year, one of my favorite things to do is cook breakfast. Especially on my day off. I love slicing mushrooms and tomatoes and avocadoes and frying eggs and toast. It's the most important meal of the day, am I right?

But what if someone told me it wasn't? What if someone told me breakfast wasn't the most important meal of the day, but in fact, it was lunch? To make it a double-whammy, what if someone told me what I enjoy isn't worth enjoying?

Did I know it wasn't enough until someone told me?

I think that's how it is with life. I mean, let's face it, sometimes it's boring. And sometimes we take other peoples' words at face value. But what about what you know, that you know, that you know?

Today I plan on washing my car. Going for a walk. Attending church in the evening. Putting on my make-up. Studying for my ABO exam in November.

Is it not enough if someone tells me it isn't enough? Is it okay if my life is like this for the next 6 months? How about the next 6 years? What about boredom? And all the cure-alls for it? Because in all honesty, I need a party. I need a kiss on the mouth and a cigarette. In that order. Or any order. I need to go out at 11 o'clock at night to run down the street in my underwear and kiss the stars and wave at the sky to let the aliens know I'm here, and I'm waiting for their arrival.

I need Jesus.

Go Where You Get It

I was talking to a co-worker earlier this afternoon and I told her that even though I know it's the biggest cliché in the world I like going to church because I feel better after it's over. When I leave church, I just feel a sense of relief.

It's the same when I leave my Grandpa's house. I know when I need to go there. When the need flows in and out of me, and I think of how life used to be, how it isn't now, and all the things I cannot control, and the world's massiveness, and the kitties crying at home to be fed, and the laundry waiting to be started. It's all there and it's not going anywhere any time soon. These things abide and they exist and they take up just as much space as I do and sometimes, quite frequently, in the midst of it all I need to go where I get it.

Where is it I'm going and what is it I'm getting?

When I was talking to my Grandfather a couple hours ago I told him I think that hurt attracts hurt. When we hurt, we attract other people who hurt too, just like magnets.  The Lord has shown me through pictures where it is I hurt exactly and where this hurt filters through into every day life. What He plans to do with the hurt, I know not. For now, it is not His will for me to know.

In the mean time, I go where I get it.

I go where I get love.

Do This Not That

In the book of Mark it talks about how, as Jesus hung on the cross those that looked from the ground said something along the lines of,

"Oh, if only He saved himself right now, then I would believe He is the Son of God."

They wanted Jesus to do one more thing then one more thing then one more thing after that, to prove who He was. I am not so sure that even if Jesus met this to-do list that they would've believed Him anyway. I mean, I have lists too. Sometimes I find myself thinking,

"Oh, Lord. If I wasn't alone any more and just one person made me feel special, then I would be okay. Then I'd believe in you some more. Maybe if I could believe in you, I could believe in me, too. Lord, you know how when you meet someone and you had no idea you were looking for them until you met them? That person. If I knew them, I'd believe you, like for sure."

But would I really? What I believe right now is what I believe right now. This is it.

"If you get yourself off that cross right now, I will believe Jesus, I really will."

Will you?

Likewise, when one of Jesus' followers approached Pontius Pilate, desiring to collect Jesus' dead body, the Word says that Pilate was "surprised" Jesus was dead. Oh, so He DID die. Well, shit. I didn't see that one coming.

Pilate was surprised Jesus was dead. Would he be surprised at his death if he thought Jesus was just an every day guy? No. Every day men died all the time. They still do. He believed in Jesus, sure. But it didn't define his life in any way shape or form. We could say this is because Pilate didn't believe in himself, but I believe it goes beyond that. I don't believe Pilate believed he was a good a man, even though Jesus made Him feel like he could be. If you don't believe you are who the Lord says you are, then who are you really? Like, do you even know?

Do you know who you are?