Had an amazing experience last night.
We have these friends who, when they travel abroad (which is about 2-3 times a year) we willingly take their children in for whatever length of time they are gone. They're good kids; it's no big deal for us (four kids, seven kids, ten kids -- what's the difference?). But each time these friends return home, they like to do "something special" for us. Some years, it's been a play. Once, it was to take our kids so my husband could surprise me with a three day get-away to Florida.
This time, it was a visit to a historic old inn about 30 minutes from where each of us live. The Holly Hotel (Holly, MI) was constructed in 1870 -- only five years after the town was founded. It sits by the railway, and originally serviced travelers steaming their way across Michigan. For years it was an inn. Rumor has it that it occasionally served as a brothel. In the early '70s (that's 1970's, now) the interior burned and the place set empty -- a forgotten shell of architectural beauty.
That's when this guy named Chuck stepped in.
He bought the hotel and transformed it into this beautiful restaurant. Serving a wide variety of amazing dishes, last year the place won 6 major award categories from "The Oakland Press". Anyway, our friends began frequenting the place earlier this summer, and wanted us to experience it with them.
The Hotel is a tribute to times past. We ordered the "Chef's Special," which is an 8 course, 3 1/2 hour proposition of dining adventure and de-stressing experience. We were waited on by a young man named "Joe" who was perhaps the most talented wait staff I have ever experienced. He was a beautiful, baratoned gentleman who read customer cues so subtle I almost thought he was reading our minds. This was Joe's last Saturday night at the Hotel; he is headed to Las Vegas to seek out the next chapter of his adventure. But what a special time for us to meet and get to know him.
See, when you take 3 1/2 hours to eat a meal, "getting to know" your waiter isn't a cliche -- it's true. The food was good; the service impeccable. The atmosphere cozy and the live music a treat. But what made this dinner something I will never forget was the ability to sit at a table with two very dear friends and simply "experience" life together over a meal in a way that no one -- no one -- does any more on a regular basis.
There is an unforgiving "thing" in our lives that is so far gone, we forget we ever had it. This thing (there are probably more, but this blog is about THIS thing) is the ability to just "be." I know, we tend to relax in different ways. For most of us, relaxing means not cooking and eating over-processed "easy" food. Or watching a DVD that lets our minds simply not think for a while. Or maybe doing something active -- golfing, swimming, etc. And it's not that those things aren't relaxing and rejuvenate, too.
But sitting over a good meal, crafted for you just like you were royalty...Not even thinking about what time it was getting to be (a first for me ... I didn't ask the time once last night, and I never thought once about the "next thing on the agenda."). Bantering with a waiter like he was an old friend and leaving hoping you would "run into him" again some day. Looking at the faces of two people we met over 11 years ago and realizing these were "lifers" (people we will know until we die).
I can't even describe the "feelings" I was having last night. Again, it brought me back to G-d's desire for us to be intimately connected into relationship -- with Him, yes, but also with each other. It reminded me AGAIN that I am not to be simply surviving life ... I should be living it every moment, every day. I waste so very much of what I've been given. A "life glutton," I spend most of my time thinking how I will spend the next allotment of time ... Eating it up by consuming "junk" that is urgent ... But not truly living at all.
I went to another viewing of a friend's who died this last week. It is the second for me in so many weeks. And I questioned myself, driving home, "When I know how short it all is, why do I still just stumble through it?"
What keeps me from truly living? Lingering over good food, joking with good people, acting on the spontaneous joys that take just a life to a life worth living?
Dearest Father, make me a person who savors life. Don't let me just continue to talk about it. Don't let me reduce it to just spurts of "being a good person" who does stuff for people, and then spends most of my life sitting back and letting my life drift meaninglessly by. I don't want to be a "canoe," that goes with the flow; I want to be a "kayak" that can cut across the current of indifference, and not be afraid to just "be" with people -- no agenda, no time constraints, no peace.
May dinner with Mary, David, Bruce and Joe remind me of what life can be. "Dining," not just eating ...

Drawing lines ....

Right now, I'm sitting between my two youngest children, attempting to help them with math and spelling, while also trying to figure out how to make this blog a little more than "black and white." I have a friend urging me to go a little more public with this, and I'm hesitant, because ... I don't know. I'm just hesitatant.

Where do I draw the lines and section myself properly so that I meet all the expectations I have set up for myself?

I struggle with "the best," and realize that very rarely does anyone (including myself) get the best I have to offer, because I do not draw the lines well. Somedays, I have it all together remarkably well. I can be a good wife/mother/friend/thinker/etc. But those days are few and far between.

I know, from my friends, my problem is not unique to me. But I always figured, if I could institute the right "system" I could conquer this issue. Superwoman syndrome wasn't a problem for me, because somewhere in the sickness of my mind, I thought that was an obtainable goal.

If I were honest with myself, I really can't even blame "others" for my situation. I bring most of these expectations on myself. I have a couple of friends who ask me, "What do you want?" I even had a good "acquaintance" ask me the "If money were not object, what would you do with your life" question last night.

I told him I would write. But as I think about this, that isn't a totally honest answer. I wouldn't write instead of home schooling. I wouldn't write if it meant losing the good friends I have. I wouldn't write if it meant a substantial change in my "comfort" level right now. So, I would write as a "living" if it wouldn't significantly change my current status. And that, upon reflection, means to me I'm not "hungry" enough to want it quite yet.

I wish I had an answer to the balance thing. But right now, I've got school to finish with the kids, two dental appointments to make in 20 minutes, a meeting at work to get ready for and a committee meeting that will make me miss my favorite class. No excuses -- just disappointment that I am not really who I want to be -- yet.

Our small band of "Hebrew Hippies" celebrated our first sukkot together last night. We gathered at a friend's house to good food, a bonfire, and a blue tarp stretched between two trees, fulfilling the command that our sukka be opened to the heavens. It was, perhaps, one of the most beautiful structures I have ever seen.

Why? This simple tent, designed for us to gather together and share the provisions and blessings of God, stood as a symbol for me. A symbol of this community I have come to know and love.

The beauty of it was that there were "newbees" among us. People who have recently wandered into this fellowship, who desire to either know G-d deeper, or at least see what He is doing through our lives. The beauty was that I had the opportunity to share with people who are becoming more and more like family rather than friends. I watched passion, as we poured over Torah, or shared the heart fire of new missions and dreams G-d is birthing among us. I watched heart break as one couple struggled with a wayward child and decisions they needed to make. I watched joy, as we shared from where we have come, and to where we are going. I watched drive as we talked about how to best help a widow loosely connected to our community -- as to show her G-d and all His provisions.

I reveled in the things happening around me. Spontaneous joy and struggle mingled among people whose hearts it is to do His will, to be His people, to love as He loves, and to reflect our rabbi, Yeshua.

I am thrown prostrate before His greatness. The things I once thought unattainable are swirling around me in a way I never believed. There are days I am in constant communication with my Father in heaven.

Right now, I am watching our worship band at our church. About half of them are a part of this community I speak of. There is joy overflowing, true friendship that extends beyond the boundaries of the task they are working on. I know this is not "the end" of the journey. In fact, more often than not, there is conflict because "iron sharpens iron," and conflict is (in my mind) becoming something that strengthens people who love one another. But for just a brief moment, I am seeing how this community actually can integrate into "the church" as I know it, and make a difference.

More and more, I realize I am called to be a fragrance -- inside and outside of these four walls. I learned a long time ago that only a handful of people in the church are really "saved" -- they get the call of Yeshua and G-d and want to throw themselves wholeheartedly over to Him. I have a friend who told me that part of my job is to "teach the people inside the building how to party for G-d." As sacrilegious as that may sound, what he meant was that because of the position G-d has me in, I do have a responsibility to those inside my sphere of influence -- regardless of the physical place that might be.

So, I fall deeper and deeper in love with my "community" -- those people who walk along this path with me and hold my hand and heart. But I also am coming to understand deeper and deeper the responsibility I have to others who do not yet know of this love affair with G-d and with brothers and sisters who DO understand.

Sukkot is about provision -- G-d never leaving or forsaking His people. Providing even in the wilderness. Perhaps, part of my journey is to provide those stuck inside a "sukka" without an opening to the heavens a glimpse of just what G-d meant when He said he would be their G-d, and they His people.

Maybe. I have to think about that more.

"Slipping into easy."

Here's a phrase that has been haunting me for a day or two. It began echoing in my mind after a conversation I had with my husband. We were discussing a variety of things, not the least of which was a conference he had just returned home from. There, a lot of ideas were confirmed and ignited ... ideas that I have been challenging him with for months, but you know ... They usually have to hear it from someone else to "get it."

Anyway, I was excited, because the things we were discussing are, in some ways, revolutionary. He was sharing with me how certain people he worked with were actually beginning to "get it," too. But we both understand how easily the excitement fades and reality sets in.

I told him, "You must do everything in your power not to slip into easy."

I believe as Americans, we are constantly on a quest for "easy." Not that it's wrong in all instances (yeah, I have a dishwasher, and washing machine and ...Etc.). But when the idea of slipping into easy permeates everything we do, we begin to become a people of less substance. This mentality feeds our already overweight selfish natures, and we begins seeking out the easy answers, regardless of the toll it takes on our psyches or any other part of our being.

I feel like, in many ways, the faith I have ascribed to for most of my life has been a journey of "slipping into easy." The more I study what Yeshua said, the more I learn about the culture He came into and the ramifications of Him being the rabbi I study in my quest to get to know G-d deeper and truer, I realize that a lot of what I thought was "practicing" my religion has been little more than exercises in shadowing what was true, simply because the church culture I was raised in reduced the true to bite-size, easy to swallow pieces of candy instead of the meat my soul required.

For instance: G-d set up yearly festivals - modium (sp?) - where He said He would meet His people in powerful ways. He set these things up to help us remember ... His provision, His love, His forgiveness. He gave these things as living symbols, things that would help us teach our children of Him, to make our faith something alive and bursting at the seams with fragrances of Him and His creation and His love for us.

Somehow, over the course of centuries, the church has taken something alive and brilliant and reduced it to borrowed pagan festivals that we have tacked onto religious meaning -- and even in that scenario, most of us forgo most "religious" significance to fall in line with our current, self-seeking culture of materialism and over-abundance. Or, best-case scenario, it has become a time of family traditions (which are good) that we presume will somehow "give" our children a view of G-d and cause them to want to follow Him.

Or "worship" service. For me, Sunday was a time to gather together and remember G-d and what He'd done for us. But this weekly meeting soon became a simply liturgy ... a spiritual obligation which somehow, in some mysterious way, was suppose to show those around me I was "different" and "holy" because I gave up a couple of hours on Sunday to "worship." Many people feel like Sunday fulfills some unwritten responsibility to G-d, and feel like a friendly visit, surrounded by song and sermon, is enough for the week.

Contrast this to the things I am learning about Shabbot. A day of rest -- not regulated by "do's" and "don'ts," but rather by things given to nourish mind, body, spirit and soul. A day filled with family, friends, and restoration to who G-d intends me to be. A day to worship G-d, yes, and celebrate Yeshua, but so much more. Besides, aren't the former two intended to be a part of our day to day "becoming"? (that questions rhetorical, for anyone wondering). I am a long way from a regular practice of Shabbot. But my heart cries for this, and I plan and wait in eager anticipation of that time when it will be a part of me -- a part of my faith.

Recently, I heard Bruce Springsteen say, "Everything is sacred." That's not a melting pot idea that it's all good -- that spiritual thing that comes across my plate is to be consumed as nourishment to my soul. No, for me that says that each and every thing I do is worship to my G-d. Big and small things -- joys, tragedies, struggles, commitments -- everything should reflect my Rabbi -- the one I say I follow. I feel like in most "churches" (i.e. buildings and organizations) I have been a part of have castrate the sacredness of most things, raking them into the "easy," to somehow pacify their soul cry for G-d. It's easy -- but it's not what G-d intended for His children, I believe.

Everything in my body yearns for the easy. But everything in my soul cries out for the real. Dear G-d, may my soul always tend and subdue my body.

When I moved to where I am now, I really (I mean really) didn't want to do it. I fought it; I cried over it. I begged G-D to hear me and not let it happen. I was so distraught that I was taken in for a CAT scan to see if I had a brain tumor, because I had developed symptoms of such. It was not good.

Now, two and a half years later, I can see that the moved helped me become who I was truly meant to be.

I am more comfortable in my own skin than I have been in years. Not satisfied -- there are many things I would like to change about myself -- but comfortable and content as a whole with who I am.

I came to this realization this morning, after dropping my husband off for a four day conference. I was driving back home, early and still dark, and the remains of an amazing thunder storm were still rumbling around me. In my car, "my" music was playing. The car smelled of leather (from my coat), and my thoughts -- as random as they come -- rested on this truth.

There is a certain beauty found in such a place. Especially knowing that not everyone who loves me always likes the person I've become. But to know that the G-D who created me loves me no less or no more ... There is a Hebrew word, Teshuva. It has kind of become my "mantra" in recent weeks.

Teshuva is a season on the Jewish calendar. A time for looking inward, and stripping away those things that keep you from G-D. Literally, it means "to return." Return to what? I heard a rabbi (of sorts) last night say it means to return to the original mission and destiny that G-D has created for you.

I have been in a process of teshuva over the last two years. While I am not yet there -- I am closer now than I have been in a long, long time. There is a certain peace that comes with realizations like that. To no longer care quite so much about what other people think. To understand that more people value authenticity more than perfection (especially outside the four walls of the church culture I have so been a part of). To look into the faces of long known friends and to see their acceptance (if they really are friends).

My journey ... It's added a new dimension of peace to me that I never really knew before. Not totally ... In fact, G-D is bringing certain things to my surface that I must deal with, or I will literally fall into a pit of despair. But I am finding order in chaos, love in depths I never knew possible, and acceptance for who G-D created me to be -- not who I created me to be.

Amazing.