Winter begins to melt, and melt some more, the rivers rise, the roads host little streams down either side, and the ground remains in a perpetual state of "soggy." It's mud season in Vermont.
I drove to my friend's house today, and she lives off the beaten path, and rather on a path that is pretty beaten up. A bumpy dirt road that's been frozen and remolded, then thawed out, leads to her equally rugged and long driveway to the top of the hill where her house sits. What was an icy Slip 'n' Slide with walls of snow on either side a few weeks ago has given way to the boggy, nasty lane I drove this afternoon. The few residents who travel this road have already created two tire tracks that sink low and hold dirty, brown water. My car immediately found the tracks and splashed along. I accelerated to keep up a good speed, fast enough to, hopefully, not get stuck, but not so fast that I would go careening off into the woods.
But I saw a spot up ahead where the ruts looked deeper, so I accelerated a bit more and gave my steering wheel a slight jerk to get my tires to jump out before I reached the spot. No go. Not only were the ruts deep enough to hold my tires in, but they had that special suction only mud has, a little extra insurance to keep us in line. Fortunately, I made it through anyway, but the wheels in my mind were spinning, too.
We modern types who don't drive wagons anymore also don't encounter many ruts on all the smooth pavement we have at our disposal. With my encounter today, I thought, "Man, I'm stuck in this rut," and I got new revelation on that colloquialism we all use without much thought. While in that rut, I was forced to stay on a path I didn't necessarily like, but getting out was going to take some serious effort. It had a hold on me.
Suddenly, the metaphor I've used in passing became much more vivid. Ruts are awful! I realized that the same focus and flat-out tenacity it would take for me to get out of those suction-cup mud ruts I traveled today would be required to get out of any other life ruts into which I might have fallen over time.
We don't just decide to get out of ruts and then watch it happen. Complaining about the rut doesn't get us out. Getting mad about the rut doesn't get us out. Staring at what's wrong and calling it wrong won't make it turn into right. And making a half-way sort of effort will definitely not cut it. After all that drama and emotional toil, the rut's still there, and we're still in it.
No, we must decide and then get to work. There is no trouble known to man that our High Priest Yahshua didn't encounter and overcome. And He made way for us to have the same Holy Spirit that indwelled Him when He walked the earth. Surely that, or He, as the case may be, can help us out of a rut! So we are not without recourse. But we (not He, but we) have to be pretty unilaterally focused and stubborn. We might have to enlist the help of others. And we must know that we, we who have the very presence of God indwelling us, do, after all, have the upperhand over that rut. So the decision remains:
Stay in the rut where we don't want to be but also don't really have to apply ourselves, or buck up in the power of His Spirit and pull. ourselves.
Out.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Streamlining and a Childlike Faith
(Service Recap, sort of. :) Friday, January 21, 2011, Apostle Ainsworth, The Rock of Greater Burlington)
(OK, I wrote this on January 22 and have been trying to fix our scanner to add accompanying photos...Scanner issues continue, so I'm just posting...a bit delayed.)
I would sit perched up high on the middle console of my grandparents' Ford Bronco II as we made our way from the green trees and farmland of East Texas, across the vast expanse of desert and oil rigs of West Texas, through the rising plateaus and cacti of New Mexico, and finally into the majestic Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Sitting up high, eight years old (no seatbelt, I shudder to think!), my rugged grandaddy to my left, smirking as he teased my grandmother, I watched somewhat mesmerized as my grandmother would quietly remove all her rings and put them in a special pouch. She used her drugstore travel-size lotion that smelled flowery and a bit medicinal, then put it back in her bag and replaced each ring to its rightful place on her freckled, wrinkled hands: the wedding ring and the ring with the birthstones of her four children stood out to me most. They were beautiful and mysterious to me.
Every detail shouted at me in those innocent, exploring years of my childhood when all my carnal needs of food, clothing, and shelter were met for me. All of nature sang and was radiant with beauty or danger or adventure, and it truly was like life's elixir as I drank it all in, feeling privileged and excited.
Fast forward past a few tumultuous college-aged years to when Jed and I got married. I had begun to realize that I needed to settle down and live a more productive, consistent, grown-up life, and (if any engaged girl has felt it, we all surely have) I thought that what I most needed was to collect all the necessary items for keeping a home. But not just for keeping it...I needed to register for and pursue the acquisition of various odd home gadgets that I could pull out when we had formal gatherings for Flag Day or whatever sophisticated evenings we would immediately commence hosting. It was a pipe dream, the fantasy sold to us all when we walk into those stores, laser-gun-tagging thing in hand.
But the fantasy gave way, or, well, it actually never showed up. Seventeen months ago, at seven years of marriage and collecting things, we moved from a 2000-square-foot house with tons of storage space into a much smaller townhouse with very, very little storage space. Then we got pregnant and began preparing for our new bundle of joy. Our lovely, small-ish townhouse has been the greatest thing. I was forced to evaluate, to create space, to make room for new. I began looking at the soup urn with matching ladle and wide soup bowls and thinking, "You are lovely, but I've never used you. Not once. It's time for you to go." I went through every room and realized that all these things I'd worked to collect, that had some sort of emotional meaning to me, really were useless or in my way. I had to make some hard decisions and part with things that held my affections, right or wrong. But with every truckload that Jed hauled off to Goodwill or the dump, and yes, I said "truckload," coupled with "every," which means there was more than one, I had this giddy sense of elation.
Even so, it turns out that organization is not the strongest trait in the Finley household. The funny thing is, when we figured this out, I laughed and told Jed how I was so uber-organized as a kid and young adult. He then laughed and said he was the same way. I think maybe stuff and life kept coming at us and we forgot to adapt and change to meet each new challenge or season. We just kept doing what we'd been doing and letting new commitments, new goals, new kids, new gadgets, new whatever fill up our lives without stepping back to rearrange along the way to create space for the new whatevers that came along.
Moreover, we know that our calling and the calling of our church house up here in Vermont is one of pioneering, forging into unsettled territory that belongs to the Body of Christ, to His church who is meant to be awesome in the earth. Pioneers travel light. There must be something refreshing about packing into one vehicle all the most basic necessities you need and driving away from all the extraneous fluff you never did need. As my apostle has said, "You can't fit Grandma's armoire in the back of a covered wagon."
We have had to continue streamlining, because new stuff keeps coming through the front door (toys, anyone??). And now we're in a season where Yahweh is teaching us how to organize the life we're in now, rather than winging it based on the tenets that worked for us a decade ago. For the most part, if it's not expedient, it goes. You would laugh if you walked in my door right after reading that statement. Levi's little artistic creations hang on the refrigerator, and I have more than one unnecessary decorative item on a shelf or on the wall. Those things aren't clutter, though I still must fight that nasty invader. So it's a work in progress.
With all the externals, we are also taking opportunity between us and Yahweh to streamline in the spirit as well, for this is obviously the more important of the two. What are the thought patterns, the emotional responses, the habits, the lies we've inadvertently chosen to believe about ourselves that must go? Like cleaning out a cluttered closet, we just face what's there and address it, and when the junk is removed and the good stuff is accessible again, there is tremendous relief and satisfaction. Wow, I hadn't even thought of that until I just wrote it: "When the good stuff is accessible again." Sometimes even if the good stuff's there, you can't get to it and it's frustrating, because you're having a hard time managing all the extra junk that turns out, after all, to be a giant waste of time.
Our apostle preached about streamlining Friday night, January 21st, and it's been a process for us for about a year now. But the anointing of the service, coupled with the decisions I was making before Yahweh as he preached, left me feeling rejuvenated, ready to part with so much that tried to distract me. I walked outside to start the car, fully aware of what matters and what doesn't, my mind crystal clear and open. The air was still and silent with a shocking chill. It was so cold that the snow underfoot was not slushy but dry and crunchy. As I watched my breath billow out ahead of me, I slowed my quick and hunkered pace and lifted up my head. I noticed the mounds of snow that were perfectly white and contoured. They sparkled in the soft glow cast from the moon and I thought, "My gosh, I live in a gorgeous land!" I could barely make out the black silhouette of the mountains in the night-darkened distance, but I could still make them out. The oxymoron "thunderous silence" came to mind just before I reached the front doors to go back inside.
It reminded me of my trips to Colorado as a child with my grandparents and how my mind was free to experience the grandeur, to philosophize, to hear my God speak to me. As it turns out, I still don't have to worry about food, clothing, and shelter. He tells me He'll take care of those things. It's all those compulsory extras... What a revolution would it be if a people began to rise, a people who did think differently, who did choose differently, who did live differently? Not being weird, certainly not for weirdness' sake, but drawing a line in the sand in their own lives that made others take a second glance and wonder, "What's that all about? What is this family that isn't guided by status quo or the going trend in pop culture?"
It's my choice to get the best out of life and be the daughter of the Most High I was created to be, rather than allowing life to get the best of me and squelch the power of His presence to move effectively in me, and whatever I have to change or learn to get there, I will do before my God. Is it easy? For some reason, it's not always easy. But for that faith like a child and the clear perspective of my Father, I'm all about it.
(OK, I wrote this on January 22 and have been trying to fix our scanner to add accompanying photos...Scanner issues continue, so I'm just posting...a bit delayed.)
I would sit perched up high on the middle console of my grandparents' Ford Bronco II as we made our way from the green trees and farmland of East Texas, across the vast expanse of desert and oil rigs of West Texas, through the rising plateaus and cacti of New Mexico, and finally into the majestic Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Sitting up high, eight years old (no seatbelt, I shudder to think!), my rugged grandaddy to my left, smirking as he teased my grandmother, I watched somewhat mesmerized as my grandmother would quietly remove all her rings and put them in a special pouch. She used her drugstore travel-size lotion that smelled flowery and a bit medicinal, then put it back in her bag and replaced each ring to its rightful place on her freckled, wrinkled hands: the wedding ring and the ring with the birthstones of her four children stood out to me most. They were beautiful and mysterious to me.
Every detail shouted at me in those innocent, exploring years of my childhood when all my carnal needs of food, clothing, and shelter were met for me. All of nature sang and was radiant with beauty or danger or adventure, and it truly was like life's elixir as I drank it all in, feeling privileged and excited.
Fast forward past a few tumultuous college-aged years to when Jed and I got married. I had begun to realize that I needed to settle down and live a more productive, consistent, grown-up life, and (if any engaged girl has felt it, we all surely have) I thought that what I most needed was to collect all the necessary items for keeping a home. But not just for keeping it...I needed to register for and pursue the acquisition of various odd home gadgets that I could pull out when we had formal gatherings for Flag Day or whatever sophisticated evenings we would immediately commence hosting. It was a pipe dream, the fantasy sold to us all when we walk into those stores, laser-gun-tagging thing in hand.
But the fantasy gave way, or, well, it actually never showed up. Seventeen months ago, at seven years of marriage and collecting things, we moved from a 2000-square-foot house with tons of storage space into a much smaller townhouse with very, very little storage space. Then we got pregnant and began preparing for our new bundle of joy. Our lovely, small-ish townhouse has been the greatest thing. I was forced to evaluate, to create space, to make room for new. I began looking at the soup urn with matching ladle and wide soup bowls and thinking, "You are lovely, but I've never used you. Not once. It's time for you to go." I went through every room and realized that all these things I'd worked to collect, that had some sort of emotional meaning to me, really were useless or in my way. I had to make some hard decisions and part with things that held my affections, right or wrong. But with every truckload that Jed hauled off to Goodwill or the dump, and yes, I said "truckload," coupled with "every," which means there was more than one, I had this giddy sense of elation.
Even so, it turns out that organization is not the strongest trait in the Finley household. The funny thing is, when we figured this out, I laughed and told Jed how I was so uber-organized as a kid and young adult. He then laughed and said he was the same way. I think maybe stuff and life kept coming at us and we forgot to adapt and change to meet each new challenge or season. We just kept doing what we'd been doing and letting new commitments, new goals, new kids, new gadgets, new whatever fill up our lives without stepping back to rearrange along the way to create space for the new whatevers that came along.
Moreover, we know that our calling and the calling of our church house up here in Vermont is one of pioneering, forging into unsettled territory that belongs to the Body of Christ, to His church who is meant to be awesome in the earth. Pioneers travel light. There must be something refreshing about packing into one vehicle all the most basic necessities you need and driving away from all the extraneous fluff you never did need. As my apostle has said, "You can't fit Grandma's armoire in the back of a covered wagon."
We have had to continue streamlining, because new stuff keeps coming through the front door (toys, anyone??). And now we're in a season where Yahweh is teaching us how to organize the life we're in now, rather than winging it based on the tenets that worked for us a decade ago. For the most part, if it's not expedient, it goes. You would laugh if you walked in my door right after reading that statement. Levi's little artistic creations hang on the refrigerator, and I have more than one unnecessary decorative item on a shelf or on the wall. Those things aren't clutter, though I still must fight that nasty invader. So it's a work in progress.
With all the externals, we are also taking opportunity between us and Yahweh to streamline in the spirit as well, for this is obviously the more important of the two. What are the thought patterns, the emotional responses, the habits, the lies we've inadvertently chosen to believe about ourselves that must go? Like cleaning out a cluttered closet, we just face what's there and address it, and when the junk is removed and the good stuff is accessible again, there is tremendous relief and satisfaction. Wow, I hadn't even thought of that until I just wrote it: "When the good stuff is accessible again." Sometimes even if the good stuff's there, you can't get to it and it's frustrating, because you're having a hard time managing all the extra junk that turns out, after all, to be a giant waste of time.
Our apostle preached about streamlining Friday night, January 21st, and it's been a process for us for about a year now. But the anointing of the service, coupled with the decisions I was making before Yahweh as he preached, left me feeling rejuvenated, ready to part with so much that tried to distract me. I walked outside to start the car, fully aware of what matters and what doesn't, my mind crystal clear and open. The air was still and silent with a shocking chill. It was so cold that the snow underfoot was not slushy but dry and crunchy. As I watched my breath billow out ahead of me, I slowed my quick and hunkered pace and lifted up my head. I noticed the mounds of snow that were perfectly white and contoured. They sparkled in the soft glow cast from the moon and I thought, "My gosh, I live in a gorgeous land!" I could barely make out the black silhouette of the mountains in the night-darkened distance, but I could still make them out. The oxymoron "thunderous silence" came to mind just before I reached the front doors to go back inside.
It reminded me of my trips to Colorado as a child with my grandparents and how my mind was free to experience the grandeur, to philosophize, to hear my God speak to me. As it turns out, I still don't have to worry about food, clothing, and shelter. He tells me He'll take care of those things. It's all those compulsory extras... What a revolution would it be if a people began to rise, a people who did think differently, who did choose differently, who did live differently? Not being weird, certainly not for weirdness' sake, but drawing a line in the sand in their own lives that made others take a second glance and wonder, "What's that all about? What is this family that isn't guided by status quo or the going trend in pop culture?"
It's my choice to get the best out of life and be the daughter of the Most High I was created to be, rather than allowing life to get the best of me and squelch the power of His presence to move effectively in me, and whatever I have to change or learn to get there, I will do before my God. Is it easy? For some reason, it's not always easy. But for that faith like a child and the clear perspective of my Father, I'm all about it.
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