My first office
I moved into my first office today... at work that is.
Let me clarify what I mean. For 6 months, I've done the cubicle thing. That was my intro into office life. Now I have 4 walls, a door and a big window facing office traffic. It's definately different.
The day was filled with phone calls, customers and assigments. I was on my feet more than I was on my seat. But there is something about the whole space thing. There is definately more to keep clean. Possibly more ways to organize things but also more opportunity for clutter.
There were a few co-workers that dropped in to ask me how I liked my new home. I had not much of an answer to give them. How did it feel?
Almost lonely.
Privacy or Solitude? Mmmmmmm...
Do I see it as moving up in the world? I don't know yet. I really don't know. It's my first office.
Cleaning up to take a bath
When I was young and carefree, I had a pastime that involved a certain degree of mud. I liked playing in the stuff. I liked the feeling of the mud squishing between my toes. Oh, the joys of being raised in the country. Upon coming back to the house, Mom would have waiting for me a wash basin for my feet. I would sit on the steps and wash my feet so I could make my way to the bathroom to really get cleaned up without tracking on the floor...
I don't think she would have appreciated it if I just trekked right on in, mud and all, to the bathtub. There was always the precleaning station first.
I got an email from a friend that has had some hard times lately. I haven't seen her for a long time. I've missed her and wondered why it's been so long.
And then the thought came to me as I read the email. Maybe she, like me, is sitting on the front step with a wash basin, cleaning the mud out from between her toes.
And then I think that if I was not me, but Jesus... she would have been able to walk right into the house, dirt and all. Jesus would not scold her for tracking mud on the floor. In fact, Jesus would have seen her in the mud puddle and escorted her right to the bathroom and stayed with her during the cleaning process, bypassing the precleaning station on the porch.
Can I be like Jesus?
Poetry
Poetry is meant to be expressed, shared, mused over, enjoyed, savoured and even discussed... BUT NOT EDITED. When I write short stories, I will submit to the edit process, but the only person who edits my poetry is ME. I created the thought... it stays my thought. No longer will I let anyone mess with my poetry. If I become the only person who likes what is written, then so be it.
I never liked e.e. cummings poetry. But I also never told him to change it
Frustrated
I wrote this about 4-5 years ago.. but I still find moments when I get frustrated with my Christian walk and wondering if Jesus has his moments of frustration with me. Because I'm yet not where I should be..."Frustrated. Lord, are you frustrated with me? Is my quest for holiness coming up pathetically short? Am I wading in my sorrow, my sin, myself? Have I forgotten your grace, your mercy, your love, your forgiveness? Am I preventing, in anyway, your redemptive power in my life?"
So many questions, yet I know what questions accomplish. Sometimes the wrath of God. Yet, amidst the wrath, I see a face that shows only compassion. Even through my distorted picture window, I see past the ugliness and despair. Yet with vision that is distorted, I see clearly His face. With no effort of my own, I see. I think the Spirit gives me eyes past the distortion to really focus on Him.
I can't even pray away the desert. The wilderness, the wasteland that I once wrote about, but never really felt. Oh, I have felt wastelands, or have I?
More questions. I remember standing, ready to jump. What kind of desert was I in then. Hopelessness, but never, never really without hope.
Now there is no hopelessness, no death, no hope of death. Pictures of heaven, yes, but no desire to speed up the will of God. I am waiting for something and I wonder how long it will take.
What I really want to know is... can I still bear fruit?
Insanity
By the time anyone reads this... I will be okay. But right now, I find it important to record what is going on in my head. It's 9:15 pm Saturday night. I have been alone all day. Silence breeds insanity. Even with the tv on I can't keep my mind from venturing into the realm of the dellusional. To medicate means to walk into church tomorrow grumpy and ugly. If I medicate right now... I may as well stay home tomorrow. It's quite the hangover but it stops whats going on in my head right now. I could pick up the phone and talk to someone and snap out of it. It's just being alone that brings on the walk into the dark halls of my mind.
I just put on some music... Celine Dion... I find it hard to type due to the shaking. Controlling a mouse is a challenge. I think the music is making the shaking worse.
Am I in danger. Sometimes I think so.. but I think about what I could do then lay on the floor and the feeling passes. It's an ugly feeling.
I was asked me what it would be like if I could just lift myself out of everything... Right now I know that the only way to release myself from my mind is to dope myself up. Maybe I would just lay on a cloud high above the earth... a cloud lined with pillows, lots of pillows. Music would play and I would be lying in a peaceful embrace. There would be nothing I would be thinking of. Nothing I could remember... just listening to the music and being at peace. To get away from the thinking, the thoughts that torment me from time to time. I'm shaking and it's hard to type. It's kind of like having cerbal palsy. This isn't something that happens that often... Stress usually brings it on. Maybe work is stressing me out right now. I have to remember alot. I haven't told my new supervisor about my mental challenges... Don't know what difference it would make...
When I get like this It is better that I'm alone... I become like a 5 year old child...
It seems so ironic... I can share this rather personal experience with you... and yet I will go to church tomorrow and say nothing. How does one talk about it after the fact. Maybe this is a good thing too... maybe I'm not so alone...
Maybe what I'll do is take a half a sleeping pill.. It still knocks me out, but doesn't give me quite the mood hangover the next day. Even looking at the words I've managed to get into this post... should say that my sane thoughts are prevailing over the dark thoughts. Death is not an option anymore. I don't want to die... I just want to live without thinking like I do... to have good and pure thoughts... to have a mind that absorbs all the new information I need it to... to fuction at work... to remember what I need to remember... I just want to live and not be ashamed. Shame is a bad thing... It keeps a child of God from being in the centre of her destiny.
I think I should go now... I will be okay... really... this passes... but it's very real...
This verse is taped on my computer monitor..
"Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with a peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel" Phillipians 4:7
I belong to Jesus... so it doesn't matter how bad things get... I'm safe. It's beautiful, isn't it.. to be safe in Jesus' arms...
It's five minutes to ten... This took 40 minutes to write.. wow... I think I'm going to bed...thank you for eduring though this ramble...
Hercules and Jesus - champions
In Grade five I had this fixation on Greek Mythology... into my teen years, I watched Hercules, the animated series. When Hercules, the Legendary Journey series (with Kevin Sorbo) made its way to television, I tuned in. I had this thing for Hercules... (and for Kevin Sorbo) Hercules was a hero, a lover of mankind, a champion against the forces of darkness. Son of Zeus, he had love for people and a bitterness toward the reigning gods of his time. Hercules only half god himself, found his path crossing frequently with his evil family... his wicked stepmother, Hera (queen of the gods)and his half siblings. His relationship with his father was strained at the best of times... Yet Hercules triumphed the cause of the human race he was also apart of. That's a hero.
I thought of Jesus and just how similar and how different He is from Hercules
Here is another champion that came from Godhood to manhood.
He was different. Hercules was half God, half man (not knowing if he was immortal or mortal) .. Jesus is fully God, fully man (knowing who He was). Hercules had a distant relationship with his father. Jesus and His Father were one. Hercules defied the godhead of his time. Jesus was the Godhead and did nothing on earth without His Father.
But I like the similarities. My favourite episode of Hercules was one of the movies that was made in the first season -- Circle of Fire. (I just picked up the first season on DVD) Hercules was willing to sacrifice his immortal/mortal self for the sake of the humans he had grown to love. The whole world was going to freeze to death because Hera had stolen Promethius's torch... which supplied fire to the earth. In an effort to release the torch from Hera's stronghold, Hercules put himself at the mercy of Hera. Only because Zeus intervened was Hercules spared.
Jesus put himself at the mercy of Satan. But His Father didn't intervene. Jesus died. This was the sacrifice in its fullest. Only on the third day did God intervene by raising Jesus from the grave.
Champions. The thought occured to me that even with an abundance of gods in the Greek culture... they were still looking for one champion.
Tears for Paul
I cried for you today. In the early hours of the morning, I lay awake on my bed listening to a song...
"I don't want to close my eyes, I don't want to fall asleep, cause I miss you babe, and I don't wanna miss a thing"
It's been a long year, Paul. But next Monday marks one year since you died. And I still cry.
I think I have an opportunity to find the source of the pain. I had a taste of it last night. It was an intimate experience, professional, yet intimate. Safe... confidential and maybe a road to healing. I don't want to be at Emco next Monday. Everything has changed since you left... but I'll be thinking about you. I stayed at work a year ago... ill, in pain... but I stayed.
I miss you and what is there to do about it.
