You Can’t Always Get What You Want.

Terrible twos?  I’m not so sure there’s anything terrible about my two year old niece.  But I do think it’s hard to be two.   All of a sudden your flooded with not only desire and wants but your flooded with the ability to grab and to take and to speak and to scream bloody murder over Daddy’s sweet tea.   Ok so the screaming is not new but it has definitely become a little more intentional.     What makes being two so hard is that for all of her wants and abilities she is just not yet able to understand why sometimes you just can’t get what you want.   

But then again, I’m not so sure this is only a problem with two year olds.      At times, I’m still a terrible two.   At times, most of us probably are, if we’re honest.   

So I guess I’m left praying that the Stones are right…

“You can’t always get what you want.  But if you try, sometimes you just might find, you get what you need.”

But who can remember that when you’re in the middle of a terrible two?

irrigation.

I seem to have experienced with some regularity the concept of  in one ear and out the other.  

This morning though posed a new experience: up one nostril and out the other.   I know a little gross, a little more info than you probably wanted on my blog.  But when you’ve had  cold/upper respiratory junk since the second week of January and just can’t shake it, you become willing to try things that perhaps you wouldn’t have before. 

It wasn’t nearly as bad as I had imagined, irrigating my sinuses.  

In fact I’ve been pretty chuffed about it all day — not salt-water up my nose- but the fact that our bodies are so cleverly and creatively designed so that literally you can go up one nostril and down the other.

I’m not sure that God had irrigation in mind when he created the sinus cavities and the nostrils … but one thing I’m sure of … He knew what he was doing.   And today I am wowed at not only his creativity and his intelligence but his attention to details; His knack for the little things.  

I read recently in several books that God isn’t really that bothered about the “details” of life.   He is more interested in direction and bigger picture and overall plan.   But I disagree.   

I think the fact that my salt water solution can go up one nostril and down the other is a testament that our Maker does care about the details.   He does pay attention to all of us and to all our many details.  

 The little things do matter.   Despite how big God may seem at times, the little things matter to Him.   And today through this cold that just won’t go away, somehow I have found a relief and a rest that no medicine could bring.

my sweet four legged valentine.

by the way, I did finally make all my valentine heart shaped cookies.   decorated them with two different colors of icing.   and they were fully consumed not by those for which they were intended but by my beloved, four legged friend.    I guess he wanted no questions as to who was my valentine.

wash me and I shall be clean.

http://cache.valleywag.com/assets/resources/screenclean.swf

another take on Psalm 51.  

make me whole again.

hearts.

a spiritual guide of mine said to me this week, “God asks for our hearts not our burnt offerings.”  

I’ve always loved Psalm 51 …  it’s not our sacrifices or burnt offerings, God desires but an honest and contrite heart.   

And when I say “always” I’m talking way back into early college days.

But some how in the context and in the way she said those words to me this week, it was like I’d never understood it before.   Or perhaps that’s not fair, I always understood but it hadn’t translated into my life with as much depth before. 

Burnt offerings, meaning me being exhausted and sick and worn out and crabby and irritable and confused because I’m doing too much.  

It really is a lenten discipline, to do less.

happy day.

Know it well, love was his meaning.
Who reveals it to you? Love
What did he reveal to you? Love
Why does he reveal it to you? For Love
Remain in this. And you will know more of the same.

God made it.  God loves it.  God keeps it.

For it is love that you seek, it is love for which you were made and it is love that you will be given. 

– Julian of Norwich, Revelations of  Love.

Tomorrow.

yesterday I got an email from on of my favorite girlfriends asking if anyone wanted to go drinks after work in honor of “single-awareness day.”   I didn’t know tomorrow was “single-awareness day.”  I thought it was Valentine’s Day.  

I read another friend’s blog last night talking about how he doesn’t really get into Valentine’s Day as an adult.   Another friend was exicted cause he had someone to go to the Predator’s game with.  

Valentine’s Day.

I’m not so sure I’ve ever really had a “date” perse on V-Day.   But somehow the day has always been endearing to me.   I find it kinda fun and sweet.   Sure we could call it a “Hallmark” holiday created to make more money.   And definitely the commercial world has taken full advantage of tomorrow, literally soaking it for all it’s worth.   

Now I don’t decorate anything pink.  I don’t put up hearts in my office or my home.  I’m not even sure I intentionally wear pink or red (given how much pink I do own though, odds are pretty good that I could end up wearing pink tomorrow).    Even still I really like the day and its sentiment.

Last night I realized though, that I was a little frustrated cause I wouldn’t have time before Thursday to do what I love to do for Valentine’s Day.  

I wouldn’t have time to bake or make fun cards or much of anything really.

I like to bake for people I love.  I like to make things for people I love.   Tomorrow is an excuse to do something extra for the people I love.    Maybe my cookies and things are just my grown-up version of those little candy hearts and the boxes of Disney princesses cards.   

I remember this teacher I had in elementary school had this rule that if we were going to give a Valentine, we had to give one to everyone in the class.    I think that’s a good rule.   Why did we forget that rule as we became adults?     If we hadn’t forgotten, I’m not sure that tomorrow would need to also be known as ”single-awareness day.”

If I could, I really would.   A valentine for everyone.   But given that it’s Wednesday and it’s Lent and that means I’ll be here at church until after 8pm, it is perhaps not gonna happen this year.  

So I’m not sure what I’ll do tomorrow.   

But I smile thinking about all that I could do.

I’ve been reading.

and this week I read that illness has become our sabbath.  

yesterday I got another cold.   I just finished my antibiotics from my last sinus/cold infection less that a week ago.  

illness has become our sabbath.  

I’ve had a silly number of colds since September.   And tonight on the couch lying under a blanket, I can’t help but wonder is it as a result of so many colds that I actually have had a fair amount of “sabbath” or is it that I haven’t taken enough “sabbath” and as a result have had so many colds?    

“If we do not allow for a rhythm of rest and in our overly busy lives, illness becomes our sabbath.” - Wayne Muller in Sabbath

Ash Wednesday.

I find that once God gets a word in edge wise, He tends to run with it.   Who can blame Him given how we tend to consume the dialog.   And I believe whole heartedly with Eugene Peterson’s take on prayer: God is always speaking, the question is whether we’re listening.   Or in my case: whether we let even give Him room to get a word in.  

so isn’t it interesting how today’s Ash Wednesday service was all about doing less, slowing down and sitting still for Lent (see my previous post).    

Message delivered. Confirmation received.  

And as if I had already taken enough in to chew on for the day - Ann said something to me after the service, about this book she’d been reading that had inspired her sermon.  

She said “it’s radical isn’t: living with expectancy not expectation.”

That one might take more than the 40 days of Lent to unpack and put into practice. 

Lent.

Ash Wednesday is a blur.

Big night previously - big fundraiser: Mardi Gras, a.k.a the Pancake Supper. It’s great.  It’s a gift.  But it’s work.  And it’s a loooonnnnggggg day.  

Today is even more fuzzy.   Given looooonnnngggg day got even longer with all the storms that slammed through middle Tennessee.   Sitting in my crawl space at 3am is not exactly where I want to keep the vigil for Lent.  And I can’t say that I uttered quite the prayers I had in mind to move from the carnival season into lent.  

I know in my head it’s Ash Wednesday.   I’ve even got my parts in order for the service at noon.   I opened up my Lent books this morning and even still the fog didn’t lift.   Not until I just sat at my computer and caught one of my kids away messages.   pretty simple. pretty straightforward.   but pretty cool.

all it said: Lent!

So maybe worn out, foggy and fuzzy is the best place of Lent to begin.  

Teach us to care and not to care.
Teach us to sit still
Even among these stones.
Peace in your will.

-TS Eliot

 A season of sitting still even among these stones?  Now that would be a Lenten fast.  Dare I try it ?