Where I saw Jesus today

Nathan dances shirtless in the living room,

arms swept wide above his head

as his body twirls and twirls.

He is a dervish,

a personification of grace,

unpolished, unmistakable.

He was made to move like this,

fearlessly, wonderfully.

It is breath-catching to watch him.

He is wide open in this moment,

a child unguarded

before his mother, a being

of worship and delight.

He is so uninhibited and beautiful

that it hurts to look at him.

The kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.

Where I saw Jesus today

So part of the goal of Leap of Faith season is to try to encounter Jesus more often, so I can get to know him better. I want to be on much more personal terms with him, frankly. I'd like to be one of the sheep that follows him because I hear him, and know the sound of his voice, and recognize him as my good shepherd who lays down his life for me. This only rarely describes why I follow Jesus, but it sure sounds good.

So far during this Lent season, I've encountered Jesus as a connector - someone who meets my needs and desires through my relationships with other people, and through making me feel known and loved by him as they hear/see what he's doing and bring it to my attention. For example, my friend Liz emailed me earlier this week and proposed a joint project for this season as we both think about leadership and relationships together. She offered the project because she felt like God had put it on her heart to ask me to join her in considering this, and couldn't sit with herself until she obeyed this nudge. Or just today, when S&L got an invitation from a previous Thresholder to attend a talk he was hosting on Relational Management at Park Street Church and invited me to attend. Thanks to their thoughtful invitation I got to meet an author and hear a presentation on the exact type of management/supervision/leadership that I not only prefer, but am becoming more and more convinced is the only responsible, interesting, and Jesus-centered way to do manage individuals, resources, and organizations.

I've also encountered Jesus through my kids this season. Quel surprise. Yesterday at the doctor's office, when Arlie was refusing to get on the scale, Nathan calmly stood next to her, removed his shoes and coat, and stepped up, saying "It's not scary, Arlie, it's just like this!" and up she toddled after him. I love that image of him peacefully taking his shoes off and stepping up first, going ahead of her, bravely, with encouragement. I also very much appreciated that it worked with him, and I didn't have to jump up there myself. Not ready for that kind of reality check, thank you.

Creating the lack

So it turns out, I'm terrified of being hungry. Given the emotional gymnastics I've been putting myself through, you would think I was contemplating 40 days of complete abstinence from food, rather than just skipping one meal a day for a few weeks, and being "allowed" to eat whatever high calorie, multi-portioned junk crosses my path the rest of the time. I've been worrying about my fasting time each day as it approaches, worrying I will be distracted and not "get anything" out of it, worried that I'll forget I'm fasting and accidentally eat a steak, worried that I'll be uncomfortable, or even more vaguely, that I'll somehow feel bad, become excluded, or forgotten.

I'm surprised at the level of psychosis in my response to this discipline. Nothing like taking a little bit of the noise away from the incessant cacophony in your head to be able to tune in a little more clearly to the sheer and utter craziness you spend (apparently) quite a bit of your time stealthily telling yourself.

After three days, I can say the most horrible thing that has happened to me when I skipped dinner as part of my lenten fast was I got hungry. The walls of my house did not come crashing down around me, I did not faint weakly on a couch, and I'm fairly certain the axis of the earth is in relatively the same place. It is true, my tummy rumbled a bit, and I thought longingly of the tacos my husband was putting together for the kids. Then I went upstairs and played fire trucks with my five year old, and felt better.

Things I've noticed:

It is amazing how much time I have with the kids when I don't spend my evenings cooking dinner. It stretches out endlessly in that hour between 6 and 7.

I noticed my temper gets triggered a bit quicker when I haven't eaten. I never notice this at work when I skip breakfast, but I wonder if it is also true in the mornings. When I am low on fuel, I can get a bit snippy. I could have spared myself, and those I work with, years of caustic remarks by noticing this effect sooner.

I noticed how much more food is to me beyond simple nourishment. Being part of my family's dinnertime feels very acknowledging to me, even if I'm not aware of that in the moment. Apparently I look to food to help me feel cared for and appreciated, to dull my emotional edge, to ease pain, to feel connected. I am just overwhelmed by how unable food is to do that kind of stuff, and how GREAT Jesus would be at it if I brought any of it to him.

And, I've noticed that I am more interested in taking care of myself during this fasting season. I want to go to bed earlier, wake earlier, listen to worship music, take walks at lunch, depersonalize the challenging conversation I just had with my boss, and connect with my husband and kids without distractions.

Leap of faith, day one

I've been so looking forward to this Lent season, a chance to slow down, to carve out and experience some emptiness, after so many months of sprinting, saturated, through my days.

This year I'm praying to hear Jesus's voice better. I've been thinking about John 10, where he says "My sheep know me, they follow me because they are familiar with the sound of my voice." (paraphrased) There are a lot of reasons I follow Jesus, but I don't always feel like I'm all that clear on the sound of his voice. Sometimes, I feel like I hear God speaking out and my whole being clangs in recognition. Mostly I find myself wondering, what does Jesus say about this? Has he spoken? Did I miss it? I want to be so dearly and intimately familiar with Jesus that when he speaks, I know, just like when my husband calls on the phone and never bothers to identify himself - why would he? Sometimes, with Jesus, I feel unbalanced, like when you get a call at work from an unknown number, and they just start speaking, with familiarity but without the prefunctory "Hi this is X, I'm calling because...." and you spend the first ten or fifteen seconds trying to determine who, exactly it is on the line. I'm hoping for something better these next 40 days.

I'm also hoping for some Jesus-given clarity about my current work situation, especially when and how it needs to change. I'd say more but Arlie is awake and crying in the next room. God give me a deeper experience of you these next 40 days. Let me become empty, that you might make me full.

igoogle as a study in my mental illness

So I designed my iGoogle homepage dashboard the other day, and on a whim put this little hamster gadget on it. My animated hamster friend runs in a little exercise wheel, drinks from a water bottle, follows my mouse arrow around, and when I click in his cage, I leave little treats for him to pick up and eat. At first, I thought it was cute! Interactive! Fun! Now I'm having anxiety about not feeding him enough, worrying one day I'll open my internet browser and he'll be lying on his side in his cage with sinister X's where his eyes should be. I literally am worried I'll kill my inanimate hamster avatar with neglect.

This is my illness. Fear of Scarcity, in all dimensions, in all forms, and apparently, in all media. Fear I don't have what it takes to keep a few lines of code and a bouncing collection of pixels "alive," fear that something I essentially need will suddenly disappear and I'll be unable to keep it together for myself or those depending on me. This is the disease that allows my 16 year old collection of bubble bath and matching lotion to curdle, unused, in the bathroom closet, because I might need it someday. This is the disease that had me spend $1200 a month last year on groceries. A month, people. That's every month, for a YEAR. This is the disease that keeps me fat, that has kept me at the same agency for 12 years. This is the disease that tells me not to write, not to pray, not to share, not to spend, and even, ironically, not to save. It tries to eradicate every good and glorious thing in my life and tell me that they are only thin wisps of happiness, barely shadows, about to blow away.

The only cure I know for this toxic mindset is to do a craft project with my son, and let him use exactly as much glitter as he wants. My scarcity reflex wants to tell him to SAVE IT, put it away, you might need that someday, Son! But I tuck those words behind my teeth and let him dazzle on. Four-year-olds know exactly how much glitter they need to use to convey this essential Truth: that the world is not bereft but full to overflow, that we are all but cups, raised up and running over, that annointing oil may be "wasted" as it's poured out, but oh, it sparkles so.

comfort

Tonight my poor, ear-infected daughter asked to nurse. She hasn't voluntarily nursed for more than a year. When I offered her my breast, she lifted it up to her ear instead of her mouth. The look on her face was hopeful, pathetic, a little silly. It is the only comfort she could imagine we hadn't yet tried.

almost 4

My son's birthday is next week. I am woefully unprepared. Between the never ending audits at work and my direly overcommitted state of volunteerism at church, I haven't had more than a few hours to myself in weeks, and I've been selfishly using that time for grocery shopping. Add into that my biweekly saturday morning small group, two baby showers, a birthday party, several 14 hour work days, and my daughter's new aversion to sleep, and you have a neat summary of the list of reasons why I haven't spent three seconds thinking about Nathan's big day.

None of these reasons even remotely justify my lack of preparation, energy, and planning. Kids get so few birthdays, and the fact that my son's 4th is moderately to severely inconvenient to my busy, self-absorbed adult schedule just doesn't matter. I need to shift my priorities and get excited about celebrating with him the way he wants to. This year, he wants Grammie and Grampa to come visit, and he wants to go bowling. Both are more than reasonably accomplishable, and both actually sound like a lot of fun. Add in some vanilla cake, fancy plates, and some frosting, and I think we may have a successful birthday bash. He only wants one friend to come, for crying out loud. The kid has not set his threshold very high, people.

So what is my problem? Why am I so exhausted at the thought of a kid's birthday celebration, even a super small one? Why can I not get myself organized and motivated enough to plan this, buy presents and wrapping paper, invite people, etc? Is work that demanding? Is my job that hellishly invasive to my mental and emotional space that I've sunk to looking at my son's birthday as an inconvenience?

I'm disgusted at the thought. I need some life change, stat. More and more I keep coming up against the idea that if I want to live the life I imagine for myself, I need to get out of this job. Work lately feels like it never turns off. The number of tasks I have to complete in the 9 hours I'm there so far outweighs the amount of time I have that the situation is not even comical, it is not even sad, it just... is. Like assigning an emotion to it would take too much time and I don't have the mental space to do so until sometime in March, according to my Franklin Covey planner. My brain and my heart are fretting about work nearly all the time. I find myself resenting my husband and family for not accommodating my need to work more, instead asserting their ridiculous need to go home and eat dinner before 7 pm. I am repulsed by my job most of the time. I am disgusted by the sheer ridiculousness of the depth and breadth of my to-do list. I hate how everything I value - analysis, mentoring, connection, teaching, writing, organizing, serving - has been pushed to the side because I only have time for...reports. God help me. And yet I am sucked in by the feeling that I can't leave now, not when there's so much work to do. Last week I realized I have to start leaving on time if my family and marriage have any hope of surviving me being in this job. So I signed up for a work laptop so I could bring my work home with me to do when they go to sleep. Nice problem solving, Lue, way to assert those boundaries.

I need help. I need inspiration. I need to find something else I enjoy, that I'm passionate about, that will pay me enough to enable me to move on. Or I need to figure out a way to work in this role at this organization and have it be just a job. Both ideas sound like full on, throw-the-mountain-in-the-sea kind of miracles. I need a Miracle, Lord!

(repeat to self: I will cooperate with grace. I will cooperate with grace. I will. Cooperate. With. Grace.)

And in case I did not mention it - my baby is turning 4 next week. What a real person he is. What a funny little man, my sensitive boy, my smartypants, my goofball. What a gift.