Gardening
Apr 29th, 2006 by aBhantiarna Solas

Well, I’ve tried FlyLady. I’m still getting her e-mail reminders and the inspirational e-mails and I visit her website and I’m trying. But the house is still in CHAOS – stands for Can’t Have Anyone Over … but we still do. We just do combat cleaning and know that our friends extend lots and lots of grace to us. I have great intentions and I know that routines are the best solution for me and for us, but the road there is going to be slow and circuitous. I’m not giving up, I’m just not going to be such a perfectionist about it anymore.

My garden is in the same shape … CHAOS. Today was the perfect day to start doing something about it. Last summer the weeds gained control of my little piece of heaven. They moved in, took over and laughed in my face. And mocked me with an evil grin every time I walked through my front door, “We’re here to stay … there’s more of us than there are of you. Don’t even try.” I believed them for a while as my poor garden struggled on … the lily of the valley and nandina to the left, the hydrangea and yarrow, the tulips sprang alive and trumpeted their red song. One of my lilac’s stood straight and tall and gave me my first three blooms this year, as if to cry, “Please don’t give in to those evil weeds. We’ve stood against them all this time … won’t you help?”


So, today, I went out … armed with a little hand shovel and some gardening shears … and engaged in battle with the weeds. I have one lilac bush that my father gave me four years ago in a half-pint milk carton. This year it put out shooters of its own and stands about 24″ tall. I think I might get some blooms next year. He brought it to me on Mother’s Day of 2002 from one of his lilacs in Vermont. Slowly but surely it’s thriving down here. The other lilac came from a friend who lives nearby. That’s the one that bloomed this year. I love lilacs.


I pulled some weeds for about a half an hour. I saw some worms. I was finally able to identify which were my peony plants and which were weeds. I had some plants that have been growing in my garden for several years near my peonies that look very similar to the peonies, but are not. This year I have enough buds on my peonies to see which plants were the weeds … and I struck them down.


I need to trim the butterfly bush … it’s getting way out of hand. But I can never remember the best time of year to do that. And I need to throw away the azaleas I never planted last year. They are going to be replaced by hydrangeas in any case.

I remembered, this afternoon, that I love digging around in the dirt. Inspecting the pebbles and worms. Listening to the hum of the bugs and the birdsong. Praying for the hurt or ill person that needed the ambulance that raced by. Wondering, is that a weed? But those dead blooms look as though I might have planted those. Hmmmm, I think I’ll leave that. On the other hand, those over there are definitely weeds.


I didn’t kill myself to do the whole thing today. I will do some more tomorrow and the next day and the next. Because … I like digging around in the dirt. If I do it all in one day, what will I do for all the other days?

Are You Owned?
Apr 28th, 2006 by aBhantiarna Solas

12.5 %

My weblog owns 12.5 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

I was afraid to do this … but now I’m kinda glad I did.

ht to bobbie at emerging sideways

Letting Go
Apr 26th, 2006 by aBhantiarna Solas

My BrickFriend wrote a list yesterday of some albums (CDs now) that he recently purchased. I’ve been making my way through the list and listening to the music. He and I have a friendly debate about music, but mostly it has to do with U2. He doesn’t like them and I do … which is probably stating it mildly in both of our cases. There are a lot of other bands that we both like.

I was knocked over yesterday when I saw Dire Straits mentioned in his list. On one hand, I used to love Dire Straits. On the other, I had forgotten about them. I have a lot of memories tied up in Dire Straits … my first views of Washington DC have Sultans of Swing playing in the background from a class trip when I was in highschool. They were cutting edge rockers in the ’80’s without being punk (which I also enjoyed). They rank up there with Talking Heads. Cheap Trick tried but never came close. R.E.M., They Might Be Giants, Indigo Girls, Annie Lennox, the Pretenders … moving toward punk we listened to The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite (but neither of those bands have stood the test of time).

For some strange reason I have always gravitated towards music that is interesting. The lyrics have meaning and many layers. The music itself has depth, artistry, grain. In short, there is something interesting to listen to. I can’t always describe it and I never know the names of band members (which is why it’s so amazing that I know so much about U2) and can’t talk knowledgeably about it, but I know good music when I hear it. This is astonishing to me because when I was growing up the only music in our house was on the AM radio, a couple of albums by the Kingston Trio, and one by Johnny Cash. Then I went through my pre-pubescent crush stage and fell in love with Donny Osmond so I had several of his albums. But … that doesn’t count.

Then in 1990 LightHusband and I joined an evangelical church and gradually discovered that all of the music we listened to was going to lead us down the path to perdition. That, really, if we wanted to be safe we needed to stop listening to that evil music and only listen to CCM (Contemporary Christian Music). Both being oldest, compliant children and wanting to be good new Christians, we did this. But we’re also musicians. CCM is boring. It’s not quite as boring or limited now as it was in the early 90’s when it was dominated by the likes of Amy Grant. But the lyrics are so monotonous and obvious. Why not just slap the listener in the face with a dead fish and get it over with? The lyrics also tend to be emotionally manipulative. The more the musician can make the listener cry, the better the song must be … right? Wrong! (An aside here … I think this is why I love U2 so much. They sing about God in the most oblique manner. Their lyrics are so layered, and have such depth and texture that you can listen and hear many things each time you listen to a song. This is something that most musicians in the CCM industry have yet to learn.)

I realized last night as I remembered all my long lost bands that the church had stolen something from me. I’m angry about that. It was unnecessary. A song is a song. A book is a book. These things are, relatively speaking, morally inert and cannot hurt anyone. I’m not suggesting that things like pornography are morally inert (I wouldn’t go that far). But an average song, or average book (like Harry Potter) is. It’s what the listener or reader chooses to do with the information in the song or book that makes the morality come alive. For the most part the church is filled with adults (some of whom have children). It seems to me that adults could be firm enough in their faith that they can read or listen to anything and be discerning, not fearful.

In many ways I think I ought to be grateful that now I have a faith that will carry me through many things. I love God. But today I’m angry with the church that stole 12 years from me, and took a lot of my self away. Took things that God never intended to take. This is all still bubbling up. Some days I think I’ve forgiven it all. Other days … I wonder how long must I sing this song?

Dinner Conversation
Apr 25th, 2006 by aBhantiarna Solas

Tonight’s conversation over dinner randomly covered many topics as it usually does. Here is a slice from the middle of it.

LightGirl: “Why do Army people all have to look alike?”

LightHusband: “Well, the Army needs to encourage uniformity so that people can work together.”

Me, “Because it makes it easier for people to kill one another when they all look alike.”

LightHusband gave me a dirty look when I said that, reflecting his indoctrination in the U.S. Army some 20 odd years ago.

LightGirl, said “What? I understand why people need to work together, but what does it have to do with killing each other?”

Me, “When people all look alike they aren’t really people anymore, they’re just part of the unit, the opposing army and it’s easier to kill them.”

LightBoy interjected, “Just like when they made the Clone Army in Attack of the Clones in Star Wars II.”

She still had a quizzical look on her face and I realized that I would have to remove a significant part of her innocence if I wanted to go any deeper, so I just said, “You’ll understand it better as you grow older.”

She said, “I don’t think I’ll like it, but I guess I’ll understand it.”

I don’t like it either … but it’s the way we’ve been fighting wars ever since we started sharpening stones and throwing them at one another to protect our turf.

Then we moved on to a fascinating rendition of how they made garlic bread at Subway.

Questions … and more questions
Apr 24th, 2006 by aBhantiarna Solas

Among the many blogs I follow (and there are too many) is one by by a Canadian who calls himself Brother Maynard (after a character in Monty Python’s Holy Grail). He has quite a story and has come out of the charismatic tradition. Sometimes I feel quite a kinship with his thoughts and can see him at his spot on the road. He posted a couple of posts recently about calling that have led me to wrestle through some thoughts of my own. I didn’t want to clog up his comments section with everything that’s wandered through my brain on the subject. I thought it more polite to keep it on my own blog. He was talking about whether or not one’s calling can ever be rescinded (you can read his posts here and here … they’re very good); if God reveals a calling to you but then never or rarely uses it. How does that affect a person? Does the hope dry up? If it makes us bitter, are we less faithful? Indeed how are we to handle those unused callings?

Here’s something that I’m only beginning to wrestle with. This is the first time I’ve put words around it and that means this is going to be clumsy. But here in the North American church I think we’ve gotten the idea in the last 100 or so years that God is going to make our paths easy. That all the things that come from Him are going to be wonderful and good and pleasant. Comfy couches, soft breezes, easy streets. If He gives us a calling, then all the doors are going to magically open for that to happen and others will shut. That tired and overused expression, “When God closes a door, He’ll open a window,” comes to mind. But when I look at the church around the world (particularly in the developing world) and the early church, that’s quite a load of hooey. I’m really not sure that’s how God works. In fact, just reading the Gospels tells us that God doesn’t give his disciples easy street. Jesus tells us right up front … this is going to be hard; harder than anything else. He tells us, “Don’t follow Me unless you really, really, really love Me, because in large part it’s going to suck. I’m going to ask you to die for Me, leave your parents, etc. etc.”

We’ve all gotten sucked in by this “Good News” … and for the North American church it’s all Good. Well … yes, the Gospel is indeed Good News. We do have eternal life. But life here on this earth isn’t going to be easy street. And that’s the part I think we’ve gotten mixed up somewhere along the way. We live between the tension of a world made in the image of God and a world that is broken. A world which was made to function perfectly and yet doesn’t. People born imprinted with the image of the Divine and yet grow into adults who will do the worst and best to one another. That’s the tension that we live with and have to acknowledge. Just having Jesus doesn’t make that all go away like a magic spell.

I think too of how butterflies come to be. That if they do not struggle and strain to get out of the chrysalis their wings are not formed properly and they cannot fly. That sometimes it is the obstacles and impediments that give us our wings and if we do not walk through those times, we will not be able to be who we need to be. What we need to hang on to is that in those times, God is good and He will be with us. Those are the real promises He’s made.

I struggle with this balance between seeing the image of God in all of creation and yet knowing the Fall has created a brokenness that means evil will cause obstacles and problems for me. I struggle with the balance between being/meditating/sitting in God’s presence and doing. There is that tension between Mary and Martha … John and Peter. Jesus never picked one over the other, both were important. We also have to somehow find a way to live in the space of the tension between both.

As I said, I’m just starting to wrestle this through and it makes me sort of scared to even say it in my “out loud” voice. Because I wonder what trials I have waiting for me? What does saying this bring down upon my head? And in a certain sense those questions make me very superstitious. But I think that some of the “tricksies” that we have come up with in a feeble attempt to read the mind of God, are just that … tricks and somehow they have worked their way into warp and weft of the Christian culture as if they are also part of the Gospels. Saying “what you meant for evil, God uses for good.” is just too easy, imho. I don’t think we can know the ultimate outcome. It makes the speaker feel good to say those words (and they are usually spoken with humility and with a good heart to be sure), but who are we to say what is good and what is evil? How do we know that? When I read the Gospel accounts Jesus constantly turned the current cultural definitions on their ears. I think He’d do the same today.

On the flip side of the coin … or something. I think we have to redefine “good” and “evil.” Or, we have to understand that it is arrogant of us to think that we can can even begin to comprehend God’s definitions of those terms. Those spots in the Bible where we are told that He will reward good and punish evil are clearly not born out in this world. So something isn’t adding up. I really think we don’t understand the terms, and perhaps it’s arrogant to think we ever could.

I should probably write something very erudite and conclusive here. But I have no conclusion. Just more questions.

Oh … Brother!
Apr 21st, 2006 by aBhantiarna Solas

My youngest brother is visiting. Sort of. He’s staying with us at night and involved in a business project during the day. He’s not sure how long he’ll stay here, but it may be the better part of two weeks. We had about 22 hours notice that he’d be coming. That was actually a long notice from him. I’m enjoying this. I get to see him in the morning and in the evening and catch up in little pieces on his life.

He and his wife own a tent rental and party goods business in western Massachusetts. For a long time he and his wife have struggled to maintain good employees because their employment needs are fairly seasonal. Last summer they hired some laborers from Guatemala. He loved those men! They arrived at work on time and worked all day. His worst fear with them was running out of tasks for them. He tried to give them a weekend off and take them to our family house on the lake in Vermont for some relaxation and respite. A small reward for for such excellent service, but someone in their community had a house that needed to be painted. So they worked instead. But when they went back to Guatemala my brother and his wife sent them back with suitcases full of things for their families: toys, gifts for their wives, things for their homes, clothes.

My brother and his wife are rehiring the men plus two more this summer. He was on the phone with them in my kitchen the other morning. It was amusing to hear his pidgin Spanish and imagine the pidgin English on the other end of the phone. I fed him some Spanish words to help and by the end of his conversations he was doing better.

Here’s the thing … for my whole time in the evangelical church I was told that people who are not “saved”, who do have “the love of Christ,” cannot do loving things. That we can only love because He first loved us. But I look around me all the time and see evidence which refutes this. My very parents give lie to that statement. Ben hires his men from Guatemala, in part because they do a good job, but also because they send a portion of their salaries back home to their families. He does it because it’s one small way he can help a few people in a developing country.

I wonder sometimes how the evangelicals can continue to believe these narrow definitions. That God is only speaking to and through them. Because clearly there are others out there who hear His call to care for their neighbors, even while they might not define it in quite that manner. And I wonder how each will be treated in the hereafter … those who have kept perfect theology, but walled themselves off from those less fortunate and those who have not “asked Jesus into their hearts” but who care for the “least of the these” yet follow God with an intuition that is uncanny.

LOL
Apr 17th, 2006 by aBhantiarna Solas

My BrickFriend has found the funniest comic I’ve seen in long, long time. Altho, if you’re not into the “emerging” church, you might not get it. I practically had tears rolling down my cheeks when I saw it … that’s how hard I laughed.

An Open Letter to My Family
Apr 17th, 2006 by aBhantiarna Solas

Dear Family (my earthly family, that is),

Back in the day, we used to see one another often. At least twice a year. The aunts and uncles and cousins and little cousins all gathered together at Christmas time (not the actual day mind you, just time) and early August on Cape Cod for a Clam Bake. You were there for many of my major milestones … I was there for many of yours; graduations, marriages, babies birthdays. We did them together. I looked up to my cousins and your children looked up to me, and my aunts and uncles and parents got to sit and talk and laugh indulgently at all of us. We all grew and learned from one another, leaned on one another in some odd familial sort of way. When I was with you, the connection was deeper than any I’ll have with anyone else.

Then came the Clambake in 1999. That year your mother (my father’s sister) turned 80. It was to be a family celebration as the Clambake often is. But there was (on the side) a dispute between your brother and my brother over a business issue. When my brother who had always been a welcome member of our great, large wonderful family before, arrived, to extend good wishes to his aunt, he was turned away.

In many ways that was the blackest day of my life. And so, it would seem, I’ve led a charmed life if that’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. But I thought our family had more grace and tolerance than that. I know our grandfather did and so did our grandmother. I was not asked to leave, but neither could I stay. I was put in the worst of all middle positions. I couldn’t stay … I couldn’t go. So I left, because it was easier to mollify my mother than live with the tension. Although I’ve born the tension and the terrible wounds of that day ever since. And our great, warm wonderful family has never been the same again.

I wonder sometimes if anyone else bears these wounds. Is there a hole at the family gatherings? No one ever speaks of that day. I am the bearer of emotions for my immediate family, must I also bear them for the greater family too. So now … 7 years later I find I’m carrying this burden for everyone else. This is not mine. The dispute was not mine. The Clambake/birthday was not mine. None of this is mine. I need to put it down now.

Lady of Light ….

He is Alive!!
Apr 16th, 2006 by aBhantiarna Solas

Update: My BrickFriend has far more integrity than I do … or maybe it’s that he took more time and was more thoughtful about posting his piece. Nah … he has more integrity. But I read his piece about Peter and realized that I need to update myself.

First … for about half of Christendom, yesterday was Palm Sunday and this is now Holy Week and Easter will be next Sunday. It’s sad, that within about 400 years of Jesus’ death, his followers were already so divided that they just stopped worshipping together on the date of his death and resurrection. Almost immediately (in terms of eternity), they stopped following that mandatum novum do vobis (the new commandment to love one another). Note here … I’m not indicating which group is correct. I’m just saying that the split occurred and it is sad.

Second … the two readings that follow were written extra-Biblically. The first, about Mary Magdalene, was written by a friend of mine. She used some Biblical texts and some other information that is actually, factually known about Mary to construct this piece. However, no one knows what emotions Mary M. might have experienced as she followed Jesus and then witnessed the resurrection. She couldn’t write and didn’t leave us a journal. The piece on the Centurion was written by me. All I had were 3 sentences in the 3 synoptic gospel accounts of the crucifixion to go on. The rest is complete fiction, based on what I know to be true of the Roman army and about Judea at the time. So … if you want to call that heresy, please do so in the quiet and peace of your own mind. They were written with the best of intentions to help our church family experience Jesus’ resurrection during the Western traditional Easter Sunday.

Today I got to “be” Mary Magadalene … in church.

My name is Miriam, though you know me better as Mary Magdalene. You wanted to know how my life was changed through my relationship with Jesus, the Christ. Freedom was His first gift to me. Self-respect, love, life. Those were His other gifts. How, you ask?
I lived in the fishing village of Magdala when I was taken over by evil. It doesn’t matter what I was doing or how it happened, but it did. Demons ARE real, and they were in me. I was imprisoned in my own body. They used my voice to speak their lies. They used my hands to commit their foul deeds.

And then one day Jesus came to town. I had heard rumors about this man who healed the sick, made the lame to walk, even cast out spirits. I wanted to see Him, hear Him, be touched by Him and healed. But those within me were afraid. They knew Jesus, and believed in Him and wanted to get away. I fought to get close enough to hear Jesus speaking to the crowds and to watch Him cure others of their afflictions. And then His eyes met mine, and the demons inside me shuddered. Suddenly, He cast them forth from me, and I was free. Free of their filth and lies. FREE!

I was so thankful. I felt I owed Him everything, because He had given my life back to me. So, I followed Him. I left the village behind and joined with the others who supported Him. We traveled together, learned from Him, were loved by Him, thought we understood this kingdom He proclaimed. What a journey it was—received with joy in one town, almost stoned in the next, and always Jesus’ great love and compassion reaching out to those in need.

He taught us a new way. He taught us not to worry about our next meal, new clothes, a place to sleep. He showed us love. He taught us to approach God for ourselves through prayer. He showed us forgiveness.

Then came the cross. The men fled in fear for their lives and hid. But no one paid attention to the women. Jesus had treated us as equals, but no one else did. So we stayed with Him and watched while He was crucified. We watched as Joseph gathered his courage and asked for His body. We followed to see the tomb where He was laid. We gathered spices and prepared them to anoint His body after the Sabbath. We waited and mourned the loss of our friend and king.

Near dawn the morning after the Sabbath, I went to the tomb with the other women to anoint Jesus’ body and change the burial linens. The tomb was open! Jesus’ body was gone! Confused, nearly mad with grief, we fell to the ground in terror when angels appeared and spoke to us. And we remembered. We remembered His words predicting His suffering and death, words that we had forgotten because we couldn’t, or wouldn’t, understand them. We wanted a conquering hero. We thought He was bringing an earthly kingdom.

The men didn’t believe us when we told them He was gone. They had to race to the tomb to see for themselves. They saw the open tomb and empty graveclothes, then turned and left us. I sat there weeping, not understanding why He was gone. The gardener came, and asked who I was looking for. I told him Jesus’ body was gone, and asked if the gardener knew where He had been taken.

Then came the voice I knew so well, calling my name. “Miriam!” I gasped, in joy and awe, hope and fear. Jesus was alive! How could this be? I turned to reach for Him, and He said “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’” I thought my heart would burst. Jesus was alive! I ran to tell the others. He is risen! Jesus is alive!
Yes, I was there. Me. Miriam from Magdala, a woman from a little village on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. A nobody special from nowhere special. But a man named Jesus walked into my village one day, and rescued me from a living hell, and nothing was ever the same again…………….

LightHusband got to “be” the centurion who guarded Jesus on the cross and declared him the Son of God after he died ….

I am a Roman Centurion. I’ve given my life to the Empire. It’s been a good life and I’ve been proud to serve. But imagine my dismay when I was sent to this backwater desert land. Sent to guard these stubborn uneducated Hebrews. They are dirty and unkept. They refuse to acknowledge the Emperor as God. Stupid stupid stupid people.

I’ve wondered for these past three years what my crime was that I deserved this post. Jersusalem is a crowded dirty city with more Hebrews than ever. And during their feast times, it becomes unbearable. They refuse to acknowledge perfectly good Roman feast days; my favorite is for Dionysus. But for theirs, they flock to the city and live in their own filth for days on end. They refuse to build any of our improvements here … baths, running water … nothing.

I stand most days, bored, at my duty station. I’ve wanted nothing to do with this backwards people. I’ve dreamt of being back in Rome, Gaul, anywhere but this hot dirty back water. Lately, tho, I’ve been overhearing whispers about a new king. These tiny little fools. A king from here who can over throw the Emperor?! And it appears that he has a following of uneducated fishermen. They must be his advisors. Ha Ha Ha.

Last Sunday he arrived in town with all the glory these people can give a king. He rode on their most stately beast … a donkey. Well, that fits. They were all gathered in the city for one of their feasts. I don’t remember which one. But after proclaiming this man king, then they screamed for his execution. I wonder why. My Lord Pilate could care less, like me, he just wants to get back to Rome and keep these people quiet. So he mollified them by granting their request. And sent the man to the cross. I was sent to guard him.

Til this point all went as it should. I had never come into contact with this man they called king. He did not look like any king I’d ever seen and certainly he was not going to over throw the Emperor, nor even My Lord Pilate. In any case, by the time we got to Golgotha he was almost dead. My subordinates nailed him and two thieves on their crosses. As usual, we threw lots to see who would get their robes. But …. I was beginning to be unsettled in my spirit. This man who would be king, was not like any man I had ever seen before.

I listened as one thief mocked him, but the other called him the Son of God. What was that? And then, in the middle of the day, just after he cried out to God as his Father, the sky became as black as night, but with no stars or moon for light. And then he called out, “Father into your hands I commit my spirit.” called his own death to him, and the light returned.

I tell you now … He is the Son of God. I must find those followers and learn about what he taught. What have I missed?! I need to know this God, and His Son. I find my loyalties torn now. Who am I to follow? The Emperor/god or the true God? Can I do both? How do I do that? Should I give up this life I’ve known forever. Shall the hunter become the hunted? Join these people in this backwater? Whatever comes next I will be following God and I will walk in His footsteps.

Good (?) Friday
Apr 14th, 2006 by aBhantiarna Solas

Having celebrated (?) Maundy Thursday last night for the first time, I feel grim today. Today is a day of waiting. Grim, dark waiting. Of sub-conciously walking the streets to Golgotha. Who am I in the drama? There is only One who is good. Others are evil or worse, neutral. Am I one of the Jews who feel betrayed by this king who is no King and will save neither himself nor me? Am I hiding and denying my relationship to him in order to save myself? How do I live this out today?

Tomorrow will also be waiting. But I think my mood will be lighter and more hopeful.

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