I found this all over yesterday, but it started with Mak. I almost got in trouble because I was multi-tasking at Bro. M’s when I should have been just talking. But here’s me … as a Simpson … and the funny thing is I have never, no never, not even one time, watched an episode of the Simpsons … not really sure why …

In any case, without further adieu, I am pleased to introduce you to, Olive Barnaby:

The past couple of days have been hectic. Saturday saw the return of the GrandPea to camp and an unanticipated visit to an Urgent Care clinic for LightGirl. It seems that she may have torn her meniscus while at hockey camp last week. She’s on crutches now and we’re wending our way through the medical system to see how we should best proceed. Sunday began with a family breakfast then packing, sorting laundry and good-byes. Good-bye to GreatPea (my aunt), LightMom and GrandPea, as LightChildren were off to a week with their other grandparents. LightHusband and I are back at camp. And peace. And quiet. And phone calls to doctors. And just a little bit of worry.

LightMom and I went to a quilt exhibit together.  She loves to look at quilts almost as much as I do.  The difference being that I like to also make them.  We saw these quilts at the Shelburne Museum.  The exhibit was called:  Something Pertaining to God:  The Patchwork Art of Rosie Lee Tompkins.  Rosie Lee (not her real name, she took a pseudonym so she wouldn’t become too proud) said she would think of something important when she pieced, you know something pertaining to God … I really liked that.  I think about those things when I’m piecing and quilting too.  If I’m making a quilt for someone specifically, I pray for that person or their family.  Or I weave thoughts and dreams for them into the quilt.  This is likely not unique to me and/or Rosie.  I think that many quilters weave hopes and dreams into their quilts.  I liked the way that Rosie put it “… something pertaining to God.”

Rosie’s voice is tied up in her quilts (and quilted book pouches … she made some to match the quilts).  She died a couple of years ago.  I wish her voice was verbal instead of fabric.  I have no doubt she has some wonderful earthy wisdom to pass on.  I’ll bet it’s colorful and interesting too … told with a twist.  Born and raised in Arkansas, then she raised a family of five in California.  I’m certain she had stories to tell.  What a treat it would have been to sit quietly, stitching and listening as she sewed and talked … just to hear her voice and learn her technique.

I have sat and stitched with other quilters; learned their techniques, talked with them, cried with them, shared secrets with them.  I’ve learned over the years which voices to listen to.  Which have knowledge that I can profit from and which are fun to chat with, and which will give me support.  Who to call for help with applique or help with quilting or help with tricky set-in seams.  I’ve learned how to sort out the voices … who will tell me what is tried and true.

I’ve been thinking about that today.  I’ve been thinking about voices and who I listen to.  And who I don’t.  And why.  I’ve come to love the internet.  It’s a great place.  You can find anything there that you want.  For instance, I scared myself skinny (well … almost) about LightGirl’s meniscus tear this morning.  You have to be selective about which voices you’re going to listen to out on the big wide internet.  There are voices out there which will scare you and cause you pain.  I’ve found over time that when I keep going back to those voices (getting scared and/or hurt), that the authors are not the inflictors of the fear and/or pain … I am.  The site is static.  I am going to it.  If I keep going to it and getting scared, then I need to stop.  So I do.  As in this morning, I stopped looking for information when it was causing me too much worry about LightGirl’s condition.  I’ll wait til we get a definitive diagnosis from a real doctor, instead of the dr. dolittle on the internet.  I love the fact that I have control over who I listen to and when and why.  So that if I’m in pain or fear I can stop listening to that voice.   And listen instead to the voices of quilts or quilters … or even, the Holy Spirit.

The other day I unwittingly wrote a post about the significance of 07.07.07 to the world … or not. Then I was browsing through my blog (her)story and came to the rather startling discovery that whether or not this date is significant to God, life the universe or anything … it’s significant to me. It’s my blog anniversary. My second. So, happy 2 to me.

I’m in a different place this year, than I have been the last two years. Both in physical and emotional space. The last two years as I wrote here, I was back in steamy Virginia anticipating my trip north to Vermont. To sit on the porch and hear the waters of Lake Champlain lap up on the shore. Today, I’m on the porch listening as I write. It is a balm to my weary soul.

I do so love it up here. My mother and my favorite aunt have been here too. We’ve been out gallivanting together. We did lunch and shopping (a first for all three of us together). We worked out together, found a quilt store together, jaunted off down curvy, hilly dirt roads to find strawberries together … all with me driving (and my mother directing 😉 she knows the roads better after all). It’s been a grand adventure. And I’ve been soaking it up to remember down the years.

We’ve been retelling the old family stories from when I was a child and from their childhoods as well. Stories I’ve heard at least a million times, but now I’ve heard them a million and one. Funny, though, there are one or two I haven’t heard and this time I’ve told a few of my own from my childhood that LightMom hadn’t heard, or added my own perspective to a well known story that brought gales of laughter, or in one case a sense of relief. It made me think of this quote (which I first saw over at Mak’s place, but later read myself in Relevant magazine, by the grande damme herself, Anne Lamotte):

One of my deepest beliefs is that every single thing that happens to you is yours. You get to own it, and you don’t have to keep others’ awful secrets for them anymore. You don’t have to be such a good son or such a good daughter that you can redeem their lives…If people don’t want you to write about them, then they should behave a lot better. It’s amazing when someone tells the truth.

All of which brings me back to my blog anniversary. The italics in the above quote are mine. I added them because I wanted my readers to pay attention to those words. Which, in the end, is why any writer adds italics to a bit of writing.

This is also a good day, three days after the celebration of the anniversary of our national Declaration of Independence, for me to celebrate my own declaration of independence. In a very small way. So here it is …

This blog is mine. It’s all mine. I write what I think about. What I write is public. I never, no never, write with the intention to hurt or threaten any one. But, as you might recall from my post last night, the truth is only threatening to those who wish manipulate it for their own ends. If anyone who reads this blog doesn’t like what they read, they can not read it … they can move along to another blog or another website.
But … if people don’t want you to write about them, then they should behave a lot better. I’m just sayin’ … that’s all.

Tuesday we spent the day on an island in the middle of Lake Champlain. We were neither here, nor there. Not in Vermont. Not in New York. We were in international waters! Well … not exactly. We were in sub-national waters. Or something. But we were on an island that was not subject to any state law. Very interesting. We didn’t break any laws, so it didn’t matter.

We spent the day with LightHusband’s sister, her husband and their blended family. There was fishing, swimming, hot dogs, hotdogs, wet dogs, a temporary aquarium for the caught fish, an adventure on a tube, and sundry other activities … all law abiding.

I got to have several really good conversations with LightSIL. We re-connected again. It was good. But something she said has been rattling around in my head for the last couple of days. We were talking about some of her interactions with her first husband and working out custody arrangements. Things get dicey sometimes. She mentioned some boundaries she needed to set that were entirely for her children’s safety.  Her ex-husband is a practicing alcoholic and the court has set some stringent standards for his behavior that she needed to remind him of.  She said, “I didn’t want to threaten him, but he needed to remember what would happen.”  I reminded her that she wasn’t threatening him; if he broke the standards set by the court, it was the court which would take action against him, not her.

I’ve really been thinking about that interchange for the last couple of days.  I’ve been thinking about how truth appears to people.  Some people see truth and it’s clean and clear for them.  They welcome it into their lives as a measure with which to measure themselves against.  They face truth without fear.  Others, see truth walking toward them and they pull out the fun house mirrors in an attempt to bend it and manipulate it and make it into something they can control for their own purposes.  If they cannot bend the truth, if they are faced with a truth they cannot manipulate, then they manipulate those around them.  But in the end I’ve come to realize that the only people who are threatened by the truth are those who want to manipulate it for their own ends.

So … the glove was thrown down. I was asked to play with the boys. Doug tagged me to play a music game that guys usually only play with other guys. They don’t do this to be exclusive. It starts when they are early teens and it’s difficult to talk to girls. So they talk to each other and create their own language around music. Girls never quite get included in this club. They also never quite develop the love affair in quite the same way that guys do. But most of us do love music, so I was glad to get this tag and share my shuffle with y’all.

Here are the rules. Just write down the first 10 songs that your iPod plays when it’s on shuffle. No sweat. So. Here are my first 10:

1. “O, The Deaths We Would Have Known If You Had Not Been With Us” by Seth Woods on Songs from the Voice, vol 1 – Please Don’t Make Us Sing That Song

2. “Truganini” by Midnight Oil on 20,000 Watt R.S.L.

3. “(Nothing But) Flowers” by Talking Heads on Naked

4. “Praise Him” by Burning Spear on Jah Kingdom

5. “Yahweh” by U2 on How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

6. “The Pink Panther Theme (Dance Club Mix)” by Dream Chaser on The Pink Panther Theme Remixed

7. “Psalm 114: B’tseth Israel (When Israel Went Forth from Egypt)” by San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble on Ancient Echoes: Music from the time of Jesus and Jerusalem’s Second Temple

8. “It Is Well With My Soul” by Audio Adrenaline on Underdog

9. “Quiche Lorraine” by B-52s on Wild Planet

10. “Somewhere I Belong” by Linkin Park on Meteora

This was a welcome respite from the other processing I’ve been doing of late. So I’m grateful to Doug. Now, to spread the love … I’m going to tag Mak, Julie, Erin, Scott, and Paul(ie).

Emerging Grace did some writing a few weeks ago about an issue that has grabbed me by the teeth. Or hair. Or something. In any case, I can’t let go of it, or it me. We’ve been wrestling with each other, this issue and I. Neither of us bloody yet, or unbowed. But, after weeks of grappling, pondering and meditating, this issue and I are still taking the measure of one another. She wrote about the issue of leaving a church under a cloud (to put it mildly). The two posts that have me thinking the most are: Always Be Nice and Church Politics. Go read them now, and the comments if you want. I’ll wait here for you.

Yep, they really are that good, aren’t they? I thought so too. That’s why I wanted you to read them.

In any case, here are some of the things I’ve been thinking about as a result of reading her posts. One is that her most recent post, Church Politics, finally gave me a name for some of the things that have happened to me in church. I’ve been bullied in church. Who’d a thunk it? That there would be bullies in church … it’s the one place where we are supposed to be safe from such behavior. But it’s also the one place where bullies are kept safe. They learn early on how to operate, manipulate, and scheme within the system because no one can believe that such ugly things are happening in, of all places, a church!

With a nod to Grace for putting me on the trail, I found this website on bullying that is from the UK. It is quite dense and informative. It’s focus is on bullying in the workplace, but I think the crossover can be made to church quite easily. There are other sites for bullying and it’s sibling, mobbing, out there, but the UK site by Tim Fields is the most comprehensive site I found.

I spent hours on that site. Torn between flabbergasted and relief. Relief that I hadn’t imagined it; I wasn’t off my gourd or going crazy. Flabbergasted that this is so prevalent amongst adults that websites have been dedicated to it. Flabbergasted to find that my experience is far from unique. I wish it were unique. I wish that other people had not gotten hurt as I’ve been. But there it is … I’ve left a church as the result of bullying. The bully did things like:

• bullies poison the atmosphere and actively poison people’s minds against the target
• when close to being outwitted and exposed, the bully feigns victimhood and turns the focus on themselves – another example of manipulating people through their emotion of guilt, eg sympathy, feeling sorry
• most bystanders are hoodwinked by the bully’s ruses for abdicating responsibility and evading accountability, eg “that’s all in the past, let’s focus on the future”, “what’s in the past is no longer relevant”, “you need to make a fresh start”, and “forgive and forget, you’ve got to move on”, etc.
• the bully is often able to bewitch one especially emotionally needy bystander into being their easily controlled spokesperson / advocate / supporter / denier
• the bully often forms an alliance with a colleague who has the same behaviour profile, thus increasing the levels of threat, fear and dysfunction
• the bully is able to charm and manipulate a number of bystanders to act as supporters, assistants, reinforcers, appeasers, deniers, apologists and minimisers …

There were other pieces of the puzzle that fit too, but those were the glaringly obvious bits. Then I found that Mr. Fields has identified four different bully types and was astonished to discover this description in there. It is my sense that many bullies which are “called” into ministry fit in this description, so I’m posting it here for those of you who will find it useful (remember … not all of these need to be present in a person, simply a preponderance of them make a bully):

The Attention-Seeker

Motivation: to be the centre of attention
Mindset: control freak, manipulation, narcissism
Malice: medium to high; when held accountable, very high

emotionally immature

selectively friendly – is sickly sweet to some people, rude and offhand to others, and ignores the rest

is cold and aggressive towards anyone who sees them for what they really are or exposes their strategies for gaining attention

overfriendly with their new target, especially in the initial stages of a new working relationship

overhelpful, ditto

overgenerous, ditto

manipulative of people’s perceptions, but in an amateur and childish manner

manipulative with guilt, ditto

sycophantic, fawning, toadying

uses flattery to keep a person in authority on side

everything is a drama, usually a poor-me drama

prefers not to solve problems in own life so that they can be used and re-used for gaining sympathy and attention

capitalises on issues and uses them as a soapbox for gaining attention

exploits others’ suffering and grief as a vehicle for gaining attention

misappropriates others’ statements, eg anything which can be misconstrued as politically incorrect, for control and attention-seeking

excusitis, makes excuses for everything

shows a lot of indignation, especially when challenged

lots of self-pity

often as miserable as sin, apart from carefully constructed moments of charm when in the act of deceiving

demanding of others

easily provoked

feigns victimhood when held accountable, usually by bursting into tears or claiming they’re the one being bullied and harassed

presents as a false victim when outwitted

may feign exclusion, isolation or persecution

malicious

constantly tries and will do almost anything to be in the spotlight

includes Munchausen Syndrome

the focus of their life is to be the centre of attention

(italics mine for emphasis).

What I learned, both in my actual interactions with the bully and in my later research, is that there is nothing that can be done. There is no path one can take to save face or save the relationship, or relationships that have been destroyed. Any activity is like wriggling your fingers in a Chinese finger trap … the harder you try to escape, the tighter you are enveloped in it’s clutches. There is only one method of release and that is turning around and walking away. Relax, admit defeat and walk away. Admit you are powerless, admit you have lost everything … and leave before anyone else gets hurt. So that is what I did.

I’m alone now with my husband and one or two friends. I wonder often now, how it is that God could have left me so high and dry, so vulnerable in His house, His Body. Who is this God who abandons His child in the midst of His temple? Perhaps, then, it wasn’t His temple after all … it’s really the only conclusion I’m left with.

I read about this at One for the Road … and took the survey too. I think it’s important to pass the word on. So, here it is … I’m passing it on. Be sure to check out Anne Jackson’s blog, and her upcoming book and even take a survey if you feel so inclined. It’s only a few minutes and a worthy cause.

… but I used it for good!

Imagine my dismay when I saw this in the space where my blogroll used to be …

… as I was scrolling down through my blog one day last month. It was horrifying. Not so much in a real gut-wrenching “your daughter has just been attacked” kind of way, but more in the “oh no … I don’t know what to do now” kind of way. So I did the kind of thing I’m really good at … I ignored it and hoped it would go away all by itself. But it didn’t.

It mocked me every time I scrolled down to check. It laughed in my face and giggled at my incompetence. Waggled its ears at my consternation. Pheh. So I took all the wind out of its sails and stopped checking. Hah! That’ll fix it’s wagon … that dreadful code.

I mulled it over and thought for a while. Then I decided to take my links (blogroll) out of my sidebar altogether. I’ve moved them you see to their own page. I called the page, Beacon Hills after the mountain top signal fires in the Lord of the Rings. It seems fitting, given the name of my blog. Then I thought, “I’d love to have a dynamic blogroll. I wonder how hard that would be.” So I did a Google search. I found a way to hitch up my GoogleReader to a widget in my sidebar (HT to ZeroBoss) . So the links that are listed on Beacon Hills are providing the sustenance for the posts listed in my sidebar as “beacon hills” via sonja. It’s so Web 2.0 I can hardly stand myself. You probably can’t stand me either 😉

Here’s a fun fact about me:  I love patterns.  I love to find patterns in the way things move and the way people do things.  I love to find patterns in numbers.  I am always and forever on the search for patterns.  It is perhaps the one constant in my life.  An early example of this is that a best friend’s phone number was 229-0108.  Or, because we didn’t have to dial the first two numbers, it was 90108.  My grandmother’s zip code was 01089 and I could always remember both because the 9 just changed positions.  It was over 30 years ago, neither my best friend nor my grandmother have lived with those numbers for any of those 30 years, but I can still remember the numbers.  If I weren’t a Jesus follower, I would probably be heavily into numerology.  After my love affair with numbers, I discovered that people and the way the interact with other people could be described into patterns.  Those patterns are not as easily observed, nor are they as distinct, nor as rigid.  But still those patterns are there.

In a few days we have an auspicious date on the calendar.  July 7, 2007 or 07.07.07.  Or 7-7-7.  Now the number 7 seems to be something that is good in the Bible … it’s mentioned often in terms of forgiveness and jubilee.  I wonder if good things might happen on that day.  On the other hand, last year we had, June 6, 2006 or 06.06.06.  Or 6-6-6 which is sometimes associated with bad things in the Bible and nothing bad happened on that day.  So, I’m probably overreaching.  But it would be fun to have a day in which wonderful things happened.  A day of jubilee.  It is, however, a random day, assigned a number by a monk over a thousand years ago.  So, really, while it means something to us, it doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of life, the universe and everything.

I am, at long last, awash in the porch. I have my coffee beside me, the wind is rustling the trees, there is a robin’s nest in the rafters above and my beloved hummingbirds are dive bombing me to protect their feeder from my nefarious plans. LightGirl has gone to find her friends, LightBoy has gone to find his. Yesterday was a tedious drive broken by a hockey game and reunion with LightGirl at Penn State.

She was full of stories, escapades, and laments. The laments were about the food and the hard work. The stories and escapades were about the friends and the boys. She told us about the wonders of the pasta bar at the cafeteria. She had, apparently, sampled it for 2 out of 3 meals a day. This caused me to ask, “Did a vegetable pass your lips at least one time this week?” “Oh, yes, Mom.” said earnestly, “One day they had a vegetable sauce. … (long, loud guffaws from her parents) … and I ate fruit with every meal.” oh … I am now reassured.

After a long period of time during which I gritted my teeth and ignored the sounds which pass for music coming out of the speakers, I could not bear it any more. It was the post dinner hour and my last nerve had been officially reached … for quite some time. So I recieved control of the iPod. The wailing and gnashing of teeth from the back seat was hilarious. “Not U2, Mom … please no U2. Oh no … she’s going to put on celtic music, I just know it.” So I found it amusing that when Minutes to Midnight (Linkin Park’s latest album) came on, neither of them could identify it.

It has become the album of choice for our whole family to listen to. It’s somewhat amazing to me that we all like it. It’s just soft enough for me, and hard enough for the kids. It’s got enough musical interest for LightHusband. The lyrics of the songs are pretty intense. I’m gaining some respect for this band. But I think their song, What I’ve Done, is perhaps my favorite. I’ve heard that it’s their biggest hit. I wouldn’t know about that since I’ve only sort of discovered them lately. But the lyrics are intense and speak of a longing for forgiveness and redemption that seem to be universal. Then I found the video and was knocked off my feet. It is … intense, and beautiful and rich … it is a must see. So I’m posting it here. Enjoy!