The Road Not Chosen

Next Up

I'm thinking about ditching my blog of 7 years and starting fresh. Road Not Chosen never really recovered from my long absence during my son Evan's "Year of Horrible Surgeries". Perhaps I never recovered. Maybe that blog will always be tied in my mind to those events. I do know that it isn't fitting me anymore.

Will I keep my url? I think I'll ditch it and try to come up with something new and exciting. After all my big move back to Cali after a 20 year absence is rapidly approaching. I feel like I have chosen a new path. A new blog makes sense to me.

First, of course, I'll think about if I should make the change. I'll ditch TypePad and go to WordPress for sure. Then will come the obligatory playing with themes/designs. I may even pony up some money and hire my wonderful friend, to come up with a suitably beautiful theme.

Have you ever ditched something old because it didn't represent you any more? Feel free to share.

 

*I am now on Google+ which I find a more secure, less privacy stealing social platform than Facebook. If you’d like an invite just let me know.

Are You a Revisionist?

Have you heard about “revisionist history”? It has been quite the topic of discussion in educational & historical circles for the last decade or so. The term means, in a nutshell, that we “revise” true history to give it the slant that we want in today’s era. An example would be taking a historical event and cleaning it up to be politically correct. This is seen in a lot of the current crop of history & scientific textbooks from grade school through college.

As a teacher and a writer I am always intent on giving people the true story, not the cleaned up version. We really need to learn from the mistakes of the past so they are not repeated. If the past is tidied up, there is no lesson to learn is there?

The urge to revise history is such a human one. We want things to look better than they actually were or are.  Sometimes we even want things to look worse because it makes us look better in the here and now.

Have you ever done this with your own past? Sometimes we make our past stories look worse so our “testimony” will sound better. Then again, we may clean up our old selves because we are afraid of what people might think if they knew how corrupt we used to be. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a young person say, “I’ve never been an addict or run away. I sure wish my testimony was better.” Oh, how wrong that is! The best life is the one not marred by deep, painful sins.

The church universal can often play into the urge to revise the past. It can either glorify past sinful deeds to make the salvation seem “bigger” or heap shame on them causing people to hide who they were before Christ entered their lives. Both approaches are wrong.

For example, I have wrestled with depression most of my life. My drug & alcohol addictions as a teen & young adult were, I believe, my way to self-medicate. After becoming sober and discovering what the addictions had covered up, I went to my doctor who put me on an anti-depressant which helped immensely. As a new Christian in a Word of Faith church I quickly found out though that being on medicine was a severe “lack of faith”. Oddly enough, you could boast about your deepest, nastiest sin and be cheered for it but boy howdy, don’t admit you are medication of any kind! So I went off my meds.  I battled depression, prayed, fasted, begged God to take this “thorn in my flesh” away. For reasons only known to Him, he didn’t heal me. Off my meds, all I wanted was a drink or something else to make me “feel better”.  So I went back on the anti-depressant and felt much more, well, sane!

In a previous church configuration, I hid my use of this medicine (and eventually went off it) for fear of having shame heaped upon me. My life was not good. At times I struggled to stay alive and sometimes wished I would just die.

About nine years ago I finally realized there was no shame in taking a medication that would supply what my brain didn’t. And I decided to start talking about it, willing to take whatever came with that admission. What I found were people who needed to know that it was okay to get help, medicinal or otherwise, for depression.

Happily for the last 7 or 8 years I have been in a church that is supportive of those with not only drug & alcohol addictions but also depression or whatever else a person is dealing with. I no longer feel the need to revise my own history which has been incredibly freeing and leads to better mental health as well.

What about you? What areas of your life are you revising or perhaps feeling shame about? Remember, as Christians the blood of Jesus not only cleansed us from our sin, but from our shame also.

Isaiah 54

⁴“Fear not; you will no longer live in shame.
      Don’t be afraid; there is no more disgrace for you.
   You will no longer remember the shame of your youth
      and the sorrows of widowhood.
⁵ For your Creator will be your husband;
      the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is his name!
   He is your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel,
      the God of all the earth.
⁶ For the Lord has called you back from your grief—
      as though you were a young wife abandoned by her husband,”
      says your God.
⁷ “For a brief moment I abandoned you,
      but with great compassion I will take you back.
⁸ In a burst of anger I turned my face away for a little while.
      But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,”
      says the Lord, your Redeemer.

The Walk

Next Saturday the students that Evan graduated from high school with will be graduating from college. We will watch them walk across the stage, holler and clap like crazy for them. Having watched them conquer the mountain that is a college degree I am very proud of who they have become. They are great young adults!

Here’s the secret thing that parents of intellectually handicapped kids don’t talk about: the knife that goes through our hearts knowing that our kids won’t make that march across the stage. It is not a knife of jealousy as we learn early on that is a fruitless emotion. It’s just pure parental pain of once more letting go of the dream you had for your baby before he was even born.

It is a very well documented fact that parents of special needs children go through the grieving process several times during their lives and I can testify that is true. Each milestone that other kids race past without even thinking about it, is one that my kid may or may not reach.

In talking about this I am not looking for sympathy or a pat on the back. (Although loads of dark chocolate would help!) I just think that sometimes we keep too much of this grief bottled up inside which is so not healthy.  Moving past that stab of if-only pain won’t take long but this is a huge owie for me.

Of course, I count our blessings, always. Four years ago this month, Ev was in a body cast and about to face a fight for his life so obviously I’m grateful he’s alive. He is at a happy place in his life. He loves his job & many friends. Yet it seems that at these junctures of life he knows that things aren’t quite what they are for his normally abled friends.

Life will settle back into its comforting routine next week. I will remember that my son walks across a stage not seen with human eyes. One day I’ll see him get a reward for finishing the school that has been his life. And on that day I won’t even remember this week & its pain. I can’t wait!

 

Holy Days

Did you know today is the first day of Lent? What is Lent you may ask? It is the season that marks the 40 days that lead up to Easter. It’s a time to exam our lives to see if we are really living the way God wants us to. Sometimes people give up certain things that they really like to eat or really like to do as a way of reminding themselves to focus on heavenly things and not earthly things. 

I went to a Lutheran grade school from kindergarten through eighth grade so the Holy Days were something we were taught and observed in school. (My parents were not Christians at the time, didn’t even go to church but I’m glad that they sent me to a school that gave me a foundation that was Christ focused.) Out of all the Holy Days we observed I always liked Advent, the days of preparation for Christ’s birth. The Lutheran’s actually invented Advent in the early 1900s.

During Advent we had little calendars in the classrooms that had a little door covering each day. Behind the door was some kind of wonderful item. Everyone fought over who would get to open the door, so all the teachers had to make a door-opener schedule but if a kid was absent watch out! Fists would fly. I think we missed the point of Advent.  

Lent on the other hand made me feel guilty. At that time I didn’t really see God as a loving Father, but rather a stern taskmaster. Being a Type A personality probably didn’t help my view either. Such pressure I put on myself to “be good”! Lent was always just another reminder of how short of the mark I fell. There was always a tremendous sense of relief when Easter finally came. Whew! I made it through Lent and now Jesus is risen and it’s all good!  

When I finally became a Christian at the age of 23, the thought of Holy Days was far behind me. I attended a Charismatic church that had no concept of such things outside of Easter and Christmas. It wasn’t until about ten years ago that I started remembering the different types of celebrations and days of observance. I’ve pondered those Holy Days a lot, wondering if and where they fit into my life and theology. I purchased the Oxford Book of Prayer which contains prayers from the Bible, from various saints/Christians, as well as prayers from different parts of the world. There is a nice chronology to it that I find helpful, little reminders to slow down and live an intentional life, measuring each day as it comes, not rushing blindly through one and then another.  

Relevant Magazine has a great article on Lent which I encourage you to read.  During this season I plan on taking stock of my life to see where I need improvement, not so I can feel guilty about my shortcomings like I used to, but so I can feel even more grateful that Daddy God sent His only Son to die & be ressurected for me so that I may live with Him forever.

 

Random Acts of Cleaning

At our house today we find ourselves doing random acts of cleaning. This is not to be confused with deliberate acts. Deliberate acts of cleaning are the weekly chores: laundry, vacuuming, dusting, etc. Random acts can happen at any moment (hence “random”. Duh.) For instance, our dryer has been bugging me for months. It takes longer to dry. In the slot where the lint trap resides, there are chunks of lint that are always just beyond my reach, even though I cleverly use chopsticks to dig down into that slim spot.

This morning, egged on by cabin fever perhaps (see picture below), seemed like a good time to have Harold pull out the dryer, check the vent hose & take the front casing off so I could get to those chunks of lint. I have the most patient and persistent husband in the world. He refuses to be conquered by machines. It took some maneuvering in the tiny space that is our laundry room and some Googling to find the manual but finally everything is cleaned out and I am contentedly drying clothes as I write this.

While we were doing all this (I participated by handing tools to my handsome repairman) it dawned on me that there are random acts of cleaning in my spiritual life also. On a regular basis I repent of my obvious sins, try to root out the little foxes of pride, envy, gluttony, and their other fiendish friends. Those are my deliberate acts of spiritual cleaning.

Out of the blue, however, the Holy Spirit will nudge me and say “Don’t you think today would be a good time to get rid of that stubborn stain of anger you have against so-and-so?" or “How about getting a shovel and digging a bit deeper into this passage of Scripture and finding out what I have to say to you about it?”

Usually I am caught a bit off guard in these moments. It’s like today when I looked straight up in the laundry room and saw dust webs covering the lovely cottage cheese ceiling.  I hadn’t noticed they were there because I rarely look at the ceiling.  Of course I dug out the vacuum and got rid of them, which made me feel a whole lot better even though 20 minutes prior I didn’t really know the dust was there.

Has the Holy Spirit been taking you through random acts of cleaning? Be sure to listen this week and find out what might need to be taken care of. There is nothing like a wonderfully clean house!

A Time To Plant

Today was a day of sending, planting, joy and sorrow. Our church sent the Dunn family off to Bread of Life Church in Fresno, California. They will help strengthen that small church as it grows and impacts its city. The game plan for now is that the Dunn’s will come back in a year. But we’re not banking on that. God has a way of changing our plans.

As we prayed over them at the end of the service today I though back to the times that Harold & I have been sent out to various places. The first time was in 1986. Our church in Compton, CA sent us off to New Covenant Bible College in St. Louis, MO. I had lived in California all of my 27 years. Harold’s family lived in St. Louis and for him it was a homecoming. For me it was mostly immensely painful but also extremely exciting. The day we were sent off my pastor’s wife told me, “The cloud of God is moving. You better go with it or you’ll be left behind.” I went to the most challenging but fulfilling time of my life. (Up to that point anyway!)

Harold & I waited today until everyone had hugged, kissed & said goodbye to Danny & Sarah. We’ve known Danny since he was 18 years old, skinny as a rail, & determined to conquer everything in sight. You could see the call of God on him even then. Sarah is a born & bred Northeast Missourian. We have known her for most of her life. Sarah used to live with us when she was in bible college, They are the people we have chosen to be Evan’s guardians if something happens to us. Their kids call us grandma & grandpa. All  this is to say we are very close.

As Sarah & I hugged and wept together today I told her, “This will be the hardest but most wonderful time of your life. You’ll do great!” The whole clan will do amazing things and I can’t wait to hear the reports and to hug them all again. Fresno, be blessed with our best.

Regressing? You Bet!

It started on a very hectic day right before my Christmas vacation. Piles of papers on my desk, year-end duties looming large, endless laundry, etc., etc.

Needing a way to relax that did not include a computer or mindless T.V. watching, I thought back to high school. There were these giant posters. Everyone worked on them: my friends, parents, cousins. We loved them! They were a lost relic of the ‘70s I was sure.  Then I found this

 

It was exactly what I was looking for! Not as big as my lost relic but small enough to curl up on the couch with. So I started in on it with great joy! I was doing something relaxing, something creative that wasn’t writing. At first Harold thought it was a little…strange. When I bought these

 

he knew I was serious.

Coloring is one of  the last things I do in the evening. After dinner, after grading, after Evan time, I dig my toys out and joyfully regress! Somehow coloring in the marvelously complicated designs helps me unwind and on some level recharge.

What do  you do to unwind?

Outside Observations

I just came in from spending a few moments standing on our deck. The sun, which has hidden for days, is shining, making the snow look like a diamond blanket. The wind gently blew snow from the tree branches. Everything was silent, save for our wind chime tinkling softly.

Being still, looking for squirrels or bunnies who must have been snuggled away in their nests, I didn’t even feel the cold. It’s 19 degrees outside but with the sun beaming down on me it felt warmer.

In winter our house gets very stuffy. Being a Californian I long for open windows & doors so a breeze can blow its freshness through, cleansing the rooms. In this Midwestern state I have to look for opportunities to open a door or window, even just for a few moments, so the staleness is swept away. It was a blessing today to be able to do that.

I came across this prayer for stillness at the Explorefaith website.

Gracious God, I ask you to plant a seed of stillness in my soul. Everything in my life moves ever more quickly, and I am continually expected to fit more things into time that is already brimful with activity. Even when I have moments that require nothing of me, my mind races and I seem unable to locate a switch to turn it off. Give me, each day, the desire and capacity to breathe in the wonder of air, to envision a still lake on a windless dawn, to drop deep into the well of my own being and find there the peace of your presence. I ask this for the sake of your love. Amen.

Copyright ©1999-2008 explorefaith.org

If You Could Read My Mind…

here is what you would find:

On grocery shopping: We have 2 grocery stores in town, HyVee and Wal-Mart. While HyVee may be more expensive there are days like today when I’m willing to pay more.Why?

1. Employees that look you in the eye, smile, & ask how you are.
2. Their parking lot rarely has snow on it by some miracle compared to Wal-Mart where you have to push your cart over small mountains of snow.
3. HyVee will actually take you groceries to the car & load them in if you ask.
4. They have great canned music.
5. If you can’t locate something they will literally run to get it for you.

On enunciation: I’m quite tired right now due to an abundance of overtime. The result is that as the day wears on my speech gets a bit more garbled. Today’s example was, in trying to tell Debbie I had ordered manila folders, I said “I ordered mewnil, um, munula, I mean, men…” to which Debbie said enthusiastically, “Manila folders!” Ding! Ding! Ding! The secretary wins the deciphering prize.

On Jesus Christ: My 11th & 12th graders are currently reading “Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets”. The book is about 2 college guys who decided to live homeless on the Streets of several major cities in order to learn more about compassion and faith. In the chapter we read today, it mentioned that Jesus was deeply concerned about meeting people’s physical needs, He touched them, healed them, fed them. The question is am I that concerned about them?

On Twizzlers: I’m the kind of person who gets in a rut food-wise. Today, feeling adventurous, I passed over my usual strawberry Twizzlers for the fruit flavored ones. May I just say: ick!! Major out-of-rut fail.

On teen idols: I subscribe to Vanity Fair magazine. It is one of the last magazines that actually has essays in it, which I love! I was a bit bemused to see that Justin Bieber was on the cover. Really, Vanity Fair? Are your sales slumping or something? If I want to learn more about Bieber I’ll buy People. From you I want essays on topical issues, and no, he doesn't count!

That’s it. Time for tea! Have a great evening, my dears.

Strike A Pose

On New Year’s Day, out of the blue, I started thinking about self portraits. Not the artistic ones by, for example, Picasso.

 

 

 

Picasso: Self portrait 1972

Copyright Pablo Picasso

 

 

 

 

 

I was considering the proliferation of pictures of ourselves on places like Facebook. Here is a recent one I took of myself:

I don’t usually take pictures of myself. Not because I’m not vain, mostly because I don’t like pictures of myself ever. Wait. That’s vanity. Oh well.

We Baby Boomers don’t really get into the self-portrait thing like the current Generation does. I’d like to say it’s because we are too busy cleaning up the environment like we said we would when we were 18.  Probably it’s because we’re too busy scraping money together for retirement since Social Security is going to be sucked dry in a couple of months.

I am truly curious though why so many of the younger ones seem obsessed with how they look in pictures. A quick tour of the photos on some of my Millennial friend’s Facebook pages reveal themselves in lots of solo poses. I will admit that I admire their courage for posting goofy looking pics. Here’s one of me:

(I need to brush up on my goofiness.)

As humans our default gear is self-love, otherwise known as narcissism. This trait was perfected by we Baby Boomers when we made it all about us in the 60s and 70s. Some Boomers continue in the path today and a smaller number of us at some point realized that the best life was one given away in service to others.

Tomorrow, my 11th & 12th graders will begin reading a book by two young men who realized that they were so self absorbed that they couldn’t begin to relate to people who were poor, destitute, and homeless. They embarked on a one year journey of being voluntarily homeless. It will be an interesting read for my wonderfully sheltered middle-class kids. My goal of course is to remind them (and me) that it’s not all about us. It’s all about someone else, Jesus, and how we best show the world what he looks like.

Back to the pictures. I’m not very good at the kind of picture taking where you hold the camera out & have someone scooch in close so you can get a pic of both of you. Here’s one I took on New Year’s Eve where I actually managed to get both of us in the frame:

Now that’s something worth getting obsessed about!