Years ago, I was stopped at a redlight, reading the bumper stickers on the car in front of me. One of them read, "Honk if you love Jesus!" I happily, impulsively honked. And then observed the enthusiastically proffered middle finger of the motorist ahead of me. "Oh," I thought, "must not be your car."

Today I visited Lynn, who also encouraged me to honk if I love Jesus. Sorta. She offered a meme, The Jesus Meme, which is "five things I dig about Jesus." I really like what Lynn did with it, and I decided to give it a try.

1. He speaks to people in their own language. Not Aramaic. I mean, he met people where they were. If you were a farmer, he told you stories about farming. If you were a tax collector, he used money stories. A fisherman, he told you about fishing. He exemplified my Mom's teaching, "You treat the janitor the same as the governor." He spoke to people who were "beneath" him. Because he knew they weren't. And he wasn't afraid to confront people "above" him. Because there's no such person. He showed us how to do these things. God, I love that man.

2. He is steadfast. As a child growing up in an often chaotic environment, this knowledge was one of the things that made me decide to stick to him like glue. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). No need for anyone to wonder what kind of mood he's in, whether he's been drinking, whether he's mad at me today. Steady. Like a rock.

3. He understands what we're going through. This is especially meaningful to me as I continue to endure WTF Disease. I haven't yet found another human who knows what all these various bizarre symptoms feel like. But the one who is both creator and human being, would know (Hebrews 2:14-18, 4:14-16). That comforts me. I'm not alone.

4. Jesus loves me, this I know. I dig that I am unconditionally loved. Humans talk about this, but I don't believe we can pull it off. Oh, we try. And if we really do try, we can manage it a good percentage of the time. But not always. Even parental love, which probably comes closest, is sometimes qualified with the knowledge that if that little (or big) miscreant weren't our own flesh and blood, he or she would sorely test our love ability. There's a condition -- you're my kin. It does me immeasurable good to be loved when I am at my most unlovable. Which, frankly, is most of the time, lately.

Some people talk about Jesus dying -- being beaten, spat on, crucified, as evidence of his love. All the things that were depicted in Mel Gibson's movie (during much of which I buried my face in Jif's shoulder; I'm not interested in seeing the violence). For some people, that is sufficient evidence of this extraordinary, supernatural kind of love. Not for me. Frankly, others have suffered, and do suffer, worse physical afflictions. Some even voluntarily, in the name of love. No, for me, what really made it sink in, what he did for me, was a sermon that I heard when I was eleven years old. I have never heard it presented in quite the same way since. But here's the gist of it: When Christ allowed himself to be killed to pay for the sins of mankind, he took on himself, into himself, those sins. Think of the worst you can think of. Genocides, child abuse . . . the worst. He took all of that onto himself, in our place. And not only those acts. But also the shame that accompanies such acts. And all the suffering that ripples out for generations to come, from such acts. And all the pain that preceded, that set in motion, that created beings who would perpetrate such acts. He became all of that (2 Corinthians 5:21) so that we can be reconciled to a perfect, holy God. For me, it is that unimaginable psychic suffering, soul suffering, that he endured, that speaks much louder of love than any level of physical torture could speak. I choose to believe it happened the way I've read that it happened. And that it meant what that sermon so long ago said that it meant. Greater love has no one, before or since (John 15:12-13) .

5. He is mysterious. Years ago, when LG was in preschool, I invited the children of one of the moms I had befriended, to attend Vacation Bible School with LG. Over the years, we have invited children of various religions and none at all to attend VBS with us. But that particular year, I admit, I was making an assumption about the children we were inviting. The father had a very German name, and the mother had a very Irish name, and I assumed they were Christian. What's more, I assumed either Lutheran or Roman Catholic. I was wrong. She declined my invitation, saying that she didn't want her children to learn the fairy tale of God. She and her husband had decided to be, and raise their children as, atheists, and they wanted no interference with their plan. I confessed to, and apologized for, my assumption. And she allowed that actually, I was right, in terms of how they'd been raised: Lutheran and Roman Catholic. But she said that in college, her husband had done exhaustive intellectual research which led him to the absolute knowledge that God does not exist. Alrighty, then.

What I didn't say to her, but what I will say now, is . . . that doesn't work. I am all in favor of intellectual research. In favor of critical thinking. Of skepticism, even. But applying the powers of the intellect to matters of the soul . . . that will always fall short. To me, that is comparable to the difference between understanding the chemical composition of chocolate, and actually feeling that chocolate melt in your mouth, tasting the sweet, the bitter, the creamy. Even if you can recite the chemical composition backwards and forwards, you don't know chocolate through the intellect. It doesn't compute. At least, you don't know it in its entirety. Another example: you can intellectually explore the act of jumping into a clear lake on a hot day. You can understand the physics of how you get there -- the trajectory of the jump, the force required to overcome gravity on your way there . . . and you can understand the physiological, biological changes of the various anatomical systems as your body goes from hot to cool, dry to wet. That's all good. But it's not the same as knowing what it's like to jump into a cool lake on a hot day. You've used the wrong tools, or at least, lesser tools, if you're trying to really know that experience. God -- Jesus -- can be understood through the intellect. But that's not how we're made. God is spirit. Meant to be experienced and understood spiritually. Through faith. Faith is the method through which we best know God. Certainly we should use the other methods -- intellect, emotion, whatever you choose -- but you haven't fully experienced God without doing so via your spirit. Your soul. That's what I believe.

Perhaps this is as good (or bad) a place as any to say something that I often think when I see comments from those who don't believe. Very, very often, since I began blogging, I'll see people comment on the site of a "believer," and say something like, "I wish I had faith like you do," or "I wish I believed in something like you do..." And I think, "Just do it." Let me explain. Some people believe in God (as a Christian, I believe in the mystery of the Trinity -- God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are One) because they "came to believe." That is, a series of life experiences, perhaps even some mystical or miraculous experiences, led them to believe. Many more people, though, choose to believe. They decide to believe. There really is no wishing required. If you want to do it, do it. It is a choice. A decision. I do believe that when people make that decision, it is as a result of the Holy Spirit inviting them. And that can happen in more ways than I can imagine. But bottom line, it's a choice that we have the power and ability and freedom to make. Or not. If you're wondering whether it's for you, I would suggest a test. For a week, behave as though you do believe. See how that works for you.

I don't feel, never have felt, compelled to try to persuade anyone else to believe what I believe. I've never spoken as explicitly on this blog, of (some of) what I believe, as I am speaking here today. And it's fine by me if you don't agree with a word of it. That's between you and God. Or just between you and yourself.

Anyone (religious, not, whatever) is welcome to do the meme. Or leave in the comments here what, if anything, you "dig" about Jesus.

***

And with that, I'm outta here. I have an opportunity (read "invitation requiring very little $") to visit a state I've never visited before, staying in a friend's 200-year-old cottage for the coming week, so I am doing my darnedest to get me and the fam together to go and do just that. Hope to leave some time over the weekend. The place is not near any of you, to my knowledge, or I would have told you. Indeed, I don't think I have ever seen the state represented in my sitemeter stats. So when I get back, I think I'll post some pictures so you can guess where we were. Won't that be FUN? (Shut up.) And the handful of you whom I've told where I'm going, "Shhh!"

I went to a continuing ed. event today, where the presenter asked for volunteers from the audience to be his clients and help demonstrate his therapeutic technique. I have always had mixed feelings about this practice by presenters. On the one hand, we get a birds-eye view of what the therapeutic technique looks like. On the other hand, you never know what sort of volunteer you're going to get. Sometimes you get someone whom you can tell came to this particular seminar in the hopes of getting a free therapy session from such-and-so famous therapist, or worse, someone exhibitionistic who came to get sympathy from a group of her (usually her) peers. Or sometimes, you get someone who is genuinely engaged in the seminar and being altruistic, generous, helpful, in volunteering.

The first time I saw this technique used was shortly after I earned my graduate degree, and it was a distressing, disturbing spectacle. The volunteer was someone who needed much more help than the presenter could provide, and was also someone who fell into the "exhibitionistic" category. And even worse, the presenter was an author of what was then considered the "bible" in its field, but she wasn't a credentialed therapist. She orchestrated a train wreck on the stage, and I don't know what happened to the therapist/client/volunteer. It was truly painful to watch, and ethically atrocious, in my opinion.

Today's presenter was competent, and those who volunteered were doing so out of genuine engagement with the material, and out of altruism, I do believe.

• There was a woman whose young teen daughter had been abducted for a period of several hours, and had kept that a secret for years.
• There was a woman whose daughter had physically abused her son (the daughter's little brother) for years.
• There was a woman whose son was suicidal and currently hospitalized.
• There was a woman whose sister had recently died.
• There was a woman whose husband was deployed to Iraq as her children hit their teens, and his return was causing adjustment problems within the family.
• There was a woman whose husband had been wounded in Iraq, and is being maltreated now by the military. He suffers from depression and inability to support his family financially, now.

Photo, kindness of OddMix

Sunday Post ~ "As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need a prosperity of kindness and decency." -- Caroline Kennedy Schlossburg

Hebrews 13:1-2

file under: &Sunday Post

I love my work. I thank God I'm still well enough to do it as much as I do. And some days, where I work, it's too much, and we just look at each other and shake our heads, like, "Are you believing this?" I had just gotten off the phone, taking an application for our waiting list, a family in need of a counselor. I walked out of the office to see my colleagues looking a bit the worse for wear, and I handed the application to the director, and a copy to the other clinical supervisor.

Lydia: How do you say this name, the mom? Ki-nee?
Susie: No, it's pronounced, Ki-NAY, see I wrote it phonetically right there...
Donna: And the daughter, is that Ky-mee-ah?
Susie: No, it's more like Kuh-mee-uh.
Lydia: As in, C'meah? C'mere! C'mere, C'meah!
Susie: That's right, it's expedient. See, you don't even have to say c'mere! You just say C'meah, and she knows you mean, c'mere, C'meah!

We're laughing, now. We're starting to lose it. The front door is locked, we're sprawled in chairs in the waiting room.

Donna: The boy, what is his name, Cry-on?
Susie: It looks like cry-on, but it's pronounced Koran. Like a holy book.
Lydia: Lemme see. That's not Koran. That's . . . Carry-on.
Susie: Yea, the kid is baggage, so she named him Carry-on. "C'meah, and bring Carry-on!"

We're howling, now.

Donna: Yea, and his brother is Satchel . . .

PWAHAHAAAAAAA

Susie (can barely get it out, we're laughing so hard): And the older sister is Valise!

The bell rings and we look toward the door. Lydia opens it and in comes her client, a single Mom with her little boy, who has Asperger's. Lydia greets the Mom, finds out how her week has been, while the little boy shows Donna and me what he's been shooting on his VideoNow camera. Lydia walks them both to her office, Donna goes to get the ringing phone, and I return the call to the man who couldn't talk because he was at work earlier, but now he can so he tells me that Child Protective Services told him to call us after his 8-year-old showed up at school with the man's handprint on his face. The school where the man's wife, the boy's mom, teaches. Back to work, silly girls.

How can you tell when you're ready for a vacation?

file under: &Work &Can't Make This Stuff Up

Every time I encounter this, I feel the need to say something, to shout something, about it. But I haven't before. I've just encountered it again. I'm saying something.

I have to say this, not to criticize those who have already done it -- that's not productive -- but to plead with those who are thinking about doing it, to those who are convincing themselves that it will be OK. IT WON'T BE OK. And even if there were a slim chance that it would, the risk is too great.

I have seen them in the media, and I have met them in real life. Over and over and over again. Those women (usually it's women) who were sexually violated during childhood by family members. When these women grow up, they convince themselves that their own children will be safe around those same family members.

"He's old now, he doesn't think like that."
"I forgave him, and we have moved past that."
"I told him what will happen if he does, and he's promised me that he won't."
"He knows how much it hurt me; he would never do that to his grandchild."

GET. REAL. I understand that you wish all those things were true. It's only normal that you would wish they were true. I wish it for you. But God didn't entrust your child to wishes. God entrusted that child to you. It is your job to keep her or him safe. When you delude yourself enough to put your child in that situation, and what you have convinced yourself won't happen, happens . . . You are the one who knew better. Not your child, not even the perpetrator, who may have convinced himself he wouldn't do it again. No, you are the one whose job it was to keep that child safe, and you, better than anyone, know that his promises aren't true. They weren't then, and they aren't now. How many times were you promised it wouldn't happen any more? Or told that it was OK? That is was normal? And all the other lies that just now disgust me too much to even write them here?

You know better. If you don't do better, then you are an accomplice. Please don't sacrifice your child in the name of family relationships, or saving face, or an inheritance, or forgiveness, or writing a happy ending to your story, or any other of the dozens of things that can't compare to your child's safety.

Some resources for help or more information: SOAR (Speaking Out About Rape), RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), and MAVAW(Men Against Violence Against Women).

file under: &Work &Partial Nudity

Sunday Post ~ "He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it." -- Clarence Budington Kelland (speaking of his father)

Ephesians 6:4

Happy Father's Day to the Dads, brothers, uncles, single Moms with double duty, and all those whom someone is watching how you live. That's pretty much everyone.

file under: &Sunday Post

He didn't really freak out. Because 1)it was a fake butterfly and B)he has no eyeholes, so he didn't even know it was there.

Have a happy weekend, Ratsasstafarians. Wish us success (survival?) with LG's graduation party!

file under: &Biscuit

Blog. The fancy schmancy one just plain broke. So until it gets back from the repair shop, or I get a loan to buy a new fancy one, I will be driving this one. I couldn't believe the emails I got, from people I never even knew about, looking for the blog and being unable to see it. First, I was so flattered that people were looking for it, and second, I felt terrible that they had to go to such trouble. So here we are. I hope no one has trouble seeing this one.

WTF. The symptoms, which have been described here in various posts, are really flaring. And I'm even having nightmares about them, in which they're worse, but I actually wake up feeling the choking, the pain, etc., worse than when I went to sleep. This is truly a revoltin' development, because all these months, sleep has been a welcome escape. Now, not so much. Please hurry up with a plan, Toxicdoc.

Sammiched. This week I am acutely aware of my position as a hunk o' baloney in the so-called "sandwich generation." I am struggling to plan a fifth-grade graduation pool party for my child, having just learned that my mother (84) is now incapable of living in her own home and will need to move some place where she can have help. And I, with WTF and a graduate-to-be, am trying to be of some assistance to my mother, from 500 miles away.

Work. I continue to work a few hours a week, supervising graduate student interns. Today, my boss buzzed me to tell me that my clients were there. I said something like, "I don't have any clients..." Then I went downstairs to see these alleged clients. Never saw them before in my life, except that I'd walked past them maybe five times in the preceding half hour as I visited with other staffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff (OK, here's a "EFFING" aside: my F key gets stuck, because I don't have ENOUGH EFFING troubles without THAT SHIT.) Ahem, where was I? Yea, so I introduce myself, and the mother (family of four, mom, dad, two little girls) tells me her name and that she's there to see Susan. Duuuhh... "I'm sorry, I don't know you." Geez, Louise, these people were clients of another supervisor's intern, who was graduating. They were in no shape to be "terminated," so I agreed to see them for her. That was like 6 weeks ago, and I had COMPLETELY forgotten. Of course I apologized like Brenda Lee. And then, as I told Jif later, I gave them 45 minutes of the best damned family therapy anybody's ever had because they went in thinking I was a freakin' nutcase, and I knew I'd better show them something. I therapized them all together, in pairs and individually. I don't have words to convey how mortified I was. My forte (back when I had one, that is), is putting people at ease immediately. And here I could not have made these poor folks more ill-at-ease if I'd walked up and slapped them on sight. SIGH. I think I got them hooked enough to continue as long as they need to.

So that's my sorry tale tail. What's up with you?

file under: &WTF Disease &Family &Work &Meta-blogging

Over the weekend, I received some emails from people who were trying to read "What Was I Thinking?" but couldn't. Best I can tell, people who use Internet Explorer have been barred from the premises. So, I'm posting this to say, "Hey, let me know if you can't read this." But how much sense does that make?

So how about this: if you're reading this in some other browser, but you have access to IE, will you check it out and see if that is, indeed, the problem? And then -- because while I am known to exaggerate every now and again, I assure you that when I say I'm a techno-dunce, I am being kind to myself -- and then, if you have any hint of a sign of a clue about what might have gone wrong or how one might fix it, I would welcome your suggestions.

I did request help from Blogger, but based on prior history with Blogger problems, the internet will be extinct by the time I get a helpful response from them.

UPDATE: I installed IE7, and now I can see the blog, BUT if I refresh it in IE7, it disappears again and won't reappear until I leave the site and come back. This may be a vast right-wing (left-wing? chicken wing?) conspiracy.

file under: &Meta-blogging

Sunday Post ~ "...hope is a revolutionary patience...Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up." -- Anne Lamott

Isaiah 43:18-19

file under: &Sunday Post

While wandering the winding roads of blogworld the other day, I discovered that I had been nominated for a major award (that's really the only kind of award with which I ever want to be associated). And like all my other major awards, it was not voted on (I can't actually get that kind), but was just handed to me by a far-too-generous blogfriend. In this case, the friend was the wonderful, thoughtful Julie, and the award was the Thinking Blogger Award. Now, of all the major awards that I do not deserve, I think that's the one I most do not deserve. I am honored and truly humbled. I have seen that award on others' sites. I mean the sites of some people who actually do some honest-to-goodness thinking. Truth be told, this blog is usually the place I come specifically to not think. I suppose every now and then, a thought creeps in, but for the most part, this here is pretty much a thought-free zone. Still, I am proud to have been designated as such, and I thank the lovely and talented Circus Kelli for adding the award to my little trophy case over there.


Part of the Thinking Blogger Award is the passing of the torch. Having been identified as a thinker, I should now, according to the Thinking Blogger rules, identify 5 other Thinking Bloggers. Holy cow, that's hard for me to do! My first thought, and what I said to Jif, was something like, "The bloggers I read don't think! They're goofy, like me. I run like hell from the scene of a blog where there's any thinking going on! I think enough IRL, I don't need to think online . . . yadda yadda." But then when I quieted down and looked at my linky list, truth is, almost all of y'all think sometimes. So then the problem became not thinking of a thinking blogger, but narrowing down the thinkers. First thing was, I didn't want to nominate (adoptive blog) "family," because of the nepotism thing. Secondly, I didn't want to nominate people that everyone already knows all about and reads all the time anyway. Thirdly, I didn't want to nominate someone I do like to read, but really don't know at all -- there are a few of those. And lastly, I wanted to offer you all some variety. All of these people show signs of thinking when they blog. I would also say that my thoughts and theirs are not always in agreement, necessarily. So after much thought -- well, I'll be darned, I AM a thinking blogger -- I hereby nominate these thinker/bloggers:


Sometimes Saintly Nick. Especially in recent months, Nick has written about peace, justice, spirituality, poverty, human rights, war. The man has been doing some thinking. Good on you, Nick.


Traci. Traci has written a series, and she's not done yet, that chronicles her personal experience with having been manipulated and mistreated over a period of years, in the name of a religious organization, which claimed to be acting in the name of God. Few things piss me off more than people enslaving others in the name of God. Traci's readers of that series are thoroughly hooked, and waiting for the next installment.


OddMix. This guy . . . he makes it look like he doesn't think all that much, but I suspect he secretly has put an awful lot of thought and preparation into what he writes about, which is his life. His double life, if you will. He takes the train to a button-down job during the week, but on his own time, he lives on a farm where they raise goats, and rabbits, and horses, and children, and yellow buttercups. And his readers want to live there with him and the rest of the critters. Hey, OddMix, ever thinking of raising a herd of bloggers?


HTGT. OK, I am sending you to see HTGT, in the fervent hope that girlfriend has posted something since the last thing I saw there, which was on the topic of (come closer, I'll whisper) masturbation. Ordinarily, HTGT shares thoughtful thinking kinds of things, into which she has clearly put some thought. But seriously, the afore-mentioned topic doesn't require a lot of thought (or else you're doing it wrong). (Ohplease, ohplease have something else up before I send people to read you.)


Damn, this is tough. I have three more people in mind who can think circles around me any day of the week. OK, I'm gonna go with this one, even though her blog design doesn't lend itself to posting the major award:

Wave of Modulation. Mylord, this woman can think. Often, when I read what Sheryl has written, I humbly, reverently "walk" away, unable to comment, because her thoughts are so far out of my league, that my thoughts hang their heads, pick their noses and maybe even wet themselves a little. Her thoughts pants my thoughts at a birthday party. But no, they wouldn't do that, because they're too compassionate to do that. Still, they could.


Well, there's 5. I am proud to be able to share these folks with you, if you don't know them. And I am left here thinking that despite my initial reaction, I could easily come up with another 5 thinking bloggers, now that I've thought about it. Thank you all, you five, and all you others, for sharing your thoughts, and inspiring many of mine.

file under: &Meta-blogging &Neighborhood Watch

As before, these things are unrelated to one another. If you try to make them make sense, you could hurt yourself. (The first one was here, and the second one was here.)



There's a lot you don't know about your pants.


No, Biscuit!


How many descriptions did the doctor give me?


Fine. I'll stop putting arsenic in your food.


At Rita's:
S: Oh, no. That lady's dress is in her butt.

J: That's never a good look.

LG: That's why I never wear dresses...

S: Oh, stop! Dresses don't have to go in your butt.

S: Oh, look. There she goes. Honey, that dress is not working for you.

LG: Why doesn't her friend tell her?

S: I guess she's not that good a friend.



No, Biscuit, no!. . . He took my potato. Again.



Also at Rita's:
LG: Aw, that poor old lady.

S: Why's she a poor old lady?

LG: She's retarded.

S: WHAT?! Why would you say such a thing?

LG: It says so on her shirt.

S: What?!

LG: Right there on her T-shirt: "I'm Retarded, Do it Yourself!"

S: No. Not retarded. RETIRED.

LG: Oh. Yea.



And if you were hanging out in my email box, you would have seen this, which tickled Jif and me a right smart. First, I'll set the stage. We sent out Evites to a pool party for LG's 5th grade graduation, with the stipulation that parents are welcome, though not required, to stay at the party. I had to obtain all of LG's little friends' email addresses to do this. Most of LG's friends' email addresses have words like "wild monkey" or "fairy" or "soccerqueen" in them. But the one, of this girl that I don't know, it was "darkness.deathlord@emailservice." With some hesitation, I sent the dark little deathlord her Evite, not knowing what sort of creature might show up at the pool party. But this was the deathlord's reply:

"Yes, I can come! Thank you so much for inviting me. My Mom might come, too, but she's not sure yet."

That's awfully polite for the princess of darkness, don't you think?

file under: &Family

Sunday Post ~ "For a long time, it seemed to me that life was about to begin: Real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life." -- Fr. Alfred D'Souza

Psalm 118:24

file under: &Sunday Post

As I said to my dear LadyBug in comments on the previous post, I don't have any real answers. I did, however, see the toxicdoc, and she listened carefully to my theories. I had emailed her a link to some of the research I had done, and she had actually read it, done more research, made some calls, etc., before I even got there! I was very impressed and pleased with her. As I expected, she has neither seen nor heard tell of a case like mine, however, she says that my theory "has standing." Meaning it has piqued her interest and she wants to research it and try to help me get to the bottom of it. She sent me for x-rays, and I will pee in another gigantic jug (do you need another pic, 'cause all you have to do is say the word and I'm all over that), and I will give her the telephone-book-sized stack of prior lab results, etc. She has asked that I deliver them next week.

She said things like, "This is what I do, I stay up nights thinking about things like this . . . " (Here I must interject a hearty, "WOO HOO!" because I've been praying for a doc with this attitude.) She also said to me, "I will not abandon you." And I could have cried, because there's been an awful lot of that going on around here lately.

And now, something that I feel compelled to share with you, in the interest of home safety. (Not for children.) It's right here. Have a wonderful weekend, friends, ratsasstafarians, and don't let the monsters get the upper hand.

file under: &WTF Disease &Sharing