A curious spike

Darkness

I fell asleep and woke with a panic attack an hour ago. It has been a while since that has happened. I think I understand the origin of its insistence, but I still feel jarred by the fierce landing of my consciousness from sweet sleep to biting reality.

"Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people." Carl Jung

I have spent years learning to light my own darkness. Sometimes I wonder if I have learned anything at all other than the hell of my inner being. The taste of my own terror. And the clambering beat of my disquieted soul.

Coming Home

What has been keeping me busy.

Recommended Reading

"I had a ton of things to tell him. I wanted him to find a solution to all of our shortages of clothes; of meat, so it could again be distributed through the ration books. I also wanted him to give our Christmas back. And to come live with us. I wanted to let him know how much we really needed him..."

It was a different read, but one I really enjoyed. I think Fidel might have created another child waiting for the "highwayman."

I was a Coupon Queen

Last night I enjoyed what might have been the best meal I have ever eaten. The filet mignon was just the right amount of pink. The potatoes were mashed perfection. The cream of asparagus soup melted against my tongue. The wine was light, and the creme brulee made me want to sing a love song. (This is my very best attempt at erotic food description.)

There was a time that the bill for this fine meal would have been my grocery money for the month.

During that time, my coupon caddy was the size of a small country. My weekly routine included shopping in two different towns at seven different stores. My days were devoted to clipping and snipping those precious bits of paper that meant only one thing for me. FREE GROCERIES.

It is possible to play the system of coupons and rebates to get free stuff. You buy something on sale. Use a coupon. Mail in a rebate. And, items are free or if you are lucky, you make money. Like all systems, it has its flaws. It breeds a sense of deficit rather than a sense of sufficiency. There is never enough free stuff to make up for what you lack. Who really needs forty-seven tubes of toothpaste, sixty-two boxes of Glad trash bags, ninety-six boxes of band-aids or twenty-three bottles of shampoo even if they are free?

I will admit that a fever guided my hobby in those days. I raided my friend's cupboard shelves for UPC symbols. I hunted down triple coupon stores. I scavenged extra Sunday supplements from the recycling center. I was a madwoman.

Those who knew me thought I just LOVED to coupon and rebate. And, I did. For the first three months. After that, the fever was driven by need.

The truth was, I had a husband who had $250 of medication and medical bills a month with no health insurance. His stipend along with the house we had on campus was $500 a month. You do the math.

Every coupon that I clipped. Every rebate that I matched. Every dollar that I saved ensured that we had the money to pay for his medical needs.

Without Judgment

I am curious to know how many people attend a church service when they are on vacation? There is no right or wrong answer. I do not attend church when I am on vacation. Jim does, or he would if I didn't whine and pitch a fit like a shrew.

We have been fortunate enough to stay in a house on the Cape this week. Actually, Jim and Jared have been here all week, and I joined them on the weekend. The house with its traditional dormers and shingled sides is shaded by giant oak trees and surrounded by a split rail fence. It is just a quarter mile from the beach. It couldn't be more perfect.

The owners of this fine house are lovely folks who have befriended Jim and his ministry. They remember the old days of Fair Haven and Fair Haven Christian School.

In any event, they have generously shared this house with our family, and they stopped by the house Saturday morning to "check" on us bringing a Ziploc bag of freshly cleaned bluefish that they had caught that morning. I chatted with the Mrs. about the best way to cook it, and Jim chatted with the Mr. about how relaxing the week had been.

I adore both of them, by the way. He wears suspenders that are often askew. He has a warmth you can't fake. And, that he loves my husband is enough for me to like him forever. She is spunky in the way that only 60 somethings can be. Far from being finished with the adventures of life, she is busy making sure she does the things she has always wanted to do. Much of the bluefish they brought had been caught and cleaned by her that morning on her first EVER fishing trip.

We all chatted in that comfortable way people talk when they are enjoying the dog days of summer....and, then they mentioned that when we were deciding where to go to church the next morning, we could consider the church next door that had both a traditional and contemporary service. They thought Jim would like the contemporary music the most. (SURPRISE!)

The key phrase was "when" we decided where to go to church not IF. It startled me to realize that there are some folks who don't take vacation from church at all. It isn't even in their thinking.

Jim thanked them, and said he hadn't yet decided what he was going to do, but he was strongly being encouraged to play hookie. The crestfallen faces smote my heart. I tried not to feel bad, but I did just a little. I felt as though my vacation heathenism had somehow disappointed our benefactors. I didn't feel bad enough to go just to please them, but it made me consider the situation.

I was trying to remember why church had never been an issue when I went on vacation with my family growing up. Our vacations were usually in campgrounds. I do remember that we had our own little service around the campfire on Sunday morning. Sometimes we invited folks my parents had befriended to join us, but we never went to church anywhere else. Then I remembered: Kingdom people didn't go to church at other churches back then. They just didn't.

Later that day, we were driving to Mashpee, and we saw a little white church with a big banner across the front that read: CELEBRATE RECOVERY!

I thought that IF I was going to church on vacation, that is where I would like to go. Because we are all in recovery of some sort or another. Some may be recovering from the traditional vices such as drugs or alcohol. But, we might be recovering from the loss of faith. We might be recovering from betrayal. We might be recovering from a death so unfair that we haven't yet been able to reconcile our hearts with God. We might be recovering from things we have done to numb our pain--things that instead have bruised our souls. We might be recovering from the past. The present. The future.

Others, who have been fortunate enough to be spared the aforementioned losses, might simply need to recover from their sense of spiritual superiority. They might need to work on recovering from pride before they have to do the really hard work of recovering from the fall that certainly follows on the heels of such smugness.

The truth is: We all have something from which we need to recover. The hurts. The painful places. The losses. All turn to lessons and growth in recovery. And, recovery turns to discovery as we learn to live again.

As for me and my household we will serve the Lord. And, if we go to church on vacation, we will go where folks CELEBRATE RECOVERY! (with an exclamation point).

Tumbling Turrets

Is it just me, or does these turrets look familiar? One was a sideshow and one was a movement. Both were kingdoms built by men. Both reigned at the turn of the century. Both drew people from their very core. Both marked the souls of their believers. Both kingdoms. Both so mighty. Both gone.