..misty water colored MEMORIES (sing it in your Barbara Streisand voice)

Day 44 reading assignment:
Exodus 35:10-36:38
Matthew 27:32-66
Psalm 34:1-10
Proverbs 9:7-8

I read a lot of memoirs and have thought it would be fun to write mine, just for my family's entertainment of course.  The problem is, with the exception of a very few, I have no childhood memories before the age of 10.  And without memories, one has no "memoir."  This makes me sad because I had a title and everything: "Homecoming Queen in October and Pregnant by Prom."  Now I'm trying to work that title in to a bible study I would like to write for teen-age girls instead.  It is catchy after-all.  But it only refers to a short segment of reckless choices in my high-school days.  That in itself could render it useless as my memoir title, but what a huge role those choices played in the rest of my life.

 I spent the first part of my childhood in very southern California.  The Imperial Valley is a huge agricultural belt twenty-three miles from Mexicali, Mexico.  We lived in a tiny farming community on the corner of "Nowhere and the Sand Dunes."  My mother's mantra was always, "you kids go outside and play"and despite the fact that this is rattlesnake paradise, I don't know if I wore shoes until I was eleven years old.  But my mother was a force to say the least, so go outside we did.  My brother, nearly four years my senior could keep us busy even when the typical summer days paled as the morning sun fried the color out of the ozone.  We had three seasons: The days the wind blew the dirt in our eyes, the day it rained, and hot.  For fun we would take our be-be guns out to the old roofless shop and shoot lizards.  We liked to empty our guns on the lizards, filling them so full of be-bes, they would become our very own "organic" bean bags.  Then, when we tired of squishing them around for the sensory thrill their copper infused bodies offered, we would pinch the pimpled corpse until the be-be popped back out.  This last phase didn't hold our attention long, for after a few extractions the lizard body got slimy from body fluids and we were grossed out.  Disgusting? Yes. But hours of unsupervised fun?  Absolutely.

The environment of my childhood reminds me of scenes from my Bible reading.  The arrid landscape.  The fertile soil.  Pomegranates, lemons and figs grew in our yard and the surrounding region was, and is, a huge supplier of the nation's dates.  I always start  this walk down memory lane with a snapshot in my mind. I see the back of myself.  A little girl, dressed in her brothers well worn hand-me-downs, always barefoot.  In the picture, I am leaning against a front-porch post.  The one the  locusts liked to shed their skins on.  I can remember standing at this post regularly at a certain time of day.  I would fix my eyes on the dirt road across the way, the one that ran down the canal bank.  My eyeballs burning from this deliberate gaze I wouldn't rest until I saw the dust cloud from my daddy's turquoise truck.  The relief I felt from this sighting always left me euphoric because even though I didn't understand it in those days, my father was a functioning alcoholic and the absense of this sighting meant bad things were coming.

It is very interesting to me how since I started reading the Bible consistently, God has begun to permeate every part of my life, of me.  I see everything now in  biblical analogies.  It's a strange and almost bitter-sweet aha moment.  Moments with big regrets of a life with more time behind me than in front of me. Time lost that I didn't spend in a Godly way much less with God personally.  I picture God as that little girl, waiting for me to show up, knowing if I don't, things are coming that He doesn't want me to face without Him.  I made a lot of choices that did not include God.  How incredibly lucky for me that God's glory is revealed in his mercy, grace, compassion, faithfulness, justice and last but so not least, forgiveness.  He took my choices, the messes I made, especially those high-school years, and managed to clean them up, wringing blessing after blessing out of them.

Have you read any good memoirs lately?  I've got a good one for you,  it's not a very catchy title, it's God's memoir.  It's called the Bible.

Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.                 -The Wonder Years-

Me First

Day 29 reading assignment:
Exodus 8:1-9:35
Matt 19:13-30
Psalm 24:1-10
Proverbs 6:1-5

I am not an athlete.  I was not the first or second person chosen for team sports in elementary school.  I wasn't even in the top 10.  I was never a loner, I had friends, but when it came time to choose up sides they didn't want me.  I'm afraid of the ball, I throw like a girl (a non athletic girl)  and I'm incredibly uncoordinated.   I fall UP the stairs in my house almost weekly.  That's no small feat.  I also fall off my shoes if they're tall.  I played softball on a coed league about nineteen years ago. It was not my choice, they were desperate for one more player and they promised to give me a lot of bench time.  They lied.  I spent the season outfield of course.  I never know which outfield is which.  Is it right-field if you are standing at home facing the field on your right?  Or is it left field because you are out there behind first base facing "home" and that puts you on the left?  Yes, I am no athlete.  Whatever.  I was in that outfield behind first base.  It was a night game.  And everytime a new batter was up I would pray quietly but aloud: "Dear God PLEASE don't let them hit it to me."  It never takes the opposing team long to discover where the weak link on the team is.  I needed no neon arrow pointing me out,  I stuck out just fine by my own merit.  They would send the balls right to me everytime.  And everytime I would miss the fly balls, fumble the grounders, or attempt a throw to third when the play was at first.  I wanted to cry.  I changed my prayer at some point that night to: "Please God let me shine, just one time."   My brother and all his cop friends were on this team.  I knew he was thinking, "she wasn't kidding when she said she stunk."  I had my fill of humiliation and made up my mind to "cowboy up."  The batter was in the box.  I new he was hitting to me.  He had been all night.  The bat made contact with the ball and it was as if time was standing still.  I felt courageous.  This was to be my moment.  I positioned the glove in front of my face, took a breath, and closed my eyes.  I opened my eyes moved my glove so I could see and wham!  Actually it was a dull thud but I don't know how to spell that.  I caught the ball....with my mouth.  I dropped to my knees from the pain and now I prayed: "Please God don't let me cry, my brother will be so embarrassed."  I shined all right.  They called time-out.  Everybody was running to see if I still had a pulse.  I looked like a platypus for almost two weeks.  I no longer pray for God to let me shine.

But how good would it feel to come in first?
The only time I stand out in a crowd is when I humiliate myself.  Like the time I went to the movies on the opening night of "Laura Croft: Tomb Raider".   Back when Angelina pledged her life-blood to her soulmate, Billie Bob Thornton.  Friday night, the theater was packed.  It was summer because I was wearing flip flops.  I remember this because it was the flip-flops that made it possible, as I was climbing up the stairs to sit with a friend, to fall flat on my face, spilling pop-corn in the lap of some poor guy who didn't know what to do with, or for me.  There I lay in the aisle, pop-corn everywhere, in a packed house BEFORE the lights were turned down.  "Are you okay?" the man asked genuinely concerned.  If I had my wits about me I would have lied; "I have a siezure disorder."  But instead I avoided his eyes and clamored on up the steps to my friend.  When I was safe in my seat beside her, she looked straight ahead and said,"I would have come to help you but I didn't want anybody to know I was with you."  I guess He figures I need more lessons in humility than to be first at anything.

Today as I was driving home, a car passed me with the license plate that read: Me 1st.  I was in a snotty mood and I said out loud to no one, "Yeah right pal, right after me."  Then of course I realized I was behind him.
I wanted to use that license plate in my blog later, but I intended to try to make it work into something about our self-centered culture.  When I was finally able to get to the reading tonight, I had to laugh at Matthew 19:30.  It is talking about life in eternity: But in the life to come, the first will be last and the last will be first.  HA!   That so works for me.

Do What You Dread

If procrastination were a profession I would be the CEO.  I put off doing even non-dreadful things so if it is dreadful it isn't going to happen until I am forced.  I remember a day many years ago when my refrigerator went on the blink.  I answered a knock at the door to find a man in a suit with a face that looked as if all personality had been surgically removed.  I was thinking, 'he probably seems so unfriendly because he hates his job, poor thing.'  So I greeted him with a warm smile and said, "Wow you really dressed up just to fix my fridge!"
  At that and without as much as a twinkle in his eye, he flashed a badge at me.  "Joe Blow, Department of Revenue."  My knees went weak several seconds before my brain could completely process what was happening. I flashed on the files of quarterly taxes that I had shoved to the bottom desk drawer.  We didn't have the money to pay them and I did not want to bother my hubby with it-he was stressed out enough.
I was picturing in my mind how it would look when my 5 little kids watched the bad man cuff mommy and haul her off to unpaid quarterly prison when I became hysterical.  I'm sure the poor man was wishing he could call for "back-up" to get someone to calm this crazy loon down.
"I'm not a tax evader, I promise!"  I wailed.  "I'm just an idiot!"
The man must have believed that I was indeed just an idiot and guided me through the process of getting caught up. From this experience I learned the important lesson of: "Don't mess with the tax man." Did I learn to not procrastinate?  Not so much.

I'm not sure if procrastination and seeing squirrels are the same... but when that wiley squirrel shows up, I drop what I'm doing  and move to the next distraction (aka:squirrel) until I realize now, at the age of 54, I've never finished ANYTHING!

Yesterday was September 1st. A good day to start something, I decided.   I was hit with a jolt while brushing my teeth.  I went to the kitchen with a foamy mouth and slurred speech to announce to my family this epiphany.
"Ah gah it!"
"What?" They ask in unison.
"Ah gah it!" Holding my index finger in the air summoning them to wait, I walked to the kitchen sink and spit."I've got it!" I repeat.  "I'm going to read the bible in one year and blog it.  I've attempted to do this for about 5 years now so a blog will hold me accountable."
My family is unwavering in their support and encouragement of each and every (unfinished) wild hair I embark on.  They cheered me on,  my biggest fans,  never revealing the slightest hint of the major doubts I am sure were rolling around in their minds.
What happened next?  I saw squirrels all day.  One distraction after another.  I kept telling myself I would get to it.  Later.  Instead I fell exhausted in to bed, discouraged and full of self-loathing at my immediate failure.  Honestly I thought I would get to at least day 3 or 4 before I quit.

But today is a new day!  So what if it's Day 2 of September, it's Day 1 of my quest.  Squirrels be damned!  I've got some reading to do................