Month: June 2011

What if God were one of Us

What if God the Father took a vacation day from his heavenly realm to enter our time restricted limited dimensional experience and incarnate and hang out with his human children for a day.  Would he feel encouraged or discouraged by the movement we’ve made up the evolutionary scale…especially aided by the great gift of his son.    I can’t help but think He would be horrified.  And I think if he made a moment to share a gluten-free lunch with me, I would spend much of the conversation extending my deepest apologies, and like Abraham did in defense of Sodom and Gomorrah, try to convince him not to torch the place and start over. 

In a week of unsurpassed frustration…mostly as a result of witnessing a full circle of choices made resulting in different levels of tragedy.  Of course there are those on a national level…like Congressman Weiner’s obsession with publicizing his own virility, who don’t garner my immediate sympathy except that it was SOOOOO stupid that it borders on insanity that I do pause and feel a bit of pity for how he imploded a potentially great career.  It is more those smaller situations when, given all the information we have access to avoid a tragedy or complication, people choose to ignore common sense  or insight and make bad choices anyway especially when it is obvious what the end result will be.  In my own life, it was drummed into me from an early age that we all ultimately pay the piper for how we choose to live our lives.  Do people really not get that?  And while I don’t want to be turned into a pillar of salt from someone else’s stupidity, I’m aware that we certainly don’t live in a vacuum either.  There is culpability all over the place  

I also understand that God won’t be complicit in our human tragedies, because of free will and all, but I do wonder if we,( which for me would be Christianity) ever really had a kernel of understanding of the wisdom shared down through the ages in so many different ways.  I know he spoke about those that have eyes to see and ears to hear are blessed, but I see more and more hatred in the Christian Church these days and it saddens me to my very core.  So many people that claim to be Christian are spending more time restricting who is worthy of the love of God and not enough time opening their arms and hearts to those crying out to be loved.  The emphasis is more on knowing scripture than living it.  Love is infinite and doesn’t have to be justified…ever, it is so beyond our comprehension who are we to limit it?  So I think God would spend his time, not with those righteous followers, but those in need of his love…especially those who knew better but made bad choices anyway.  He would spend little time talking and lecturing and clarifying rules, but hang out with those who who desire to do His will, and would honor the desire to love fully and fail more than trying to be perfect.

Screaming like a Girl

This is what I discovered when I opened the cover to our pool skimmer for a routine cleaning….and his name is not Charlotte.  I had the most visceral reaction I think I have ever had, a “HOLY SH#T THAT IS THE BIGGEST MUTHER F’IN SPIDER I HAVE EVER SEEN”  Of course that is what I was thinking because what came out of my mouth was the loudest, highest pitch screechy scream that stereotypically could be described as “screaming like a girl”.  I must say, it is usually one of the men in my house that utters this kind of scream when coming across…usually any insect or rodent that may breach the security of our walls.  I generally mutter something really mean that resembles “big wuss” or “stupid pussy” and go kill or trap the damn thing myself.  Not this time.  In a rare moment of humility, when facing this tarantula like arachnid, I felt their fear, as irrational as it may seem.  I threw the cover back on, and finally had a friend, who had stopped over get rid of it…not before he was able to appreciate its size and I snapped a picture.  All in all, it was 2 1/2 inches or so and had TIGER STRIPES.  I think I even heard it snarl and cackle as it scurried away.  I didn’t kill it because I didn’t want its family to issue a hit for killing the big daddy.  I literally had the willies all day long every time I thought about that damn spider, and at night every time I tried to think of the heroine of “Charlotte’s Web”  I got distracted because I could swear I  heard him taunting me from under my bed.

Shearing Sampson

So, I decided in a rare moment of spontaneity yesterday to add a little “fierce” to my day and donated 10 inches of my hair to locks of love.  It was relatively easy.  I didn’t feel the strength leach out of my body, nor was my identity and sex appeal lost when my stylist cut off that pony tail.  I was actually amazed at how much length was left over…I never really thought about how long my hair was.  Steve’s first words were “Thank God”…and when he saw that I had frowned deep enough to conjoin my brow, he frantically tried to back pedal…(he will never, ever win the suave award).  Neither of my sons noticed right away, which again is validation for my judgement that they live in their own universes all of the time.  I feel lighter both literally and figuiratively…who knew hair could weigh my head down so much.  All in all, I am happy with my choice, hair will grow back…unless my burgeoning fierceness moves me to something else.  Who knows, maybe next I’ll get a tatoo…

I used to be Fierce

I was chatting with a practice member’s wife in our clinic the other day, and discovered that she was the book-keeper at the first job I had out of college.  When I told her my name, her mouth dropped open and she exclaimed, “Oh my God, you’re Mary Flood!!!  I used to wonder what happened to you!”  She spent the next few minutes talking about my energy and kindness and how crazy the priest was that we worked for.  This was one of a few experiences of running into people from my past.  Listening to how they remember me, not only surprised me, but made me a little sad…I used to be so fierce!  Words and phrases like fearless, boundless energy, passionate, a force to be reckoned with were used to describe my antics…and I often don’t feel that way anymore.  One of the forces that drove me when I was young is the belief that no amount of energy would be wasted, that all things were possible if you threw yourself out there.  While I still espouse those beliefs philosophically, I don’t think I’m walking that talk as much as I did when I was younger.  I know that one reason may be that I am tempered with experience and wisdom, but I’m also aware that deep down I just don’t trust the world as much as I used to.

When politicians spout invective rhetoric on a daily basis about each other, don’t even understand the basics of American history and can’t seem to work together….ever, and then the news has story upon story of the improprieties that they commit almost on a daily basis, I do find myself less compelled to throw myself out there.  I was at a political meeting last night, and while my extemporaneous rantings made people laugh, I realized that I was just angry and fed up.  Angry that our political leaders are, and here it comes….SO STUPID, and fed up that they couldn’t work together to solve a problem if we put a gun to their heads… I look to other places for salvation.  Yes, my faith is a central source…but for the most part I call out all you smart reasonable human beings out there who don’t want to sit by and watch evolution stop, to put your fierce on and on the most basic level…be reasonable, listen to facts and not rhetoric, be willing to be uncomfortable in conversations with family and friends, share ideas that you may have about fixing the many problems we face today. And most importantly, be proactive…don’t wait for someone else, or sit idly by and wait.   Let the inner tiger come out, even if starts as a cat….

Summer Moon

I took this picture of the summer moon at our first baseball game of the season over the weekend.  This is the kind of day that will reside in my memory and sustain me during the next long cold winter like the one we just struggled through.  It was a sunny and hot, glorious day.  Everyone was glowing from the sun and the warm weather.  We spent the day celebrating my neices’ recent highschool graduations, the end of yet another school year (and a deep soul-sigh from me that my youngest son made it through middle school) and the first real opportunity to use our pool.  It was as if all the anticipation was finally over.  I didn’t realize how hard this past winter was until those first tunes started playing over the sound system while I floated on an air mattress on the water and my face broke into a Cheshire cat smile that was literally stuck there the whole weekend.  I can breathe again.  Even with the sweat dripping down my back…I didn’t care that it was hot.  I vow to relish it and remember the cold and how much it wore me down.  Curiously, though, I don’t know if I would have appreciated this past weekend had I not been drug through cold of the 9th circle of hell.  I am reminded why I live here in the first place…so I can rediscover this great feeling of relaxation all over again.  It was a very good day.