Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

Giving Up

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Forgotten televisionToday is Ash Wednesday – the first day of the season of Lent.

I’m not now, nor have I ever really been part of a Christian tradition that observes things like Lenten fasts or particular High Holidays and Holy Days. But for whatever reason, in recent years I’ve found it an interesting, and productive exercise to observe some kind of Lenten fast. It seems to do the soul good.

So for this year, 2011, I’m giving up television between now and Easter. No flicking on old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, no illicit downloads of Criminal Minds or all the other gratuitously violent crime shows I’m a little bit addicted to. No DVDs, so my quickflix queue won’t turn over this month. No small screen except for work/productivity related viewing.

I’ll allow myself a movie or two at the cinema, I’ll listen to my huge library of cds I’ve not heard in years, I’ll listen to the latest audio book in my Audible queue, I’ll read – both books on my shelf, and books in my Kindle (yes, I have a Kindle, I’ll introduce her in the not too distant future) and I’ll make some headway on the .net magazines I’ve been stockpiling. Hopefully I’ll even be able to pull out my camera instead of wasting Saturday mornings watching a week’s worth of TV in one sitting.

Gosh, this may even mean I’ll miss the season 2 opener of Offspring… Yikes.

I don’t think this is going to score me points with God, or man, but I do think it’s important to ‘restart’ or ‘reset to default’ now and again… so for this year resetting my leisure time seemed like a good place to start…

Image by autowitch

New Year, New Decade, New View

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I’ve filched this quote from Don Miller’s Blog

In a culture where professional ministers are tempted to use
people to build churches, David Gentiles used the church to get to
people.

Don’s context is an obituary for a man who loved and was dearly loved and I don’t want to take anything away from that. David Gentiles sounds like the kind of pastor (and man, for that matter) we all wish we knew.  But in the middle of the celebration David’s life and of Don’s memories of him, this quote spoke volumes to me because it’s what I’ve been saying all year. In a way, while 2009 was primarily all my Masters’ Degree the thing that has had the biggest impact on me personally is all about church. In short, 2009 was the year my thoughts about church underwent fundamental change.

For the last 10 years I’ve loved a church whose focus is ‘Build the Church’ but the biggest paradigm shift that happened for me (and not coincidentally that got sparked by Don’s book ‘Blue Like Jazz’), and the primary reason I now worship somewhere else is because I have been unable to shake the conviction that if we  ‘Build the People’ the church will come rather than the other way around.

If our primary focus is on building the church, on having more numbers, on having more souls saved, the very people we hope to touch become secondary to the institution and we lose sight of the incredible value each member has NOT because they are a member and because they contribute, but because the are valuable to their Maker and by extension should be valuable to us all. 

If we love, people love in return, if the place where they find love and acceptance is the church then they will love the church, if they love the church they will serve. On the contrary if the church expects service, if the love we offer is conditional on what our people do for the church (or how they look, or how old they are, or how clever…. etc. etc. etc.) rather than being unconditional and offered on the basis of  their value to God, then it’s only a question of time before something gives.     

I read Don’s obituary for David and I’m challenged to be the kind of person that David Gentiles was, and I’d never even heard of him before today.  I’m challenged to live in such a way that the people with whom I come into contact leave me feeling as though they’ve been loved, and I’m challenged to be a part of a church that puts people ahead of programs.

You know, the way Jesus did.

2009  was the year I started to see things differently, and it broke my heart in ways I never anticipated. My heart breaks still for those who’ve felt the sting of being discarded because they no longer are considered to fit in the church they were so committed to building. It breaks for those who’ve built themselves out of a position, those who have aged out of one. My heart breaks for those whose memories of their pastor are vastly different than Don’s of David, and it breaks too for those pastors who’ve become so caught up in the vision they’ve lost sight of not only the people who are helping bring it to pass but also lost Jesus’ view of their sheep, their people. 

On the eve of a new year and a of new decade, I still pray “may your kingdom come, may your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…” but I can’t help suspecting that the kingdom we’re waiting for probably looks a lot less like our image/skill/talent focused world and that the churches therein look a lot less like our concert halls and stadiums and a lot more like our living rooms and cafes, like darkened doorways, like city parks and shopping malls.

You know, like Jesus saw them.

Situation Normal

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This studying business has been doing my head in… as I write this I ought, in fact, to be completing my last written assignment before I plough into my last assignment all together, a flash project… however, I am, instead, reflecting on the fact I made my first (and may it ever be my last) visit to a neurologist this afternoon.  (Oh, and the beer addled brain probably has something to contribute to my waning enthusiasm for writing a linguistics research proposal as well…

however, where was I?)

Oh, right… the neurologist.

So, a couple of months ago I started to experience some recurring symptoms of pins and needles in my hands and feet.  At first, I blew it off as chiropractic in nature, I mean, I get sciatic tingles now and again when my back is out so it seemed less than far fetched that the genesis of these tingles were any different.  However,  in the back of my mind was some distant recollection from one of those ghastly Hallmark movies or some such book on which they’re based, that tingly hands and feet was a primary sign of MS. Multiple Sclerosis.

Fuck.

(sorry Jesus… but I was thinking it… so I had to write it too).

I survived a few days with the MS thought in my head but decided that I needed to check it out to put my mind at ease so I went to see Dr Cliff whose only reassuring noise was “It could be nothing” and who proceeded to order up a slew of blood tests.

During this time I strictly avoided checking things on the internet for fear that they’d confirm every scary thought I was having and I continued trying to console myself that the statistics against it being anything truly ghastly were strongly in my favour… however, during that week one of my friends was diagnosed with bowel cancer at the ripe old age of 32 so suddenly,  the stats looked a lot less friendly.

Once the bloods were done and dusted (and with remarkably little pain, all due respect to the phlebotomist – (actually, I put that bit there because I only wanted an excuse to write that utterly wonderful word) and the results were back I was pronounced all within normal range and was referred to the neurologist for nerve conduction tests.

Of course, getting in to see a neurologist is not exactly like showing up any old time for a walk in appointment like I do at my medical clinic (yeah, none of this make an appointment business there…) and so I’ve been wondering for about the last 3 weeks as to if, in fact, I was facing a whole new set of life changes… I started some anyway, just in case;

I started eating properly… for I hadn’t been doing so well at that while focusing on the amount of work I had on my plate.

I started sleeping more and turning off the computer earlier in the evening instead of trying to exist on 4 hours sleep or so.

I started taking multi vitamins because I’ve been meaning to for ages and just never got around to it.

I bought health insurance for the very same reasons.

I read my Bible looking for reassurance that I was going to be fine, and I found it, but I still wondered if maybe my friend who is 32 and has bowel cancer had also done the same and found out that he still has cancer. So it was helpful, but it I also was being realistic that it may be something instead of nothing and even if it was something,  God knew about it and he would work it out… everything would be alright… whatever definition of alright that was.

And then the tingles stopped, so I stopped being worried and thought it was all in my head and that, realistically, I am more of a stressed out bunny than I have EVER been before and it was probably stress.

And my friend Daisy said “Oh right, neuropathy” like it was nothing, and I worried a little bit less.

And then I googled peripheral neurpoathy and I read that it could be stress related and I felt a little bit better.  Because, did I mention? I’m stressed… like,  REALLY stressed.

And then, on Wednesday I was down at my local mini mall and had set up all my stuff in my fave corner of my 2nd fave cafe and after working a while I took a break to check my messages and as I did I met an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in a while so I stopped for a chat.

The chat lasted 45 mins… (those poor guys watching my computer… I bet they were so tempted to mess with my screensaver…) And the conversation was amazing, and if you’re a God person you will know those kind of conversations when it feels like God is there talking and listening too, and  you come away from it feeling like he set it up in the first place.  We ended up talking about my impending visit to the neurologist and she knew all about how I was feeling, because she’d been through EXACTLY the same thing.. and when she gets stressed EXACTLY the same thing happens to her hands and feet.

So I felt a lot better, and for whatever reason, call it intuition, call it God, I just knew what the neurologist was going to tell me today.

He told me I’m normal.  Everything is normal. I even swore when one of the tests made my arm jump 6 inches and scared the crap out of me (and him). 

Totally normal.

I’m glad.  Maybe it is stress, maybe it is something else. But deep down in my guts where I feel like God tells me stuff it all feels normal and I don’t feel like I have to be afraid.

And that can only be good.

You Can Handle the TRUTH

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How many people do you know who actually take the high road? I mean really, even if it means stepping up to an uncomfortable place and putting themselves out there?
Well, if you know me, that’s at least one.
I sincerely hope that doesn’t sound boastful. But I stepped up this week, and it bothers me more that I’m basically the first one who has said anything about an awkward situation that straddles both my day job and my business and that has been making me crazy; actually, not only me, but a bunch of people who haven’t said anything and who are all agog that I did.
So I made an appointment with The Big Cheese (not to be confused with the Baby Cheeses) and looked him in the eye and said “I’m going to be completely honest with you.”
And it’s something I don’t think he hears that often. Not that people aren’t honest with him but people are so used to jumping to whatever tune they think he’s playing that they don’t want to rock the boat, don’t want to stress him out don’t want to look as though they’re complaining.
Screw that.
There are too many people in pain, too many people getting trodden on (and no, not by him). I’ve been there before and I made a promise to myself I am NEVER going back there and if it means stepping up, making those appointments and telling the truth?
I’m doing it.