Question and Answer Session

So often the comment section on blogs does not get read. And sometimes those comments are too good to miss. Thus, I want to post right here, as its own blog entry, a comment and question I received - and then my initial response. This girl is a student of the Word, I can tell, because she asks all the right questions. You can tell she is a thinker...a ponderer. I won't post the name or blog address just in case she'd prefer that I didn't, but here is her comment to my post on local churches:


Your last statement so beautifully summed up what I know to be true and long to be a part of.I too desire to live out New Testement Christianity and definetly see the relevance of a local graceful community to enable this end. I don't know why it is so difficult to find both but I am too stubborn, too broken and too visionary to settle for one or the other.So how do you find these covenant relationships that are BOTH healthy and local? For most of my life I have been part of church bodies that are local but not entirely healthy in structure or belief. More recently,I have connected with many people that are healthy and/or growing in grace, but are simply too far away for the highly effective nature of close community. What does one do in this case?Perhaps my expectations are too high? Perhaps my creativity too low?

December 18, 2008 8:46 PM
Sheila said...

First of all - thank you so much for opening up and being transparent. I will do my very best not to violate your trust...you are safe here. Safe. That is a wonderful concept and an even better feeling.

As to your questions, my first thought is that you be very secure in who you are in Christ. We all bring our quirks and imperfections to the local church, but it is best, overall, that we don't show up with yawning caverns in our soul because we have not yet understood that we are accepted in the Beloved.

So you show up, knowing that no group of people will ever meet your needs or your expectations, nor will they ever love you like God does. Look for a local church whose fundamental doctrines line up with what you believe - mainly that you agree on what I call "the essentials" - and whose worship cracks open your heart, where the Word is preached uncompromisingly, yet with grace, and whose children's/teen/college ministry has leaders who DO NOT give you a check in your spirit. (Very important, no??)

Look for hospitality. I'll grant you - it is hard as heck to find. And it won't be expressed perfectly. But you want to sense a general openness in the hearts of the people.

When you find the above - - you commit. Pure and simple.

You join hands and hearts and you go the distance, come hell or high water, and both will come. ACK! Church life is hard. It just is. Just like being married is sometimes maddening, and raising children can break your heart - but the rewards, however few and far between they might be, make every sacrifice worth it...so it is in the family of God. Don't expect it to be any different than your own family...full of skeletons in various closets, occasional conflict, boredom, or chaos. But OH HOW YOU HAVE COME TO LOVE THESE PEOPLE!

Show up ready to adapt. There is an Old Testament principle - - when the children of Israel encountered "the stranger in their midst" they were to love them, YES. But they were not to adapt themselves to the "stranger", the stranger was to adapt to the people. And so it is when settling into a new church home. "When in Rome, do as those Romans do". You probably won't be able to change a thing - so don't show up with an agenda. Accept these folks as they are, and find out, over time, how they do things.

Expect to offend and be offended, to forgive and be forgiven. Expect to be loved and cared for. Expect the word preached to challenge your sensibilities, and know that you will never get a full sense of a man's ministry until you are a year or more sitting under it. So if a message or two or five are preached that do not sit right with you, don't panic.

Maybe that pastor is "swinging a pendulum", using hyperbole, or generally hitting something hard to make the point. When a "hard right" or a "hard left" is preached...the outcome and result is rarely that radical - the outcome usually ends up being a gentle curve in the proper direction for the people as a whole - so do not worry. Sometimes if a pastor isn't on fire, no one listens. So let him blaze away, and rejoice over the idea that you are not getting watered down stuff.

Look for mothers in Zion - a healthy church will have a few. It takes time to find them, but they are waiting for you, I promise!

This is a start, and I hope and pray it helps you on your journey to finding a healthy local church. You are necessary to the body of Christ, dear one!!! We need your gifts and your love.

"Grace, Grace!" - Shout It To Your Mountain!

Shout Grace!
by Francis Frangipane


We sing Amazing Grace, but I don't think we realize how amazing grace actually is. Grace is God's power, motivated by His mercy, working to fulfill His compassion.

We are saved by grace, but what culminates in a "day of salvation" experience is actually months and even years of God quietly, yet powerfully, working in our hearts. Recall: Jesus said, "No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44a). Do you remember that drawing power? Before we knew God, divine power was working invisibly within our hearts, drawing and wooing us to Christ.

Yet let me take this miracle of grace further, for after Jesus spoke of the Father's drawing power, He then said, "and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:44b). This is the power and commitment of our Father's love: from the days of our sin and rebellion even to the days long after we die, grace continues working to unite our hearts with God's. From our utterly helpless beginnings to our utterly helpless end, from being dead in sin to being dead in the grave, grace carries us to the arms of God.

Unlocking the Power of Grace"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that, in the ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:4-8).

Paul says that grace saved us "through faith." Faith unlocks the power of grace and releases it to function in our world-and faith itself is another gift of God. The difference between both gifts is, the grace-gift must be activated by the faith-gift. We must believe that God is "rich in mercy." We must accept as true that God loves us with "great love." We must not doubt He atoned for "our transgressions." We must be confident we are "alive together with Christ."

Grace works through faith. Believing the words of grace unlocks the power of grace; the power of grace to fully transform us comes through faith. As it is written, "For of His fulness we have all received, and grace upon grace" (John 1:16). The true stride of a Christian's walk is "grace upon grace." The same grace that turned our hearts toward Christ continues to work in us, transforming even our sufferings and trials into virtue and power. Are you in a battle? Are you struggling with finances, health, righteousness or relationships? Your grace-miracle has already been created. But you must believe that not only has God created a grace-provision for you, but Christ is motivated by love and actually desires to show you favor.

You may feel like a loser, a sinner, a person others routinely reject---and perhaps you are! The purpose of redemption was so that, in the ages to come, God might display through us "the surpassing riches of His grace." You may be poor in this world, but you can become rich in the transforming grace of God. Believe Him. A day will come in the future world of God when He will point to you and I, once fallen and depraved, filthy and isolated creatures, and display us before heaven and earth as radiant, transformed beings---a glory to His workmanship and love. And it will come to pass because we believed in the grace of God to change us.

Who cares what other people think of you? God says He loves you! Indeed, His grace is working to set you free. God knows you have been struggling with desperate issues; that's one reason why He has inspired this message. His grace is reaching to you to deliver you. The means to your victory is not more prayer or more Bible study, but faith-activated grace. Of course, I strongly believe in both prayer and study, but the power to release each of us is a free gift of grace. Don't postpone your breakthrough. Believe that God's grace is here to release you!

What We Cannot Do On Our OwnWe've been taught that grace is God's unmerited favor, which of course, it is. Yet unmerited favor is only one aspect of grace. In reality, grace is God's promise to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

The Bible says that "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness" (Rom. 4:3). It doesn't mean that Abraham believe there was a God. No. Demons believe in one God and tremble! When Abraham "believed God" it meant that he believed what God had promised would come to pass. God promised to do for Abraham what Abraham and Sarah could not fulfill on their own. The Lord had promised Abraham he'd be a father of many nations. This is the glory of God's grace: it accomplishes what is otherwise impossible for us. You see, grace not only chooses me, saves me eternally and blankets my life with mercy, but grace also works in me realities unattainable without divine help.

Consider Zechariah and the story about Zerubbabel, who was governor of Israel. The Jews had been held in Babylonian captivity for seventy years. Now, they were being restored to Jerusalem. It was Zerubbabel's task to oversee the restoration of the city. In the struggle of the battle, weariness settled on the governor. So, the Lord gave Zechariah a promise for Zerubbabel. He said, "‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).
God was saying, in effect, "You have labored, your enemies are many and they are strong, but this work I've set before you isn't about your abilities; it's about what I can do working through you." Likewise, our salvation isn't about our works or power. It's about believing in the Holy Spirit's power and the grace of God.

Then the Lord gave Zerubbabel an important word. He said, "What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!'" (Zech. 4:7).

Zerubbabel had mountains in his life that were too much for him. He had a task that was beyond his abilities. Yet God promised His Spirit would help, and when it was done, multitudes would be shouting "Grace, grace" at the finished work.

Listen, my friends, don't run from the mountains in your life; face them with faith---and then shout "Grace, grace" to them. Let God make your mountains into "a plain."

Let's not mutter an unbelieving whisper about grace, but shout it out loud. It doesn't say, think about grace, but release your faith and shout "Grace, grace!" God's unmerited favor has been poured out upon you; now speak to that mountain of discouragement, sickness or financial need---GRACE, GRACE!

Blessed God, You have drawn me to Yourself and have sheltered my life in the impenetrable stronghold of Your grace. Forgive me for drifting back into trusting in my works or abilities. Lord, I believe in Your grace! I shout "Grace, grace!" to the mountains that stand before me! In Jesus' name!

http://www.frangipane.org/

The Four "Sights" of a Local Church

Immediately after hitting "publish post" on my last blog, the Spirit of God spoke to me. I was thinking about our beginnings as a church. My husband and I were an integral part of a large interdenominational church, Trinity Chapel. But our church, Harvest Church, began in a livingroom.

Someone else's livingroom...(Post edit done by the author of this blog, editing unnecessary details that are now - and sadly - obsolete)...

That small group grew to the point that we needed to divide it and create another, and so we did just that. Then that group also grew so large it needed to divide, and that is when we ended up with a church in our livingroom.

Then that group also divided...or multiplied. However you want to look at it.

About a year later, we were approached by the leadership of Trinity Chapel, and asked to plant a church. A handful of families went out with us, and then many of them went right back - we all quickly discovered that church planting is the hardest thing you will ever do. The few families who have gone the distance with us can tell you....church planting ain't for sissies.

And you absolutely have to be in relationship with the Father and with each other. If you don't love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and then love each other as you love yourself, you will never make it in a new church plant.

There were many Sundays in which our peak attendance was 10 or 15 people. Tim and I were stunned. It was as if that "gathering gift" we'd enjoyed while members of our parent church....was gone. We truly thought that if we planted a church, it would grow just like our house churches did.

Um....not necessarily. In fact, we are still considered a "small church", fifteen years later. Trust me, if we are "small" in number today, we were minuscule when we began - and we stayed minuscule in size for years. The only sort of church I had ever known, really, was "big church" - I grew up in Trinity Chapel. I was used to worship with a full band, complete with percussion and a piece of brass or two, and a grand piano, with a salaried worship leader. Suddenly, our worship was reduced to one acoustic guitar. Suddenly, my husband was trouble shooting sound each Sunday, playing worship, preaching, counseling, and doing construction work on our facilities - all while working overtime on his "day job".

So at what point did we become a valid "local church"? Was it when we reached a membership of 20? 30? When we finally put together a worship band?

We were a valid local church from day one. Because, from day one, we already had the "four sights of a local church" in place and functioning. That is what the Lord spoke to me, after publishing my last blog. He said to me, "A local church of any number of people can function as the church, if they have Insight, Hindsight, Foresight, and Oversight."

That bowled me over. I knew it didn't come from me - not all at once, without any developing of the ideas. When good things come to you, full blown, it is a God-thing. I hope to elaborate on each of the four "sights" of the local church in future blogs - I find them fascinating. For now, here is an overview:

Insight - into the plan of salvation and the mystery of grace. A group of people, particularly their leader or leaders, must have a firm insight into the gospel, and be able to simply and easily share their insight with anyone and everyone.

Hindsight - a people must be sent. There are those few exceptions, but they are not the norm. Biblically, church planting is all about being sent or ordained or affirmed by another established spiritual leader or leaders. This gives every local church, even the one meeting in a livingroom, a history. On the first day they meet as a newly planted church, there is hindsight - a story of ministry that came before them, and sent and affirmed their efforts to plant another church. (God is way into church planting, in case no one else has told you.)

Foresight - a people must have a vision, and it needs to be as simple and specific as possible. A group of people, meeting as a newly planted church, need to know where they are going. Our vision is, "Love God, Love Each Other, Love Your Neighbor". That's it. But it is a vision so compelling and consuming that it keeps the entire church body very busy - not with programs, but with people. Love is our vision. Love is our direction. Every church needs foresight, to be able to "see" where they are headed.

Oversight - both in-house, and general oversight. In other words, our church members have oversight in the form of my husband, their pastor. We also have a leadership team of gifted men who look after the flock of God, willingly, and not by compulsion....men who are selfless and who have not sought a position....men who simply "are" leaders, they don't have to try to be. They have good marriages, and good reputations outside our church.

Then we have oversight to whom the pastor can turn. This is our Masterbuilder's network of churches. Masterbuilder's is led by a small group of men, all of whom have recognized apostolic, teaching, and pastoral anointings, and these men oversee the churches in our network. They have never one time been heavy handed or domineering, and they don't make a salary for doing it. I have never seen a more selfless group of men, always nursing and tending to the various churches who are blessed enough to be part of our network. (And no - my husband is not on this team. He gladly answers to these men, has turned to them during times of crisis and trouble, and they have never failed to come through for us, often at their own expense. We are deeply indebted to them.)

However. As selfless and low-key as they are in their leadership of the churches, if my husband became some sort of heretical renegade, we could count on them to step in. First, they would try to restore us, if we have gotten off-message. If we refused to be restored, they would prayerfully take whatever steps necessary after that. It is such a precious safety net for the flock of God. Their pastor oversees them. Their pastor has oversight.

And it is all based on relationships. Tim is in consistent, ongoing relationship with the Masterbuilder's oversight team. He welcomes it.

Any group of people, to be a viable expression of the church, needs to have oversight.

Any group of people, when they have functioning within them, all four "sights" ~ Insight, Hindsight, Foresight, and Oversight ~ they are a local church, no matter how small or large or where they gather. They aren't just a "Bible study". They have more than just a creed and a livingroom and their own insecurities to build on. With all four "sights", keenly and clearly operating in their midst, they are the church...the local church.

The Bride, In Actuality...

I love "the Bride" in concept. I am devoted to "the body of Christ" in theory. Its the reality of them both that bites, sometimes. And I should know.

I'm all into loving my brother, until "my brother" is someone in my church who bugs me. I'm all about grace, until grace must be extended to someone who is so deeply under law they wouldn't know grace if it kissed them on the cheek...

Let's take New Testament Living to the next level (maybe even to "the third level", to borrow from the delightfully rambling and thought provoking blog of the dear Chris and Christine Welch) - that of actually living it past the point of our pain. Can we take it the extra mile, into loving others all the way past our doctrinal differences, sacrificing the sacred cows of our deepest hurts sustained in church life, dismounting our Holy High Horses? Whatever made us think that church life was warm and fuzzy? It never has been, and it never will be, not this side of eternity anyhow. In the words of one of the Great Dead Guys, Matthew Henry (I think it was) who said, "We do not yet live amongst just men made perfect...we live amongst 'just men' ", I'm thinking it is time that we get on with the program. No one is saying "get over it", I'm saying get ON with it, in spite of it. God's program, His "plan A" is still the local church.

Sure, there is a church universal. She's awesome. She's as terrible as an army with banners. She embodies all that God is about in this hour - which is to demonstrate His Great Goodness to a watching world, through what seems to be uninspired vessels - thereby bringing many sons into glory. Just as the God who dwells in unapproachable light came down from His greatness, into the womb of a woman....the church universal in all her splendor must become an approachable, human entity. The church universal is expressed and defined by each church local.

In church, tomorrow morning, I will tell myself, "This is the church. This is what 'church life' looks like." It may or may not be splendid to the naked eye.

That's called "bringing it home". That's called making our theology affect our biography. We all love the church universal. But try "having all things in common" with the universal church. Try imitating the faith of "those over you" in the universal church. (I suppose you could wear Kim Clement's hairstyle, or attempt Benny Hinn's wonderful accent, or try to preach like your favorite Christian Superstar...)

But try forgiving the universal church, bearing the burdens of it, and speaking only that which is good to the use of edifying....with the ethereal "church universal". How about simply "putting up" with the church universal? It can't be done. Much of Christianity gets lost in the translation without the church local.

And a group of people have to have more than a creed and a livingroom and their own insecurities in common to actually BE a local church. We may begin with nothing but a creed and a livingroom and our own insecurities, but we don't remain that way for years...not and be a healthy expression of the local church.

Most of New Testament Christianity cannot be actually lived, without the covenant relationships inherent in a healthy local church.

There. I said it. Let the games begin.

Where Do People Come Up With This Stuff??

I bought a book, some years back. The book is entitled,"Family Rituals", and I got it at a discount store for $3. In it, were more than a few "lists" - like startlingly detailed instructions having to do with Feng Shui, and artsy suggestions for the sorts of activities about which no normal family would care. This book was more along the lines of "Leave It to Beaver for the New Age Pantheist Commune."

June Cleaver in embroidered hip huggers and wearing a daisy chain in her hair, making certain her foyer was Feng Shui-ed properly.

The Beav smoking a doobie, listening to...ah...the Doobie Brothers.

Then, there was that Aromatherapy List of Scents, and what each scent supposedly "evokes" in a person's emotions. Reminds me of my blog post, "A New Kind of Legalism". Apparently, there are some serious RULES that apply, if one is to do anything "the natural way".

According to the aromatherapy list, if we are all angry with one another (and just a few nights ago, we were....oh, we were!) someone simply squirts a certain Essential Oil into the air, and everyone feels happy again. Not in my house. When we're arguing, if anyone dared try to splash scented oil on us, or into the air we are breathing, we'd take 'em out at the knees.

We were alternately giggling and rolling our eyes as my youngest, Isaac, read aloud from this list. Then he got to "ginger" - and the chart said "promotes sexual desire".

??!

Josiah yelled in his best hillbilly accent, "Maw, git that book away from hee-yum," (him) "h'it's a-junkin' up his HEAD!!" Then, one of the girls piped up, in mock stricken-sadness, and said "No more ginger snap cookies for daddy..."

I'm surrounded by budding comics. And all the so called "back to nature people" are giving them lots of material.

Music, As Something We DO ~

I feel sorry for this generation, and for my own. My generation, and perhaps that of my parents, were among the first to regard music as Mere Personal Entertainment. My generation was the first to make music highly mobile and very private. At least my parents had to turn down their small transistor radios, and stuff them under a pillow at night, in order to listen to The Devil's Songs. My generation gave birth to the ancestor of the i-pod - our small, portable cassette players, strapped to an arm or waist, with earphones blasting Journey, Boy George, or (in my case) Joe Jackson.

There was a time when music was what you did. There was no recorded music. You played it or you sung it best you could. It was physical, in the way that only things immediate can be. There was a time when, if you couldn't play an instrument, or sing with any ability, you at least listened actively to others who could play and sing. It was all folk music, then.

Music wasn't remote. In most cases, you'd have known your musicians well. They would be members of your own family or church family, and you'd wait days on end just to hear your friend or collegue play your favorite song. The night of that festive gathering, as you tapped your toe or danced or hummed along, you could watch the very eyes of the ones making the music. You could feel their delight. You knew that the fiddle player was creating such magic after a long, hard, hot day on the farm. Or the lead vocalist had a colicky baby, and you heard from the pianist that she had been up all night with it. Poor woman. No wonder her voice cracks now and then - but no matter. You love to hear her sing! You took the music home with you, in your very bones. Music was soul nourishing, and very much a product of community.

To this day, that is what music is, in Harvest Church. It is completely a product of community, and worship is played and sung by the people we know and love. It is not professional. There is excellence, but professionalism for the sake of stage performance is frowned upon. Keep it real - even when it hurts. Sometimes it does hurt!

Occasionally, at our home, we have what are known as celidhs. (pronounced "Kay-lees"). The word is Gaelic/Scottish, and means "gatherings where there is great food, music, and story telling."

It is not an evening where you have a chain restaurant cater the food, and a hired DJ play the popular tunes and talk to the crowd to "warm them up". That is a soul-less, misshapen facimile of a real party, I don't care if you try to call it a "Wedding Reception" or a "Retirement Party"...it isn't celebration as God envisions for His people.

We have evenings where we are the entertainment. We whip up a few simple, hearty dishes of food, we tell hilarious stories from our beginnings as a church, and my husband sits down with his Maton guitar, my daughter at the piano, my son with his guitar, and my other daughter with her guitar, and, though my youngest son can sing quite well, he's reached his "I'm Too Cool To Sing" stage, so you won't hear from him for a couple more years.

If you come to my house on one of these evenings, you'll find none of it scripted. Some songs will be begun, but tossed quickly because someone isn't sure how to play it. Other songs will be lingered over...as the presence of God sweetly envelops each person in the living room, or outside on our back deck. We had one of our best celidhs on our front porch, one evening this past year, with a pastor-friend from Virginia. That man, Bo Stewart, sang in his very booming voice, and played the guitar with animated gusto - all our neighbors could hear him, and we didn't give a darn. They were welcome to join the small crowd on the porch.

But no....though invited, they didn't come join us. They preferred to pull one earbud out of their ear, while washing their SUV's and listening to their i-pods, to stare at us for a moment, in shock and awe. Music as something people do?! Do people really just sit down together to sing anymore? Why do that, when everyone can retreat to the isolation of his or her favorite music and earbuds?

I mentioned the book "Delight" by J.B. Priestly on last night's blog. (Among other things. Ahem. Percocet does make one speak in strange tongues...) Here's a snippet from another chapter. He calls any sort of live music-making "chamber music". So wherever you read those words "chamber music", substitute "jam session", and it will make all the sense in the world to you!

"Chamber music (read: "jam sessions") at home are delightful. Not for everybody of course; mere listeners, passive guest-types, may have a hell of a time with it. (Let them go somewhere else, and switch on their automated music). No, this kind of music is delightful for actual performers, and for those who are loitering round the edge of performance, waiting to be asked to join in, and for those women - and a few wise men - who enjoy seeing the persons dear to them happy, let the notes fall where they may. There has always been to me a sort of cozy magic about it. You are at home, all safe and snug, and yet are also wandering in spirit, through lost kingdoms, with the music. Even the best string quartets and trios will not always survive the atmosphere, chilly with determined culture, of those horrible little concert halls given up to chamber music. (read: "professional concerts"). We forget that a lot of music has been written for fun.

What a difference when you bring in firelight, armchairs, tobacco, and a tray of drinks! The execution - as it often is with us - may be sketchy and even downright murderous, but you can catch the mood of the masters, whether they are looking for the Holy Grail, or a pint of wine and a helping of roast goose. You wish you could do it better, but you are delighted to be doing it at all.

But I need not perform myself, nor be in my own home, to know this delight. As I write this, many rooms come flickering back, in Bradford and Cambridge, a Lakeland cottage, a studio in Chelsea; half-forgotten, mysterious apartments abroad; and firelight and candlelight play tenderly among the instruments; and Mozart and Haydn, Brahms and Debussy, move among us again; and within the ring of friendly faces, ghosts these many years, the little worlds of sound shine and revolve like enchanted moons. Why - bless our bewildered souls! - every time a violin is taken up to the attic, or a piano is carted away, and in their place is a gadget that turns music on and off like tap water, we move another step away from sanity and take to snarling harder than ever."

Live music, played and sung by ourselves or those we know and care about, has such persuasive influence. When music becomes entertainment, rather than an active part of our lives, a passive amusement, rather than something we do, we indeed become more petulant and victimized and angry. When we move away from Anything As It Was Created To Be - whether that be sexuality, church-life, or music - we supress our own human-ness, and joy leaks out.

"...we take to snarling harder than ever..."

SING, people! SING, this Christmas time. Don't let Bing Crosby or even James Taylor do it all for you. (Though James Taylor has indeed made my all time favorite Christmas CD!)

Music should also be "DIY"...for fun....for delight. Please, make your very own joyful noise this season.

This and That and The Other Thing...

My Night-stand, At the Moment...

Here I sit, in pajamas, and eyeglasses, alternately listening to A Scottish Christmas (soulful, fantastic CD), popping a pain pill, sipping a chocolate milk shake, and reading Various and Sundry Things. I'm not in near as much pain as yesterday...the hours immediately post surgery are Not To Be Written About. I wish to expunge them from memory.


Just what does a Percocet-befuzzed brain read, on the Day After Surgery? Everything and nothing at all. Things great, and things quotidian. I've chosen to share with you bits from This, bits from That, and the recipe for the best chocolate milkshake in this world - which obviously qualifies as being The Other Thing.



There's the book "Delight" by J.B. Priestly, first published in 1949. He wrote it, chapter by chapter, as a list of the only things in this world that bring him delight. He also wrote it as proof that he was not so melancholy as folks supposed.


From the Preface:


"...I have always held that a fine grumble makes things better. If, for example, a hotel gives me a bad breakfast, I have only to grumble away for a few minutes to feel that some reasonable balance has been restored: the grumble has been subtracted from the badness of the breakfast. If I have not had a good breakfast, at least I have had a good grumble.

Another point for my defence is that I have always looked and sounded much worse than I felt. Often when I am feeling merely annoyed, a little put out, I appear to be blazingly angry or lost in the deepest sulks. The appearance is larger than the reality. I may not have been enjoying myself, but at least I have not been suffering as intensely as the rest of the company imagined."


Chapter Thirty-two:

(I delight in...) "Lying in a hot bath, smoking a pipe. People still say to me, "The way you work!" and behind the modest smirk, I laugh secretly, knowing myself to be one of the laziest and most self indulgent men alive. Long after they have caught the 8:20, opened the morning mail, telephoned to the managing directore of the Company, dictated yet another appeal to the Board of Trade, I am lying in my hot bath, smoking a pipe. I am not even soaping and scrubbing, but simply lying there...


...in a neighboring room, thrown on the floor, are the morning papers, loud with more urgent demands for increased production, clamouring for every man and woman to save the country. And there I am, lost in steam and the fumes of Latkia (a sort of tobacco) and the vaguest of dreams. Just beyond the bolted door, where the temperature drops to nearly freezing, are delicate women, who have already been up for hours, toiling away. Do I care? Not a rap...."


Isn't that hilarious? I was told by a dear friend that, for this brief time of recovery, I should learn how to be a "bystander in my own life" and just rest. I think I have managed to do just that, for all of 24 hours so far. I could do without the pain, but the experience of "letting go" has been lovely, I do admit. I don't think I've been this disengaged, ever. Not even when having children (via C-section, three times). I always came home ready for work, and wanting everything to just be normal again. I have always had intense dislike for the concept of "recuperation". I want to skip it. Takes too long.


I can't claim to have mastered the Art of Zen after a mere 24 hours, but it has been a start...and Priestly's amusing prose has put a smile on my swollen face. Makes me want to smoke something.


Then, there has been this lovely new book "Seeking the Face of God", recommended by Lynne Bruce, of the "Beehive" blog. (http://beehive5.blogspot.com/) What a jewel. What a treasure. It finally came in the mail, not long ago:

"In a very real sense, then, Christian spirituality talks about what we receive, more than what we achieve. Our potential and activity are entirely dependent on God's prior work in our lives. If we set out to be achievers, rather than receivers, we have not begun to follow God. Achievers call attention to themselves, whereas receivers lead others to appreciate the Giver.

If we insist on being achievers, seeking God so that others may admire our faith, our committment, or our dedication, we become God's competitors..."

So much for those with a competitive spirit. I never could relate to that attitude anyhow. Now I see why. I've always seen myself as a receiver. Who can boast in that?



I've also been perusing a couple of Christmas magazines - my favorite being "Cottages and Bungalows" - full of sumptuous pictures of halls decked with boughs of holly, in the Craftsman Tradition. I love no other home design better than a Craftsman Bungalow. I don't live in one, and might never. But I've always been content to sincerely admire what I don't possess, whether that be a Craftsman home, or some lovely trait of personality, or a half way decent car. (My dream car is either a vintage VW Beetle convertible, or an older-but-pristine black or white Volvo wagon. Psychoanalyze that, why don't you!)

And don't go out and buy one of those, now that you know. I'll know that you're copying me.

::smirk::

Never have been one to want an "image car" - or, worse yet, some expensive red vehicle (won't name a make or model) that screams, "I'm Over Forty, but I Want You to Think I am Still Hot". Or, "I Bought This Because I Can." Gah. Spare me.



I may regret blogging whilst on pain medication.



Last, but not least, my husband's own recipe for His Wife's Favorite Milkshake, as dictated to me by said husband:



a bit of milk
a bit of ice
a lot of Hershey's syrup
a few scoops of Breyer's Vanilla ice cream



...all in the blender.



I will be fat as a house, and won't have eaten a solid bite of anything. Oh well - he has taken the grandest care of me. I hope he still loves me when I am wearing on my hips, all his Convalescent Milkshakes.



So much for both the competitive personality, and surgery helping me to shed a few pounds...