Journaling - a fun opportunity

I'm more than a little excited about sharing the joys of journaling at this all day retreat.

One of our lovely leaders, Teresa, called me on a quiet Saturday -- on my home phone no less, to ask if I'd be interested in leading a break-out session on a book. I'd been posting online about my friend Janice's recently published (and now best-selling!) book - Paris Letters, which I think made my dear Teresa pop the question. (The book is marvelous. Buy it!) After a few minutes, we were all set on the idea, and I even suggested we start a book club at church. That's when I asked, "so what else are you doing for these sessions?" She mentioned our friend Nora would be training on Praying in Color, (super cool, go on, try it) and she shared the sad fact that the woman who was going to lead Journaling isn't available. I leapt, offered another friend for the book club, and immediately shared all the many ideas I have for journaling. I see it as a journey of talking with God, or talking around or near Him, or simply writing in His presence.

I've been journaling in spiral bound notebooks since I was a senior in high school. I moved on to other lovely journals, hard bound (not my favorite, they don't lay flat) fancy as they may be, and Moleskins, my first Moleskin journal is a treasure. That season of writing saved my life. God was busy reshaping me and that wasn't easy. Journaling was a necessity. In that season I was clinging to the WORD, and to that journal, noting all I could about where I saw God, so visible, in my life. Journals? I've got tons of them.

And it isn't just about gathering words on pages, I've actually spent some time honing the craft. When my husband and I were first married, he took us to a writer's seminar through the Pacifica Institute. We woke up early on a Saturday morning and sat in a room where Russell Lockhart, Natalie Goldberg, Allen Ginsberg (yes, that Allen Ginsberg) and Annie Dillard taught us about how they approached writing. I thought I was there as an observer with my writer husband. A tagalong of sorts. But each of them, Natalie and Russell the most, called out the writer in me and gave me wonderful, useful practices for writing that I'm held tightly too all these years. Allen Ginsberg, in his beard and blue and white seersucker suit shared the practice of meditation leading to the word on the page. He had us write and I did after sitting with my hands on my knees, just like him, until a sentence had to be out of my head and onto the page.

I learned the most from Natalie Goldberg. She taught about writing practice. Just writing 20 minutes at a time about a subject or an idea without stopping NO MATTER WHAT. She started a particular writing session with, "I remember..." as the prompt and I proceeded to write out one of the deeper, tougher memories about how the sound of my grandmother's milk glass jewelry dish signaled the start of a day, ready or not. There was much more, but you'll go look at her books and web page and get a sense of her if you like. I still keep the Samuri Editor at bay. Her idea. Her words. My freedom. Russell Lockhart is a Jungian analyst and spoke much about dreams, dreaming and writing. He shared much, but the two things echoing these twenty years later are the truth that a pen-to-page is really a heart-to-hand connection. We learn much. We hear about our core. He also suggested that if we ever want to get to know ourselves very well, we should go away to a hotel and write for 3.days.straight. I haven't done that yet. I'd like to. Maybe soon. Finally, Annie Dillard spoke about her writing. Her style and she did a wonderful reading. What I remember most about her was the suggestion that we pitch our journals when we fill them. She relieved us of the notion that our work would end up in the Smithsonian next to hers. I didn't take her advice though. There's something sacred about the practice of writing. I never really read back nor do I plan to, but, I just can't part with these books.

I took Natalie Goldberg's advice and kept to a wide-ruled, no frills, spiral-bound notebook I could keep in my bag or briefcase every where I go. (I don't write every day. I don't. I don't) And, had a short but wondrous affair with expensive TwinRing Notebooks created with the sleekest paper in the universe. But today? Older and wiser, it's a Mead from Target I bought after the summer back-2-school sales. The pens matter. I like Le Pen or the perfect stick pen with no globby ink or that Pentel .05 pen I love today.

I've also taken Natalie's books, Wild Mind and Writing Down the Bones with me to get that unexpected joy, a writing prompt.

Today, I'm dedicated to two things, Kenton Beshore's method of journaling with the Word and morning pages (The Artist's Way). Writing. Lots. And reading too.

I couldn't be more enthusiastic as I prepare for this wonderful 45 minute adventure next month!

It's a good thing she didn't mention a course on omelets! But that, my dear, is another story all together.

Take heart. Romans 7 is always followed by Romans 8.

Our Teaching Pastor, Mike Suh, connected us brilliantly this week to what goes on with us in our life with the struggle toward transformation. He started right off with that truth about comparison. (I don't commit felonies, or live with obvious sin. I'm probably ok.) But we become lulled into some sense of hiding the real truth about our gossipy nature, our addictions, our, well, sin. And that's where the enemy pulls us off into the corner to talk about his truth. It's deadly. Ugly. Unjust. He focuses us on comparing our behavior in his sphere of influence, the world. Our eyes are on us, rather than God and we're sunk. Just like it was with the law.

What do you think about Eugene Peterson's brilliant interpretation to the "law code." We measure ourselves and we don't measure well. So we hide from God. Rather than allowing Him to create the connection. The beauty. The truth. 

I look for the THEREFORE of Romans 8. But first - the predicament:

Torn Between One Way and Another

7 1-3 You shouldn’t have any trouble understanding this, friends, for you know all the ins and outs of the law—how it works and how its power touches only the living. For instance, a wife is legally tied to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, she’s free. If she lives with another man while her husband is living, she’s obviously an adulteress. But if he dies, she is quite free to marry another man in good conscience, with no one’s disapproval.

4-6 So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to “marry” a resurrection life and bear “offspring” of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we’re no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we’re free to live a new life in the freedom of God.

7 But I can hear you say, “If the law code was as bad as all that, it’s no better than sin itself.” That’s certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, “You shall not covet,” I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.

8-12 Don’t you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of “forbidden fruit” out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God’s good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel.

13 I can already hear your next question: “Does that mean I can’t even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?” No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God’s good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own.

14-16 I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.

17-20 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’treally do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

21-23 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

24 I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

The end of the road.

I know, I've spent a lot of words on the Sweet Peas and all the learning. But here we are, the last bunch, the end of the road. We're done. These are a little birthday greeting for my friend Mary Ellen. These darlings have taught me a lot. Provision, Grace, Sharing, Enough. 

But summer comes and overpowers these cool, dampness seekers and they go from beauty to a bit weather beaten pretty quickly.

When I pulled them out, I found my hidden rose had gone dormant. So, there will be new offerings to come. And everything around them will get sun and air. It's time for that kitchen gardening I so love.

Tata until fall to my Sweet friends. I've enjoyed the learning and growing. (See what I did there?)

Enough:: enough, already.

Seriously. I've learned so much about myself and this word enough.

I've found I worry. Too often. About not having enough.

I have enough.

The perfect example is these beautiful Sweet Peas. From the first bloom, at the end of February, I worried somehow that the five seedlings and all the seeds tucked in the ground in November a year ago wouldn't produce many bouquets.

Wrong.

My friend Bob at the gardening store reminds me each time I see him to get the blooms off the plant within 2 days. I do and all the time I'm concerned the plants just won't produce more. This idea holds firm in the face of a 6-ft bush of Sweet Pea vines in my back yard, along with the small meandering vines from those tucked seeds, climbing up my ficus wall, a rose here or a trumpet vine there. I even stuck a few seedlings into the ground out front late in the season. Each time one blooms I'm conflicted. Cut it? Save it? And then my friend asked for a big bouquet and I was so glad to gather, but all the while I was panicking.

I need to let go. This is truly an important confrontation with truth, grace and my whacked thinking. Breathe. Think. Cut.

To prove how nutty I am with all this, let me say, I've cut a big bunch twice for Mary, for Bob, for Mrs. A, for the receptionist at the orthodontist (1 Gigantic bunch, 1 smaller), for Mary Ellen, for Alice, for Di, for Mom, for Margaret, and well more than 20 for the house. I didn't grow up in the depression. I don't need to horde. But here I am.

I went out this morning to cut a few from the front. They are astonishing. Deep, deep almost black purple, a coral with blue streaks and a blue/lavender. Again, like the pansy, as long as the weather remains invitingly cool and dampish, they'll bloom if you cut them. And cut I did. Trembling.

Is it change? Fear of loss? Holy cow, what ever it is, meet the word enough. There are, we have had, enough bouquets. Enough. Beautiful, wonderful, comfortable enough.