I had a choir performance last week. True to form, I had no idea where it was.
Ok, I had SOME idea. It was taking place in Florence, Nebraska as part of Historic Florence Days. I drive through Florence every day on my way to work. The place is all on one street, maybe 4 or 5 blocks long, with a big park right off the way. We'd probably be performing in that park, I thought, but just in case we weren't I had my blackberry with me so I could pull up the directions in the email our choir director had sent. I always have a contingency plan.
I arrived at the park with plenty of time left. There was already someone in the park playing instruments and they didn't look like they were leaving any time soon.
"Maybe if I park here and watch, I'll see some of the other members pull up". I parked and waited. No one came. I started to worry. Time to pull out the directions. (Like a guy I always ask for directions only as a last resort, but unlike a guy I don't wait until the situation is hopeless.)
I found the email in my blackberry but when I scrolled down for the directions they were in an attachment instead of in the body of the email where I could have easily read them. "No problem" I thought, "I'll just open the attachments". But the attachments wouldn't open. I looked at the clock and my extra time was starting to melt away. What to do? I called the director but he didn't answer. I considered driving in to the office, logging in, and checking the email and I even started driving in that direction but quickly realized I'd never make it in time.
I parked my car and walked to a sidewalk book vendor who was part of the festivities. Before I could even ask I heard her say to one of her customers, "I'm getting ready to go hear the singers." Great!
"Where are the singers going to be?" I asked.
"Over at the old depot" she said.
"Where's that?" I asked. (You mean there's more to this place than only one street?!!)
Another lady, a customer, started explaining the directions to me, but my mind was racing too much to absorb what she was saying.
"Look" I said, "I'm one of the singers and I need to get there quickly."
"Oh, you're in luck" said the owner. "Here comes the trolley. He'll take you."
Great!
I stood at the curb and waited for the trolley. I hadn't paid a lot of attention to the directions but I had listened enough to vaguely realize he was pointed in the opposite direction of the depot.
"No problem" I thought "I've got plenty of time for him to circle the block and take me back. How big could Florence be?"
I got on to the trolley and explained my situation to the driver. He wasn't real clear but he did say he could take me and I made it very clear that I only had like 20 minutes. You can drive clear across the entire city of Omaha in 20 minutes.
I took a seat, smiling and saying hello to the other passengers, happy people with children and ice cream cones. The driver continued on his tour and it didn't take me long to realize that, despite my obviously desparate plea to go straight back to the depot, he was going to do his ENTIRE tour.
We went to a church, past a school where we stopped for someone to get off and buy fresh baked goods, and then turned down a dirt road. Oh dear.
I cautiously made my way up to the front of the trolley, not easy to do when it was wobbling around on the dirt road and I was still wearing the skirt and high heeled sandals I had worn for church that morning. "Sir", I said, "I really do need to get to the depot immediately." He said nothing." On my way forward I noticed he had a tip basket. I fished throuh my wallet. I had about 4 singles, a ten and some twenties. I only had a few minutes left. "Please, sir, if you could get me to the depot, I'm in a huge hurry and I'd really appreciate it." I dropped the ten in his basket to show him just how much.
The trolley lurched forward as he floored it. As we flew through the streets of Historic Florence I was pretty sure we were making history right then because it's safe to say that trolley has never gone that fast before or since. Oh, and he got me there on time. I even had time to warm up.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Spring Fever
I watched two robins playing in my backyard today. They were flitting about and I don't know how I knew, but I could tell something romantic was going on. "Oh how cute" I thought, thinking it looked like they were trying to mate.
Wait **nose wrinkling** how Do birds mate?
Anyway, one of them started making a lot of noise that vaguely resembled "get off of me"! The other one persisted and kept chasing about until they finally ended up in a patch where a lot of other robins seemed to be hanging out playing and relaxing. The fighting couple annoyed the happy robins and they all started to take off. "Hmm....Just like humans", I thought.
One robin continued to chase the other around the yard, not bothered by the fact that they'd annoyed all of their friends. "Hmm....must be the boy trying to pounce on the girl" I thought. Then I took a closer look. The smaller female was actually the one doing the chasing. It was the big boy who was running away.
"Awwwww....REALLY just like humans", I thought, smiling.
Wait **nose wrinkling** how Do birds mate?
Anyway, one of them started making a lot of noise that vaguely resembled "get off of me"! The other one persisted and kept chasing about until they finally ended up in a patch where a lot of other robins seemed to be hanging out playing and relaxing. The fighting couple annoyed the happy robins and they all started to take off. "Hmm....Just like humans", I thought.
One robin continued to chase the other around the yard, not bothered by the fact that they'd annoyed all of their friends. "Hmm....must be the boy trying to pounce on the girl" I thought. Then I took a closer look. The smaller female was actually the one doing the chasing. It was the big boy who was running away.
"Awwwww....REALLY just like humans", I thought, smiling.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Blessings & Success
When you move to a new city there's no one, even after two years, who really knows who you are. Our lives are a crazy quilt of experiences that have shaped us and if we're lucky there are a few people who've been around long enough, and understand us well enough, that they know the story for every patch. My best friend is one of those persons. Without these people to vouch for our stories and explain our quilts, the rest of the world will just come to its own conclusions and will quite often get it wrong. That is frustrating. That is what I'm feeling right now.
My move to Omaha was the final step in reaching my life's goals. Not because I wanted to live in Omaha, but because moving here allowed me to take the last step in my career; the final step I had dreamt would define my career success. I know that sounds odd, but my dreams never included a specific place, just a description of my job and my lifestyle. And now I'm living it.
You would think that people would be happy for me, especially other Christians. You would think that when I say "look, look what the Lord has done" they would see me and say "Amen. Praise God". But they do not. They say "what makes you think you're so special that God would answer your prayers when he doesn't answer anyone elses?"
It's true, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know if the majority of Christians are this way, but the ones I keep encountering do not believe that God actually answers prayers. And so when I tried to have this conversaton at lunch last Sunday, I think I offended someone at the table. Yesterday the sermon was about, you guessed it, success, and how we don't know how to measure it, and the ways in which we measure it are not God's ways. And the minister, as he spoke, looked pointedly at me, or so it seemed.
I was shocked...disappointed...disillusioned believing (incorrectly) that that he was preaching a sermon about something I had said without ever hearing my side of the story first. A sermon based on heresay. This happened to my best friend years ago when we were in college. I no longer remember what the sermon was about, I only know that my friend was mentioned in a sermon or speech of some kind and she was highly offended, so much so that she stopped going to church there and eventually changed schools. She was only 18 or 19 years old and she handled it remarkably well for a young girl her age.
If this man knew me or anything about me he would be circulating petitions to make me the poster child for success. I was so shocked that I could imagine having a crisis of faith if I had been younger. I could imagine doubting the existence of God. But thankfully I am 38, not 18, and I felt, not a crisis of faith, but shaken in my belief in worship assemblies and ministers who think they know it all; men who forget to follow the caution they preach cause a world of trouble. Just look at Jeremiah Wright.
I prayed about this as I drove to work today, my best time for prayer. If I had been saying what he thought I was saying, then yes, that would be cause for alarm. People should not think they are better than other people, or that they are blessed because of their actions or because "God loves them more".
"We don't know", said the minister, "if something is a blessing or if we are a success until we look back."
I agree, and I do look back. I keep journals and I can go back almost 15 years and read my own words of prayer. I can (literally) look at my life and all around me and I can see the answers. I am sorry if everyone hasn't done this. But my telling of it and my rejoicing in it does not make me prideful. Has every prayer been answered? Of course not. But every answer is a blessing.
New note: Added June 4, 2008:
Of course I couldn't let things hang like that and let this fester, so I called my minister and told him how disturbed I was about his sermon, and asked him if there had been any discussion about the lunch conversation. I was relieved when he said no. I told him about my 15 years of journalling and he was really affirming. He said "Good for You" and told me that is exactly what he was trying to get people to do with his sermon. (He really IS a good minister & I felt guilty, but relieved and forgiven...whew)
Told ya the universe does that. Of course it could have been just that once the topic came up, people continued to talk about it all week until it finally worked it's way to the minister and he thought "ah hah, that would be a good topic for a sermon!" But I think if that had happened he would have told me.
Nahh....
New note added:
Looking back I think the reason I experienced this is so I could understand and relate to the traumatic experience of my friend. Thanks Universe.
My move to Omaha was the final step in reaching my life's goals. Not because I wanted to live in Omaha, but because moving here allowed me to take the last step in my career; the final step I had dreamt would define my career success. I know that sounds odd, but my dreams never included a specific place, just a description of my job and my lifestyle. And now I'm living it.
You would think that people would be happy for me, especially other Christians. You would think that when I say "look, look what the Lord has done" they would see me and say "Amen. Praise God". But they do not. They say "what makes you think you're so special that God would answer your prayers when he doesn't answer anyone elses?"
It's true, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know if the majority of Christians are this way, but the ones I keep encountering do not believe that God actually answers prayers. And so when I tried to have this conversaton at lunch last Sunday, I think I offended someone at the table. Yesterday the sermon was about, you guessed it, success, and how we don't know how to measure it, and the ways in which we measure it are not God's ways. And the minister, as he spoke, looked pointedly at me, or so it seemed.
I was shocked...disappointed...disillusioned believing (incorrectly) that that he was preaching a sermon about something I had said without ever hearing my side of the story first. A sermon based on heresay. This happened to my best friend years ago when we were in college. I no longer remember what the sermon was about, I only know that my friend was mentioned in a sermon or speech of some kind and she was highly offended, so much so that she stopped going to church there and eventually changed schools. She was only 18 or 19 years old and she handled it remarkably well for a young girl her age.
If this man knew me or anything about me he would be circulating petitions to make me the poster child for success. I was so shocked that I could imagine having a crisis of faith if I had been younger. I could imagine doubting the existence of God. But thankfully I am 38, not 18, and I felt, not a crisis of faith, but shaken in my belief in worship assemblies and ministers who think they know it all; men who forget to follow the caution they preach cause a world of trouble. Just look at Jeremiah Wright.
I prayed about this as I drove to work today, my best time for prayer. If I had been saying what he thought I was saying, then yes, that would be cause for alarm. People should not think they are better than other people, or that they are blessed because of their actions or because "God loves them more".
"We don't know", said the minister, "if something is a blessing or if we are a success until we look back."
I agree, and I do look back. I keep journals and I can go back almost 15 years and read my own words of prayer. I can (literally) look at my life and all around me and I can see the answers. I am sorry if everyone hasn't done this. But my telling of it and my rejoicing in it does not make me prideful. Has every prayer been answered? Of course not. But every answer is a blessing.
New note: Added June 4, 2008:
Of course I couldn't let things hang like that and let this fester, so I called my minister and told him how disturbed I was about his sermon, and asked him if there had been any discussion about the lunch conversation. I was relieved when he said no. I told him about my 15 years of journalling and he was really affirming. He said "Good for You" and told me that is exactly what he was trying to get people to do with his sermon. (He really IS a good minister & I felt guilty, but relieved and forgiven...whew)
Told ya the universe does that. Of course it could have been just that once the topic came up, people continued to talk about it all week until it finally worked it's way to the minister and he thought "ah hah, that would be a good topic for a sermon!" But I think if that had happened he would have told me.
Nahh....
New note added:
Looking back I think the reason I experienced this is so I could understand and relate to the traumatic experience of my friend. Thanks Universe.
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