Brave, Anyway

Tag: christian

  • The Same Coin

    The Same Coin

    Heads or tails?

    So much of what we are reading about and dealing with today are two different perspectives on the same situation. Two different visuals of the same thing. When you pick up a penny and flip it, you may get heads or you may get tails – but you still have the same penny.

    A family all on their phones in a restaurant is a broken unit that doesn’t communicate. A family who’s spent the day visiting grandpa in the hospital appreciates together downtime and a meal.

    People on Medicaid don’t work. People on Medicaid can’t work.

    A woman that marries a man who dies a few weeks later is a tragic figure. A woman who marries a dying man, and in the few remaining weeks of his life while he’s hospitalized and medicated his beneficiaries change, is a woman with a lot of money.

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

    In some cases, there’s a clear right and wrong side. But generally I think both sides of the penny have some level of truth.

    Sometimes we are unaware. Sometimes we choose to be ignorant. Sometimes we just choose wrong.

    A lot more of us have to be willing to look at the other side of the coin with a mindset like what am I missing or what would I think if this was me, or someone in my family? We have to stop being afraid to look at the other side of the coin. We have to stop acting like we lose if we give the other side any attention. We have to have open and honest dialogue about both sides.

    We also have to stop refusing to admit when we are wrong. Sometimes you don’t know until you know – like Medicaid is not mostly utilized by people who don’t want to work but mostly by people who can’t work or who lost their job. Maybe they had a tragic accident or their child is critically ill.

    We can’t rely on politicians to talk about or even look at both sides of the coin. They don’t benefit in that. We, the people, must do it – refusing to believe there are two coins. We must approach issues as they really are: and sometimes that’s two sides of the same coin.

  • Land of Confusion

    Land of Confusion

    My thoughts right now are a little all over the place – kind of like the world we currently live in, I guess.

    What is the appropriate Christian response to all that is happening, and what is the acceptable human response? What would an angry Old Testament God do and what would a forgiving New Testament Jesus do?

    Even the people who (supposedly) read the Bible, pray, and worship on Sundays can’t agree on this.

    Over 70 years ago, Orwell told us Ignorance is strength in the Ministry of Truth…and if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’

    Who and where is the Winston Churchill of our time? Please stand up.

    So many neighbors hung Ukrainian flags a couple years ago. Many of those same folks posted Trump signs in their yard last fall. Are they suddenly convinced that Russia did not invade Ukraine or are they the kind of humans that can easily just abandon oppressed people? Our righteous anger must need a new and exciting target.

    Fox Christianity has taken over the country – a version more about people who are bad or wrong instead of neighbors we need to love. If 90 people are getting aid so they can live and feed children, why are we so focused on the 10 who “gamed the system?” Do not preach to me your stories of the 10 if you cannot tell me even one story of the 90. You are the problem in the Land of Confusion. There’s too many men, too many people Making too many problems
    And there’s not much love to go around.

    Social Security and Medicare decisions should not be made in a room of only wealthy people. The vast majority of people who have paid into those benefits need them for survival, and they need representation in those discussions. It doesn’t matter who is to blame for why we are here right now. To move forward in any way, we must agree that millionaires (and billionaires) cannot possibly understand the impact on those lives while driving around in their Teslas or flying to warm weather for the weekend.

    All Presidents are thoughtful about their first 100 days and the story it will tell the American public. Administrations throw darts hoping maybe 25 percent will stick. While the goal of blitzkrieg is to defeat an enemy before they can mobilize, the risk of blitzkrieg is that the aggressor on the march is exposed and his troops tire quickly. Blitzkrieg worked in Europe, but not against the better prepared culture of the Soviet Union.

    Long Live the King? I hope we’re talking about LeBron James.

    I have to limit social media and news consumption right now. It’s just too much. You need to calm down. You’re being too loud. Please, Taylor Swift. Write a part 2.

    Why are our ugly old Washington guys targeting the countries with the hot leaders? Jealousy is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.

    Photo from NDTV

    We’re two months past Christmas, but I still put Matt Maher’s Let There Be Peace on a lot these days.

    One voice speaks for the voiceless
    Hope for the hopeless, Emmanuel
    One love brings us together
    Now and forever, Emmanuel…Do not be afraid, His love is strong
    Enough to save us
    Nothing stands in the way
    His love is strong enough to lead u    s.

  • Help Me Understand

    Help Me Understand

    I cannot stop thinking about my favorite Christmas present. My girls reached out to a number of special women in my life who all wrote letters to me. Women I am ridiculously immensely proud of, and thankful to have in my life. The messages are so moving I haven’t even been able to read them all yet.

    They are also so impossible I haven’t been able to read them yet. I know I am good at some things, and I am pretty aware of what they are. But at the same time I persistently feel like I’ve not done enough or that I’ve missed something. The curse of perfectionism, I guess. Or maybe it’s first child problems.

    Since I opened the collection, I have prayed about our purposes in each other’s lives and I’ve wondered if I am worthy of their comments. I also asked God to help me see myself as they see me and in doing so, said the words help me understand.

    And then I laughed out loud and I think God must have, too.

    Help me understand is my go-to line when something goes awry.

    More specifically, it’s for when something goes awry and I cannot shout the things in my head like why, why, why would you do that? or seriously, why can’t you get this? It’s my very appropriate way of getting someone to walk me through their thought process while I work hard to fix my face. It’s also for when I call BS at the “news” on screen, when someone’s “logic” is based on feelings, or when someone or something does not behave as expected.

    Help me understand…why I do not understand.

    Maybe the root of what I need help understanding is what I am supposed to be when I’m a grownup. Which is silly because I am 51 years old. I am a grownup. I have a grownup job and grownup responsibilities. But in so many ways I still feel like a kid. And I think I have secretly believed that if I do a good job on the way to being a grownup, then someday I will be able to really make a difference or do something great when I get there – while at the same time perpetually thinking I’ve not been good enough to get to grownup yet.

    But this morning I was reminded of who I am when I read the entry in Max Lucado’s God is With You Every Day and then when an old Francesca Battistelli song came up in iTunes.

    God’s child. Redeemed. Forgiven. Complete. God’s coworker. And His workmanship.

    Spent today in a conversation, in the mirror face to face with, somebody less than perfect, I wouldn’t choose me first…True to who You are, You saw my heart and made something out of nothing.

    The key to believing the words in the letters is remembering who I am and whose I am.

    Help Me Understand…

    Three girls hanging out at home for a week create even more laundry than 3 girls on vacation for a week.

    The Cybertruck is the most hideous vehicle I’ve ever seen and the cheap ones cost at least $100K.

    If I establish the child (teen) settings on a streaming service, the child can’t watch Young Sheldon. If I turn off the settings, the child can watch Bridgerton. Help me understand why there is not a setting somewhere between Trolls and Sex in the City. And why is it that when I turn the child settings back on, Prison Break is now allowed?

    If we’re going to label someone the “Christian values” President, how is it not the one who taught Sunday School and was married to the same woman for over 75 years?

    My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius makes me start laughing way before I see Jeff. Every single time. And I don’t even have a dog.

  • Anticipation

    Anticipation

    December is the month of anticipation. About Christmas and trees and presents. About taking time to recharge. About the birth of Jesus. About the coming new year.

    My anticipation has been different this season. Is that something that changes for all of us as we get older? I’m not *not* looking forward to the holidays, but I also haven’t been eagerly anticipating them. I’ve been doing all the stuff, but just feeling blah about the season I guess.

    I diagnosed myself with election hangover. Until Black Friday to, when I caught the scent of the aftershave my Dad wore. I turned to see an older man. A veteran wearing a hat. My whole body felt weightless for a second and then I got a rush that made me very hot. No more Christmases with my Dad. Ever. And then the words of one of my favorite people came back to me: the second year is harder than the first.

    When I was a teenager my Dad taught me to start each day with prayer and speaking scripture, way before positive affirmations were a thing. One of the things I have said out loud at the beginning of each day for over 30 years is “I expect great things today.” But over time I’ve just recited those words without really thinking about them anymore. Without expecting them to really mean or do anything.

    So I started making a concerted effort to once again believe what I say: I expect great things today. Some days it works and some days I cannot find the presents I hid from the girls (in anticipation I would remember where I put them). The shift it brings is not that every one of my days is rosy, but that when I have a moment where I feel loss it pretty quickly turns to a picture I have in my head of my Dad laughing.

    Laughing with delight. At the girls and their shenanigans. At what he would call my payback. At the number of shoes three girls own. At my annual destruction of a pair of overpriced sunglasses.

    Over the weekend I went to see my Dad’s grave. I don’t normally do that because he asked us not to, but I really wanted to see the cemetery with the Christmas wreaths and I really wanted to see if it would bring some sort of peace.

    Alfred G. Horton Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery

    As I prayed the Lord’s Prayer next to a stranger, also visiting a loved one and whose church service broadcast was coming through on her phone, I remembered all the times my Dad tucked us in and we said that prayer together. And the truth of Clare Harner’s words washed over me: he did not die. He still lives. In this world through all of the good things he planted in us, and in the next where there is no night.

    This week has been filled with anticipation and Christmas spirit. Cards, decorations, goodies and stockings, including for the kitten I told Ella not to get but that she got anyway and who now sleeps on my desk when I work.

    I expect good things…and that Ella’s kitten is now going to live in my house forever.

    Skylar Fierce
  • Summer Summer Summer Time

    Summer Summer Summer Time

    I needed a little summer. Sleeping in later because no one has to be at school. Noses with freckles. BLTs with fresh tomatoes and dripping Miracle Whip.

    Except I hate the hot. I love all places with AC and fans and iced green tea. Middle aged women need the chill of fall evenings 24/7, every day of the year.

    Henry was so happy to have Ella home. While he loves anyone and everyone who will feed him, Ella is his favorite person. Also, a 19 pound cat is not an overweight cat – it’s a cat living his best life.

    Henry Fonda loves Ella Hope

    I loved the Olympics. The stories of resilience and sacrifice. I’m a softie old Mom now so I wanted every kid from every country to win. I cheered loudly at the TV when they did. I also shed a few tears when they didn’t. Nothing on The Hallmark Channel makes me cry. Everything about the Olympics makes me cry.

    The only thing funnier than Snoop Dog commentary at the Olympics is Snoop narrating Planet Earth videos.

    Audrey’s summer look was very similar to her winter look: side eye with a Starbucks pink drink in her hand. I threw out my strict rule about bikinis at 13 because I love watching her walk with confidence into the water park, completely uncaring of the scar on her abdomen.

    Pink Pink Pink Everything

    I think I finished filling an old but refinished toolbox for my family room – a box of tools that have helped me adapt, gave me guidance, or enabled me to fix things over the years. It has pieces from family near and far, from earth to heaven, that will always guide me with the hard work.

    The teddy bear has my Dad’s voice in it saying God Bless You while the locket was worn by my Mama when my Papa was fighting somewhere in Europe during WWII.

    It’s been over a year since the girls lost their Dad. They’d hoped to get the Dad gifts they’d given him over the years, maybe the disc golf disks they dyed with him, a couple of sweatshirts. Nope. Apparently some kinds of grief are so intense that it leads to redecorating instead of getting children a shirt that smells like their Dad.

    I stopped watching news. I still read news every day from a variety of sources to make sure there’s balance, but I will no longer click on stories about candidates for any office. This election is basically a repeat of the last one, and I’m not sure why we’re all behaving as if people are going to make different choices. Not filling my brain with “news” has done wonders for my hope and faith in humanity.

    VCU’s School of Nursing had 140 slots this year, and Ella was offered one. Watching your child find the thing that makes them happy, work toward that goal, and then achieve a huge step toward that goal is a whole new level of joy. At the same time, her anatomy final taught me never to seek her advice about any shoulder injuries.

    Ella got into the School of Nursing!

    This summer we saw anxiety then healing. Sadness then happiness. Chaos then rest. Faith then miracles. I shed no tears when I left Ella at VCU yesterday. In fact, my smile was so big. I walked away thanking God for who she’s becoming and for all of our progress and blessings. We all needed the healing of this summer and now we are stepping into the glory He promised.