Krystal's Blog

India calling...

2005-03-26T23:54:00.000-08:00

Tonight.
Aradhna.
Amazing Indian music, sitar.
Transported to another place.
I wanted so badly to slip away, to stow away to another world, to quietly disappear and meld anonymously into this other culture.
To become someone nameless and sit among the people listening, learning, peacefully mingling like a shadow... out of time, out of the spot light, out of the noise. No longer myself, no need to be someone.......
just a part of the anonymous throng, inconsequential yet part of the working whole.
Learning to truly love, not for myself, or my own sense of greatness... but for the other.
People. The masses. The individual. Beautiful people.

Taking Joy in a Little Light

2005-01-08T10:21:00.000-08:00

This is the daily meditation from the Henry Nouwen Society for today:

Enough Light for the Next Step

Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, "How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?" There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let's rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.

Please...for the dreamer, imaginaire, and beautiful person in you dying to get out...

2004-12-19T22:29:00.001-08:00

go see "Finding Neverland."

Meditation on trust...

2004-12-06T22:24:00.000-08:00

Here is today's meditation from the Henri Nouwen Society:

God's Timeless Time

There is no "after" after death. Words like after and before belong to our mortal life, our life in time and space. Death frees us from the boundaries of chronology and brings us into God's "time," which is timeless. Speculations about the afterlife, therefore, are little more than just that: speculations. Beyond death there is no "first" and "later," no "here" and "there," no "past," "present," or "future." God is all in all. The end of time, the resurrection of the body, and the glorious coming again of Jesus are no longer separated by time for those who are no longer in time.

For us who still live in time, it is important not to act as if the new life in Christ is something we can comprehend or explain. God's heart and mind are greater than ours. All that is asked of us is trust.

God help me to trust you.
To let go of worry, and place all that I am, have, love into your hands every day.

What a waste.

2004-11-27T02:21:00.000-08:00

Addiction. I hate it.
It kills families. It ruins marriages.
It wastes opportunities.
It destroys hope.
It sidetracks life.

Assault

2004-11-20T01:09:00.000-08:00

I don't think I can stand it. One more person making judgments, assumptions, decisions about character without even bothering to stop and ask for clarification.

I'm on the edge. Lazy acres sounds so attractive right now. What is up. I feel like we are on some sort of black list. For what reason... I don't have a clue.

Why is the artist never appreciated during their lifetime? Is it because we fight? Inside, we keep fighting for some ideal? We can't be bought. Even though at points we're just about willing to. We'd rather live destitute or insane than live a lie. But insanity is pushing a little too hard on the door these days, and I'm not sure I can hold on.

Is the whole world going crazy?

3 days... three days alone in a dark and silent room. Followed by three days alone in a room with light, then three days with nothing but the sound of birds. Then perhaps three days with an added breeze on my face..... hmmm not sure, actually right now the thought of that feels like pain, actually that breeze is just pushing it a little to much right now...that edge a little too near.

Help God, your servant needs you.

That Magic Moment...

2004-10-21T23:35:00.000-07:00

when the planets seem to align, and the past connects with the present, happened to me tonight.

My two year old son wanted to listen to "daddy", so we were dancing around the living room to a tape full of songs my husband has recorded. As my son spun around the room singing "she's looking for the healing...", he had no idea he was singing a song written about his mommy probably 7 years ago. All I could do was take in the moment with all my senses, gazing at this beautiful little bundle of joy that was my healing at that very moment as I twirled around after him.

Then the next song came on..."well there's a grace to that perfection, takes a child's eyes to see, some kind of divine intervention, another hand just turns the key, and in that one sweet second, you will finally be free..."

What a blast! We played "air drums" on the couch for the next hour. Complete with frantic head shaking and locks flying, he slowly lets out, "this is greeaaaat!"

I had to agree.

How does a nervous perfectionist not "sweat it"?

2004-10-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

One second at a time.

Is this Heaven?

2004-10-12T23:05:00.000-07:00

When the kids are down for the afternoon nap...Break a few small squares of organic dark chocolate onto half of a sweet crepe you bought downtown at Square a couple of days ago, dab generously with butter, thinly slice 4 organic strawberries and 1/3 of an organic red banana on top, roll and nuke for 30 seconds, then sit outside, face full to the sun on a crisp fall day, breath in the fresh air, listen to the leaves rustling around you as the breeze blows past and savor every bite (make sure to lick the plate)...
you just might hear God.

The Big Boot

2004-10-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

(1:54am)

My son woke up coughing tonight...
now I can't sleep.

I still feel the hollow imprint of a big heavy boot in the pit of my stomach...

a little of my courage permanently robbed...
I wonder if it will ever go away.

Yick...

Over 30 and need a good cry?

2004-10-03T22:53:00.000-07:00

See "The Notebook"

Encouragement

2004-10-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

Help them understand what to do, not what not to do.

This is success.

Amazingly simple... sometimes

2004-10-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

Amazing.
Just 3 weeks ago I said to my husband, "I feel like God is crushing us"...(not even knowing if that would be theologically sound). He agreed.

2 weeks ago we got some amazing encouragement. An Argentinian missionary to India gave us Psalm 118... especially verse 15, "Hear the shouts, hear the triumph songs in the camp of the saved? "He hand of God has turned the tide! The hand of God is raised is raised in victory! The hand of God has turned the tide!" (The Message) Complete with visions given to my husband of a dry, dead, rocky valley turning into a huge butterfly, and green growing flowers turning into beautiful fireworks. Very hopeful for me.

2 weeks later I am saying to God. So what do we do? Jobless, living in our mother's home, a child with severe environmental and food sensitivities, trying to start a business that will take probably a year to materialize.... we have tried every avenue to get out ourselves... what other avenues are there? Have we missed something? Do we move away? Do we try harder? How can we? We're all out. What are we missing? What do we have to do? If we pound the pavement harder... will it make any difference, our feet already feel broken.

Then I saw "My Utmost for His Highest" sitting on the ottoman, thinking maybe I should read today's entry before going to bed.... and this is what it said:

The Assigning of the Call

I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church . . .
—Colossians 1:24

We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, "Here am I! Send me" ( Isaiah 6:8 ).

This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, "If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn’t object!" But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed—you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.

I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.

------------------------

Wow. But what do those last 2 sentences mean, practically? What do we do?

Then Brandon came home from poker at Eric's house and said, "I think I might have a job." (See the full story on Brandon's blog, an amazing "providential coincidence")

Then I read him Oswald's entry above. Wild.
We both then had this small revelation (actually more confirmation for Brandon), that it's not so much finding the right, responsible thing we should do, as much as it is listening to God, reminding ourselves of our dependency on him. Not frantically searching for His direction, but quietly searching for Him, and letting "Him do as he likes."

And...in the meantime, just do what we know needs to be done, like doing the taxes, feeding the baby, making the dinner, mountains of laundry...
Simple.

The Observation of a Child

2004-09-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

I don't now how I'm supposed to start blogging... it's so difficult to hold a complete thought and follow it through when there are little two year old crisises happening every 3-5 minutes.

Wow. I think the word my friend just used was: pivotal
I don't know how I will get all the things swirling around in my head out of my fingers.
Chopping the fingernails is a good aid in the speedy distillation of thoughts, the hack job of a 30 second manicure is testament to my need to get all this stuff out of my head!

Now. Where to begin?
My whole life, my familial perspective, my acquired parenting practice, my learned theology, my political convictions...all upset, over-turned, shaken up and tossed in the air.... and landing gently again in completely unforeseen places...all because of the observation of a child.

Now I see this is going to be impossible to get out. Too much background to give, 36 years of " this is how you should do it", "this is how you should think", "this is what the Bible means", "this is how you should be".
Now experience. Life experience. Nothing like it.
My husband and I have been wondering for a long time... how does one grow up? Maybe the difference is in paying attention, observation, and then learning. Learning what you really believe about life, about God, etc. because of your own life experiences, not because someone else told you "this is the way things are, now live according to that." Maybe I'm not making much sense.

Now that I'm here, I'm not sure I can get this out. I'm a little bit afraid to see it in print. When we started this process of parenting nearly 3 years ago, we were surprised to find ourselves falling back into an authoritative/controlling style of parenting when the going got rough. We would have thought we would have had a tendency to be much more permissive, as we were determined to come at this with respect and honor for the child and treat him with the respect that was due any human being, not just shove him into the roll of "subservient kid".
As we started reading and researching, panicing as all first time parents do(I must imagine) about the huge skill difficency we had for any successful parenting (at least intentionally), nothing really hit home with our core convictions until we came across a book called "Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World", that was on the resource list of a parenting web-site called "Directions" found at parentingpath.com.
We started a foundation level 8 week course last night called "Parenting Skills that Work", even though I've already started putting in practice a lot of the theory in the aforementioned book. An amazing phenomena has taken place in my whole previous belief system.
When I got home last night I realized that I completely disagree with this idea: "those little guys have a will, and they are going to start testing it, that ole sin nature is going to try to take control, and you've gotta show 'em whose boss, nip it in the bud, crush that sucker, or their gonna take over and run the show."

To crush a child's will, to "spare the rod and spoil the child" type of thought (which I have been taught, surrounded by, and thought I believed all my life... until last night, after a small revelation, or maybe large;), is to rob him of his own autonomy, his own sense of power, his own ability to function in a healthy successful way as an adult. (BTW I am now beginning to see that "rod" as guidance, isn't it Dallas who talks about the "rod" in the 23rd Psalm as finding comfort in guidance and direction)

This, in my experience, has only led to power struggles.

It is when I get down on my child's level, inquire as to his own perspective, invite him to join with me in accomplishing something together under his own power... that he is quick to want to please me... to offer his help, and make his contribution. It is in observing this time after time, that I realize, yes he has a will, a beautiful little will. A will to live, a will to do, a will to be... and a will to be helpful, a will to contribute, a will to give, and a will to heal.

We may all be sinful, selfish creatures... but I'm beginning to wonder if that isn't a learned condition, or learned reaction to the imposition of other selfish creatures to conform or be reformed.

Let me tell you, "laying down the law, or it's the wood shed" authoritarianism is an easier way to parent initially. Make the child just fit into your perspective for him, and all will go much more smoothly. Children respond to that, and will fit into that mold. Who wouldn't? The question is, what kind of a child will you end up with? When you take a child's power away from him/her (not his power to control but his power to contribute) what does he have left to work with when he needs that power later on in life, in a democratic, not autocratic society?

I have come to this conclusion on my own. (Yeah! I did it! Am I growing up?) With a little guidance, and a lot of revelation, as well as my own life as evidence to these things. We no longer live in a world/society where our grandparents type of parenting produces healthy, strong and capable children who are able to deal with what we are confronted on a daily basis.

And now, what does this do to my past kindred theology?

Or my political view point? I now see our current president as completely authoritarian. "You will play by my rules, or we just won't play with you."
Ironic, given the US of A is purportedly a democracy.

Crazy, the turns this road of life is taking me on. Kind of queasily enjoyable. Glad I made the decision a long time ago to open my eyes and pay attention.

Here I come...

2004-09-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

Not sure if I'm ready to jump in or just wade, but I think it's time for my drop to fall into the Big Blue Blog ocean. Are you ready for me?
Ok. Now that I'm here, it's time to hit the sack.
Hopefully I'll be back soon.