same/same,

I like that you phrase love as lack of control. It  makes me look at it over and over again. Trying to remember my own words as it were. I think back to this conclusion and I think of my dog Bodo. Ever loving with those sad soul-filled eyes. Glorious.

There was a moment of sitting with him on the bench where I understood the root of  my anger- and it wasn't love. It was control. I wanted things my way, the exact way, the right way. Not that my anger was all wrongly ordered- i can and was rightfully (righteously) angry about a lot of things. But with him- to expect certain things of this willful creature just wasn't realistic, and i was setting us up for failure. And then later with a particular friend I was constantly counseling at the time the absolute frustrated rage i would get in when they wouldn't take my advice. And it wasn't that I was wrong. But it didn't matter. Right or Wrong. It didn't make them see or hear. And that's when I shifted again to the concept of the heart- and how God is the one who has to bring the change. None of us on are own can. It's tyrannizing. Good habits help I'm sure. Relinquishing control and perfection bit by bit- knowing when to fight for it or let the hems be crooked on the curtains and knowing i can as soome 12steps must say I can only change what i can change, and the rest is in God's hands. Perfection is a sonofabitch though- that goes for how we want the world to be, we say it's for it to be better- but "better" in what sense? and for whom?  Obviously it doesn't negate action but it humbles it. I think puts it in its proper- this is your plot of land- this is your actual neighbor- sort of space.

You need to listen to the Keller sermon- because he talks about Anger as an aspect of Love- not the antithesis of it. But that it points to what we love. And that because of sin our love and thus our anger is sometimes disordered. As in not in the right place. It's good fodder for thoughtstuff. I found the concept to be the next fun avenue to venture down about anger- but yes- love is surrender. it's that heady dying to yourself- i will not hold onto this- it isn't mine. Hummm. Good stuff.

anyway -

Orange is the new - no. Is it a positive show? What's the sitch on it- i mean jail right? obviously? And then what?

Fake funerals = awesome.
Tomato blight = no bueno. It reminds me of the poor pumpkin harvests we've had the last 5+ years.

Pro-run - yea zacposen!

and - mental vacuum.

at church is just constant family politic negotiating- oh and the amazing coffee which tastes like butterscotch. so i had my fill of that until my stomach was eating itself. and as everyone - all those extroverted greeters were like- how are you? i replied with "driving rain"... and then said "well i do have an umbrella. so it's not all bad." and i managed to floor him/the greeter/ as he actually said, thank you for that thoughtful response, and then spoke in my language to say that he hoped that it would clear later in the day and that the sun would come out. i found articulating my day with various weather conditions to be the best so far for me in fighting my i will not lie or non-respond.

oh and mom is all bit by bit moving out- one sheet bundle of stuff at a time. as she has things to hang in her closet now. nice. like rods and a few shelves? well we have to start somewhere.

things to look forward to = finished painting, 2 finished necklaces, possibly batting cages. hanging curtains, various things in rooms... these are actually things to do but we'll see about momentum.

off to kill evil,
xo m.





 

odd-ends

So it's spring break week for the children. Nothing like spring break to make you want a break? Holy shiz. I mean I'm hormonal, so life perspective is inherently skewed. But ho.ly.shiz.

Rather than one long blog-story, my recent life exists on bits of scrap paper ~

We tilled the garden-earth. Add moss and manure and it's already looking better than Year 1. Planted lettuce and peas and soon eggplant and tomatoes, courtesy of mom. Go garden go! That's my favorite day of the whole year possibly, fraught with sunshine and hope and possibility.

Directly before said gardening, the following occurred in the span of maybe 30 minutes: a tick crawled up my leg. a wasp dive-bombed my head. a black widow spider lurked in the soil. An omen of anything? Maybe the actual tick bite discovered later, which STILL ITCHES and I assume will continue to do so for three months, like they do.

No job for now. Maybe August. I mean it makes sense and I get it, but still feel whiny and tragic about the cold hard facts. Freelance filler in the meantime is just so unreliable. Friggin' ugh it stresses me out.

The Sophie has tripled in size during her 7 weeks here, weighing in at 21 pounds. Vet visit number three we took in our usual stride. Next month: last shots and spaying. At a reduced cost we hope.

Starship Lo.Co. allows us to do magical things like tote large objects places and so we finally got rid of that crappy front door sitting in our garage for a year and the stupid lawnmower that ran over a culvert last year. I don't know what that thing was thinking when it went all suicide bomber - had nothing whatsoever to do with its driver, I mean it. So anyway, we left this sign taped to its handlebars in case someone wanted to adopt it. And because we just could not help ourselves. 

On ep 2 of Jericho; it's scratching the Netflixitch for the moment. 

My hag-neighbor's husband has gone to the hospital/nursing home again. Which is a good thing as far as caretaking goes, in that she won't have to live that exhausting existence anymore and he'll have the care he needs. But also it means she's more available to suck one into a conversation, and I hate talking to her. Because as regularly mentioned and oft-noted, she is a hag. So I'm totally happy for her! but she still sucks. 

We're on a SuperMario kick here, in which mommy conquers new worlds and N.Lo thinks I'm wicked awesome. And he has that video game brain that daydreams and devises new plans. But hell if I can't conquer the volcanic hellfire that is World 8! I secretly want to play without an audience sometimes just to make some strides. 

I love church as usual but am currently maxed with it - in accordance with hormonalness - blah. Stupid leadership and bible study - don't. wanna - any of it. But I don't know. Potluck et al tonight could be a welcome distraction from springbreaking? If the brownie fairy would come and make some for me or whatever. 

Onward to another day with library, futile-freelance, puppy-play and not-killing the children!

xoxox

pen 

Dear Penelope,

Day 34 since I've left the island.

I happen to be completely irritable.

I'm in a guesthouse on the edge of the center of town, covered in foliage, (flowering vines, plumerias whose whole flowers drop with a spin and a quiet thwat against the pavement, with picturesque statues and as LP said, replete with charm. I would disavow them completely for the shoddily slow internet but it's been cutting out all over town, as I duck in to escape the heat and have another smoothie or another iced coffee or another something, and besides as I said- charm, the quiet, the feeling of living on the edge of something and not just being yet another cog in a hole. I'm blowing my budget in frivolous hydration, however, and collecting internet passwords, maybe more so then my entire time on jeju. And I haven't seen a whole hell of a lot but walking by some wats, a pillar and their version of the arc' d triumph. Apparently the US sent the cement for a highway and the laotions decided to build a hulking mass of a temple slash gateway. Well why not? Oh and I'm drooling over silk. There's nothing to be done about that though. Also lots of cars for a city of 700,000. Small but not overcrowded. Relatively clean and unassuming as a town. Not particularly inspiring, but a good change of pace from the relentless frenetic energy of Saigon. So that a mere 6 blocks doesn't exhaust me-- And walking in the street not nearly as perilous, though here i'm not sure the motorbikes are as adept at weaving around pedestrians- and they never imploy the horn really.

The moon is waning but bright, the night warm. The fan rotates sending my diy mosquito net billowing up around me in fits. The ceilings are high and the walls white with cobwebs, some decay, and a few telltale footprints of peoples impassioned thwacks against the antagonist mosquitos. I woke up feeling positive, and then I had an email that sort of obliterated my head a bit and reminded me of sex-trafficking in these particular countries and just the predatory nature of the dark, the power of desire, which had me pondering all day- and the missionaries aren't getting back to me. It made for a hell of day of feeling like I had to get out of here. But as it is, tomorrow i'm sure i'll find clarity in the email, and just now I see the missionary will met me tomorrow and i'll get to go prayer walking. It's the problem with not having my course set. I'm gasping a bit and floundering. oh and there was another thing- our church is officially homeless come July. And I got another email this morning saying that due to another citation on the lot all the plants need to be removed and what does it matter, the saving of them since the whole place is up for grabs- so I got a fwd, and a tag about saving and dispersing the plants. So there it is- all my work- obliterated. Transient? transcendental? Fleeting, as a summer breeze, a dying bloom. I suppose I was right in the end not to really put my blood into the earth but still. Who wants to be right about things like that.

And as she says "Is that a tear?" Poirot: "No, It is the breeze."

dearest oldsame,

Laos! The last part of your journey has arrived. Or you have arrived to it. I cannot be-lieve your long-loved knife was taken, and how vexing that its fate was due to an oh-so-simple lapse in human mindfulness, a mere glitch in the everything-is-in-its-proper-place-for-my-next-phase-of-travel rundown. Ach. Eff. It's so. unfair!

The LentenFestival-retreat-type weekend was delightful in the end. A lot of leadup, and some trepidation over it being all-too-much and worrying over the success of things like the Easter Garden. But the garden was successful, as was the decoupage, and both were displayed during Sunday service and officially dedicated in prayer. I mean. Thankfully I wasn't asked to stand or anything, but it was both mortifying and beautiful at the same time. The garden came out so. good. And not just aesthetically, but everyone old and young alike seemed to love it. It lives on in the Fellowship Hall, where I hope it will receive enough light and whateverelse it needs to stay alive or even thrive. Hopefully not die. We'll see.

All the rest - bells was a success. Our variety show portion I mean. I think people got it. And the rest of the show was a delightful blend of young and old, talent and silliness, magic shows and a keyboard performance and the tango. And then a synchronized swimming skit by a group of the older men that was totally posted on youtube, so I'm sending you a link. Saturday after gardening and birdhousing and musicalinstrument-making, I went around the hobby showcase to see the things people delve into in their ordinary lives - again, how delightful. Coins and photos and felting (like actual spinning of the material) and robots and art. And I briefly learned to knit. I think I'm officially sucked into the knitting group on occasional Thursdays, though it's doubtful how long my schedule will abide. But the older ladies in that group were just so. pleased. that I might be interested, how can I say no now. Hmm.

I miss you and hope you come to visit soon, even if it's not in March. But I hope it's in March - is that even a possibility still? I haven't tallied all the places you've been monetarily thwarted and spent to see if you can come here first before Cali, even though probably you are completely yearning to be back in your true homeland, not just stateside, and I completely understand that. If I won the scratch-off lottery and were able to buy a plane ticket, I'd visit you tomorrow. And take puppy with me.

The caterpillars, which I have yet to blog about but I'll fill in the gaps shortly I promise, lie dormant in full chrysalide mode on the dining room table. Today is rain and cold and some homemade soup I think. March holds: more jobhunting, cabincamping, consignmentsale-ing, 35thbirthday!-ing, fairtradesale-organizing, oh and Easter. And planting! Right? Some flowers and some lettuce at least.
love to you in laos-land,
penelaotang.

#28 (recap)

What do you think about what bruckner is saying? I mean, what he does mistake is love and the heart. Sure sure maybe a careless mistake- but I don't want my heart trampled on. My love I gave. Love can be trampled. But my heart? No. Even in that there is something ventured- to love, and to love without return. Even in chosing not to, is not inaction. It's not cowardice. It's wisdom. I don't know. He's no one i'm headover with. Remember the volleyball player? Sigh.

Anyway so the SLEEPOVER,
(sidenote the owner isn't here but some new girl. and the drinks aren't done and she's on the phone with someone. i'm concerned for the actual delivery of the coffee into our hands. It's been like 8minutes and the two people before me haven't gotten their coffee either.)

Apparently there was lots of conflict over where to go and who to go with and then there was no room at the inn and then suddenly our chief- the one in charge for the activity as ive encouraged people to elect different leaders per outing- said decisively that we would all be heading over to my house. But some people hadn't read the entire thread, there were side threads, and I myself being consiliatory encouraged them to go to a pension near me if they didn't want to say. So needless to say 3 people brought no bedding whatsoever and the one thinking about everything got yelled at (sjt) by C, and she's the one who brought expensive bulgogi while the others ordered pizza which delayed them even further. Of course and the beauty about the roaming church as ive come to call them is that they all let go of their issues for the most part though i sensed the undercurrent, (ive gotten my coffee, thankfully), and we were able to do a smattering of singing, meditating, and facial masks- the boys were good sports. I gave C a manicure. We gave R,H, and C mud facials. And I got them all to bed too late and the wind was howling and who got sleep? Not me. Not everyone really- and we were all too polite to wake each other up on 4 hours of sleep or whatever it was we got. It took me 2 days to recover.

Though sara takes the cake for ridiculousness having left us a note that she was going out in 30degree weather. She came back 2 hours later saying, i wanted to see how many coffee places i could find until you woke up (in a smalltown by the way)- i literally said, that's ridiculous. We were all up. And I would've stopped you but I didn't know you were actually going to leave the house. As Harris and I were texting, and giggling, and poor Yeasl thought i was meditating so it was all quiet time until 9am when the loudspeaker across the street went off telling us to vote and then near to 10 we finally got breakfast started. It was a good bounty anyway. And a few of us after went on a hike, where we made a snowman who couldn't stand up- the snow was too light and fluffy and a couple men walked by and said, you should tell him to wake up. It was hilarious at the time. Then mandatory footbath and coffee. (Also some awesome buddhist monks just sat down next to me. Love.) Then back to my house where we watched Miracle on 34th street and ate more food.

Then it was back to work for two days. Total blur. Then saturday. Where it was weird trying to meet up with kris and vivian and where we got no hiking in whatever but an hour- irritating. They have this way of just not saying what they're doing if it doesn't include you which makes you feel they're deliberately trying to exclude you. I actually got pretty upset and was like why don't you go without me until kris called me and was like, no come on get on the bus. And i was like UGH. Anyway, then a spending spree at innisfree. Toner. Cream. Lotion. Oil. This will be my new post korea beauty regimine- to recover? destress? ;) luxuriate... meeting with yeasl and meaghan for pizza. and then coffee and prayer. I'm EXHAUSTED.

And while C is a constant and annoying source of conversation so is my former flatmate and the fact that she got 2nd degree burns on her foot - as i've been pleased with myself to say that while the island is trying to kill her the people are trying their best to put her back together again), and who's leaving the island and when and what are we going to do next before we all go and what vacations people are going to take and whatever else.

Then SUNDAY. . . there was church and lunch, and coffee and then a POTLUCK. Good LORD.

We got driven out to the middle of nowhere where the wordoflifebiblecollege people are- they're the ones who run the foreign service at church... we ate too much food, and i just sort of laid there and didn't have much to say since we were all on the floor in a bigroom- it was heated, and it was snowing outside... and then it was OVER. and we got driven back. and then i had to work the next day.
TBC.
m-

Dear Bruckner,

Journeys also make for fine reading.
What sort of journey'ed tale did you have in mind? Mine is boring or if not quite boring mostly of the mind. For if truly we told the tale in concrete terms I've been sitting at this same desk for nigh on 2 years or more, with some jolts that may make it onto the scheme of life but otherwise my ass is sore as my bank account poor. The rest of the tale will not be so jaunty. It's like in that episode of 'Spaced' where daisy leaves this heartfelt note and the guys both go "skip to the ennnd". Just tonight when i was complaining and danica had to go make a frittata she said, skip to the end- i realize i struggle with encapsulating. Either I am completely cryptic or completely ridiculously longwinded. and even then i feel i'm missing something.

The journey to which you may be specifically alluding has to do with The Church. As somebody who has lately been studying the redemptive gifts i was identify'ed as RULER. It confirms every bossy impulse I've ever had. More on that later- But it also confirms how wrong this one particular person was in the worst interview I've ever had when she said I was waiting for life to happen to me (rulers totally don't do this. go manifest destiny! i am however waiting for something to rule.) and my essay told her nothing about me... my essay was about institutions and Rulers have serious issues with institutions as their principle is Freedom. We may or may not have a hard time respecting covenants and God-installed leadership. And so when my primary issues were with the Church, School and Family it really should've come as no surprise. It should've actually told her a lot. (It's near the anniversary of the Massacre.) I may or may not have to keep forgiving this woman in my mind who said i wasn't ready to help people and that I had to fight harder for freedom (as if its my initiative or strength that does the doing *snarf!)

But I digress. LIkE i said. S.T.T.E.

Anyway Bruckner, here is where the story starts (in vignettes) and it goes long.

1. the 20 something mom is bathing her daughter in the sink. she loves the light from the window. the daughter to this day loves the sink and likes to sit on the lip of it. the deep cool ceramic and the mint green tile. part of the mythology the mom is creating in the daughter is telling her this story: when you were a baby i was giving you a bath and i baptised you in the name of the father, in the name of the son, and in the name of the holy ghost. she motions with her hand the cupped water spilling over the infant head. and in that moment I felt the Lord heard me. i felt the Lord claim you as His. what the mom actually means is that, it was a special moment. but all she actually does-- she touches her heart to indicate the feeling. what the daughter believes, a divine anointing.

2. when the daughter was 3 she did not like DaddyLongLegs or worse yet, JuneBugs, that haunting buzzing thwacking sound. she remembers the fear of those particular bugs in her room. and her mom said, one night you screamed out really loud, I WANT GOD! the mom knows the Lord brought her to provide for the daughter and care for her. for she's the one removed the bug. the daughter sees it as a sign that God has long been instilled upon her heart. that she knew who was the utmost boss of her bossy self. from where does my help come from?!

3. when the daughter was 6 or so she was on the toilet talking to jesus. she was really worried she didn't have jesus' forgiveness. she really really wanted to make sure he loved her and accepted her. this worry was probably not unrelated to the fear she had of never passing each grade she was in. she felt irrespective of grades that something in the inbtw time of summer- something would go horribly wrong. am i saved jesus she'd ask? she'd hope yes yes yes. please FORGIVE me jesus. please love me.

4. along the way she became really upset at the devil. she remembers singing "if the devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack!" she doesn't remember the rest of the song but here is part of it. i think it's appropriate the girl did not remember the joy part.

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.
Where?  Down in my heart!
Where?  Down in my heart!
I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart,
down in my heart
down in my heart to stay.

And if the Devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack.
OUCH
Sit on a tack.
OUCH
Sit on a tack.
And if the Devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack
Sit on a tack today.

at the time the girl was stomping vigorously upon the wood floor. and she probably said a great many other things but she and the devil? they're not friends. later she became convinced that everything that happened to her in high school was his attempt to get her to abandon jesus. she was not incorrect.

5. she also sang this song a lot, and just like the other one there's more to the song but this is all she sang, over and over until the neighbor across the street yelled out the door SHUT UP and slammed it shut. later in life he got hauled away in cuffs as the cops confiscated bags of dope and shotguns. the girl was watching through a slit in the blinds.

I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice
To worship you, Oh my soul rejoice!
Take joy, my King, in what you hear
May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear...

6. the daughter also got used to telling the mother a great many dreams. she's sorry that blurry eyed from sleep in the bathroom and sitting on the toilet with her mom trapped in the shower she did not write a lot of the dreams down. many of them however included casting out demons. they included black amorphous spaces. they included a pressing and a threatening feeling. she remembers being jealous of a girl who heard angel wings once in highschool.

7. she sat through over 600 chapels (every wednesday or so for 13 years).

But i was going to tell you about Church. I read scripture when i was young and i wore robes and lit candles. But wait, the mother recently said,

8. the daughter liked to sit up front. she liked to talk too and her mother drew her pictures and encouraged her to write notes back and forth instead. she doesn't remember much about sunday school. this is before she sat in back with her arms crossed with her friend crystal. she had a car and they often went to get fro-yo or tacobell during the sermon. but the girl does remember the steps down where the robes were kept. it seemed mysterious, musty and holy.

9. and despite not understanding church must = coffee, her pastor cursed her in a couple ways: when she was around 12 or so she really just wanted to be a secretary. the desk, the organization- she really liked it. it hadn't occured to her to be anything more or less at the time. he said, you could be something better than that. and one time after a whipped creampie fight in the new youth room he whispered in her ear, i'm really disappointed in you, and then later after all the youth had gotten into trouble because of her, don't be surprised if they hate you. (the mother heard what the pastor said and was not happy). and then, you can't babysit our kids anymore. and then at a confirmation class the girl was making a cross with a pencil, knife and rubberband- the pastor threw the knife across the room and yelled, how old are you?! FIVE!?

10. the girl stopped going to church.

11. but the girl often sung

Father, I adore You
Lay my life before You
How I love You

Jesus, I adore You
Lay my life before You
How I love You

Spirit I adore You
Lay my life before You
How I love You

but the dad saw the song tucked into the vizer of her car once and the girl was sad it could not ever be for him. (she knew the signlanguage version too. ) he didn't mention it as he slid it back into place and neither did she.

12. meanwhile the girl found her way to a christian acting company on the base of a presybterian church. the route would be obvious but i don't have time to tell you about school too. anyway, she learned to pray in small groups better, and thought look at all these people practicing their faith and they're actors... they were not however good at being friends. (she knows they were family in the middle there but she doesn't have time to talk about the acting company either). but waiting for a sunday matinee show to start one day a woman named elaine saw her and said she should come to church sometime. she held out for the better part of 3 or 4 years but eventually she decided to give it a go. she was mostly bored there too, but she did like the occasional bibleclass and from there she hopped around churches- went kayaking, read the bible all the way through a couple times, found interest in the old stories, went on a mission trip to Alaska (near disasterous as it was profound) moved to chicago, kept going to church, found more profound moments of forgiveness, volunteered to paint fences, tried and failed to find biblestudies that didn't make her cringe, helped a girl to found campus crusade on her grad campus quite accidentally, and after she made the decision at 18 that if this was her faith she needed to speak about it and tell her friends, she found that her friends did not answer back. she entered a desert and by 2003 told God that in no uncertain terms she was done with church if she didn't have a community. waste of time. she should've known that after asking for peace and losing one friend after another, with the idea that God was her anchor and no one else... she found peace but thought she didn't quite know the cost, she should be careful what she prayed for.

13. so that in the midst of reaching out one particular day she met a girl named danica childs who was wearing white with queer black bangs and piercing blue eyes and in charge of a team going to turkey. it was a sort of nonspecific trip the girl needed. no orphans, just a tour. she didn't need to fit into some passionate demonstrance. just go. watch. pray. and there it began.

14. then she met a couple new to the church, and somehow found her way into the best biblestudy she's ever known. it lasted 2 years and ended abyssmially. but in the meantime it was family and it was beautiful. they dined together. played laser tag. the girl read of her own accord one of her first christian non-fic books. she prayed on the sides at the end of church services. she found comfort in the din of the really loud band and the non-traditional service. she didn't have to cringe everyttime she heard liturgy. there wasn't any. she decided in obedience to become a  member of the church after 12 years of on and off attendence.

15. they even had an 80's prom. that was near the beginning of the end. when the church itself began to crumble from the inside. it split. it hemorraged. it was a massacre. but the 80's prom was one of her favorite memories so far in life. she was ok with never going to church again but she was caught up in a conversation and she couldn't leave it midsentence. she renounced her membership however.

16. so that in 2005 she left with her rebel band and started something new. she grows ever tired of hearing the word founder. the word it was all of us, not you, not just the 7 no. and here's where despite the blur in the middle, gets hot and jungle like and a bit intense. but it's late and i've grown tired. but there amidst the survivors were fellow pages whom she liked and actors whom she tolerated, and somewhere in there the word 'calling' came. because the girl suddenly found herself in a position of obedience over mere desire. and that's where the pressure became crushing. and the word community became some sort of harbinger. a struggle. a crying out and a pain.

17. and i could tell you between here and there the word hate was uttered, the absolute horror of entering the building, the anguish of attending, of negotiating people who were once for me became against me, being innundated, working for, friending, and in the midst helping to run the prayer team and at the time not really understanding what it meant or what it could be but gradually catching on until my ego was crushed and my spirit so low i had to leave it and slog through thank god on the mercy of friendships and duty.

18. and then around 2009 as a man named mick prayed long i was healed FROM the church as he said BY the church, as my spiritual guide at the time said, FOR the church.i wish i had the time to describe it. if you've read this far my dear bruckner you tell me and i'll write more- but suffice to say i might have doubled over laughing. i might have stood weeping and gasping at the profound thing that broke over me- the legalism, the hypocrisy, the cynicism, the hurt, and all the lies, authority, feeling small and marginalized and gaping wound at my foot... healed.

19. and today i'm tired. i try to carry things when i should let the Lord. and the girl who saw demons still sees them though by this point she may have seen a giant angel munching on something dark and squirming. i smiled. the girl, she prayer walks. she breathes. the water is deep and clear as it is mysterious as it is sometimes unknowable. but anyway she's been walking this road a long time. and she grows weary. not of the call which is light, assuring and its pursuit is straight. its the people obviously and the long way in which to get the natives to understand the language she's speaking. she pursues it because she must. and does not quite understand how she found her self here. or where she'll go next. this middle part she thinks will work itself out in a few encapsulated moments 20 years from now. and obviously the problem is her. and the problem is the devil too. and things get muddy when you hear too much of everything but the Lord. and its not so much the work i put into Him but the work He puts into me. and the working out of a relationship in which it is essential to trust. He calls me to it this mess the church. of humanity.

20. but to be specific, more on the journey of me and the prayer council at my church later... the rest of this is merely prelude.

so,

i painted my nails red and am contemplating hairstyle and accessory choice for the wedding tomorrow. the first one i've been to since '07? i guess i shy away from people getting married? or ? none of my friends are getting married? i went to too many when i was in my 20's along with all those babyshowers. lets be honest. i mean i'm never going to see a monetary return on all of these. and this one wedding i was in. spent nearly $800+ on ended. sad. and then i think will i ever and ... i responded to her saying, WOH! but never heard back after. nevermind.

i really was going to talk about this awesome glutenfree pizza i got to have courtesy of sarah and her awesomeness, and then i got to have some again, and again and it was still as fantastic as it was before. oh and i suspended my netflix for a month. i'm going to just call it a lent thing. last week up until about wednesday i felt pretty onboard and now i just feel checked out. oh and vandals came and effed with my church garden. beyond uncool. and i'm $70 short on bills for the month. thankGOd for moms. this week begins the official breaking back out of the credit card to pay for things like gas... and the beautiful mercy of my friends who treat me to lunch and dinner and lattes- it rends my heart to be so taxing? or needy? but then i feel the love. so it can't be all bad. the feeling? of feelings? but will i ever be not needy in this way? isn't it just a tad unproductive?  i'm trying not to let circumstances steal my joy. because there always will be circumstances won't there? and monday i'll get back on schedule- do some prayer, job search, play borderlands for 5 hours. go to church- since we're canceling services bcs the LAmarathon is running down our street, and so we're having services Monday? yah, i don't know. why not i guess.

maybe work on the quilt tomorrow cuz as lisa points out i totally should. and finish it. even though i have no one to will it to. or heirloom it too? but still its for me right if no one else. and thats something. and one day i'll have a bed to put it on. maybe. well anyway its going to rain tomorrow and i'm going to stalk snails who are eating my maidenhair ferns. for now i think i will get some water and channel surf.

sincerely tortured,
m-artist.

I'm stress eating a bag of butter popcorn.

Time! Where is it going! I also just ate a carrot and a pickle. All of it completely unnecessary. Except I didn't realize i could chew gum until just now? Or something. I'm watching old eps of the office and pondering my to-do for tomorrow. And previous to that I did just pay bills. Which I'm able to pay them so that's a plus. Minimums this time. Maybe double after that? Maybe? I mean sure I saw that it would take me 24 years to pay off one card if i just paid the minz, opposed to 3 years if i doubled the payment. And i know we've been having this convo for like-ever. It's old and familiar like the weather. One of my memories, you, me, luker sitting in a greektownrestaurant we probably couldn't afford and glibly talking about our debt. I'm not sure who always won or if we just considered a draw. But we all knew he'd grow up to be something responsible. But i was very dubious about me. And life is just life and we're learning right? Going through it and if we die still in debt will it really matter? Preferably not. I don't plan on being bitter about it when I'm like 75 and have just paid it off. if I live that long. I'd at least celebrate with some chocolate or a trip I didn't plan on living long enough to payoff. We might as well enjoy what we can in the meantime and stop buying crap we don't need. (Obviously the stuff we do need is necessary and therefore totally permissible. Like that book or 3 i just bought from amazon.) I mean i need something for the plane ride (hee!), and mom and me need reading material.

This morning, Danica and I, oh yes, i know i'm using it incorrectly and i'm going to do it anyway. suck it. Were praying through the basement and i started weeping over some 30yr old pretzels and there was that swastika sign i kept wondering on how to eradicate. Oh this basement. I really should photo all the rooms for you. They each have a story. There was a bicycle with a missing seat, toilets, chairs, boxes and old desks, and a largish circular sign, and the pretzels... the theme of this morning had a definite anti-hoarding sentiment, and that God can reach any-one. Any-one. Any-where. No matter what. Each room actually deserves its own story. But then I'd have to start writing fiction again... or well, creative non-fiction... what do you call it. Hmm. Fingers to a keyboard and eyes glued to the sky.

But anyway i want to tell you more about that and the lot beautification day and the tour guide named dave who told me about the 4,000 roses that used to be where i was planting the wildflowers, 100 years ago, but got torn up and hacked down because the land was valuable and it got parceled off to developers... And what a beautiful thought that was. Not the idiocy and greed of people part but the planting flowers where a painter and grower of flowers lived... reclaiming my past as Californias daughter. But I've got to go to bed. Just because I'm full of pickle and my feet are cold and i'd rather send you something than some imaginary perfect thing that will never be seen- so for now, take these half eaten thoughts and have a beautiful today. Because you're here living in it and somewhere the sun is shining.

m.

Dear Penelope,

as you wish i'm writing to you to tell you about our prayer walk through Ecclesia. Bill, Mick, Aimee and I. Mick asked Simone (she's the one who wanted us to do this) if there was anointing oil- all you really need is olive oil and she had some. He wanted to anoint all the areas we went in, and i said, ok, yes but who's anointing us? It was the first time we've actually systematically sought to cleanse the building of darkness- lets be clear- demons, legion, oppressive spirits. Sort of like when we went on that ghost tour but we actively sought deliverance. In the back of your mind you sort of think, in no way this is real, and yet? The theatre itself is the largest in Hollywood built in 1926, and reported haunted, long before our church took residence and the guards who work there are in no way happy campers when they have to go through the basement or up beyond the 2nd floor, apparently- And as renters none of our community is allowed to venture beyond the "sanctuary" either.

So first things first, each of us in someway had others pray for us, had been in prayer, prior to this- a sort of confession, cleansing prayer like, Lord forgive me for this and definitely for That and please help me to be of use to you, worthy... and all the rest. Also this same day we had adult baptisms - do you renounce satan and all his ways? And Mick and I prayed a brief blessing over them after they got dunked in our coy pond cutout. I've never been in a role before to have taken things like these so deadly serious. Earlier I'd prayer walked over the sanctuary and had been amped up and apprehensive to go for it and prayer walk in this cleansing and resistance way and was sort of chomping at the bit to get this thing going, had for days previous had trouble falling asleep for thoughts of the basement.

We finally circled the wagons and Mick blessed each of us in the rite : in the name of the father, son and holyspirit... i prayed the prayer from ephesians: 10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand...
We climbed the stairs to the 2nd floor, armed only with a flashlight as most of the lights weren't on and prayed through verses and our thoughts and then occasionally from room to room, up through the balcony, singing, loudly. It was a good thing they remembered all these songs. I didn't. It makes me smile to think of it, and if I didn't believe what I believe I wouldhave thought us foolish or insane. As it was we didn't really have a game plan, but then I feel, we didn't have to. And even mentioning what we've gone through there is a definite disconnect. No one gets it or can sympathize, no one really understands, how much it seems a vivid nightmare to me. There was one particular room that effected me more than the others. It was empty and strangely shaped, like a rectangle bent in half and shaved down, painted this awful mint color. There was a dark antique chair to the left and to the right layers of dust, the light was on in this room. Mick got in the room and said, "what do we think about this room?" And the room to all effects started to grab at me and I gave a thumbs down sign. Mick said, "why don't you start us off." (in prayer) I said, "give me a minute". I closed my eyes. I was having a hard time speaking as I took a deep inhale and exit. Aimee had hold of my left arm, and i felt something cold just below her grip, and I felt a terrible sense of oppression and sadness that I actually started to cry- the idea that this is what people are surrounded and enslaved by... Mick and Bill must have sensed something too as they put their hands on me as well and we all prayed. I opened my eyes surprised to find the light in the room on, so dark it still seeemed. And after that we just kept going up, floor after floor thru bathrooms, and niches, and hallways, all the way to the roof, lamenting over hollywood and for the world.

And we had already sensed how thourough we were being, but were on this inevitable course, feeling in varying degrees tired, and consumed, but Aimee and I had a very strong feeling that we had to keep going to the basement. Mick gave us an out, Bill had to leave, but we decided to keep going.

Down into the belly of the beast.
As big as a block. Not just one room. But an entire world.
The first impression is the sound coming from the boiler room, or fan system? or whatever it is but its a very loud churning sound and produces a great amount of air flow down the hallway so that there's a breeze that seemingly comes from no where. We started off in a room with a low pipe hanging through it and i could feel the door tremoring against my hand. I had through the whole thing a distinct impression i was to hold all the doors open for us to pass through. The 2nd room was an old dressing room, still had the mirrors and the lights, now discarded seats from the theatre, the stars dressing room. I put the sign of the cross on the door and my finger was blackened with grime. Then down the hallway we got to a room with the stench of decay, moldering seats, rotting boards and tables- if i were the psychic type i would have said that there was an older man in a white shirt and brown pants underneath this one working light above the table- this room had to have been the saddest room of all.

We then reached the main mechanical room and thats when we started hearing rumbling from above, popping sounds from the pipes and Aimee and I both put on guard as it seemed the place was now awake to our presence. Though conversely i felt warmly protected through the rest of it, no hair raised, no cold on the back of the neck, though a hard pressure on my back, and all the thoughts just rolled right on through- you know the ones i mean, like, run screaming, or, this is impossible or i hope our light doesn't go out or i hope the door doesn't swing shut or I hope these boxes don't fall on us bcs of an 'earthquake' ensuring that we'll never be discovered or rescued, or i hope we aren't eaten alive or i hope whatever is down here doesn't latch onto us, or i hope i don't see a face or a body or whatever it is i could see that would set me running down the hall death griped with fear.

I had a very sure sense that we were being allowed to see but not necessarily to overtake. We went up a set of stairs and turned to see this hallway stretching a literal block, in pitch black, and i thought, oh my god, how vast is the darkness, how are we going to find our way out?- door after door, ladders, traps, rooms, gated off areas, stuff, all with a tangible aura of making you want to shake and hurl up your lunch. I said facing one pitchblack room full of boxes floor to ceiling, "are we going in there?" Mick responded, "well I'm going in there"... and then i said, "then we're all going in there." There was one room besides that I literally felt we were interrupting a nest of demons mid lunch- like you know the gag where the people who are clean and sparkly wearing pearls walk into the seedy bar and the music stops and the conversation comes screeching to a halt and they all look up with a WTF? Thats sort of how some of the rooms felt. And once we reached the end of the hallway I started reciting Psalms 23 and we rounded the corner and opened this large steel door into a dark room, down these steps "and ye though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death" creeeeeaaak went the door, thud thud echoed our footsteps "i shall fear no evil"...

We made it out of the basement shortly afterthat with more singing and more praying through the back of the stage and out into the sanctuary. Aimee and I laid down on the platform and suddenly realized that as we prayed blessing and protection over us we were being soaked at the shoulders with the baptismal water... that life giving water of being dead to sin and alive in Christ. And we woke up a bit and were aware of how accustomed to the dark you can become and that it was a surprise to me particularly that we'd been praying through the building for 3 hours... So then we went out and ate a little something and debriefed and talked about our impressions, confirmations and thoughts. And for the last few nights I've felt a palpable haunting of me about where i'd been and what i'd seen as if i what i had looked through and witnessed were not just meer spaces or abandoned places but some other place entirely that this barely even describes. Though fully armored, safe and sure of it- It is literally the scariest place I have ever been.