I have started a few post and abandoned them, unable to string more than a sentence or two along.’m still alive.
Work and extra work and serving and family things have filled my week.
I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew.
Sometimes the lines are blurry between choosing and obligation.
I think you do.
The themes for these Five on Friday post seem to rise up out of the links themselves. I put up the post and then before long a common thread becomes evident.
Today’s thread seems to be about showing parts of my true colors – things about who I am and where I am on my journey.
It’s surprising
And I have to confess that we have the farm bug again.
Ironically my Lenten reflection this year is going to be on Stillness and Waiting.
Hmmm.
The Problem With Little White Girls (and boys.)
Our mission while at the orphanage was to build a library. Turns out that we, a group of highly educated private boarding school students were so bad at the most basic construction work that each night the men had to take down the structurally unsound bricks we had laid and rebuild the structure so that, when we woke up in the morning, we would be unaware of our failure.
I am an educated, upper-ish middle class, life-long evangelical turned liturgical hybrid Christian, white girl.
My skills and experience do not qualify me for everything, no matter how big my heart or good my intentions.
Let’s be honest about that.
Let me also be honest and say that the term “making disciples” turns my stomach.
It smacks of something in between the Industrial Revolution and Stepford Wives.
As if the job of all Christians is to produce forty more just like them.
A pyramid scheme on steroids.
It’s a church term that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
And don’t even get me started on the terms “winning souls.”
As if missions and evangelism are games of ski ball and we are all set on winning tickets to turn in for prizes, for bigger diamonds in a our crowns and such.
Of course there is a caveat to all of this.
I was raised on Week Long Church Revivals and I share a healthy bit of DNA with several evangelist.
My best friends are missionaries or missionary kids or married to missionary kids.
We support people all over the world who are trying to bring relief to hurting places.
I don’t mean to sound harsh.
I just want to make sure we are having conversations.
That our help is actually helpful.
That people are not seen as numbers.
That souls are not seen as goals.
As for the allegedly Christian nature of this legislation, let’s not mince words. This is the inversion of Christianity….The idea that Christianity approves of segregating any group is anathema to what Jesus actually preached and the way he actually lived.
My Grandaddy is famous for saying “I may be wrong but I am not confused.”
That is where I stand.
I am not confused.
I suppose I could be wrong.
But I believe, outloud, that hate and discrimination and fear and intolerance and bigotry are not of Christ.
They are not acts of Loving My Neighbor.
I love love series from Whitney Loibner
love this series so much. My personal favs are Days 5, 7, 8, and 13. Well, really I love them all. But if I HAD to pick…
You see I am a romantic. I really am. It is something I used to feel the need to apologize for, but no longer.
I love love.
I love love that fights for itself.
That works hard and gets dirty and is honest.
I also love love that is joyfilled, that delights, that is fully of belly laughter.
I love love that is quiet, and steady and rooted in humility.
Whitney did a wonderful job of showing off all of these aspects of love and so much more in this series.
My father is a poet… Did you know it?
Shortly after Christmas my siblings and I received this email from our father, that explains a bit about why I am the daughter of a writer.
Children, you are all now old enough — or, rather I am now old enough– for this side of me to be more fully revealed unto you, and (I fancy) for you to enjoy my writing or at least have an OMG moment. Being a RETIRED minister also is a factor, lol
I THINK you all know that I was chosen Arkansas’s first “Poet of the Future” in 1969 when a senior in high school, by the late Rosa Zagnoni Maranoni, Arkansas’s first official Poet Laureate.
Finally, for what it’s worth, I am NOT asking your mother’s permission to share this with you.
I love each of you dearly!
Love, Dad
Winter Burial
Last night the house burned quickly,
a private death
shared only by trees that gathered to warm their hands.
This morning
enormous crowds wait behind fences while
the trees bury their dead.
Seven mounds of frost.
J. Jackson
Bonus Post
Dear Lonely Mom of Older Kids
Today, I hope you’ll breathe in hopefulness and joy in your parenting. Let go of fear and anxiousness and simply enjoy that adolescent. Laugh at a fart joke. Try a new hairstyle with your daughter. Drive through Sonic for a 1/2 price slush.
I am a mom of (quickly growing) older kids. I am blessed that I am not lonely, that I have a community that rallies together around our shared experience. But it is still hard. The lines of our public lives are different for each of us based on who are kids are and who we are. Our stories are interwoven. Some I will tell. Some I will keep.
So there you have friends. A little bit about who I am and where I am at, and plenty of links to keep you busy reading for the weekend.
Sweet Man and I are running away with friends for some much needed R & R tonight and I cannot get packed and out of here fast enough.
(I love you Mom and Jemimah! Thanks for holding down the fort!)
Have a lovely weekend dear friends
J
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