He Stretched His Arms Out Upon the Cross

Today’s service was a visual example of the meaning of the action of Christ upon the cross.

It was Community Speaks Sunday and, as is our custom, we had a guest speaker, Kay Briggs, who is author of the book The Magic Seashells. The Magic Seashells is Kay’s story about her recovery and healing from sexual abuse she received as a child. Hers is a beautiful message about how she tried to live out her life in the perfect appearance so often demanded by our society, keeping her experiences and troubles a secret, until she learned that to heal from the hurt done to her as a child she had to embrace the darkness of her experience and find God’s love within it.

We also blessed and said goodbye to a member who is on a journey away from us. He is headed off to prison for the crime of downloading child pornography and will serve several years in the state facility. He knew better than to do what he did. He feels bad about it and asked over a year ago for forgiveness and we gave it with a lovely service of prayer and laying on of hands in blessing in the hopes that his journey will find him healed at the end. We all knew his day to leave would come. We just didn’t know it was going to be today.

I worry about this man because I know that what he did has made him an outcast to some of our church, society at large, and will also do the same to him in prison. From my ex who is a jailor, “inmates all have children and they hate child abusers so any inmate that they learn has hurt children has to be locked away in administrative detention to save their life from the other inmates who will beat them up and try to kill them.” So he may end up in solitary for the next few years just to live. Even if he doesn’t enter solitary confinement he certainly can’t make friends with anyone and reveal his offense.  It’s a long and lonely road he has ahead of him.

Kay’s message was a blessing to me and I know that it wasn’t easy what she did, learning to accept herself and be open about her experiences. Kay may have had her own prison of sorts trying to live out the lie of perfection. I’ve known other people who experienced child abuse and it’s a lonely misfit life they live until they find healing for that hurt. 

After we prayed for him, our departing member, I sat there and thought about what that meant, the welcoming of a victim of child abuse and prayerfully blessing an enabler of it. It seemed such a dichotomy. So radical. So extreme! From victim to criminal, Christ’s forgiving love was exemplified by the actions of our priest and the community. That is such a huge stretch that it boggles the mind. Is there nothing that God can’t or won’t forgive, fix, or heal? Apparently not. So I think that for the next few days, or perhaps weeks, I’ll be thinking about how wide Christ’s arms stretched when he laid them down upon that cross for us all. It’s a humbling thought.

May the love of God enfold each and everyone of you today and everyday! Peace! Hope! & Joy!

How I Spent My Morning

Last week the Census office here in town downsized while they gear up for the next phase. That phase won't happen till possibly October. So they needed to get rid of a lot of people. We had done a fantastic job of doing the address canvasing. That's where they just go through neighborhoods and note down all the addresses so that we don't skip anyone. We did this in such a fantastic way that we are "victims of our own success." So the address canvassers all got laid off and so did a lot of the office clerks, me included. Friday was my last day. That's the bad news. I don't like bad news! So I'm going to try to maintain a positive outlook. This will be easier if I bring up the good points first.

Because I got laid off for "lack of work" I'm upgraded to "experienced" and eligible for recall, so when they open the other offices around town (probably in September) I should be among the first to get called back to work. This may take anywhere from 3 to 4 months, possibly more (God forbid). I'm also eligible for unemployment, or at least I hope so because I didn't work a whole lot last year. I'll have to go to the Texas Workforce Commission to see how that affects things. If I'm eligible for anything based on last years earnings it may be smaller but anything will help. I'm also able to rewrite the resume to include all the skills I gained from my office clerk position. I ended up pretty much in charge of personnel files, their creation and maintenance. That should help me find a job somewhere. Or perhaps do temp work since I'm a quick study.

So that's the good side of things. Other nice things that happened as a result of this is that I learned of several folks generous spirit. When I mentioned it at church one of my fellow verger trainees told me that if I needed food he and his wife had gift and reward cards at the local store that I could have. That was so sweet of Ron. I feel really blessed by the concern and friendship he exhibited in that offer. Sandi told me that my cats would never go hungry. :-) That was a relief and made me laugh. The office manager, my assistant manager, and my supervisor all gave me promises of references. So I can go into the job search with some really great folk that know and like me saying I'd make a great employee.

So now I have some time to spare. My goals are to find work, take care of me, and use the experiences I've had over the past 4 months to renew my own personal view and enrich my life. God gave me 4 months in an awesome office full of caring and wonderfully fun loving folk to help me grow. It would be a shame to waste that. I've got the phone numbers of several work friends. Some of them are in the same boat I'm in so we can be a support to each other. I was even able to hook one of them up with a fellow church member who needed someone with his unique skills for a possible job. That really lifted my spirits.

I've spent the morning doing productive things around the apartment. The cat box is cleaned. The trash has been taken out. I've started clearing off the desk and found several important documents in the various piles of mail I had stacked upon it's surface. I wrote a nice long email to my friend JS and we are talking about goals and routines. It's a good friend who can help you by being a goal buddy.

I'm also trying to start several small self enrichment projects. These are tentative but I'm hoping to make them fun and useful as well as spiritually renewing. Among the ideas I've had for these projects are: increase my vocabulary, spend more time communing with God, get outside at least once a day, and pick up my guitar again. There are others that will no doubt crop up as I talk about things. JS suggested exercise. My good friend Susan would suggest that too. She is a strong proponent of exercise as a way to manage depression. I figure if I get out for a little bit every day (probably early when the morning is still cool) I'll find myself walking and enjoying it. That's exercise although it isn't very strenuous.

So far this morning I been outside twice and read a little bit of the dictionary. Outside was gorgeous. There was a nice cool breeze, the birds were singing, and the trees are green. One of my neighbors drove past and we smiled at each other. What did I learn from the dictionary? Well, besides the fact that the letter "A" is in a lot of abbreviations and is a word in it's own right, it is also the first letter of aardvark, aardwolf, and abaca (I'm skipping names of people). I knew there were aardvarks. I didn't know there was an aardwolf. Apparently he eats termites and insect larvae. The abaca is a plant that is from the Philippines and the dictionary classifies it with hemp. So there you go, a new animal, a new plant, and a possibly useful word for scrabble if you have 3 A's.

Since I have more time I'll try to blog more regularly. I'll keep you posted on the job search and how I'm doing with the tightening of the purse strings. I'll also let you know how I'm going with the self enrichment projects. And if I find a job. Till the next post, "Have a good day!"

I Did What?!!!

The first thing I noticed, when I got home from work and logged on, was that the number of folk following my blog had almost tripled. I was wondering who some of these folk were. Then I read my email and discovered that I'd been nominated for blogger's "blogs of note." I raced to check this out! Not only did I make this noted list, but so did our wonderful David's authorblog! Wow! What a treat to come home to! To all the well wishers, a hearty, "Thank you!" I've no idea what I did to get this honor but I'm delighted beyond words.