Loverby Vacation

Loverby's are going on vacation early Wed morning! Kona on the Big Island. We haven't been together for a week of pure play since the kids were 14 and 12. We have been on a few tours to Israel together. Craig and I have taken the girls individually on trips 1 on 1 parent/child, Craig and I go away together, they went to Europe on a sister trip for a couple weeks last February, etc. But this will be bliss, all of us together!

We are packing light, eating simple and only want to soak in the sunshine. No one wants to frenetically go find all the hot tourist spots. The girls don't want to shop for trinkets. We might choose to leave our laptops and ipods home and turn our cell phones off!

Craig and I both feel so blessed that our girls want to take vacations with us still. We love the friendship and enjoyment we experience with them.

One week of just being together sounds delicious. No expectations for anything except serendipity. Long beach walks. Sunsets. Coffee and the sun rising. Hot sand. Only waves, lovely waves making endless music night and day.

How?

How to respond to critics…we DON’T fight with them…as Rick Warren says…we OUTLOVE them, OUTLIVE them and OUTFRUIT them.

I read the above on Perry Noble's blog. WOW! Timely today......

Ken was teaching on Exodus tonight. God told Moses, 'the men who wanted to kill you are dead, go ahead and do what I am calling you to do'.

Both of these thoughts are so encouraging! I asked for it and got it!

Schitzophrenic Smell

• Sometimes Kathleen knows she stinks and doesn't need reminded.
• Sometimes Kathleen gets told she stinks when she didn't know it.
• Sometimes Kathleen wants loved and accepted even though she stinks.
• Sometimes Kathleen thinks others hear her accusing them of stinking when all she is really saying is ouch, that hurt when you told me I stink.
• Sometimes the enemy of her soul uses other people's voices and words to remind her often that she stinks.
• Sometimes people who really stink think the stink is coming from Kathleen instead of them.
• Kathleen loves being in a family where everyone else stinks from time to time and gets to grow and get loved on anyways, just as if they smelled really good.
• Kathleen wants to abstain from ever telling anyone else they stink.
• Kathleen wants to put balm and band aids on people who believe they stink, because someone told them so.
• Just because a few people think she stinks, not everyone else agrees.
• It might not be true that Kathleen stinks and it might not matter even if she does.
• There is a time for shoveling shit and it can stick; Kathleen stinks when she stays stuck in ick.
• Kathleen is reveling in the fact that Jesus never thinks she stinks.
• Kathleen got the epiphany, but wants others to know that they're also bound to stink once in a while, on some front, but it certainly won't prevent them from being effective, loved, respected, used, accepted, valuable, worthwhile, influential and generous in spite of it. Anyways. :) YAY!

• (dedicated to KWS and the body of believers at CE, bringing a sweet aroma in spite of ourselves to our city)

Defiance

There is absolutely nothing in my spirit today that wants to smile, whistle, sing, play or rejoice.

But, instead of going with it.....I'm going to defiantly go outside and plant daffodils, crocuses and tulips in my borders to thumb my own nose at my own feelings. There! Take that! My feelings won't define me or box me in or dictate how my day goes! I'm rebelling against being a self-imprisoned hostage today!

Planting bulbs is a faith thing. There won't be any results till next spring. It will seem like nothing is happening for many long months.

Each year, my neighbor's yard is brilliantly stuffed and overflowing with daffodils and tulips, always making me wish that I had had the foresight and faith to plant those patches of early spring color too.

Did you know that with legume seeds and bulbs, the complete plant in miniature lives inside waiting for the proper growing conditions?

Black and Blue

Calling the guy back to say no to opening the coffee shop was hard this morning. The truth is, borrowing money to do such a risky thing is careless. He would come out well, we could be in over our heads. More perspective came as the day went on. There's actually nothing wrong with Craig's regular day job! It's cushy, no pressure, security every month, 6 weeks vacation, great insurance (dental, eye, medical) and he's home by 2:30 every afternoon and every weekend off! Why is that a bad thing?

I accidentally (?) met a guy today who has seen it all in 30 years of financial advising. Dream after dream after dream turning into burnout, bankruptcy and the family unit destroyed. He wasn't being brutal, just real! What he's seen and experienced is; starting each day, each week and each month at zero and trying to make it a go.....can suck the life out of you. Do the day job to be able to live how you want afterwards.

I went out to the river to sit and think and grieve and be. The salmon were thick spawning their lives away. The gravel of the river bed was different from them thrashing about. It was strange watching the female lay the eggs and the male fertilizing them. There was quite a ruckus going on, lives being spent in what looked like a futile endeavor. They were battered, bruised, ugly and must have been so tired! Wonder if they sleep at night? How soon do they die after spawning? I'll google it.

The truth is, there is hidden life growing in the rocks on the bottom of the river right now. What they were doing won't be wasted. They were born, they lived, they gave birth, they will die.

We're in between being born and dying. It is so easy to devalue our extraordinary, uncommonly ordinary middle part of life. We meet people doing grand things, meaningful things, in amazing places here and around the world sometimes against incredible odds and uncertainty. The desire to join them never ceases. Yet here I am in Smokey Point in a subdivision. Regular like. Never, never do the two parts of me quit fighting.......

See all the black and blue bruises?

Instead

Could I beg you to turn off the TV? Please? Just for a while? You'll have something in common with CS Lewis......you too will be 'surprised by joy'........

Buy some lovely color of paint and get the brush dipped, or the roller full and start laying it on a wall. Search for driftwood, touch some moss, squish a slug, dig your toes in sand, put a shell to your ear, go tubing in the snow or on the water, listen and make some pure music without a microphone slaughtering it, take a deep profound sniff of the complexity of your first cup of coffee, put a rock in your pocket, take a child ice skating, make cookies from scratch, slather some homemade warm bread with butter, please don't murder and crumple food in the microwave, buy chocolate with real vanilla and 70% or more cacao, love your natural hair color, adore your new wrinkles, drink the clear quenching stuff called water, soak long and hot in a tub, splurge on pedicures, let your dog sneak up on the bed, run in the sprinkler, blow bubbles with kids, throw a water balloon at someone, read in a hammock, capture a mass of frog eggs and watch the metamorphosis, entice butterflies, poke a real fire, toast a marshmallow, use cream, enjoy a good pen on nice paper, write enough that the pencil needs sharpened, walk in the woods, bend over to admire the underside of a fern, call the birds, talk to seals, steal kisses, devour a book, get into a smashup with joy. Maybe she'll be the one surprised that you're there?

Different the Same

Comedians aren't my favorite. The delivery is usually an indulgence in sarcasm, character assassination, ridicule and raw verbal fungus. I couldn't tell you very many current or hot and trendy entertainers of this sort because I'm not in the know.

In the past, there have been a few really truly funny people. The olden days comedians were brilliant at the seemingly effortless art of keeping it hilariously clean. I think it took more work! It's easy the other way, the negative and hate based way. Making fun isn't the same as having fun.

Last week I was at a regional pastor's conference lurking, listening, worshipping, lingering and observing. My favorite quote was from this delightful little boy in a big boy's body, wearing a big, big man's hat. He said, "So, I like and read John Piper, shoot me". Politically and culturally bad thing to say in the setting he was in. It could have been career suicide! He had the courage to say the 'e' word.....emergent, yet defined it without attaching leprosy status to it. Tim Chaddick breathed feisty refreshing wind, kindling the stale dry wood of the assembled company! What I appreciated so much is that he didn't waste one moment on meaningless forever unanswerable questions. He didn't once waste our time puking about what he hates or who he hates or what group he's against. He was having fun instead of making fun. Amazingly on purpose instead of a default setting. He didn't talk about what we need to do for God. He was allowing us and inviting us to take off the heaviness of soul killing mere religion, and freely 'skinny dip' in the wonder and awe of a love relationship with our Maker.

Perhaps that faint rumble was the applause of heaven? :)

Janelle, a girlfriend who is a kindergarten/first grade teacher tells wonderful stories about her kids. She loves them so much and by the time the year is over, we feel like we know them too.

Last night she told us about a little boy's story of parent's night. He was showing his mom his little patch of carpet where he sat on the letter "g" during story time. Then, pointing to the empty spot next to his he said, "I popped his old bubble, so he's moved over there now with his new one." He was sad and felt a little sheepish, along with responsible. He also didn't quite understand why it was a bad thing. It actually wasn't.

Please let our comfortable little glass bubbles pop! Please.

Dreaming Day and Night

Tessa calls them 'cheese dreams'.....she says if you eat a piece of cheese before you go to sleep, you'll dream and remember it. I didn't eat any cheese before I went to sleep, but this past week I had and was able to recapture the vivid details of a few dreams, or perhaps nightmares? I was relieved to wake up to reality each morning!

The first one was me as a little girl and my current self at the same time. This man took my feet one at a time, set them carefully in front of him and using a huge mallet pounded and crushed the arches down of each foot, mangling and crippling me. It was excruciatingly painful, rendered me completely helpless, but more than that I could not understand why he did it. It kept replaying over and over again-little me, now me. The worst thing was, I knew what I was in for going through and opening the door each time~screaming silently, 'NO', 'NO'. I found myself limping a bit during the 'real time' day at the memory. A book that has really impacted me in the past was Dan Allender's "Leading with a Limp". Hmmmmmm. I'm a limper, but never been a leader.

Who knows where this one came from. I saw my old pastor all dressed up in a kilt and tartan, dancing. He doesn't do kilts or dance. Go figure.... It did make me smile.

This is a day dream and never ends, just gets refined.......

Tess, Brita and I want to open a coffee house. Not just any coffee house like the other 190,000 in Snohomish County! The printed menu will be underwhelming, a no brainer, no translation needed. It will not have 400 things to read and decide on or figure out. Size, shots, layers. That's all. Everyone knows what their favorite drink is, letting them build it will be fun!

The seating will be revolutionary. I cannot tell you anything but this; there will be only two options, intimate seating for two and group/family style around a big table. Coziness and intimacy and true connection is what we want to promote and shape the atmosphere for.

What will be missing is wi-fi, drive up window, and people sitting around alone, lonely, disconnected and unengaged plugged into some electronic device.

Here's the deal....there are hundreds, OK, 190,000 places, where you can drive up, drive through, or sit on your laptop all alone. There isn't a place for people to gather, study, linger, brainstorm, link up, network, catch up, meet and talk in an unfragmented way. We want to provide that place! Ambiance, warmth and love in a cup, love in the room and hope in the air. A place welcoming dreamers, music makers, think tankers, illuminators and fellowship of the truest kind. A place for friends and a place to make friends. Nothing would resemble Starbucks! Nothing.

I've got the dreaming part down real good. The picture in my head is beautiful. We three have the loving- serving- cooking-barista-atmosphere-part down real good. We have a couple of nice spots that are available and possible. We just can't figure out how to do the money part? And the business part. And the accounting part. Groan.

Just dreaming about it makes me happy. Happy food, happy people, happy coffee......making a happy family. Whispy?

Opposites....

Opposites not only attract, but they are so attractive! Just hit the nail on the head, succinctly and with ease. These are life quotes that refresh me, remind me and lift me up......Ellie Wiesel, Winston Churchill, John Townsend, Madeleine L'Engle.......thanks! Especially Madeleine! Her books are amazing like her mind.....

The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference

The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference

The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference

The opposite of being bad isn't being good, it's being loved

The opposite of sin isn't virtue, it's faith

The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation

The opposite of failure isn't success, it's courage

So here's my request Lord......please keep me from being indifferent, merely looking good, being virtuous or wanting peace. These are the lesser things. Instead, help me to be passionate, grow in faith, be creative, have courage and REVEL in being loved.

Does anyone else have more to add to the list? How often do we put the wrong em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble? Gulp!

Undeleted

I didn't know google had an undelete blog button when I deleted it last month. Pam, Craig, Shelly and Kandi have supported me and encouraged me so much. Why aren't 4 people who really care and love me and faithfully read it enough? You are! Thanks so so much for cheerleading. It just took me awhile to get it. The craving for the people closest to you to care never ends......

The 2 books that have totally humbled me, straightened out my thinking, infused me with new

encouragement and hope are: "The Pursuit of Elegance" by Matthew May and "Ignore Everybody" by Hugh Macleod, who is one of the most honest, real, naked, vulnerable, encouraging, straightforward, raw, unfiltered, tenacious, brave, broken, healed, whole, leading with a limp, truth telling author..... ever. He breathed new life into me somehow. It was good rx and just right like the baby bear's porridge.

Two things. An old friend, Tamoko Adachi once gave me a book which she had inscribed with wonderful Japanese characters. As she showed me what she had written, she explained that the characters represented my name. My name meant 'Elegant'. Those of you who know me know that I'm anything BUT elegant in the sense of how we hear and use the name. I'm messy, overweight, free flying, lazy, unkempt, unfashionable, unfiltered, introverted, handicapped on several fronts, etc. It wasn't until I read "In Pursuit of Elegance" that a glimmer of a light went on. With Matthew May's definition of elegance......OF COURSE.... I have lived life in the pursuit of elegance, wanting it - not always nailing it down.

Then, I started devouring Hugh MacLeod's 'gapingvoid.com' blog, going back and back and back into the dark recesses of his archives and found one of his now famous 'back of a business card cartoons' with the parable of the white pebble, referring to the verse in Revelations which talks about how God will give us a white pebble with our name that he has given to us written on the bottom. Only he and us know what it says. He tells of a monk who explained it to him. There's a name we get from other people, a name we give ourselves and then the name on the white pebble......

Here's the deal......I have the white pebble. God gave it to me. I know what it says. He named me. Why do I keep forgetting? When I do, does it make him cry?

I'm gonna keep on blogging till the cows come home or I go home, even if I have an audience of one. Him.

Do you know your name? Your white pebble name? Ask......