A Stroke or What?

I was rushing around trying to get dressed to go to a meeting, but things weren’t going well.  My vision was blurry, and when I looked at the digital clock, the numbers were about an eighth of an inch high.  I went to my closet and reached up to the shelf, where I was pretty sure I’d put the papers I needed for the meeting, wondering if I really had, when I started seeing flashing colored lights.  Then I felt myself fall over and hit the floor.  I thought, “Did I just have a stroke or what?”  Then I woke up.

Sorry about that.  Frankly, I don’t care for movies or stories that turn out to be dreams, but I have a reason for bringing it up.  (I know I should have started a new paragraph, but I didn’t want to spoil the drama.)

My first thought when I woke up was that I could see and how bright everything looked.  This wasn’t too surprising, since it is our first sunny day in almost a week.  (I think it’s been week.  I’ve kind of lost track.)  My second thought was, “Well, I guess I had a dream about having a stroke.”  My third thought was, “Could God have sent me a dream about being zapped by the Holy Spirit?”  And then I thought, “Did I get zapped by the Holy Spirit in a dream?”

I haven’t figured it out yet.  I’d prefer to think that it was the Holy Spirit.  (I’ve been disappointed that I got saved so gradually.  You can read about that in “How I Got Saved”, July 28, 2013.) And, not to seem ungrateful, but I’d like to have experience when I’m awake.

Some, probably most, people I know, would say that thinking God had sent me a dream about the Holy Spirit is crazy and thinking that the Holy Spirit visited me in a dream is batship crazy.  Not too long ago, I thought the whole concept of the Holy Spirit was pretty crazy.  But frankly, folks, I don’t give a bat’s behind.

I don’t know if I’m ever going to understand what actually happened.  I’ve prayed for an explanation.  What I’ve gotten so far is the knowledge that an explanation isn’t important; it’s what I do with the experience.  So I’m sharing it and expecting that whatever the purpose is, it will be worked out.

And I am full of crazy gratitude for it.

PS:  If I remember correctly, the meeting I was supposed to go to was about health insurance and I was supposed to speak about it.  Trust me, no one would ever ask me to speak about health insurance.

Among the Top Ten of Trivial Spiritual Concerns

I’m not that serious about this.  (I think.)

A post of Facebook featured a picture of a bench in a beautiful garden with the question “Who would you want to sit on the bench with you?”  (They put it more grammatically.)  I answered the way I usually do:  Barbara Pym (my favorite author.  She wrote “novels of manners” during the 1950’s and ‘60’s about life in English country villages or neighborhoods in London.  Try Excellent Women or Some Tame Gazelle to start.) and Agatha Christie.  When I read the comments, almost everyone else at least mentioned Jesus.  So I felt guilty!  I don’t know if there is a message to this, probably not.

Yes, I would like to talk to Jesus.  But it’s OK to think of Barbara or Jane Austen or Elvis or John Lennon first.

No offense to our Lord, but I don’t think he’d be interested in hearing about my romantic misadventures or my writer’s dilemmas.  Not only would I love to hear about Barbara’s, but I think she’d like to hear about mine.  Not that they are that special, but she was a writer, and anything can serve as material.

In the first post I wrote for Woodstock Churchlady, I said that one of my goals was to show a reader that he or she wasn’t the only person in the world to ever feel a certain way.  So I suppose other people would feel the same in the same situation.  But I’m not entirely sure, so if you have, I’d love to hear from you. 

How about you?  Who would you like to have a conversation with?  How do you feel about your first response?

By the way, another sign that you might be an Annoying Believer would be that when someone tells you that their choice of fellow bench sitter is Clark Gable or Abraham Lincoln or Anne Rice, you look horrified and say, “What about Jesus?”  (And add ten annoyance points if you say “our Lord.”)

Start With Something Easy -- Your Colonoscopy

When you get to be a certain age, it seems the most exciting things to happen to you are medical.  You’re not having love crises, the kids are out of the house, and you really don’t want to waste any oxygen talking about your job.

But someone is always having something done.  And it doesn’t have to mean a medical crisis.  Routine screening procedures offer unlimited topics of conversation.

And the most talked about is the colonoscopy.  What is really interesting is that people are eager to explain that the procedure is easy;  it’s the preparation that sucks.  (“They put the IV in and the next thing you know, it’s over and you’re scarfing down the graham crackers and apple juice.  And I went home and had a cheesesteak and fries.”)  To help and reassure our nervous friends, we go into details that years ago would have labelled us potty mouths.  (“I was so afraid I’d have an accident on the way to the doctor’s that I wore five pairs of underpants,”  “Make sure you get some baby wipes.”)

My point is that if we can share our colonoscopies, we should be able to share Jesus.  Our faith is more interesting and important than our health habits.  It’s a great idea to encourage friends to have screenings.  We do it because we care about their health.  And, even if we are too embarrassed to talk about it, we care even more about their souls. 

So maybe we should stop being embarrassed.  To be graphically frank, if you can talk about something that involves having a camera stuck up your behind, you can talk about God and tell your story.  People will be even more interested in your spiritual journey.

Try it.  And if you’re due for one, get a colonoscopy.  

 

Singing to God

I think Leonard Cohen’s “If It be Your Will” is one of the best arguments for including “contemporary” music in church services.  I could go all English major (What’s up with the line, “In our rags of light”?), but mostly I’ll let it speak for itself.

But one line really spoke to me, “I will sing to you.”  I never thought of singing to God.  We sing to babies, children, our special people. I sing to my pets.  In church, it seems to be that we are singing for God.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  But singing to someone is more intimate, like giving a present.  What would happen if we thought we were singing to God?  How would we feel?

By the way, in the printed lyrics, we are “All dressed to thrill.”  In the live performance, the line is “all dressed to kill.”  As a former English teacher, I do wish I had a class to ask, “What effect does each word have?  Which do you think is better?  Why do you think so?”  (Sorry – I can get carried away.)

Anyway, here is it.