no surprises

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 40% Conservative, 60% Liberal

Social Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

What the…?

Two hours of Grey’s Anatomy reruns? Lazy writers.

we should have waited

Only a couple hours after we washed and put away these:

I spotted these:

A raucous welcome

Tony Cicero is in da house.

It’s dark in the womb.

Yes it is.

Emo-ticon

This is the kind of stuff that’s on Sam’s mind.

The Killing Moon

Under blue moon I saw you
So soon you’ll take me
Up in your arms
Too late to beg you or cancel it
Though I know it must be the killing time
Unwillingly mine

Mid-80s, a rush of blur, summer, heat, desire. Someone else inhabited this body, yet a part of me now, resided there then. A foretelling in my bones. I remember returning to L.A. in Mike Dunnigan’s van with Dave Hurricane. The Skoundrelz had played the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco. The license plate read, “R U EXP.”

It had been a tough trip. The way up, I fought through a wicked Niacin flush in an overheated pea green Chevy Nova. It was Tony who fed it to me. He swore it covered a multitude of sins and I needed something like that.

We stayed in the Mission District with some punker chicks who were generous with their drugs. During the gig, Dave vomited on stage. It was a dreary night and the floors of the Mabuhay were as depressing as the era.

I wasn’t one of those pink and black, side ponytail 80s girls who liked to have a good time on her parent’s dime; I was on auto self-destruct. I had a burning to do damage. Of course it was something else entirely that I sought. Something tender and forgiving half-buried in the junk metal wasteland that was my life.

It was never really discussed that Mike was a Christian and he’d probably eschew that label anyway. It was known that he was sober and he kept an immaculate home, but these things were written off as eccentricities. He was wise to guard his faith.

I knew nothing of faith but sensed a gentle presence just beyond my reach. Since I was a small child I’d been drawn to churches. At night the streetlight reflected the shape of a cross on my textured bathroom window. I knew better than to ask my mother about it.

The drive back to L.A. with Mike had a comfortable cool about it. Into the mystic. We took the coastal route. The bucolic landscape refreshed the senses. Too many hours spent in darkened rooms made a girl’s skin the color of cement. Her voice like asphalt.

Mike was really into Echo and the Bunnymen. Dave seemed to like them too. Their language was foreign to my ears, but over the course of many years, I acquired a taste for it. That night Mike let me sleep on his sofa. I was homeless. Mike’s home was sacred space and few people were allowed in. I understood nothing about Mike but I knew I was safe there.

Last week I put on “Songs to Learn and Sing,” by the Bunnymen for old time’s sake and I claimed a song from it as my conversion song. I don’t know if people actually have conversion songs, but “The Killing Moon,” speaks to me so clearly of that freefall into the arms of Jesus. Even way back then, in the van, he was holding a net for me and in some small way, I knew it.

Love’s not a punishment

In this month of prayer and seeking (of course we pray and seek continuously, but we are especially intentional about it this month) I have to confess that I have not been faithful. I’ve been praying every day and many times a day but not in sync with my community. Not in a disciplined way.

The thing about discipline is it’s not a punishment. There’s a mystery about it. I’m learning more and more that the spirit of God is always inviting me into something wonderful. What He has for me is always sweet. This has been my experience. Yet I resist.

While reading this morning I was stirred by references to the dawn. Then I remembered: last week I was blessed with good sleep (a rarity for me) and I awoke many times at 6 a.m. and even 5 a.m. feeling fairly refreshed. I contemplated leaving my bed but chose to stay in it and return to sleep for another hour or more. I remember thinking, “What if God is waking me? Maybe He wants to tell me something.”

It didn’t occur to me that others from my community might have been praying in that moment and that I might be receiving an invitation to join them. Once I rolled out of bed it was too late. I was then caught in the activities of preparing breakfast and getting Sam to school.

What an awesome thing to be awoken by the Lord. I think about Joseph and Mary being roused from sleep by angels and how I’ve yearned for the same, yearned for confirmation of the story, of the existence of that which is unseen but subtly experienced.

Why do I need so much confirmation anyway? I’ve seen the face of God, what more do I need? He’s handled me so carefully, so sweetly and yet when He calls I don’t answer? I ignored His invitation and I missed out. For three nights my sleep has gotten progressively worse. Last night I lay awake for hours staring at the ceiling, muscles spasming and bones aching. I prayed to Him my weak prayers and sleep finally came.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Happy Birthday Meredith!

Hope it’s everything you deserve. You are such a blessing!

yard sale

Tomorrow (Saturday, 10/7) we’re having a yard sale on Hemlock Ln. beside the car port. If you know us personally and haven’t been here, give us a call or e-mail for directions if you want a closer look at the shire.