Church Planting: Destroying God's Creation one Building at a Time

There is a gorgeous field beside my house where the deer roam at night. They move down from the woods on top of the hill and come down to the salt lick I put out for them. Since I moved to my home five years ago, I love to spend my evenings out waiting for them.

They have even taken to coming out during the day often running down the hill for a drink of water. It is a wonderful peaceful existence.

On a warm summer night, you can watch the fireflies as they tickle the air,  and the scent of honeysuckle envelopes you. I often watch the clouds as I lay in the grass until the clouds become stars and I feel my Maker close.

All of that is threatened to be destroyed. This pristine land, which was once part of a family farm, has been bought for the purpose of building yet ANOTHER church.

EVERY dot is a church

There are more churches in this area than I can count. It seems a habit that when the members don't agree, they simply build another one and start another congregation. There are tons of empty buildings in the Tri-Cities.  At least four churches within "spitting" distance of my house.  Yet, they want to destroy yet another part of Creation.

It makes me furious. As one who experiences God through Nature, I feel like a church is being built on top of mine. Instead of deer walking up and down the field, there will be cars. Where the beauty of God was, there will be the ugliness of man.

And when that happens, I will mourn.

Daydreams and Rainbows

I can fly underwater

I can swim in the sky

I can be invisable

and watch the people pass by

I can live in the good old days

or in the future somewhere

where my mind takes me

my spirit will be there

Daydreams and Rainbows

and I drift away

rose colored glasses

if just for a day.

Make believe and magic

like a kid I pretend

not a worry in my mind

just a fresh start again.

Summer skies in winter

with fireflies all aglow

or maybe in the desert

I see a little bit of snow.

Breathing underwater

among the coral of the sea

look up, what's that?

A dolphin laughing at me.

Daydreams and Rainbows

and I drift away

rose colored glasses

if just for a day.

Make believe and magic

like a kid I pretend

not a worry in my mind

just a fresh start again. 

Fog Magic

 

In the deep early dawn

out the window a fawn

is still grazing.

And the birds in the trees

among the early spring leaves

already praising.

The mist hugs the ground

and already I've found 

a reason.

And I can't help but smile

cause all in the wild

I see him there.

In the fresh morning breeze

I get down on my knees

and wait patiently.

And in the sweet early stillness 

the world bears a witness

that he found me.

For up above

flies a holy dove

its color all white surrounded by light of love.

Then into the distance, 

revealing his existence

I hear him walking and humming, and musical strumming, as he brings peace with him.

As he appears through the haze

I shake from my own daze

and can't help grinning . 

So happy to envision

my frequent indecision

melt away. 

He sits down in the grass

and just like the last

time I saw him. 

Few words were required

only magic transpired

that morning. 

He looked deep in my soul

not a part but the whole

and he knew me.

And instead of condemnation

he showed me admiration 

for just trying.

Then we began to sing

and the birds and their wings

went silent. 

A sweet harmony

floated up past the trees 

into Heaven.

And the angels all hushed

as the music brushed

right passed them.

For there's no other song

like from the one's who belong

to him.

Now every sunrise I recall

how that I was enthralled

with his kind eyes.

And in times of great fright

my spirit takes flight

with his.

Wide Awake in Dreamland

 

I feel the poetry all around

in every vision, every sound

in the sunrise, sunset, moon-lit dew

the wind talk, bird talk, water blue.

And in its essence I feel it so

the dream, the moment of peaceful slow

my soul, awake, in dreamland dear

through the water, the spirit encompassed here

 

I dive right in, this lake called peace

and swim about the blue green fleece

the trees, my kin, the stones my own

inside, beside, within my bones

Dear mother, my earth, my heart will cease

yet not my spirit, only sweet release

for before I was this you see before

i was, and am, and will be more.

The stardust, my blood, the sky, my soul

this world that turns, within us rolls

I am you, you are me,

God and all inside us be

 

General Sherman

When the world inside my head gets too big, it is time to turn back to nature. I have been here but 40 years, yet the things that surround me have survived so much longer. The water in the creek has seen countless eons go by... the Redwoods of the Pacific Northwest have seen the seasons change for almost 2000 years...the ice in the glaciers existed when man was just an idea in the mind of God. 

Time is such a strange thing. A difficult period in your life may seem to lasts for decades, but it has been only months, yet the moments that you cherish seem only seconds. Mankind has only existed as a small blip in the radar of time, however we find so much importance in ourselves. 

I had the opportunity to visit the Sequoia National Forest in Northern California a few years ago. I stood in front of the General Sherman, whose truck volume is around 52,513 cu ft, making it the largest known tree. It is thought to be between 2300-2700 years old. 

My father, who can make anything seem fascinating, stood there with me. My dad has a way of putting things into perspective and we talked about, just how much this old tree has seen. We talked about how it was here when Christ walked the earth and wondered what its surroundings looked like when it was but a sapling.

The endurance of this tree was awe inspiring. 

And I realized that it is not the outer effects of life that bring us down. It is not what happens out in the world that destroys us. This tree has endured untold number of storms and seasons and still stands. In my 40 years, I have endured storms and watch the seasons pass, yet it is the internal struggles that age me. It is the emotional scars on the bark of my soul which often bring me to my knees.

How General Sherman has survived is his own story. How I survive is mine. I can hurt until I decay and die, or I can learn to survive the seasons of my life with the grace this old tree has shown. 

Sometimes that is easier said than done, but in the moments when life seems too big, perhaps if I will go back in my mind to the General and look up through his branches, my issues will seem smaller and God's grace and endurance bigger. Perhaps His light will filter down through the branches and give me that little bit of inspiration I need to go on. It is in the meditation of the soul upon the majesty of God's creation, that makes this possible. 

Of Butterflies and Chihuahuas

I saw a butterfly today. In the midst of my exhaustion, frustration, and anger, it lighted onto my drive-thru window at work. It seemed to be greeting me. It stopped me for just a moment...and reminded me of the peace I have missed this week.

It has been a week of emotional turmoil... anger... flashbacks...rage....and rawness. Old wounds have been torn open and are just beginning to heal. I feel as if my heart has been ripped out of my chest only for me to grab it back and hold it close. I struggled with laying my armor down. I want to fight, to hurt, to feel. I am just a child trying to be a warrior. I hold my shield and my sword with deft determination and I stand at the ready. And I find myself beyond exhaustion because I cannot stand on guard at all times. 

And it was in this moment a butterfly visited me. If you want me to lay my armor down, give me something that needs a hug, that needs love. Give me a person or little critter that needs comfort, and for a time, I will lay the shield and sword down in order to make that little one feel safe.  This warrior is a comforter and when she cannot be a comfort, she picks up her battle gear in order to fight off whatever may harm this little one. In many ways, I am a momma bear. 

Someone once yelled at me for trying to save so many animals. In my rage, I screamed, "I cannot save myself, but I can save them! I can't NOT feel terrified, but I can make them feel safe! I'll be damned if I will abandon them." And so I didn't. 

But what did I feel I needed to be saved from? From terror? From panic? From self-hate and self-doubt? 

As I have said in previous blogs, I have struggled with self hate since the days I knew I was different and unacceptable in God's eyes. At least that was the message the church beat into my brain. And so that self hate gets internalized to where you feel you deserve to hurt. And so you find all manners of ways to fulfill that. 

It was my chihuahua, Ms Ruby, who saved me from myself earlier this week. Ms Ruby understands fear and so she and I understand each other. It hurts her and frightens her to see me when I am in those moments. I lay in bed last Thursday night with my knife. I don't like to leave evidence behind, so I have learned to force the knife into my palm causing pain but knowing that the evidence will fade. As I did this, Ms. Ruby, her eyes full of such love and hurt came to me and put her paw on my arm. She was begging me to stop. And so I did. She crawled into my arms and comforted me. She let me cry. And then she watched over me as I slept.

And now I sit here. Not eating again. Another form of self punishment. The thought of eating sickens me. It is so ironic that a fat girl can have a form of anorexia. Yet here I am. I looked at my face tonight and I saw age, I saw exhaustion. I saw a person who, although her scars are hidden from the outside world, is a soul covered in them.  

I ask myself, how can a person with so much hurt inside, be also full of such gentleness? How can I bring peace and comfort to an animal when I can't seem to bring it to myself? 

I know that growing and healing is painful. And I hurt. I want to be that person that is the gentle one and I want to learn to be gentle to myself. I want the voices from the past who tell me I am worthless to go away.

I want to love me as much as I am capable of loving others. I want to believe my own words when I say  that God loves us just the way we are. I pray that God will help me believe it, for until I believe it myself, I can be of no good to anyone. 

And perhaps it is in butterflies and little chihuahuas, that God reminds us that we are lovable and loved. I certainly hope so.

Jamie and the June Bug

I'm not going to lie....I love insects. If it won't kill me, I will pick it up and inspect it until I'm cross-eyed. There is more diversity in the insect world than anything in human-land. Bugs are fascinating. Some have super strength like the ant. Others, like the june bug and bumble bee fly even though physics say they are too big and heavy. Some can jump so far that if done on a human scale would have us jumping several football fields. Bumble bees can make perfectly round holes in wood. I know, I watched them do it.

I can't help myself. I just think it makes the Creator so darn cool and creative. The Creator through evolution or whatever means needed, created these little guys long before science fiction had the chance to think of them. 

The other day, I walked passed the guinea pig's water bowl and saw two june bugs drowning. I picked them up, and one, who apparently hadn't been in there too long, sat on my hand for a few minutes and flew away. The other june bug must have been in there a while and sat with me for at least 45 minutes. It was a wonderful time. She (I called her a she since her name was June), took a while to catch her breath. She didn't move much for a long while. Finally, she started to stretch her cute little antenna and I realized they had 3 little finger-like projections on the end. Adorable. The coolest moment was when she turned toward me and started staring at me, cocking her head to one side. She wasn't afraid and I felt awesome. When she seemed up to it, I put her in the maple tree and she walked up the limbs and back to her life. 

Now I realize most people roll their eyes and say "Jamie...its just a bug!"  And I hate that. I hate the term "its just a {insert word here}." For far too long that term has been used to excuse abuse. Its just a bug, just an animal, just a nigger, just a woman, just a fag. I don't understand it. IT is something God found important enough to make. IT is God's work of art as surely as YOU are. 

I understand that there is a circle of life where insects become food for the animals who become food for us. I realize that there are harmful and deadly things out there that we must protect ourselves from. But I don't understand harming just because you don't LIKE them. And I mean that for bug, animal, or human. I don't like Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church who wouldn't know love and compassion if it bit them in the booty, but I will not kill them.

I am human and get angry, yes. Sometimes I want to hurt someone who has hurt me or my family, true. I will protect my family from harm even by force. That is expected and as it should be. 

However, sometimes we just need to look around and see beauty where we haven't seen it before. I have no problem finding beauty in nature, however, for me, it is finding beauty it humans who frustrate me so. That is my challenge. That is where I must grow and become more gentle. I know it is in me. The June Bug recognized it. A new friend recognized it who said she saw gentleness in my eyes, so I know I am capable. 

May God help me to grow to be a better person. The person that June Bug knew I could be.

God and Pissing Bugs

Have you ever laid down on the grass face down, and look, really look at what is below you? I don't mean just noticing that its grass, but looking as close as you can to the pattern in the grass blade or underneath to the soil below. I LOVE to do that. In fact, I spent some time this evening doing it yet again. My big yard is no perfectly planted California manicured lawn, it is a good hillbilly, take what grows, kinda yard, so I have a bigger variety of things to look at. 

First, I looked at all the little baby grasses and weeds that were coming up and thought that it was cool that some of them looked hairy. Then I decided to see how many insects I could find. I found several including one who crawled up my arm. I found a little ant hill and decided to watch it for a while. I watched a small ant and then saw a bigger one in the same hole. When I thought I had seen all I was going to, I noticed a tiny white dot moving. Being the ever spiritual, but ever human person I am, I said "Holy Sh*t Kitty! Can you see that bug?" He couldn't and just sat down. Apparently, he didn't find it nearly as fascinating as I did.

I think people find me a little strange and believe I have WAY to much time on my hands when I tell them stories like this. But for me, it is terribly exciting and just part of my spiritual quest. 

If there is one thing I can say for my father, I can tell you that this is his fault. He has taught me from the time I was tiny how to be fascinated with nature. Although Dad never graduated high school, he has always been the smartest man I know. And I think its because he lets nature teach him and common sense guide him. 

Not too long ago, he called me into a building he was working on. He pointed to a hole in the wood and said "See that?" And I did. He continued, "It looks like I drilled that with my drill. Its perfectly round." And yes it was. He went on to tell me that he had watched a bumble bee make that hole all by himself. "How did he get it that perfect?" he asked me. Then we went on to talk about how it should be impossible for a bumble bee to fly because his body mass is too large and how amazing God must be to make so many cool things. 

And that brings me back to my spiritual quest. The closer I look at the things God made, the more I learn about him (or her). People study paintings all the time in a effort to understand the artist. I would say any artist could create a painting to the point that the observer understands that he or she intended for you to see a forest, for example, but what of the artist who took the time on the details of the trees and the grasses? 

That's what I find so amazing about God, the artist. He thought so much of his creation that he concentrated on the details. And when I look at those details and study them, my image and appreciation for God grows. My perception of God becomes HUGE and I find out that my God is just the coolest. And to be honest, I find it even cooler if he did it slowly by evolution instead of a six day genesis. I don't want a magician, I want a sculptor. 

I want to realize that I am part of this nature that so fascinates me. I don't want to think I am separate from it. It doesn't matter that I am on top of the food chain, I am part of the food chain. I am a part of this wonderful, crazy creation that makes bugs that are so cool that they can piss a hot caustic substance that will kill his enemies but not burn his little booty.

Now how awesome of a God is that?

 

Deserving of Heaven?

Most of us growing up in the Bible Belt were taught that the world is, by nature, evil. The earth is the devil's playground, they say. 

However, for the life of me, I can't see it. I look at nature and I see beauty. I see the pure essence of the Creator. Even though there is a circle of life where one creature must kill to live, it is a raw, organic, universal relationship that we all share. We are all dependent upon the other. Without the least of these, the greater would not survive.  Each one of us fits into a larger puzzle that if we could stand back as the Holy One can, we could see the most stunning and splendid picture imaginable. 

We humans pride ourselves on being at the top of the food chain, believing that God himself gave us the order to subdue and control nature. At the same time, we claim to be the only ones to possess a soul, and have the greatest of moral compasses. 

To me, this is the most absurd of ideas. No other creature makes war based on the idea that they are somehow closer to God and therefore, more deserving. Yet humans have consistently killed for ideas... for beliefs. I can understand killing to eat, to drink, to survive. But I cannot conceive of a world in which it is okay to kill and enslave because you are not like me. How is that godly? 

If anyone deserves Heaven, it is the creature who has lived a life hating no one.  Who has raised their young, only showing aggression when protecting them. Only killing to eat, to survive. It is not us. 

So my church will remain in nature. I will not worship it, because I am also a part of it. I am another piece of nature. However, I will find my peace there. I will find that I belong there. I will look to the forest, to the sea, to the river, to the plains to see my brothers and sisters.

And when it is all over, I hope that I will find them on the other side.

The Secret Message of the Sea Turtle

I often imagine in moments of panic when I am desperately searching for peace that I am a sea turtle. I close my eyes and am embraced by the warm water. I can breathe underwater, because it is my nature.  I am that turtle. 

Sounds are no longer loud, but muted by the water's density. I am unencumbered by gravity and can float, flip over, swim forward or back, or dance the dance of the sea turtle. I feel nothing overwhelming, because it is all the same...soft and warm.

I can watch dolphins play or marvel at the endless colors of the ocean fish as they swim by. This is my playground, my oasis, my home. 

And for that moment, I have peace. My panic has subsided and I am reminded what it feels like to be okay. God has whispered with an image that he is there. He is the warm water that surrounds me. He is the rainbow of fishes that swam by me. He is the playful dolphin that caught my attention long enough to forget that I was afraid. 

Then I am me again and my world is once again, just fine.

To Be a Drop of Water

In another life, I would like to be a drop of water. Perhaps my life would begin at the top of a mountain spring. I would drift down the mountain enjoying the coolness of a spring morning as I looked up to the forest trees as they began to bud with life.

Later I would slip easily into a valley creek where I would see the deer sip quietly as I floated easily by. I would encounter little minnows and watch small crawdads scatter out from under a rock. I would flow under bridges and see the people pass by.

From the little creek, perhaps I would fall into a raging river and feel the vigor of life as I rush across the river rock and into the rapids. I could feel the rush of free fall down a waterfall and not be afraid because I am the waterfall. I could go on and on, passing countryside and mountainside until I could sense myself changing and feel the saltiness that is the ocean.

In the ocean, my options would seem limitless. I could be a wave crashing against the beach, or I could meander down to the reef where the clown fish swim among the coral. I could watch the dolphins play or the sea turtle swim lazily by. Then I could dive to the deep abyss where the sunlight never touches and the creatures glow in the dark. Maybe I would see a ship wreck and witness history as no one else has.

I could be guided by the moon back to shore and then taken up to the heavens by evaporation. The wind could carry me around the world and back. I could then fall back to earth as a drop of rain through a rainbow, or maybe even be a snowflake drifting slowly down until I land in the top of an evergreen.

Then when spring came again, I would melt again to my original form and drop to the feed the flower growing beside the stream below. Then, as I help in my humble way to restore life, I would drip from the petal and back into the mountain stream to begin my own journey again.

God in the Morning

I think it is in this morning time, as the sun begins to burn off the fog and the deer prints still remain in the dew that God himself waits for us. I am reminded of the song "In the Garden". It reads...."I go to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses.....and he walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, no other has ever known."

There is a certain silence in the morning that will not be found until the following dawn. A special gift given to those of us who live in a place like Whisper Creek, is that it is easier to hear the voice of God. I find myself looking out into the field in the morning. I sometimes wonder what it is I am looking for and then I realize I am searching for a promise that God is there. And then a deer steps out of the forest and looks at me. Or a chickadee lands on the tree limb and sings to me.

Morning time in my home is feeding time for the animals. I step outside only to be greeted by 12 cats who are waking up and stretching, looking forward to another good day. The guinea pigs have started their early morning whistles and run toward me while they await their turn to eat. The dogs all begin waging their tales in anticipation of a warm morning meal. When all that is done, I walk to the mailbox to get the morning paper only to enjoy my kitty escort to the box and back. The fish are then all awake and waiting to eat and the birds are chirping and reminding me that they are next in line. It is a wondrous time and one that always makes me smile. I think "This is what I live for."

It is in nature that I find God. It is in moments of peace, not in hours of sermons, that I hear his voice. We each must find our place where we can hear him. At Whisper Creek, in the gentle movement of the water, I look at my reflection. Behind me he stands. Ever gentle, ever present. He need not speak in words. He has spoken in his creation and part of his creation...how grateful I am to say it....is me.

 May I always be reminded of that and feel forever blessed.