Morning, Splendid Day

Faith, praise, rest, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

Good day, unleashed

I woke to sounds of nothing. Certain it’s 3:00 a.m. but, I must not look to see. Lie still, adjust quietly, pray, wander your mind, turn this way or that.

This night time thing that I refuse to accept, this pain that is mean and creepy and wakes me up, an angry spasm.

Try this, try that.

What on earth is a rotator cuff, anyway? I’m a stubborn woman. Do not like meds. Do not favor surgery. I will fix this off kilter place in my arm. I know I can.

Try not doing this, not doing that.

Yesterday was splendid, I laid there and thought.

The weather, the walk, the determined abandonment to art that’d been promised.

Colt, unleashed, ran ahead and looked back to be sure of my follow.

Two grown geese courting mid pond, took their time swimming away, no worries, we’ll take flight if need be.

Big happy dog swam towards them and they flirted just slightly ahead. He came when I called. His hip, knocked out of place by car, before we found him having been discarded by another,

mIght hold him back, might fling out of socket, a crazy thing.

I called him back, worried he might get too far, refusing to accept he was not as able as he hoped.

Yesterday was splendid.

He turned from the geese, close to the other side and with slowly ummph-like movements, he emerged and stood with me on the bank.

He shook, looked back, shook again and we climbed the big hill back towards the road.

Keeping him close, we strolled and paused, strolled and paused. I patted his head and said. “It’s a good day, Colt” two, three, maybe four times. Oddly happy over my talking to him and knowing he heard, I said it again.

Thinking, how beautiful a day, to be taught by a dog and to be noticed by another.

Someone surprised me and said, “You’re a very good writer.” and I replied “Thank you so very much.” hoping they knew their significance in my newly and decidedly splendid day.

I woke today, had been waiting.

I heard, finally, the morning. Dark still but, the birds beginning to sing.

Made my way for ibuprofen, caffeine and quiet meeting with birds and Bible.

“It’s a good day.” I thought.

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Lamentations 3 : 22 – 23

Mindfilledness

courage, Faith, grace, Prayer, rest, Salvation, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

I have a friend who is a therapist, yoga instructor and a quite beautiful singer. Her voice is smooth, her tone steady and open to my turning.

He redeems my soul in safety from the battle I wage. Psalm 55:18

She talks about trauma like David thought of Goliath.

As if to say, “I know you’re lurking, come at me, I’m stronger than you know.”

Oh, the mind filled messes we all hide away, stuff under the bed or way, way back in the dark corner of our dusty attic minds…

Thinking, “I know you’re still there; but, I have no need for you whatsoever…stay up there, away, I know you; but, have no need to bring you out.”

Trauma and memory, fine ’til they can’t rest and start to dance together, way past midnight in our dreams.

Last night, I watched a movie. Rare for me because I despise the “F word” and I have no desire for sex that looks like proud display of nastiness and shame.

The movie, “Woman in Gold” and the actor a strong and determinedly beautiful woman scarred by the siege of Hitler.

The one scene, the one that stirred up my thoughts, she is afraid to go back and remembers fleeing before being taken prisoner.

She melts down. I saw it in her eyes, Helen Mirren portraying trauma splendidly well.

She faced it. It was so very debilitating, just for a few seconds.

She knew her giant.

Would not concede.

I dreamt in color of scary things last night, of being held captive, of being harmed.

It was clear and real. It was a true story, true of my story.

Still, I woke and said to myself.

You know the reason for the dream. You know the games your mind plays either you let it become filled with the messes or you pause to be mindful of its seed.

I thought of my friend as I practiced mindfulness and rose to begin my day unscarred by the night and its thoughts.

Birds singing to celebrate the early bloom of forsythia and azalea, of hope, truth and quiet confidence.

Feathers found reminding of grace singing over me.

Filling my mind with things to grab hold to, store up, win battles with.

I’m linking up with Jennifer Dukes Lee who is changing the way I see “happy”.

Tell His Story

Chance and Fences

courage, Faith, grace, rest, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

chances, today and hopefully tomorrow

I’m pretty sure God would not design us to straddle the fear of failing fence.

Pretty sure, he calls us to walk steadily towards good things, things that he knows our hearts desire and our minds were made for.

Things we wonder over whether it could be possible for us, all the while being unafraid

to try a new thing,

a different thing

a thing you decide admittedly naive,

might it be possible?

Today, I entered a writing competition.

That is all I required of myself.

Write and enter.

I did. I took a chance.

That was all that was required, write because you love it and let others read your words.

That was enough, all it took.

I thought later.
“The more chances I take,
the more
chances
I will be given.”

enough for one day.

Word

courage, family, grace, rest, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

I read today and remembered why. The thing is, I’d forgotten it as pleasure.

Countless messages, subscriptions to opinions and advice of others to equip my writing, prepare my way, make me more writerly. So many voices, is there room for mine?

Information overload.

So, I skimmed my “pins” saved to my “Makes me Think” board and I remembered my last and most beautiful to me book, The Kite Runner.

I understood the story, it was truth for me.

Then, I went for beauty and I wondered still how can it be I’d gone my whole life without the gloriously truthful poetry of Mary Oliver in my life, my heart?

I sat with her words, sipping berry infused tea as I thought of a promise to myself, an essay submission, a friend committed to critique and I’m only 200 words in.

Moments

There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled.

Like telling someone you love them.

Or giving your money away, all of it.

Your heart is beating, isn’t it?

You’re not in chains are you? There is nothing more pathetic than caution

when headlong might save a life,

even, possibly, your own.

Then, I settled into Sunday afternoon empty house, content with alone. I continued on the trek with Andra Watkins, reading, prompted by guilt over an unfulfilled promise, Not Without My Father.

I thrilled over understanding, I smiled over connectedness. A book about walking the Natchez Trace because a person who is a big part of history walked this same trail, long-suffering and anguished. I was reluctant. Not a history person, yet, I longed to read the book.

Then, it happened about midway through!

She wrote of giving up or not. She wrote of longing to be noticed. She wrote of the anguish of being understood or of at least being seen. And her father told her he saw her, he noticed. He was proud. She was tough, tougher than he imagined. So, she cried over the gift of exactly what she’d been longing to receive, to know.

Then, I continue with her. I’m walking the trail reading the book and joy of all joys, she knows about the red birds, she believes in the cardinal, her “Mamaw” beckoning her, fluttering and following, saying “continue” and telling her it will be good from now on.

She is assured. So am I.

On Saturday, I walked and I thought of words and verses and truth. A bare tree, hosting a bevy of grey and tiny birds, I stopped to stare.

I walked on and decided, those birds were there so I’d notice and look towards the sky, to God and to good.

I thought of my beliefs in the moments like this, so real they’re like treasure. I thought of writing, of sharing the emotion of seeing birds fill a tree up high against sky blue.

I thought of keeping silent, of not describing this Saturday afternoon occurrence of birds for the sake of those who think less of the notice of God, of birds, of word.

Then decided, surely there’s another who might be waiting to say “Yes, I saw them too..oh, the beauty of it all.”

Words, sky, scripture, truth and birds up high in lonely tree

Beauty, waiting for us to see.

Unjumbled

courage, Faith, grace, praise, Prayer, rest, Uncategorized

I’m writing, attempting to limit my world and words to five minutes worth. I woke with thoughts carried from the day before and the prompt is “Breathe”. Here I go.

There must be more of this, to sit with quiet, to lie with rain. There must be more of this serene.

I thought of being jumbled yesterday, of the days’ comingling of its junk with my good.

I shared with another, “I don’t believe we remember to think for ourselves anymore…everything seems so decided for us, we limit ourselves like an choosing to take the test with multiple choice, guessing answers a, b, c, rather than the essay question, our voice and words.

We get drawn in to excitement or furor and we become a member of a club that intices our membership through big noisy words and characters.

Leaving us to decide, is this loop one I’m in? Surely. I should jump right in.

I’m either captivated or entranced by the seemingly perfect pursuits of others.

until I remember where I’m standing, where I’m sitting and I pause.

I breathe the breath of peace of mind.

i sit with art, words or Bible and I am drawn to listen. Birds, an owl, the dog’s sigh.

But, I get torn on occasion with the jumbledness of should, could,oppose, support, despise, adore, follow along or

rest where your mind has you, has brought you.

Breathe, pause, stay.

You are here in this place I have you. Stay.

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not keep silent. Psalm 30:11

Linking up with Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday http://katemotaung.com/2017/02/02/five-minute-friday-breathe-lisa-jo-baker/

Leaning In

courage, Faith, grace, Prayer, rest, Trust, Uncategorized

15994681_10154762355406203_7624470600768408281_o

I just asked the Lord, wrote him a morning note in my journal.

How is it that I feel so close to you Lord, every morning, yet, by day’s end I’m worn out and walking, looking for you in the sky? What draws me back to the middle, the hollow place between fervor and fading, between living and languishing?

And he answered me with the pencil in my hand. Lean in, listen more closely. Don’t stay in the background questioning your value. Don’t stand at a distance afraid of what might not come true. Lean in, Lisa, I see you believing. Don’t be like the skeptical and uncertain ones who rejected me in the synagogue of my place of birth.

Thinking there’s no way, his father is just a carpenter and aren’t his brothers just common men? They wouldn’t believe, maybe they were pompous or possibly just afraid, thinking themselves unworthy or incapable of what believing might bring.

So, Jesus carried on to draw near to ones with open minds and desperate hearts in need of a Savior.

May I not so grow so confident or accomplished that I neglect to lean in and believe.

May I not be afraid because of who I’m not, to be who Jesus knows I am.

And He did not do many works there, because of their unbelief. Matthew 13:58

Linking up with Kate at FMF http://katemotaung.com/2017/01/12/five-minute-friday-middle/

middle

All Together Beautiful

courage, rest, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

I was enthralled by her retelling. Her hand holding her daughter’s. Her husband took his life. She did not know why.

I listened and agreed, there is yet, no reason why. They’d unraveled, retold, no answers. Nothing to have known.

The pauses are long sometimes. Have they more to say? Are there replies that might heal? We pause.

The room is still; but, not uneasy.

She reaches into her purse, I figure to fill empty space, maybe look for Kleenex or phone.

Instead, she finds a book and she reads to us about grief and the only thing that has brought comfort, she adds.

“Grief” she read aloud, is hard and it is unpredictable and onerous in its coming, occasional going and coming again.

Still, if there is the opportunity to notice beauty, then there are moments that feel less like grief.

Oh, I thought, the noticing makes the difference…yes, me too.

I lead the meetings and I’m awkward at times and I’m sad later, not during,

having heard their stories.

I take them with me home.

But, I listened as she read from little green book and my eyes welled up as she offered hope to the ones who were there to make her hopeful, help her make sense of her senseless.

So, I cried a little in the presence of her bravery on that, her first time at support group.

I woke at 5 the next morning, thinking of beauty, I drifted and slept for a little longer, more pleasant.

Ventured down the hall, good morning pats on heads of dogs and then walked outside with them onto grass barely daylight lit.

Tennis ball tosses, one or two and then I look down on shadowy ground obscure.

One, I see and reach down to collect it, then two, three blue feathers at my slippered feet. Not too many know, my place of settling, everything an arrangement of three.

And I’m thinking still, two nights later about the complexity of pattern, of life, of grief, of brave recitation and of my mind

that woke with thoughts of beauty and followed to find it there.

Thinking now of all of the all togethers of beautiful noticing.

God is everywhere.

Don’t forget to notice.

All together beautiful.

Continue reading →

My Little Eye

courage, Faith, grace, rest, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

Epiphany -January 6th

There are a couple of words I love most in my collection of “perfectly pretty words”.

The way they sound when they’re spoken by me, at least from my perspective is just special, significant and kind of sweet.

And the way the letters are so balanced and artful, their dots and intersected cursives making their mark on my pages.

I love them. Two in particular, vignette and epiphany.

I love a pretty place on bedside table, a collection of unevenly numbered things, a clock, a pebble, a book or a candle, framed photo and glass jar filled with pretty pencils. I step back or sit next to a spot, eyes drifting over to my “vignette” and I smile.

I opened the planner on my desk left clean for my return after Christmas. Not marked yet, I turned to January.

Paused when I saw it, “Epiphany” , it’s tomorrow, the 6th.

Epiphany, the day that marks the time the Magi encountered Jesus, the newborn, Son of God.

I use the word when I stop suddenly upon a realization of truth or a long sought understanding.

I use it when the waiting and the hardest parts of my life show me their worth, their lesson, their value.

“Oh, I just had an epiphany.” I’ll say to myself, its validity a personal and precious gift.

Epiphany, an intuitive revelation. Intuition, another especially beautiful word.

Like “vignette” as description makes the ordinary arrangement more special, “epiphany” makes our realization more heart and soul.

This morning I read a verse from Psalms that made me think of striking out on my own and the paths I’d rushed towards or stumbled through in search of desire and destination. The things I see when I wait to see through God’s eyes are much grander, established, settled, safe and sure.

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭32:8‬ ‭ESV‬‬

This verse makes me smile. I can hear it now….the voice of one or the other of my children. ” I spy…with my little eye.” I’d love that pause between spy and with because I knew their little minds were thinking about what might be hard to find and how much of an adventure it would be for us to either find it or give up!

God never takes his eye off me. I believe there are good things he wants me to seek…to stay right beside him, to depend on his not so little eye.

Or like a lost and disoriented misguided mule without reins, we’re either uncertain or overconfident. Lacking direction and stubbornly impatient.

Because, I spy with my little eye only a tiny bit of the light of what’s to come, like a skinny strip under a midnight door, I can see just enough to get by.

Then, I stop looking for it or remember to see it

little vignettes and silently sought epiphanies

revelations of God.

Linking up with Jennifer Dukes Lee at Tell His Story

http://jenniferdukeslee.com/magical-habit-lingering-free-journal/

Resolve

courage, Faith, family, grace, New Years Day, Prayer, rest, Teaching, Trust, Uncategorized

Acknowledge what I’ve been given instead of longing for what I lost, felt I lost out on.

re·solve

NOUN

firm determination to do something:

“she received information that strengthened her resolve”

Pray more.

Trust more.

Love more.

Learn more about God and me.

Keep them all.

“Keep the faith, finish the course. ” 2 Timothy 4:7

Thank you, Paul, for your part in the story.

Sometimes I think I’m either the most simple minded of people on earth or the most complicated of minds incapable of rest.

I’m a contrast of contentment in the gift of lamplight on morning devotion; I yearn for solitude, rarely am I lonely.

Yet, the thoughts I conjure up, I’m unable to contain. Been called “deep”, been thanked for my deep thoughts.

On this day, the last of 2016, there’s a loud huffy sigh, bemoaning the disdain of its days. I don’t think I’ve ever lived a year that many feel as if we’ve all walked around either on eggshells or avoiding land mines. Negativity, pessimism and a tendency to grieve people we’ve never known, to align ourselves with the distress that we’ve never experienced and probably never will.

Tomorrow, not an unveiling of newness, other than number, a new set of hours making a day. But, there is a trend towards thinking it might be good, might be better.

My only aspiration is to step towards the things I’ve let fade, linger too long.

The treasure, closer and closer to the place of boxing up and storing on the top shelf of my closet, nothing more than idea and season.

This morning I read of Paul and his encounter with a rich man, a man whose possessions meant more than his days.

Measured his wealth, decided it was too risky to trade in for his soul.

I have never known wealth, have lived an unexpectant life. I’ve coveted the lives of others, longed for their pretty things.

Wasteful times and thoughts those have been.

Finally, I’m beginning to cherish the beautiful enough.

I’m thrilled by the smallest of unvalued and the immeasurably valuable things.

Lessons, memories, stories, connections.

Seeing, feeling, knowing Gods hand on the course my life.

Dogs, I learned to love them in 2016.

Life, I learned to accept it, daily.

My people, I learned to love them with open hands, not tightly clutched grasp of apprehension.

Thank you, God.

Crazy chances taken, wasted saving graces and Lord knows I’m beginning to see why I made it through.

I’m finally finishing a book I should’ve never set aside. I’m rereading it now, underlining bedside.

Paul and Jesus, themes of wealth, struggle, integrity, times living “on fire”, times of dull flame, finally, more times of staying the mental course that brings good to days. The little book ends with “Ten Vows of Success”

“He who suffers, remembers.” Og Mandino

“I will bathe my days in the golden glow of enthusiasm. In that bright glow will I be able to see, for the first time, all the good things in life that were concealed from me during those years of futility.

Just as a young lover has a finer sense and more acute vision and sees, in the object of his affection, a hundred virtues and charms invisible to all other eyes, so will I, imbued with enthusiasm, have my power of perception heightened and my vision magnified until I can see the beauty and charm others cannot discern which can compensate for large loads of drudgery, deprivation, hardship, and even persecution.

With enthusiasm I can make the best of any situation and should I stumble now and then, as even the most talented will do on occasions, I will pick myself up and go on with my life.

Always will I bathe my days in the golden glow of enthusiasm.” Part II The End of the Story, The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino

This little book, a recommended read from my son and a very wise friend, Ray Visotski.

Happy New Day tomorrow…that just happens to be the first of a New Year!

Acknowledge what you’ve been given instead of what you’ve lost or lack, Lisa.

Bathe your days in enthusiasm, sunsets, dogs,

God, faith and hope

and love.

Towards Grace

courage, Faith, grace, praise, Prayer, rest, Salvation, Teaching, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

On the first day of new, I wrote a prayer and called it “Winter”, knowing that what I write, I might retain.

I found it beautiful then. It was descriptive and true.

Grace found

Pausing to look it over, gray lines and loops on thin white paper, I pondered the seven days since I’d already begun to fear.

Welcome, Winter.

May your arrival bring new things.

May I be unafraid of your truth

and of mine.

May I hold fast to a promise uttered for others and for me,

a breakthrough is coming, it’s about to be time.

This morning I sat in a dim space. The morning faded by moist and thick fog led me to linger. I read and wrote, three or four lines at most. The quiet of the morning, too much of a calm nothingness for me to move.

I listened and heard a dove in the distance. Its coo was quiet, then more clear, then quiet again. The notes of its song danced like black squiggly shapes on sheets of music.

I listened and thought of grace.

Grace, manifested, making itself evident, the only other sound the tick of the clock on kitchen wall.

The cooing of the bird becoming conversation, for me, I decide.

I waited. It continued.

It quietens, so I move, unfolding the quilt from my bare feet.

I think of seeking the sound, the sight of grace.

For months, I walked almost daily with lens pointed towards the sky. Random shots of clouds that called me to notice. The sky, like dove song, I’m certain was always for me.

Grace, manifested. Grace, rediscovered.

Had never moved, not been removed nor withdrawn, I’d just stopped looking. Maybe I’d become comfortable in the apathy of apprehensive unknown.

Sometimes we do these little things like “quiet time” and journaling and they’re nothing short of cliched habit, practicing a trendy social sharing, searching for a word to declare will carry us through the day…like wearing our badges of honor to mark our fading faith.

Then, we see grace.

We feel it. We hear it because it was not of our making, we got silent and still enough to see God.

I’m looking again. I’m noticing again. It’s a quiet and private practice.

Earlier today, I was captivated by a presentation. Watch and listen:

Are you listening?

A video created by a photographer, the intent to capture the emotion of 2016. It’s hard to watch. Hard not to watch. The voice of the narrator is reminiscent of the sweetest teacher a Southern girl may have ever known. It’s a voice that is somber in its serious tone, broken in its cadence.

If voices were visible emotion, her’s would be the drawn face of sorrowful acceptance.

It was hard to watch, such an accurate commentary of our time, our distress.

Hard to watch, yet, impossible not to take notice.

I watched and still, I thought of grace.

I thought of Job and his refusal to give up on God, his dismay, his defeat and his holding out and holding on to see grace again when they all told him it was not to be found.

No more grace for you, curse what you’ve decided to count on for good and accept that your doubts have come true. His wife, his friends, the bodies of his children cried out. Job 2:9

I thought of the sky that I turned to notice once the fog had cleared.

The open spot where the blue came in.

That’s the place that reminded me of my Winter prayer

and eventually, again, of grace.

Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. Psalm 86:6

Linking up with Jennifer Dukes Lee to Tell His Story.

http://jenniferdukeslee.com/want-give-2017-even-starts/

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