Where-ever I am (Smacking myself in the Face with Reality)

       I am sitting here in the Hy-Vee dining area in Mankato drinking my $1.75 coffee from the Starbuck's kiosk that I paid.16 cent for (because I used a gift card).  I know, not very romantic...not very typical to describe the mundane like this for me but I had a thought just a little while ago as I was here.  I looked outside to the horizon (here's the romantic in me again) and I thought, "looks like a suburb...wish I was in Minneapolis."  Then I thought..."the better half of my time I am wishing I was somewhere else...this is not healthy."  It just smacked me in the face that I need to just realize that I am here in Mankato -- for better or worse.  I don't love it here but I don't hate it.  I have found some things that I appreciate though to help me -- going on walks and hikes or bike rides for one.  There is a good church here with some pretty solid teaching, worship and friendly enough people.  There is a women's craft collective with an emphasis on crossing cultures with women who have immigrated here with refugee status and women who have lived in the States their whole lives.  I, at least, get to work with children and even do music with them.  I actually have quite a few things to be thankful about.  I also am with my Love, the man I married and even though it's not all rainbows and tulips and sunshine all the time, we love each other and still know how to have fun.  I am glad he is here to do the thing he feels called to do - physics - and I am proud of that.
        The truth is that the Holy Spirit can use me wherever I am and I just need to be willing.  I need to be willing to take the mundane and make it holy.  That stereotypical suburban looking mom in the Starbucks line, maybe she needs encouragement?  I mean, I guess I'm just telling myself I need to realize that just because I'm not doing the thing I *love* and feel "fits" me doesn't mean that God can't use me.  I need to get over myself and my snobbery and ask God what he wants me to do right now.  It may be actually talking to someone who I have some preconceived notion about and not judging them.  It may be seeing the good things in my life instead of focusing on what I don't have.  It may very well be all that and more.

Cat-bus

I have been busy and not thinking I have much to say, thus, the lull in posts.

Yeah, but I did a drawing of a cat-bus today (from the classic anime movie My Neighbor Totoro) which I plan to send to a friend in a care package this week. I tried to turn it but it won't work for me so I guess I'll just post it looking like it's about to rocket into the sky.

"Cat-bus" is also what my husband and I call the kitty that lives above us since it sounds as loud as a cat-bus.
:o)



I feel like my winter blues have passed and I'm getting into new things.  I've started volunteering by attending a Women's Craft Cooperative designed to get immigrants, refugees and native Minnesotans to mix and have fun doing crafts, speaking English, and sharing life.  I learned to knit there just this Friday.  I also went to a "Re-skills" workshop where we learned about baking bread.  I am baking my own bread right now!  See, an old dog can learn new tricks...hehe.

Well, just wanted to say hey and wish you all a vivifying day/evening.

On Princesses

From the beginning of George MacDonald's "The Princess and the Goblin":

THERE was once a little princess who—

"But Mr. Author, why do you always write about princesses?"

"Because every little girl is a princess."

"You will make them vain if you tell them that."

"Not if they understand what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?"

"What do you mean by a princess?"

"The daughter of a king."

"Very well, then every little girl is a princess, and there would be no need to say anything about it, except that she is always in danger of forgetting her rank, and behaving as if she had grown out of the mud. I have seen little princesses behave like children of thieves and lying beggars, and that is why they need to be told they are princesses. And that is why when I tell a story of this kind, I like to tell it about a princess. Then I can say better what I mean, because I can then give her every beautiful thing I want her to have."

"Please go on."

There was once a little princess whose father was king over a great country full of mountains and valleys. His palace was built upon one of the mountains, and was very grand and beautiful. The princess, whose name was Irene, was born there, but she was sent soon after her birth, because her mother was not very strong, to be brought up by country people in a large house, half castle, half farmhouse, on the side of another mountain, about half-way between its base and its peak...

Working in a preschool I get my fair share of princesses as you can imagine.  I have been compared to a princess and also been informed that the little girls I work with are princesses as well as being a scribe for a handful of stapled together "books" containing stories about the girls who are little princesses.  Oh yeah, and then there is the ever-invasive Disney princesses which are not so terrible as I first thought, but also don't do justice to what I believe George MacDonald gets at in the beginning of "The Princess and Goblin."  Princess Irene, if ever there was one, is the real deal in princess stories.  She is simply uncommon.
When I was a little girl I was not into dolls or dresses or anything remotely like princesses.  I just didn't seem to care about any "girly" thing.  According to my mom, I liked to draw and I liked to run around and be a "little monkey." However, after reading the "Princess and the Goblin" and having my eyes widened to this great world I see. what. the. princess. thing. is. about.
Like a poet, I know I cannot quite put it into words, but, it's something about being lovely. A daughter of a king ought to be lovely simply on basis of being the king's daughter, shan't she?  If she is not, as George MacDonald says, she will at least need to hear these things about herself so that she might start to grow into truly having this quality.  I shy away from saying thing like "I am a daughter of a KING," (really the King of Creation) and yet when I find myself aware of this my whole being changes.  I begin to act it because I begin to believe it...and that is what being a princess is about.      

Psalm 21:1-6 (King changed to princess)

"O LORD in your strength the princess will be glad

And in your salvation how greatly she will rejoice!

You have given her her heart's desire,

And you have not withheld the requests of her lips.  Selah

For you meet her with the blessings of good things, 

You have set a crown of fine gold on her head.

She asked life of you

You gave it to her,

Length of days forever and ever 

Her glory (through Jesus) is great through your salvation,

Splendor and majesty you place upon her.

For you make her joyful with gladness in your presence."

Kingdom come, will be done

I have recently come to the exhilarating and terrifying conclusion that God does indeed intend to bring his Kingdom on earth through me (and other followers of Him).

Maybe this is too simple of a statement.

It would seem somewhat obvious; afterall, Jesus explicitly asks us to pray for God's Kingdom to come when his disciples ask him how to pray.  Yet again, in Matthew 28:18-20 there is the famous commission:

And Jesus came and said to them,  "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Of course, this is to his disciples directly, but it was meant to replicate itself and it in fact, did.

Everything I do should be centered around the Spirit's desire to work through me to draw all people to Himself.  I fail at this often, and yet, I am comforted that God has used me and is refining me and even making me desire more and more to be his child, his reflection.  One of my favorite verses proclaims,


"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, no counting men's sins against them.  And he has committed us to this ministry of reconciliation.
We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.  We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."  -2 Corinthians 5:18-21

It is easy to become numb to the Spirit.  We can be distracted by so much.  We can live our lives self-righteously or self-importantly.  We can even do good things.  Yet, as one of my friend's showed me the other week, when we stop just trying to be "good Christians" and open ourselves up to the Spirit we end up doing things like hanging out with our Somali friends and making acquaintance with one of their Somali friends who has need of all kinds of basic things like a winter coat and cookware and no way to get it.  Then, we tell him that our church will be able to provide these things because that's what we do.  Later, we actually do it.  We sacrifice some time and money and energy and learn about another culture and feel a bit foolish perhaps, but it's so worthy.  Actually listening to the Spirit and being willing to be used has repercussions beyond anything we can do with our own power.


I could go on and on.  I know what I've written isn't very coherent.  However, I feel it is vital to say either way.  I am very amazed that Jesus wants to use us.  In some ways it is logical because he did give us the Holy Spirit to help us when he left.  In some ways, it seems ridiculous, being that humans are so fickle.  Yet, God is changing the world through us.  That is his plan.  Let's be his ambassadors.