Category: Inspirational

Raising a Village

As I was reading further into the book of Exodus this week, continuing to follow the journey of Moses and the Israelites, a strange thought occurred to this inquisitive mind. If the old adage “It takes a village” still holds true, like I believe that it does… the next question one might ask themselves is “Who raised the village that it took to raise the one that the village raised?”

I know that I am not alone in this place of curiousity… how else do you think those DNA mail in companies became so popular? Why else would we care who and where we came from? How often do we wonder why we look the way we do, why we have mannerisms that we have, and/or why we were raised the way we were raised? Some are raised deeply rooted in traditions handed down from earlier generations, while others grew up without anything familiar from their earliest memories.

The Israelites memories and belief systems were set from generations earlier… beginning with Gods’ covenant with Abraham, again later with Isaac and Jacob, and resting with Joseph when he entered Pharaohs court as a young man. The Egyptians carried generations steeped with their own traditions, blending some of the Israelites traditions with their own through years of coexisting. When Moses was born, it was as if he was placed in a foster home. He must have been exposed to the most confusing of upbringings, in my opinion. Growing up in the foster care system, all I remember was feeling like I was to go where they sent me to school, attend whatever church that particular family went to, if any, and sleep in whatever room had been made available for guests.

While I don’t necessarily believe that Moses upbringing was as harsh as mine, I believe we both grew up very confused.

I am guessing that played a large part in the amount of time it was before Moses returned to Egypt, to represent the God of his forefathers. In essence, I think Moses became like an adopted son of sorts, being raised up, cared for, and prepared for a purpose he was born to fulfill… beginning right there at that burning bush I mentioned in the previous episode.

I’ve only just gotten through all the 10 plagues, and the departure of the very large village Moses found himself responsible to lead and teach. They only just arrived at the Red Sea and had already accused Moses and GOD, of leading them to their deaths. The only traditions these people had gotten settled into was bondage, so they didn’t get far before their faith ran out. This got me to wondering how long a tradition has to be in place before it can be considered a solid tradition. All this village knew how to do was survive… living had become nonexistent to them.

From there I asked myself how long it actually took for the plagues to run through, as well as the leaving part. History seems to show a lot happening in a relatively short period of time. I can only imagine how overwhelming it must have been, to experience something so life altering during those days and weeks. On the heels of 10 major plagues ravaging the land, the village was then instructed to pack up their families, livestock and belongings, and wander off into the desert. Logistically, it must have been a nightmare to organize a village of this size. Did you know that there were over 600,000 men… not including their wives and children. Nothing about this many people is going to move easily nor quickly. Don’t forget that the Israelites had also been instructed by God to plunder the Egyptians (Exodus 12:36). Personally, I would break out in hives at the thought of taking someone’s stuff and leaving town.

At this point I am getting a clearer picture of the state of mind this village was in by the time they pulled out of the station in Egypt.

I get the feeling that it took God some years in the desert with Moses, just to undo all of the damage caused by the wrong Village. God then worked in and through Moses to free a village that would need to do a lot of growing up before arriving at the land God intended to give the Israelites.

God is the ultimate example of a parent caring for and teaching their child. As parents, you and I have no intention of handing our 5 year old the car keys, leaving them to simply have a go at it! In the same sense, God had no intention of handing over a land flowing with milk and honey to a bunch of scarred, scared, and far from spiritual children… so to speak. While I’ve not read the passages ahead yet, I am already privy to the 40 year time period of wandering that was in store for the children of Israel. Based on my own life, it took 40 years from the time I divorced my parents and became a Voluntary Ward of the State, to where you find me today. When I broke free from that bondage, had God just handed me the keys to freedom and said, “There ya go”… I wouldn’t be alive today!

If I can leave you with anything today, it would be a reminder that just as God used Moses back then to raise a village, He works through you and I today, to stand in the gap for some pretty broken villages. There are so many children of God still living in bondage to something, and whether or not I feel capable on my own, my desire is to be a part of God’s plan and purpose… His village!

Christ our King by Village Lights will be the song I wish to leave you with, and I have no clear reason why… sometimes it’s not about me, but someone else may need this so I will leave it at that… I love you guys.

Let’s be a village together…

Today Is Everything Potato Sunday!

Be sure to pick up your favorite slippers

and bean bag

Lets strap on the feed bags and belly up to the Potato Bar…

You can either pick an already prepped tater, in case you are in a hurry…

Or grab a plate and follow me…

Now that you picked out your tater, let’s head for some toppings…

Who doesn’t like at least a smidge of crumbly and salty goodness sprinkled across the top…

For our cheese lovers I brought a choice of yellow or white cheddar…

For dessert I thought a simple chilled peach might suffice…

Have a Blessed Day everyone… hugs

The first sound to grace my ears will be the coffee pot gurgling…

While the delectable smell fills the room, the system on my computer begins whirring.

While I sip my first cup of Jo, blended perfectly with cream, I wait for all systems coming on line… both mine and the computers.

With coffee on board I begin my day… but wait… it’s Saturday!

Once this sinks in, everything I thought I needed to get done gets sent directly to MONDAY!

Work gets sidelined but Coffee STAYS…

Whether I feel like walking or not, has now turned into finding an excuse to play hooky and stay in my jammies.

Here is also where I make the crucial decision about food for the rest of the day… do I pull something out of the freezer and plan ahead? Nah… burritos in the microwave for lunch, chips and dip for dinner, and leftover Key lime Pie for dessert, it is! Don’t judge… there is meat and cheese in the burrito, milk in the dip, potato in the chips, and fruit in the Key Lime pie!

Why would I make such choices for myself, you may be asking yourself? Because I can… I’m a grown up… I make big girl decisions every other day of the week… today is GAME day!

On this day I most likely will not be answering my phone, OR walking… nor will I attempt to be grown up or make big girl decisions. Instead I will be adventuring with my cat Brodie, saving poor villagers, plundering all the bad guys chests full of goodies, and buying pretty outfits off the marketplace with my fake riches… it’s satisfying!

Somewhere near the middle of the day my brother-in-law and niece join my hubby and I in a chat room, and in the game. It’s family time that works in our case.

On into the night… through burritos, bad guys, and treasure chests filled with Key Lime Pie we adventure…

Sometimes, after playing all day I will go to bed for the night and dream of either harvesting trees or hunting turkeys for the current events running in the game.

The point is, I take one day a week where I shut everything from the world out and let my heart, mind, and soul simply rest.

Society has spent countless hours, dollars, and time to create a way to recharge actual batteries. It makes them last longer and is useful in saving our ecosystem, our pocketbooks and our energy.

I am doing the same thing but poor man style… I am gonna last longer, my ecosystem will be safe, and while I don’t have any pocketbook to save, I will definitely have more energy…

Here, have a cookie…

There should be enough sugar in here to fuel a couple of Teslas…

There is so much freedom in faith, especially in the hard times, which seems so backwards to most. When falling, our first response is to reach out and right ourselves within our own strength… only reaching for help out of desperation, when our own efforts have failed. From birth we display this independent behavior, hence the creation of things like bumper guards for cribs, car seats, and locking mechanisms for all doors, drawers, and cabinets. A baby will roll, grab, and grasp anything with no thought to the hows, the whys, or the safeties involved. We parents world revolves around guarding and guiding until that child is capable of independence.

Being a human while discovering our strengths and weaknesses is almost cheating compared to the natural world. When I imagined the life of a baby bird, it is precarious at best… one wrong move and the earth will display its unforgiving nature! Those two parents do everything in their power to hover, protect and care for those chicks, but at some point the babes have to take a big leap of faith while taking their first flight. The parents stayed til the chicks took flight. Those babies trusted enough to fly from watching their parents do it, possibly. If anything happened to the parents, the chicks were doomed.

Wait a moment… maybe we are not so different after all.

It is so beautiful in scripture, how God often uses nature to reflect truths in a way my mind can understand. Many times in scripture, birds are written about… from the doves in the ark, to the sparrow of the field. When David described Gods overwhelming love for us to that of a bird, I suppose it stuck in my mind that He is the author of my faith, my source of freedom.

So I decided to place this scripture as my Note To Self #14

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. Psalm 91:4

However we choose to envision Him, God is actively working nonstop for our benefit. I might see His wings in my minds eye, but another may see something completely different. The point is that we see and feel Him in our lives, because He is faithful to the end. The song God You Are by We Are Messengers, was fitting for today I thought. I hope you take a moment to listen.

Brutus

Behind the Scenes

From here on out, my friends, I shall be taking Brutus offline so as to preserve the environment I am attempting to create. Writing an actual Novel will take every ounce of my literary skills, something in which I’ve no experience in doing. So, in order for this dream to come to fruition, I have a great amount of learning to do.

I figured that I could use Fridays to keep you posted as to my progress in writing, developing, editing, packaging and finally publishing something I believe will be worth the reading.

My hat goes off to all the authors out there who had the tenacity to keep at it, never letting go of their dream… this stuff is not for sissies! I have never felt so passionate about something that I feel so ill equipped to tackle.

I wish to share my journey with you, as the writing has been forthcoming, due to your encouragement along the way. I don’t wish to lose this time with you guys. Who knows, maybe one of you are doing the same thing and might be encouraged by what I share here. Either way, I am compelled to proceed with this dream I have, in hopes that I can bring this story to life…

Brutus deserves the effort!

Fall has always been my favorite time of year with all the changing colors, cooling temperatures, and cozy nights in bed listening to the rain dance across the roof above our heads.

Sweaters, fuzzy blankets, and wooly socks are my go to, so it isn’t so easy trying to live like that during the warmer months of the year… Fall is my jam!

This time of the year all the way through til spring is my prime for trail time… hey, that rhymed!

All of my life has been a kind of roughing it lifestyle… I acclimated to living outdoors in the darkened streets, at the tender age of eleven… I was born for running in every sense of the word.

As time rolled forward, I developed into an adult with the same inclinations as that runner of my childhood years… fast and light… able to bolt with lightening speed!

Fast and light…

Running fast and light…

Walking fast and light…

Walking light…

and now just walking!

This year is a bit rough for these running, walking legs… the cold, it seems, is much less forgiving nowadays. Not just the weather temps, but my own body is rebelling against this seasons trail time. Don’t worry… it won’t stop this traveler… but it has forced me to slow a bit and exercise more caution. Get it?! Exercise… oh well, if I have to explain it, then it probably wasn’t as funny as I thought it was.

Anyway, yesterday I had to laugh at myself while considering the changes life has brought about for this body. As I was walking out on the trail, I did some self assessing of things like my gait, where my feet were making contact with the ground, and my actual walking posture… all of which greatly impact how my fibromyalgia will repay me later in the day. I’m not sure how long it has been since I did this last, but things are different lately.

Whatever happened in my back several years ago has come full circle back to the source of the injury, and as I have refused to stop walking, my body has apparently made its own changes to accommodate. Never fear though… we all know that I am currently getting things figured out about the injury. However, in the mean time I will have to adjust my regime to avoid exacerbating the situation. I decided this yesterday after a walk that began with me walking like the holy woman of God that I am, graceful and smooth… to the swagger of a 14 year old gangster wanna be, nearly dragging my left leg along like a one legged pirate!

These shoes were apparently made for walking, but not 6 miles a day… and not at the speed of a 20 year old marathon runner. In an attempt to preserve what remains of my hip sockets, I am officially standing down! It is time to take more days off, walk a bit slower and not so far all the time, and show myself some grace… I think it’s only fair, don’t you? 54 years of running has earned this girl some chair time… not too much mind you… but just enough.

What did one volcano say to the other?

I lava you.

You guys know I am just picking my favorite jokes off Google, right?

In and out of Boxes

When it comes to being a writer, I’ve mentioned before how I like to answer the prompts because they help me to think outside of my writing box… write about things I normally wouldn’t, or in poetry or other forms that I am not used to doing. I try to stretch myself as a writer, so that I can develop a deeper skill and literary depth, for writing that which is in my heart.

Thinking outside the box has been an adage used for far greater a time, than even I can remember. It’s a fantastic analogy for more than just writing, as it comes into play in every corner of our internal processing. In every part of us there are boxes of beliefs, boxes of opinions, boxes of hurts, boxes of memories, and boxes of behaviors… all of which eventually get full, or sometimes hold nothing at all. What do we do with them all, when there is no more room to even cross the floor, without walking on or stepping in differing boxes to get there?

On the flip side, what if the room were vacant with no boxes at all? Humans need boxes to navigate the crossing of the room to the doorway in the corner.

Boxes are just boxes… benign… neither good or bad… just useful in sorting through life’s experiences. What we do with the box is a whole different ball of wax. Do we seal them up with packing tape, pushing them to the sides of the room to be forgotten? What if there is something useful we may need later? Just in case, we might take a sharpie and put a label on the box like, *Remember me when you are ready to throw in the towel*. We seem to live in some of our boxes, refusing to come out and cross the floor, finding comfort and safety in the familiar surroundings of things unchanged by outside forces. The flap on these boxes are worn, tattered and torn… no longer able to be completely closed. Neither of these two extremes is very healthy.

That is where thinking outside the box comes into play… maybe even evolving into something like Navigating the Ins and Outs of Boxes. For this we need tools… mental, emotional and spiritual tools. I wandered for most of my literary life, existing for the most part, sealed inside boxes of my past… one that cannot be altered or undone, no matter how long I hid myself within those boxes.

I sort of think that our painful journey over the last 3 years, actually tore the lids off all my boxes… forcing me to come out into the light. Had things not gone badly, as they did, I would still be sitting in my recliner, there in Virginia, over 100 lbs. heavier, completely doped up on medications, and so hopelessly depressed that suicide was actually looking good, and I am not being flippant.

Fast forward to now, living the way we do and writing the way I currently have been, I can say with certainty that Brutus would not be possible, could never have been born into my imagination… were I still back there in that old recliner (box).

I like living freely… skipping from one box to another, moving items from one hidden corner, and bringing them out into the light to organize and sort through for the useful stuff. For me personally, living this way has brought that which I had sought for all my days… Joy in the Journey… I found it!