Just Once . . .

Posted on September 8, 2024 by apronheadlilly

In the You Got Mail movie, Meg Ryan’s character does not say what she really wants to say–most of the time; and it is eating her up. When she finally lets the Tom Hanks character have it, she is almost instantly filled with regret for having let all the vitriol spill out. There is wisdom in that, I think. Most times, it is better to keep our mouths shut, BUT . . .

Just one time I would like to try it and see if I really do feel regret.

I was in an eye doctor’s office, and the doc was mocking me and disrespecting me because I could not apparently respond to the prompts correctly that related to his twisting and turning his little dial thingys. It was infuriating. I wanted to let him have it and dramatically storm out of there.

But I didn’t.

Probably because I knew if I said anything at that moment, I would cry. And I was not about to cry. Was he having a bad day? I don’t care. Nobody should have the right to verbally demoralize someone–especially since that someone is paying her bill.

So, Meg, don’t know if I would have regretted it, but just once when someone is acting like a jerk, I would like to give it the ole college try!

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Looking Back #2

Posted on September 3, 2024 by apronheadlilly

It has been a long time since I read diary entries from CA when I was out traveling and singing, pre-marriage 70s stuff. I was a very busy gal! I can’t say I lacked passion and enthusiasm, but I seem so naïve in my chronicles. I read alone in my office and still get embarrassed!

I think my heart was in the right place, but I was ignorant about human nature, particularly the male variety. That’s another blog!

I had a little bit of knowledge, but felt 110% sure of my doctrine, eschatology, and evangelism methods. Maybe it was okay, because, hey, it was the Jesus revolution hippiedom era, but when I read my thoughts and actions now over 50 years removed, I wish I had had a bit more solid mentoring. And perhaps a bit more common sense.

Then there is the danger thing. Good grief! I was taking rides from strangers in order to meet more strangers in places where often I had no directional sense of where I even was. All with my trusty guitar and my boatload of Jesus songs. I believe we have guardian angels, but mine at times must have had to work overtime.

Once, I hired a gal to drive me from Hollywood to a gig in El Centro by the Mexican border. It was raining and her windshield wiper broke, so we had to stop at a gas station to get it fixed. Then hurtling down the road at 70-80 mph in her Volkswagen bug, which is amazing for a bug at all, the front hood popped open and slammed up obscuring the windshield. Amazingly, we got back on the road and made it to the gig. On the way home, somewhere near LA, she had a flat tire. No jack, spare had a hole, and there we stood on the side of the road in the middle of the night. Nobody stopped to help until 5 a.m. when two guys coming home from their massage parlor, stopped to lend us a hand. We went with them to a gas station, got the tire patched, and then they took us back to the car and replaced our tire. A kindness for sure, but what in the world were we doing!

Finally made it home, and I never booked her for a ride ever again!

I’m glad I recorded all my adventures because it makes me very grateful that I survived . . . and that I grew up!

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The Greatest of These

Posted on August 26, 2024 by apronheadlilly

Maybe it is just a “thing”–a catch phrase that resonates, if not with all thinking people, perhaps with a society that has lost some of its moral footing. But I have been getting irritated with movies and television shows lately that have a couple breaking up and saying, “I really love you, but love is just not enough.” Really?

Set aside the fact that a lot of video couples are already sleeping together, so lust and attraction is definitely in play; but when they say they truly love one another–they really really do–but love is not enough apparently to make a long term relationship work, they split up.

I think the problem lies in their definition of love. Love is a noun, but also an action verb that denotes a commitment to someone who is acting their best, but also when they are selfish and acting like a jerk. Love doesn’t leave the room when the other’s neediness is too great. It leans in and helps when the easiest thing would be to run. It presses in with sacrifice even when affection is waning.

The other motif is that of couples who are head over heels in attraction, but break up with the epiphany that they don’t love each other. There is a scene in one of those Meg Ryan romantic comedies where her live-in partner says kindly that he realizes he doesn’t love her, and she admits that she doesn’t love him either, but is really in love with the stranger in Seattle whom she has never met and she has been kind of stalking. As if the magical love thing was some special and mysterious commodity that existed independent of commitment and relationship. Meg and her guy are almost giddy at the revelation and now are free to go hook up with someone else, when with time and real life, they will undoubtedly decide that love is just not enough of a glue to hold them together. And on and on it will go.

Love is warm and fuzzy, frustrating and prickly, fragile and enduring, but it will remain only with a commitment stronger than a Hollywood script.

********************

I Corinthians 13

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

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Looking Back . . .

Posted on August 19, 2024 by apronheadlilly

I was looking back in an old journal of mine, trying to find the name of a particular person. But in skimming through my writing, I couldn’t help feeling a bit of cringe. Okay, it was the 70s, man; but really, did I actually talk that way?

In every other sentence, I was hanging and rapping with someone and stuff. Yeah, stuff. I said stuff a lot, it seems. I wrote other details and stuff, but stuff kind of filled in all the empty spaces . . . AND STUFF!

And man, that was heavy! Really tripping–even without a drug reference.

I apparently got off on a bunch of stuff, and my mind was so supremely blown time after time, it is a wonder I grew up enough to teach English!

In the Christian hippy context, there were a lot of attacks of Satan when things were not going well, and fleshing out was a regular past time, though not preferred.

Freaking out was right up there with trippin’. And diggin’ it did not require a shovel. One of my not so greatest hits from that period was a song I wrote entitled “Lord, You Made the Day, and I Can Dig It!” Oy.

Cool and groovy, at least for me, have passed the test of time, and I have added other expressive terms like sucks and awesome. I resisted using awesome for a long time, though used so ubiquitously by others For me, it was reserved for beautiful sunsets and other natural scenes or God. But bit by bit, it has crept uninvited into my vernacular so that now awesome describes anything from vegan pancakes to an opening for a dental appointment on a busy calendar. Dude, I swore would never be used, and I have kept that commitment unless I am being sarcastic.

Freaking out is still a thing and happens more often than I would like.

I wonder when I look back at my journals in another gazillion years, if I will even know what da bomb, NOT, DEI, cancel culture, chill, and GOAT even mean.

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At War

Posted on March 15, 2024 by apronheadlilly

I am kind of at war with technology. There are aspects I love, like digital cameras, editing tools, word docs, the connection on social media (This is a mixed bag!). But this constant phone connection thing has me perplexed and sometimes irritated.

Now granted, one feels safer going places, especially at night, with a cell phone, knowing you have instant help and connection should you need it. But when you can’t enjoy a meal without people checking their phones, or when folks walk across intersections on their phones, oblivious to traffic and alien invasions. Well, that’s just too much.

The other day, I was having a conversation with two individuals. I thought it was kind of fun, a pleasant connection, but . . . and here it is! Almost in synchrony, they both lifted their phones, which of course were permanently affixed to their hands anyway, and started scrolling. The conversation was done in my mid-sentence, and I was left bumbling. There was nothing else to do but walk away, and to be honest, they may not have even noticed. The connection was over and all that was left was an uncomfortable metaphorical dial tone!

I think we will wake up at some point and wonder when and where community and friendships got lost. Some will not know how it happened . . . but I can tell you.

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Nothing but . . .

Posted on February 21, 2024 by apronheadlilly

He is not a consumer in need of my goats and bulls,

my screaming, bloody, placating,

keeping His wrath at bay.

Even if it sounds holy, my meagre offerings,

my sacrifices that do seem to cost me something,

would never be enough to satisfy the divine quotient, fill up the ocean

of deficit

that keeps me from Him. Separated.

Does He need a partnership, my 50% to His?

Is it more quid pro quo

. . . no.

His initiative, yes. His will to draw and bless.

His all to my feeble soul, this pauper at the feet of a King,

And nothing but a

yes

I bring.

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Psalm and Some

Posted on February 5, 2024 by apronheadlilly

I will lift up my eyes to the hills—

. . . to Sinai? To the hills surrounding Jerusalem? To the strong, towering places?

. . . to the high places where pagans sacrifice to their puny gods?

. . . when I lift my eyes up, what do I see?

. . . This me who is in need?

From whence comes my help?

. . . certainly not from there. What help is rock, and sand, decaying with the passing of time?

. . . not from weak deities, names without substance, without strength.

My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

. . . from the Creator, who made all that I see. The One who made these hills!

. . . from the Holy One, the strong One, within, without, and above all I see.

. . . even me.

He will not allow your foot to me moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.

. . . not off-duty, not unaware. He watches, He hears, and He sees. You say so.

. . . but wait; is it my foot, too—even when I am feeling so unsteady.

Behold He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

. . . oh, I get it, just Israel . . . or me, too? Am I not grafted in?

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.

. . . keeper, shade from all harms, protector.

. . . yes, please! The assurance that I need.

The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

. . . in His shadow, we are in His care, both day and night.

. . . But what about this pain and sorrow I am in? What will not strike us?

. . . what is it that will not strike me?

The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;

. . . so pain is not evil? Betrayal is not evil? Wait—

He shall preserve your soul.

. . . okay, that is a good thing, but I kind of wanted an earnest in the now with all this entropy and decay going on.

The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.

. . . going and coming, now and then; that is Your faithfulness, right?

. . . I guess my problem arises when I assume Your faithfulness is for the preservation of my plans, my desires here and not just a bye and bye soul kind of preservation. When You said You are a faithful God, a loving God, I kind of imagined that I had some creative control of how and what that would look like, and yet . . .

. . . You are faithful to Your plan—Your plan to have nothing separate us from Your love, Your plan to redeem as many as possible, Your plan to make me a servant—and not a social influencer.

And here I thought my needs were greater than that.

. . . Hm, I will lift my eyes up, Lord, not to the hills but to the hill maker;

. . . and I best do that from a kneeling position, a supine position, because once again my will has gotten in the way.

Psalm 121

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Crazy, I Know!

Posted on January 30, 2024 by apronheadlilly

Growing up, I didn’t have a lot to spend on luxuries of any sort. I certainly didn’t buy clothes since most of what I wore were hand-me-downs or bought new by my parents. I was trying to remember as a college student and young adult whether I bought clothes then. Hmm. I did buy those purple hot pants and leggings when I left college to sing full time, second billing to a hard rock band. (Never wore them on stage, though, since long hippy dresses were more the thing in Christian rock circles.)

No, I didn’t shop a lot. My biggest expenditure other than food and rent was stationery and empty journals. There was just something about the blank page.

As a young mother busy raising kids, I didn’t buy much for myself. Part of it was thrift, part of it was busyness. I did sew some, but my needs weren’t great. When I got into quilting, I did spend money on fabric, but that is art, so it doesn’t count. Maybe.

When my husband and I retired, we allotted ourselves mad money accounts, and most of that has gone for photography equipment, which is indeed a luxury. But every expenditure came with a twinge of guilt–like this was unnecessary, and what about all those worthy causes out there, and what about all the needs and wants of my kids and grandkids.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought myself an air fryer. I don’t need an air fryer. I mean who needs another appliance to cook a better French fry? I have gone back and forth about its usefulness, my worthiness, my . . . who knows what! But I have decided it is just plain fun to have something new–something to experiment with. I went on Amazon and bought myself two 100% cotton nighties (not made in China!). And I am thinking that though I don’t need it at all, I may just go out and buy myself some expensive non-stick frying pans! And I may even buy the domain for this blog rather than just using the freebee.

It’s not that I am throwing caution to the wind, but I have decided I might deserve a little extravagance that goes beyond need. Crazy, I know.

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Remembering Grey Moments

Posted on January 29, 2024 by apronheadlilly

The whup, whup of the medivac helicopter matched the beat of blood, pulsing in my ears. I couldn’t breathe. My hands were clenched in front of me. A position of prayer, I think. A blur. Help, Jesus.

They were talking to him in his shredded blue Grand “Was.” He was alive, but he looked dazed, moving in slow motion, or else I was seeing in slow motion.

The officer kept asking me stupid questions, keeping me from running to the car. I answered with one part of my brain as the rest of my soul and mind searched the accident scene for hope that my boy was going to be okay.

*********************

It was a long journey, but he survived. That was one of those grey moments of life, though, when peace and ease are exchanged in a moment for panic and desperate prayers.

The photo of the wrecked car is on my other blog here:

http://www.apronheadlilly.wordpress.com

Remembering Grey Moments
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Posted on January 28, 2024 by apronheadlilly
Daily Prompt: Scent
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