Coming Back to Myself...

There are certain things that always make me feel like I'm reuniting parts of myself. Scents, sounds, etc....

Scents: Patchouli and Lavender (mixed too), the smell of White Linen or Estee Lauder's Beautiful. The smell of a flooded river mixed with grass.

Sounds: Any kind of Baroque Music.

Authors: T.S. Eliot or Ezra Pound

Art: Cassatt or pretty much anything in the Western Wing of the Indiana University Art Museum.

These things are usually influences that have made me much of what I am. My comfort time sometimes is Bach cranked (Tocatta and Fugue to be exact) while curled up in a chair with The Complete Works of T.S. Eliot as I try to take apart either "The Wasteland" or "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". ("Do not do not ask what is it. Let us go and make our visit")

Soooo Mrs. Mannix, 11th Grade Honors English. For some reason.

Lately I've been seeing things in muted shades, which for me is odd. I'm vivid, creative and see things in unusual forms most of the time, but I've been trying to get my depression under control again and it's been rough.

But something else can bring me back to myself. Being flat on my face at an altar sobbing my heart out. As I had doubted that my prayers were going to be answered and then I look up and see the answer in front of me as two friends are praying at the altar with tears running down their cheeks.

All I could do was throw myself on to my face and sob as I just said "I'm sorry I doubted you God. I'm sorry I doubted."

So many times, we clutter our brains with our human thoughts and our knowledge of human failures that we limit what God can do with what WE can do.

I'm blessed. So blessed to serve an awesome God that will answer prayers. In spite of my very tiny amount of faith sometimes. He's still faithful to me.

"Though in my heart I have questioned, even failed to believe yet he's been faithful, faithful to me."

When I left Idaho Falls almost five years ago I left part of my heart here. A sliver of it with a friend that probably didn't realize it (and neither did I until later) and part of it in downtown IF. I feel as if I have picked my pieces up anda put them back together. As if I'm whole unbroken here except when I am broken before God.

So now the sight of mountains and the smell of sage and sitting on a chunk of basalt overlooking the river and the sight of so many things mean that I am home.

And that God is good. He ALWAYS answers prayer even when it looks impossible.

Interdependency and frustration...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEKGp6WO9fU

"I am here
You don't have to worry
I can see your tears
I'll be there in a hurry when you call
Friends are there to catch you when you fall
Here's my shoulder you can lean on me..."

The ongoing thing with having an Mp3 player is that I have filled it with the world's wackiest mish mash of tunes, including ones that got me through some rough times in college. Including this Kirk Franklin tune, which I caught myself PASSIONATELY mouthing the words in the middle of WalMart LOL.

Bishop Rice told me two weeks ago that I needed to take care of myself to be of value to the church, because I'm a cog in the machine and it will skip if the teeth are broken. Probably not the best analogy to use on the mechanically ungifted, but I got the point.

Right now, I'm watching friends and family doing things I don't agree with. Or not knowing what they are doing. Or what they are thinking. Of course, I'm spending some of my days wanting to completely hide in the sound booth (Don't go too close, I'm not going to be happy. It's a new set of walls) I find that I am still fairly open with my pastor and his wife as well as Bishop and Sister Rice. Lying to my pastor or to the bishop and saying everything is ok when it's not is pointless. They WILL call me on it. (Bishop will usually be like "Quit lying, how are you really")

The problem is that noone else sometimes feels the interdependency or knows what it is about. Maybe because I am in leadership that I feel things so keenly or maybe it's that I'm very sensitive. (sometimes not one of my more endearing qualities)

When someone is not there, it's heartbreaking and things aren't the same. But with my sensitivity I do wonder what I did. It's not the best thing in the world, but frankly it does happen.

My brother Matt and his wife are backslid and I am thankfully spared the weekly heartbreak of that except any other moment I think of my wonderful wreckless brother and his wife and their wonderful little boy. Then it's like a knife turning again.

Then I have other friends, maybe not backslid, but working away from their first love in many ways. Not sure where to go. It is heartbreaking to watch and NOTHING I can do. I want to yell, I want to scream "don't you know what you are doing?" "Don't you know the church limps without each and every member of the body in its place?"

But I can't do anything. Nothing but ignore the lump in my throat when they are not there. Put my head in my hands and pray. Pray that they are miserable when they are not at church. That God draws them to him. That God reminds them when they feel far from him, they moved not God.

It's frustrating. It's heartbreaking. Watching friends that I've made over the years turn away from God. Why would anyone want to leave? Or as PfR sings "I don't understand how you can walk away from love"

Granted, over the years I am not the biggest fan of Pentecostal culture in general. Thank God, it's not the case out West as much as it was back East. I'm a firm fan of home missions churches and that feel. Many times larger churches try to eat each other alive and spit each other out if they are not careful.

I've heard it stated by friends that Pentecostals kill their walking wounded. Let that never be me. Let me fight it with every breath I have.

This is so rambling I know. And it's not something I would've even been so passionate about two years ago. But I'm here. I see how much we depend on each other. So to any of my friends that are looking to walk away, please remember this...

"Friends are there to catch you when you fall
Here's my shoulder you can lean on me..."

Memorial Day Musings...

So it's Memorial Day. Theoretically a holiday of barbecues and picnics.

Unless of course you grew up in a long line of military and then you sit and think. It's different this year after loosing my beloved grandfather who was a veteran of World War II and Korea.

So today, I salute the veterans in and out of my family. I give you this list of the men and women I know and respect. Thank you. All of you.

Irvin Banta (Grandpa -- World War II and Korea)
Robert Stone (Grandpa -- Korea)
Charles D. Banta (Dad)
Irvin J. Banta (Uncle)
Marie C. Wilson (Aunt)
Dana Griffith (Uncle)

Friends:
John Hakes (Korea and Vietnam)
Steve Snyder
Wayne McWhorter
Steve Mitchell
John Stauffer
David Carpenter
Danny Catt
Randall Keller

These are just the names that I am thinking of right now.

I'm defined by the veterans in my life. As a daughter of warriors on all sides, this defines me.

So thanks, all of you. And don't forget to thank a veteran today!

Insecurities

So I am here. Looking in the mirror, I am completely different from one year ago. Curled hair, confident look, different clothes...

The thing is, sometimes I feel like the same girl that graduated from Brown County High School in Nashville and wants to hide...

*shrugs*

While I'm confident in my life, there are times that old self comes crashing in on me.

It has recently. When I have a conversation with someone, I second guess it for two days. I make myself miserable thinking I have made a complete idiot of myself and replay every moment in my head. Then when the person doesn't speak to me the next day, I call myself twenty forms of stupid and try to figure out what happened.

Irrational? Ummm yes. I know it's irrational. Just too many people in my hometown, in my old school would use MY words against me. My innocence and my trust. Guys especially. Made me distrustful of all guys except my brothers (and probably why I adopted so many of them).

How do I stop this? I'm trying to break old habits in interpersonal relationships here and sometimes I think I am making progress. But then I find myself going back into my old habits.

Who I was does indeed make me who I am. But do I really have to keep being THAT person who is so insecure that she wants to hide away from site?

Thirty years and sometimes I feel like I have learned nothing.

Desert Rose

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7OGieXHM5g

Ignore the very 80's/90's look but the song...

I loaded a good friend's Mp3 player recently and added this song to both of our playlists.

I don't know what is up lately, but I've started thinking a bit more about what is behind me and what has made me who I am today.

This song was my theme after I left Indiana University. When I felt like my dreams were dying and I didn't want to go back to my hometown. Sister Seniour called me "our Esther" in those days because of an IBC musical at Music Fest (where the line that got me crying was "God why can't I serve you where I want to serve you?")

The desert rose, the idea of something beautiful coming out of some of the dryest points of life is just amazing to me. And that's the nickname that I gave myself at so many points. Amazingly enough, I am now literally, living in the high desert and blooming in a spot where I thought would kill me if you'd asked me ten years ago.

God is good. He's the God of second chances and third chances and fourth chances. In spite of my rebellious streak a mile wide, he chooses to use me here in Idaho. He CHOOSES to see me through his blood and not for all my faults and failures, my thoughtless tongue and my impetous nature.

And for now, that's enough.

Golden Green days...

Golden as in golden sunlight flowing from the sky. Green as in thick green grass on the ground. (Major watering considering this is high desert. *Smiles*) So it's golden green days as far as I'm concerned.

My second year of school here is drawing to a close. I grow more and more in love with my job and my church and my students every day! Life is good here in Idaho, rough at times but good.

There's friends surrounding me that for whatever reason love me no matter what and I'm looking forward to a fantastic summer.

Yes, it will be different from last year -- no Bishop Rice sneaking up on me every day when I go check my e-mail. But it is going to be a golden time here in Idaho Falls.

Life changes, life goes on. I love it here.

Where Was I When?

It's truly amazing to think back on things sometimes. Even more so when you are teaching it.

Between teaching the post World War II history to eighth grade and going through a bit of a Billy Joel phase of late (We Didn't Start the Fire) it's been incredible to see what I have witnessed so far in my relatively short lifespan and how much things have changed.

I probably bore my eighth graders talking about what I remember. I was in fifth grade when the Berlin Wall fell. Boom, just like that. One day we were watching a movie about escaping over it (Anyone remember that film? I think it was a Disney thing, this guy went over the wall in a hot air balloon) and three days later there they were taking it apart on the cover of Weekly Reader (our fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Mayfield got a piece of the wall from a German exchange student that stayed with her, I HELD a piece of history in my hands.).

I remember the Soviet Union coming apart and the ensuing civil wars in the smaller countries. I met a member of the Afghani royal family (some minor member) who fled to the US (And Nashville, IN of all places) because of the Soviet Occupation.

I remember being on the way to church and sitting in the parking lot at the Old Goshen church when we learned that we had started bombing Iraq for the first time.

I cried when the Challenger exploded. I was scared when they started deploying troops to Iraq. I was bored and outraged during the Impeachment trials -- and rolled my eyes at the people around me. (It's never a really good time to be an ultra conservative at Indiana University LOL)

But I also remember being shocked when my friends got pregnant in high school and when some admitted to being sexually active even though some waited until high school.

I watched friends take marijuana and LSD (Yes, the drugs of the 60's were the popular ones in Brown County). I watched a brilliantly talented musician friend burn her brain out in LSD in so many ways. I could do nothing but watch and pray.

A friend died in a car accident and another died of cancer, but after graduation I survived a car accident that should've killed me.

Yeah, that took a toll for a very long time.

I'm not sure if I even have a point to this blog. Just so much dead space going through my head the last few days. I'm working on making my new life here in Idaho, even now over a year later, but sometimes just the smallest portion of grief can get to me so easily.

I don't know why I am still alive at times. Car wrecks and somewhat reckless decisions could pretty much have been the end of me several times, but I know that God has a plan for my life.

But what about the others? I'm no worthier than Mike Arteoga, than Linda Lowry, or Jeff Alvey. In fact, I see how many times I fail day by day and wonder how long before God says "Ok, this is enough, this girl is nuts!"

But the grace of God is so much bigger than what I am. Bigger than my zany stupidity and my ability to trip over my own feet. Bigger than the hurtful things that I can do to people.

Who am I to be in leadership? Just a faulty human woman. A daughter of Eve as C.S. Lewis and Marcus both say. Brilliantly socially awkward at some times and socially adaptable at others.

This blog has no real purpose, but I send it out into a questioning world. I can't believe that I'm not the only one that's ever had these rambling thoughts.