Sunday, September 30, 2007

Yay For The Moment

Sometimes, if you’ve read a columnist long enough, or listened to a speaker speak more than once, you will eventually stumble upon 1 of two things:

1. They will recycle their talk. I’ve heard this done at church actually. That’s how I could tell I had been going to a church for a looooooong time, when I recognized that the pastor’s “Second Choice” sermon, about Leah, of Jacob-Rachel-Leah OT fame and how second choice doesn’t mean second best, blah blah blah, was what he pulled out when he didn’t have time to prepare a new sermon.

2. They will talk about preparing for the talk. How it’s hard to pull together a column/sermon/review every week, how am I gonna do it, how am I gonna do it, oh the PRESSURE.

I don’t really have anything to say tonight, so I won’t do either one of those things. I will say I’m enjoying the mix that Pandora is spinning right now.

1. Fragile - Trauma Pet
2. Wishing (A Picture Of You) – Flock of Seagulls
3. Tiny Vessels – Death Cab For Cutie (this is one of my favorite songs in that unfortunate category of Gorgeous Melody/Really Mean Lyrics. Elevator Love Letter by Stars is in there too.)

I’m trying to train myself to be in the moment. To just be. Be still and know that I am God. I only worked one day this week, and I’m teaching myself not to panic about it, no matter what my bank account says. Because I’m trusting God, and apparently God didn’t want me to work that day, I THINK He wanted me to work on my outline, so work on my outline I did. And God didn’t want me to work the next day either, but that became pretty obvious why, as it was so I could be available to race Basil the dog to the vet in the afternoon when he started quaking in his paw pads (turns out the poor guy was constipated.)

And currently, I only have one day of work lined up for this upcoming week (but it was a request! A request from the TV network! I am a rock star assistant and people remember that!) and I am again choosing not to mash the panic button.

I choose to recognize that I am in a place right now where I am still. Metaphorically. Things could be abrewin’ on the horizon on a number of fronts, but I know better to talk about them and look like a dumbass if they fall through later.

But I will say that every night last week at 10pm, I jumped in the hot tub in the backyard. Basil chose to hang inside the cabana, but Ginger Puppy, never wanting to be too far away, curled up on the second step to the hottub. And we watched the full moon above. Well, I watched it. This is Ginger Puppy and her view (yeah, it’s blurry. Shoot me.)

I turned the lights off so it was me in the dark water, with the full moon above, and the Los Angeles city lights turning the clouds a better-than-it-sounds shade of brown.



And it looked like, it may have even felt like a moment where I should have made some important decision about my life. But my head was empty. I have no burning questions, no nagging issues. Life isn’t where I ideally want it, but it’s not troubling me at this very second (I reserve the right to be troubled later.) So it was me, and the dark water, the puppy on the stairs, and the moon up above. Be still and know I am God. I’m still. I know. You’re God. I’m me. It’s up to You what happens next. So, um okay, cool. Thanks for being God, God. I’ll just, uh, wait and be still, I guess.

And that’s really all I have to say tonight. Except Pandora just gave me a new song, “It’s Not Easy To Live That Well,” by Headlights (listen here . ) Yay for the moment.

1 comment:

Carlen said...

I was a Brennan Manning "groupie" for a while, hearing him speak several times (close to 10!) at various gatherings over a two-year period when I was living in CO. He definitely recycled messages. Disappointing. :)
I just watched Elizabeth Gilbert talk about "Eat, Pray, Love" on Oprah and thought about you pretty much the whole time. I could picture you writing a book like that, and I could picture me seeking an experience like hers (I just ordered the book online) and not writing a book, but having a damn fine blogging season.