God is hard

I found another note, stuck in the old bookcase in the dining room. This one says, "Challenging you" and I believe it was spoken by someone who was saying that living a faith life is one of that ilk. That God is always challenging you. God is not an easy task master. Belief is hard. Sometimes, almost impossible. And not only when the bad things happen, either. Sometimes when life is so good, its almost too good, God is practically irrelevant. We had a discussion in our adult Sunday School class the other week and one of the members of the class said, that she thought that a faith life was hard on purpose. That if it was easy, it wouldn't really be what God wanted you to do. I don't know if I believe that or not. On the one hand, God is probably way to busy with every thing else going on to be worried about whether my faith life is hard or easy. On the other hand, God is of course, going to be paying attention to me and since he loves me, he'll want me to be the best person I can be, which usually means I have to "grow". Growing usually involves changing and changing as far as I'm concerned is not something I go out of my way to experience if I can help it. Therefore, God is hard. The logic of this is either rock solid, or I'm standing in a puddle of quicksand. I'm not sure which. I'll let you know either because I've changed, or drowned.

Thoughts while in a doctor's office

I wrote this while waiting to talk to the doctor about a lump in my breast about 2 years ago. I'm not sure if it's poetry, prose or just useless rambling, but I just found my notes and wanted to catch the words before they were gone.

Painters of murals who have no depth perception
Flatly articulated on the walls
Only a vague awareness of how things look from afar.

Violins sawing madly in the background
To a Brandenburg Concerto I believe
More cacophonous than melodious

Muffled codes spoken by the "keepers of the records."
Conversations around the corner of diagnosis and
And children and events to come in their lives
They do have lives, outside of this room.
and the women waiting, waiting, waiting for their name to be called
While their frantically chasing thoughts of health and
What-ifs and who knows?
Like a dog with a bone, worrying and picking incessantly
Instead of patiently, as their role describes.

Tapping of toes with impatience, or worry or doubt
Or maybe all three
While the violins saw on, and the phone rings and the
Papers are shuffled and health cards are copied.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Working out or was it working it out??

I go to a gym these days, twice a week. I'm feeling virtuous about it, if you must know. I'm only there for about 1/2 an hour each time, but I walk on the treadmill or use the elliptical, then do weights (either free weights or with a machine) and have started doing sit ups as well. I hate sit ups, I know they are good for me, but I hate them all the same. What I really hate is push ups. I have no upper arm strength, so I collapse everytime I try to do them. So I stopped trying. I do backwards ones now. sit on the edge of a bench, and dip down off the edge. It supposedly works the same muscles. I could do them all day. When my daughter and I went to this gym together, she hated that I could do that and she couldn't. Well, I mean she could do it, just not as many as me. Recently the owner of the gym moved to a new place. It's much smaller. And you have to go up a flight of stairs to get there, thereby creating the warming up part even before you get to the door! How clever of him! The problem is that I go alone. Well, maybe problem is the wrong word. I'm a social person. So when I go to the gym there is no one else there. Just me and the radio. It's kind of weird. Of course, if I've had a bad day, it's great, because I can either mutter to myself throughout the workout about the stupid boss, or the stupid paperwork or the stupid existence fo the people in the stupid office. Or as I actually did one day, cry while doing sit ups. It wasn't because they hurt, it was because no one was around to see or hear me. It was sort of freeing and scary at the same time. But I think I would like it better if someone else were working out there. I wouldn't have to know them or even talk to them. Just another person there, in the small space of workout equipment. But there is no one. the owner of the gym has a business downstairs and will come up every now and then to make sure you haven't, you know, dropped a weight on your foot or even dropped dead from exertion. But the sounds of your breathing while no one else is there is sort of eerie. The funny thing is, if more people came to this gym, he would need bigger space. So he really doesn't want a while lot of other people there. But well, I'd like to see at least one other person, I think. There aren't any mirrors on the walls yet, so you can even pretend there is someone else there, even though you know its only you.

So I'm being good about going to the gym, but no one is there to see it. If a person goes to a gym and no one is there to see it, well, you get the tree falling in the forest analogy I guess.