I know most people have heard the term, “ants in your pants,” and most of us have talked about being itchy for something. But I think I’ve taken the idea of being itchy and waiting too literally this year.

I cannot stop itching. I’ve had this rashy thing going on since early November. I had a brief respite last week through the wonders of pr*dnisone. So I have an appointment with a dermatologist today and an allergist tomorrow.

In the meantime I’m on my version of an allergy-free diet (I’m not allergic to meat, dairy, potatoes, apples, and spinach) and I’m waiting. The joke around the house has become that I can eat dirt. If it lives in the dirt, I can eat it. LightHusband (unwittingly) bought a nice pork butt for the crock pot today. I announced, as I put dinner together this morning, “Great! I’m now eating dirt and butt. What a wonderful life!” In true 10 year old fashion, LightBoy pounced on the idea of eating butt.

“Are we really eating butt?”

“Yes.” flat-eye look.

“Well. I hope they washed it first.” and he knocked himself over with his comic prowess.

Being itchy as I am has given me a weird dynamic to reflect on the waiting that we do and how we do it. I suppose I shouldn’t speak for everyone here, I can only really speak for myself. I’m not a very good wait-er. I don’t think our culture is very good at waiting. We want what we want when we want it. If it’s not given to us, then we go out and get it for ourselves somehow. We find ways around the rules. We don’t like change so much. Change requires that we live within the rules and work through them.

God requires that we wait. She sent a baby in response to several hundred years of waiting for a king. It was so upside down that no one saw what was happening. Despite the prophecy, they could not see it. I’ll bet none of us could have seen it. The Light came and the darkness didn’t know it.  History is always obvious once you know what is going to happen. But in the moment? Not so much. And no one took note of a poor Hebrew couple from a hick town who were so unorganized and disconnected they couldn’t even find a room for the night. It wasn’t the holiday season back then. It wasn’t cHannukah. It wasn’t anything. It was just mid-winter and a census. There was nothing going on … it was the long dry spell between the high holy days of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret in the autumn and the Pesach holiday in the spring. Into that period of waiting and rest for the winter, Herod called a census.

So, the child/babe was born. We celebrate this every year. But here’s the thing. He had to grow up. More waiting. 30 years of it. For Mary, thirty years of clinging to a couple of sentences with an angel in a barn, sprinkled with a few incidents throughout Jesus’ young life. We throw around casual phrases, “Jesus was either a liar or a lunatic or Lord of all,” and think we’re cute. I wonder about how those paradigms played out for the waiting that Mary lived. Or Joseph. What is it like to have a 12 year old son break all the strict rules when you know in your heart He is the messiah? And very few others recognize that? Mary had a powerful, earthy faith in the Father that allowed her to continue on. We don’t know what questions her heart asked. But we do know that she kept on in the face of them.

How we wait and whether we wait, I’m coming to believe, is a reflection of our levels of faith, hope and peace. Waiting is difficult. Whether or not we can talk ourselves through it is a reflection of where our faith is, whether or not we have hope and what we think of of peace. Are we willing to wait on God and Her timing for a particular issue, or will we shoehorn our timing and plans in where they do not belong? Waiting is hard and discerning the difference between God’s plans and mine is even more difficult sometimes. It is very beguiling to think that because this or that appears to be working out, it must be within the Divine will. So, I must wait. Wait. And wait again. Even then I usually get it wrong. When we want something, that still small voice would appear to become smaller and even more still. This means we need to sit very, very quietly. Instead, what do we do?

When we are not hearing from God, when there is “an issue” looming large, bearing down on us … in our families, in our personal lives, in our communities. What do we do? Do we sit quietly and wait? Do we, in fact and deed, trust that God will come through for us? Or is our real bottom line that we think that God helps those who help themselves?

So, while you’re out shopping, prepping dinner, making cookies, whatever … think about how you wait and how you trust. What do those say about your faith?

It’s that “most wonderful time of the year” again. And we’re all pushing and shoving to get good gifts for each other. The malls are filled, although each year we hear gloom and doom about how they are not filled “enough.” The economic predictions are always grey and cloudy. I have to wonder who is in bed with whom when that happens.

LightHusband’s company holiday party was the other evening. The event happened to coincide with a need for having my hair done. Really. It did. So I went to my favorite hairdresser for just a cut and style this time … no color or anything fancy. The salon is in a mall nearby and on my way out, I paused in a department store to purchase a few items which were necessary for the evening. Okay, pantyhose. I hardly ever wear it anymore and I didn’t have any.

Once, I’d finally located the goods in the store in question, I made my selections and stood in line to make my purchase. I was third. Then I was second. At first I was slightly annoyed by this turn of affairs because I was all rushy and needing to be on my way. But then I started to breath and watch the unfolding event in front of me. I was fascinated.

She was a smallish woman in her early 30’s. There wasn’t anything very remarkable about her as she stood at the jewelry counter. Nothing except the stacks of boxes of cheesy jewelry which she’d painstakingly selected from the rummage of the final markdown table. I sighed and rolled my eyes at the dozen or so boxes of necklaces and bracelets; all of them cheap and none of them particularly noteworthy. All were on sale, of course. While each item didn’t cost more than $5.00, she ended up spending over one hundred and fifty dollars on cheap plastic jewelry. As the clerk carefully rang each item up and replaced the cover on the box, I noticed that she pulled a neatly folded sheaf of papers from her purse. Within the sheaf was a flyer from the store with coupons for $$ off in consideration of $$ spent. But the sheaf itself was a marvel to behold. It was an Excel spreadsheet of gift beneficiaries … one would assume for the cheap plastic jewelry. I studied the spreadsheet from the appropriate stranger distance and thought of all the questions I wanted to ask this very tidy woman over coffee. I peeked into her purse and noticed it was very organized as well.

I’ve found myself wondering about the very tidy woman and her jewelry gift purchases over the last couple of days. She and the clerk, and eventually me too were drawn into some minimal conversation. Those of us in line were gently admonished to have extra patience for long lines during the holiday time. I was fascinated, so I needed no patience.

I’ve been thinking though, about the gifts we give each other during this “wonderful time of the year.” And what we might really want from those we love. It seems to me that what we always long for from our friends, lovers, loved ones, and family is time spent with them. We don’t think we have that to give, so instead we’re willing to spend hours on Excel spreadsheets organizing our gift giving, more hours rummaging through final markdown tables for cheap, plastic jewelry, still more wrapping it up in funky wrapping paper and then boxes to send to it’s final destination.

Oh, what’s that you say? You’re not that organized or obsessed. You do not spend hours on Excel spreadsheets. You, or course, would never buy cheap, plastic jewelry for anyone. Oh well, then, I’m not talking to you, am I?

Or … am I?

How much time do you spend on your gift organizing and purchasing? We all have some method to our madness. We all do something to organize ourselves and plan in some way. So we do something. We all have the same 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year to our lives. Now this is not another mid-Advent polemic on doing away with Christmas gift giving, shopping, buying, or etc. Just wait to see where I’m headed, okay.

I was also thinking about this in terms of my recent Thanksgiving blowout extravaganza. It took me three days to recover from that. But as I look back over it, I realize it was a huge gift to my mother-in-law and father-in-law to have their family all together in one place for several days. They enjoyed it enormously and it was a blessing to them.

It was a blessing to all of us in many ways. It was to me, too. I had the gift of time with my nieces and nephew and my sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law. We all had that. My sister-in-law with whom the road has been rocky at times and I had a wonderful visit. She gave me the gift of her decorating abilities and I gave to her time with her family.

There were some funny moments though. One of the things I wanted to give my sister-in-law (LightHusband’s sister) was time to relax and enjoy her mornings. She works and gets 4 children out the door to school every morning. So I thought her time here might be a good time to sit, breath, and relax. Instead, every morning she kept after me to mop the kitchen floor. She wanted to know where the supplies and mop were. “I want to mop your floor!” was the declaration. “I mop my floor every day.” It was said without judgement or animosity, but with need. Finally, one morning in a tiny, pleading voice, “I need to mop … it’s how I wake up in the morning.” And, I burst into laughter; so did she. I told her that I had been trying to give her some time to relax; she, on the other hand, had been trying to give me free housecleaning (and she legitimately *does* clean to wake up). Her normal morning is so busy and regimented that sitting still just doesn’t make it onto her radar.

So I’ve been thinking about all the gifts we give each other. The tangibles and the intangibles. How we wrap them up with love and time and worry and care. Some people put theirs into an Excel spreadsheet and time spent rummaging through the markdown jewelry table. Others put theirs into carefully handcrafting gifts. Still others put theirs into hours spent in Google searches. But in the end I think it works out to the same time … or so. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Then we wrap those gifts up with paper and love, bows and care.

I wonder though about the good gifts we try to give each other and the good gifts from our Creator above. I’ve been pondering that. S/He gave us the gift of presence. The gift of God with Us, Emmanuel. It had never been done before and has not been done since. Or, really has been ever since if we consider the Holy Spirit. So those gifts, carefully wrapped and lovingly bowed, under our trees each year are like the shadows in Plato’s cave of the gift lovingly wrapped and given so long ago. It causes me to consider that the thing we truly seek after with one another and with God is not presents, but presence. We seek after each other’s presence, we long for it. Our children desire more of it, our spouses, our friends, our families. God even desires more of it from us and we from Him.

But that is not what we give each other. Sadly, we use up that time and energy on other things that we have declared more precious. I wonder what would happen if we began to give the present of presence? What other good gifts might come of that?

In an earlier post I was pondering the socio-economic system within which we live and how it forces us to make choices that go against the grain of our faith on many occasions. There is a rather large gap between how we are able to live and the standard set forth for us by Jesus. We all have choices that we make on a moment by moment basis for how each us might close that gap, but the truth of the matter is that we will never close it. Not in our current system. I’m not talking here about that abominable chasm illustrated insufferably by the Four Spiritual Laws. I’m simply sayin’ … with the way things are in capitalism, or socialism, or any other socio-economic system that we’ve got at the moment there is a tension between what we want to be able to do and the limits on what we are able to do. All of us make different choices with how we will live within those boundaries. Some of those choices seem nonsensical to others, illogical, even ironical at times.

In the comments of that post Patrick wrote deeply about the circle of giving and I wanted to quote him here:

Giving is a profound spiritual act of faith, not just in terms of money or tithing, but in what we have. If really done as a community then there is a sharing, a mutuality, in which it might not look terribly different except underneath the surface. Meaning someone who has money gives, say for good words written by someone who had to forsake pursuing money for a time to write them, or music by someone who ponders something deeply, or a service, or some other way of participating in the life of another.

If we are all giving then it seems like we are also receiving from each other, a circle, but not a circle in which we look out for ourselves but a circle in which we fall into the arms of each other trusting them for, maybe, even our daily bread. We empty what we have, and are filled by anothers emptying.

I love this image of the circle. That’s really beautiful and moves the conversation in a helpful direction. It’s a direction that talks about how we can both live within the system and close the gap that exists.  How we can begin to imagine living both in the world but not of it and bringing the Kingdom a little bit closer.

I was a little bit worried that some would see my post as a critique for any of us for participating in the system. We all do and we all must because we are in it. We cannot “get out of it”, we cannot excise ourselves from it as if we were teeth.  We mustn’t point fingers at one another saying that one is better than another. Or that one choice is better than another. Nor should the musings, ponderings and reflections of others be taken as criticisms or advocating wholesale change in one’s life. We are all doing the best we can with what we have. The people I know who are following Jesus are doing their best to follow him with their whole heart. In every person that looks different. Not everyone eschews commercialism because not every person is called to it. But not every person is called to be a finger, or a liver or a rib. We are each called to different things and different acts of contrition, faith, mercy, kindness and grace … and the world is healthier, more whole and better for it.

Look what was in my in-box this morning!

The announcement that the re-mastered Joshua Tree is out! What a wonderful Thanksgiving gift. I downloaded it at iTunes … it can be found here. Or you can order the combined CD/DVD from Amazon. com here.

The best part of the new album is the new song included on it, the much vaunted (deservedly so) Wave of Sorrow. It’s fabulous.

I spent the day today supervising and helping.  We hung drapes and pictures and art.  We finished cleaning and tidying.  It turned out that my newest brother-in-law loves U2 almost as much as I do.  So we indulged in some calorie-free passionate consumption all day; listening to U2 for inspiration during our work.

It reminded me of why I love U2.  Why I think Bono is the next Billy Graham and the next MLK, Jr. rolled into one.  He is passionate about his love for God and passionate about shining that light where ever he goes.  The light shines in an unfamiliar beacon, but it shines nonetheless.  Listen to this speech he gave last March as he accepted the Chairman’s Award from the NAACP.  The speech is about 6 and a half minutes … he really gets rolling at about 4 minutes in.  But it’s at about 5:21 or so that he flips a switch with, “Let me climb into the pulpit for just one minute …” and justice rolls down like a river.

Say what you want about revival and prophets and who God will use.  Here’s the thing.  Bono is preaching to millions everyday.  Every.  Day.  And they are listening.  There is literally no one else on the planet who can command the audience that he can.  And he winsomely brings God into the conversation every single time.  He is captivating and he makes God captivating.  It would not be a bad thing to pay a little bit more attention.

Well then. I’m now keepin’ up with the Joneses and keepin’ on with getting ready for Thanksgiving.

Our first guests arrive today. The house is not ready. It will be. Sort of. Things will be fine and we’ll all have fun. It won’t go according to my original plan, but the necessary things will get done and the unnecessary things will drop away. Hopefully, I will remember to put the turkey in the oven on time.

It turns out that I do not have stress-induced eczema. I have a fungus that is causing the itching. Super! In what has become a standing pre-Thanksgiving tradition for LightHusband and I, we had matching doctors appointments yesterday afternoon. He has an upper respiratory infection and a sinus infection. I have fungus. Ewweth. Apparently we all have fungus on our skin, but if it gets underneath through a break in the skin then it becomes a problem. Bleh. Something I did not want to learn.
It makes having 16 for dinner on Thanksgiving and hosting a party for 35 the next day just another hoop to jump through. Keeping up and keeping on.

In other news, the grandparents will stay an extra day. We’re going to a Washington Capitals game on Saturday evening. This came up as a surprise yesterday afternoon. LightGirl has been chosen to skate with 3 of her team mates to help clear the ice between periods of the game that night. So while the rest of the thousands of fans will be there to see the game, at least five of the fans will be watching the cleaning of the ice! It’s very important you know 😀

Last, I’ve finished The Shack, by William P. Young. It was all the rage several months ago. I read several reviews of it all around the blog-o-sphere (including this one). It looked intriguing. So I threw it in my shopping cart in Amazon. Then one day it arrived. Such a miracle.

I know many (most) folks who read it sat down and did so in one sitting. Certainly, that is possible. And I wish I could have done so. But that wasn’t bloodly likely given my schedule lately. So I grabbed odd moments and before bed-time to read it. It’s a very powerful book packed into a small space. There’s a lot there.

I found it made an excellent companion piece to the book I reviewed here recently, It’s A Dance, by Patrick Oden. Having recently read that book gave me texture to bring to The Shack that I would not have had had I read it earlier.

I’m not entirely certain that every last jot and tittle of the theology is correct.  But then, I don’t know that anyone’s is.  Every one of us are making educated guesses.  Some guesses are more educated than others.  But not one of us knows the whole of what God is up to.  At best we see through a glass darkly; we see in part.  This book’s vision of the whole is winsome, captivating and certainly worth considering.  And certainly well worth the read.

This weekend was tough. It began on Friday when I demolished my kitchen. Just took it out.

Not entirely. Not literally. But figuratively and enough that it is virtually unuseable. We hired a painter to come in an paint the kitchen and our eat-in area for us. He got most of it done, but not all. He thought he’d get it all done. But there are a few dribbles left. He was miraculous to watch.

No. Tape.

Now the kitchen looks like Fresh Butter. Beautiful.

We left early Saturday morning for another hockey weekend … this time to Raleigh, NC. Two very hard hockey games and two demoralizing losses later we arrived back home Sunday afternoon. The girls learned more about working losing together as a team, but this was brutally difficult work and it hurt to watch them go through it.

We spent a lot of time in the car (7 hours total) and I had a lot time to think. Jamie has been doing a Friday series on St. Francis that I’ve been enjoying. I didn’t really know why until this weekend. But all the tiles fell into place on the car ride.

In another life time (before kids), I used to do counted cross-stitch. It was one of my hobbies before quilting took over. I’ve had many hobbies in my life. I also used to do stained glass (I’ll tell that story another time). This was also during the days before I knew Jesus too. A friend taught me how to count my stitches. There is something very soothing to me about this hobby. It’s extremely controlled and yet … almost anything can be created with your stitches. I love that.

Shortly after I learned the basics my friend and her mom took me to a store to buy a pattern and supplies so that I could make something of my own. I still remember that first pattern and project … in part, because I never finished it! This is the story of my life. I manage to complete projects I’m doing for someone else. The projects I do for me, languish on a shelf. It’s still here in a box somewhere. I picked it because it was a prayer that I wanted for myself. I read this prayer and connected with it on so many levels. It was the prayer that is commonly known as the Prayer of St. Francis.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.

I fell in love with it because it was simple, heartfelt, and unadorned. The project was the words of the prayer surrounded by dogwood blossoms, which are prevalent in the spring here in Virginia. I can still see it in my mind’s eye. Someday, I may find that project again and finish it up. I stitched the words, but got overwhelmed with the blossoms. I moved on to other projects; then to stained glass and then quilting. But I’ve always felt a special connection with St. Francis because of that silly, unfinished project that spoke to me long before I could hear Jesus speaking.

It is, in my mind, an ebenezer … a marker or monument, to the working of God in my life before I recognized it or truly recognized Him. I think that’s why I’ve been enjoying Jamie’s series so much. At long last, I’m learning more about the saint who spoke through the centuries into my heart when I couldn’t hear much of anything else.

I first read this on Grace’s blog, and then on Lyn’s blog (it was started by Jim at Sola Gratia).  They both have eloquent posts with Jesus saying loving things to them.  Glenn Hager also has a wonderful post … Jesus is talking to him a lot.  I believe I’ve seen it in other places too, but I can’t remember where.  They all heard from him and He was gentle, kind and loving.  Some of the above-mentioned bloggers tagged specific people, some of them just said that if you read their blog you could consider yourself tagged.  I tried to ignore that.

I ignored it when I read Grace’s blog.

And Lyn‘s blog.

I find I cannot ignore it anymore.  But this is embarrassing.

When Jesus spoke to me, He assumed the voice of a rather largish woman of African-American descent.  Then He said, “You need to get off yo ass!”

I said, “Excuse me.”

He said, “You heard me!  Get up off yo big fat one and get a move on.”

Me (with a certain nasally whine) … “Ahhhh … what about all those nice platitudes you gave everyone else?”

Him … “Get off yo ass, woman. If I thought you needed pa-latitudes I’d give you one.  But you give me at-titude.  So I’m givin’ it raght back atcha.”

So, for today, I’m going to get up off my lazy white butt and get moving.  I’m not sure where, but given the recent interchange I have no uncertainty that I’ll hear about it if I’m moving in the wrong direction.

We have two pets. Hmmm … well … that’s not quite true. We have two animals that are considered pets and then we have a fish tank. So if you count the fish in the fish tank, I don’t know how many pets we have. I don’t count the fish. So we have two pets. They are Sam (the golden retriever) and Monty (the black cat).

Sam is also known as Samuel Allen Dawg. That’s his registered name … he is registered with the American Kennel Club. Samuel Allen is for the man who was Ethan Allen’s father. Ethan being the Revolutionary War hero … um … not the furniture store. We added the Dawg because you have to have three names for the AKC and we couldn’t think of anything else. It seemed appropriate.

Monty is also known as Montgomery Montgomery from the Series of Unfortunate Events. He was born in our laundry room on Patriot’s Day 2005. He is a beastie cat. He yells a lot. He also purrs a lot. This has saved him from many trials.

Today, as I heard Monty yelling from across the field that he wanted to come in the house (the door was already open), I remarked, “That cat is dumber than a sack of hair.” Which sent LightBoy into gales of laughter. When he recuperated he said, “Mom! That cat *is* a sack of hair.” We were eating lunch out on the deck. It’s wrong to be able to eat lunch outside in the end of October. I’m enjoying it, but it’s wrong.

Monty has been in one too many cat fights lately and he’s looking a little raggedy. His back end looks as though a five year old took after him with a set of electric clippers … and the clippers lost. We imagined what it would take to make a set of cat armor for him that would work. He needs to let his fur grow back. But I don’t imagine he’ll stay inside for vanity’s sake. Does anyone know where we can get some kitty kevlar?

After lunch we came inside and settled into our seats in the family room. The door to the deck was open. The wind was blowing. Sam is worried. He keeps watching the door waft back and forth. What is making that door move? No one is standing anywhere near it. He looks at me. He looks at the door. Why is the woman not worried about that door? Why doesn’t she see it move? The door should not move! Make it stop!! The door keeps gently moving. Now some papers flutter in the breeze. Oh wait … the breeze fans his feathers and he likes that so he forgets about the door and faces the wind. Then … the door moved in his peripheral vision again and the worry returns. I watched this for a while bemused.

Our pets are a source of almost endless amusement for me. Especially Sam. I wonder what it would be like to not understand the wind. To see a door move and worry about it’s source. Then I think … maybe that’s why the church is struggling so right now. We do not understand the Wind. We see it move a door and worry about it’s source. Instead of just enjoying the Wind and allowing it to blow and letting the Wind curl around us and embrace us, we worry about it. Maybe we should just relax and let it be.

We just got home from an early hockey game. We played at a new rink in the area. It’s the rink that the Washington Capitals practice in. Ooohhh. Aaaahhhh. There was a certain sweaty aura about the ice there.

It was a hard game. The girls played really hard and really well.

They lost. 8-0.

This morning it was hard work to be a hockey mom. It was, I’m certain, even more difficult to be a hockey girl. It was heart-breaking to watch these girls who I’ve come to love skate their hearts out, do the moves, and get wiped up.

Then, it made me angry.

We faced a team of seventeen 14 year olds. We had 11 on our bench. 2 of those girls just turned 11. So … them’s the breaks you might be saying. Yeah … I could say that.

Here’s the thing though. The team we faced is part of a club that supports girls hockey. It opens up space for the girls to flourish and grow. They don’t just have travel teams. They have house teams that feed into the travel teams. The club board supports the girls program and knows what’s happening on that program at any given time. They get special coaching at the same level that the boys teams get.

Our team? Our team belongs to a club that pays lip service to girls hockey. Last year’s club president didn’t support girls hockey and this years club president doesn’t really either. So we have girls hockey teams. Yep. They’re invited. Yep. We have equality. Girls are present and they are part of the program. Backsasswards County Virginia has girls hockey. Guess how many girls are in the house program right now?

Five.

Five. That’s right. One hand’s worth. That is what happens in a program that does not open up space for the girls to flourish and grow. There is no one coming along in the wings to build the program on. We essentially have a developmental team as a travel team. It is disheartening.

Slowly it seems that things might have a chance to change. CoachWonderWoman has spoken of her plans. The girls have taken some initiative to learn more and practice harder. But still … without that support, leading and space. Without those younger girls coming in from behind to feed into each of the older more experienced teams, all of the plans and initiatives in the world aren’t going to help a team of eleven grow against a team of seventeen. The problem is not with the team … it’s with the club. The problem is not even with the notion of equality. Because that is evident in both clubs. Both clubs have equality of gender, right?

I imagine if you were to talk to the men on the board of our club (which I do need to start doing), you might hear things like, “Maybe we do have a responsibility to do something, but everytime we do the response is, ‘It’s not good enough,’ so I’m sick of doing anything.” or “We have two girls teams … isn’t that good enough?” (two girls teams vs. eleven boys teams) or “I’m tired of everything always coming back to the gender issue, can’t we talk about something else?”

Maybe we can … someday, when we face that team with a more equitable bench.

(Any resemblance the reader may see to the discussion on gender in the church is purely in the eye of the writer.)

I had my hair done yesterday. It’s something I’ve only recently begun treating myself to. This is a lengthy process that allows me substantial time by myself to meditate in the chair. I suppose I could bring a book and read. But usually I just close my eyes, rest and meditate. Today I found myself praying. It was simple prayer. Slowly I became aware that U2’s “Mysterious Ways” was playing. I heard it again as if for the first time. And I suddenly realized … Bono is singing about the Holy Spirit. Rock ON! And I continued praying.

Mysterious Ways

Johnny take a walk with your sister the moon
Let her pale light in to fill up your room
You’ve been living underground
Eating from a can
You’ve been running away
From what you don’t understand…
Love

She’s slippy
You’re sliding down
She’ll be there when you hit the ground

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways

Johnny take a dive with your sister in the rain
Let her talk about the things you can’t explain
To touch is to heal
To hurt is to steal
If you want to kiss the sky
Better learn how to kneel

(on your knees boy)

She’s the wave
She turns the tide
She sees the man inside the child

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
Lift my days, light up my nights

One day you will look…back
And you’ll see…where
You were held…how
By this love…while
You could stand…there
You could move on this moment
Follow this feeling

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright

We move through miracle days
Spirit moves in mysterious ways
She moves with it
She moves with it
Lift my days, light up my nights

If you feel like praying today … you could too. I’m heading to court with BlazingEwe. We’re providing moral support for TexasBlueBelle, BlueMan and their neighbors as all those Peace Order cases are heard.

She moves in mysterious ways …