The Sylvr Pen

The Five Minute Friday prompt word this week is “Dance.”

I wrote about this free-write prompt three years ago. It was breakthrough thinking, and one of my favorite blog posts.

So I’d like to repost it instead of just writing something new. New writing on the prompt does follow. Just mind-meandering, really.

But first..

Dancing with my Prince

It is a dance. I see that now. With Prince most beautiful and noble.

He picks me up from the ash heap, dirty Cinderella without the ball gown or glass slippers, only rags and muddy, sooty shoes. No magical pumpkin coach to transport me to His palace on my own. He Himself lifts me up right where I am, right how I am, all bruised and charred and smeared with dirty sin-ders from an ugly little world that’s held me slave and captive.

And He begins the dance.

He leads, I follow, stumbling, but He goes on in gentleness, and my feet gain certainty and sometimes even something of His communicated grace. And as we dance, He draws me closer, and my shyness fades to inner glow, and to my stunned surprise I notice the dirt has fallen from my rags, and they themselves are turning silken, lovely, and the glory of His wondrous self is reflecting off this lost little maid, giving her some of His glistening beauty.

My ankle turns, I stumble. He holds me firm from falling, and my eyes look grateful up to His, and He is smiling into mine and I am overwhelmed with wonder, choked with gratitude, as we dance on toward the palace. 

***

That is the dance I want to keep dancing, always, always. But it seems someone is always cutting in on the dance. And I don’t know when to politely allow it, and when to say, No, that’s enough. You aren’t just cutting in on my dance. You’re cutting in on the Savior, my Prince.

I have seen through recent months how often it happens, and I keep asking, asking, how can prevent this more in the future?

Dance made me think of other things this morning, too. How one of the psalms (is it 149?) calls for dance as expression of celebration, joying in the Lord and all He is and does.

I see happy children dancing and jumping joy, like lambs that go bounding boing boing boing in the spring.

I see people bending like willows in wind, as well, expressing their joy and love for Him the way they’re wired to rejoice and express.

Dance is a modality, a way for certain kinds of people to let their hearts speak.

Sometimes I want to operate in that modality, even at my age, especially as an expression of that joy.

But there are other modalities of expression, and my main one, the way I’m wired, is to pour out ink in lines that flow into words, phrases, paragraphs—and through that modality I find the means for my heart to dance rejoicing, as my pen dances over paper like slippered feet on a ballroom floor…

[End. But not really the end…]

Linked to Five Minute Friday.

I’m excited and honored to be featured today on Random Journal Day. My featured post follows…

“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” -E. M. Forster

That quote explains why I journal. From my first locked little diary full of now-lost secrets, till today, journal-keeping has enabled me to sift my thoughts and feelings, “journalize”* my way through dilemmas, discover surprising truths and blessings, and safeguard insights to benefit my future self.

My journals certainly have evolved from their lowly grade-school start.

Through high school I did little diary-keeping, and none during college. Required reading and writing crowded it out. But I did write quirky letters home. These, in a way, formed a sort-of journal, giving running commentary on my life’s happenings. Sometimes I jazzed them up with pictures and cartoons cut from magazines, to give the text punch. Not your usual letter home, more a picto-journal newsletter. (Like a blog post, long before blog posts?)

Decades later, the value of this journal-type writing as a reality check hit me bolt-like. Clearing out the attic after Mom and Dad died, my oldest brother and I happened upon our college letters. Sitting on that splintery floor in the dusty light, reading through them, we kept gaping at each other, repeating, “That’s not how I remembered it!” If we hadn’t clearly recognized our own handwriting, we would have thought someone else had made up all that stuff! Evidently nostalgic memories aren’t too accurate; time and intervening experiences distort how we “remember.” But journals freeze our perceptions just as they were.

Sometime after college I began journaling in earnest, if sporadically. Just when, I’m not sure. I suspect it was when certain problems began to overwhelm me. I felt I had no human I could talk to. But my journal would “listen” as I poured out woes in clear black and white. (Who was it that called her journal “Dear paper psychiatrist”? Well, that’s what this was.)

But, sadly, I think most of my journaling at this point just moaned and complained. I can’t be sure, because I threw it all out—probably because reading it never gave me much wisdom but only depressed me.

Then I found the reality of Christ, and hope.

The journal I have from this time of dawning shows my thoughts taking new direction, lining up with God’s wisdom and promises, recognizing His presence and involvement in my life. Here, one day (following a deep disappointment), I began to counter discouragement by journaling thanks, listing 25 genuine “gratitudes.” In days to follow I added to the list till the thank-You’s numbered 56. Reading through them now I see a definite upturn in spirit.

Since then I’ve often included five “new” thanksgivings daily—both for things I like and ones I’m not ecstatic about, especially if I detect a negative attitude sprouting. Lately I’ve been naming the top “Gift of the Day” (a fun, revealing thing to do!) All this helps keep me tuned in to blessings and aware of God’s goodness and help. Sometimes I’ve made journals of just “Thanks” lists, like this self-crafted one.

Another practice started then: jotting down words, phrases, whole paragraphs that jumped out and “grabbed” me from scripture or other writings—to ponder in ink and relate to my life. I also left blank pages with “UAQ’s” (unanswered questions) at the top, to add insights from scripture as I happened upon them.

Some journal pages talk to my future self, some to God. Occasionally I turn a journal upside down, to treat last page as first, and list prayer requests, and outcomes.

Lately I’ve been “journey journaling” through an issue that’s been plaguing me, making a sort of personal pilgrimage. And I’m amazed at how marking just one past journal with color-coded flags has clarified truth and finally given me certainty about what direction I should be taking.

Finally, I have to tell how reviewing my journals to write this piece has affected me: Wet eyelids, lump in throat, at seeing so much evidence of God loving and helping and growing me through both the good and “bad,” and of how He’s used journals to do it. And guess what? He’s still doing that!

***

*”journalizing”- wonderful term someone in community here coined, though I couldn’t determine who and where.

Doubts are like clouds…

It can be wise to consider what they might indicate.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, doubts can be good. Especially doubts about human wisdom, impulses, big ideas—my own or somebody else’s.

Wise counsel from scripture tells me to “trust in the LORD with all [my] heart, and “lean not on [my] own understanding… Be not wise in your own eyes,” (Prov 3:5-7) (for) “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer 17:9). Yike! Not a very reliable counselor, huh?

But doubts can be bad. Some debilitate good, earnest people, and stymie valuable actions God desires.  Bullies use doubt to oppress the conscientious and shove them out of the way of their own selfish schemes. And of course doubt of our truest Friend is most regretful. We know what bully first stirred up that doubt and brought humanity all our present troubles (Gen 3:1).

But back to good doubts. Doubt can check presumption—which seeks, even if unconsciously, to use God’s grace and gifts selfishly.

It can also put the brakes on well-meaning but precipitate action, where “fools rush in” and make bigger fools of themselves and simultaneously discredit God.

Scripture commends not impulsiveness, but discretion, and discretion requires thoughtful consideration of doubts.

I have regrets. I’ve made errors in judgment and poor decisions that left a legacy I’d rather not have. Though I considered myself a circumspect person who treaded carefully, 20-20 hindsight revealed how often I jumped when I should have waited. Other times when I paid attention to doubts (aka red flags) I afterward rejoiced that I had.

George Muller became a model for me in whether to proceed in any venture. This man through whom God accomplished astonishing things and who saw manifold answered prayers most believers wouldn’t have the courage to pray, never followed any new track until certain it was God’s track.

This gave him—and can give anyone—bold confidence, in both prayer and action. If you know for sure it’s God’s desire, you can pour yourself into the effort, and watch the most startling prayers get answered.

One area where I’ve wrestled doubts is this whole blog thing. That’s why you haven’t seen much of me here.

I know why I started blogging. I didn’t do the Muller thing at all. I went to a writers’ conference and heard, “Every writer should have a blog.” So I (blindly) went home and got a blog.

Then I had to figure out what to do with it!

And sometimes, when I poured heart, soul, mind and body into it and didn’t know if anyone was even reading it, l naturally began to wonder if all that time and energy made sense. When hindrances came along, it was easy for them to discourage me. If I’d only made sure it was God’s direction, they couldn’t have so easily daunted.

So how do you sort out the doubts and discern God’s direction?

So far, I know this much:

First, don’t completely deny a doubt’s validity without investigation, nor let doubt alone stop you.

Take it to God in prayer.

Consider the source of both it and your original motivation.  Ask if it’s God calling or people manipulating, or lies from the past haunting and pushing you.

See what God’s general will is in the area of your undertaking, particularly for someone with your present responsibilities.

Then somehow record what insights God’s word and Spirit give you, some place where you can readily see them again to remind you when new false doubts (or big ideas) arise. 

Happy doubt sorting!

*****

[Today’s Five-minute Friday Free-write prompt: “Doubt.“]

GO:

Doubt  is a word I have no problem writing about. I’ve had plenty of experience with the concept. I’ve doubted myself, I’ve doubted my chosen paths, I’ve doubted my opportunities, and I even doubted, at one time, the truth of the Bible and the existence of God.

The first doubts are good doubts. I need to see the limitations of myself, my opportunities, the people around my life that might have ulterior motives for all their “niceness.” But the last, ooh, that is an awful, a yawning chasm of uncertainty.

Yet even it has its benefits.

Doubting Thomas was good for the rest. He wanted to be sure. So do I. So I doubted. And I prayed. And eventually “I believe, help Thou my unbelief,” became first my turning-point, life-changing prayer, and after that my oft-repeated anytime prayer. (Still is, sometimes, in many, varied circumstances.)

All I can tell you in this short free-write is that He answered back then, and He answers yet today, He most assuredly helped, and helps, this faltering doubter—because she truly wanted to know, wanted Truth with a passion, as she still does now. And she knew Who to call: the One Who goes on helping when I call out to Him today.

I’m sure I’m more sure because of past doubts. In fact, this free write is giving me a possible theme for “31 Days” of blog posts in October, something I’ve not yet come up with. I’ve often thought of writing a series on “How I Know God is Not an Imaginary Friend.”

What do You think of that, dear Lord? And will you help me overcome my doubts that, even with Your help, I can actually sustain 31 straight days of published blog posts?

STOP.

Linked to

Five Minute Friday

FMF prompt word: CELEBRATE. But no way can I stop at five minutes, and I think you’ll see why:

“Go.”

I see the word “celebrate” and think joy, rejoicing, and… dragonflies!

But then I wonder if I’ve got it right. Did I celebrate dragonflies? Can you do that?

So I pull the dictionary off the book rack and look up the word. This very secular and recently published dictionary surprises me, as I read:

CELEBRATE: vt 1: to perform (a sacred or solemn ceremony) publicly with appropriate rites 2a: to honor (as a holiday) esp. by solemn ceremonies or by refraining from ordinary business b: to mark (as an anniversary) with festivities or other deviation from routine 3: to hold up or play up for public notice(her poetry ~s the glory of nature) vi 1: to observe a holiday, perform a religious ceremony, or take part in a festival 2: to observe a notable occasion with festivities

So can you celebrate dragonflies? I think I’m going to right now…

The celebratory moment wasn’t planned. It was more like magical. But it was given space to happen, or it might never have occurred.

For one thing, I’d just begun a new practice, a few weeks before: gratitude with a new dimension: each evening naming “The Gift of the Day,” and noting it in my journal.

For decades I’d practiced (if somewhat inconsistently) the daily naming of five “gratitudes.” But this one had to arise from the listing as the “best and most beautiful.”

Reviewing later what gifts I’d singled out, I noticed nearly all were intangible, and happened—or rather, came to my awareness—when I’d made a pause.

Oh, yes, there were stand-out gifts amid activity—like my getting that basket onto the high kitchen shelf exactly as it should be settled, via that Frisbee-like fling after quick prayer. (If you knew my normally abysmal aim, which I blame on uneven eyesight, you’d call it a miracle like I did—especially since the feat repeated twice in my rapid cleanup effort!)

But mostly the day’s special gift was something like…

a clear sparkling bird song I’d never heard before, delivered to me as I sat quiet in my porch nook,

or a spectacular view of sky framed between trees, noticed as I paused from garden work, or… (you get the idea).

So it was with The Dragonfly Moment.

Late afternoon. Husband gone on an errand. Day’s work done, supper a cinch to fix later. And me seizing the moment! Out on the patio, under the sunbrella that shades the table. Silent solitude.

The only trouble was… insects. These little bee-like, fly-like things that harass by (literally) getting in your face, or on your arms or neck, along with the heat-summoned gnats and the end-of-summer mosquitoes. This time of year I miss the swallows that have suddenly flown back to Capistrano (or wherever they go) and left behind stark silence and increased biting insect population, which they’d kept controlled all summer.

So I expected bug troubling as soon as I settled in my seat. But, in no more than a minute, suddenly dipping and darting all about me like glistening, glittering little jewel-like helicopters, the dragonflies appeared! And the bugs, gnats and other stinging things? Very quickly gone!

Yet, far more than bug control, this was a shining, dancing spectacle fit to make you laugh, delighted, which I did!

Another dragonfly moment happened this week, while roof replacement work cluttered both patio and porch with debris and noise and I decided to “take tea with God”—out in the “mini-barn” where I’d stashed some of the patio furniture. Through half-opened door, their glinting, glistening sun reflections caught my eye as they danced mid-air, out all over the meadow grass, a marvel!

And now I sit and consider that such marvels are happening all the time, and the only requirement for realizing and celebrating them is a little momentary pause. (See definition 2a above).

*****

Linked to

Five Minute Friday