Girlfriends are prayer incarnate

I think about 4 people read my blog everyday.  And this ok with me, because I write for me.  Writing is prayer for me.  It is a spiritual discipline.  And just about every mental health professional I know always recommends writing as some type of intervention.  What type, I am not sure.  When I worked for a hospice, management was trying to come up with something to keep us sane, so, we had a jouranling workshop. I am not sure how far it goes in the sanity prevention department given some of the writers I know, and a time or two, my sanity has been questioned.  And certainly if one has read the book of Psalms, David and the other writers felt it was prayer, a spiritual discipline and cathartic as well. And if you have ever read anything the apostle Paul wrote, well, need I say more. I had someone tell me once it was difficult for him to read Paul's letters without his therapist hat on.  I am not sure what he meant, (to be real honest he said a plethora of things that were obtuse at best),  except perhaps that Paul had issues.  Personally I find Paul a bit hard to take too, (probably not for the same reasons he did),  but then we all have issues.  We all have stuff.  
One faithful reader, I wish my son was old enough to marry.  I would love to have her as a daughter in law.  My other faithful reader is my sister in law.  To be honest, just knowing she is reading makes me nervous.  She majored in one of the fine arts and I just hope my writing passes. I majored in nursing, something far less artsy. And deep inside I know she is not critiquing me.  If you are going to blog the first thing you have to give up is perfection and not to let all the annoying comments that really amount to perfectionism bother you.  Perfection is highly overrated.
Another reader is a girlfriend. She texts me almost every blog and tells me something wonderful.  I can not remember how I met her.  I think she went to high school with my youngest brother and I know she went to high school with my youngest brother in law who is married to the fine arts major.  She will text me and remind me. I think I met her at church.   I don't why this is so, but some of my dearest friends come from church.  I also have had to divorce a few friends from church too, but that is another blog all together.
She has three beautiful, little girls with adorable, southern names.  I envy her sense of style and she has the best hair. Absolutely the best hair. She could hair model. She is good for me because she is the extrovert to my introvert and she reminds me how very important is to care.  Just care.  Girlfriends are good for that.  Showing you stuff about yourself that you need to work on and somehow it doesn't hurt your feelings. Girlfriends also point out the stuff you are really great at but have probably forgotten or maybe even never you knew.   Husbands not so much.  For whatever reason when they point stuff out it always hurts our feelings.  Again, another blog all together. 
She takes the initiative to check on people just because she cares.  I suspect this is how she prays too.  Caring and calling to check on someone is her prayer.  All too often we make prayer too complicated.  Prayer is living.  It is how you choose to live your life and connect to people. Prayer is practiced in the everyday.  Just breathing and recognizing you are breathing is prayer. She has kept me connected to some very important people when the rope broke.  She also taught me how to divorce a friend.  I remember the day she told me, "Girl..she has broken up with you twice.  What's it gonna take?"  She was right too.  I laugh hard when I think about that comment.  She had listened about million times to that little pointless drama in my life and finally pointed out to me it was time to divorce.   Not an easy thing to do.  Point it out to me and divorce a friend.
Right now given where we are in our respective lives, we stay in touch by text, email and the funeral home.  When you begin to socialize at the funeral home, you have officially approached middle age.  Just saying, in case you were wondering. 
So, when she texted me last night, I shouldn't have been surprised.  And her texting was a prayer.  She thinks I would make a great writer and a great chaplain.  Both ideas make me laugh hard for many reasons.  I do like to write and would like to be a writer, but I would starve.  And I like eating way too much ever to give up my day job.  The chaplain idea, well once I toyed with that,  and then I figured out I would last about a week in divinity school before they threw me out, so I gave that up too.  I also struggle with the whole ordination thing.  I find it very hard to commit to one particular denomination.   I have read some of those vows and given that  I would break them in about a month, I better not choose that career path.  But her comments did give me pause and I did take them both as compliments.
My girlfriend asked me how I knew so much about the bible and I am not sure that I do, but it got me to thinking.  Another dangerous endeavor I pursue.  Thinking too much.  Instead of feeling or being. So, what exactly would my theology be if pressed to answer?. I told someone once (the person with Paul issues), that I had a Catholic heart with a Protestant theology.  He didn't get it.  In fact, he tried to argue with me as to why I was thoroughly Protestant.  He didn't win.  The argument, I mean.
 I love to go to Catholic retreat centers.   Mainly for the soup.  In case you don't know, monks make the best soup and bread.  Absolutely the best.   I also happen to love a good mass.  I love the liturgy and the ritual.  I guess you would call me the smells and bells type.  And I usually go by myself.   Mainly because I don't know any friends that would take the adventure with me.  And also I really do like to be alone.   I really don't make very good company.  I try way too hard. 
I am usually the only Protestant there.  This particular time I was not the only Protestant.  There was one other.  I knew this because she was clutching her very large pink Scofield bible to her chest. She carried it everywhere. And she looked scared to death. I sat next to her at dinner and she admitted she was Baptist and had never done anything like this before.  She said she thought we would study the Bible more.  I smiled.  I told her that we were here to pray.  She asked, "is that all?"  Yep. That's it.  I confessed I wasn't Catholic either and she said, "you are kidding me?!?  You know all the motions."  I tried not to wet my pants and told her she was safe and she could leave her Bible in her room, we would not be using it that weekend. We would be praying. I have often said the Catholics taught me how to pray and the Protestants taught me how to read my Bible.  Both skills on any given day will save your life.
Reading the Bible is prayer too really and the narrative is compelling.  I have a friend who really knows her Bible.  I mean really knows it.  She read it through three times once when she 18.  She said she stopped the second time around at Isaiah because the prophet convicted her too much and she was not ready to change.  That is powerful stuff when you think about it.  Ink on a page can change your life if you let it.
Back to my friend's question.  What do I beleive exactly?  Not sure really except I am convinced of this and this I would stake my life on...
   

Christianity does not require, thankfully, perfection. It simply requires commitment and humility. Grace stands in the gaps.

Love needs few words, only will.  The words that matter most are the one’s we live.

Be grateful for your life even before you know how it turns out.

Find common ground among your individual brokenness for what more is there to this life than to reflect the love of Christ to each other. Truthfully there just are not any better options.

 

Trust in the provision of the moment.  Grace knows what we need.  Grace works in a world that has rams in thickets and always baskets of bread left over.

 

Nail pierced grace will never let you go and Christianity is a lifetime of becoming who you really are.

 

And don’t forget to pray. 

Grateful for friends who stay in touch and remind us who we are and could be, prayer incarnate...sunshine that will not stop, mulch, weeds, shovels, backs that ache from moving mulch...

All really is grace....it all really is...
Kathleen