The Merge Lane

We have been in our new home and city a couple of weeks. There are many differences between northern Florida and South Florida. Some things I miss like more palm trees than pine and the familiarity of place.

What I don’t miss from South Florida is the traffic. It gets more and more crowded which makes commuters tense. We haven’t experienced that here too much but what we have noticed is the merge lanes are very short. You have to decide quickly to get in there. Hesitation can result in a backup or worse.

In some ways, retirement is like the short merge lane. One day you have the keys no one else has, the title and power and literally, the next day, you don’t. We have both been okay with that. It has felt freeing to us.

Yet, there is some hesitation as to which lane we will merge. For now, there are many projects to keep us busy. The yard was more weeds than grass and Henry is already in competition to have ours as lush as the neighbor across the street.

I’m still cleaning out things that just don’t seem to work in this house.

my favorite chair in a quiet corner

One area I’ve decided needs to merge is my blog. As we’ve transitioned out of full time ministry the focus isn’t on recovery though there will always be lessons to share from that community.

For a couple of years I’ve been wondering how to merge what feels like my two lives: ministry / maker. I created a Facebook page where I’ve shared my artistic endeavors but it felt like a split personality.

I will be merging Living In Graceland to a new blog that will encompass all of who I am. It will have sections where I’ll share the creative side as well as the personal parts of life that connect us.

To unify things by name it will simply be called Debby Hudson Creative. I have dreams for this new blog with a main one being connecting to others. That is emerging as one of my purposes. It’s always been, I’m just recognizing how meaningful it is to me.

There are three areas where I hope we can connect: Eat, where I’ll share stories about me in the kitchen which my husband calls ‘Misadventures with Debby’, some recipes, and definitely some laughs.

Make will be where I share a variety of artwork along with some tutorials. 

Breathe is where we get personal and share life, even the messy life; especially the messy life because it is messy. My theme for the blog is “Embracing Imperfection”. Yes, Yes, and Yes!

It will still be a place of grace because we are living in the grace-land of God’s mercy.

The Balance Between Saving and Numbing

Many Years ago now, a wise old priest invited me to come speak at his church in Alabama. “What do you want me to talk about?” I asked him. 

“Come tell us what is saving your life now,” he answered. It was as if he had swept his arm across a dusty table and brushed all the formal china to the ground. I did not have to try to say correct things that were true for everyone. I did not have to use theological language that conformed to the historical teachings of the church. All I had to do was figure out what my life depended on. All I had to do was figure out how I stayed as close to that reality as I could, and then find some way to talk about it that helped my listeners figure out those same things for themselves. – Barbara Brown Taylor, author

With our life in major transition mode for the past few months I needed something to save my life. I needed something that would take my mind off the to-do list and the longer list of unknowns. I needed something to give me breath.

I found myself letting art absorb me. I grabbed my basket of fabric scraps and set up the sewing machine that’s been in it’s case for months.

I scoured Pinterest for ideas, bought more bits of fabric and sewed piece after piece.

Then I grabbed my paints and again went to Pinterest for inspiration. I painted watercolors, determined to learn more about the method I so admired. I used my acrylics, some mixed media and even did a collage or 3.

In the process I had an idea that I’d start a new blog that could encompass all these art mediums: photography, making and writing.

Several months later I’m asking myself has that been saving me or numbing me? And is there a connection between the two?

When I was having extensive dental work done I welcomed the numbing ability of the Novocain. It would be poor medical practice not to give a patient something to numb the extreme pain cause by some procedures.

Working in recovery we talk about numbing our feelings and how that isn’t a good thing. As Brene Brown has told us, when you numb the pain you numb the joy.

So what gives here? I feel a little like all this busy-ness of making is numbing my emotional distress as it saves me. It’s a healthy distraction from seemingly endless lists.

When I’m in the creative process my mind is free to wonder. I’m not thinking about work or politics or what I should have done. It’s focused on what’s in front of me. Did I sew that line straight or does it matter? What color will look best on this painting? Should I ink in details or leave soft?

There are no right or wrong answers to those questions. Even the mistakes I think I’ve made aren’t mistakes. I have no one to answer to so I can think freely if I allow myself. Is this numbing or saving?

detail of bird mini quilt

watercolor of Sarge

Maybe the saving isn’t numbing but taking the edge off of my mind that struggles to shut down. Maybe it’s putting things into better perspective as most of the overthinking I engage in won’t change things and doesn’t really matter.

I posed this question to my therapist. Is art saving me or numbing me? She tilted her head and thought a moment and said, “Does it give you joy?”

We talked about the beneficial and harmful powers of numbing. She asked a few more questions. Is art causing me to neglect or ignore other things? Is it taking me away from life?

My floors might go a little longer between sweeping but the laundry is done, groceries bought and meals prepared. I still feel the pangs of loss and celebrate the joys of life. I am engaged in life.

As time gets shorter before our move I’ve had to put the sewing machine back in its case. Fabric and notions have been boxed up and most days my camera sits idle. Soon my paints will be packed except for my watercolors, 2 small watercolor tablets, and a few brushes. 

God saves us in many ways. Art is my gift from him. His way of giving me breath.

What is saving your life today?

“Fragile” – Handle With Care

The boxes are stacking up in our garage. It started well. Boxes of books, cd’s I’m afraid to part with (hey, vinyl came back), extra linens. We packed like items together and marked clearly on the box.

Then we had a box with a little space at the top to fill and contents are now marked “MISC”. Basically, a little of this and little more of that.

More than one box is marked FRAGILE. Pottery and glasses have been wrapped with bubble wrap. A favorite cookie jar and old mason jars are packed carefully.  

One of the boxes marked fragile will have a carefully wrapped tiny ceramic cow. My husband has glued its tail and one leg back on. It still doesn’t stand without leaning it against something. My son paid a quarter for it at a rummage sale when he was in middle school. His small act will forever be precious to me.

As we continue to sort through photos, papers, and trinkets I’m reminded at how fragile I’ve felt during this period.

For every note, recognition and photograph we’ve packed we’ve found joy and sadness in both. Happy memories of the celebrations and sadness of the years passed.

One day I’m energy-filled to get this room packed up and cleaned out and the next day I’m mourning. It’s enough to have me going down the bi-polar check off list in my head.

This is life: a mixture of strength and fragility.

This is a life well lived and well loved.

In the poetic words of Bono, “A heart that’s broken is a heart that’s open”. (Cedarwood, 2014)

When my heart feels fragile I remind myself it’s because it’s open to love and joy. Just as you can’t numb the bad without numbing the good an open heart is often a broken heart. It feels the lows as deeply as it feels the highs.

Have you read the Psalms? Read the ones attributed to King David and you will find joy and anger mingled together.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. and my place of safety 3 I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies. Psalm 18:2-3P

In Psalm 22 David starts with these words:

“My God, my God, why have you rejected me?”

This is life. One day we are praising and moments later questioning.

Some days I’ve felt like that tiny ceramic cow that can’t stand without leaning on something. Parts of me are broken and need mending.

Not every period in life has felt this fragile. For now, I’m trying to wrap the tender places with grace. I’m walking in the thin space between what was and the unknown of what is ahead. But, I am not walking alone.

God continues to make His presence known in my life with caring family and friends; with good doctors and counselors. He is my provider.

And a heart that’s broken, is a heart that’s open. Open, open.

Tell Me a Love Story

We sat on either side of our granddaughter, her rapt attention focused on the screen in the theater. We were watching the newest Cinderella and she was captured by the story she knows so well. 

Our children liked The Princess Bride. It held a different kind of charm but its characters were endearing. There was a bit more in questioning in this tale and more humor but they are among our family’s favorite love stories.

A friend of mine has one of those love stories. She was a history teacher in Georgia, USA leading her class on a tour in France. She took a fall and needed a doctor. She and the doctor communicated after she returned to the states and within a couple of years she moved to France and married him.

Hers is the most romantic story of people I know. It’s got the “made for movie” ingredients.

Sadly, after two children and twenty years of marriage it unraveled until it came completely apart.

I know other love stories of a different kind. They are stories of a Savior who loves us when we can’t even love ourselves.

We work and move among men living in a residential rehabilitation program.  It’s a free program run by an organization that would cause many to think it’s a homeless shelter. There are no private rooms and six showers to be shared by 100 men. There are rules. They live with curfews and restrictions, a dress code and requirements to see a counselor, attend meetings and participate in work therapy. 

It doesn’t sound much like love but it is a place where love is offered and sometimes love is found.

We know this because we see the change. We see it when they start to love themselves, when they recognize grace and when they accept that God loves them no matter what.

It’s a lot to believe for all of us.

This is the real love story. Not a sappy, happy all the time imitation of love but real love that hurts and resists but never gives up.

We are learning together, these men who share little in common with me but inside we are so much the same.

We’ve been hurt by what we thought was love. We’ve discovered love has more fakes than Rolex and we’ve been duped.  Duped by parents and boyfriends and spouses and friends.

We’ve bought the movie version and every shade of gray offered and found them empty and ourselves searching for more.

Eventually, we find the only love that matters is the kind described in 1 Corinthians 13  “Love puts up with anything and everything that comes along; it trusts, hopes, and endures no matter what.”

If genuine love can be found in a facility for addicts, alcoholics and those who’ve lost their way in life, if this love that’s born from compassion can be shown in simple acts of kindness and hospitality then maybe we can know love. Maybe we can understand it’s not about feelings but actions. That honest love wants nothing in return only to be accepted and shared.

This is my love story.

“My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.”1 John 4:7-10 Message

It’s Yours Not Mine

After nights of waking at 3 AM, of going out to the couch so i won’t wake him, of laying there sleepless with the usual trick of reading to lull me back to sleep, with even that failing me, you’d think I’d learn. 

You’d think I’d learn that the thoughts that wake me and occupy my mind, you’d think I’d learn those concerns are yours not mine.

The employee issues at work, the fatal overdose that was so unexpected of one with much promise, the grief that has become a silent companion, these are your cares, your concerns your problems, not mine.

But I will take them from you. Again. And again. I will hold them tight-fisted and I will lose sleep and depression will attempt to return because I’ve got this God. Life needs another flesh and blood life to take charge and step up and do the hard things. I mean, where are you but in the shadows of our prayers? 

I know the words about giving our cares to you. But tell me, how, exactly, does that work again? Because I still see a world that is filled with hate and greed and threatening to implode. I see addiction and disease taking our young and weak. And I’m one of the weak. I am so weak.

I see death and lies and rude people who don’t even know how to say excuse me. I just don’t see you. And I need to see you, right here. Because I believe you are. 

I wonder if giving all of this stuff to you is seeing you? I meant it when I said I’m not sure how that works because I’ve been holding your stuff for a really long time. We’re in this together right? I want to help and it’s hard to realize you don’t need my help. The lines get blurry between that whole faith and works thing because I’ve got the works down pretty good.

I like the notion of your will not mine. but honestly, when do I really let it be your will?

Step One: admit that you are powerless to do the right thing and that your life is unmanageable. 

I’m not an alcoholic. Not an addict. But I’m drunk on caring for things that are out of my control. I’m enticed by control, my drug of choice. All the things in neat little rows working as they should. Life, as I would have it. 

Instead of the familiar verses about casting my cares on the Lord because he cares for me, I find my comfort in the first steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, principles built on the bible, for wayward souls like me.

His mercy seat

Peter Gabriel’s voice sang low and pleading, the words “mercy, mercy, looking for mercy….” (Mercy Street, 1986) It’s a lovely and haunting melody that conveys the heart that searches for compassion, desperate for forgiveness when none is deserved. Mercy.

The Psalmist pleads for mercy over and over as did Job when he said “I could only plead for mercy” (Job 9:15)

***

As a child, I was instructed the altar, the wooden structure with a cushion for the knees, was not a place to play. You didn’t stand on it, run on it or sit on it. You came here to kneel and pray. This was serious business when you come in front of the congregation to kneel at this place. At times, my parents called it the mercy seat.

I didn’t know what mercy was, but I knew it was serious. It was personal stuff and some people cried when they knelt and prayed but they all seemed to feel better after spending time at this mercy seat. Some of them scared me as a child, their emotions so……loud. But mostly, folks were quiet when they knelt there.

***

We don’t call it the mercy seat much these days but it is. I know God’s mercy isn’t confined to a particular place but I love the symbolism of it. The tangible where we can physically bow our bodies and heart, humble and quiet ourselves to beg of God, “have mercy on me and hear my prayer” (Psalm 4:1). Psalm 25:16, “Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and in deep distress.”

Mercy, that which isn’t earned or deserved…compassion in our need.

***

It’s the close of another service. The message ended with a compelling video that described who God is and asked “I wonder, do you know him?” Henry knelt at the alter asking those who wanted to come pray with him. And I saw Lloyd. In his chair, at the end of the row next to a window, he got out of his chair, turned and knelt. Right there. It was one of those moments I wanted to photograph, not with a camera because it would be one dimensional. No photo could show the meaning of this simple motion. My heart has captured it and replayed it. To see his tall frame, dark skin and bright smile, quietly slip out of his seat, turn and kneel, head bowed over that chair. His mercy seat.

It’s how our services end each Sunday, with Henry asking, “Pray with me?” and with more men going forward than is room at our Mercy Seat so they crowd around and make their own space. Some kneeling at their chairs, some standing in the back, a visual sign of unity in prayer.

God’s mercy is free and freely given.

The Mist

I don’t know what early mornings look like the other 11 months of the year in this part of North Carolina but many mornings in August the mist hangs low, almost touching the surface of the lake. There is a stillness even as the geese glide across the glassy water.

Any time of day is quieter here by this lake surrounded by the Smokey Mountains. It’s offering a peace your body forgets it needs until the stillness finds you.

Life is going on as usual. Bills will come in, issues will have to be dealt with at home, laundry needs to be done and meals prepared. But none of it seems burdensome cloaked in the mist and sound of nature.

We hear the crunch of gravel as cars rumble past our house just off the lake. They are few and slow. Bird song and voices carry from across the way penetrating the stillness.

Being surrounded by layer upon layer of nature helps me realize why people forsake the tidy neighborhoods of cookie cutter homes in cities and suburbs.

Five houses on the left daisies reach across the asphalt of the one way road giving access to our side of the oval shaped “neighborhood”. The red clapboard house next door has window boxes of flowers and some days we catch sight of a rabbit foraging on the ground between our houses.

Swans swim at one end of the lake while geese waddle at the other with random paddleboats and kayaks in between. It’s a 3 mile walk around this lake that’s lined with a multicolored rose garden. There’s no place you can go in this small town without a burst of color. It is the only sound that complements this quiet.

We share this space with family. The quiet will be short lived. Soon voices will be making decisions and dissections. We’ll decide which pies to order for our midweek gathering as we dissect the message at the morning’s meeting – part of our work that brings us here.

There are responsibilities that have traveled with us. We haven’t left all of life’s noise behind. The difference is the easy temperatures that invite us to sit on the porch and listen more closely to the call of the birds. We hear a distant saw and the buzz of crickets or cicadas. (This city girl doesn’t know the difference.) Being in these surroundings provide a layer of resistance to the demands that make me wonder can I do this at home?

Why does it seem easier to allow frustration to rule at home? We can’t change our physical surroundings. August in South Florida is stifling with humidity that makes porches empty. Our night skies are polluted with artificial light from below making the stars above invisible. There is a constant rumble of sound: a grinding truck, roaring motorcycle, bass beat throbbing from a car or neighbor’s radio playing across the backyard of our zero lot line homes. The noise in our heads is the hardest to quiet. I want to think if only. If only we lived here. If only this was our setting. If only this quiet, this mist that shrouds reality could follow me home.

The mist finally parts and we see clearly the houses on the other side of the lake.

When you can’t change things you accept what is. Acceptance and I aren’t on good terms. I fight it like a toddler fighting a nap. When faced with denial or acceptance I like to think I choose acceptance. All be it begrudgingly. Reality stares me down and wins.

 

Acceptance says be thankful for the time away and enjoy the change of scenery. It reminds us to have gratitude for little things: air conditioning at home, and, big things: meaningful work to do. Acceptance acknowledges God is in the mist just as he is in the cloudless blue skies; in the mountains and the oceans.

Acceptance is a soul-saving surrender to a loving God.

An introduction

It was my husbands good looks that first turned my head. On the volleyball court at camp and a couple of years later as I drove by the church offices where he was mowing the lawn.

We’ve both changed a lot in the years we’ve been together. As it says in the bible, “beauty fades like the wildflowers in the field” (Isaiah 40:6b) and we’ve changed inside and out.

I like pretty things. But there is a more ordinary beauty I overlook: my grandmother’s tattered bible or the granddaughter with a pile of colored chalk drawing her masterpiece on the porch. This is the beauty that surrounds us but gets pushed aside by the headlines of the day. This is the beauty that requires intention on our part.

I’m participating in write31days this month and I’ve chosen Ordinary Beauty as the topic. I want to notice what I’ve stopped seeing because it’s always there. I want to slow down to see what I rush past. I want to listen for beauty and capture all its forms. I want to share that beauty with you because we all could use a little more pretty in our day.

What’s your ordinary beauty today?

Let Your work of love be on display for all Your servants;

    let Your children see Your majesty. And then

let the beauty and grace of the Lord—our God—rest upon us

    and bring success to all we do; yes, bring success to all we do!

Psalm 90:16-17 the Voice

Playing Church

I may have told you this before, but some things bear repeating. They bear remembering more than the retelling.

During my 3rd and 4th grade years we lived across the driveway from our church. When I say our, I mean it was the church where daddy preached most Sundays and mama taught and they worked together in ministry. It was not just the ‘our’ church we attend but it was ours.

Our house was the parsonage separated from the church building by a driveway. We walked back and forth from the church offices and were as much a part of the ministry team as anyone.

The chapel was where I’d go at times, up on the platform and stand behind the pulpit. I’ll wave my hand like daddy directing the congregation to sing. I’d turn the songbook to Just As I Am because we sang that one all the time and I knew by memory where it was.

Then we were transferred and the church wasn’t next door and I got older spending more time with friends and listening to the radio. Only, when looking back, I realize part of me still played church.

Going week after week, Sundays and Wednesdays and special events, were as much habit and obligation as anything. It’s where my people were and it was a good place. We grew together and planted roots in God’s word. It felt like community.

Time went on and we entered full-time ministry. We became the ones, much like our parents, preaching and teaching on Sundays, planning events and training leaders. Church was our vocation and while it was a God-leading mission if you don’t pay attention, you will be playing church again.

When there’s no room left at the altar they come on the stage.

You will stand before the congregation and wave your hands and sing the songs you sing every week. You will plan Advent and Holy Week and you will organize youth outings and summer day camps. And it will all be good. But you’ve forgotten church is more than a collection of parts.

We didn’t plan the change that woke me from my church induced trance of sameness. It was most unexpected. Who would ever think a bunch of guys who are required to attend an in-house Sunday service because they are part of this rehabilitation center, men whose last choice was to come to this residential program with dress codes and meeting requirements, would shake off my slumber?

The have and they do. Every week someone will teach me a new thing about grace. Someone will show me that God uses the least, the last and the lost. Every. Day.

Are you playing church? Sleep walking your way through? May the God who wakes the dead and gives life to dry bones renew our Spirit and make us alive in Him.

Five-Minute Friday {doubt}

Do you like to play games? Card games or board games? With our kids it was Uno which moved along faster than Monopoly, whew! We played Rummy and Trivial Pursuit with our friends. Now it’s Taboo and Apples to Apples.

We only play them once or twice a year at gatherings but there’s a game I play a lot. If I’m honest, I probably play it at least once a day. Maybe you do too. It’s a guessing game called Second-Guessing. Have you heard of it?

It goes like this: you’ve gotten dressed for a special event and then you think, maybe I should wear a dress instead of pants. Or the work version of the game where you’ve worked on the media for a special event and it’s all good until you get there and you start thinking you should have used a different background and why didn’t you choose the other font?

Here’s a version I bet we’ve all played a few times: we write a blog post that comes together and everything about it feels right and then….nothing. It just sits there in cyber space with seemingly no connections made. We must not be much of a writer after all.

Second-guessing is a kinder term for the bully known as doubt. Oh, we Christians don’t much like to admit it but this doubt? Yep, we are eat up with it. It feels like I second-guess my way through life all the time praying, “I believe, help my unbelief.” This is my mantra.

For me, the cure is to step back from social media for a bit. Step back from comparison which is always the thief of joy. To step back from myself and into His grace. Grace gives room for our doubt that’s entwined with belief. I do believe, Lord. But please, help my unbelief.

Linking up with Kate Motaung and a host of lovelies for a weekly 5-minute free writing prompt. Beginning October 1, I will be participating in a writing challenge called #write31days. I hope you’ll stick with me as I second-guess myself through posting everyday in October!