Heartsick

I’m heartsick. Absolutely heartsick. I just read Dawn’s latest post. My soul aches to its depths.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

"Mosaic Nashville’s core team met again last night…"

I read this at the beginning of a blog of one of the members of the core team…it made me lose interest in the rest of the message.

I’ll explain.  See, I wasn’t at that meeting.  Bryan wasn’t at that meeting.  In fact, neither of us even knew this meeting happened.  It seems strange to me, because I thought we were part of the core team.

Bryan and I left our core group of believers in Texas to follow a calling God placed in our hearts.  We were setting out on an adventure to reach people in Tennessee.  We were joining a group of others with the same vision and passion.  We were the FIRST ONES IN NASHVILLE!  And now we are not even included in the core team!

Dawn’s right. She has every right to be angry. I can give reasons why she and Brian weren’t there, but ultimately they’ll just sound like empty excuses.

I didn’t know they didn’t know about our Life In Christ meetings. I’d been told they knew. I guess I misunderstood.

Oh, my heart hurts!! I love Dawn. She’s been a good friend to me. I look forward to seeing her every Sunday. If I were to be totally honest, I’d say I rather cling to her and follow her around like a puppy, because she’s one of maybe three people in the group with which I feel totally comfortable being myself. It breaks my heart to know I hurt her!

And I know the pain she’s feeling. I know that feeling of being left out all too well. All too well. It’s happened too many times in my life to ever forget the sting of it, and the anger that rises from the depths of your heart, the feeling that you’d been played, lied to….  I would never intentionally inflict that pain on someone else. And yet, unintentionally, I have. Oh, Jesus, forgive me!

I hope Dawn will forgive me…. I will take every angry, hurtful word she wants to say — or yell, or scream — at me. I know it’s justified. I know where it comes from. I understand it. I just hope when its all spent she will forgive me. Forgive us.

Oh What a Night

Man, did I pack a lot into tonight… and not on purpose.

First I went to Mosaic… that took a couple of hours — eating, talking to people, then listening to John talk and Lindsay sing.

Then shortly after I got home Nina called. We talked for nearly two hours (a "short" conversation for us). While talking to Nina, my oldest sister Paula called. I called her back after talking with Nina and talked her ear off for about an hour and a half. During all this talking and listening, I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, cleaned up the kitchen and straightened up my room (can I get a hearty "WooHoo! We love headsets!!")…. I would have cleaned the bathroom too, but that would’ve been too noisy to really hear either of my sisters.

The last half hour or so I’ve been contemplating a variety of issues ranging from should Scott Peterson get the death penalty — while I’m pro death-penalty, I’m also pro-life… how do I balance these two convictions??… and, in the end, which will ultimately be the harshest punishment to fit Peterson’s crime? I gotta tell ya, I’m very, very glad I’m not on that jury! — to states rights, which I recently found out is a real hot-button phrase here in the South….

I wanted to, and planned to, go to bed early tonight, because I need to be into work early tomorrow. But I can’t get my mind to quiet down. It’s very excited about all these things that got churned up over the last few hours and it wants to chew on them. I wish I could convince it they could be chewed on while I sleep. Of course, that might make for interesting dreams….

Speaking of dreams, I had quite a crazy one this morning just before waking. I had fuzzy memories of it just after waking, but later in the day something triggered a memory of the dream, and I ended up spending all afternoon writing it down, picking it apart and sorting out it’s meaning. Afterward, I checked out a couple of "dream dictionaries" online, just to see if I could get more clarification on it through a few "universal" meanings of elements in my dream. Pretty much everything I read confirmed or backed up what I sensed was the meaning. On occasion it clarified some things… but mostly I look at those dictionaries a more fun than fact… dreams, like people, are highly individualistic. While I believe there are some things we universally identify with subconsciously, I don’t believe in that sort of thing happening across the board.

I won’t go into the details of the dream, but I will tell you that by the time I was done "analyzing" it I felt pretty confident that yesterday’s post wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky I’m-ignoring-reality-and-living-in-my-own-fantasyland stuff. My dream, to me, confirmed that my subconscious even believes I have turned a corner, that I’m getting rid of negative feelings, old patterns and moving into new, more positive ones, that I am conquering obstacles in my life, that I’m going through an inner transformation and have an internal passion that is being fanned into flame.

It was a wild dream, and took me on quite a series of adventures. Even just after awakening, as just the fuzziness of it remained, I felt… refreshed, is the best way to put it… like inhaling deeply of fresh mountain air early in the morning. Refreshing and invigorating. Later, when the whole dream came back and I was typing furiously to get as much detail out before it faded again, I felt even more invigorated. A good chunk of the dream had to do with something that would sound gross if I were to describe it, yet it’s something so very common to all our lives. So it was quite odd to have such a positive feeling and affect from dreaming about it.

Okay, just so you don’t go wading into the deep end and drown wondering what in the world I was dreaming… the portion I’m referring to had to do with pooping. Here’s what the dream dictionary had to say about this:

To dream that you have  a bowel movement, signifies that you are successfully getting rid of your  old habits/ways and thinking patterns.

I also dreamed of fire,

"Depending on the  context of your dream, to see fire in your dream can symbolizes  destruction, passion, desire, illumination, transformation, enlightenment,  or anger. It may suggest that something old is passing and something new  is entering your life. Your thoughts and views are changing…. it is a  metaphor of your own internal fire and inner transformation. It also  represents your drive and motivation."

flying over and being in the mountains (specifically a mountain village),

If you are flying with ease and enjoying the scene and landscape below, then it suggests that you are on top of a situation. You have risen above something. It may also mean that you have gained a different perspective on things.
"To see mountains in your dream,  signifies many major obstacles and challenges that you have to overcome.  If you are on top of the mountain, then it signifies that you have  achieved and realized your goals. Alternatively, mountains denotes a higher realm of consciousness, knowledge, and spiritual truth."

…and George Clooney… don’t ask. 🙂

The Best Birthday Present

I’m in South Carolina this week, celebrating my birthday with my sister and her family.

I love my family! I love my sister!! We used to fight like crazy when we were kids. Only 3 1/2 years apart… maybe that was the problem… or at least part of it. We are very different in many ways. And yet so alike in others.

The deaths of mom and dad have pulled us much closer together. Where I used to lean on dad, or call him, I now call Nina — and visa versa. She and I have talked more, shared more intimately and really listened to each other more than we ever have in our lives. What an amazing gift she is too me! And all these years, I never even knew what I had. Until now.

Being born into this family is the greatest gift God could ever have given me. Dad, with his sense of humor, sense of honor, and strong, deep commitment to Jesus. Mom with her deep, spiritual connection to God, her love and passion for all people, her laughter and willingness to be driven to tears because of love. Paula, my oldest sister, 19 years older than me, with her strong values and commitment to live them out no matter what people think. Vic, my precious only brother, 16 years older than me, with his passion for life and drive to live it out with integrity. Nina, with her passion for people, her nurturing spirit and a heart always open and willing to love, no matter what it costs her.

Then there’s my brothers-in-law, my sister-in-law, my nieces (4) and nephews (3), even great-nieces (2) and great-nephews (3).

With out these people in my life, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I don’t know who I’d be, or what I’d look like… and frankly, at this point in my life, I don’t care.

I like who I am. I like who I am becoming. And I know I am blessed by God. His gift of family to me was the best, most amazing birthday gift I’ve ever gotten. I’ll be unwrapping it for the rest of my life.

Thank You, God!