Outside of A to Z

I don't know if I have mentioned that I paint and for over 25 years have pretended to be an artist, not like the real artists but to my ability.  I have a problem with thinking outside the box. The box states that the grass is green, the sky is blue and even though I love to mix shadow colors,  the color I want to convey always seems to be a neutral color, instead of the color that I see.

In my Sunday class, my teacher had been to "Southern Revival",
that's not exactly a tent revival, but it would be close.  The speaker talked about the fact that we live in a place in our minds where we think from A to Z.  A to Z are known facts just like the sky is blue and the grass is green.  But like art, there is the element that is not considered, and that is outside the box - outside of A to Z.  What does that mean?  In my mind, I imagine that is where God lives, that is where we find possibility beyond ourselves.  It is where faith becomes real.   Outside of A to Z is not neutral color.  It is color I dare to paint.  It is flaming red/orange with blue green shadow.  And it is the brightest white of white, pure colorless color. 

Man is rigid.  He agrees to acknowledge what is inside of the box.
He fails to see past its defined space.....before A and after Z.  I  want to initiate the conversation, begin the thought process so that the facts are questioned and the dreams become possibilities, wherein lies my faith.

Hands

This is my first post, but I have been following Five Minute Fridays since I began reading Between Blue Rocks, which lead me to Lisa Jo and inspired each and every time I decided to give this a go.

Hands.

Two months before my mother died, my sister came to Yazoo City for a visit.   I had asked a photographer to come and take our photo and had no idea how it would be staged, thinking more traditional with just smiles and a sunny background.  Needless to say, mother who is camera shy was not about to cooperate.
Our photographer took us away from the other residents, draped a bed linen behind us on the wall and said to us, "Sit down on either side of your mother, take a moment to look at each other hold hands and I will know when you are ready."  We did.

Everything up until the moment we held hands seemed staged, but when my sister and I felt the hands of our mother, and felt her pulse, her heart beat and life flowing in her that brought us into the world, her hands, the hands we knew as children, the hands of love...

We held those hands two months later in the same room as she left the world, we felt that same pulse leave  as her breath and her heart stopped.  In my mind I could feel her hand leave mine to take another.   stop.
  

Anticipation

We all live for the next fun and exciting happening, whether it is vacation, or a short getaway,  anything that causes bag packing and shortness of breath.  I'm in the midst of packing for a short getaway with Jody and my friends, Betti and Lynn.  I find myself thinking about the trip, anticipating how much fun it will be, what we will do, where we will go, what we will eat, and being away from a normal routine.  What if I, in my normal life, thought as much about heaven?  The ultimate getaway, and a place I don't even have to pack clothes for?  Who will I see?  What will I see?   

Wait. I'm still alive. Its hard to anticipate for heaven.  No one has had a trip there and back again, I guess that is why it is the ultimate go to.  But, my soul says,  you must still be ready, even though you don't need to pack, you will be leaving town, you need to prepare for the trip.  And since we are all in stand by you could leave tomorrow!

Oh Lord God, let me always be ready for my final trip and please dear Lord let it be Heaven.  Amen

Lead me not into temptation

I love to shop, magazines, stores, or online. It is urged on by my mood.  I  have recently had an awakening after emptying cabinets and closets.  I have too much stuff and a lot of clutter to clean out.  Clutter and stuff, stuff, and more stuff.  It was so pretty on the store shelf, or it was my mother's  vase or her mother's, or the shell I found on the beach the day my camera washed away while I was picking up shells, and so on and so on. I have placed value on things that are not important and it is time to clean out a lot more than my closets.  There's only one way to begin and that is to go straight to the only one who can help me resist temptation.

Heavenly Father,
Deliver me.  Lead me not into temptation.  Not is the key word, NO. Teach me how to see more clearly with new eyes, dear Lord, those things which I do not need.  Help me to see the need of others instead of the desires of my selfish self.  Remind me of the dresses still hanging in the closet and the multitude of clothes I recently gave to Charity, that I need nothing more, that you will not let me die of cold, or from the lack of knick knacks.  You, dear Lord, give me all that I need.  Lead me NOT into temptation.
Amen

Hell

I can hear her now (she is my mother) "Now you've done it!  You're going to Hell in a handbasket!"  When I've done something stupid or should I say sinful? I think of her, reminding me that I'm on my way straight to Hell unless I do something quickly to reverse my actions.  Its been several months now since she died, leaving me with all the quips and words of advice that I so much dreaded as a child but came to find endearing as an adult, except for when it came to the subject of Heaven or Hell.  Mother believed she had a special talent in knowing who was facing eternal damnation and who was saved.  We called it the "Daily Proclamation".  As she grew older, she mellowed and it seemed to me that fewer people were facing the gates of Hell.

Regardless, Hell was a subject to be pondered in my lifetime, since I heard so much about it. I began to think at one time of all the chores I would have to tend to if I were stuck in Hell for eternity and the worst ones were doing the dishes. scrubbing floors and folding clothes.  I know now that Hell is simply about being removed from Heaven for eternity, being thrown out, not having the reservation, the ticket, the pass.  I want the reservation.

When my life changed, and it did; when I reached out for help to find the purpose of this life of mine, I talked to several of my truly Christian friends, one being Priscilla Harper.  God must have let her know I was calling, because she was there and prepared for me and all of my questions.  "Do you have a reservation?" she asked.
I travel a lot, "to where?"  "To Heaven."  Its a different way of asking someone "Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth and in Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord".
I never thought about it like that.  "I'll let you know when I get one", was all I could honestly say.  This conversation began my conversion.  "Yes!" I can say now, "I have a reservation!" and I am
not going or ever going to Hell especially in a handbasket.

Lord God.  Thank you for friends who love me and who have helped me to become a better me, for a mother who kept Heaven and Hell in the forefront of daily life, whether or better or for worse.  Lord, you have given me free will to choose between you or the lack of you in my life.  I choose you, freely and with all that it takes to be one of your followers.  Help me each and every second to be what you want me to be.

Faith in Hope

The weather alert alarm on my smart phone has let me know that bad weather is approaching, storms are close enough sound the city warning sirens.  The last of the daytime has turned to night but I am safe, and feel secure.  Were I still a small girl in our house down the road, where I grew up, the whole family would be under the dining room table with pillows in our hands and instructions to place them on our heads when the windows start breaking and glass blows toward us.  Thankfully, that never happened, but I was assured by our mother that once again we had dodged a bullet that was bound to hit the target, our house, at sometime or another.  The house still stands, dodging bullets once again this day. 

This alert brings to mind the Sermon of this day delivered in  Trinity Episcopal Church by the Bishop of Illinois, the Reverend Daniel Martin.  He spoke also of being prepared, not for the next hail storm or tornado but for our death.  No one likes to be reminded of their own mortality.  It is not a sweet and feel good subject. It is also a subject that I avoided for 60 years of my life.
Death and dying.  In our small town of Yazoo City, Mississippi, those words mean Glenwood Cemetary, the place where  people are dying to get in. 

The subject of death was enough to make me leave the room, as Snagglepuss said "Exit, stage left!"  which means, get out as fast as possible.  The thought of death was enough to put me into a state (not as in Mississippi), as in mental anguish, for weeks. I was scared to death of even the thought of death.  Until now.

My security is not in the pillow under the table anymore, it comes from a higher power that assures me that no matter what happens, I will always have life.  Whatever the storm is that looms, there is peace in my heart and in my soul and in my mind because I have faith.  I know that no matter how bad the storms of life are, nothing can take God's promise from me.  He has saved me, thrown down a life line from Heaven! 

My heavenly father, I thank you for saving me from the storms that rage and will rage in my life.  I pray for those who are afraid, who need the shelter of your arms and your comfort.  I am humbled and thankful, Lord God.  Amen.