A tiny link roundup

I've been noticing so many interesting things lately. Here are a few that I want to share.

I've taken up bullet journaling. I first heard about it from Emily P. Freeman, but naturally my tipping point didn't come until after I purchased a preprinted 2016 planner... but when Target put Moleskine dot-gridded journals on clearance, I made the jump. The best article about bullet journaling, in my opinion, is the one from the Lazy Genius Collective called How to Bullet Journal: The Absolute Ultimate Guide. It really is.

Speaking of Emily P. Freeman, the other day she published a blog post called A Prayer for a Hopeful Vision. The very first line grabbed me by the throat: "We’ve developed a bad habit of praying for clarity." You can read the rest for yourself, if you so choose, but I think she's onto something. And it seems to be out there in the zeitgeist, too. For all I know, Emily may be reading The Dusty Ones: Why Wandering Deepens Your Faith by A.J. Swoboda, but I just ran across a review of it today. And here's a second review. Looks interesting. I've added it to the "Book Recommendations" page in my bullet journal.

Finally, Ann Voskamp shared this video on her blog, A Holy Experience. It's impactful.

I know not how

Once I had my own plan for my life....

Ruth Simons of gracelaced.com wrote in a recent blog post:

We tend to strive and maneuver ourselves to gain the life we think we want, but I dare say, the Lord is merciful to cause the most wondrous blessings to occur apart from fine-tuned plans and well-rehearsed strategies. That's how he gets the glory and we get to be his children. He delights in using those who think they've been forgotten, whose giftings aren't fully realized, whose daily decision to be faithful right where they are trumps being fabulous elsewhere. (emphasis original)

I so relate to this. I strove and maneuvered through my 30's for my own ambitions, only to crash and burn. Now I sit feeling forgotten and like I've failed in realizing my giftings.

I'm focusing on the wrong part of her sentence.

Ruth Simons is writing from the other side of this experience, the blessing side, and it gives me hope. Hope that the place where I'm at could lead to God using my talents for His glory. That He would delight in that?

I don't know what that might look like. One "daily decision to be faithful right where I am" means working full time at an office. I used to dream of writing full time while my husband supported me (until I made the big time anyway), but that's a dream I've given up on. His disability check all goes for his medical care, the part that my company-sponsored insurance plan doesn't cover.

I do have an unexpected blessing in my job--I'm now writing for a living. It's technical writing, documentation for the software my employer produces. I'm thankful to the Lord that He maneuvered me into a corporate writing job. It certainly wasn't by my maneuvering!

I still feel drawn to writing that's a little more creative, and I still feel the Lord wants me to blog. I decided I should write one blog post a month for the first half of 2016 and re-evaluate mid-year. So here I am on January 30th banging out a post that will go out today or tomorrow, ready or not.

If the Lord's plan for my writing involves more than software documentation, it'll happen on the Saturday mornings and the occasional other little chinks of time between work and laundry and dog-walking. And the following scripture indicates to me that I don't have to know how it's going to happen.

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”--Mark 4:26-29 (ESV)

What not to tell people not to say

I started to write one of those "what not to say" blog posts. 

Of course there are scads of those on every sensitive topic imaginable. There were scads of them on MY topic. I Googled the phrase "what not to say" and got over two BILLION results. Some are tongue in cheek, but far more are serious and earnest.

Now, let's be clear: these kind of articles and posts aren't aimed at people who deliberately say mean, unkind, cutting or abusive things. Those people wouldn't read a "what not to say" article anyway. "What not to say" articles are mostly aimed at the well-meaning but clueless.

It seems there's no shortage of people who have gotten bent out of shape over what someone's said to them. Including me, yes.

One of the items I had intended to list was a single sentence spoken kindly, but in ignorance, which led to me sobbing right through a whole song at church. Was that sentence intended to make me cry? Of course not. It was intended to make me feel better. Not their fault it backfired.

Implicit in the whole concept of a "what not to say" article is the idea that I have some kind of right to expect everyone else in the universe to never say anything that makes me feel bad in any way--even accidentally. Is that even possible? It's a bit embarrassing to realize I got caught up in that kind of thinking 

Also implicit is the notion is that if we all just get educated enough, we could all say just the right thing to everyone in whatever trial they may be going through. This is the hope of those who read such articles, those who desire to never wound anyone with their words. An admirable hope, but again, I think it's too much to ask. How can one person ever know all of it? Two billion articles....

Here's the thing. It's inevitable that now and then someone will pop off and say something that just doesn't work. Maybe a stupid platitude; maybe an ill-timed and ill-considered joke. I'm not saying we shouldn't even try to say the right things at the right times. But we all fail. We're none of us perfect.

"And I will show you a still more excellent way.... Love is patient and kind.... It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.... Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Corinthians 12:31b, 13:4, 5, 7 (ESV)

Hm. Nothing in that chapter that even implies that love never says the wrong thing. In fact, it looks like it's on ME to stop expecting that no one will ever say the wrong thing to me. To give some grace. To be patient, to bear it, to endure. To cut the other person some slack, especially when I can tell they were just trying to be helpful.

"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them..." (Matthew 7:12, ESV)

If I want other people to take what I say in the spirit in which I intended it, then maybe I should do the same for them.

Photos in this post are free stock photos courtesy of Pexels.com

Multipotentialite—are you one?

This is a sequel to my previous post. Emilie Wapnick, who coined the word "multipotentialite," has given a TEDx talk. I'd like to share the video with you.

Spun to spinning

I have a new obsession: hand spinning.

No, not with a spinning wheel. With drop spindles. 

I'm spinning 15 minutes a day, because people say that's the way to learn--frequent sessions to build muscle memory, but short so as not to overtax yourself.

Yes, it seems a bit crazy--even to me. I have a full-time job and a disabled husband; I don't even have time to knit everything I want to knit, now I want to make the yarn myself?

There are other words besides "crazy" for people like me. Scanner; multipotentialite; etc. These words describe someone who has many interests and often has talent in many of these interests.

I've always been that way. I always wanted to DO everything that interested me, not just admire those who were doing it. I've often wondered what librarians would think if they analyzed the topics I check out books on.

There are advantages and disadvantages to being a multipotentialite (the term I prefer). I think it keeps my mind lively and active and always learning. On the other hand, there's the occasional flurry of spending on materials for yet another hobby, and then having to store them. Sometimes the new interest wanes, and those materials become clutter--like my little cache of art supplies for Zentangles. I also clutter up my schedule and have to weed out activities.

This is why my blog doesn't have a focus, by the way. How could I possibly write about ONLY ONE THING?

I do see some common threads (pun intended) in my interests that do stick. They're often creative, and they have to do with my curiosity about how things work and are made and what's behind the scenes. (Behind the scenes! maybe that's why my favorite musical adventure was playing in a pit orchestra for musicals!)

I have a strong leaning toward what's most natural, traditional, or ancient, but I'm also interested in science and technology. (Proof: I have a drop spindle created on a 3D printer. Two extreme ends of the geek spectrum embodied in a single object.)

The Lord made me this way. The trick I'm still working on is how to harness it rather than letting it drag me around.

20 things I learned in 2014

I'm participating in a blog linkup with Emily P. Freeman at Chatting at the Sky--What We Learned in 2014.

1) I learned about African refugees from Congo and elsewhere, right here in Illinois, who fled persecution for being Christians.
     Among others, I got acquainted with two sisters who came here with their aunt--their parents were murdered.

2) Don't leave hand-knits within reach of a puppy.
     (Really I knew that, but it only takes a lapse of a few minutes...)

3) That Jeremiah 17:9 does NOT apply to the Christian regenerated under the New Covenant.
     It gets quoted a lot: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" That's the King James and I still have it memorized. But that's an Old Testament verse about the carnal heart! I learned this from John Eldredge's book Waking the Dead.

4) To accept my childlessness.
     Thanks to the Beth Moore study Breaking Free.

5) That I have insulin resistance and the ketogenic diet is the one for me.
     ... in other words: "Butter makes your pants fall off!!"


6) I really really need to journal.

7) Also, I'm supposed to be blogging.

8) However: Writing is not an end in itself.
     whaaaAAAA???

9) I learned disturbing things about the founder of the cult I grew up in.
     More about that some other time... maybe.

10) Why my husband felt sick more often than not for almost a year.
     He had a hidden pocket of infection. When it was finally drained, he felt better immediately. In a friend's words: "No wonder he felt bad--he was full of toxic goo!"

11) That I can buy yarn faster than I can knit it up.

12) It's all very well donating to a cause; the challenge is trying to help a real, live, flawed and neurotic human being whose problems have no easy solution.
     There's someone who just exhausts me. Mostly I just drive her to church, because she doesn't have a car, but just listening to her talk wears me out. I'm not sure if I just need to let her chatter just roll off my back, or what. Do I just need to learn patience?

13) Even mild sleep apnea takes a lot out of you.
     I wrote a whole blog post about it.

14) The power of the Holy Spirit in my life means I don't have to succumb to my fears and weaknesses.
     um... duh?

15) I may have made an agreement many years ago to the effect that I should never reveal my heart.
 
16) Listening to an audio Bible while knitting rocks!

17) I learned about hybrid cameras, and got one.
     Many settings available--aperture, shutter speed, plus digital effects--but the size of a point-and-shoot. Perfect for me!

18) Lots more about introversion.
     I read Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh, and Quiet by Susan Cain.

19) That I'm a direct descendant of John and Priscilla Alden of the Mayflower.
     My aunt did the legwork to prove it to the satisfaction of the Mayflower Society, which she has now joined. I could join too by just appending proof of my descent from her parents.

20) How to survive a polar vortex.
     Wear all the wool!

Change happens

Sometimes unforeseen changes come with blinding rapidity, one after another, just when you were settling into a routine.

I'm starting a new job tomorrow. I wasn't looking for a new job; this one came looking for me, by way of a former coworker letting me know about an opening where he's working now.

At first procrastinated following up, assumed it wasn't for me, told my husband I wasn't really considering it. In fact, I tried to push it away. I wrote a high desired salary on the application form; I told the interviewer my limitations quite frankly. "I don't want you to think I...."

But when the interviewer told me what the job actually entails, I realized it would be a good career move for me. If nothing else, it'll look better on my resume than what I've been doing the last 18 months. They didn't offer what I had asked, but I negotiated them up to about halfway between what I'd written down and what they'd initially offered. (First time I ever negotiated; I guess it's true what they say about being prepared to walk away!)

Meanwhile, our 15-year-old dog died. Butch wasn't sick long; he had some sort of crisis at 3 a.m. and went rapidly downhill from there. By the time I got home from work, it was obvious his time had come. My husband and I took him to the vet and had him put to sleep.

I would have been fine with just our cats for a while, but Brian missed having a dog. So long story short, we brought home Sassy from a local shelter on the day before Thanksgiving. Going from an arthritic 15-year-old dog to a 7-month-old chewing machine is quite an adjustment! But walking the dog is back to being good exercise for me.

By the way—this all happened in November!

So I am trying to cut myself a break. My attempts at writing a blog post during this past month have been abject failures; but I was trying to write something Penetrating and Profound, and I just didn't have the bandwidth. So here you go: Prosaic and Paltry.

Even the good changes require that we give ourselves time to adjust.