This isn't what I planned

It's raining outside...a nice rain that I think the plants need. At first it was really storming with lots of scary lightening but now it is much more calm and more of a beneficial rain. So what should I do? Normally I go outside after work and water anything that looks thirsty and then just walk around with my hands on my hips taking a bug inventory and deciding what to do about them. But today I think I'm banished to the indoors. Well, I'll do what I always do. I'm a cross-stitcher and have taken on a project which, judging just from the size the of the thing, was sent straight from hell. When I ordered it I didn't realize I was getting the 16x20 version of one my favorite paintings...Paul Gauguin's 'When Will You Marry'. These are two sisters from Mataiea Village, Tahiti. The younger sister in the front has a beau and wants to marry. But she cannot until her older sister is betrothed. I just think the telling expression on the older sister's face could be on any of our faces. When I look at her, I imagine she's thinking, "Again with the marraige thing?!" She looks a little disgusted that this thing she probably wants (I only assume) still hasn't happened. And maybe she's even a little angry about it even before her younger sister brings it up, AGAIN. I think we all have dreams in our lives that we just always thought would happen...and that they would happen in a timing that's to our liking. I can't explain how we get that impression but we seem to be born with it. Every time I pick up my scroll frame with the massive piece of fabric (most of which is still blank even though I've been working on it for a year and a half) I look at that older sister's face and concentrate on her frustration. It's a human emotion...I think I won't deny it of myself. I'll allow myself to have it and once I'm done with it I'll move on to the next piece of thread.

Christians....PLEASE!!!!

I left the church last night a little after 8:00 p.m. and was feeling pretty hungry. I love the tofu spring rolls from Pho in Valley Ranch so I set my route to land me there. I just love the family who own and run the place...they know me and they know what I'm going to order ha! I love that I live in a place where there is rich diversity in culture, religion and lifestyle...I benefit highly from it and don't think I could grow much as a person without it. So my spring rolls were ready, I thanked them and paid and bopped out of Pho feeling pretty good about life. I got in my car, got to the stop light and what did I see on the bumper of the car ahead of me???

My mood went from bliss to growling mad in two seconds flat! What is wrong with some Christians today!?!? What the heck is going on around here?!?!? What part of that message is Christlike and loving? How is that 'loving your neighbor'? It just doesn't fit. This bumper sticker may be the best way yet to completely push non-Christians over the edge of distain for Christians. Congratulations! you've done it. That's all I have to say about that!

Glory in the Morning

I tend to be a creature of habit. Some would even say stubborn and set in my ways (quiet Alvaro!) I'm highly aware of this, shall we say, negative personality trait and truly give it my best when it comes to the growth department and strive to be more flexible and bending. However, one thing that can throw my day into a horrible tailspin is if I don't get to start my day by spending at least 15 minutes in my back yard with my coffee and toast. I get up and with one eye open make the coffee. It's usually pretty early. Then I turn on the TV to see if it's going to rain or not. Then I turn on the oven and make toast and spread a little apple butter that my friend made me recently. Then I go outside, sit in the same chair that I always sit in and eat my breakfast. But there is one wonderful addition during the summertime. I get to count morning glory blooms. Yesterday from the size of the buds I saw, I predicted that I would have 11 blooms this morning...I HAD 17! I know what you're thinking...perhaps Rachel doesn't have enough to do. Perhaps Rachel should just get in the shower, get ready and go to work early if she has all this time on her hands...perhaps she should go to the gym! (bite your tongue!) I say, no way! I've tried that and it's just all wrong for me...and I've learned that in order to be the best person I can be I have to start the day out with a little quiet, a little thinking and maybe a little counting. The best way to appear to be a happy person is to be a happy person...no poser ever conviced anyone of anything for very long! In a society that tries to convice us that an overly busy person equals a person of worth, we can easily be pressured to participate in the constant sprint that surrounds us. Me?...I choose to predict and view 14 blooms before I leave for work tomorrow. Everyone around me will be the better for it!

MAKEUP!!!!!!

Remember when we were little and they actually had good cartoons on the TV on Saturday morning?!? One of my favorite moments is when Daffy gets all shot up and disheveled and then screams, "MAKEUP!!" click here to remind yourself http://www.barbneal.com/wav/ltunes/daffy/Daffy123.wav

And then his bill would be moved from the top of his head to the front of his face, the bare spot on his tail would get new feathers and he no longer had that disgusted look on his face. Okay, now bear with me here...I have a confession to make. Sometimes, when I go up to the communion rail during Sunday worship and kneel down and I'm supposed to be praying, "Even though I'm not deserving of your forgiveness Lord, I am in dire need of your grace" I instead say to myself, "MAKEUP!!" Oh brother, I just can't help it. Isn't it really the same thing? Aren't we asking to be made new? Acceptable again? No longer all messed up? To be made whole again is an actual moment of grace that only God can give and it's a gift given that we cannot earn. We only yell, "MAKEUP" with our contrite heart and we get a new duckbill which brings me much peace!

Ego Monster

Have you ever attempted to identify your God given gifts? Are you a good listener? Are you amazingly generous? Maybe you're a dynamo at relating to everyone at every age in every situation (man that's a good one). I think I've identified mine...hospitality! What's better than having a bunch of people over to your house and you get to prepare your favorite foods; especially if they plan to stay overnight. You get to put out the red carpet, make sure to tell them to sleep till their hearts content and you get to put out those little juice glasses which double as brushing-your-teeth glasses complete with a folded white paper towel underneath each glass. (Wow, I need therapy!) I'm sorry, this stuff is just so much fun to me...to make someone feel welcomed is the best feeling ever!!! But why is this? Growing up Lutheran, I made sure (a la Martin Luther) to have sufficient and dutiful doubt about the genuineness of my every action....(sometimes a healthy exercise.) Just when I was about to enjoy having done something nice for someone, I'd bite my lip and start the wondering. "What's more important to me? Having that new neighbor enjoy that pie or is it hoping that as I walk away from their front door they're thinking, 'Man, she the nicest neighbor ever!' ewwwww! I don't fret about this as much now (thankfully) but ever so often this questioning rears it's ugly and annoying head. Lucky for me though, today's revelation is that no matter what my intention in a hospitable action, the recipient gets the same result...being loved on, paid attention to and God is working through me in spite of whatever my intention is. So I'll keep on trying to be nice and I'll keep trying to do it for the right reasons. But if that ego monster gets in the way once in a while, I'll smile knowingly as God makes the best of it!

Chasing the Trolley

I love to ride The McKinney Avenue Trolley between downtown and uptown Dallas. I don't like driving in Uptown. I get all nervous and stuff when I have to drive on the trolley tracks. Am I in the right lane? Is this lane about to end? Am I going the wrong way on a one way? YIPE!!! Another reason I don't drive well in Uptown Dallas may be becuase I'm always scoping out the trolley to see if it's the one with our FUMC Dallas ad on the side. I love to look at it! I know the people in the pictures and I know their love and connection to their church...and I just love the way the thing looks. My friend, Brian Owens, designed it and I can't quit looking at it. Anyway, I guess if I practiced driving in Uptown more, I would begin to feel more accustomed to the streets, which restaurant is where and how to get to Tom Tom (yum! Great white teas they have) Maybe my favorite thing about the trolley is the visual connection it provides between uptown and downtown Dallas. So many members and visitors to First United Methodist Church of Dallas live in uptown and downtown but are all members of one community in each other's midst. This place connects the relevant and the traditional and is inclusive of everyone. Get on the trolley and come CONNECT!!!

Food for the Grieving

I've been cooking this morning. A friend from my Sunday school class lost her mother this week. An email was sent out to the entire class informing us of this. I called her and all I could think to say (other than I'm sorry) was, "I'm feeling helpless, how can I help you and your family?" As always in this situation, I felt inadequate. She said they could use a couple of meals as they are in the midst of making arrangements for her mom's services. I thought about this and realized that this act of providing food for people who have lost a loved one is a historic act. Generations of people have provided physical nutrition for the grieving. How many meals have been prepared for this reason? I'm not a grief counselor. I'm not a trained minister. But I can make chicken and rice. I realized that this simple thing makes me adequate at this moment. It seems that there are such simple ways to find purpose and meaning in this life. Maybe not some lifelong place where God will send me and boom down, "This is what you're supposed to be doing" but today, I think I'm in the right place at the right time. I also believe my friend (and all of us in our Sunday school class) are in the right place at the right time. A place of support, caring and numerous opportunities to realize that thing of being needed. All our love from Sophia Sunday school class goes out to you and your family today my friend. Peace.

Queen of Vogue!

This is my sister voguing in the hot, humid and buggy jungle in Belize. Yes, that's right, with a smile, a pose and more humor than I can muster...well...ever! We took a vacation together this summer, our first one with just the two of us. We have no other siblings and as time goes on, we just grow closer. What I appreciated most about the time we had together was the ease in which we could simply be in each other's midst. There is enough understanding of what our history is, what we think, what we believe and what we dream that there is a built-in basis for our relationship. I started thinking about this and wondered why it should be so different for people who have never known each other. Don't most people crave basically the same things??? Acceptance, love, respect, trust...why is it so tragically hard to recognize these needs in everyone we encounter no matter how differently they live, look and act. We say, "I can't talk to people I don't know because I don't know them" Huh? Fix that! We have to take a quick stock of how we as humans beings enjoy being treated and then mirror that. Now, if only I could mirror my sister and vogue like that!

I gotta have it!

What is it about coffee? What is this hold it has on me? It is the aroma? The memories of sitting in my Grannie's kitchen when I was only 4 being poured a cup? (yes, it was mostly milk but still) Actually, I think that might be it. Every time I have a cup of coffee, especially in the afteroon, I think about the fact that my Grannie is probably doing the very same thing at that very moment. Coffee meant we were about to all sit down together and talk about something important or at least about something juicy that Mrs. So and So's daughter did last week.

How many times have you heard people say, "ewwww, church coffee!" But we still stand around and drink the stuff and visit, build on our relationships, get to know that girl and guy over there I never met before. It's all about the coffee...oh wait, I mean it's all about the relationships :) Somehow they just go together for me. What else in my life should be linked to time spent with people I know and don't know? For now, I'll use the coffee angle!

Seeing the good in everthing

Remember reading Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place? She recounts the horror (on top of everything else) of having lice in her bed! I as the reader was disgusted at the thought of this but just then she amazed me by giving thanks to God for the lice. WHAT? ...because with the lice in her bed, the guards wouldn't come near her at night and she could at least sleep. This has always stayed with me and I measure my 'dramas' against her words. For one week, Alvaro and I have been without ac in our home. We've been doing the 'when will the contractor arrive' dance and believe you me, we haven't been pleased! But each night as we set up the configuration of fans, soaked the washrags in cool water and draped them around our necks, and threatened each other for getting too close, I've been thinking about Corrie. Without that I couldn't have given thanks for the great stories my mom tells me of her home growing up where she never had air conditioning and of the fun things they did outside in the shade. I'm not here to tell you that I believe God shut off that ac so that I would appreciate things more but boy, did God ever work in my attitude during that misery.

I'm excited about my first blogging experience and I hope you'll find some humor and start to take notice of the revelations that are taking place in your life every day.