Going on Mission – EVERY DAY

Written on August 15, 2015

Growing up I was terrified of the term “Mission Trip” and even into my early twenties, this introvert wanted nothing to do with packing a bag and heading to another country or state to “minister” to people in a foreign land. Debilitating. That leading then to feelings of unworthiness in my Christian walk because I was not a “missionary” like my friends who went to Mexico or various other places to spend a week leading VBS or building a cement block home.

Into my Bible college years, this got no better … especially after taking the Personal Evangelism class. Then, the guilt factor rose tri-fold. In no way did this introvert want to go door to door or stand on street corners passing out pamphlets inviting people to church. It raked against every fiber of my inner self, and so I stayed away, thinking myself an “ungood” Christian because I didn’t reach out to people for Jesus according to a class project outline or a three-point sermon initiative.

In my early thirties, our family loaded up and headed up to Juarez, Mexico. Just us – him, myself, and our then four small children. No church group. Just going to spend time with Pastor Lino and his family. It was an eye-opening experience for me to be there, just be there, and to watch the people there interact with each other, love on each other, and I was the one ministered too. I was the recipient of the mission. To see people love each other as those in the Colonia of Juarez, Anapra did and do. They have so little and what they receive from church groups, they give away.

Mission is about time spent with others. Time not things. Not money. Time. Laughter. Tears. Staying up way too late to allow conversations of necessity to occur. Their entire way of life is topsy-turvy to anything I’d ever experienced before. Mission trips seemed trivial and silly to me after being there and seeing how much the people of Anapra, Mexico had to offer to busy-minded, money-driven, program-oriented citizens of these United States’ churches. Not just service-minded a week out of the year, but daily. Daily. DAILY. Everyday selflessness of time and possessions and food and love. Me = blown away and comfortable.

Back in the good ol’ Lou (St. Louis), I began to struggle with the idea of “mission trips” from the church perspective. Another trip to Juarez to spend time with Lino and his family solidified my understanding, my view that something was backward. Mission is to be service minded … daily. Like the Anapra-ians I’d met and loved who’d ministered more to me than I could every repay, not that repayment would ever even be accepted … just to live a life of service. Understanding I’m not placed on this earth to be about what I can get out of it, but what I have to give every day … DAILY. Self-sacrifice in the name of Christ. Do I have this down? Are you kidding? It’s a daily renewal of thought. A daily getting up to understand, it’s not about me, never about me, it’s about those in my path who I am to love on every day … as I love on them, Christ will work.

No pamphlets. No door-to-door cold calling. No holding signs of protest. No staking a plot of land. No taking sides. No refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding. None of that. It is to be love …. to be available for those moments where Christ steps in and directs the conversation. To be his vessel. Always aware that I am but a vessel for HIM. Not myself.

To DAILY … go on mission. That is the quest. Not to save for months to go for a week to another’s land and lead a VBS or accomplish another goal, then leaving. Leaving the children who have become accustomed to people who leave in Jesus’ name. Who don’t stay. Who come, eat, and leave. Truth be told, it is rather self-serving to go on many “mission trips” … not all. Hear me say that … Doctors Without Borders … y’all do what you do. Amazing service and amazing because folks from so many walks of life become involved in those ‘trips’ which are for a month, two months, or more at a time … that take selfless giving of time. They stay.

Interact. Stay. Be consistent. Be kind. See and know that every day is a Mission Trip.

I am blessed to work in an environment where it is mission all day every day … and what I’ve learned is this … we all do. In whatever environment we are in, we have opportunity to serve. To be kind. To give of self. To sacrifice to someone else. THAT is mission. A trip to Walmart can and should be a “Mission Trip”. The gas station, a bar, a park, the workplace. There are hurting folks everywhere. When life is seen like this … the workplace doesn’t seem as oppressive. The gas station doesn’t seem as scary. The park becomes a church … where two or three are gathered in HIS name …. there HE is.

Be on Mission. Don’t wait for June. Don’t think you have to cross an ocean. Don’t think it’s about how many people you invite to church. Don’t think it’s about how many pamphlets you pass out. Don’t worry about what others think. Don’t think there’ll be time tomorrow. Don’t get caught up in work gossip. Don’t listen to people who tell you ‘don’t let so and so treat you like that’ … we are told to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

Romans 12:14-21 …14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.[h] Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it[i] to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

We are told to love when it hurts. Love no matter. Remember vengeance is the Lord’s, not yours, not mine. We are to be vessels of HIS and in that ….

To see the DAILY life as a mission trip, a mission, a journey, is to find oneself opened up to the will of God. What does God require to you? Micah 6:8 … Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly With God. Be on Mission. Be fair. Show love and kindness. Don’t talk about what you do for God … just do it. Do it for him. Do it for His Eyes. In this way … HE RUSHES to the hurting through his vessels.

See an opportunity to help? Take it.

See an opportunity to be kind? Jump.

See an opportunity to share your ice cream … do it. Yes, share your ice cream. See where God leads it.

Jesus rose from the dead … and you?

The Bible Has Some Freaky, Weird S#$% in It.

Originally published on August 20, 2015

She’s no hold’s barred with her thoughts, no-nonsense, middle-aged, wearing black everyday lady even still after coming face to face with Christ a few years ago when he first brought us together as friends. Karri gets this Christ’s love idea … and has reconciled that her language has nothing to do with her relationship with Christ. Her heart is more golden than many “Christians” I know. She does for people. Loves on people. Assists. Gives. She’s amazing. But she’s gonna toss in the f-bomb in every conversation because she’s so passionate about what her study of Scripture has told her. I love her. Hard to get a word in edge-wise sometimes, but listening to her revelations and adventures is one of my favorite past times. She’s so unafraid to say EVERYTHING and I need that in my life.

So, that’s Karri at Bible Study last night. “There’s some freaky weird s#%t in the Bible.”

Indeed there is.

(People frustrate me to the core when they say it’s boring. PUHLEASE … movies would have to be X-rated if some portions were made. It’s full of fallible people with screwed up lives, yet still beloved by God. Amazing. And I love Karri’s take on it. Freaky, weird s#%t. Yes.)

For Bible Study, each of us was to have thought about a passage of Scripture before coming that perplexed us in some way. We went around the table and had a good discussion over each person’s passage.

For me, I come back to those verses which have become my life’s themes, that my blogs are all about … Micah 6:8 being my favorite …. He has shown you O man what is good, and what does the Lord require of you? To act justly. To love mercy. To walk humbly with God.

Ah … to all those folks who want to know what God’s will is and spend their lives wanting to discover God’s will … should they do this or that … it’s summed up there in Micah 6:8.

Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God.

Basically … be fair. Be kind. Don’t think you’re bigger than God. Boom.

I get it. So, that’s not what I shared but I built on this and Matthew 22:37-40 where Jesus gives the two greatest commandments against which he says THERE ARE NO LAWS. Love God and Love Your Neighbor to sum them up. So yes. There’s the crux of it all.

So, last night I shared from Colossians 3:12-17 … these are life verses for me.

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

So these. Be at peace with your brothers. Dissension among the ranks goes AGAINST God’s desire for those who profess his name. Yet this is the way many in and of the church exists – biting and devouring each other. It is reprehensible and in no way beneficial to the greater cause of loving the world for Christ. The world sees Christians at war with one another and wants nothing to do with that religion or that God … Sadness beyond sorrow.

It’s the last verse that spurs my work ethic … whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it in the name of the Lord. There’s another verse – Ephesians 6:7 that says it this way …

7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people,8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.

And amen to that. Serving God, not people. But we live in a self-serving world. So this message is topsy-turvy in the church. And this is what I shared.

Because it perplexes me so that the church has it all so bass-ackwards. You know? What I love most about God is the simplicity of his message … LOVE me and LOVE each other.

What that looks like and how we play it out … he leaves that to our choice.

But the church came in over all the years and made rule upon rule and now young people are turned away from churches if they have too many tattoos or their skirts are too short. It hurts my heart.

Within the church … Colossians and so many other passages lay out that the focus of life is never to be on each other and the colors of the church carpets but on those in the world who need love, who need to have their NEEDS met – food, shelter, kindness, a shoulder to cry on, time.

Sometimes when I share these things I see fog gloss over faces. They’re comfortable in the complexity of their Christianity which is in no way the creation of God. Breaks my soul.

I just want to live simply … loving on folks. And in that way to be an OCEAN of love. It is through the simplicity of the message of kindness and giving, that LOVE makes the waves that help and heal and supply.

Why is this so hard for so many to grasp this? This simplicity of the message of God?

Jesus says it when he says throughout the gospels that some will be ever seeing but never see, they will be ever hearing but never hear. Like the parable of the sower … the seeds fall on different kinds of soil … some take root, others do not … and there comes a complexity for me. Not that I believe in any way in predestination but he knows the kind of soil that we are … and oh, hey, here’s a mind-blow for the moment … he needs his OCEANS to moisten the hard, rocky, and weed-stricken soils! LOVE that. 🙂

We also talked about whether or not baptism is essential for salvation. That was the one Karri brought up. Romans 10 makes a pretty plain case for those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved …. and yes, there was “discussion” at the table.

Freaky weird s#%t.

Karri, I love you. You make me think. I like that.

An Aspergian Moment of Awesome

Written on August 25, 2015

After a thirteen hour work day, I arrived home yester-evening to a plethora of activity. Mostly little boys fighting. The 7 and 9-year-olds. Back and forth all while I’m trying to determine at almost 9:00 p.m. why hadn’t anyone eaten dinner. A punch went the wrong way – actually the right way, it landed. Screaming erupted and the volcano spewed forth a 7-year-old tirade of I’m really just overly tired and hungry but what we all received was “The earth is melting and all humanity with it!”

To this, my Aspie – Koel Thomas, the very center of my posts on Aspergers, who has been the fit thrower in our home for years upon years, to his brother said, “Stop, man. There’s no reason for it.”

Mom stopped in disbelief – shaken. It was as if the earth shifted. Time stood still, no not still, it just slowed to an incredible snail pace and I felt my head turn, almost saw my own head turn in disbelief … THAT very boy … wow. He stood there observing the situation, offended by the screams, interrupted from his own train of thought, and everything changed.

My boy is growing up. He’s seeing and recognizing. He’s taking responsibility for his actions. He’s stepping out of himself to recognize what’s happening around him. Beautiful. Loved that moment last night.

Hadn’t said anything … but I stopped giving him his medicine at the beginning of the summer. And this is where we are. He’s the calm one.

What do you know? 🙂

A Desperate Mother’s Saturday Afternoon Confession

Before you read the actual post that lies beneath this comment, I must qualify it by stating – today, I would love nothing more than to hear my children fussing. 3 1/2 years ago I had no idea that I’d be without them, living in separate cities, legal paperwork separating us for lengths of time with only snippets together. Days that fly and leave me in tears as they pass. I remember how the day below felt. I do. Heavens, I miss those mess makers every day that I breathe. Treasure your babies. Ask for help when you need it. Do not bubble and burst like me.

Written on August 29, 2015

It’s welling in my chest and it hurts – like an acidic bubble causing my lungs to expand inside ribs. And that expansion aches alongside the tumultuous thoughts racing through my brain of “I don’t want this” and “Make it all stop.” Fists clenched. jaw tight. Face set. I hear myself say things I never want to say and inside I’m crying, no spewing – to say cry is to lie. I’m at a tipping point, needing something to change here, and I know what I experience isn’t so unlike so many others, but this is my existence and I just want their room clean.

Clean your room. That’s what I said. That’s how it started. Hysterics. Tears. Wailing. Gnashing of teeth. Them externally. Me internally. Their fits of rage complete with “I hate you” and “I won’t do it” and my comeback with “Fine, you have no x-box today, or tomorrow, and depending on how you behave, not the rest of the week.” Just clean your dad-gum mess.

Why is it that lately, I just want to run? Is it being 42? Is it me? Is it that I have a full-time job, six children, a self employed spouse who lives and breathes work, children in and out of my house all the live long day and night, people listening to music at ungodly hours into the wee morning light, making this never a peaceful place, but always a labyrinth of legos on the floor and surround sound noise of voices, varieties of music I’m not sure is music, yelling, hitting, fussing … in it all I have a driving need to escape to quiet …

I’ve created this mass of people living under this roof, for which I am grateful, understanding the blessings of motherhood and the gift of six amazing people now living on the other side of my womb with their own individualities and life goals and dreams and wants and needs … still, I think I might explode.

Explode. Yes. Like my chest will burst straight open, red goo flying everywhere on top of dirty shoes, tracked in mud, and couch pillows on the floor where they should never be. My heart in pieces all over the place because all you can do is tattle and procrastinate and hit each other and make bigger messes and try to destroy each other … Just clean your ever-lovin’ room, I want to seethe through my teeth … stop making this so hard. It’s not hard. Clean it or I bag it.

So my confession today … I’d rather be sitting on a deck overlooking a snow-topped mountain view expanding high above a clear blue lake and surrounded on all sides by pine trees reaching for God. There the only sound – the mountain breezes blowing down and through the trees, rustling through the needles as birds soar and call out to one another … that is where I want to be. It could even be cold – I’d nestle under blankets and remain there on the deck just watching the world, my thoughts telling stories, amusing myself, making notes for novels, treasuring ideas, soaking in the silence and peace …

But … “you think he’s going to kill you,” so no more mountain reverie … Mom mode.

Breathe, me. Breathe.

They’re blessings. I’ll miss them when they grow up. One day I’ll look back and wish that then empty room was a mess … Yes, I know, I hear all of you older mothers, I hear you all and I grasp your words …. but right now in this moment, I’ve got a firebomb burning inside to diffuse and nasty words to refrain from saying to impressionable little souls gifted to me by God. I see the situation clear … a test? a challenge? just motherhood … just clean your frickin’ room and turn down the mouth volume … geez, Louise.

Ice cream anyone? Chocolate pudding – STAT!

Have Yourself a Day of Favorites

Written on September 3, 2015

Jovon amazes me. We work together and every day, she smiles and tackles whatever task is at hand without complaint. She’s good for me. In so many ways, she’s amazing … kind, helpful, single mother of four, PTO member, cellist, just an overall incredible person.

Today she tells me about her day of favorites ...

A day of her own, by herself, where she does and experiences her favorite things at least once a year. Like … she bought flowers, got a pedicure, ate her favorite food, and went to the ballet among other favorites … completely filling the day with things a busy mom neglects for herself and I was like … Yes! I have to steal that!

So I set to thinking … What are my favorites? And you know, I sat stumped for a few minutes. Jovon had to talk me through it a bit.

My favorite store? The thrift store. She said, go to a new one. Ooooo … The exploration and the hunt! I can do that.

My favorite place to eat? Hmm … Either Las Palmas with an 18 oz Strawberry Margherita or two or Olive Garden with a couple of glasses of wine.

Take a photo walk. At a park. Stroll at my own pace and capture as much beauty as my camera will hold. Then, Instagram it all.

Attend an author event at the library. Yes. I love that. To hear another author read his or her own words … It’s music.

Find a cafe or shop where I can sit with my laptop and write and people watch … Best writing happens when I have unwitting models and landscape or cityscape to observe.

Favorite dessert? Well, Braum’s ice cream but we don’t have that here in St Louis, so I’ll settle for some Skeeters custard or chocolate pecan pie. Maybe a big bowl of chocolate pudding. Yes, chocolate pudding.

Laughing with my children toward the end of the day… that’s beautiful.

And a ride on the motorcycle. Wind in my face and I don’t have to talk to anybody and nobody can talk to me … Just be a chrome accessory … headed out for drinks somewhere ….

So, A Day of Favorites … maybe I’m not feeling so well … cough, cough … Might need a sick day. Ferris Bueller type sick day. Insert a smile here … not my style to play hooky, but a planned day off … That I will do.
What about you? A Day of Favorites. What would you do? Daydream it up. Write it down. Let’s do this. And thank Jovon. Her amazing idea for busy moms … And not just moms … Any of us who don’t stop moving.

Does God Support Kim Davis?

Written on September 9, 2015

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/09/08/judge-orders-kentucky-clerk-kim-davis-released-from-jail/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.56ee9af0a0fb

I’m wrestling with this. Kim Davis thanked God and proclaimed him as real and present when she was released from jail … As if that were proof of his “siding” with her stance … with her refusing to sign marriage licenses for gay couples. I recoiled as I watched …

Forgive me my struggle here … But no, because if we are called to love, how is making a stance that alienates others who may or may not know the good grace of God then being an act of love?

It is my understanding that God loves everyone and wants all to come to a saving knowledge of Him and grace and mercy and He will convict hearts where conviction and repentance need take place.

Another point here … And bear with me, please … there are many faces of sin. Where are the lines of “Christian” protestors standing outside chanting at folks going to fast food places and DQ and bakeries because of gluttony? Is that not a grievous sin against the body? To overeat? You may say, teacher, they’re totally different situations … Are they? There are so many other examples… We pick and choose what to raise up arms against.

Regardless of the number of possible sins, this is true … Never does alienating others bring them closer to Him who loves us all. It’s good and fine to have convictions, yes. It is right to do what you believe to be right … When done in love, yes … But it is better and best to be a beacon of love, forgiveness, peace to the world. God will move as we obey His command to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Don’t be the youth minister who told the new girl at church that she couldn’t come back if she dressed like that. Don’t be the minister who says he won’t work at a Billy Graham crusade because baptism isn’t preached as necessary for salvation … Don’t presume to make that decision for God … Who he loves and who he accepts …

We don’t understand what he’s saying in the two greatest commandments … Obviously. Because if we understood love your neighbor as yourself, we would be more concerned with the status of the heart than whether our “Christian” rights are violated.

In Christ, we have no rights but to obey, serve, and follow Him. Love God. Love each other. Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God.

When is it okay to refuse to do your job based on religious beliefs?

I can’t even get into that … There are so many possibilities. Please .. Line whatever it is you face against Matthew 22:37-40. And ….

If you feel your job goes against your beliefs … Either 1) get a new job or 2) ask God to reveal to you how to be love in that environment.

So, does God support Kim Davis? He loves her, that I know.

Maybe, Kim might want to look at the situation like Esther …. For such a time as this … you are in the job you have for a purpose … to be in the right spot to love on just the right person at just time … and you never know who that soul might be or how God will use your impact to grow His Kingdom!

Oh, wake up Church! We are not called to a life of ease and rights! We are called to daily pick up the cross … To know this … It’s not about us! It’s not about you! It’s not about me! It’s not about our “rights”! It’s about …

Were you His hands today? Were you his feet? Did you allow Him to use you, you vessel of love?

Or did you kick and scream and throw dirt because someone made you mad? Did you make sure everyone knows you stood for your principle while so many teetering on the edge of a relationship with Christ watched and then turned away in disgust …

You know Christians are the biggest reason folks chose not to follow Christ. Google that. It’s true.

The Time for Daydreaming

Reflection written on September 13, 2015

It’s 52 outside and our windows are open. Covers layer beds. People still snuggled all up in them. A quietness lies over the house … The sound of planes landing and taking off filters in … Growing up in McAlester Oklahoma, it was the sounds of coal trains that comforted me in the bed … Now here in St Louis, so close to Lambert Airport, it’s planes. A normalcy of life. Though I miss the trains … something about the rumbling of a train soothes me. The whistle. The droning on and on. I digress.

Feet now shuffle across wood floors. Children waking. But not the momma. The momma plans to lie here. I could make them breakfast … just not yet. To admit I’m up means the rushing of the day starts and I’m not about that life at the moment. I hear planes and feet and birds. And it’s music … crickets? Possible crickets outside my window.

So, I’m here in my navy blue room, in my navy blue bed, loving the morning. This the time for daydreaming … my time … my world where everything is possible and stories are born. There’s a smile on my face as I wind down this post and contemplate the events in my secret daydream world. For a while, I’ll go there … Until stomachs growl and voices reach my ears proclaiming desperation of hunger. Then, the momma will clamber from this snugly bed into the realm of hungry little boys … Just not yet.

Let Your Workplace Be Effective – Kindness Thoughts

Written on September 14, 2015

Maybe the reason is busyness that kindness exists as a thing of the past. In 2015, we have computers to make us faster, smarter. We have cell phones to keep us connected and available. Technology, while impressive, is also unbearably impersonal and this holds detrimental conclusions to communication in the workplace. We communicate more and often in a hurry, but we communicate worse – everyone out for his own, covering his own, pushing, shoving, tossing folks under the big yellow rumbling bus, and in that overflow and chaos and worse, kindness is lost.

How can this downward spiral of over technological communication and the overtaking of impersonal affectedness stop or at least slow?

Recognize each person in the work environment has their own work chaos or busyness – all departments tend to think their roses are most important. A flower is a flower, even the weeds and the breeze blows through them all… Sometimes torrential rain and gale force winds. Still flowers. Still doing their job of being flowers regardless of wind or breeze.

Get up out of the chair and go speak to folks … Facial expressions and body language account for 93% of communication. Only 7% is words … And that 7 is dissected between written and oral. Go talk to people face to face!

It is not necessary to “cc” everyone and the kitchen sink in emails. Hold the unnecessary drama down to a low roar. Don’t get management involved unless there’s blood or a moral dilemma. They have enough to worry about … Including your tattling self. Better believe if you are tossing folks under the bus, they’ll be looking to pull you under too. And management knows.

Realize each department is a part of the same train, the same body, the same necessary whole. Work together not against … Or the whole thing jumps the tracks, limps when it walks, just doesn’t function as it should … As it could!

Remember … Every position is irreplaceable but every worker is replaceable. Don’t be replaceable. Be a positive change maker. Be a communicator. Be a force of kindness.
Know the beauty of LinkedIn. Yes, it is a brilliant place to store your resume and collect references, to make connections and expand opportunities … Be aware too that LinkedIn shows who has read your profile … And when it’s multiple times over … It can become stalkerish. Just a just sayin’ from personal experience.

Follow the Golden Rule. Christian or not … this principle is priceless. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Period.

There is enough work to be done in any workplace without unnecessary drama. Think of how much more effective the workplace where folks choose to think before they speak, to put company needs over and above their own, to be kind. To simply be kind.

Let your workplace be effective. It starts with one … Then two … The ripple effect …

That Mammogram Though

Published on September 16, 2015

The dreaded squeeze – suction that begins in the armpit and pulls the breast forward as the hard plastic shelf comes down to meet the metal stationary shelf below, the two forgetting there’s flesh in between them in their eagerness to close together. The fleshy breast conforms flattened between shelves as an ache unlike any other moves from armpit to mammary glands … All portions of breast crying out for release from imprisonment. The rest of the body stands paralyzed. All sensation centered in first the right breast … And then the left … And then, oh, the right again only this time altered … Sideways as a moment of freedom succumbs to new levels of ache as the machine rotates to the side, the technician’s hands push at flesh, forcing it, pushing breast tissue, reshaping skin like moldable clay, and unforgivingly the shelving jaws clamp back in the effort of both plastic and metal shelves to meet regardless of fleshly imposition. Tugging, squeezing, they push to meet giving no care for what lies between … And the body conforms to the machine in an arm draped hug, more like a clinging for life, hoping in some way to obey just enough, to offer servitude to the machine, a promise to conform just to be granted release. No moving for fear of extending the time. Draped. Suspended. Imprisoned. Then … Release. Deep breath. Inflation of the right breast as it struggles to regain shape … A moment of relief and then the left’s time of degradation comes.

Paroled for brief moments while the warden doctor reviews the scans … Hands wring, feet tap, nerves pulse sounding in ears, scenarios race through the mind in what-ifs and how longs, and blood pressure rises while breasts ache, hang low, work to reform and shape, feeling a portion of what once was, now gone forever to the manacled grip of the machine.

And the door opens. The technician returns.

Anticipation. Anxiety. The moment crawls by.

Released for a year. But only a year.

Ice cream was had this day!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don’t procrastinate this ordeal. It’s necessary torture. Survivable and there’s ice cream to be had upon completion! At your own expense of course. Make your appointment. Have your exam. Know what’s happening with your body. Be proactive. If I can do it … So can you.

“She {Meaning Me} Just Thinks She’s a Biker Chick”

Written 3 years and 4 months ago. Wow, time flies. Still the Biker Momma. Only now, I need a bike to ride … patience, Girl. Patience.

Written on September 28, 2015

Possibly there’s some plausibility to what she said … because I’m just not sure if it’s spelled chic or chick.

So, I go with “momma” … biker momma.

I am after all the biological mother of 6 and mother to many … hence the term “momma.”

[The man I was married to] is a person who rides a Harley Davidson, therefore he bikes, making him a biker … and I sit behind him on the bike when he ‘bikes’ or when he’s a biker … therefore, it follows that I am, when on the bike, a biker’s companion, which is preferably not the correct choice of wording and then leads to the ‘biker chick’ reference so often heard … Biker babe, biker chick, biker momma …whichever. I’ll take it. Whichever. Whatever.

I have my own helmet, leather jacket, weatherproof jacket, rain gear pants, biker gloves, and two pair of motorcycle boots, one of which is Harley, and then two other pair of Harley Davidson amazingness of boots … with 3-4″ heels. You’re darn-tootin’. My choicest of clothing every day and even in the dead of heat through this past summer is/was my Harley Davidson hoodie. It goes everywhere with me – bling and all. Totally into the rhinestones.

The feeling of wind in my face is irreplaceable in my favorite things list. The roar of the bike, the bikes, the leather, the freedom, the road … the realness of folks deemed bikers – nothing like those people. Nothing. Raw. Real. Leather and bandana-clad, a little bit of crazy – some a lotta bit of crazy … all of it. It suits me.

Getting caught in a torrential downpour of angry rain with no shelter in sight on a lonely stretch of highway … and I thought it was amazing – over twenty minutes of pelting, soaking-ness with no escape. There’s that crazy. I’ve never been so wet. Not gonna jump out and ride in the rain again on purpose necessarily, but I wasn’t afraid. It is what it is.

My accessibility to the sunset as we blazed down the highway and I sat mesmerized there on the back of the bike – just me and the setting sun and the roar of the bike as its tires rolled down the highway … no one can talk to me there. I don’t have to talk to anyone there. It’s quiet in the noise. My time. My mind. My free space. Air. Roar. Speed. Yes, please.

Maybe I come across as sweet, introverted, passive, naïve, the atypical English teacher … and that’s fine – most of it is learned behavior on my part – who others expect to me be so I’ve played that part very well. I get it and that’s cool – well, mostly. Just never assume you know all there is to know about a person. Be careful what you assume … you know what that means.

My response to “She just thinks she’s a biker chick” was to smile and inward eye roll …

We are all capable of many things.

I’ll just smile and go on with what I’ve got to do. Then, at the end of the day, hike my leg up and over the back of that Harley, settle in behind him, turn up the 80s love ballads in my ears, and go for a ride … to wherever. It never much matters. It’s the going ….