"I gotta be me".
"Big subject", said Dave.
Yeah, big subject, all right. Too big for me... It's not that I ran out of things to say...
But for reasons I have yet to understand fully myself, I am getting out of the blogging business...
Am I a wuss? Probably. But that's who I am. :o)
In case you need some closure, you are welcome to email the real "me" personally at
stewartmanpa29
@aol.com
I kind of feel like I'm letting some of you down who have been so kind as to read my words and to encourage me, both on and off the blog...
Blessings, Susan.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
I Gotta Be Me 3
I'm coming back folks. Thank you to those of you who have encouraged me both by your comments and in person. I have quietly cherished every word, whether or not I've quite known how to respond to you directly.
God has been teaching me a LOT this week about being "me". But it's not quite gelled into something that's in "sharing" form.
Stay tuned, though. Chapter 3 is on it's way.
Meanwhile, I'd love to hear what you have to say about "being me". Feel free...
Blessings to all of you!
God has been teaching me a LOT this week about being "me". But it's not quite gelled into something that's in "sharing" form.
Stay tuned, though. Chapter 3 is on it's way.
Meanwhile, I'd love to hear what you have to say about "being me". Feel free...
Blessings to all of you!
Monday, January 15, 2007
I Gotta Be Me! 1
When I was sixteen, a kindred spirited uncle gave me a poster which hung in my room until I was married. Then it went with me to our first apartment. I'm not sure what happened to it after that, probably ripped to shreds by some unnappreciative two-year-old, but if I knew where it was, I would dig it out and put it back up.
The poster itself was pretty ugly. Flourescent green background with a big not-to-be-missed flourescent orange fingerprint right in the middle, surrounded with letters in the same horrid orange that spelled out, "I gotta be ME!"
Somewhere along the way I decided that the sentiment which had struck a chord so deep in me at sixteen was evidence of a self-centred attitude that had to be quashed. Come to think of it, I probably ripped up that poster myself.
It was a decision that would have been easy to make, too. It would be easier than facing the fact that I had no idea "who I am", wouldn't it? How can you be "me", if you have no idea who "me" truly is? There are a lot of voices out there that try to tell you who you are... but there are probably only one or two that are accurate. It's hard to sort them out from amidst the throng. I have a much better idea today "who I am" but it was a long road getting this far.. and I'm making new discoveries every day. But there is a lot of pressure to lose sight of who "me" is.
David was an unknown shepherd boy when he faced his giant. He was just a kid, not even strong enough to effectively wield a sword and too small to wear armour, but they tried to pressure him into doing it anyway. But he knew exactly who he was -- so he tossed the armour and the big sword and went to face Goliath with a sling, stopping to pick up five little stones on the way. He rejected the identity others were trying to put on him and went back to his own simple, uncomplicated self. Otherwise, do you think that giant who was hell-bent on destroying everything David believed in and held dear would have gone down? No way.
Of all the guys in the Old Testament, David is the one who scripture refers to as "the man after God's own heart". Yet his story has no shortage of weakness and failure - some pretty serious failure at that, adultery and murder being at the top of the list...
Do you think that what rang God's chimes when he thought affectionately of David as "a man after His own heart" was the fact that David KNEW who he was - who God had made him to be and, in spite of having messed up from time to time, he lived out to the fullest who God himself had created him to be?
I wonder...
The poster itself was pretty ugly. Flourescent green background with a big not-to-be-missed flourescent orange fingerprint right in the middle, surrounded with letters in the same horrid orange that spelled out, "I gotta be ME!"
Somewhere along the way I decided that the sentiment which had struck a chord so deep in me at sixteen was evidence of a self-centred attitude that had to be quashed. Come to think of it, I probably ripped up that poster myself.
It was a decision that would have been easy to make, too. It would be easier than facing the fact that I had no idea "who I am", wouldn't it? How can you be "me", if you have no idea who "me" truly is? There are a lot of voices out there that try to tell you who you are... but there are probably only one or two that are accurate. It's hard to sort them out from amidst the throng. I have a much better idea today "who I am" but it was a long road getting this far.. and I'm making new discoveries every day. But there is a lot of pressure to lose sight of who "me" is.
David was an unknown shepherd boy when he faced his giant. He was just a kid, not even strong enough to effectively wield a sword and too small to wear armour, but they tried to pressure him into doing it anyway. But he knew exactly who he was -- so he tossed the armour and the big sword and went to face Goliath with a sling, stopping to pick up five little stones on the way. He rejected the identity others were trying to put on him and went back to his own simple, uncomplicated self. Otherwise, do you think that giant who was hell-bent on destroying everything David believed in and held dear would have gone down? No way.
Of all the guys in the Old Testament, David is the one who scripture refers to as "the man after God's own heart". Yet his story has no shortage of weakness and failure - some pretty serious failure at that, adultery and murder being at the top of the list...
Do you think that what rang God's chimes when he thought affectionately of David as "a man after His own heart" was the fact that David KNEW who he was - who God had made him to be and, in spite of having messed up from time to time, he lived out to the fullest who God himself had created him to be?
I wonder...
I Gotta Be Me 2
I give up. Lily was supposed to be a pseudonym. It was supposed to be a nice safe mask I could hide behind and from there say anything I wanted to without the real "me" being misunderstood or looked down on... or laughed at.
Funny how this blog is supposed to be about "me" and in the last post I'm espousing the need to "be" "me" and yet I wanted to hide behind a pseudonym, hey? Go figure.
And I think every last one of you (all four!) know exactly who I am.
Okay, I'll have to behave. Observe the niceties of proper decorum.
And maybe that's a good thing. :)
Funny how this blog is supposed to be about "me" and in the last post I'm espousing the need to "be" "me" and yet I wanted to hide behind a pseudonym, hey? Go figure.
And I think every last one of you (all four!) know exactly who I am.
Okay, I'll have to behave. Observe the niceties of proper decorum.
And maybe that's a good thing. :)
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Soaring
I wrote about David's chickens and bluejays this past week, but those were not the ones I was really dealing with.. I actually landed in a chicken coop a couple of times myself this week, and forgot that I'm not really a chicken and I didn't have to stay there! Well, I finally figured it all out tonight with a little help from my friends. And as I head off to bed, I'm soaring!
More tomorrow... I hope.
More tomorrow... I hope.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Chickens and Bluejays 3
There were a lot of mouths to feed and not enough money. To help make ends meet, we got our hands on a little flock of baby chicks who had been brought into the world as part of a class project in our local elementary school. We brought home the whole mess of 'em and then started reading books like, "How to Raise Chickens in Your Backyard".
They were really cute at first... Little peeping fluffy yellow balls that fit in the palm of your hand. As they grew into beautifully feathered hens and roosters, it was fun to watch them range about our yard and observe their habits and their way of life. It was cool how they stuck together. But by the end of our "chicken adventure" a couple of years later, I grew to hate the darn things.
They were so mean to each other. If there was some poor chicken in their midst which was a little different, or sick or had an injury, the other chickens would go after it. Peck, peck, peck. All day long. Peck, peck, peck. I couldn't stand it. Peck, peck, peck. If not rescued by us and isolated where it could recover, it could be a long, slow death.
On the other side of the yard from where our chicken coop stood, there is a beautiful old oak tree whose branches stretch wide and tall. Not only do several swings hang from it, hoping to make our yard a welcome place for the children who come to play there, but it produces a bounteous crop of acorns in late summer, which our local bluejays come to feast on. I have counted up to 14 bluejays out there at one time, but usually they only come in ones and twos. It doesn't matter how few or how many or how often, though. When a bluejay shows up, the cry goes through the house, "There's a bluejay! There's a bluejay!" and everyone flocks to the window to see. Their markings are so distinct and beautiful.
As David began to approach the middle grades in elementary school, he would come home day after day, a wounded little warrior -- hurt deeply by the taunts and teases and mean things that a lot of the other children would say to him because of his differences. He was definitely at the bottom of the pecking order... He was understandably having difficulty coping and I was running out of things to say that would help.
I remember the day that I suddenly realized the analogy that was in our own backyard.
"David, what would happen if a bluejay landed in the chicken coop and for some reason it wouldn't be able to fly back out... Say it had a broken wing or something so it couldn't fly away, and it had to stick around with the chickens while it healed. What do you think would happen to it?"
David knew that it would be picked on and pecked to death...
"Well, Dave, those people who pick on you at school are just being ugly old chickens, and you are the most beautiful bluejay I've ever seen. There's nothing wrong with you... there's something wrong with them."
He got it. And we reminded him again and again whenever he told us about another hurt at school. It wasn't long before he was able to weather the difficulties on his own and didn't need to bring them to us anymore.
So thanks to the chickens and the bluejays that God sent to our backyard, David grew up with a pretty balanced view of himself and the rest of the world... As he got older, he began to connect with a few other bluejays by the end of highschool he had developed a whole circle of friends that share his passion for computer games and Star Wars and doing homework.
I have to say, that David had a lot of help from his older brother... Andrew became a sanctuary for him. David would go to him at recess and tell him the other kids were picking on him and Andrew would square up his shoulders, go over there and lecture them. "If you're going to give my brother a hard time, you're going to have to go through ME." When they got to highschool, Andrew, two years older, made room at "his" cafeteria table for him, and David slid right into his circle of friends. By the time he was finished high school, David had transitioned to his own circle of friends... And one or two of those chickens from back in elementary school had even turned into the most beautiful of bluejays themselves... While David was home over Christmas break,there was a whole flock of them in his sister's basement rec. room one day. (She has more room for a party like this one.) They started right after lunch and had all brought their computers and game systems and controllers and monitors and all manner of electronic "stuff", networked their computers together and played interactive computer games until the wee hours of the next morning. David and his friend, which included brother Andrew, were in "heaven". For one day at least!
They were really cute at first... Little peeping fluffy yellow balls that fit in the palm of your hand. As they grew into beautifully feathered hens and roosters, it was fun to watch them range about our yard and observe their habits and their way of life. It was cool how they stuck together. But by the end of our "chicken adventure" a couple of years later, I grew to hate the darn things.
They were so mean to each other. If there was some poor chicken in their midst which was a little different, or sick or had an injury, the other chickens would go after it. Peck, peck, peck. All day long. Peck, peck, peck. I couldn't stand it. Peck, peck, peck. If not rescued by us and isolated where it could recover, it could be a long, slow death.
On the other side of the yard from where our chicken coop stood, there is a beautiful old oak tree whose branches stretch wide and tall. Not only do several swings hang from it, hoping to make our yard a welcome place for the children who come to play there, but it produces a bounteous crop of acorns in late summer, which our local bluejays come to feast on. I have counted up to 14 bluejays out there at one time, but usually they only come in ones and twos. It doesn't matter how few or how many or how often, though. When a bluejay shows up, the cry goes through the house, "There's a bluejay! There's a bluejay!" and everyone flocks to the window to see. Their markings are so distinct and beautiful.
As David began to approach the middle grades in elementary school, he would come home day after day, a wounded little warrior -- hurt deeply by the taunts and teases and mean things that a lot of the other children would say to him because of his differences. He was definitely at the bottom of the pecking order... He was understandably having difficulty coping and I was running out of things to say that would help.
I remember the day that I suddenly realized the analogy that was in our own backyard.
"David, what would happen if a bluejay landed in the chicken coop and for some reason it wouldn't be able to fly back out... Say it had a broken wing or something so it couldn't fly away, and it had to stick around with the chickens while it healed. What do you think would happen to it?"
David knew that it would be picked on and pecked to death...
"Well, Dave, those people who pick on you at school are just being ugly old chickens, and you are the most beautiful bluejay I've ever seen. There's nothing wrong with you... there's something wrong with them."
He got it. And we reminded him again and again whenever he told us about another hurt at school. It wasn't long before he was able to weather the difficulties on his own and didn't need to bring them to us anymore.
So thanks to the chickens and the bluejays that God sent to our backyard, David grew up with a pretty balanced view of himself and the rest of the world... As he got older, he began to connect with a few other bluejays by the end of highschool he had developed a whole circle of friends that share his passion for computer games and Star Wars and doing homework.
I have to say, that David had a lot of help from his older brother... Andrew became a sanctuary for him. David would go to him at recess and tell him the other kids were picking on him and Andrew would square up his shoulders, go over there and lecture them. "If you're going to give my brother a hard time, you're going to have to go through ME." When they got to highschool, Andrew, two years older, made room at "his" cafeteria table for him, and David slid right into his circle of friends. By the time he was finished high school, David had transitioned to his own circle of friends... And one or two of those chickens from back in elementary school had even turned into the most beautiful of bluejays themselves... While David was home over Christmas break,there was a whole flock of them in his sister's basement rec. room one day. (She has more room for a party like this one.) They started right after lunch and had all brought their computers and game systems and controllers and monitors and all manner of electronic "stuff", networked their computers together and played interactive computer games until the wee hours of the next morning. David and his friend, which included brother Andrew, were in "heaven". For one day at least!
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