Tuesday, July 19, 2005

"Hey washboard girl!"
I kept walking, comment not registering.
"Hey...Spider Woman!"
Registers as the name on the back of my
TFC intramural Basketball T-shirt.
I turn around. Then it all clicks.

I went to this "Americana Music Academy
Saturday Jam" last Saturday, just to listen,
but ended up being recruited to play the
washboard along with the ensemble.
And then tonight at the "Signs of Life"
coffee house, on my way up to the Art
Gallery which I hadn't gotten around to
seeing yet, I am, for the first and likely
last time in my life referred to as
"washboard girl." What an unexpected
honor.

I love this town.

Also, working at Wal-Mart I think will be
OK.

I am taking one day - well, more like one
hour - at a time in this crazy new existence
I have been carving out for myself. I am
looking forward, forward, squinting my
eyes into the blinding light, but not
making any bold speculations about
anything. I can't see clearly beyond the two
feet below me that are happily trodding
along, trusting in the One who I trust
to command these roving feet.

Happy day to you.

Dance and sing, read and listen to books on
tape, pray, read the Word, pray, eat well,
do your best to make sense out of life, but
don't worry when your best attempts are so
depressing you just have to cry. That is my
advice to myself that I am trying to take.

Give up all control. Whatever you're holding
onto is just an illusion of control anyway.
Let go, let go, be free from the anxiousness
that eats at you when you're trying to feel
like you have power, that you matter, more
than you do or you ought. OK, Lisa? OK,
I'm trying. It's ok to have no control, no
power, to not matter. In fact, it is in realizing
this that I can be truly free. Is that corretct
thinking? Hmm...

I don't matter in and of myself. Christ living in
me...now that matters. Laying down my life for
the sake of others (oh, show me how), that matters.
Lord, help me. And help all of us to see you more
clearly every day, and enjoy you every day, in
everything we do.

Amen. Goodnight.

2 comments:

renee said...

i love you, washboard girl. i love your brain...

Lisa Bender said...

Hi Renee and Jim!! Thanks for being awesome, and for commenting.