That Thing I Do Now - Vol 80

Happy Weekend, ya'll!

I didn't really realize it as I gathered these posts this week, but as I put them all here, side by side, I see that many of them are a bit intense... but each of them spoke to me in such powerful ways, I pray they do the same for you!

Featured today are posts by Lori Harris, Kelli Woodford, Laura, Dana Butler, Amber Haines, Christie Purifoy, Deidra Riggs, Lisa-Jo Baker, a post from right here... and - of course - a video to wrap it all up!

Happy Reading! 
(Ya'll know to click on the authors' names below to read the entire post, yes?)

* This post by Lori Harris over at Grace Table with ON SEIZING THE MOMENT...

"I’ve not always thought this life on Avent street was wonderful. Poverty sucks the life out of the living in my neighborhood. Racism runs deep and wide. Crime is an everyday occurrence. Children are neglected and homes are abandoned.

The kids that now play in my yard once vandalized my house, my car, and my heart. They have urinated on my porch, painted my mailbox, shot pellets at my car, and cussed me out more times than I can count. Because I am spirit living in flesh, there is a constant war within my being: Do I rise up and call out or do I make strides to love my neighbors as myself?

I am learning that hospitality is simply an overflow of a heart fully surrendered to the commandment of Jesus to love your neighbors as yourself.I am learning that hospitality is simply an overflow of a heart fully surrendered to the commandment of Jesus to love your neighbors as yourself.

My neighbors, the kids who trample my grass and throw litter in my yard, are hard to love. They come heavy laden with baggage no one their age should have to carry. They come dirty and tired and angry and hurt. They come hungry for love, for acceptance, and for bread to fill their tummies.

But they come and Jesus is teaching me to seize the moment in their coming."

* This post by Kelli Woodford with What Winter Trees Know About Singing... 
" I want to stay in this world with my four-year-old. This world hedged in by creativity and the audacious belief that anything is possible. A world where even the faintest nuance of wind bears witness to the Divine. Where trees carry messages of deep healing. A world where curiosity is safe and questions don't get you laughed at, where those who know share a wink and a smile because nothing is as nailed down as everyone else seems to believe it is.

Could it be that this is not a disregard of the hard edges of truth we know so well as we get older, but perhaps it is what childhood is for? Could it be that this is the best and bravest preparation for what lies ahead? Not because it is antithetical, but because it is beyond. Beyond that which is seen.

I glance behind me, wistful around the smile. His long eyelashes blink slow, sleep beginning to overtake. I turn back to the trees in their splendor. They lift up their arms in a blessing. They shimmer in the hint of crystalized sunbeam, trembling with more than frost. And their beauty is deep shalom in my bones.  Yes. I choose to stay here."


* This post from Laura over at In Other Words with He wrote it down... (*TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with sexual abuse and may cause triggers for survivors.)
"Our intention was to dance on his grave.

My beautiful cousin, who I’d not seen in 35 years, and I set out to dance on our grandfather’s grave. Our first dilemma was, of course, song choice. You have to have the right song. We bandied a few song titles about, Alanis Morrisette was a front runner.

Obviously.

We drove to the town where he lived, and where he is buried. We drove to the town where we were abused. Driving down the picturesque New England roads, I felt a little faint. Mary felt a little barfy. We pulled into a store parking lot, and Mary spent some quality time behind a dumpster, hurling. It happens."


* This post by Dana Butler with A broken piece of my story, and one thing that scares me...
"Venti coffee in hand, I find a little nook in a corner, and read a while in Buechner’s Telling the Truth. And can I just say — if you haven’t read it, you may wanna consider adding this gem to your reading list for this year.

I’ve been making my way through it ever-so-slowly since we moved, and I find it rearranging places inside me that are still much too deep and unformed try and wrap words around. Jesus is using these words to pull back layers of pretense. To more fully excavate my truest self, my deepest identity in light of the wild extravagance of the gospel."


* This post from Amber Haines with The Little Rock Nurse...
"It’s the day after Martin Luther King Jr Day. Yesterday people quoted him across social media. I was quiet. I love to read about him, and I wish he were reborn in our time. I show my sons videos of his speeches. I do the best I can, but in conversations about race, I confess that I am more quiet, even though I feel lava rolling in me about it. Recently I told some friends that scales fell from my eyes in the last few months. I had thought we lived in a better time. I read God-fearing men and women across media outlets cast an entire race of people into an ignorant lot. I read us vs them again and again. The scales fell off, and then I did’t know what to do except lean in. I am leaning into uncomfortable places."



* This one by Christie Purifoy over at The Deeper Story with Take and Eat (In City and In Suburb)...
"In the city, I sometimes imagined I saw Christ himself in the faces of my neighbors who slept each night in the park.
When I set the table with coffee and bagels or when I helped collect donated winter coats, I would remember Jesus’s words.

For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat … I needed clothes and you clothed me.

But now I wonder if I ever saw what I imagined I saw. I am afraid that I have long been made blind and deaf by my own need to be needed. By my own great desire to receive thanks and praise. Maybe I have always been the hungriest one in the room. Maybe I still am."


* This one by Deidra Riggs with Blind Spots because - well, one - whatever she writes is pretty much making this list, and two, no one starts or stirs a conversation about hard things with grace and vulnerability like her...
"People keep wondering where our leaders are. I keep hearing people ask, “Where’s our Dr. Martin Luther King?” But, I don’t think it’s going to happen the same way it did last time. I think we are the change we’ve been waiting for.  I think this is a movement and it’s going to take a while. Either we’re in it for the long haul, or we’re just looking for a quick fix. It’s still true: Rome wasn’t built in a day.

I’m trying to pay attention to my blind spots. Yesterday, on my way to a workshop on diversity and cultural awareness, a woman drove past me on the street and I made a snap judgement about her. I looked at her car and the way she sat behind the driver’s seat and the way she wore her hair and the expression on her face, and I labeled her. Just like that. The label was not nice. I want to stop doing that."


*This post from Lisa Jo Baker with When You Feel Like Nothing You Do Makes a Difference, Read This...
"There are so many to-dos that you do just to write them down again because they will need to be done over and over and over again this week to keep your family moving forward.

Sometimes all the do-overs can make you feel like you’re trudging through quick sand – never really getting one foot in front of the other – only just treading in the same place to stay afloat. A million little to-dos stuck on repeat in your head and your life and sucking you down into a feeling of insignificance.

I’m gonna change that today.

Because today I’ve got a list of to-dos that you already did.
And what you did? It changed lives, man. Like, for real. Come with me – come with me to Maubane, South Africa..."


* This one from right HERE with On Access... Both Freely Given, and Completely Denied... and How It's Really Up To You...
"We are a Kingdom People... a Royal Priesthood... worshipers and lovers of God... We are Community and Communion and One with Him, while being wildly for each other. 

We are family, and it is glorious --even when it is messy.

This... this is who we are, because of Whose we are!

And this... this releasing His Presence and His Kingdom... this is what we were made for!"

Lastly, we like to wrap This Thing up with a video... This song has been on repeat ALL WEEK LONG! (You're Welcome!)

        

Happy Weekend!