If you read the last entry...

If you read the last entry I made on Blogger, then hope it was interesting. It was not the same as what I preached on Sunday. I am really glad I saw this sign in Velarde, NM on Saturday because it became my introduction. The sign was old and had been bashed to pieces with fallen rocks. It said "watch for fallen rocks." This was my prayer, that I could find a much more adequate introduction and the "sign" metaphor became something to which I could return at certain key moments throughout the sermon. I had some very positive feedback from church members, who said things like, "It was just what I needed to hear in my life right now..." and "thank you for what you said... because I have a hard time with doing that..." I am so thankful to God for the Holy Spirit who could use me and I do hope that's what happened. Others told me this without my promptings!

I feel as though the message I was giving, which was to say that God uses our emotions and our consciences to give us signs that help us know how to proceed, but we have to slow down or stop and listen when we get confused. I worked this out of the genre of Mark 6:14-29, which reads like a Tragedy, when the character knows right from wrong, but chooses the wrong choice with tragic consequences. I saw this as a story of "what not to do," with the good news being that Herod has a conscience and this conscience was giving him signs that could point his way.

So, the family reunion was an interesting and fun opportunity to meet so many people I have heard about. "Merle" is the name I gave my boyfriend because he gave me permission to say that online. He has a different name when not in my cyberspace. I feel like we are getting along so nicely it's a gift from God that we met. We met on http://www.match.com/, by the way. He lives in the East Mountains with 3 dogs. You may have seen photos of them if you've read previous blogs. Unfortunately, for just a short period of time after we adopted Smokey, one of the older dogs, Spiff, got hit by a car or possibly a truck. Merle found her. It really sucked big time. That was May 31st. (is there a 31st of May? LOL) Well, she is now buried next to Jazz, another older dog who died about 1 year before Merle and I met. When he found Spiff, he didn't want me to come with him to collect her and the way he said it made me feel like he didn't want me to have to see her like that. I wanted to respect that. That was a difficult weekend because he really loves her. We felt really badly and kept thinking "what ifs" in our heads. Remembering Spiff's smile when she would see you, start panting and come over to immediately lick you with her soft warm tongue... It's hard not to think of that right now.

I feel like this is the sort of thing that I see more appreciated in the Episcopal Church, than in my own denomination. I love being a PCUSA person, however. But what I get from hanging with the Episcopalians is that being a part of creation, that is, a human creature along with all of the other creatures in this world, is a sacramental experience of God's presence with us. It's good news to know that we are human, fallible beings who are especially inspired to love others when we discover we ourselves are loved. What an amazing thing, that we have this gift from God's creation, to reflect the grace given to us. And there is this urge, hopefully, to reflect this grace on someone who needs to know it!

So, I have again gone stream-of-consciousness on you. What else is new? more at 11.

I hope to write more later. I need to go to the grocery and fix something to eat. In case you're wondering, I am not working this week. I think I'll brush up on my German. I think I have a little work next week, once again, at Nuestros Valores (Unfortunately, a month's work there through the temp agency doesn't quite pay my rent+utilities, less groceries and other costs). I like working there a lot. The people there are really great to work with and I love the fact that they like me back. I would consider working for them if they said they wanted to hire me. If that happened, and I don't know if it would, I would ask them if they had any way to help finance my professional development. It would certainly be to their benefit if they helped me study Spanish! I would love to learn Spanish, because it would benefit others. Plus, language is a strong point in me.

I am signing off for now, this time for real. In sum, even though I have not been regularly employed since August 2007, I am doing okay and feeling full of dreams. I promise you'll hear more soon. Feel free to comment on my entries, or on the "ads" I have posted here.
Peace,
Amy

yay! the 10 bucks is real!

I just found out that check I got yesterday was actually real. I am skeptical of online stuff that I don't remember, with good reason.

On a sad note, I have been processing the death of Tmo. I am really shocked. I also can't believe that he had moved to Austin sometime before I moved away to ABQ. I feel sad that I didn't get a chance to see him one last time. He is everything and more that those obits I posted below said about him. Tmo was a larger-than-life sort of guy, who had a warm, sensitive heart for others, yet was a total misfit who wore skirts and mohawk to school when he was a high school student in Dallas. It reminds me once more of that Butthole Surfers song popular back in the mid-90s: "...they were all in love with dying and were doing it in Texas..." from Electriclarryland. In fact, I think I will put it on right now. It's been a while since I listened.

Tmo and I met at Grinders Coffee Shop on Lower Greenville Avenue, way back before Erykah Badu was the barista. She came soon after and jammed sometimes on the patio with Tmo and his band, SofaKingdom (later called Fukarwee and then Myrrh). I would go there after work each day because I was so bored and was new to town. I would see this hulking man pull up on a reddish BMW cycle around the same time each day and we finally got to talking about stuff. I think he was curious because I was always there writing in a journal. I was curious because he was cute, unusual and he had a bike. We started dating way back when I lived in this divey efficiency apartment off of Park Lane and Upper Greenville Avenue. Tmo helped me move a couple of times, even after I moved in with Scott in an apartment off of Steppington Lane (a place I call "Apartmentland"). Finally Tmo convinced me to move out of that apartment because of Scott's massive alcoholism. Tmo was so supportive of me then, although I was slightly skeptical that he might have also wanted me to move away for other reasons too. I was dating him, not Scott, at the time. But my heart really did belong to Scott.

Later on, when Scott got himself more together, his drinking had hit rock-bottom and he ended up in a treatment program, I broke up with Tmo because I realized that I truly did love Scott. I know that I also broke Tmo's heart. It kills me to think of that now. I was such an idiot but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I hate that I hurt him like I did. Gosh. I can't believe my life was like that. Let's see... Tmo and I split in November '99, Scott died in 2002 from lymphoma, Tmo showed up one day at my door and told me he nearly got married and she dumped him. I felt angry at him at that time because I felt he had no sympathy or interest in the fact that I was also grieving for Scott. Perhaps he had no reason to feel that way for me, but then I felt that he had no other business showing up unannounced like that. I can't believe that I went to seminary to study for ministry after all that!

So a second ex-boyfriend is now dead, although technically I guess Scott was my fiance when he died. What is up with that? I can't believe how flippant that looks when I write it. I certainly don't mean it flippantly. I am still in shock and I start crying as soon as I say that. I believe my grief is intensified by a sense of guilt over how I treated him. All I can do is tell myself that Tmo is no longer here for me to call and say I am sorry. And all I can do is give thanks for all the love that is in my life.

I should call my S.O. and talk to him, which I will do later but he is presently super busy getting a quote together for a contract to do low-voltage wiring down at The Pit at UNM. He's under a deadline, so I don't want to interrupt that right now. Merle's under a lot of stress at the moment and having me call him up crying about the death of an ex-boyfriend doesn't seem like the best thing. I will tell him about it later tonight.

Something reassuring for me to remember is my faith that in life and in death we belong to God. I really believe that even a misfit like Tmo belongs to God. I heard that at his funeral service everyone was supposed to come dressed as only he would want. I can only imagine wacky wigs, fishnet stockings, t-shirts with offensive or offbeat messages, safety orange Dickies jumpsuits, and so forth. I am sorry that I wasn't there, but maybe it was appropriate that I wasn't. He was the one who gave me my very own Carhartt overalls as a gift. I wore them a few months ago when doing demo on a construction site.

Well, I need to be doing some other stuff. I have some job searching to do and need to clean the kitchen. Thanks for reading this. Tmo is not dead but moved to a new place. I think I will look up his family tonight and see if I can find them.
Peace out.
Amy