Now for some serious business.

No more playing around. This is serious. I am infatuated with vinegar!

I don't use it on food. That's disgusting. But I use it for just about everything else. I'm beginning to be obsessed. I'm always going online to find out what else I can do with it, trying to figure out which products in my house can be replaced with it. I love throwing things away. If I could throw everything else away and just have vinegar... well, not everything.

So how do I use vinegar in everything without ever putting it in my food? Easy. I use it when I clean my bathroom. I no longer use any products with bleach in them for sanitizing because bleach is gross, and vinegar can kill germs too. So after I've cleaned the tub and sink and toilet with natural all-purpose cleaner and baking soda, I spray vinegar on the surfaces that could still be germy and leave it to dry. Germs die!

Then I use it in my laundry, too. Since we moved to Keizer, we've had a lot more static electricity in our clothing than we used to. I refuse to use dryer sheets because those are gross and chemically. So I did some research online and discovered that you can add vinegar to the wash load as a fabric softener which reduces static electricity. And it works!

I also remembered reading that you could use vinegar to deodorize things that stink. Well I have shoes that stink, so I thought I'd try it out. I pulled out my stinkiest pair of shoes, sprayed some vinegar into them and left them out to dry. Afterwards, they still stank, but... not as badly. It did help a little bit because, like I said before, vinegar kills germs, and germs make stinkiness. Germs die!

My new favorite way to use vinegar? Hair. That's right! I have gone hippie for my hair! I stopped using shampoo and conditioner; now I wash with baking soda and water and condition with vinegar. Love it, love it, love it! Craig was really skeptical about this one. He was just sure that I was going to get all stinky and greasy and gross after I stopped using normal hair products. But he was so wrong! I don't stink! My hair looks fine, feels fine and is completely free of chemicals. Chemicals be gone!

Oh yeah, I just remembered one more! I just started putting some in my dishwasher along with the detergent. The same hard water that leaves my laundry staticy  also leaves hard water spots on my glasses. Vinegar to the rescue! I just washed a load of dishes today. Let me check them real quick to see how they look........................................
They look pretty good. Perfect? No. But far fewer spots than before. Once again, vinegar is a life-saver!

You're not trying vinegar yet? I dare you to!

I believe in blasphemy.

I believe in asking questions. And in the world I come from asking too many questions, asking the wrong kind of questions, asking questions that don't have clean, easy answers is almost the same as speaking blasphemy. I am a heretic, I am sacrilegious, I am irreverent towards God and all his ways. Because I ask too many questions.

But what if having faith has more to do with having questions than with having answers?

What if true faith, deep-down-at-the-core-of-your-being faith, has more to do with humility and the willingness to not know everything than it does with unwavering confidence in absolute truth?

What if true faith, bone-jarringly-honest faith, has more to do with the intentions of your heart than with the religious doctrines you follow?

What if true faith, bring-you-to-your-knees faith, has more to do with loving, supporting, embracing and nurturing acceptance of everyone (actually everyone, not just almost everyone) than with figuring out who is in and who is out, who is saved and who is lost, who is right and who is wrong?

What if faith and being part of the kingdom of heaven on earth has more to do with helping and encouraging and blessing others than with evangelizing and converting others to your views of religion?

Because what if the quality of our love is more important than the number of people who fill our church buildings or temples or mosques?

What if how we love others throughout our lifetime is actually more important to the well-being of our souls and the well-being of our world than whether or not we've done what's required to get to Heaven?

Because what if we spend our whole lives focused on salvation, our own salvation, saving others, teaching everyone we know how to live rightly and how to be saved, and then we die only to be reincarnated or only to find ourselves... nowhere?

What if in the end, after we all die, there is no such thing as Heaven and no such thing as Hell, but the entire focus of your life was who was saved and who was lost, who would live eternally with God and who would burn in Hell?

And when it comes down to it, sometimes the only convincing reason we can come up with for why it matters which religion a person believes in is that one religion is right and the others are all wrong.

And if someone believes in the wrong religion, then aren't they missing out on the opportunity to live for eternity in the presence of God?

But what if there is no Hell after death, or there is no Heaven after death?

What if instead, each of us chooses our joy and freedom or our bondage and slavery each and every day that we live?

And what if the real opportunity being missed is the chance to live every day with the blessing that comes with  truly having unconditional love for every other soul on this planet regardless of their race, their religion, their political views, their priorities, lifestyle or opinions?

What if loving someone else, everyone else, is more important in the big picture, in the grand scheme of the cosmos, in God's plan for humanity, than whether or not I am right, than whether or not my religion is true, than whether or not I am going to Heaven after I die?

What if love is more important?

Keep Being

God, don't grow smaller for my sake
When I give you a place
As a character in the book I write
Don't settle for playing the role I give you
When I build these four walls
In my feeble attempt
To give you a safe place to live
Crumble  these walls into dust
When I lay out the guidelines
For who I know you should be
Crash through my made-up rules
Like a raging, angry bull
When I ask you to be calm and safe
Flare up like the brilliant birth
Of a brand new star
When I ask you to be tame
Terrify me with your unbridled wildness
Like a storm that strikes with no warning
When I ask you to be small
Refuse to stop being everything
God, keep being everything
Keep being confusing and unknowable
Keep shining so brightly that I am painfully blinded
Keep hiding in plain sight
Keep abiding in people, places and things
That make me squirm
That make me irritated and mad
Keep living on in all the things
I've never bothered
Paying any attention to
Keep being so God-like
And so un-human
That I will never be able
To stop asking questions
That I will never stop
Feeling shocked, awed, and utterly undone
By what I find when I seek

I don't know how to do that.

Ask me about almost any popular internet trend right now, and I will tell you, I don't know how to do that. Or I will say, never heard of it. Or I will give you a blank look of complete confusion because I don't have a clue what you just said. I don't know how to use the internet the way that normal people use the internet. I can use it like an old person, I guess, but not like a young person.

I know what Twitter is, but I don't actually understand how it works. There's a lot of # and @, I think, but I don't know what they do. And then I see those same things show up on Facebook, but I'm not sure why.

There are all these new-fangled websites out there like Pinterest and Reddit and Spotify and Google+. I don't know how to use these; I don't know what they do. I think I signed up for a Google+ account, but I didn't mean to; it was an accident. And now I get emails from Google+ about things I should do or people I should know, and they confuse me. I don't want to sign up for too many websites because that will confuse me more.

This is how I use computers and the internet. I go on webpages or into software programs I have used before and hope they look the same. When they look different than they used to (because they will look different someday), then I guess. When I use a website or program that I've never used before, I just guess what buttons to push and hope that it works. And some days I am smarter than computers and the internet and some days I am not. Some days I am a good guesser and some days I am not.

Fortunately, it is usually something that doesn't really matter to me, so I just skip it if I can't guess the right buttons. And if it is something that does matter to me, I go to a different website and try to find simple, easy-to-follow instructions on how to do it, hopefully a video with visual aides. And when that website's instructions make no sense to me or don't actually match up to what I'm looking at, then I wait. And eventually my husband will come home, and he will fix it for me.

That is what my husband is for. If the computer or printer or iPod or internet page is kicking my ass, my husband will fix it for me.

So now you know. Several times a week, at least, I ask myself as I guess and push random buttons to see what will happen, "Am I smarter than my computer today?" And quite often the answer is no, I am not smarter than this computer. But it's okay. I don't need to be. It will be okay.

Visiting church...

I've been visiting a church lately.

Maybe that means that I'm not destined for hell after all. (sarcasm with a smile)

It's interesting to me to look at myself and my motivations and try to figure out why I want to go to a church. I haven't been a regular church attender for about four years, I think. And I really haven't missed church at all.

I should point out that this church I've been visiting is not your average church. It is a Quaker semi-programmed church. That means that it is part of the Quaker or Friends denomination (Christians) and has some structure to the service but no sermon. So it's really not regular church at all. We don't even sit facing the front of the room because there's nothing up front to look at. We sit in rows that face each other, almost a circle. We commune with each other; we do not sit there to watch a pastor or a worship team or a screen.

Why am I going to a church? I don't even really believe in church. I don't really believe in religion so much. But I do want to connect to others. I do want to talk to people about God, about spirituality, about how we decide how to live this life. And it seems like the best way to achieve this purpose is to go to a church. That's what church is for, right? To figure out what this whole God thing is all about?

Except I don't feel that figuring out the whole God thing involves a pastor telling an entire congregation how to read the Bible, how to pray, how to minister to others, how to give, and how to raise their children. That's my own personal opinion; feel free to have a different view. I'm just not willing to participate in that kind of religion, in that kind of church. Because a pastor is not God and can't tell me what God wants from my life as an individual.

What if figuring out this God stuff was more like people just having conversations and sharing ideas and hearing each other? What if it involved asking questions and analyzing our experiences and listening as individuals and as groups to try to hear that still small voice that God sometimes uses to speak to our hearts? This non-regular church kind of feels like it could be like that a little. I'll give it time. I want to be part of a community; I want to be part of a conversation; I want to be connected. So I'm willing to give this thing a try.

Pieces of a Puzzle

We dream and we hope

We search and we find

We imagine and believe

In the incomprehensible

In this universe infused through and through

With God-nature

Eternally exploding with light

And bursting forth with ecstatic joy

This universe that dances

In all shapes and sizes and directions

Of rotations and revolutions

Tilts and ellipses

Orbits and collisions

This universe that evolves

In spurts and phases and bursts

Of growth and decline

Ordering and entropy

Expansions and implosions

This universe composed

Of particles leaping through space and time

At the speed of light

And stars aging gracefully through the eons

Celestial objects massive and minute

Seemingly unattached to each other

Certainly not concerned with each other

Still find themselves

Inevitably drawn to each other

Gently tugged and nudged

Prodded and pulled

Into their destined roles in the cosmos

To be pieces of a puzzle

Composing this galactic work of art

This universe

And miraculously

Inconceivably

We have been blessed to share

In this masterpiece

To catch glimpses and snatches

And little bits and pieces

Of the splendor of the universe

We are given eyes to see

And ears to hear

And hearts to feel

And minds to ponder

The irresistibly beautiful nature

Of every thing that surrounds us

And is, in the end

A part of us

Peering through the lenses

Of our microscopes and telescopes

Digging and searching

Through the mysteries of the past

Learning from the discoveries

Of the great minds of yesterday

And trying to paint a picture

Through our hopes and dreams

Of what we may discover tomorrow

We realize each step of the way

How inextricably entwined we are

With this dance

With this cosmos

With past, present and future

With the particles of our own bodies

And with stars so distant

We’ll never even catch a glimpse of them

Even those stars

Are connected to us

Are part of us

All pieces of the puzzle

That compose this masterpiece

And as witnesses to this work of art

We can declare with ceaseless joy

It is good

It is so infinitely good

Why Marriage Equality Matters To Me

When I first laid eyes on Craig Saunders over ten years ago, I was hooked instantly. I hadn't actually met him yet; I had simply seen him walk into a room. And from that moment forward I was irresistibly drawn to him in a way I've never experienced before. He was the one that I was supposed to fall in love with, get married to, and have beautiful babies with. From the moment I saw him, that was it. Period. No doubts, no turning back, no second-guessing. I just wanted him. I didn't choose my reaction to seeing him for the first time. It was from my gut. It was automatic. It was an unstoppable and unwavering attraction that persists to this day.

Once I actually met Craig and started getting to know him, I didn't choose to fall in love with him. It was natural. It was as easy as breathing to love him and want him and hope for a future with him. Once I knew I was in love and was going to marry this incredible man, there was nothing in the world that could have changed my mind. I would have traveled to the ends of the earth to be with him if I had to. I would have given up anything to have him and to be had by him.

When I married Craig six years ago, it was the happiest day of my life so far. It is the one memory that brings me to tears every time I think back to it. I'm literally crying right now just thinking about how incredibly beautiful it was to marry my husband.  I can see the adoration that shone in his eyes when I walked down the aisle to him. I can still hear him reading his vows of love to me. I can see that huge smile on his face as we were declared man and wife. And the thing that's most precious to me is the private moment we had together right after the ceremony when he was nearly speechless with joy because he had just married me.

If the first paragraph of this posting had involved me seeing a woman and being irresistibly attracted to her, I probably wouldn't have been able to write the third paragraph. I wouldn't be guaranteed the option of getting married to the person that I love more than life itself, if I had fallen in love with a woman. All that beauty, all that joy, all those memories wouldn't be mine to remember with tears and a smile. I guess I'm just lucky that I happened to fall in love with a man.

I can't even imagine what it would be like to fall in love so deeply and so truly with the knowledge that I could never get married to that person. I love my husband, and I am so grateful to be married to him. And I truly wish that every person could be as happy and in love and as blissfully wedded as Craig and I are. That is why marriage equality matters to me.

Let's be honest: I just wanted to be beautiful again.

Lately, I’ve been basking in the satisfaction of looking good. I’ve been thinking a lot about what people see when they look at me. I’ve caught myself hoping that other people notice how good I look. My arrogance and vanity have increased in leaps and bounds in just a few short months.

This is what I get for losing weight. As a slightly chubbier woman, I worked so hard to convince myself that the size of my body didn’t matter. My extra body fat didn’t have anything to do with my value as a woman. I needed to believe that I was beautiful and successful and accomplished just the way I was. I didn’t want to hate my image in the mirror; I didn’t want to berate myself for not being thin, for not being perfect. I hate it when I hear women talk about how much they want to lose weight and how they really shouldn’t be eating this or that.

I hate diet talk because I think women should love themselves for all the amazing qualities they have instead of just hating the way their bodies look. But I’m such a hypocrite, because as soon as I started losing weight, I let out a huge sigh of relief that I wasn’t going to have to be a fat person my whole life. I told myself over and over again that being overweight didn’t diminish my value as a person in any way, but I only really believed that grudgingly and halfheartedly so I didn’t have to feel miserable. 

I have always insisted that my focus is on my health. It’s important to be healthy, and if that leads to weight loss then that’s great; but focus on health first. But maybe that was all a load of crap, because now that I’ve lost the weight, I can be honest with myself that it’s great to feel healthy, but it would have really pissed me off if I hadn’t lost a pound.  Before I knew whether I would lose any weight, I told myself I didn’t care if I lost a single pound as long as I was healthier and stronger and had more energy. Bull-shit. I wanted to be thin. I wanted to feel beautiful again. 

And now I’m angry at myself because I want to be the person who does believe that everyone is beautiful and amazing and valuable. I want to be a woman who can genuinely love and value myself no matter what my size or shape is. I truly believe that a woman shouldn’t feel pressured to be a certain size or look a certain way. So why do I have such conflicting thoughts in my own mind? Why am I so relieved to be thin again? Why was it so important to me to lose weight?

I’ll admit this bluntly; the way I look right now makes me feel powerful and sexy. I want people’s heads to turn as I walk by. I want other women to be jealous of how I look. I want men drooling over me and being disappointed that I’m not available. I want all of these things at the same time that I despise them. I know it’s all a lie, but I can’t find a way to truly break free of it. My value is not found in my physical beauty, but somehow I can’t completely convince myself of that.

It’s a tragedy, and it just doesn’t make any sense. I’ve known a fourth grade girl who was already trying to starve herself so she could be skinny enough—that’s a nine-year-old we’re talking about. And I’ve known middle school girls who were trying so hard to look like adult women at the age of twelve or thirteen, embracing their sexuality at a time in their lives when they should have still been children. 

And there are so many children and teenagers and grown women who spend so much money and energy and time and sweat and tears trying to look different than they do. It doesn’t seem to matter how much natural beauty a woman is born with; we all want to look different. For some reason, we think it will make our lives better. We think it will make us happier to not look like ourselves. Why are we all so eager to believe this tragic lie? And even when we know it’s bullshit, why can’t we break free from it?

This is the truth that I will continue to fight for and tell myself over and over again.

I am a beautiful woman worthy of admiration and love because…

I have an awesome brain and I use it.

I am compassionate and kind and thoughtful.

I am curious and passionate about what’s happening in the world around me.

I have a great sense of humor whether you get it or not.

I love talking about geeky things like science and health and religion.

I don’t give a crap about fashion or makeup or celebrities.

I am not like any other woman that you have ever met, and I will never change to try to be like someone else.

The size and shape of my butt or my boobs or even my nose doesn’t have anything to do with my value as a human being.

One nation, above all others and fighting to stay on top...

I feel like I hear it everywhere, how great our country is. And I very clearly have received the message that I should be proud to live in the United States because we are the best, we are the smartest, most advanced, most civilized, most cool people ever.

I'll be very honest in saying that I don't know almost anything about any other country in the world because I've never even traveled outside of the United States. So I won't go on a tirade about how many other countries have it so much better than we do. I won't tell you about how awesome Canada is or Denmark or Sweden or Germany. I won't claim to have any knowledge about which country's students are the best educated or most well-rounded. I won't try to pretend that I know how socialism is working out for others and say we need it here.

What I will say is that a group of people that labels itself as the best, the greatest, and the most prosperous on earth is arrogant, foolish, and probably wrong.

I'm grateful that I was born in a country where I have access to medical care, clean water, food, and stable sources of income. That's all good stuff; I won't deny that. But I'm not proud to be a citizen of the United States. I am not a patriot.

If the U.S. is the best, that means another nation is the worst. If the U.S. is the richest, that means another nation is the poorest. If we are the highest educated people in the world, that means somewhere else there are people with the lowest level of education in the world. The only reason I have such a huge abundance of food and clean water to nourish myself with is because someone else doesn't have any. Where there are winners, there are bound to be losers. More-thans and less-thans. Superfluous abundance and destitute poverty. Obsessive cleanliness and rotten filth. The strongest defenses and the utterly defenseless.

If our goals are to have everything, to win everything, to be above everyone else, then the only way to reach those goals is to push someone else down, to take away from others, to wish others harm so we can have what we want. This is patriotism: to love your country, to pledge allegiance to the flag, to be willing to die for your country, to earnestly believe that your country stands above all others.

This is love for humanity:

To desire blessings and prosperity for all people and all nations
To use our resources to lift others up instead of dropping bombs on them
To care and grieve just as much for the men, women and children that we kill in our wars as we do for our own soldiers
To turn the other cheek instead of always being the nation that strikes first
To be the most compassionate instead of the strongest
To be the most generous instead of the most wealthy
To be willing to compromise instead of making power plays

If I lived in a nation with these goals, with these standards for excellence, my heart would swell with pride. I am not a patriotic citizen of my country; I am a member of humanity. And as a member of humanity, my heart aches for all those who suffer so we can prosper.

Why am I writing?

Why am I writing?

Someone recently told me that there wasn’t any point in my writing down an opinion and sharing it with others if I was saying the same thing that many other people were saying. We were talking specifically about a certain opinion I had written about. But he meant opinions about anything. He was asking me what the point was of writing something down for people to read if a hundred or a thousand or a million other people had already written the same thing. Isn’t it redundant, repetitive, pointless, a waste of time and energy?

So why do I write? As we all learned in school, nothing new is ever written; everything has been written before. So why keep writing? Why do we keep repeating the words of others with just a slightly different voice, just a slightly different perspective, just a slant here, a tilt there, to make it not entirely unoriginal?

The reason I keep writing, and even write things that I know are already being written and spoken and heard is because, while everything has already been written, not everybody has already gotten it. Not every person has read every word that is out there and said, “Ah ha! I get it. I see what they were saying.” Sometimes a reader reads words and sees nothing; he sees pointless, empty, fruitless words, and so he tosses those words aside without absorbing them or digesting them in any way.

But what if that person sees a set of words and tosses it aside, and then they see another set of similar words and toss that set aside as well, and continue on and on in the same pattern, until… 

Until one writer finds just the right set of words that makes sense to that reader.

And makes the reader pause.

And think a little longer. 

And wonder. 

And ask questions. 

And maybe those words don’t change the reader’s mind. Maybe they don’t change the reader’s life. Maybe all they accomplish is to make that reader pause for just a moment before moving on. But in that instance, if I am the author of those words, and that reader has a moment of pause that he has never experienced before with a similar set of words, then I have succeeded. It was well worth the time, the energy, and the thought that I put into writing my redundant and repetitive set of words and adding them to all the rest that float through our world.

If I made someone think or laugh or question or smile or grimace or have any reaction at all by writing something down and sharing it, then I am serving my purpose as a writer, and I am serving the reader of my words. This makes me happy. This fulfills me and satisfies me. This is who I am. This is why I write.

If you're not one of us, please don't say anything.

The other day, I heard a very angry man describe the Constitution of the United States as sacrosanct. This means he believes this particular document is holy and sacred. Perhaps he sees the Constitution as a second Bible; perhaps he believes the Constitution should be followed as closely as a religion.

Does he believe the Constitution was written by God? Does he believe the Constitution should live on for eternity, never changing, never being replaced as society grows and changes and learns from mistakes of the past? Does he believe the Constitution is perfect, now and always?

If the Constitution of the United States is sacred, holy, and perfect, does this mean our government is above that of every other country on earth. After all, other countries have written their own constitutions modeled after ours, but there are differences. None of them is just like ours. That means ours is better, right? That makes their constitutions inferior, right?

If our Constitution and our laws based on that Constitution are superior to everyone else's, then obviously there is no one who can question our moral high ground. We are pretty close to being the perfect nation, and any person or nation that questions or doubts this fact is wrong and should be dissuaded from that opinion.

The man in question who believes in the sacred nature of the Constitution is the man who started a petition to have Piers Morgan, a British citizen living in the U.S., deported. The reason he believes Piers should be deported is that Piers has publicly called for stronger gun regulation in the United States. 109,334 other people signed this petition to deport a British citizen for publicly sharing his opinion on the United States' gun laws.

So beware. If you are from another country, one of those which is inferior in every way to the United States, and you believe that something happening in the United States is wrong or should be changed, please don't say anything. Please don't share your opinion or speak your mind or try to persuade other people to think like you do. We believe in free speech, but only if you are a U.S. citizen and only if you are freely speaking in support of our sacred Constitution. Any other speech is strictly prohibited, and we will chase you out of our country brandishing our weapons.

What color is your God? I think today, mine is purple...

So someone asked me the other day whether I've ever considered the possibility that there might not actually be a God, that all the nice spiritual feelings we attribute to God might just be something that comes from inside each of us. And I didn't really have a well thought-out, cohesive answer for that. I probably still don't.

Every person has an image or a feeling or a definition in his or her mind for what God is. None of us is going to have exactly the same idea of God because none of us has the same brain or personality or perspective as anyone else. That's the premise I'm starting from. Because I could say, yes, I believe in God, but not in the same way as you do. But I think that is the case with everyone. We all have our own definitions for God. None of us is saying exactly the same thing as anyone else when we say, "I believe in God."

And I would even put out the idea that when people say they don't believe in God, it's because they've only heard a small definition of God that doesn't encompass the things they do believe in. I think a lot of people have become atheists in response to the church's limited and exclusive definition of God. And so they say, well I don't believe what that church is saying, so I guess I don't believe in God. Maybe there is no such thing as an atheist; maybe there are just a lot of people using a narrow definition of God that doesn't make sense to everyone. Because if I have to use the Christian church's definition of God, then I'm an atheist too.

So when I picture "God," I see all these connections between stars and atoms, between planets and people, between black holes and blades of grass. I see a web that stretches out between every single thing that exists and every other thing that exists, a web that makes us all one, a web that makes everything matter. Some people call this science, but I like calling it God.

This is a picture of God. I stole it from the internet.

So I look at the stars at night and I'm looking at God. 
And I go for a walk and feel the wind in my face and I'm breathing in God.
And I hear beautiful, unique, and creative music or poetry and have heard the voice of God. 
And I cook up some really delicious vegetables for dinner, and, yes, it's like I'm eating God.
And I watch a really good documentary about the expansion of the universe or the theory of evolution, and I feel like I've just learned a whole new facet of God's life story.
And I read an article about UFO sightings, and I'm like, "Yes! God's coming, and he's an alien!! Awesome!" I really like aliens...

But when I hear people talk about Heaven and Hell and who's going where, that doesn't make me think of God. And when people say that bad things happen as punishment from God, that doesn't fit for me. And when people insist that the only way to be saved and have eternal life is to believe that God sent Jesus to die on a cross for us and that everyone else is wrong and unsaved... that just feels really narrow and small to me. Do you really expect me to believe that God is like a child who insists that every game has to have a winner or a loser and that every question has one right answer and one wrong answer?

I just don't know. If the question is, "Do you believe in the God that you were taught about in church?" then my answer is definitely a no. That church God is all about humans and what we want and what we need and saving us. How selfish are we to create a God that is all about us? Our Bible stories aren't about the universe; they're about humanity. But we treat them as though they're the full extent of the story of God. What about all the other planets, all the other life forms, all the other universes that are out there? We're not that important; we're not as special and deserving of attention as our religion makes us out to be. And the God we've invented to fit into our religions seems to think we're the only thing that matters.

If the question is framed differently, I have a completely different answer. I do believe that sometimes things happen that have no natural explanation, call them miracles if you like. I do believe that there is direction and wisdom to be found in waiting and listening before making important decisions. I do believe that there is a life-path set out in front of me that I can't necessarily plan or direct myself. And I have faith in all of these things, and I live by that faith. Perhaps these things come from an entity or perhaps they come from the universe, or perhaps they come from some kind of power that lives inside each one of us. Wherever these things come from, whether they are internal or external, personal or impersonal, I'm willing to use the label "God" to describe them because the word fits better than most.

As long as I'm allowed to use the word "God" to encompass every particle in existence, every dimension of space and time, every moment that has ever occurred... then, yes, I'm definitely a believer.

If you're not looking, you'll miss it.

I walked into a church one day and felt inspired by my surroundings—

A plethora of young adults,

A sea of plaid and flannel on top of denim,

Simple gymnasium converted to a place of worship,

Nothing pretentious, nothing over-the-top religious—

To hope that I would feel and be moved by the service, by the worship, that maybe I would feel connected to what was going on that morning in that place.

I recalled the prayers I used to pray in church service, the prayers we’re supposed to pray to do our part in bringing the Holy Spirit to worship each weekend. I let loose

With prayers inviting the Spirit to be present,

With prayers asking God to use this service to change and soften my heart,

With prayers using words like brokenness and flooding and presence. 

I said my familiar prayers and then realized that a few of the words were empty, but I had still prayed them anyways, old habits dying hard. I don’t pray now in the same way, with the same words that I used to. But my surroundings brought out prayers that don’t relate to me anymore, not the way they used to. Maybe I was just trying to feel like I belonged, like I fit in well with this crowd of young and casual faces that look so much like me, that should fit with me.

As the worship choruses began, people around were beginning to raise their hands. I expected some clapping or some dancing, but I kept searching the crowd and only saw standing, solid like trees standing with some arms uplifted like limbs to the sky. And I almost lifted my arms as well, but I stopped myself because I wasn’t sure yet whether that was a real feeling or just another vestige from my previous life as a church-goer.

I waited and listened and joined in on a few songs but kept noticing words that didn’t fit, words that I couldn’t sing honestly—you can’t worship God by lying to Him, can you? So I closed my mouth and kept watching the words popping up on the screen. I remembered what they were supposed to mean, but they didn’t mean anything anymore, not to me. This wasn’t my version of God, these songs and their words weren’t related in any way to how I experience Spirit in my life. So finally, I just sat and closed my eyes and thought about the fact that I could be dozing and everyone around me would just think I was deep in prayer.

I pondered on this experience the rest of the day. Why couldn’t I do that anymore? Why couldn’t I feel church the way the rest of the people in that service appeared to be feeling church? What had changed about me that made a worship service feel so different than it used to?

The feelings, the experience I was expecting to come over me in church, I still have that, not at church, but I still have that. The worship feeling—

The unexpected surge of joy from deep inside,

A pure, spontaneous delight,

The sense of wonderment and fascination,

Being stopped in your tracks by something that holds your attention effortlessly—

I’m filled with worship feeling most every day, in some way. And I realized that since I’ve stopped going to church, I notice God so much more in the rest of my days. I’m looking for God everywhere instead of asking Him to show up to meet me on Sunday mornings. God always seems to be popping up,

In things big and small,

In the most mundane, everyday things,

In the most exquisite and unique things,

In the previously passed-over and unnoticed things

That have always been there right in front of my nose, but I never had eyes to see them before.

And they keep popping up and surprising me and causing me to laugh out loud in wonder, and they make me bubble over, and they make my eyes grow large and shine with joy.

Like the earwig I found once in the sink who was trying so hard to slither up the smooth sides to escape with no success. But he kept trying, and he was so brave and determined and tenacious, and I admired him so much and so enjoyed watching how he moved and how delicate and strong he was.

Like the other day on my walk when the sun shone brightly and the wind seemed to be playing with the tree limbs and with my hair from every direction at once, and even the rain that fell from the bright blue sky was playful and free. And that any-direction kind of wind with it’s every-direction showers made me feel like I could go anywhere and discover anything that I could possibly imagine, and I was filled with a sense of having complete freedom.

Like every time I hear a flock of geese flying overhead and turn my face up to find them, to see them, to witness their glorious flight and soak in their joyful calls.

Like the day when I sat reading a book and was taken with the shadow of leaves that came through my window and was dancing on my book. And I told my husband how delightful it was to be reading a book and watching the leaves dance at the same time. It was magic!

And in all these moments and in all the other ones too, I find myself worshiping. And by that I mean I find myself saying thank you. I find myself feeling grateful that I am alive and that everything else around me is alive and that it all is just so beautiful. And my heart fills with joy and I just want to break forth with dancing and singing and shout out loud to tell everyone of the glory of the universe. And my heart feels full, and I am blessed beyond all measure.

And I guess maybe this is what I was praying for in church. Because when you are at church, you want to feel that worship feeling, you want to feel blown away by God’s awesomeness, you want to be carried away by joy. You want to believe that the Spirit will show up and the congregation will break forth in dancing and singing and be filled with the joy of the Lord. And then it happens sometimes, and it is beautiful and touching. And then all the other times it doesn’t, and maybe you weren’t praying hard enough, or maybe you just weren’t focused on God enough or maybe you just need to find a different church that is more in tune with God. And so you keep trying to figure out how to bring God to church with you on Sundays, and you forget that God is right there in front of you

On Mondays and Tuesdays,

On Wednesdays and Thursdays

Even on Fridays and Saturdays too,

That God is there every second of every day if you are traveling through life with your eyes and ears and heart open and searching and you’ll witness Him being

Glorious and beautiful,

And overwhelming and spectacular,

Being small and quiet and inconspicuous,

Being alive and growing and changing

Being still and strong and secure

Being surprising and unexpected

Being everything you could ever imagine and more

And if you’re not looking, if you’re not open, you’ll miss it. 

If you’re only looking for God on Sundays, you’ll miss it. 

If you only believe you’ll experience God in your church building, you’ll miss it.