Caribbean Blue

I'm reading a book entitled Blue Like Jazz.
Blue.
Blue is deep.
Like the Caribbean when you're out to sea.
Caribbean Blue.
Fathomless.
Anything of depth and excitement is blue.
I like blue.
Alot.

I was working on someone's transcript the other day.
She got an "F" in her "Excellencies of Christ" class.
I know this person. She's a friend of mine.
Most of you would know her too.
And right now she's in Africa.
She prays and God raises people from the dead.
No, for real.
And she got an "F" in a Bible College class.
Cool.
I thought....it's true.....it's not the head knowledge but the heart knowledge.
She knows God.
And she therefore walks in her calling.
So what if her ability to pass a class was up to par or not.
Our identity is not in our ability to accomplish.
It's in Who we know and His ability to accomplish through us.
Partnering with Jesus.
Caribbean Blue.

Granted the dead are not raised when I pray.
Not even the mouse in NC that I prayed for.
My shadow does not heal anyone when I walk by.
Maybe that's not my calling.
Maybe it will be.
Either way it's ok.
My identity is not in what I know. Nor can in be in what I do.
Or cannot do.
What is needed is to know God. With the heart. Relationship. Real relationship.
Caribbean Blue.

I am in the place I am called to be.
I am doing the very thing I have been asked to do.
I fence. I work so I can fence. I love.
I fence well one day. Not so well the next.
Work is stressful today. Tomorrow it's good.
I am the prefect friend today. I do something idiotic tomorrow.
Life is rich and full and overflowing.
It is abundant.
It's growing and stretching and becoming.
It is not prefect. I am not perfect. It's a journey of growth.
I am not suggesting I stay where I am.
I am suggesting that I remain fully human while reaching for the fullness of my humanity.
Growth.
The now and not yet colliding in my soul.
Working it out in exaltation with trembling.
Caribbean Blue.

I think about pride.
Thinking too highly of yourself.
But also thinking too lowly of yourself.
Self-absorption is a killer.
Not that we should never take ourselves in hand.
We should. Otherwise we won't grow and continue to reach for our fullness.
But, as Kelly taught me, there is mercy to be had for oneself.
There is also a re-calibration. Better if it's quick.
Sometimes there is healing and it's a bit longer.
But to be fully alive and fully human is, not to never focus on the self, but to move past the absorption part.

Caribbean Blue.

Running with Swords

Funny, I came out into the garage to do my daily fencing work-out.

Instead I am sitting in the floor.
Contemplating.

I am surrounded by the objects that represent my life.
A piste covered by fencing gear.
A prayer space complete with Eucharistic paraphernalia.
Books scattered around my feet as they spill from my bookcase.
My life.
This is who I am.

The books?
Shadow of the Almighty.
In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day.
Epee 2.0
All That Was Ever Ours.
Running with Swords.

There's the one that screams my life.
Running with Swords.

It's supposed to be one of those expressions that gets you a "U" on your report card.
Like under "plays well with others".....
But to me it screams "LIFE!"
As in "grab a sword and run towards......"

That's who I am.
It's who I've always, always, always been.
A gentle warrior.
A lover of God. A lover of people.
But one who is not afraid to stand ground and fight.
Even more, one who grabs a sword and runs.

Indeed.
This is my strip.
These are my friends.
This is who I love and what I love.
This is what is honorable and right and true.
Holy and pure and just.
Joyful and full of life.
Very full of life.
This is what I have been given to do.
This is who I was created to be.
Get off my strip or fight.
I may not win. But I will die trying.
For the sake of love.
Because it's good and right that I do so.
And because everything I am wants to.................

I have a candle lit next to me.
It emits the scents of balsam and frankincense and myrrh.
It calls my soul to worship.
It thus stirs my memory.
And whispers......
All that was ever ours is ours forever, tender warrior.

The good and the bad.
It's mine forever.
Will it destroy or give growth?
My own memories, now having gone through the healing process, can destroy or lift up.
Both myself and others........

Be fully alive.
Be fully alive.
Run with your sword.

Love well.
Love well.
Run with your sword.

Rise up.
Rise up.
Run with your sword.

Worship.
Worship.
Run with your sword.

RUN WITH YOUR SWORD.

Fighting "Cocky" - - A Kelly Fencing Lesson and Then Some

"Cocky", related to "cocksure", defined as "prefectly sure or certain, completely confident."

Last night, at the beginning of a fencing lesson, practicing something that threatens me to no end but that I must get over...

....Kelly made the comment that I needed to fence cocky.
With an attitude of "this is my strip. you want to hit me? come try"

Several thoughts/reactions zoomed through me:
1. "Well that's nice for someone who's good enough to think that."
2. "I'm supposed to have WHAT kind of attitude?"
3. Sheer terror: "Live with assurance and confidence? You're kidding, right?"

Needless to say, I did not come out of that practice drill feeling cocky.
I felt threatened to the point of severe stress.

Sadly, I once did live life from a place of assurance, confidence, whatever.
It took about 10 people 20 years to get it out of me.
So it was there pretty solid.
And now it's gone pretty solidly.

And I find that I miss it.
I really really miss it.

But how do you get it back?
My Rome wasn't torn down in a day.
It took 20 years.
How do you rebuild it and how long does it take?

Or maybe it really is just a decision.

I know it's there. I so know it's there.
I am fully aware of what kind of authority, power, control, whatever that I carry.
It's that "thing" that unnerves people when they don't know what to expect.

But I'm afraid of it.
Afraid, and aware, that if I ever ever use it wrongly it would be destructive beyond explanation.

I think I really am choosing not to fight/live cocky.
Which, now that Kelly has pointed it out, is really stupid.

So, I guess I've just become familiar with living in a position I was not created to live in.

Oh and all the better when we hyper-spiritualize it.
Which I have been handed ad nauseum.
Somehow I have been taught that "vengeance is mine, thus sayeth the Lord" and "be meek" means "don't ever have any assurance, don't ever defend yourself, don't be strong, don't admit you have any gifts/talents, downplay your very existence."
Maybe that is a bulls*@# interpretation.
I think it is.
Maybe the interpretation is: "don't rip someone's head off and be a jerk just because they were mean, instead, bluntly but kindly state that they are wrong and deal with it."
I'm pretty sure that's what my New Testament says.
Now that I am really honest with my own heart.

Rabbit trails aside, back to fighting cocky.

Kelly's comment, which was right on, made me think of a conversation with Jane yesterday.
I think God is trying to drive home a point.
Like that never happens at the fencing center.

Anyway.
Jane was talking to me about how she had seen a real sword in my hand in the Spirit.
That I had a calling on my life for deliverance.

Funny. That's exactly the call Kelly has on her life.
Even though I see so much of myself (or who I was) in her, I never put that one together.

So, yeah, I told Jane a story about what happened two years ago that caused me to "fear" my own authority.
It involved a battle I was engaged in with a witchcraft spirit over the life of a friend.
The authority that rose up in me was unbelievable.
In the spirit you could see it as a white cloud coming forth from my gut.
The spirit vanished instantly.
I was shocked by the measure of authority and shut down thinking if something like that were ever misused it would be horrid.
And I feared the misuse.
Too much so.

Damn it.
I think I shut down completely during that season.
...maybe here is the key to cockiness....
.....to assurance and confidence.....
.....both in the physical and the spiritual.....

I cannot stay shut down.
Not on any level.

And I hear Kelly again echoing in my head "Leigh, you just take things too far."
And I hear Jessica aggravating me because I "remove everything for a 100 miles radius".
Both are the same principle.

I need to make an honest assessment of where I am...
....whether in fencing....my spiritual life....whatever....
and function from that place of reality.
THAT is true humility.

I need wisdom in my walking,
but there is no call to think less of myself that I ought
anymore than I should think more highly of myself than I ought.

God, forgive me.
What have I done?

Kelly is so right --
This IS my strip.
And I want to fight "cocky"....

A Rough and Tumble, Unrestrained Joy

So says the quote from Selenia's magazine game that I carry around in my Bible.

"A ROUGH AND TUMBLE, UNRESTRAINED JOY"

One of my two life mottos for the moment, in spite of the fact that there is digging at my heart with spoons in order to get there. :)

The other is "LOVE WELL."

Both scream to me "live exuberantly. fully. from the heart!"

If you follow my blogs you know this is not a blind PollyAnna life style.
I am not naive, innocent of nor blind to, the things that go on in this world.
Shoot, many of them have happened to me.

EVENSO!
"Live a life of rough and tumble unrestrained joy while loving well!"

Even so.... the Greek translation is: "despite everything to the contrary".

Despite everything to the contrary,
live a life of rough and tumble, unrestrained joy while loving well!"

LOL!
Yes, it's good.

It makes me think of Benaiah and how he went down into a pit and killed a lion on a snowy day.

Lions are scary, snowy days dangerous, pits unnerving.....but the desire to love well and live in unrestrained joy call us to go into the pit on that snowy day and kill the lion. (preferably with a sword).

Despite everything to the contrary,
live a life of rough and tumble, unrestrained joy while loving well.

Me? Well.......

I think of wrestling Mike (or a semi-reasonable facsimile) in the fencing club....which I should have done with my inside voice. ;)
But it was indeed a moment of rough and tumble unrestrained joy.

And it makes me think of drilling with Kelly when she has me laughing so much I can't concentrate anymore.
Unrestrained joy.

It makes me think of making obnoxious comments with Kevin and balancing pepper shakers while at an office lunch and Jane, my boss, commenting that she just can't take me anywhere.
Unrestrained joy.

It's putting on my headphones and dancing in the garden.
The stirring of tenderness when I look at my wonderful husband.
Feeling the nearness of Jesus when I wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night.
Hearing Anita London pray up the hall and all going out to join in.

It's going to a tournament and making new friends.
Having the feel of a blade in my hand and working out in the garage.
Fencing sabre when I don't have a clue HOW.
Hanging out with fencing friends at BW3 until late laughing.

It's making a game out of a task.
Finding fun in the mundane.

It's even being deep and intense.
It's sitting for hours in silence.

It's seeing people set free.
It's listening when you'd rather not.
It's walking in good character when it's hard.
It's integrity.
It's keeping your word.
Rough and tumble.
Loving well.

It's having a tender moment with a friend you deeply love.
Unrestrained joy.

It's even the stirrings of hoping for a friendship.
The bittersweetness of uncertainty.
The joy and anticipation of hope.
Rough and tumble.
Trying to love well.

It's the reconnecting with friends from the past.
Looking forward to seeing them again.
Unrestrained joy.

The knowledge that you have ones that, even when things have gotten hard, will stand in and keep going.
Rough and tumble, surely.
Unrestrained joy also.

It's crying your guts out in an effort to heal so that you might love better.
It's allowing others to cry their guts out.
Rough and tumble.
Loving well.

It's living to the fullest extent everything that you were created to be.
(not the weird broken heartless things that you have taken on)
It's being fully human and thus fully alive.

It's living the paradox.

Rough and tumble.
Unrestrained joy.
Loving well......


Despite everything to the contrary,
live a life of rough and tumble, unrestrained joy while loving well.

Skewered: A Difficult Weakness (and yes, my hormones are a bloody mess today)

What is it about being at the deadly end of a weapon that brings the deepest vulnerabilities of my soul to the surface? I wish I knew.

It's been a weird week.

For quite a while now, maybe even a whole month, things have been somewhat settled and fine.

This has left me nothing to write about but at least God and I were not grabbing spoons and digging things out of my gut. Gee, could we ever use a knife and make it quick and easy? Oh well.

Thankfully we are at the tail-end of everything....which I guess is why things are coming up and getting dealt with quickly. And better to finally have things gone, it's so much easier after that.
Cleaner.
Healed.
Like the fear thing.
I'm really glad that one surfaced and got quickly dealt with. (thank you Anita!)

So, a whole calm month and now we're back to spoons.

If I'm honest, the reason it's been calm is I had my heart just walled off with an "I just really don't care, whatever" glaze that let things slide off like water from a duck's back but wasn't real and didn't allow for honesty nor thus true intimacy, and certainly no growth and healing.
That really is only found through being the true self.

Yet I am also seeing that letting the true self emerge creates it's own set of problems.

You do/say things that even you know better than to do/say and you have to re-calibrate.
You allow real parts of your personality to emerge and they frustrate people....again.
Like the need to think things through and process.
Or worse, the fact that I think and process a bit differently (as pointed out again and again through life)....
I think almost backwards when trying to problem solve (thanks to Sam who finally pinpointed this) ...much to everyone's great confusion and frustration.

So, yes, all of this is churning around in me and surfacing in the fencing club....even if it isn't all happening there.....

Where else would God choose to deal with me?

The frustrating thing about having all of this constantly surface is that no one on the planet right now could possibly be more loved and encouraged than I am.
And surely not more supported.
So I hate the fact that I cannot just settle down and "be normal" and "just get over it".

Yet I know that I am at the tail end of finally being able to completely heal and release the last remnants of past junk because no one on the planet right now could possibly be more loved and encouraged than I am. And surely not more supported.

(Geez but I feel sorry for the precious ones that I work with and fence with.)

Anyway..... so what is it this month?

First, I've found that I have very little instinct to defend myself.
I either want to back away (not so common), just stand there and get hit, merely flinch a little or finally step into an attack with the intent to impale.....even if I get nicked in the process.
It's gotten a little weird to me that I want to wade right into the attack and not wait for an opening.

Especially when I am very threatened, like with Kelly in the drill we were doing yesterday, I still feel like I'm fighting for my very life.
Suddenly it's not a sport or a game.
And I either tense and cower and let myself be "killed" as it were or I finally get cornered, stand my ground and go straight into the attack without thought aiming right for the heart.
It rarely occurs to me to aim for an arm or knee for a "point"....no....I want to take the threat out completely.
At least if I'm fencing "from my guts" without thinking.
If I think I'm ok.
Which is indicative of something.

Which can be seen throughout my life (emotionally not physically!) and it explains a lot.
A whole heck of alot.
I tend to stand there and take things and take things and take things until I explode.
I have been taught not to defend myself or stand up for myself or my thoughts/opinions.
And I have apparently been taught too well which leads to a whole other set of problems.

Second to arise..... the raw spot of rejection.
Coupled with the really raw spot of being misinterpreted and/or misunderstood.
(which is why I don't like for people to "assume" what I'm thinking....)

Then, thanks to those who care enough about me to desire that I would overcome, it was pointed out that I spend too much time saying "I can't" (ala Mike) and that I just have no confidence in myself. (ala Jake)

And it's true. I know it's true.
But how do I overcome that? I have no idea.
Too many years of just being torn down and shredded....
Told that I wasn't any good....
Treated like I wasn't any good......
Until I believed it and was worn down to a nub.

And I have learned that if I hide who I am (both strong and vulnerable parts)
....hide that I am smart
....hide that if I worked hard I might be able to do something (but I do need to work hard)
....hide the fact that I really need to think something through to "get it"
..... hide the dreams and desires
.....hide my exuberance and my loud laugh and my playfulness
.....hide my analytical, deep, serious side

If I hide all these things and am not my real self then I cannot be rejected.
I cannot be misunderstood.
I will not frustrate people.
I am capable of playing the game. I really am.

And if I believe first that I suck then no one else can hurt me by either saying it or giving me the "you're an idiot" look.
I'm safe.
Or so I think........

But I have seen the other side over and over as well.
My ability to be real, to be open, to be honest about my "past" etc etc does at times give others the freedom to open up and be real.
And sometimes gives them the freedom to be their true self.
There is great, great benefit in that.
Great benefit.

And I have seen/learned/been through enough that I am not quick to judge, reject, treat you like you're stupid etc. (although I admit I am not perfect at this)


Maybe that's loving well.....which is my highest goal in life.

Maybe my standing there in pools of my own blood....
....whether because I'm working through something to improve (skill-wise or emotion-wise)
....or I am choosing to live wholly out of myself even if misunderstood or rejected at some level
....or the fact that I continue to fell under-par with fencing no matter what I do ;)
is the thing that will free someone else I am in contact with in life.

Maybe.
I've seen it before.
Multiple times.

The laying down of your own life that others might live.

Kinda like teaching.....or coaching.....you lay yourself down that others might gain.

Hm. Maybe.

So, what is it about being at the deadly end of a weapon that brings the deepest vulnerabilities of my soul to the surface?

Not sure, but I hope I have the sense to grab the bull by the horns, even though it hurts like hell and I am choosing a difficult weakness, and let God finish putting my pieces back together so I can come out stronger......

Of Fencing and Killing Lions On Snowy Days

II Samuel 23:20b "He (Benaiah) also went down and killed a lion in the middle of a pit on a snowy day."

This verse has always fascinated me.
And the other day I discovered a book entitled "In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day."
Needless to say I could not resist it.

It was about conquering your fears and going after life whole-heartedly.

Huh. Very appropriate since that's where I find myself these days. This whole past year actaully. Going down into pits to kill lions.

It was odd that the opening chapter contained thoughts on how Benaiah was the under-dog in the fight on that snowy day. The author observed that no one would have bet on Benaiah to win. But he did. And in the process the author observed he probably was conquering fears.

Granted, none of us was there, nevertheless I cannot imagine chasing a lion into a pit of any kind and not having the fear/exhilaration adrenaline mix.

So, my point?

As I read that section it stuck me that I too killed a lion on a snowy day.
Sunday twas a week ago in Lincoln, NE (on a very snowy day.)

I cannot fully explain it all.
Yet, I KNOW that it was a God-thing.
There really is no other explanation.
And it did build a confidence in me.
It also settled me down at various internal levels.

For, indeed, fencing and all the things it has been dragging out of my inner man, has been a lion.

I have found myself in so many fearful situations.
On spiritual, physical, emotional and relational levels.
I have discovered good things about myself and rough edges that really need to be filed.
And I have encountered God.

I have been battling lions in the fencing center for almost 6 months.
And I know that there are more to come for God is using fencing for fencing's sake but He is also preparing me for other things.
There are more fears.....more lions.....that will need to be dealt with.

NEVERTHELESS.

I killed a lion on a snowy day.

Indeed, maybe all things are possible with God. ;)