Critical Issue: Just Who is My Enemy?

S u p p o s e 
some profound removal of Zygote's notorious psychoses occurred this very minute. How would she better manage daily upsetting challenges vying for her attention this - and every - second, without a million thoughts a day of a nasty church tribe who hate her?

She dreams that the end of her 'issues' would automatically translate into an ordered dream life where the Bible gets amortized into her mindFlesh first thing every morning; the Rosetta Stone Spanish would slip into the schedule in equal proportion to the morning coffee/green tea and the daily kitchen clean-up.  The photos and videos on all family cameras would become shuffled into amazing spreads of digital story-telling, and all without the faintest hint of vainglory or idolatry of family.  The other chores would magically become NoBigDeal while the daily dust and detritus becomes as manageable as workouts at the bathroom sink: butt crunches while toothbrushing, leg lifts while folding towels and torso stretches while the toilet cleaner soaks...

Only the volunteer jobs that are true callings would fill up her calendar,  & her tutor clients would learn and grow with seeming effortlessness.  No letters to the Better Business Bureau always pressing in on the psyche, but always a protest letter fresh off the printer to Planned Parenthood's corporate donors.

The Weed and Feed outside would actually work, organically; & every Permaculture concept firmly wrested OUT of theory and into all areas of outdoor faith and practice....

Lunch with a friend once a week (grocery money always leftover for this), and never a contact who spurns the invitation like that feisty pastor's wife one time. Never have recovered from that...

No evil looks to process; no evil remarks to ignore; no misspoken criticisms to wish away; no grudges ever, especially against oneself; and when funerals roll by, never a regret. Only that quiet confidence that eternity overlaps with this present world in God's perfect time, every time...


Oh. Yes: and never another fall off one's bicycle, slip-off from some slimy Nature Center rock, or over stressed tendons unused to new gardening implements and contortions.  All well, all the time, except for those burdens strictly orchestrated by The Potter, clearly intended for my betterment, not brought on by sheer folly; by a seemingly continual lack of sound judgement.

How perfect life would be.  How sun kissed. How blessed. How not so very far off, on second thought:

I could just "WiLL those thoughts" of resentment to fade away into the amorphous glow of Christ's daily resurrection.

Live the dream: take every thought captive & be your own best self by the power of the Holy Spirit, praying without ceasing--esp. for the ones you call your Enemy.


(While I dream this, I am praising God for the way canker sores break out in my mouth every time I overdose on sugar, when trying to deal with thoughts of people I must have offended grievously, or why else would they behave like my enemy?

Now, THEre's a blessing.  Those canker sores have saved me at least twenty-five pounds of fudge and candy bar weight.  H-OoRa-H.)

4 Weeks & Growing

       "Week 4–5 

Chemicals produced by the embryo stop the woman's menstrual cycle. Neurogenesis is underway, showing brain activity at about the 6th week.^[3] "The heart will begin to beat around the same time. Limb buds appear where the arms and legs will grow later. Organogenesis begins. The head represents about one half of the embryo's axial length, and more than half of the embryo's mass. The brain develops into five areas. Tissue formation occurs that develops into the vertebra and some other bones. The heart starts to beat and blood starts to flow.^[2] "

^{--Wikipedia/Human Embryo}

<sup>From Zygote to Blastocyte to full bore Embryo, I am on a fast train to knowing who I am and why I'm here.  Eight more months of Your creative hand developing all my inward parts, and at this 4 week moment, a spine which is fighting the enemy of our souls to enjoy maximal tissue build up; maximal reinforcement; maximal flexibility; maximal capability to sustain a cross weighed down by a fallen world.  By then, LORD, will you have lasared some light on how one overcomes a lifetime of self criticism & self deprication?  While you extend the formation of my wee, little spine, shoot heavy doses of endorphins into the brain stem while you're at it, please, that the train of all my thoughts would aim always You-ward.


I am praying for something less than conventional when the sun rises eight months hence, on my 50th.  I hope for too much, I fear.  Healing perhaps,  full & complete?  An end to this constant haunting awareness of certain people's bad opinion of me.  An end to the generational curses of my family line: anger, pride, arrogance, laziness, fear, lack of sound judgement.  Julie Slattery said on a recent broadcast that "we're all addicted to pride."  Described it as the one addiction that everyone has in common.  A pan-humanity epidemic curse. It is possible to become truly humble?</sup>

^{- - - - - - - - - -
As inconsistent as it seems, today's gardening activities defy the nature of my present, delicate embryonic frame: I clipped in half 2 grasshoppers with pruning shears and flushed a third down the toilet.  I think I'm some kind of gardening titan when I snag a little enemy bugsoldier with my bare hands and march him off to his doom in my highpressure flush-o-matic. Not the sympathetic,  pro-LIFE sensitivity you'd expect to find in a conservative bohemian such as myself.}

<sup>On my first day of volunteering at the Arboretum last Feb., I nabbed a huge brown grasshoppery fellow while listening to my supervisor's instructions. Force of habit, I guess. I asked her if she had a compost pile nearby where I could dispose of it.  "No, just let it go. We're pretty natural around here; circle of life and all that..." She did not think me a garden titan.  "OK!" I said, but what I was THINKING was "... not in my back yard.  If my yard's to remain pesticide free, some kinda pest control compromise has to happen. And looking at my little crop of purple basil, peppers, tomato, herbs, squash & melon, you'd think I sprayed regularly. Very few signs of bug munching on the foilage.  

(There is this one pest getting ready to pounce, however:</sup> 

[ file:///Users/el/Desktop/monsterNymphs.tomatoplant.jpeg ]

<sup>I spent the better part of my garden day trying to Google-identify these ornery looking pests swarming a tomato stem.  


Somehow (as if I don't know how), while surfing garden sites and the UC Cooperative Extension service,  I became totally engrossed in someone's Africa blog and the next thing I know, it's hours later and I'm sponsoring a Maureen and a David, wide-eyed preschoolers, darling to behold.  I rejoice that I live in paradise and NOT Kenya.  I exult in God's deliverance of team members pursued by angry mobs during 2007 election riots. Oh, dear God. Bless and protect the obedient souls at Transformed International.  AMEN.)</sup>

Red Wine

Back from the reunion a week now: unpacked, laundry finally zeroed out, garden somewhat tended & house slightly cleaned up in the wake of the three selfish offspring who enjoy it when we're gone, yet take little notice of the need to clean it before we return.

Re: Wine? A contested topic hereabouts, but all the more so after drinking DH's for him just now. Zygote drinks it when DH buys it, though she bids him: "Avoid it like the plague!" He doesn't listen.  Good Baptists, we were, tending toward teetotalers, imbibing only at restaurants, on anniversaries and such, & training the children away from the mocker... or so we thought.  When the twenty-somethings graduated from their very conservative colleges, they returned home with a very hip need to imbibe: you see, Jesus drank wine, so, we all should too, they insisted.  That's all it took.  Now, DH brings it home quite regularly. I complained, only to be shot down by the young'ins, & so I've given in, too.  Anti-depressants hold nothing to this candle. And it's cheaper.  Socially acceptable, too:  tell people you take an anti-depressant, and watch them slowly nod and pretend they understand.  Walk in the door with a bottle of Chardonay (i have tried to spell that 19 diff. ways, and no dictionary I own will help me), or enjoy a glass of red wine with the crowd, and be embraced as one fit for society. (Don a glass of water and feel the ire of the whole room...)

Nevermind that six family members have shown in past generations, or are now showing, all the earmarks of, well... the 'A' word.  One member has wisely addressed the issue; wisely turned away from the cursed liquid and mindfully determined to live life for what is real rather than for what the fruit of the vine promises, but never delivers... Rehab miraculously worked for this person.

So, why do I partake? Why does DH continue to bring it home? Oh, blessed psychotherapists of the world, please answer!

I long to know WHY a lot of things.  

That 'enabling' word comes to mind, and though we've discussed its meaning, DH is programmed by The Fall to render all discussion vaporous.

I think that's when I decided to spend my entire family reunion at the kitchen sink doing everyone's dishes: when I saw the giant stockpile of wines, vodkas, rums and bourbons --or whatever that was, all arrayed across the washer and dryer in the rental cabin kitchen-- my affections froze.

All my hopes for some real conversation --you know, the kind people actually remember the next morning-- were dashed.  Then, a day or two later, they all said goodbye, & there I was: eating watermelon and catching up on a cable TV movie (the one that I'd walked out on when D#2 took me to see it three years ago. TheDevilWearsPrada. Better believe he does).  All alone, in my big Twain Harte rental, wondering what The LORD would show me when I dared to ponder the cost benefit analysis of the whole effort, having rented the place for an entire WEEK... Would my sisters have liked me more if I'd gotten drunk with them? Would the Gospel have been furthered if I'd just stood there with a drink in my hand pretending to be cool with it?  And yet, who cares??  I didn't plan the weekend to proclaim Jesus, but just to re-UNE with my family for heaven's sake. It had been ten years since we last gathered. The hypocrisy of the matter is too boggling for the sinner that I am to reconcile: I want alcohol, but only when I'm alone or with DH.  I hate alcohol, but only when others are enjoying it.  I crafted a Statement on Spirits many months ago, long before any cabin reunion bubble started forming; but only officially declared it MY OWN reaffirmed stance on one or two occasions, & even then, to no avail, as the family members were, let's say, hardly impressed. 

I declared that:   

"Wine, beer and spirits
are to be enjoyed in the context 

of 

drawing together
married couples 

in the privacy of their own chambers

for the furtherance of healthy 

marital conjugation, 

this being the standard ingredient

upon which marital fidelity depends,

the euphoric enjoyment of God's created gift, sex,
for the purpose

of  

permanently uniting two fallen people
into becoming
OneFlesh. 

(Kinda like bikinis, yes?)

This settled it in my own mind.  

Alcohol, even taken moderately, gets me DRUNK. The Bible proscribes drunkeness. It clearly cites an event which I, more than most, must NEVER occasion: "getting drunk causes the HOLY Spirit to dissipate...re-mooooove Himself...  Become distant, thin, SHALLOW, LEAKED... Empty." 

How can I allow the scarcity of a thing which I only have the weakest grasp upon in the first place?

Kudos to James & Shirley Dobson,  whose own 50th Wedding Anniversary was today, and who inspired the idea once upon a time, by recommending that the virgin bride be plied with champagne on her wedding night to help her overcome the hard transition from "Thou shalt not!" to "Thou shalt, every day, and with vigor and enthusiasm," else I doubt I'd have ever come up with it... the drinking part, not the bikini part, altho, they'd probably agree there, too.

(Can I just say how much I love Jim & Shirls???)

Now, if only I had the courage, no, the INTEGRITY, to stick to my own convictions.

Vacation Prep or Not

Who knew a zygote could lose this much sleep trying to organize a reunion.  Where I went wrong was way back in April at the invitation stage, choosing an eVite that was a little 'in your face.'  That would've put ME off, zygote or no zygote.  Twenty adult-stage people & their offspring (& semi-adult-stage alien/twenty somethings & their cell phones) say they are coming, in any case, so zygote will be far away from the web for awhile: she reserved cabins with no wiFi. This makes the aliens restless already.

But VacaPrep and today's planned departure took a back seat to a sick hubby whose face had ballooned overnight.  Calls and visits to dentists, endodontist and maxillofacial surgery practices --and one relative who's a doc-- culminated in a 3:15PM extraction surgery, and a DH feeling so very low.  Losing a tooth is so not zygotish.

This delay afforded me a small window to sneak into SuperCuts to curb the 50yearoldzygotish protein follicles.  "You're losing a lot of hair, i see... Getting enough sleep?" asked the stylist. Wow. She knows her stuff.

Cakes can't think

Oh. Well, wh' in a hurry, sentence structure (yesterday's) does tend to suffer. (And the reason the day was "Bloody" ALMOst had to do with a saucepan aflame on the stove from spilled rum sauce; but, no, it was produced by a friend at a Sunday Potluck who dropped her glass bowl full of pasta salad on the driveway, and a ricocheted shard of the glass punctured the top of her foot.  It was messy...)

Zygote did not sleep again last night.  Post-noon caffeine needs to come under permanent ban.

Weighty thoughts churned as I lay in bed, trying to keep DH from repeating a rare 1AM outburst: "Why don't you ever sleep??!"

- - Thoughts about my conflicting genetic money map: Dad would not have cared about a certain $$ wastage coming up, but I anticipate Mom's chagrin (I'll tell her that true love does not count the cost!) when she unwraps my latest contribution to her less-than-closetful of tasteful attire. Happy BD, Mum.

- -  The smog check man found someone had tampered with the check engine light in my car, clearly assuming it was I who rigged the failed smog offender

- - My pants don't fit, as a sprained foot delays returning to the gym these eight weeks (& the alternative behaviour to control growing thighs - not eating - is impossible for this young zygote)

- - The painter's been 'let go' after he painted the door shut

- - D1's new man friend has recoiled at her disclosure that she has a chronic disease

- - D2's manfriend calls only every 5 months or so, but she is not amused; a top pick bachelor asked me about her at yesterday's bbq, but I changed the subject, so stung was she the last time I tried to play matchmaker

... and so it goes. Ineptitude, calamity, gravity, mediocrity.

I venture into my blastocyte stage, wary of the pitfalls of my genetic past, my foible filled future, and a dim awareness that a salve awaits to heal the heart of so many disappointments. A healer. An Answerer. A fixer. And in the dark recesses of my quiet night... a TO DO list comes to mind:

1) actually start believing God loves you
2) actually start loving others better

This list is one I keep composing, and losing, year after year after year.

Bloody Sunday

August 8, 2010, DH turned 49, and Zygote is too busy flaming rum sauce on the stove for his grand BD cake to think deep biological thoughts.

Anew. re: Aug. 7...(/:-} )

In spite of the fact that blogs ought to be posted before midnight, as a rule, I still feel connected to my day until 2am, and as a fast moving zygote/blastocyst, every moment counts and every hour feels energized... at night. Sadly, until three in the afternoon, underperformance is my watchword.  Biorhythms dictate that I must seek and find a job as a night janitor. A late-night talk host. How 'bout astronomer?

As my blastocyst self sorts out my mother's peoples' genes from my father's peoples' genes, I feel a call to newness and a distinction all my own, and wonder about what, exactly, is forming at the core of my being during this fine symphony of cell division.

Selfness that comes from such a miraculous DNA shuffle is being formed at this very stage.  But while some distinctions may be noteworthy --a nose here, big feet there-- others are hidden from view, but nevertheless powerful: What if... What IF. . . my mom's preference for laziness was at its peak when my egg sprang out during late July 1960.  Would blastocyst Ellie receive a large dose of her lazy spirit (as I am sure it did)?  And what if my Dad's penchant for spending too much money on pricey things he should know better than to buy was at its apex during sperm production, week#4, July 1960? My poor little blastocyst would not stand a chance avoiding the perils of a penniless future.

Sin IS passed down, you know. It's scriptural. I can prove it. Just not right now.

I ponder the deeply private interwoveness of flesh and spirit; person and personality, blended and imparted from tiny aspects of fallen, sinful, spiritual antiquity, moving forward in time like molecular -formed drops of water cycling around the world for tens of millennia, from creation to now. Everything new, and nothing new, each birth beginning some new chapter in the same old human story, starting afresh one zygote at a time. 

I hear my grown self congratulating my honey, DH, on a happy birthday night of his own:  49 years ago, his dear Mum suffered to push him out at St. John's, Santa Monica, 1961.  His zygote day will arrive in December, but for now, Thanks, Barb. Thanks, Dr. Amys. You've birthed a prince. Dignified in the flesh, fallen in spirit, but willing to daily take up shield and buckler to fight the oppressive demons of this fallen world.  Prize fighter. Knight. I finally respect him.