Burning Down

The other day I was listening to the podcast The Next Right Thing. It was the episode titled Reflection as Activism. 

Emily P. Freeman said something that made me stop what I was doing and write it down, 

"For beauty to come from ashes, something has to burn."

She went on to say that she daily asks Jesus, 

"What in me needs burning down today?"

Think about that.

The wonderful, 

selfless, 

humble, 

genuinous 

of that question.

And the willingness to not just listen to the gentle nudge in your spirit, but learn from and respond.

I mean HOLY COW.

The world would be somewhere completely different if people actually did this.

It would burn down the silliness of me versus the greater good. 

And the greater good would bloom beautiful.

It would burn down the anxieties that keep conspiracies alive. 

And truth would grow tall and strong.

It would burn down bias and discrimination and all the fogged up ways we think we see things and each other. 

And love, unconditional love, would grow out of that clarity.

It would burn down defensiveness and pride and all the stubborn things that keep us from learning and growing and sharing. 

And true intelligence, the emotional, spiritual, grace-filled kind, would emerge.

Imagine that.

God did. 

It was His plan from the beginning.

To burn all the "self" right out of us so that He could have room inside to get some actual work done.

Are we going to let Him do it?

If we merge mercy with might,

and might with right, 

then love becomes our legacy.

Amanda Gorman

Time Travel As a Hobby and Upright Llamas

 Last week Monte woke up mad at me because he found out that I was dating someone else while I was dating him. 

So this dream took place circa 1994/95.

He was so mad in the dream that he decided to drive over to the apartment of this "other guy". His anger caused him to rethink things on that drive and he contemplated diving more heavily into his hobby of time travel.

Yes, time travel.

His anger caused him to speed a little on the way to confront this "other guy" and he had to force himself to slow down so as not to exceed the appropriate speed limit that would allow time travel possible.

So he was driving a DeLorean...?

Did he dream within the plot of Back To The Future?

He was pretty mad still when he woke up.

I'm just glad he never mentioned 

a time travel hobby when we were dating.

Last night, I had a dream that I saw a black llama in our yard. I pointed out the llama to Monte and he went outside to check it out.

The llama STOOD UP on its back legs, positioned its front legs into a boxing formation and punched Monte square in the face.

More than once.

Monte got in a few good punches too.

I sent a text for help to neighbors who came quickly.

One brought a BB gun.

I don't know what happened next or who won the fight, or if any llamas were harmed in the making of my dream, but I know I felt this incredible gratefulness for our neighbors.

Neighbors you can call when your husband is 

getting clocked by an upright llama in your yard.

After I told Monte the dream this morning (and how proud I was that he held his own with the llama who seemed 20 feet tall standing on its hind legs), he postulated all the possible meanings of the dream.

I rejected them all.

Sometimes all a dream is 

is the feeling it left you with.

Like I'm feeling SUPER glad Monte isn't into time travel as a hobby (and that he doesn't drive a DeLorean, for Pete's sake). 

And I'm thankful I live by some of the neatest, kindest, MOST FUN people I can count on to show up when I text them there's a llama boxing Monte in the yard.

The End.