Your [Wo]Man

by SmashMouth (with apologies for some minor editing)

I don't know why I'm with you
The only right thing I do is get along with you
And days go bye-bye for you but they fly by for me
It's true
I talked to you late last night
You said it wasn't all right but it would be all right
And when you sleep by yourself
You're not alone I'm with you

But you weren't listening when I told you everything
That you need I ain't got
You should be gone by now but you're not

I play guitar all night long
And I know hundreds of songs and I'll just play them all
And even when I get home somehow you're still alone
It's true
I don't know why you're with me
The only reason I see some sort of fetish thing
Some people like to be pleased and
Some like to be teased
Which are you?

I tried to warn you but you said just play dead
As long as we stay
True

But you weren't listening when I told you everything
That you need I ain't got
You should be gone by now but you're not
But you're not

Did your head not receive the shape of everything
That you are and I am?
I should be happy as your [wo]man
You know that I'm not

I play guitar all night long
And I know hundreds of songs and I'll just play them all
And when you sleep by yourself
You're not alone I'm with you
As long as we stay true


--You weren't listening when I told you everything
That you need I ain't got
You should be gone by now but you're not

But you're not

Face to Face
by Josh White of Telecast

Minutes dissolve as I fight this fall
I'm learning to crawl, trembling I call
Restrain my heart, replace it with You
Jesus, I'll deny myself. I will follow You

There will be a day
When all will fade away
And all that will remain
Is loving you face to face
Jesus, I pray
That You would come today
Faith will be replaced
With loving You face to face

You are the Gate
Which I entered in
You are the Path
Which I'm following
You are the Light
That carries me through
You are the Guide
That's leading me back to You.

There will be a day
When all will fade away
And all that will remain
Is loving You face to face
Jesus, I pray
That you would come today
Faith will be replaced
With loving you face to face.

Saturate
By Josh White of Telecast

Dwelling on days gone by
All of this wasted time
Why do I want just to talk with You?

Burn away all the lies inside
Remind me where You reside, this time
I will remain in You

I won’t be satisfied
Until I’ve laid my eyes on You
I will abide in You
I won’t be satisfied Until You’re all that comes through
Until I’m saturated in You.

Feelings come and feelings go
Don’t care, just want to know
You more and more every moment

There are days that are dark, and I’m scared
Days I just fall apart, but You’re there
I will remain in You

And I will hold to You
In a world that’s so confused
Jesus, I love you
Saturate me with You.

Too Little, Too Late

How ironic. I wrote the words to this song that my son composed music for and I wrote it in response to what was happening in a friend's marriage. I never thought I would look back at it and see that it fit my life as well. All except for the bit about hate. I don't hate. I just feel indifferent.

The signs have been there
They’ve been there so long
The seeds you sowed so long ago
Have grown up too strong
The harvest now is bitter
As you reap what you have sown
Still waters run deep
And now you are alone

Your tears drop down your face like rain
As love slowly turns to hate
Repentance comes but now you fear
It’s too little, too late.

You thought the rules would bend for you
Well they bent until they broke
Neglect of duties and of joys
Made faith a perfect joke
Hypocrisy unseen by you
Made hearts as soft as stone
Still waters brought a deep divide
And now you are alone


Your children the unwilling victims
Of your "noble" sacrifice
To what you thought was the higher
And greater purpose of your life.
Seeds of missed opportunities
Were watered by their tears
And now you wish to go back in time
To uproot all the lost years.

Your tears drop down your face like rain
As love slowly turned to hate
Repentance comes but now you find
It’s too little, too late.

Waiting for the World to Fall
by Jars of Clay from the Chronicles of Narnia Soundtrack

I'm afraid it's been too long
to try to find the reasons why
I let my world close in around
a smaller patch of fading sky
But now I've grown beyond the walls
to where I've never been
And it's still winter in my wonderland

Chorus
I'm waiting for the world to fall
I'm waiting for the scene to change
I'm waiting when the colors come
I'm waiting to let my world come undone

I close my eyes and try to see
the world unbroken underneath
The farther off and already
it just might make the life I lead
A little more than make-believe
when all my skies are painted blue
And the clouds don't ever change
the shape of who I am to You

Chorus

I'm waiting for the world to fall
I'm waiting for the scene to change
I'm waiting when the colors come
I'm waiting to let my world come undone

When I catch the light of falling stars
my view is changing me
My view is changing me

I'm waiting

Much Afraid
by Jars of Clay

Empty again
Sunken down so far
So scared to fall
I might not get up again
So I lay at your feet
All my brokenness
I carry all of my burdens to you

All of these things I've held up in vain
No reason nor rhyme
Just the scars that remain
Of all of these things
I'm so much afraid
Scared out of my mind
By the demons I've made
Sweet Jesus, you never ever let me go
Oh, sweet Jesus, never ever let me go

Worlds Apart
by Jars of Clay

I am the only one to blame for this
Somehow it all adds up the same
Soaring on the wings of selfish pride
I flew too high and like Icarus I collide
With a world I try so hard to leave behind

To rid myself of all but love,
To give and die
To turn away and not become
Another nail to pierce the skin of one who loves
More deeply than the oceans,
More abundant than the tears
Of a world embracing every heartache

Can I be the one to sacrifice
Or grip the spear and watch the blood and water flow

To love you - take my world apart
To need you - I am on my knees
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - broken on my knees

All said and done I stand alone
Amongst remains of a life
I should not own
It takes all I am to believe
In the mercy that covers me

Did you really have to die for me?
All I am for all you are
Because what I need and what I believe are worlds apart

And I pray,
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - I am on my knees
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - broken on my knees

I look beyond the empty cross
Forgetting what my life has cost
And wipe away the crimson stains
And dull the nails that still remains
More and more I need you now,
I owe you more each passing hour
The battle between grace and pride
I gave up not so long ago
So steal my heart and take the pain
And wash the feet and cleanse my pride
Take the selfish, take the weak,
And all the things I cannot hide
Take the beauty, take my tears
The sin and soaked heart and make it yours
Take my world all apart
Take it now, take it now
And serve the ones that I despise
Speak the words I can't deny
Watch the world I used to love
Fall to dust and thrown away

I look beyond the empty cross
Forgetting what my life has cost
So wipe away the crimson stains
And dull the nails that still remain
So steal my heart and take the pain
Take the selfish, take the weak
And all the things I cannot hide
Take the beauty, take my tears
Take my world apart, take my world apart
I pray, I pray, I pray
Take my world apart

Worlds Apart.

Whipping up My Energy

The other day I went to the library and took out some Tai Chi videos. I also took out two videos called Three Minutes to Power and Three Minutes to Peace by Master Lawrence Tan. The latter are videos based on the Universal form that uses a form of Kung Fu to build energy or calm yourself down, based on movements and breathing patterns that help to fuel your energy meridians.

In Eastern practices, breathing is very important. When you take in oxygen and it hitches up with the red blood cells, this creates a strong positive charge in the body. The water and tissues of the body have a strong negative charge. If you remember from your Grade 8 science class, whenever you have a positive charge and a negative charge you have energy and work potential. Think of it as a battery with its negative and positive poles. Then think of the meridians that are designated as being either yin or yang. This is just another way of saying positive or negative.

Electrical energy of the direct current kind is produced in the body and helps to cause many of its functions. There seems to be some evidence that we have both analog and digital forms of energy as well. Tai Chi and other forms of martial arts help to build the "chi" or bio-electrical energy stores of the body through the various movements that are performed. Some of the movements not only strengthen your own chi but can also be used to weaken your opponent's energy levels. I've seen this when I "unzipped" one of my sons central meridian that runs up the center of the trunk of the body. I then gave him a push that sent him flying backwards across the room, much to his and my surprise. He towers over my 5'11" with his 6'1" and muscular bulk and is considerably stronger than I am.

Anyhow, one of the things that I have trained my recticular activating system (the part of the brain that filters out stuff and brings things to your attention) to notice is subtle electrical current, especially as detected through my hands. When I was done doing some of the tai chi and the Universal form, I could feel a surge of energy in my hands and body and my mind became clear and focused. So yeah, it works.

I'm working on learning the tai chi forms as a means of stress relief and of improving my body's electrical function, as well as a means of getting in shape.

Speaking of shape, I am now into a size 14. Yeah! Still have about 25 or so pounds to go, but I'm getting there.

How to Be Diappointed in Life

"One of the best ways to have lots of disappointment in your life is to construct an image of how you would like things to be, and then try to make everything that way. You will feel disappointed as long as the world doesn't match your picture. That is one of the best ways I know of to keep yourself in a constant state of disappointment, because you are never going to get the world to match your picture. "

Frogs into Princes by Richard Bandler and John Grinder

One Heavy Burden Lifted

I can't believe how unstressed I feel now that I am no longer homeschooling. I'm ecstatic and the kids are very happy. I went to the parent/teacher open house last night and got to meet all the teachers that the children have. One of them I knew before as a homeschooler and I know she is truly gifted and called to teach.

Those of you who have had to labor for years, feeling like a square peg in a round hole will know exactly what I mean when I say that is how I felt as a homeschooler. It 's ok to go on about the high calling of homeschooling, but if you haven't got the knack of it, it makes for drudgery for everyone. It is like asking a tone deaf person to practice the piano for years in the hopes that one day they will be able to play a concert. I can teach all right. But it has to be the thing I am called to that I can teach. In my case, kinesionics and preventative health practices doesn't make for good training in phonics and math skills. And I refuse to feel guilty about it any more. Instead, I am going to concentrate on doing what I am actually skilled in and good at, and let others who are good at teaching, teach. And I'll fill in with love, understanding, and bag lunches. In fact, I feel a whole lot more understanding and loving towards my kids now that I am not being perpetually frustrated with having to teach them. I am praising God that I had a decent Christian school to send them to.

Now pray that I can finance this....

What I Did This Summer

Yeah, I know. It sounds like one of those cheesy school essays done early in September. So sue me.

My company has come and gone. [sniff!] It was fun while it all lasted, but now it is time to dig out from under the rubble of things that got shoved aside so we could all have fun and get back to the routine of school, laundry, cleaning, cooking, and daily living.

This year, school has a new meaning for me. It means FREEDOM! I've homeschooled for the last 18 years and now I am letting some people who are actually called to teach in a Christian school do it. That means I can now concentrate on being a "justa" wife and mother. Oh, and a student and kinesionics practitioner too. On the one hand, I feel like I am being an incredibly selfish person by not putting up with all the educational frustrations, total mess, and heavy workload and joylessness that I experienced over the years. Like I don't deserve any joy in life, and neither do my kids. (To all the Calvinists reading this -- I know I deserve hell and damnation, but I *am* one of the elect and therefore entitled, by grace, to joy now.)

And yeah. Socialization. I know all the arguments about why socialization at home is good for your kids when they homeschool. Truthfully, my kids have benefited from it. They all interact well with adults and kids of all ages because they weren't socialized to their peer group. Hopefully that will hold for them.

BTW, I'm not completely out of the homeschool mindset. I can't bear to part with the books yet. The kids may find them useful for homework or projects. And I will likely start teaching Elodie to read this year.

In other news, I just finished up four days of advanced training in kinesionics. I have a love/hate relationship with these courses. I love coming out of the training at the end with more tools for helping people. However, in order to get there, it is a case of "physician, heal thyself." In other words, I have to have the therapy done to me as well as practice on my classmates. This is usually good for at least one complete emotional meltdown. I cried my way home and cried my way back on at least two days. But it's all good. I'm all fixed now. [liar.]

My instructor is a rather reserved man and doesn't say too much, but I think he thinks I am doing well. The other students seem to think so, at any rate. My goal is to become as good as my instructor, and while I think I am a long way away from being that, but I intend to work hard in the next few years to move in that direction. Already I am taking my exams deeper than I had before and learning along the way. I'm also planning on branching out and taking in more education soon. I have a specialized course on nutrition and glyconutrients from the Miami University School of Medicine to finish up, and then I hope to start working on my wholistic nutrition bachelor of science from Clayton College of Natural Healing .

On other fronts: I continue to lose weight. I am planning on losing another 25 or 30 lbs and getting into seriously good shape. My elliptical trainer awaits me in the basement. I also have some tai chi videos for learning tai chi to go through, some Pilates DVD's to use, and a few other things I plan to use for accomplishing the above.

I don't have a lot of plans yet for what I plan to do with my time when the kids are in school beyond giving the house a thorough going over and instituting regular nap times for the pre-schoolers. I want to have some chill time to think things over and then decide from there what I want to do. I'm not an idle person by nature, and I hate wasting time on games and useless activities, so filling my time with profitable activities should not be a problem.

That's it for now....