Finding God in the Herky Jerky

I was asked to write about 9/11. In doing so, I have realized it is very hard for me to write on a topic that is not my choice. :)

I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you; I will praise your name, O LORD, for it is good. Psalm 54:6

"So, I went for a jog around the lake on a beautiful, sunny afternoon last week. It was a gorgeous day, one of those perfect experiences that somehow becomes ingrained in your memory as a moment of total sensory satisfaction. The sun was shining at an angle in the sky that brilliantly lit up the day, yet the strategically-placed fluffy, white clouds graciously ricocheted its strong rays away from my delicate pupils. Its warmth spread across my skin, causing my arms and shoulders to radiate heat. But before it got too hot, a regulating breeze would stir, lifting the wisps of hair hanging from my ponytail, cooling my neck. And there was not a drop of humidity that day. (I think that is what heaven must be like - no humidity).

"As I ran, I took in my surroundings. I was jogging on a path canopied by beautiful summer foliage. If I was well-versed in horticulture, I would be able to say something poetic like: "The cream and crimson blooms of flowering dogwoods burst open like exploding fireworks, back dropped by the eastern redbuds and mulberry bushes dotting the landscape." But I'm not a botanist. And so, I did see trees and they had green leaves and brown trunks and they were stunningly beautiful, waving in the wind, seeming to greet me with a "Hello!" as I ran past.

"When I reached the bridge, I noticed the sun shining out across the lake, the light's reflections glittering on the surface like diamonds. To the left of me in the water I saw two Canadian geese, their heads forward and wings back, launching out of the lake in some kind of aviary drag race – from zero to airborne in 2.2 seconds. I saw people of every year, make and model, strolling and running and biking past me. My heart, buoyant by the day's beauty, brought a smile to my face as I passed each one and wished them well.

"On picture book days like this, even when dodging the occasional softserve-esque swirls of duck poo on the path, it is easy to see God and His goodness. It seems quite natural (albeit cheesy) to watch the dogs parading past: the pit bull (how wide), the dachshund (how long), the greyhound (how high), the mastiff (how deep-[voiced]), and be reminded of God's love for me (Eph 3:17-19). It seems simple to watch the black and yellow lizard with the electric blue tail zigzagging across the bridge railing and be filled with praise for the color and creativity of God. And when watching a gaggle of turtles congregating together on a log to soak up some sun, it is almost inclination, I believe, to thank God for making turtles, with their teeny, tiny, little turtle heads poking out of their army green, tiled shells, looking all cute and...uh...turtley? On days like this day, when everything seems so perfect and glorious, I remember the song Make a Joyful Noise, where David Crowder sings: "Every ocean, every sea, every river, every stream, every mountain, every tree, every blade of grass will sing…make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth…" Because on days like this day around the lake, I can clearly see that this is indeed what creation does - creation sings out to their Creator, giving Him glory and praise, because this is what they were made for. At least it seems that way on good days.

"On the other side of the spectrum, there are the Very Bad Day Indeeds. Days when your own personal tragedy strikes, such as the loss of a loved one. Or maybe something global, where the world gets sucker punched and has the wind knocked out of it. And we collectively stop for a moment, to recover and learn to breathe again. Today is the fifth anniversary of one of those Very Bad Days. And during these kinds of days, it can become much harder for me to see God in the short-term. With the loss of lives and the fear that settles into each of us and the nagging question of WHY? But I think that after the initial shock of tragedy, people begin to unite in amazing ways, either over Elton John’s lyrical memorial to the Very Bad Day (just how many times can A Candle in the Wind be rewritten?) or more importantly, in the strength provided through their faith.

"I was not a Christian during 9/11. And I tried to calm myself by appealing to patriotism and activism, not having anything else to call on. Now that I am a believer, tragedy that strikes seems different than before. It can be hard for me to remember that God is here in the middle of a bombed building or a treacherous tsunami, but I know that scripture says that He will never leave us (Deut 31:6), and that He is good and all He does is good (Psalm 119). So, while I initially feel shaken, I eventually seem to arrive at the end of myself and my own attempts at control and my own ability to hope, and BOOM – there is God. And it feels comforting, almost, I dunno, noble (?) to maintain faith in the midst of great despair, in this resignation that while I might not understand, I choose to trust my God. But what it boils down to, is that even in the tragedy, I can usually, eventually, see God in the mix.

"But in an average life, I think the Very Good Days and the Very Bad Day Indeeds are not the norm. I think the majority of days are the Eh Days. The Blah Days. The "Time To Make the Donuts" days. These repetitive hamster-running-on-a-wheel churning 'round and 'round days. Dave Matthews writes about these days in his song Ants Marching: 'He wakes up in the morning. Does his teeth, bite to eat and he's rolling. Never changes a thing, the week ends, the week begins…' Oh, these days, these weeks, these months, these years. They begin to run together and I think God sometimes gets lost in the monotony.

"Or maybe the days that are even more disconcerting are the ones I wish were just boring. Instead, these are days filled not with life and death issues, but with the smaller unpleasentries that just begin to build: maybe you’ve got a job interview in an hour and your car won't start, or you accidentally sit down in melted chocolate while wearing light-colored pants and your backside looks like a Rorschach ink blot test, or you and your boyfriend break up, or it's picture day and you've woken up with two new craters on your face the size of Milwaukee, or you're running late and you’ve somehow managed to hit every red light between here and there, or you've got a cold and your nose is producing much more mucous than a nose should be able to manufacture, or you haven't had sleep in days and there is no end in sight. Days where even when I can manage to pull my sad self up off the couch to run around the lake, there is more duck poo in the path than not, and the clouds open wide (on purpose, I'm quite sure!), pouring down rivulets of rain which infiltrates my newly purchased 30GB video iPod, viciously intentional about killing and destroying each and every .mp3 in it's path. And it always seems to me during these times, that everyone else's lives are going just wonderfully, which makes my injustices seem all the more insulting. Well, on these days, momma ain't so happy. And momma starts to whine and complain. In the middle of days like this, I have somehow forgotten that God is still God, and that God is still good, because I have taken my attention off God and focused it all onto my sad, pathetic, victim self. 'Boo-hoo,' I say! 'Poor me!'

"But I guess the real challenge is to find God in these moments too. Because when all is said and done, despite the annoying car troubles, and your friends nicknaming you Miss Poo-Poo McChocolate Pants, and dealing with ex-boyfriend drama, and the unfairness of having to preserve in history the Day O' Massive OppoZits, and dodging poorly timed traffic lights, and tidal waves of snot, and lack-of-sleep hysteria, and duck-poo-scented shoes on your feet, and the sloshing sound of my iPod as I run, the truth, while sometimes hard to see, is that God is still in His heaven and all is (mostly) right with the world. I just wish I could remember that when in the thick of it.

"Psalm 54:6 says - I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you; I will praise your name, O LORD, for it is good. And I guess this is what I need to master - this ability to praise God always. Not just when life is perfect and it is easy to do. That is a habit learned early on in one’s walk because it is human nature to praise when things are good. And not just when life is so horrid that all our self-serving options have been taken away and God is all the hope we have left to cling to, although I’m sure that praise is mighty fine too. But instead, I want to better learn to praise God in the herky-jerky, when praise feels like a sacrifice, when life sorta stinks and I feel alone and un-unified in the fight and there is nothing God can do but shrug His shoulders and smile His knowing God smile and say all crypticly, 'My dear, you will never understand it in this lifetime.' And, so, it's in these moments when I most need to learn to call on my meager supply of faith, to suck it up, grit my teeth, hook my thumbs in the belt loops of my McChocolate pants and exclaim, 'LORD, I will praise your name, for it is GOOD!'"

*Author neither confirms or denies that \n she ever wore Poo-Poo McChocolate Pants.