We've got to get ourselves back to the garden

Church was especially awesome today even though we were late. People came up from the audience to read pieces of Psalm 32 while our church's house band played a smokey bluesy song that reminded me strangely of CSNY's Woodstock. Interestingly enough, the readings lead into a sermon on Genesis and the Garden of Eden, and the song has a line something like: "We've got to get ourselves back to the garden." I've always thought that was possibly (at least in my interpretation, not necessarily CSNY) a biblical reference to wanting to leave all the bombs and wars and mess of a world behind for paradise where it all began. A place that where pain, hunger, and suffering were never part of the plan. Can you imagine? Someday, my friend.

Spent the afternoon sans kids (thank you Shawn and Jenn!) We were supposed to go see Love Janis at the Alley, but naturally it was the last show and had been sold out for weeks. Whoops. We took our yucky Pei Wei (I've vowed to never eat there again) across the street to eat by the waterfalls and then went and saw Charlie Wilson's War at the Angelika. Great movie with fantastic writing. Philip Seymour Hoffman was ridiculously good.

Then we met over at Shawn and Jenn's for sushi. Rick almost got mauled by a neighbor's dog, who actually turned out to be super cool. The neighbor, not the out of control dog. The kids played and watched a movie. Jenn and I drove over to the awesome Fiesta in their hood. Imagine beautiful produce, raw and organic food at Fiesta prices, it was a recipe for a party for me and Jenn. We even thew in a girl bawling sisterhood bonding time in her car, when I had a little breakdown.

All I can say is that my Bible study is kicking my butt and I'm seeing myself in a whole new light. It's good and it's bad, but it's nothing God can't fix. A little Jesus goes a long way.

I went to the desert on a horse with no name

I love the idea of Lent; going into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, just you and God--the way Jesus did. Into the wilderness to go on a journey, in which you will inevitably die to your old self and your old way of looking at life. That's the point, to make a space for a period of time to sacrifice and to contemplate your exsistence. To sacrifice and do without, in an effort to remove the barriers that keep you from seeking God and enjoying his presence.

So what am I giving up? I'm giving up two things: only one of which I have thus far been successful at. I am giving up a little extra sleep every morning to set aside time to be with God. So far, I've yet to get up! I am pretty lazy when it comes to mornings when it's still dark and outside the warmth of my blanket, it's cold, cold, cold. I'm going to keep trying though, and not beat myself up about it. The second thing is that I'm not allowed to look at real estate on har.com, which I'm addicted to. I even had to go into the site the other day, and resist pulling up a search and instead disabling my 10 email notifications so I wouldn't be tempted. Kind of sad...

I spent Ash Wednesday at my church with old friends and newly-made friends; it was a beautifully sacred service. The one little distraction was this girl that was sitting behind us. You know the one, she sings beautifully and as uninhibited as if she's in her shower. The one that takes a basic song with two ranges (high for the girls, low for the boys) and she's going up and down and all around it with all kinds of Joss-meets-Christina action.

Clearly, I was jealous. And a little miffed because worship is my favorite part of church. The way I can come in feeling like crap, then the music lets my soul dance with the Holy Spirit and I leave refreshed. But I was stuck on my jealousy and the fact that I couldn't sing the songs because all I could hear was her voice. If I can't hear my voice, I am not able to find the notes to sing, so I just kind of whispering and mouthing the words.

It was like Satan was sitting there telling me that I should quit my voice lessons because I would never sing like that no matter how hard I worked. I'd like to say that I rose above, and ignored him. But I spent the rest of the service pretty well locked on my jealousy and curiosity at who had the gorgeous voice behind me. Turns out, I think, it was one of two people. One girl is sweet, and a little reserveed so I'm not sure that she would be singing so loud. The other was a girl that I've never really met, but she was at our women's retreat, and is it catty to say that I had found her a bit obnoxious? Guess who I think was the one singing?

Shallow, I know, to say the least. Guess me and God have our work cut out in the desert!

As I type this, on a Saturday night, my neighborhood is filled with the sounds of cars rushing down the busy street that runs beside our street and Tejano cranked up just right. Sometimes I really love our house.