The Buried Life

I like jars (oh, and he likes lemonade in case you have forgotten). I like jars so much that I repurpose them. I repurpose just about any glass jar type out there. So far, I’ve repurposed a jar to the following themes: snowmen, fishing, soccer, musical notes, birds, and various names and/or initials. Sometimes I wonder if this is just silly and possibly dangerous.

The times I specifically wonder are when I am watching one of those “hoarding” shows. For some reason I cannot fully understand, I get concerned I will end up with 17,295 jars in my 800 sq. ft. rental with every intent in the world to repurpose as a gift for someone…because we all know how many people MUST be lining up to receive a jar from me!

I’ve watched this show semi-regularly for about a year. I am always both disturbed and disheartened by the plight of the sufferer or “hoarder” on the show. There is almost always a defining moment that transformed some sort of collection activity to an obsession and usually tied in with severe and traumatic loss of a loved one. I’ve been thinking about defining moments and how they can (but don’t have to) overwhelm us or bury us in different ways. I’ve also been thinking about how our own actions further deepen the depth of our condition.

There are some specific ways we bury our life unnecessarily. I’ve listed some below but I bet we can come up with numerous others.

• We bury ourselves with worry
• We bury ourselves with our destructive behavior
• We bury ourselves with isolation
• We bury ourselves with our selves and our selfish desires
• We bury ourselves in our work

It seems to me that the more I let myself be buried by those things I listed above, the less likely I am to acknowledge the wonderful people around me that motivate me to make those cutesy jars to begin with! In addition, I marvel at the fact that Jesus likes to think of us as jars. 2 Corinthians 4:7 says that “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” (ESV).

This is the buried life we should live – to know that within each of us is treasure, even though sometimes it seems hidden. The power of God reveals it, if we let Him. The only kind of “buried life” I want to live is the one I chose when I decided to follow Jesus…

Romans 6:4: We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (ESV)

And so we can walk in newness of life instead of a buried life! I like that; I like that a lot! I invite you along and hey, I might even make you a jar! I will fill yours up with jellybeans...

Furiously Fasting for Donuts

(Warning: may not be suitable for those that have cravings of the circular sweet and delightfully cakey kind)

Those close to me can tell you I typically prefer green juice to sweets any day. Yes, I am weird like that and perfectly okay with it. There is something magical about this green beverage with its sprouts, kiwi, broccoli, green apples, celery, lime…As I used to tell the Original Hooligans and The Hooligans when they were small – “Yummy, yummy in my tummy”. Every once in a while, however, and as Muscles sometimes says, I get a hankering for something sweet. This past Saturday night, I got a hankering for a Krispy Kreme chocolate cake donut. Lucky for me, the closest Krispy Kreme is only a few miles from my house and on the way to and from Triple M’s house. Unluckily for my thighs, the closest Krispy Kreme is only a few miles from my house and on the way to and from Triple M’s house.

For those of you not familiar with Krispy Kreme donuts, they are like a guilty pleasure with glaze. Now, it’s amusing that my guilty pleasure (S-E-X and the get out of her my people) showcased this on one of their episodes. I can’t go into the episode here because then this will turn from G, or possibly PG to not so PG quickly. My favorite donut is the chocolate cake donut, with glaze, of course.

As I normally do on Saturday evenings, I was spending some much needed quality time with my favorite super hero, Triple M. I think Triple M would agree that I don’t ask for a lot. I am neither neurotic in my requests nor demanding. Somehow, though, when I do ask for something, my timing is impeccably inappropriate. It’s a gift; what can I say.

On the way to my house from Triple M’s house (by the way, his house is always appropriately impeccable), I saw the light! I literally saw the light…of the Krispy Kreme storefront all lit up! I asked if I could pretty please with wonderful glaze on top have a chocolate cake donut. “Are you sure? It’s so packed”, announced Triple M. Now, “Are you sure?” in Triple M dialect means, “I love you but I really would rather listen to Sara Groves than pull into a ridiculously packed small parking lot on a Saturday night…” I very whiningly said we didn’t have to but what a nice opportunity it would be if we did then he could teach me how to make a left turn on this busy complicated street (batting my dark chocolate brown eyes). I don’t ask for a lot, so to the turning lane he goes.

From this moment on, words cannot eloquently explain what happened next so you have to visualize it in terms of awesome cars like a Charger a la Fast and the Furious. He gets in the left turn lane with another car approaching head on to turn the opposite way. Triple M then moves over rather quickly (think my nails on the dashboard by now) and back around that car to make a left turn. He turns…almost unto vehicles leaving or at least attempting to leave the parking lot. Triple M tries to go through the drive-through and then rethinks this when there are literally about ten cars ahead of us…no room to park either. What happens next, is kind of a blur but it involves him backing out while a car is pulling in the lot behind us, turning around to turn left across three lanes of traffic. He did it by zig zagging between a few cars then says, “that’s how you turn left here…”

I was speechless, which was a good thing because from the looks of my Racer, he was in no mood to, well, for anything! We drove the rest of the few miles to my place without any sort of donut, not even a sprinkled one (insert sad face here). Triple M did offer to stop at a convenience store and get a donut, but you know, it’s just not the same. And that’s how I ended up fasting for a donut on a Saturday night.

Don’t fret friend! The story has a happy ending. We stopped by Krispy Kreme on the way to his house on Sunday afternoon. You didn’t think my super hero would fail me, did you? He never does. It’s always a circular way to a sweet delightful ending.