I’ve had times in my life where strangers and friends admired me for my courageous nature. My first name literally means Warrior Woman (or Warrior Maiden). Stand back world, get thee behind me Satan I was built to conquer. And yet life has a way of washing over you like tidal waves and the next thing you know your beach is two feet wide and you have little left but your sticks and a couple of burnt bricks to call home. Your grasping at the edges of your tattered dreams, wandering dangerously close to the edge of permanent mediocrity and no one is there telling you to turn around and go the other way.

One of my favorite passages is from the book of Job chapter 14 –

7″For there is hope for a tree,
When it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
And its shoots will not fail.
8″Though its roots grow old in the ground
And its stump dies in the dry soil,
9At the scent of water it will flourish
And put forth sprigs like a plant.
10″But (J)man dies and lies prostrate
Man (K)expires, and where is he?
11″As (L)water evaporates from the sea,
And a river becomes parched and dried up,
12So (M)man lies down and does not rise.
Until the heavens are no longer,
He will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep.

I always focus on those first two verses. The beauty of how little it takes to bring a tree back to life. But then I read on and see the finality of death in the realm of mortal man and something about that speaks to me as well. Even so, with my mustard seed in hand I know I serve a God that can cross that chasm of finality and bring anyone or anything back to life again. So God breathe on the dying embers of my courage. And breathe on the smoking wick of my dreams. Spirit of God, come from the four winds and breathe on all that is slain in me, so I may live!

I remember the day she opened them. A brand new set of dishes, Mikasa in a beautiful pattern. She seemed really grateful and even possibly slightly giddy about her birthday gift. A mother of six that spent her twenties and thirties giving up the comforts of American life for the often harsh realities of life on the mission field; she delighted in this every day item that had special meaning for her. She wasn’t just thinking of entertaining once in awhile. She was finally looking at a complete set of matching, quality dishes; one large enough to accommodate the family she loved to serve.

When the call came to return to the nations, uproot yet again and move to the other side of the planet she resolved with a quiet assurance to follow her husband and respond to the Lord with grace and faith. Only this time it would be a little different because a container with some of their belongings and many wonderful donations to help us establish a new missions base would come with. The dishes were making their first missionary journey and so was I.

Months of preparation Stateside followed by months of hard work on the island were both very difficult and very rewarding at the same time. All along the dishes were doing their job, serving the family, serving the team and delighting the mother that made sure they were neat, clean and put back in their places each time we used them for Sabbath meal (Shabbat) on Friday nights. Except for the occasional broken dish.

Have you ever dropped a plate on a linoleum floor and watched it spin and settle without a crack, a chip or even a hint at breaking? Take that same plate and drop it on a cement floor covered only by ceramic tile and suddenly you have not one plate but 1,000 slivers. It was I, I that broke that plate. And that bowl. And the cup too ma’am.

It seemed every time I turned around I was slowly but surely, ahem, chipping away at the precious Mikasa collection. She was gracious. Understanding. Starting to get concerned actually – not so much about her dishes but about my outrageous reaction. Extreme guilt, excessive apologies. Unrelenting prayers for forgiveness, constantly striving for atonement. It was sooooo not about the dishes. She sat me down as she did often and gave me a little inspirational talk. Somehow the dishes gave her a clue, ahh but not the dishes themselves, the Lord that speaks through every day mundane things and opens our eyes to see what is going on behind the scenes. She told me I was never truly sorry for my sins against my family because I felt that I had been punished above and beyond the crime every time I got in trouble and I began to use another scale other than the Word to judge my own actions. I was furious.

Not sorry? Did she mean I wasn’t sorry about breaking her precious dishes? What is she talking about? Tears unbidden streaming down my face, hands clenched I ran from the room. She came to the bathroom door and knocked and asked me if I was ok. Ok? Sure, you just opened up the biggest wound in my heart, the one that no matter how much I fast, or pray or prophesy or do wonders it just won’t go away. And you want to know if I am ok? I told her I was fine. I ran out the front door, and down the road. Somewhere along the way I strayed into a nearby field. And I found an old fallen tree and sat down. Sobbing, heaving chest and snot everywhere I began to pray.

He was there. I looked up and I was no longer sitting in that field alone. I was watching Jesus take the blows, the lashes on his back. I continued to sob and through my tear-filled eyes I saw him take the nails, his feet and his wrists pierced. Justice being poured out for the sins that were sinned against….me. Some obscure Vineyard worship song was playing in the corner of my mind:

I know a place
A wonderful place
Where confused and condemned
find mercy and grace
Where the wrongs we have done
and the wrongs done to us
were nailed there with Him,
nailed on the cross

At the cross
He died for my sin
At the cross
He gave us life again

In less than an hour I had seen the harsh realities of my difficult childhood in painstaking clarity flashing through my mind, and almost immediately the answer of answers was staring me in the face. I knew that justice had been served. Not just for me, but for all that had or would be done against me. The cross was not a story or an easter play or the red letter edition bible. It was the mediator between those that had caused me pain and the God that loved me enough to punish His son for what they had done and what I had done. Self-righteousness fled in the presence of such revelation. Un-forgiveness could find no hold on my heart. I was free. I was more free than the birds soaring overhead. I was a soul that could be caged by my past no longer.

I wish I could tell you I never broke another one of those Mikasa dishes. I’m pretty sure I did. But I was not only genuinely sorry I was genuinely able to be forgiven and to forgive myself. I think if you asked her today how she felt about all the dishes I broke she’d probably tell you that they were not nearly as precious as the life that was changed by the breaking.

According to Wikipedia “Christian mysticism is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of the Christian God through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight. Christian mysticism usually centers on a practice or practices intended to nurture those experiences or awareness, such as deep prayer (ie. meditation, contemplation) involving the person of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. This approach and lifestyle is distinguished from other forms of Christian practice by its aim of achieving unity with the divine. Whereas Christian doctrine generally maintains that God dwells in all Christians and that they can experience God directly through belief in Jesus, Christian mysticism aspires to apprehend spiritual truths inaccessible through intellectual means, typically by learning how to think like Christ.”

I do not agree with a brand of faith that incorporates multi-faceted Jesus’s that could also be called Buddha, Allah or the All Seeing Eye. Yet I can’t escape the fact that the way in which we recognize Him, experience Him and embrace Him might include some diversity. You may not agree with the mystic approach to Christianity at all. Then again you might eschew all but the most ethereal paths of righteousness.

For the sake of this blog and future posts about supernatural occurrences, personal experiences involving the unseen realm and references to what some may consider as fringe Christian practices I will agree to disagree with those that like their Jesus to remain in red letters on the pages of a King James version bible. I am not interested in giving an apologetic defense to the reader or even at times an in depth explanation of the hows and the whys of what I share. I am simply offering slices of my life for those that choose to digest such morsels.

Is mysticism for the masses? I am inclined to think it is not. Is mysticism for you? Keep reading and you might find out.

Pizza Hut, admittedly, is not my favorite pie. Not even my favorite commercial pie. But c’mon – the promise of no hidden costs would probably inspire me to buy just about anything. You could have freely modified your pizza to suit your taste needs and without having paid $30.00 for a small pizza. Straightforward pricing; that means you get the value while you savor the flavor. But I missed it. And probably so did most of you.

I say we storm the gates. We ban together and we show them (those corporate Pizza giants) that they can’t pitch a sale like that for a measly two weeks and then take it away in the blink of an eye. We are taking back the pizza of our forefathers. I’m calling for a pizza revolution. Any pizza, any crust, any size, any topping ANY TIME for $10. The hidden pizza costs are burdening our economy like nothing else and we are tired of it. We are sick and tired of it. We are ready for change. Join the Pizza Revolution today!

Disclaimer: This blog is solely intended for the purpose of humor and is in no way a directive other implied or stated to encourage aggressive actions against pizza workers worldwide.

That is not to say I can’t tell the difference between a good pie and a leftover frozen cardboard circle with a few bits of cheese still stuck on it. I just believe in finding the good in every slice. The pepperoni at the end of every rainbow. (I know, I know it’s not kosher but it certainly enhances a piece of New York Style extra cheese please). And even among the frozen chosen there are some stellar examples of pizza done right.

My all time favorite would have to be Mystic Pizza. Remember that movie with Julia Roberts from somewhere back in time? Well that is a real place in Connecticut or New Hampshire or Rhode Island (sure I could Google it but I don’t want to squash your research abilities) or Vermont. And they are still serving up hot pies for weary travelers or late night victory parties or family dinners on Friday nights when mom doesn’t feel like cooking. To top it all off (little Pizza lingo for you there) they are so good at what they do, people will travel from states near and far to experience the zesty goodness of the secret ingredients in Mystic Pizza.

Cue the angels singing and birds chirping: Can’t make it to upstate somewhere on the East Coast tonight? Check out your local grocery store in the frozen pizza aisle. That in itself amazes anyone that has spent any time outside the continental U.S. – we have an entire aisle devoted to frozen pizza. But I digress. Mystic Pizza has debuted its frozen pies and they far surpass any other frozen pizza I have tried in the categories of flavor and freshness. No folks they aren’t the largest pizzas on the block. Not necessarily the most aesthetically appealing packaging and for the size of the pizza the price is a little higher than you might be entirely comfortable with. Indulge me; enjoy a few succulent bites and you are transported to an old fashioned pizza joint with the nice silver platters raised high above the table and Julia Roberts is roaming around in a red checkered apron.