Well Played, God. Well played. May 31, 2018

I've got some good news, and I've got some bad news. Depending on your situation, which is which, will be up to you.

For me, I was placed nicely in the friend zone over the weekend. The sting was more than I expected, which probably has something to do with the fact that I'm a 41 year old divorcee working in a Monastery with 141 nuns, and coming across a good guy, that doesn't smoke, doesn't have a record, doesn't have young children OR a crazy ex-wife was hard to come by. The wind was knocked out of me. And, as always, God revealed to me the one greatest truth that might as well have been tattooed on my forehead because of how blatantly simple it is. My faith leads me in almost every area of my life. Like a lot, a lot. I have prayed for God to open doors if He wants me to go through them. Which is how I ended up getting a job in a monastery in southern Indiana (which for me, my IDEAL nonprofit job was always to find a faith based organization to work for). I've prayed for things that are not of His design to be removed from my life; to protect me from things that are only meant to come and rob my peace, my faith, and my joy. I have prayed that He might bless me with a good, faith full man in my life; one that would be open to being a Foster Parent. A man that I might be able to love growing old with every single day. AND WHAM! Duh Brooke. I realized that my future, dream relationship, didn't necessarily have marriage in it (the statistics for success of a third marriage are pretty gritty). Do you see the problem yet? How on earth did I ever believe that God would place in my path something that would lead me straight into sexual immorality (sex outside of marriage in this case)????? The Village Church shares what the scriptures say about this  "It is called evil, improper, sinful, fleshly, earthly and against the will of God."  So you're telling me, that's a no on sex? Correct. Just to be clear, this is the bad news! After my initial shock and awe over that epiphany, I quickly realized that it made perfect sense. God wants what is best for me. God wants only those things that bring peace, faith, and joy into my life. God knows every one of our weaknesses. Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it abundantly. Of course I could make some sexist remark about being better off, but I'm not going to. 

If I've learned anything, it's that my God is faithful, merciful, and loving. He will shower us with blessings when we keep Him in our hearts and His commands in our lives. It's like giving money away, whether tithing or donating, God has brought it back to me, every single time. What more will He do if I should heed his commandments against sexual immorality? He will bless me in much greater ways than I could have ever even imagined. He is worthy of obeying and that is the good news.

Took an unusual turn with this one.

The Big Chill is one of my favorite movies. A long forgotten oldie, but a goodie. One of those  reunion movies of college friends.  As a sidebar, it might actually be one of the best soundtracks, EVER.
As I steer my ever restless soul towards my childhood home, it is the abundant memories that capture my thoughts. I recently went on a medical mission trip to Myanmar. Travel begets travel begets travel. Strangely, it was different this time. On the 31 hour jaunt back to the United States, I could not push aside the feeling that I needed to get home. Traveling usually sends my thoughts into saving the world and living abroad. Not this time. I finished the book "When Helping Hurts" and felt the bitter truth of it wash over me. A handout is hurtful. A hand-up, on the other hand, lifesaving. How and why that translates into me returning to middle America, I don't quite know.
My return is far less exciting than any reunion tour. Sesame Street would probably get a better turn out. I am just someone new in town. A new face with a new car. People might try to place me. Who I belong to and where I have come from. When the sun sets, all thoughts of me have shuffled on to other topics. As they should.
I, on the other hand, feel somewhat stuck in this ethereal reality of past, present and future. Who I was, I am no longer.  Who I am already seems to be morphing into my future self.  Most athletic is only good for the yearbook, not the 25 year class reunion. Favorite teachers and back road music had their place in the life of long ago. Now, I struggle with how to address the educators from my youth. Mrs. Lett, Mrs. Trout, Ms. A., Mr. Johnson. I'm not sure I could ever call them Beth, Karla, Ann, or Greg. They had too much influence to be considered an acquaintance. Their opinions, I would still hold in high esteem. And the fact that high school students now have a whole new set of inspirational teachers, seems to put their status forever and always in my memory as icons in my life story. March 24th, 2018 was a big day for students. 'March for our lives' footage from across the US was being broadcast on TV. Kids are scared. When an alarm sounds in their school, it might very well be their worst nightmare. The reason why leaves my heart and mind in a state of pure anger. Every high school student knows the classmate that is a loner, left out, and the butt of all jokes. No one wants to admit that they picked on the "weird" kid, the future school shooter. Teachers don't fess up that they could've told you which child was in need of help. What would happen if they were wrong?
Worrying that a school shooting could occur on any given school day is enough to drive change in school security. But, it hasn't made as much of an impact as one would hope. It would not be easy to go against the instinct of self preservation when there's an active school shooter. Not going to lie, I have felt that I would storm the doors and take out a shooter if given a chance. I have looked in the eyes of my niece and nephew and considered the possibility that a school resource officer would be paralyzed by the gunfire and not enter and engage the shooter. I bristle at my own judgment of the person who didn't protect and serve. My jaw is still clenched at the thought of it. The ease of which I can imagine my life being fueled by the anger at that person for the loss of either or, God forbid both of these children, scares me. If it ever happens, please, someone make sure I never buy a gun.
These are the times that we live in. High school girls and boys wonder if their emotions, thoughts, and curiosities make them the opposite gender. The whisper in society tells them that they don't need to identify as the gender they were born with. The yelling of society seems to be saying that it is wrong for them to be identified as completely male or completely female. With sexuality being pushed onto third graders, I don't see the end of school shootings anytime in the near future. When did it become such an egregious state to question what a child is thinking? Are parents not supposed to be their shelter and guidance in a storm? Lovingly accepting what he or she is going through, walking along side them, and yet still setting boundaries? I have good friends who have in fact dealt with this. A son who feels like a girl. A niece who identifies as a man. I am not degrading their choices. I do not know what I would do if I were in their shoes.  I honestly don't. As it it presented to me now, a woman without children or any real parenting experience, it is completely hypocritical of me to say this, but I've gotten this far, I can't pretend like I wouldn't have an inkling of the course of action I would take. I would love my child through and through. I would seek to understand and I would seek to guide the child into the realm of all possibilities. If one currently feels more feminine or masculine, than dissolving all gender bias would be my preference. Please, my love, exist as your perfect soul with the understanding that society, or better marketing and entertainment, weave these ideas of asexuality like spring rain clouds. My beloved, it is normal to feel like both a boy and a girl before puberty, during puberty, and even after. We are all called to find strength in the overwhelming abundance of God's duality. Enjoy your childhood, and the rest will figure itself out in due course.
Whatever the name of the generation is after the Millennial's, I just want to say you've got options that you don't need to feel forced to act on. Boy vs. Girl? How about young and happy? Let's strive to give you your best childhood.

My Almighty Father, Creator, and Savior- I pray for the peace of mind and spirit that comes with knowing oneself. May you bless each child and family struggling with this, a joyful heart and an accepting mind. Give us all grace through confusion, so that we may show grace to others through theirs. You are the author of our lives and what is good with You, is good with us. I pray this in the character and identity of Jesus Christ. Amen   

Because, you are loved.

Not every perfect day or wayward sorrowful tear is by grand design or for a traitor’s glory. Measurements of happiness and joy are the best way to feel like you don’t have either. Walking from a fanciful belief in karma and the simplicity of unattachment finds a person in complete disarray when their heart is broken into unrecognizable pieces by those that we should never feel unattached to. Painful memories make for turbulent self-talk and the best one can hope for, is to find out early that our mind and the little voice from inside is often a liar and at times deadly to our own lives. One door closes ad another opens is of no use if the doors are revolving. We can’t live on the moving walkway of life and not somehow show up late to our own truths. So much searching and seeking. Looking for the obscure in plain sight, but never finding it, because there is only one truth that matters and none of us wanted anything to do with it. Nonsense lead to whimsy and whimsy gave us the bullet for our Russian roulette life choices. Not killing another soul, nor maiming an innocent life. We propped up our own great esteem as a good person.

Heart ache, anger, and the pursuit of the good life fueled our need for instant gratification of our self-indulgences. Living by our senses, without a guidebook or even a quarter to decide by heads or tails which way to go. Half lived dreams. The ending of unbroken marriage for the sake of our future self. Living the day away in thoughts of some great, elusive ideal status. Spending years on all the wrong dreams and killing millions of possibilities for imperfect perfection. The kind of muddy, ugly, shoe prints on the carpet day, that held within its boundaries a slice of humanity and the beautiful feeling of authentic laughter. We ruin far better amounts of our lives being discouraged by the complete drabness of our hair, then moments of criticism would ever do. We fear honesty. Giving and receiving and like to uphold the false pretense that everyone we meet is interesting, kind, and worthy of a Facebook post. But you are not interesting, young lady with the overly corrected sense of self- importance. You are not interesting old man who dishes out racism in its newer forms of homophobia and the updated objectification of women. You men who lust after children and do things to them that ruin their chances of normalcy. Your greed and your abhorrent attempt to rationalize that what you do isn’t that bad. The lies of neighbors have continued on for years that no one knows anymore where one property starts and one ends. Loneliness becomes common at parties and you wonder how the world seems to have gone to hell in a handbasket. News outlets feeding the masses with prettied up dishonesty, claiming an anonymous source close to the situation. The fever of discontent leaves behind nothing but apathy for any real solutions. Caring not the time or place of death as long as it isn’t yours. Prioritizing your right to do what you want, when you want and how you want. When the reality is that most spew this priority over what they don’t want others to be able to do. Do not mention God. Do not allow anyone else to discipline your ghastly daft and obnoxious offspring. Blame it on the red dye, air pollution, or life saving vaccinations, but whatever you do don’t stand up and take a shred of responsibility for your selfish life choices and cry on and on about how you were somehow failed by society. Self-hatred could be a refreshing thing for the world if every arrogant, egomaniacal, narcissistic excuse for a human being would take it up on a daily basis. But evil would never even consider it. Too lofty in their own imaginations of how mighty they are, evil is as evil does. I’m sick of people whining and complaining. We need more gun control, we need to legalize more things that allow us to numb up and care less, we need to save the planet, the animals, the oceans. But forget all of the children without functioning parents who are raising themselves on low expectations and putting the blame on everyone else. If they could just pull themselves up by the moral superiority complex that every white, middle class American has for those in poverty, then they wouldn’t be in that awful situation. Doing enough through all the taxes they pay to help those lazy welfare slobs that wake up hungry every day and go to bed the same way. Continuing to kid themselves that they are hard working Americans and shouldn’t have to pay anyone else’s way, because no one paid theirs.

I beg to differ.

Jesus Christ paid the way for you. Oh, NOW she’s getting all religious hell fire and brimstone. You betcha. That ridiculous belief that the universe is just one Bob Ross happy accident cycling through its trajectory toward annihilation. Go ahead and continue believing that what you do or don’t do has no real consequence, as long as you don’t hurt anyone, right? Nope. Not how it works. Not even sort of. How about you look into the inspired word of God before you go about running your mouth about believers being brainwashed and mentally inferior. How about you stop “not hurting anyone” and go out and actually be of help to this world, to someone else that has a need you can fill. No, not your bartenders and waitresses, although, I’m sure they are grateful for the nice tip you gave them to save your karma for being an unbearable person to work with or worse, live with. Take your smug, elitist way of life and turn it down about a million notches, and then you might be 0.1% closer to understand the power and glory of the one true God. You will live a dead man’s life the longer you rationalize your beliefs on God as being a character in a book. Hugs and prayers don’t belong in this post. The fact is that there is truth out there. It is not new age or some fuzzy fluffy good vibes in the world. It is the truth of the Creator as evidenced by creation. It has been handed down and preserved over the millennia and answers your deepest longing for eternity. He is what fills the void of your soul. He is because He lives. You owe Him every breath you take, every word you speak, and every thought of happiness. As you return what is rightfully His. He will love your wretched soul enough to reward you 100-fold.

Because it matters

I would like to ask you to think for a moment about your thoughts on God. Can you articulate your reasoning for the beliefs you have?
I want to ask what kind of emotion you feel when you think of your beliefs and how they came to be? Do you know that a study out of Berkeley has identified 27 human emotions? When I tried to come up with a list of emotions that I know I've felt, I'm a little embarrassed at how few I could think of right off the top of my head. Happy, Sad, Mad, Scared, annoyed, grateful, --- oh yeah,you think you can do better- how many did you come up with? LOL.
I believe it must be next to impossible in society today, to be able to sit and think about a concept like God or Aliens, and do it with a clean slate. No other input but what you believe the definition for God or Alien is. Depending on our age, where we grew up, our educational level, and personal experiences with either- our entire frames of reference have already been shaped.

Do I believe in Aliens? I don't know, I mean the universe is huge, the probabilities I'm guessing would favor aliens. But I don't think I can honestly say yes or no definitively. I've never seen anything that looked like a UFO (well, one time I was about to get really freaked out, but it ended up being some rare time when the Northern Lights could be seen from Indiana). To really get clear on whether or not I believe in Aliens- there's some stuff I would need to do.. like find out who the leading "Alien" Researchers were, and which were most credible. Read various scientific articles about probabilities of other life in outer space. I would Google if their were hieroglyphs depicting UFOs and such. Let's be honest... In this day and age, no matter the topic, there will be people who exist a bit on the 'lunatic fringe' if you know what I mean. Along that spectrum of "Yes Aliens absolutely do exist to No Aliens absolutely do not exist" I would have to decide how important it is for me to know if they do or not, before I went about some deep dive into E.T. research. What does having a definitive belief in Aliens mean to me on a personal level?
Right now, a definitive belief in Aliens would probably change the way I thought about the universe and all of it's possibilities. I would definitely want to find people who also believe and compare notes before I go out and start putting myself at risk for institutionalization by discussing why I believe in Aliens! Now....if I had experienced, without a doubt, an alien life form, that would change the whole ball game.
Re-read that paragraph, and put the word God in where it currently says Alien.

Just for fun, imagine in your research for Aliens, there was a book, written by those who had encountered Aliens, or who took part in writing what they knew of the Alien encounters. The book talks about predictions that were told to some, and hundreds of years later, those predictions came true and this was repeated multiple times throughout the book for tons of different events. The message carried down through the centuries has stayed the same. The aliens were nice enough to explain some fairly significant details. One in particular being that, we are capable of having our lives altered by the Aliens. We can request things on our behalf. And having had those requests come true again and again, and knowing others who can testify to the same thing, you may still be confused about how it all actually works, but you have witnessed the truth that Aliens do exist because of their effects in your life. And get this, the Aliens want us to live full and wonderful lives. And when our body gives out, all we have had to do was know and believe they were there for us all along, and our souls will get to dip in the fountain of everlasting youth. 





I write this because it matters. Penn is correct in this video. It is time for me to beg and plead to you, please, please don't dismiss the truth of God because of the way the reference of Him has been framed in your life. Be curious. Be scientific about your research into the existence of God. Be able to have the balls to say, I don't know if God exists. Because you cannot prove that He doesn't exist,  anymore than I can prove that He does. Are you wondering why it matters? Because I have personally experienced the greatest joy in my life by drawing close to God and allowing Him to show me that he doesn't just exist, but He also gave me his Holy Spirit on top of it all to further deepen my relationship with Him. It may seem ridiculous. But I can tell you this, do you see evil in this world? Have you seen evil in the eyes of another person? Do people see evil in your eyes? Here is the definition of evil.
Evil is the absence of God in which the void is filled with malicious spiritual intent to keep you from further pursuing your rightful place, and that is in the arms of your one true Father.

If you wonder what it would feel like to have God in your life- this video does a pretty good job, Just click on the text or copy and paste this address in your search bar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyheJ480LYA

It matters, because you matter.

Light and Love and Everything to you,
Brooke

Uncommon sight

I see you. Not that I’m in your presence, not meaning that I am looking at you, but I see you. I notice. I consider myself observant. Unless I’m looking for my keys and that’s a whole other issue. I find that people just don’t see anymore. I guess you could say we are window shopping in life. We avert our eyes, lost in a superficial need to check the time, the phone, the lint on our shirt. It’s as if we all have herd immunity from relationships. That’s what it boils down to. Fear that making eye contact will result in a spark of humanity that would send our world into chaos. Relationship, as defined by the Brooke-Albertson-Dictionary for extraordinary adults, is a mutual realization of a connected existence. Shocking that it isn’t a four-letter word because that might be more fitting.

I’m actually not desiring to talk about relationships, but unity. Unity, as defined by the B-A-Dictionary for extraordinary adults, is a mutual realization of a connected existence, but different. In my most recent foray into changing the world by being changed, I came face to face with a stupidly ridiculous concept… Picture the hearts of the millions of Christians in the United States without the labeled wall of their house of worship, wrapped around them. Imagine every sweet soul who sponsors a child in a foreign nation or donates to the homeless shelter down the street. Or better yet, imagine the eyes of a child looking on to see the sadness of a broken world. How unstoppable could we be, if for just one day we worked in unison for the betterment of our connected existence? 24 hours of united lives reaching toward others to provide eyes that really see them. Not looking away. Not rolling our eyes up as if doing some elaborate math problem. Or the stretched-out neck apparently searching for something in the distance. Imagine if we stopped and saw the millions of children that go to bed hungry every night or met the lonely eyes of an abused immigrant. What might possibly happen if every church in your city, or my city, or my state decided that in the next 24 hours we were going to find a solution for those who are hungry today. What might be the outcome if every congregation, living the commandment of Jesus Christ- to love God, and to love each other as ourselves, ACTUALLY DID IT! Every collection plate, donated dollar, and volunteered minute united for a span of 24 hours, to do uncommon things for uncommon circumstances. We could raise up the chins of the down trodden, look them in the eye, and say “I see you. I’m here to help.”

We could.

I could.

I will.

Will you?

So there I was...: January 28, 2017

So there I was...: January 28, 2017: I have a cat that purrs so loud I kinda wonder if she's on speed. I have 2 cats from the humane society in Phoenix, Az. They are siste...

January 28, 2017

I have a cat that purrs so loud I kinda wonder if she's on speed.
I have 2 cats from the humane society in Phoenix, Az. They are sisters. My former step-children picked them out. I miss them- the step-children that is. I loved them being in my life.
Life is not always a smooth, logical chain of breaths. It is majestic in so many ways. To glimpse a memory that comes full circle- the face that I loved so much. Man, it's hard to think about. Damn.
He was so much to me. He really had my whole heart. I was all in and I was all in knowing that it was just shy of a good idea to be so. Nobody that knows me well wants to hear this story. They know the darkest sides of it. The broken, jagged edges, are difficult to work around.
He was a great singer. I remember the first time he sang softly in my ear. His voice and his arms were perfect. We laughed a lot. We loved a lot and fought a lot. It wasn't fighting about suspicions, jealousy, money. It was because of the hurting of a disappointed heart,
To look back now, I want to say that every disappointment, every time I fell short, were causes of justifiable pain and heartache. I felt that way at the time. I felt crushed that my words, actions, inactions, or even slight assumptions were such painful weapons. I never meant to be so careless with his heart.
The only problem was that I wasn't any of those things. I loved the only way I knew how and that means it didn't fall short and he received that love the only way he knew how, no matter his manipulation of it all.
Are we all destined to be so wounded? To see judgment when we are loved? To refuse truth when it is given to us? To believe not just the bad things thought over our souls but the good things too?
As time continues on, etching a river through my soul- I am faced with my historical past and my present heart. My greatest first love- enduring the untimely and unexpected death of his brother, has opened the space where I've kept him the last 25 years. Trying to dismiss any responsibility that I could've ever possibly had for bringing pain into his life, because my leaving was supposed to prevent that any further, I feel at a loss. Maybe no one will believe me when I say that he was everything to me then.
I felt it was the only way it could be. It wasn't the age difference. I found nothing wrong in him or who he was to me. What came into focus for me was that this beautiful soul deserved a strong and unwavering foundation from which the dreams of life could burst through. I would surely be the last person to provide that. I thought of the family we might have had. I thought of the inevitable failures I would make him endure and those potential disappointments corrupted my heart. I would surely destroy him and facing that possibility I became resolute to never do such a thing to this man. Maybe in self-preservation or some other coping mechanism, I would see the forest for the trees and the outlines of life wouldn't be so fuzzy.
From my first love to my last marriage I can now see such an obvious common thread. Not sure how I never saw it before. Or maybe I have seen it and just stopped noticing it. Like wearing a watch. Maybe you see it from these few words, maybe you don't- it's there- like background noise that goes unnoticed. 
It's a core belief. You have them about yourself; various ideas that have literally built your personality and the very way you interact with the world and people around you. When, where, why and how your personal core beliefs came into being is extremely person specific.
So what core belief have I been operating from in every relationship in my life so far? responsibility of disappointment
I have loved and left for fear of being disappointed, as well as for the fear of being a disappointment. All the while holding firmly onto being the sole person responsible for being disappointed or for disappointing. Not a disappointment on the scale of a rainy day during your vacation, but disappointment on a far more tragic level. I have held the belief that I had to be lovable. BE. To be, to experience being- it presumes a state different then what "not being" is. If I could be, then ultimately I could not be as well.
Common thread might be the wrong word. Maybe more like barbed wire.
How much we learn in all these things. Such is life. We are the walking wounded which is a great testament to who we all are. The spectrum of the human experience leaves nothing untouched. We are capable of such tremendous thought and emotion. Colors of a sunset, the night sky at my parents house, the taste of creme brulee, laugh lines, love letters, silliness with children, having the opportunity to be there for a friend in need, the searing torture of being betrayed, hopelessness, and emptiness- a list of miracles for any heart that has life streaming through it. Miracles of movement, set in motion by chance. How can that possibly be? How could something as powerful as love be created out of thin air? In what part of the Big Bang did butterflies in our stomachs come from? Where in our universe did the gaping void of loss generate its ability to strengthen one's soul? If humanity has bloomed up out of accidental algae, tell me then how a soul can know it's own existence? Tell me how an explosion can eventually lead to something being a disappointment? It's exquisite. This life we have been blessed to live. Truly exquisite.