Thunder Up

Well...it's finally happened.


I suppose it was inevitable.


Bound to happen eventually.


But after 2 1/2 seasons of holding back - standing off  - remaining aloof...

I've become emotionally invested in the Thunder.

I actually care whether they win or lose.

I've lived my entire life without giving one flip about the NBA.   

But now....

I care. 

Dangit.

I was merely mildly enthusiastic at the news a few summers ago that the Seattle Supersonics were moving to OKC. 

I thought, "Well, isn't that nice.  Good for Oklahoma City."

And when they had a lousy first season, it didn't bother me at all.

And when their second season was a huge success, taking them to the playoffs, I was happy. 

But not stoked by any stretch of the imagination.

I did enjoy seeing my hometown united around one team - since that never happens because of the statewide rift between OSU and OU fans.

When the Thunder lost in the first round to the Lakers, I just went on with my spring, not bothered at all.

You should probably know that right now, as I'm writing this, I'm listening to the Thunder game online.  They're in the 2nd overtime against the Wizards, a vastly inferior team.

And I'm nervous.

I feel it in my stomach.

Dangit...again.

You see...I'm already emtionally invested in a team.  My team is the Cowboys from Oklahoma State University.  I love them.  I feel deeeeeep love for them.  I've spent countless Saturdays at football games -  loving them.  I watch whatever they do on TV if I'm not able to be there in person.  

And when the Cowboys win,  I'm happy.  Check that. I'm not happy.  I'm ecstatic.  Everything in my life is good when the Cowboys win.

And when the Cowboys lose, I'm miserable.  I'm nauseated.  I feel like crying, but can never cry.  I want to hide.

So I don't know how I can have any emotional strength to give to the Thunder.  I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Until then, I'm considering myself a reluctant Thunder fan. 

Oh, by the way.  The Thunder just won in 2 overtimes. 

Everything in my life is good for the rest of the night.

Then Sings My Soul...

I was raised on hymns. 
Good, old-fashioned, Southern Baptist hymns. 
I think I know them all. 

 "I can name that hymn in 3 notes".  That's what I'd say if there was a game show called "Name that Hymn".  I'm positive I'd win a million dollars on that show.

This is a hymnal.  It's a book that contains over 500 songs.  It has the words and the music. 

Just clarifying for anyone younger than 30...




 because churches don't use them much anymore.  All the words to the congregational songs are projected onto big screens.  And you have to guess how the tune goes.

I remember in second grade having a Sunday School Hymn Memorizing Contest.  It was a piece of cake for me.  I didn't beat anybody.  It wasn't that kind of contest.  Just the kind where you see how many hymns you can memorize and you get a star on a chart for every hymn you learned. And probably a piece of candy.   I know I memorized "I Love Thee".  That's hymn #75 in the Baptist Hymnal.

See...I'm kind of musical.  I say "kind of" because I'm more muscial than the average person, but I know several people who are waaaayyy more musical than I am.  So that makes me "kind of".  Let's just say learning songs has always been easy for me. 

And it helped (as far as hymns go) that I was at the church "every time the doors were open"  - as they say.  That was my family's thing.  Church and church activities.  And when you're at church, you sing hymns.

This is the church where I grew up.  Olivet Baptist Church in OKC.

 This is the view that will be eternally etched in my mind.  The pipes, the baptistry, the oak paneling. 

This is the view I would have on the occasions when I

had to sing a solo. 

 

 

Yikes!

And this is my precious preacher.  I called him "preacher",

but his name is Ralph.

Now - hymns often don't mean much to kids.  The songs have strange words and phrasing that are beyond the average 8 year old's understanding.  That doesn't mean that the words don't stick in the memory.  They did in mine.  As a child I could sing dozens of hymns and have no idea what I was saying most of the time.  A girl I grew up with thought the chorus to "Victory in Jesus" said "He socked me and bocked me".

Let me get to my point.  The hymns I learned as a child are one of my greatest treasures.  I could have never understood back then what a gift the church was giving me in those sacred verses.  Age and experience gave me the key to unlock the mysteries of the verses I had sung hundreds of times in my life.  So today the message of the hymns ministers to me the way the authors most likely meant for them to. 

Here is the 3rd verse to one of my favorite hymns, "The Love of God".  This verse ranks number one for me in all of hymndome.

Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above, would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.

Finished...finally

I finally finished my traditional Christmas vacation jigsaw puzzle this week.  It was a doozy.  When it wasn't finished by the time my vacation was over, I knew it would be a while before it was done.  I'm too tired or too busy to work on a jigsaw puzzle when I'm working. 

I actually did three puzzles over the holidays.  First a medium, then a small, and finally the big one - 1500 pieces.

Here is the big one finished.  It was a weird picture that was supposed to illustrate over 200 adages and sayings.  I didn't figure out most of them.

And here is a closeup of the mysterious missing piece.

The mysterious missing piece happens so often that I actually suspect the puzzle companies do it on purpose just to drive us puzzle fans a little more insane.

Occasionally there is a perfectly good explanation for the mysterious missing piece. 

One puzzley afternoon two of my sisters and I were putting together a puzzle at my parent's house.  Of course, when we were finished, we were missing a piece.  We did the regular "search high and low and around and under" dance, but found nothing.  Later that day my sister found the missing piece in her shoe.  Her foot sweat had erased off the picture, though.

This past Christmas Eve my sister, my niece, and I were enjoying a little togetherness with a special North Pole puzzle, coffee, and breakfast.  As I was sipping my coffee, I noticed a strange, foreign object at the bottom of my cup.  It was a puzzle piece.  Gross!

 Of course, every experienced puzzler knows you start with the edge.

Here's another puzzle mystery.  Every time I put together a puzzle, there comes a time when I get stuck and nothing seems to be fitting together. 

I try for a while, determined and resolute. 

Then -  I throw up my hands, stomp away from the table, and make some "aarrgghh" type of noise. 

Later - after the laundry is folded or the dishes are washed or the errands are done or a movie is watched - I come back to the puzzle and boom, boom, boom, I fit pieces in like an idiot savant.

The lesson here is that it is often helpful to just back off from your problems.  Distract yourself with something else for a while.  Stop trying to force your solutions on everything.  A little time (and often sleep) will reveal many more answers than you were able to see originally.

Hooray for the ugly brown pin oak

This will be an illustrated post, so forgive me for the pictures.  I don't have strong photography skills.

I live in a pretty wooded neighborhood and I really enjoy winter walks.  Every time (and I'm comfortable using such an absolute word as "every" because it's true) I go out for a walk this time of year my thoughts end up in the same place.  Here is a sample of what my brain says to me during these winter walks:

    
     

  

 "I sure do like bare trees.  They have such a stark beauty to them.  You can see the path of the branches.  You can see the texture of the bark."

 You can see the bright blue or the cold gray sky through the branches."  

"OOH!  Look!  You can even see neat

wildlife hiding among the bare

branches!"

"Bah!  What is that?  An ugly oak tree that refuses to drop it's leaves."

 "Here I am enjoying the great scenery of bare winter trees only to have it

completely marred by this ugly brown tree."

I'm not kidding.  My thoughts go in that direction every single time. 

I have a tendency to look at something or someone and focus only on the ways he/she/it could be improved.  Some people might say that I have a discerning eye.  I disagree.  I'm working on accepting and apppreciating things and people the way they are right now.   That's a story for another day. 

(I've used that phrase in each of this baby blog's posts.   Maybe that would be a good gimmick for this blog.  See???  I'm doing it right now.)

Anyway...back to the winter scenery. 

My silent conversation inevitably then goes to the science lesson I learned from the Saturday morning radio garden show I like to listen to from time to time.  The plant expert on the show told how certain oak trees hang on to the dead leaves through the winter and drop them in spring when the new growth pushes them out.

My ears perked up when I heard him explain this trait of the oak tree that had for so long irked me.  The actual scientific term for the leaf that won't fall off is marcescent.  I like to use that word in conversation.  People then think I'm smart for knowing obscure tree terms.

Let me get straight to the lesson here.  I am the tree with marcescent leaves.  The dead leaves are the defects that can mar my life and that I want so desperately to get rid of.  Just as the dead leaves only go away when the new growth pushes them out, my defects will go away when I learn to replace them with their opposite traits. 

Identifying those defects and figuring out their opposites is tricky.  It's only possible by giving it up to God and trusting Him with the process. 

The tree analogy breaks down rather quickly after that.  But that's OK. 

Because now when I take my winter walks and notice the ugly brown pin oak leaves messing up my pretty bare tree scene, I'm reminded of how God is working in me - growing in me the qualities He sees fit to grow.

And I will trust Him.