a silent wish

here is a silent wish that i made for a family member, a friend, a neighbour…

May you enter into a state of higher awareness. May you transcend your problems and see them as opportunity. May you be graced with courage, strength, and compassion. May you dismiss self-pity and frustration.

there’s no doubt that one of the toughest situations in life is to see one’s family, friend or neighbour in pain or in suffering. we often try to say or do the right things to try and help. unfortunately, this isn’t often asked by them and can therefore be unwanted. in these circumstances, one can only silently wish for their well-being and surrender the rest to a higher power.

Shoveling the truckload of dung

Lots to say, not a lotta time to say it. I’m in a phase of things piling up, where I need to keep shoveling through without thinking too much, keep breathing, doing what I can, and pretty soon I’ll have cleared through the pile of crap. I once had a yoga teacher who read from a book written by a Zen Buddhist monk entitled, “Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?” I immediately bought the book. It was filled with those impossibly Zen stories of staying calm through extremely frustrating situations, finding the good in the apparently bad, treating your supposed enemies as friends, etc. The kinds of stories that you know will take a lifetime to really understand, if you so choose. But the one that resonated with me was about doing the work of shoveling your own truckload of dung, which was dumped on your doorstep by Life, the Universe, God, whatever you want to call your own Mystery. We can either complain about the smell, the foulness, the fact that we wish the pile weren’t sitting right there blocking the door to our own home, or we can spend our lives trying to figure out WHO ordered it in the first place! Because it certainly wasn’t ME! I didn’t ask for this heap of putrid-smelling hot and steamy pile of waste. But I DO want to get inside my own home. I like it there. I feel peaceful and free there. I am joy when I am there. So let me in!

But the only way in is to roll up your sleeves and start shoveling. One stroke at a time, you just chip away at it. You don’t complain, you don’t worry, you don’t spend time just admiring the sheer magnitude of crap sitting there. You just take your shovel and work. Pretty soon, you’ll look up and one day the door to your home will be right there, and you can just walk right through, take off your crap-smelling clothes, and enjoy a nice, long, hot shower. Maybe a cool drink. And then a seat on your own back porch, where the sun shines just so.

The point of this was reflected in Jerry Seinfeld’s Three Rules for Life, which I think he gave in an interview with Oprah several years ago. Here they are:

1. Work hard. (No matter what it is, bust your ass.)
2. Pay attention. (Listen, listen, listen. You can learn from anyone and anything.)
3. Fall in love. (I don’t care what you fall in love with, just love something with all your heart.)

I’ve discovered that pretty much, these are the lessons repeated in all spiritual teachings.

I wrote a few lines of poetry last night after my two full days and one night of “The Art of Improvisation”. An aside: Isn’t all of life an improvisation? We aren’t all stand-up comics, but what if we carried ourselves through our daily lives with the skills and mindset of stand-up comedians or artists? What if we valued ourselves to the extent that we believed we are all artists, and our greatest piece of art is made by the sum of how we show up in each moment of our lives?

Anyways, here’s the poem I wrote last night:

Music is a spiritual practice.

Sound is a spiritual practice.

Pay attention to the sounds you make, and you pay attention to your spirit.

So much of improvisation is LISTENING. Listen like mad. Always listening. This is simple to say, but much harder to put in practice. Often when we think we are listening to the environment (reality in this moment), we are actually hearing the mental chatter in our own heads: “I can’t do this! I look like an idiot! I’ve never done this before! People will think I’m a freak for doing this! I don’t sound good! I don’t know how to do this! I’m not good at this!”

When true artists talk about “inner listening” or “listening to your inner voice”, they don’t mean this mental chatter. That’s an important distinction that I think is often not mentioned. We are told to get silent and wait for the sounds to come. But how many of us really know what silence is? I can say I’ve experience a few very brief moments of complete silence – not just the absence of talking or noise, but a sense of completeness and peace – during meditation and when I have been in nature, studying the sky or the water or the light.

But getting to silence on a daily basis is WORK. Learning to listen for inner silence, then waiting for the truth of the heart to emerge, is a deep practice. Basic listening is work. So often we are not even aware of what we are listening to. We go through life with an agenda, and filter out the things that don’t match it. Then we struggle. We wonder why things turned out the way they did. What we must have done to deserve those things. Or who else we might have to blame for the truckload of dung sitting on our doorstep, when all we want to do is get home.

Home is freedom. Some of us never find it. But it’s always right here inside of us, no matter what the circumstances of our lives. When we practice loving every single – EVERY single – circumstance of our life as something that has brought us clearer vision and attention, and therefore closer to seeing the home within our hearts, we are truly free in each moment. Free to act according to the source of pure joy and creativity that we are born with.

I tried it today and I noticed how hard it is for people to really listen. How much time and quiet and space it takes to really relax and listen. But the desire is there. We all want to hear the music. We want to feel the music in our hearts. We want to drown out all the noise that is drowning us.

I was part of three improvisation groups this weekend, and they taught me about taking risks. Being well-trained is something that happens to manifest itself for me on the violin. But I am actually quite loose still – thankfully – in other areas, such as my voice. I have longed to use my voice for such a long time. I have no preconceptions about what I can and cannot do with my singing voice. I just do it. I put myself out there using my speaking voice five years ago to create a school. Now I want to go in a new direction, and I am finding my voice stuck, not able to work for me in the same way it did to set a stake in the ground. My voice is not as useful as a shovel to dig something up and replant it in a sunnier place. But I set some new stakes in the ground this weekend:

• I publicly did a jazz improv over cello accompaniment with our instructor, David Darling. I laughed so hard! And for the first time I knew I wasn’t laughing AT myself. I was laughing with joy that I had actually dared to do something BADLY! I hesitate to use the word “bad” because that’s not how I felt. For ME, who doesn’t listen to jazz and had never played a note of it on my violin or even sung it in my head, IT WAS GREAT! It didn’t sound like Aletha, the awesome woman who sang right before me in her night club sultry voice. But I had to let that go as my aspiration for this moment. My aspiration for this moment was to not be afraid. To try something totally different and know that there was no failure possible. Just picking up my violin and making any sound in that setting was a huge leap forward for me. And I loved it! One shovel of dung thrown over my shoulder. Now on to the next…
• I saw a group of ladies playing random notes at the piano and a vocalist walked up to join them. I could have sat in my chair and just waited for class to begin, but instead I walked over with my violin and started to play along. I didn’t think I had anything meaningful musically to add, or rather I didn’t think I knew what to add, but I just played anyway. Kept playing. And they kept listening and playing. And we all kept doing that together. That is improvisation. Everyone doing their thing together.
• Finally, we were the very last group of the weekend to perform our 4-person “voice and body” improvisation. The rule was to work with people you had never worked with before. Very true in this case. Roman is a one-man show performer and all-around self-taught musician who lives life in his world of music. He doesn’t say much usually but when he does, he speaks in long strings of ideas and words that reflect his stream of consciousness and fluidity of thoughts. Let’s just say he won’t be in charge of writing any corporate memos any time soon. Thank god for people like Roman, because his musical vocabulary and artistry are AMAZING. He is just that kind of “genius”. I worked hard to empty my mind of all the imaginations of what might happen in our group. We were all tired, and I kept thinking I hope we do something lively and upbeat because I am going to fall asleep otherwise. I was looking forward to singing though. So my first contribution to the group – after a bunch of the others started with primal rumblings and breath sounds – was a sung melody. I did it three times, hoping for call and response. Finally getting one, I then froze and caught myself so surprised and happy at the response that my next call was lame. So I abandoned that and turned my attention to listening and feeling what was going on with the others. Roman was doing some kind of primal fit of screaming on my left. I turned and started to imitate, releasing some of that earlier frustration through my body. Then he kept going and I realized he sounded like he was suffering. I started breathing and sending him the calming, soothing, “maternal” sounds that flowed through me as a human being in the presence of another human being in that state. I kept going. The other women eventually joined me. Roman – or his improvisational character – calmed down, eventually cooing with us like a little baby. The rest of it I don’t remember as well, because it was like magic after that. We were four beings in each other’s presence. The rest created itself. We were in harmony.

The room erupted in applause after we finished, and one of our classmates commented on how she had never seen this “primal thing going on” with me before, but that she loved it. Shortly after her comment, my violin case fell out of its chair. Literally. Nothing was damaged, don’t worry. But we like to think of that moment as something of a message from the spirits about my finding my voice. My violin is a little surprised – or maybe feeling left out – by my foray into such primal things as the voice. Poor violin will just have to get used to it.

Let's Start From the Very Beginning: Jesus.

I admit, in the past two years, I have often felt a little guilty for not really thinking about Jesus that much. I don’t mean that I stopped thinking of him or that I ceased to think he was important. I had other pressing theological questions, but I viewed (and still do) those questions as ultimately returning to Christ. Still, I would sometimes think to myself: “I wonder if I ought to pay attention to what I believe about this Jesus.”

The answer to that thought was and is a resounding, yes.

In between my first and second years of university, I experienced what one would consider to be the proverbial “crisis of faith.” Though intermixed with some other issues, this crisis was more of a disillusionment of the concept of church that I had for most of my life up until the first year at university. I had more problems with the church than with God or with Jesus. Thus, it wasn’t a full-fledged loss of faith in which one becomes agnostic or an atheist. Nonetheless, the spiritual turmoil continued (and continues) into my second year. Towards the end of 2008, my disillusionment with the church had grown so strongly that I began to question, ever so delicately, some of the basic Christian beliefs, but again, it was not a full-fledged loss of faith.

My spiritual turmoil was soon somewhat eradicated by my introduction to catholic (small-c) Christianity through Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox theology. I’m confident that at that point in my life, it was the very reading of such sources that saved my faith. Had I not dashed my Baptist and Evangelical polemics against Catholics and Orthodox (and Anglicans) against the rocks of thoughtful reflection and reading, I doubt I’d still be a Christian, or, I’d likely be some drifter trying to brew my own Christianity. Arriving and inhabiting the Great Tradition of the Christian faith provided me with somewhat of a basis on which to understand Christ, his Body (the Church), and the message and ministry of the Gospel to the world.

As I began this semester at school, I felt confident that at some point this year, I would finally make a choice and become a part of a community of faith through Baptism (ironic, yes? Being Baptist and not being baptized?). However, while I still hope for that opportunity (it might be a stretch to make it to Easter), my studies have pulled me in a new direction. Well, not entirely new but rather, a realization that yes, I must understand Jesus (I’m just waiting for nice little cliche reminders to start popping up on the comments; It’s not like I don’t know that.). This is more serious, I think, than simply asking questions for the sake of deepening one’s “personal relationship with Jesus.” It’s not like I’m going out on a date with him or something and wanting to know him more deeply (while that is certainly the important aim of any Christian).

More than that. It is asking the question of his very claim to divinity, his very claim to authority, the Church’s claim of his divinity, the Church’s claim of his uniqueness, the Church’s claim of his authority, and the Church’s, Bible’s, and historian’s very claim of his existence.

For if Christianity is true, then Christ has to be true.

First order of business…create new category for “Jesus” in blog.

Second order of business…N.T. Wright, a cup of tea, and a red pen for marking.

 

Can we buy forgiveness of sins?

We have a new question from Puzant:

The apocryphal books contain non-biblical teachings like atonement of sins by good works (almsgiving=showing mercy).
We read in Sirach 3:30 “As water quenches a blazing fire, so [showing mercy] almsgiving atones for sin.” [emph.mine]

Some people say there is the same context in the Old testament.

Daniel 4:27 “Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off [heb."perak"=redeem] thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy [almsgiving]to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.” [emph.mine]

Proverbs 16:6 “By mercy [almsgiving] and truth iniquity is purged…”[emph.mine]

How can Daniel teach the king to redeem/atone his iniquities by almsgiving ?

First, we cannot put a comparison between the Word of God and the words of humans. The Apocrypha is the writings of humans who were not led by the Spirit to write what they wrote, therefore it is not part of the Canon of the Scripture. For more details about the Apocrypha and about the Canon of Scripture, you can consult the following articles:

. What is the Apocrypha? And why do some groups or “churches” add it to their copies of the Bible?

. The Canon of Scripture

As these human writings were not inspired by the Holy Spirit, so they contain the opinions of their human fallible authors. Their words and expressions do not reflect the infallibility and inerrancy of the Holy Spirit, as we will see in this article. While the Scripture is the Word of God, and each word used in it is inspired by the Holy Spirit. As we will see, the Holy Spirit uses exact words that He has explained in other passages of the Bible, never contradicting Himself, while the words of those human writings express the fallible mind and the wrong wishes of their human authors and thus they contradict the Bible.

Now, those human writings would naturally express the fallen mind of their human authors. The fallen human prefers to be justified before God by his weak and imperfect righteousness (i.e. self-righteousness), and he refuses the Righteousness of God:

“For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own [righteousness], have not submitted to the righteousness of God.” (Romans 10:3)

But here is what the Bible says about that human righteousness:

“And we are all become as an unclean [thing], and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have carried us away” (Isaiah 64:6)

Why does God say this about our righteousness? Why is it as filthy rags? Don’t we ever do anything good? Yes, we may do many good things, but if our good works spring from a filthy disobedient nature, then they do not glorify God and thus they are not really good. You would not accept a nice looking apple if it is presented to you with filthy hands, so how do you expect God to accept your good works when you are still a sinner by nature and all your works are defiled by that filthy nature? Our righteousness is always lacking perfection, and God does not accept anything less than perfect purity and holiness. He does not lower His standard of holiness. So His Law clearly says:

“‘So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 18:5)

There is no way to be righteous before God unless we keep ALL the statutes and judgments of God perfectly and continuously (without any interruption) and without falling in any sin! This is a clear teaching of the Scripture. To give more strength to this truth, God declares a curse on whoever does not continuously and perfectly keep all His commandments:

“Cursed be he that confirmeth not the words of this law to do them! And all the people shall say, Amen.” (Deuteronomy 27:26)

The judgment is clear: Anyone who does not keep all the commandments of God perfectly and continuously is under this curse of the Law… Read more about this in our article How to be justified before God? which you should understand very well if you want to avoid the deceptions of human philosophy.

Now, the fallen humanity tries to find ways of escape from this curse, so humans who refuse to humble themselves before God try to lower this standard in order to make it look possible to be attained by our human righteousness. It is with this purpose of lowering this standard that the writers of the Apocrypha suggest that we may atone for our sins with almsgiving! This is one proof that those writings were written by non-inspired authors. Thus, instead of keeping ALL the commandments of God perfectly and continuously, they suggest we can just give money to the poor, and thus all our sins will be forgiven… But this is a deception, as the Word of God clearly says that only the perfect and continuous keeping of God’s commandments can make us live by the Law. Actually, we may give all what we have to the poor and yet not have love, and thus be nothing! “And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:3) (Read So what is love?)

You notice what the point is: The Law declares God’s truth (or justice) without any mercy (lovingkindness) for the sinner. So if God were only Just, we would all go to Hell, and that would be perfectly just and fair, as we did not keep all His commandments perfectly and continuously. This Justice (truth) of God does not allow any exception to the principle of keeping the whole Law in order to be righteous before God. According to this truth, God is not obliged to do any atonement for our sins, and He has the authority to throw us all in Hell, and that would be just.

But the good news here is that God is not only Just, but He is equally Merciful and loving. It was when His Mercy (lovingkindness) and truth met together that it was possible to find a way to save us: ATONEMENT. As God saw us all condemned under the curse that His truth declared on us all, His Mercy (lovingkindness) found the way to meet that high standard and at the same time to save us, and that way was Atonement by a SUBSTITUTE, i.e. by a perfect Man who could keep all the commandments of the Law (truth) and then by substitution make His Righteousness counted for those who trust Him (Mercy or lovingkindness). This is what the Psalmist describes in the following line:

“Loving-kindness and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Psalm 85:10)

And the author of the Proverb explains this same truth by saying:

“By loving-kindness and truth iniquity is atoned for; and by the fear of Jehovah [men] depart from evil.” (Proverbs 16:6)

Proverbs 16:6 is one of the passages that Puzant quoted. Do you see anything about almsgiving in this verse? Not at all! As you can see, this verse is explained in Psalm 85:10 (as Scripture explains Scripture), and it means that the only way to atone for our sins is when lovingkindness (mercy — Hebrew: chesed) and truth meet together! As fallen humans, we could not meet the perfect standard of God about lovingkindness and truth, so we could not atone for our sins:

“No man can by any means redeem his brother Or give to God a ransom for him” (Psalm 49:7)

It’s only when God keeps both His lovingkindness and truth that our iniquity is atoned for, or else God would not be just AND the justifier of the sinner who has faith in Christ:

“for [the] shewing forth of his righteousness in the present time, so that he should be just, and justify him that is of [the] faith of Jesus.” (Romans 3:26)

If God declared the sinner as righteous without bringing His curse upon him, He would be lying! Because the sinner has not met God’s standard of holiness, as we have seen above, and he deserves to be accursed and NOT called righteous. But as the lovingkindness of God met His truth, so God found the way to justify the sinner without being unjust Himself: He sent His Son (God incarnate) who lived a perfect human life and kept ALL the commandments of God perfectly and continuously (thus the truth was respected), and then He took the place of the sinner (substitution) and atoned for his sins (thus lovingkindness and truth met together on the cross). It is in this way that lovingkindness and truth atoned for our iniquity.

Now, why do some people see almsgiving in Proverbs 16:6? That’s because they don’t allow the Scripture to interpret itself, and they want to speculate about what the Hebrew “chesed” (mercy) should mean in this verse… Instead of accepting the explanation of the Bible that we saw above, they reduce the meaning of “chesed” to one particular result of mercy, i.e. almsgiving. The Bible doesn’t say “almsgiving” in Proverbs 16:6. It says “lovingkindness”, in the same way it is said in Psalm 85:10. And as the authors of the Apocrypha misinterpreted such passages of Scripture, so they reduced the whole truth to a particular commandment (i.e. almsgiving), thus lowering the standard of God and teaching the false doctrine of buying the forgiveness of our sins with money!

Against those false human teachings the Word of God clearly says:

“knowing that ye have been redeemed, not by corruptible [things, as] silver or gold, from your vain conversation handed down from [your] fathers,  but by precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, [the blood] of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19)

***

Now we pass to Daniel’s passage:

“Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.” (Daniel 4:27)

The verb translated as “break off” in this verse is the Hebrew verb “perak” (from Chaldee) which literally means “to discontinue” or “to break off”. For those who know Arabic, does not this “perak” sound like the Arabic “faraq” (to get separated from)?… Indeed, the literal Arabic translation of this passage (the Van Dyke translation) renders this verb as “fareq” (get separated from). As you know, both Arabic and Hebrew (and Chaldee or Aramaic also) are Semitic languages, so many words are similar in these languages. In other words, Daniel told the king to get separated from his iniquities (i.e. repentance), and to give the non-optional fruit of righteousness as a result of this breaking-off. This is the simple meaning of what is said in this verse. There is nothing in this verse about atoning for our sins by almsgiving.

But we cannot assure that the king really understood what Daniel actually told him. In fact, this verse (i.e. Daniel 4:27) is not the direct teaching of Daniel. What we read here is the account of that pagan king about what Daniel told him. Actually, this account of the king really shows us that he didn’t understand the advice of Daniel in a deep way. One of the proofs for what I am saying is found at the beginning of this pagan king’s account:

“But at the last Daniel came in before me, whose name is Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and before him I told the dream” (Daniel 4:8)

This pagan king is amazed by what the God of Daniel could do, but he still didn’t give up his false gods! For him, the God of Daniel is one of those gods — actually the most high among them — but He’s not his ONLY Lord and Savior. In fact, even while writing this letter, he considers one of those false gods as his god (“my god”). This pagan king still couldn’t understand what’s the difference between the Holy Spirit and the spirits of his “holy gods”, the false gods… Even while writing this account, the king still doesn’t understand with which Spirit Daniel prophesied… So just as we can’t conclude from verse 4 that the Bible teaches polytheism, as this is the account of a pagan king, in the same way we can’t build any doctrine on verse 27 where this pagan king once again tells us what he understood of Daniel’s advice for him to repent. It seems that, just like the authors of the Apocrypha, he reduced the fruit of repentance only to one commandment which is almsgiving to the poor… But it is also clear that Daniel didn’t limit his advice to almsgiving, but he told the king about real righteousness (i.e. God’s righteousness), as the king says in verse 27: “Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.” (Daniel 4:27) You see how the king is interpreting what Daniel said: first he says Daniel told him to break off his sins by righteousness, then he interprets that as meaning that he should break off his iniquities (his sins) by showing mercy to the poor… So it seems that he equated righteousness to showing mercy to the poor…

But one would ask: As Daniel is writing this account about this king’s letter, then why did he not make a comment about his error here? The answer is that Daniel usually doesn’t make a comment in such cases, and leaves us to find the right interpretation in the other passages of the Bible. This is what Daniel does in other passages of his Book. For instance, about this same pagan king Daniel says without adding any comment about the king’s error:

“Then king Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him.” (Daniel 2:46)

This doesn’t mean that Daniel agreed with this false worship. The truth is that Daniel wants us to judge on what happened in this verse in the light of the teaching of the Scripture that says:

“Thou shalt do homage to [the] Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve.” (Matthew 4:10)

In the same way, in the Book of Job many wrong things were said by humans, and the author wrote them exactly as they were said, without any comment about the human errors. But at the end God made His comment:

“Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2)

In this comment, God was not saying that His Word is “words without knowledge”!! He’s commenting about the human errors in speech in the whole of Job’s Book.

This same thing God does in the Book of Judges! When Jephthah sacrificed his daughter (cf. Judges 11:30-31, Judges 11:34-35, and Judges 11:39), God didn’t make a comment immediately! He only gave us the account about what happened through the man of God who was led by the Spirit to write those things. If you read that passage without understanding it in the light of other passages of Scripture, you may conclude that it is acceptable to sacrifice humans! But God made a little — but very important — comment at the end:

“In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25)

This was an important comment! So Jephthah did what was right in his own eyes, but not what was right in God’s eyes!

So this is the same thing that happened in Daniel 4:27: Daniel gave the account of this pagan king as it is and without any comment, but later in a prayer he gave us his comment about this righteousness that the king couldn’t really understand:

“Incline thine ear, O my God, and hear; open thine eyes and behold our desolations, and the city that is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee because of our righteousnesses, but because of thy manifold mercies.” (Daniel 9:18)

Then he adds a direct teaching from God:

“Seventy weeks are apportioned out upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to close the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make expiation for iniquity, and to bring in the righteousness of the ages, and to seal the vision and prophet, and to anoint the holy of holies.” (Daniel 9:24)

So the direct teaching of the Bible is that almsgiving (and any other human merit or righteousness) cannot in any way atone for our sins. It’s only by the blood of Jesus Christ (as described in Daniel 9:24-26) that we have the expiation for iniquity.

And yet those human writings, called Apocrypha, teach that we can atone for our sins by almsgiving! The authors of the Apocrypha give us a direct teaching (and not an account about a pagan king’s understanding…) They say that almsgiving can atone for sins, while the Bible says it can’t! Only perfect lovingkindness and truth can atone our iniquity, as Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification.

Grace be with you!
Disciple of Jesus Christ

___

Posted in Questions | Truth | Religious Movements | Roman Catholicism and similar heresies

I Need Help

by sylvia

Yeah, I probably need all sorts of help, but specifically I need help with a physical problem.

For the last 5-10 years or so, I have been suffering from lower back pain.  Like severe lower back pain.  Typically, it used to happen when I stood for long periods of time (like doing dishes or cooking) but now it is happening more frequently.

I talked to my doctor about it, and they did an x-ray and they couldn’t determine if lack of space between two vertebrae was always that way or a new development.  Yeah, thanks for nothing.

And I’m sure my size G boobies aren’t helping things, and that a lot of my gorgeous, free flowing fat is in my stomach.

Regardless of all that, can someone tell me what is a good exercise for such pain?  Please don’t tell me swimming or pool exercise, because I am too lazy to get my bathing suit on and actually go to pool at the YMCA.

Yoga?  Pilates?

I need to do something, because at this point, I feel like I can’t do anything.

Thanks, y’all.

stylish but comfortable

Heya,

here we go again with another outfit I really enjoy wearing. I was thinking about an outfit i can wear visiting a fashion show. Not a lot of ARC, to support the models on the runway, but still looking stylish. I put this outfit together, because its really stylish, but comfortable, has a low ARC and charms my shape. But have a look yourself:

The highwaisted and fantastic crafted pants I found at LeeZu, I love the details, as the flare leg attachments and the wonderful texture. The two colored pants sets perfect details on every feminine avatar. Mingling around at LeeZu i found this wonderful boat neckline pullover in charcoal. The arms of the pullover softly flow down over the hands and add an autumn touch despite the very open neckline. To prevent my body from the cold winds blowing in autumn I decided to wear a really loveble hairstyle from Maittreya that covers the head with a voluminous scarf, which flows around the shoulders and neck. The shoes, (which are my absolute favourites atm), bicolored also with a cool vintage touch made that outfit complete. For the cool look I added my favorite sunglasses and I was ready to go.

I hope you enjoy this outfit and maybe get inspired to have a look at the shops which inspired me.

Take Care

Svenja

Pants and Pullover: LeeZu

Hair and scarf: Maitreya

Glasses: FNKY

Shoes: Deviant Designs

Babes in the woods

Here it is Halloween and I have not posted one costume. This is not actually a costume, either, but a lovely Victorian Lace nightgown that could be worn year round. However, something about it reminds me of the most frightening of Mother Goose rhymes, Babes in the Woods:

My dear do you know,
How a long time ago,
Two poor little children,
Whose names I don’t know,
Were stolen away
On a fine summers day,
And left in a wood,
As I’ve heard people say,

Poor babes in the wood! poor babes in the wood!
Oh! don’t you remember the babes in the wood?

And when it was night,
So sad was their plight,
The sun it went down,
And the moon gave no light!
They sobbed and they sighed,
And they bitterly cried,
And the poor little things,
They lay down and died.

Poor babes in the wood! poor babes in the wood!
Oh! don’t you remember the babes in the wood?

And when they were dead,
The robins so red
Brought strawberry leaves,
And over them spread;
And all the day long,
The branches among,
They mournfully whistled,
And this was their song;

Poor babes in the wood! poor babes in the wood!
Oh! don’t you remember the babes in the wood?

The nightgown from Studio Sidhe is such an iconic gown that would be appropriate for so many interpretations. I could imagine it as Mina’s gown in Bram Stoker’s Dracula or the nightie that Anne of Green Gables wore when reenacting the Lady of Shallot on the pond. I can see Jo March and her sisters wearing it, too. But, it’s Halloween and this gown reminds me of the heartbreaking illustration of Babes in the Woods from my childhood Illustrated Mother Goose and the little white  nightie worn by the little girl.

Perhaps growing up in the middle of a forest full of wildlife – including bears and timberwolves gave that poem immediacy. I remember the feel of my heart pounding while walking home from the school bus, taking a deerpath shortcut through the woods and hearing the gruff snort of a bear and pausing, holding my breath while trying to decide if the sound came from ahead or behind, left or right – and veering to another path to avoid a close encounter that my parents always said would scare the bear as much as me. I never quite believed them and so Babes in the Woods captured some of my biggest fears in one small phrase, “Poor babes in the woods. Don’t you remember the babes in the woods.”

Of course, walking a few miles through the woods twice a day, I was bound to bump into bears a couple of times. My parents were right, they took of running as fast as they could. However, just because they were right never managed to convince me that every bear would be scared. For my Babes in the Woods encounter in Bentham Forest – I went barefoot as the children in my Mother Goose were barefoot. The bare feet are from SLink. They come in flat, med and high-arched versions. These are the medium version which I think give that feeling of tension and being poised to flee.

One of the great joys of this Victorian Lace nightgown is the attention to detail in the handdrawn textures. Faery Sola is an amazing clothing designer. She doesn’t make many clothes, but they are exquisitely made and absolutely unique. Even the cuffs are worked over with loving attention to detail. The movement of the prims are natural and with two dress prims that seem to move in counterpoint the coverage is nearly perfect with few movements exposing the underlying glitch pants.  The hair is from Truth – a style called Harlow. It also echoes the hair in the Mother Goose though that hair had a wide satin ribbon.

The skin is one of the new makeups for blowpop’s Elizabeth. Choosing this was partly a nod to Anne of Green Gables – as a I remember the Mother Goose girl having a cherubic face. However, really I choose it because the skin is just so right in so many ways.

***STYLE NOTES******
Promotional Copies are denoted by a Bold R

• Poses: Behavior Body
• Skin: Blowpop Elizabeth anaconda 2 R
• Eyes: PXL Creations Glow Yellow Green R
• Lashes: Lelutka Diva Prim Lashes
• Hair: Truth Harlow
• Nightgown: Studio Sidhe Victorian Lace Nightgown R
• Feet: SLink Jolie Pied Barefoot
• Jewelry Aluinn Cascade Dual Pearl Necklace