The Sad Love Story.

                                                                        
A  long time ago in a faraway Kingdom, the brothers and the sisters would wake-up excited for Sunday school, and looking forward to have lunch together after the preaching. Their biggest problem was to find the best building they could afford. But that was a long time ago...

Now, the struggle is to sit down in the same place with "such and such", and when the Lord's supper comes, if  they could still feel the Spirit speaking, they would miss those and the others, and would look around and weep over the empty pews and empty hearts.

I knew that time well myself and still  remember, just around Easter, the flowered skirts and dresses and the men in their Sunday's best getting together in a musty basement, rugs ripped, carpets stained, chairs mismatched ....but that was us, and in that humble setting I got saved, I was born again.

I  knew the days when the pastor was the uppermost authority. People trusted him, and he loved them. And I was the new convert older people prayed for. We were so pure and didnt even know. We sang older hymns and newer songs of worship, never knowing that amidst that ugliest building was a gloriously beautiful bride: us!

But, somewhere along the way we got bigger in numbers and smaller in heart. We got comfortable with better settings and uncomfortable with one another. And then everyone left and some remained, and the others who left went here and there and never found a home for them. And the remaining ones never missed them either...never looked around and wept  for the time of innocence and glory,  never cried out for the brothers and sisters that once were and now no more.

And so the hearts got even colder, and the eyes turned to marble floors and wood treatments, to anything that could numb the unknown pain of the vanishing Splendor and missing siblings. We will manage the building, we will manage the money, we will occupy ourselves...

And so we got comfortable with having and managing everything and uncomfortable with being managed and hearing anything...and that's how we let him go, our pastor...first in our hearts, then in our whispers, eventually it was done.

To be continued...

The Gift

The gift to humanity came in the form of a helpless newborn baby. The redeemer of mankind laying on some linen sheets and lambskin blankets desperately needing his mom's warmth and milk to maybe make it through the first few months..
A human baby! Could anything be more vulnerable? No vaccinations or hospitals, no disposable diapers or electric heat. If left alone for more than a few hours he certainly would be the victim of  increment weather or of an animal attack. The great messiah, totally dependent on other humans for his own survival.
The savior of souls was after all just another mouth to feed. If not another burden, for sure another bundle to carry, another worry on top of many, another difficult thing to explain.
How many of those come our way?
We expected compassion, instead judgement is what comes our way.
We expected commitment, instead we get a divorce letter from a cheating spouse.
We expected a retirement party, instead we get a pink slip.
How many of those come our way, again and again?
Can we ever say that the bad is now over, and that we will now live happily forevermore?
Was it even possible to imagine that the soft trembling hands in the manger would be the rough trembling hands in the cross?
Could we ever conceive the idea that the gift of blood poured and flesh torn would cause sorrow in hell and joy in heaven? Shouldn't it be the other way around, at least in our natural minds?
From the time the earthly lamb was cut to cover Adam and Eve's shame, to time the heavenly lamb was crushed to cover mine and yours shame...Can we look passed the thousands of years in between? Can we look passed the years between the receiving blankets and the ripped veils of the temple?
Can we look past the ugly wrapping paper of a divorce letter and see the beautiful gift of freedom to serve the Lord in a bigger capacity?
Can we really only see the here and now, can we give it some time?
Do I have the courage to once and for all FULLY unwrap in my life, in my soul the gift offered to me 2011 years ago? Do you?

The Danbury Pastor

The task of a pastor is a hard one. If you kill the wolf you risk killing the sheep, I think all they can do, is to feed and water and clean the sheep…but the wolf then will go out and feed on self justice and drink on hatred or ungodly mercy and so the job of a pastor is a tedious and long one.


This is true to my life, and now I look back this last years, ten or so, and a big smile crosses my face…but my eyes are teary. I feel like you have made me, but I’m kidding I know you showed me to the One, my Maker. And though I walked away I never escaped the teachings of Jesus you so patiently taught me. I followed the pastor from a distance, and you did the same to me, I know. You are a cross congregational caregiver and lover of many souls. You care not for titles or labels good or bad ones given to others or to you. Of all the Bible books and lessons on Sunday classes that we studied, you are the one. The living lesson of freedom, love and ethic. You do not suffer with the incessant sting of hearts that refuse to flourish. You just don’t. You do not despair with the minimalist ones, short of everything beautiful and grandiose yet abundant on everything “ oldmanish “

And you love them, you just can’t take revenge, can’t change your course, can’t re-learn to be worldly. So, as some say: You are what you eat! I think after drinking and eating from the Word for so long it’s now what you are.

Augusto Cury would say that you are free from the “tyranny of the response”

You have no affiliations with evil, you travel “Light”

And now, this is my point: I think I am finding myself enlightened, drenched in the same freedom to love and the same peace to be and to go on, that you have. I think that I am knowing this revelation but by the Holy Spirit and am even short of words to explain this love you have for others, for believers that hurt and don’t change, that sin and don’t even repent, but you worry and care about them…and having detested that about you, having come from the darkness I came from, and having waited impatiently for your patience with “them” to run thin and for words out of your mouth that would hopefully hurt “them” and never seeing that day, it finally made a trick on me. To my dismay I have found myself infected with the same celestial virus, the freedom to fully follow Jesus that you have. You have made a disciple out of me.

The Bad Planner and the Hidden Agendas

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer 29:11

I didn’t plan my day well. After more than 10 years I failed to foresee problems when putting my instrument back to work after being idled for 3 weeks. So I had my nice earrings, nice linen dress, hair done and all while on my knees on the dusty floor of the ICP lab hooking and unhooking cables to and from the instrument.

It was then that I started thinking that my manager didn’t plan very well either. Panicking that making the instrument functional would be too advanced for my knowledge, she called the service engineer for Thermo, only to find out that she forgot to renew the service contract sent to her 6 weeks ago! Now the instrument was down and us out of luck. When she nearly ran out of my lab to put her paperwork in order I had some peace to diagnose the instrument’s symptoms and got it fixed!!! ALL BY MYSELF!!!!

It was then that I started thinking that I didn’t plan (really plan) my life either. I didn’t plan to become a career woman who comes to work wearing dresses and perfume but works like a man, a spectroscopic engineer using tools and chemicals and computers on dirty floors, while colleagues walk in and out of my lab; but now I like it!

I didn’t plan on becoming a divorced grandma at 40 something and to be on my granddaughter’s bedroom cradling her on my arms at 2am, and pampering her and her mom with my love and post promotion BLESSED income; but now I like it!

No I didn’t have a plan...I didn’t know or failed to get informed when I was younger that plans are necessary and that most people have one, even for other people’s lives.

A jealous friend’s plan for your life is that things don’t go accordingly, at least once…

A salesman’s plan for your life is that you buy, not just once…

A drug dealer’s plan for your life is not necessarily to destroy it, but to make you into a dependent, hopefully a big one…

A devil’s plan for your life is that you may never know God thus never knowing God’s plan for you.

It was then that I started thinking about God's plans.

Because God’s plans are to prosper and not to harm me, plans to give me a hope and a future! I suddenly received this Word in my heart again, but so deeply and as suddenly as I received it, I realized that for me to be a true expression of God’s love, I must have this same PLAN for all the people around me, that they have peace and not harm, so that they may have a hope and a future. God indeed is Great!

To My Friend

I am “beauty” that God created.

I fit so perfectly against white clouds and blue skies

Underneath aromatic orange trees

Surrounded by crystal like buzzing bees


I am “beauty” that God created and I cannot forget.

I fit so perfectly against golden afternoons

Bathed on  red bloody suns

In each, we can hear the sounds of laughter or sobbing whispers

I’m emotion, I’m music, I’m life He holds dear


I’ve seen dying and losing one we held, a loved one

I’ve seen “borning” and gaining one we already held waiting for, a loved one


I’ve seen divisions and heard fighting voices

That got somber and cold

Not cold, icy and sharp as nails

There would be no musical note

On a Sheppard Scale


I’ve seen walking away

The distance gaining

The draft of doors closing

Without warm embraces and farewells

And smily hellos fading, when all wasn’t well


I’ve seen the labels

And what they can do

And to war against them

Some label others too


I’ve seen how delicate

We all really are

A mix of soft tissues

In a breakable frame

Like little fleeting bugs against a windshield

None stands a chance

And so all we are, have and hold

Can be gone without notice out cold


I’ve seen the opinions and the dissatisfaction

And if you ask me why, I will say:

Because from God’s love, one can walk away

One can forget his beauty, so his beauty walks away


But not us

We’re droplets of oil sprinkled by pierced hands

We’re God’s little love notes or big love letters

To humanity

We’re beauty that God created, all of us

Including them and thee



My Pastor's Stubbornness.

For years I openly voiced my question: why would my pastor remain in a church governed by members and votes and assemblies? Why follow a church method so seemingly obsolete and unfruitful, if not painful to watch the endless discussions over small issues and votes over the most simplistic decisions? His life without a shadow of doubt would be sooooo much easier if he was in a church where he could make a decision and just move forward with that.

But now, after ten years or so, of subtracting instead of adding forces with him, of criticizing instead of understanding, I finally "got it" : My pastor simply wont deviate from the Bible. He can be laughed at, mocked, criticized, pushed in every way, he can tolerate tremendous pressure from friends and family alike, yet his deal is with God and he wont go for anything not Biblical... I think one of his goals in life as a pastor is to keep the Biblical teachings and standards unadulterated and unchanged in the churches he tends to.

See, for years I criticised traditional Baptists, my view of them was an arrogant religious people, till this weekend when I was called one....LOL... I was called a mindless, ignorant fool because in the interest of decorum I voiced my opinion against a church having a mechanical bull for ladies to ride on it, along with worldly music and dancing on their temple. So, to make a long story short, a young man, offended with my opinion, among other things told me to shove my degrees up my (you know what) ...

I thanked God for that, because now I know how painful it is to be labeled a religious person for just voicing an opinion. So, now after years of ignorance, I finally understand my pastor.
The door to "unbiblical dogmas and methods is one that most never be opened. No one can safely deviate from the Bible, no matter how Godly the intentions of the heart really are.

I now understand his pain, his frustrations on trying to make revivalists and traditionalists see eye to eye, on hoping some day they're able to offer God's worship and service in love and fellowship, and to keep walking towards our Christian goal not submerged in criticism and pride.

John 17: 20
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Ladies Evening With The King