God as Dungeon Master

To those of you who aren't D&D geeks, that's not anything weird, sinister, or kinky. The guy who runs the game is a Dungeon Master or DM.

I first concieved of the paradigm of God as the ultimate Dungeon Master back when I was still married to Craig, who for all his faults was the best DM I've ever played with, bar none. The DM is basically god of the gaming universe. There are rules, but he can choose to bend them. Or not. He can choose to fudge the die rolls.

I asked Craig once what he did if we didn't go into the tavern where the old Gypsy woman was spinning the tale of the nefarious vampire we were supposed to go destroy. Craig pointed out that he had more means of getting messages to us and he could come up with somebody if the old Gypsy woman didn't work.

Now, that said, let's move a moment to one of my pet peeves with my preschoolers. Bear with me, they tie together. As you'll see quickly.

Every day we have a Teacher's Helper. It's just the next kid down the attendance sheet from the kid that did it yesterday. Unles the kid who is supposed to be TH is absent, and then the next kid gets it.

The kids drive me crazy with wanting to know who will be TH tomorrow, the next day, the day after that. I don't want to tell them because I hate being forced to commit to something that can change. I can tell Ye Eun that she'll be Teacher's Helper tomorrow, then she's absent and Ha Rin is Teacher's Helper.

And what does it matter? They rotate. Show up every day and you'll be Teacher's Helper roughly once a week. Be late, like Min Gun usually is, and you'll blow your chance most weeks and everybody else gets to be TH after only four days instead of waiting five for their next turn.

But for ten months now there's been the relentless pestering about who will be Teacher's Helper tomorrow and the day after and the day after.

"I'll tell you when you need to know!" I tell them.

And I get one of my Presence of God moments. The "Sound familiar?" moment. The "Somebody has to keep telling YOU that. If you can't listen to Me, you could at least listen to yourself."

But I want to know! What's my next assignment? What am I gonna be doing next year? What's my five year plan?

Never mind I've never once had a five year plan that worked. In fact, making a five year plan -- which all the Success Gurus tell you is absolutely necessary to avoid wasting your life -- is a sure fire plan for disaster for me. I've never had one that doesn't totally blow up in my face and send me 180 degrees off from the direction I'd thought I'd be heading in.

But not having a Five Year Plan drives me as crazy as it drives the preschoolers crazy not to know who will be Teacher's Helper on Monday.

Why is it harder to let go of the admonitions of Success Gurus, whose names I can't even recall, than to let go of the admonitions of GOD, for crying out loud?

Mullins

Running on Empty

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields
In sixty-five I was seventeen and running up 1-0-1
I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on

Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind

Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive
Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive
In sixty-nine I was twenty-one and I called the road my own
I don't know when that road turned onto the road I'm on

Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind

Everyone I know, everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
I don't know about anyone but me
If it takes all night, that'll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running too

Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind

Honey you really tempt me
You know the way you look so kind
I'd love to stick around but I'm running behind
(running on)
You know I don't even know what I'm hoping to find
(running blind)
Running into the sun but I'm running behind

Mongolian Folk Music

Encouragement!

I've been in a terrible funk lately, feeling as if nothing I do really matters to anybody. Sunday morning found me curled up on the floor of my shower, crying, broken down from feeling so totally purposeless and alone. I cried out to God to show me that anything I did mattered to anybody, that I was some good to somebody in this life.

I got up this morning, still pretty depressed. I cued up "He Knows My Name" to try to lift my spirits:



And I opened my email. I found this notification from Blogger:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Somebody was looking for "aborting a 20 week fetus...":

I was 100% pro choice until seeing this posting. I am 17 weeks pregnant and was considering "my options" while I await my amnio results. This site absolutely convinced me that at this point it would be murder to abort my child if it has downs syndrome. It actually made my "choice" easier because I will never abort it now.

I invited Anon to keep in touch, and provided some Down Syndrome links.

He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And He hears me when I call

There is something seriously wrong with me

I just finished putting away the dulcimer hammers I bought in Mongolia.



I just finished a trip to Mongolia. I rode horses on the steppes. I ate goat. I was in the party van.

Why is my default setting, "My life sucks." Because I don't have a mate? Because I don't have much of a career. Oh, boo hoo! Look at my Facebook, for crying out loud! I have friends. I travel. I'm healthy. I have fun. I have a great church.

I can write it off to depression and PTSD, but sometimes I think it just gets down to forgetting to be grateful. How long ago was it I realized that no matter how much anybody has, there will still be an infininte amount of stuff he does not have. Even Bill Gates doesn't own Jupiter, can't go to the moon, whatever. If you look at what you don't have, you're looking at the hole and missing the donut.

I need to look at the donut more.

Words from C. S. Lewis

But if you are a poor creature -- poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels -- saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion -- nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends -- do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) he will fling it on the scrap heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all -- not least yourself: for you have learned yoru driving in a hard school.