Tribute to Ernest Angley

I have had a seriously difficult time with religion in the south. I see the Church of Christ's on one corner, the Methodist's caddycorner, the Presbyterians across from them and by golly a good ole Southern Baptist caddycorner from that.
And their not talkin'.
As in ever.
Because Caddycorner #1 thinks that Corner #2 is going straight to you-know-where, and Caddycorner #2 thinks that Corner #3 shouldn't be baptizing backwards and Corner #4 thinks that Caddycorner #1 ought to be resting on Saturday, not Sunday and that all that hoopin' and hollerin' is way too loud and they should not be allowing drums in a church building.
This is where I, as a born and raised Southerner, get very embarrassed. I don't know why I take this so personally quite honestly, I mean to each his own right? Live and let live. But it just doggone gets under my skin.
My hairdresser says the injustices of the world drive me crazy. Yeah, somethin' like that.
The injustices of our religious system make me even crazier.
My husband was raised Church of the Brethren, which is basically MENNONITE.
You come down here to the south askin' for the local Church of the Brethren and they're like, um..the brethra' who?
And then good ole' non-opinionated ME, was raised, well... I'm not quite sure but somethin' like Southern Baptist with a twist of "let's stay home and have church of the bed and watch Ernest Angley on TV."
That IS how I got "saved" you know.
Good ole Ernest.
SHOULDABOUGHTAHONDA'! SHOULDABOUGHTAHONDA'! SHOULDABOUGHTAHONDA'!
He said if I wanted to go to heaven, not hell, I needed to put my hands on the screen, right over his and say a magic prayer that would catapult me right to heaven when I died. I thought that was a pretty good idea. After all it was free, and I didn't have any money anyways I was only ten.
I tip-toed to the TV screen, stretched out my ten year old fingers, RIGHT over his so each finger matched his just perfectly. And I said it. The prayer. The big one.
Not a dang thing happened.
I'm not sure what I was expecting. Some big man to come down from the sky and sit on my head, for the house to shake, or for the Ark-Angels to sing a merry tune... but nothin'. Just plain ole nothin and the next thing I know is my hands are spread on the TV set with the Palmolive Liquid Lady.
Hmmm.
But what happened next was quite wonderful. I was introduced to a sweet youth group and was given a "tape" of Sandi Patty singing Via Dolorosa, and the rest they say is "history". I listened to that song so many times my yellow Walkman broke.
And forever I would know in my heart that the God of the Universe sent his only son to die so that I could live shame free.
Emphasis on free.
And free I am to this day. Mistakes, screw-ups and all. I'm free.
And for that my friends, I am truly thankful.
Thankful that Mr. Ernest Sweet Shouldaboughtahonda Angley got up and put his crooked little fingers on that old television screen, so that I could begin the most grace-filled adventure of my life...
Mistakes and all...

DawgDung and The Replacement Principle

Well like granny says, "If you git cold at night you just throw another dawg on the bed!"

Overwhelmed is putting it lightly. This has been a hard month for me. Man oh man alive. Where the heck fire did February go? It's March? Really?? Hmmm... Well I had a very difficult class in school that I just finished. I wanted to jump off a bridge but I ate chocolate cake instead.
I have a 4.0 in graduate school right now, which makes me feel very smart. My dad always says I'm smart. Now I'm proving him right.
My daughter and husband and son made a chicken tractor on Saturday. From a BOX SPRING. Yes sirree. That's what happens when you live in Maury County, OUTSIDE Williamson and outside the city limits. We be countrifried.
My heart seems a bit neglected. I haven't written in weeks. My hair is funky, my dog needs a bath and I need to learn how to take better care of myself. Do any of you relate? Seems like every day I wake up thinking... I need an hour or two to just spend with me. Me and the God of the Universe need an hour or two. And then email calls me and the house is a mess and my cat needs petting and my bed isn't made and what's happening on Facebook and what about those old emails and then what about the curriculum I haven't finished and.... Well you know how it goes.. before you know it the hour is up and yet again, you are left in the wind.
The wind. Gone with the wind that hour you wanted for yourself. And the God that loves you.
Wonder why we do that?
Wonder how as women we seem to put ourselves dead last?
I would love to offer you all the solutions in the world and make you think I've got it all figured out, but friends, I'm here to tell you, I'm here on this planet struggling just like the rest of the human race.
What helps me is to reframe my thoughts and use the Replacement Principle. Ever heard of that? Well my good friend Sue Ellen taught my all about it. Let's have an object lesson.
SO! How am I feeling right now? Like a piece of dog dung if you want the honest truth. Now I can either spend the rest of my day feeling like dawgdung or I can use the Replacement Principle. Now. What is the opposite of DawgDung? Go to your Opposites Dictionary and you will find that the opposite of DawgDung is GoodDank. Now that doesn't make a lick of sense does it? Nope. So you have to dig on down into your own heart dictionary and find the answer for yourself.
Today I feel like DawgDung. But I am choosing to replace this with something positive so that I won't feel like DawgDung all day and then make my kids and husband and the postman and my pets feel the same DawgDung way.
So I choose to find a word I can live with. How about Content and at Peace. Let's look at this further.
Content means...happy enough with what one has or is; not desiring something more or different; satisfied.
Peace means....A state of quiet or tranquillity; freedom from disturbance or agitation; calm; repose .
So instead of meditating on dawg, I'm meditation on the fact that right now, in this moment, I am happy enough with what I have and am, I am not desiring something more or different. I am satisfied. I am meditating on the fact that I have the great privilege to enjoy a state of quiet, tranquility, a freedom from disturbance or agitation, a calm. A "peace" that passes all understanding, that can only be found by searching within, finding the gem, finding that God gave us the ability to live in His peace anytime we want it.
I once heard a friend talk about good boundaries. How good boundaries are like a fence with remote control panels. We have the remote control and have the ability to open and close as we wish. Isn't it interesting to know that God doesn't make us open our fences? He lets us open and close as we wish. We can open our fences and let him in today, and all the good things he made for us to enjoy- or we can keep our fences closed. I think I'll open a panel or two ;)
I'm feeling better already, how about you?
It is not our circumstances that create our discontent or contentment. It is us. -Vivian Greene
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
he who can call today his own; he who,
secure within, can say, tomorrow
do thy worst, for I have lived today.
-John Dryden
May your day be filled with peace and contentment today. And always remember, when your morning gives you DawgDung, you can always throw it over the fence.
Love and Blessings,
Stacy

Courage

Courage is a thing that I sometimes have, and well I sometimes haven't. And I know that was bad grammar. Some days I have the courage to try things that by all sets and standards our culture says, "How dare you." Like living in a non-electric cabin for 18 months, bathing in a converted horse trough, talking to ballroom students while peeing in my outhouse, watching my husband gun down a flogging rooster. You know, courage, the kind you get when you decide to birth a child with absolutely no drugs, and heck-why-not-no-hospital-either. I had the privilege of birthing both of my children at home. Rebekah took 54 hours. Ouch. Luke took two and a half. Ouch. Courage. That something that rises up in you that says, "I'm going back to school. Period. I don't care if it kills me." And here I find myself in graduate school, dad-blame it, and will graduate at the end of next year. The end of next year was comin' anyways.
Courage. The thing that allows you to go against the grain. To move into a 100 year old farmhouse with falling down window shutters, terrible landscaping, one nasty bathroom, and a huge hole in the kitchen floor while you are simultaneously seriously pregnant, toting around a precocious two year old. (Before we tore the thing out I could pee and spit in the sink at the same time.)
Courage. To live among the renovations.
One year later and by golly we did it. The year went by anyways. Why not.
Courage.

Eleanor Roosevelt says, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."
Courage.
Courage to start a business with no money. Courage to believe God is in the revealing. The day by day unfolding of His will for us. And not a day, or an hour sooner.
Wonder why.
Maybe it's because He is teaching us courage.
I wrote a poem once in the midst of great trial, of terrible heartache, yet I could feel the heartbeat of the Creator as He walked with me in my pain. Here it goes, this one's for you, and me.
"This flower represents HOPE. Hope that I will have the COURAGE to live. Hope that I will remain seen...noticed. Hope that before I die, I will mean something to somebody. Hope that if I am trampled on, I will leave a scent of LOVE and FORGIVENESS. Hope that my life will make a difference among so many lives. Hope that each day will represent a different color, a different shade of GRACE. Hope that I will bear seeds that produce flowers who are beautiful, strong, and always know where the original seed came from. Hope that when it is time for me to fade, that I will fade with grace. And when it is time for me to die, that I will WORSHIP." --Stacy Jagger

Today I wish for you COURAGE. Strength to try. For the best way out, is always THROUGH...

Gratitude and Jailhouse Rock

My mentor, Sue Ellen, who is almost 80 now, who was married 50 years and who puts me in my place on a very regular basis in her loving, yet bold way, says that it is best for our brains to make a gratitude list each night, ten things at least, in order to wake up in a good mood.
Now you need to understand that 99.9% of my life before I began this practice I have woken up in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mood. So to write this list each night has become, well, a necessity.
(I don't wake up with a rifle or anything, it's just this lingering pissation that I somehow pick up in the night and it generally takes three cups of coffee and about two solid hours for me to get over it. Not that my family even knows about it, but it's just- there. So the gratitude list friends is my saving grace.)
Here it goes.... Gratitude List January 18th, Year Two Thousand and Ten.
Number One. I am thankful today for a sense of connectedness to my neighbors and my community.
Number Two. I am extremely thankful to have had a mentor for almost a decade now who has been God's instrument of teaching me to love myself and to accept mine and others' faults and limitations.
Number Three. I am thankful for the experiences I have been given to find my own authenticity, my own voice, my own life.
Number Four. I am thankful to have been set free from the laws of religion. The closer I feel to God, the less religious I seem to be.
Number Five. I am thankful for my beautiful children who are turning my hair gray, my eyes black and my heart into gold.
Number Six. I am beyond thankful that I get to live in a piece of history, and that Henry Delk and his family left a legacy of peace, kindness and warmth where the walls speak in our 100 year old farmhouse.
Number Seven. I am thankful that God in his mercy has put the pieces of my marriage back together and is leading us into His plan for our lives, together.
Number Eight. I am thankful I live in the free-est country in the world.
Number Nine. I am thankful that I don't have to watch the 5 o'clock or the 6 o'clock Bad News.
Number Ten. I am thankful that Elvis shook his hips the way he did in Jailhouse Rock.
Goodnight friends. I'll let you know in the morning if this worked ;)
---Stacy

Ghetto

My three year old is entirely too responsible. This morning I was running late trying to get to grad school on time. I am studying to become a family therapist. So, as usual, my car is a complete wreck. And there is the coffee cup in my coffee cup container that was OLD coffee, cold and totally didn't want the ride. So. In my grown up, spontaneous way, I took and threw it out the window. Onto MY lawn. Okay let's back up here. We live on 10 acres. Nobody cares that my coffee cup is in the lawn. Nobody can SEE the coffee cup.
Except for my three year old.
Who is entirely too responsible for her age.
After a long, beautiful, arduous yet completely intellectually challenging day, I came home ready to jump on trampolines, watch Little House, read The Tale of Benjamin Button, whatever my little babies' hearts' desired.
And what did I get?
Reprimanded.
I walk in and the first thing my three and a half year old daughter has to say to me is, "Mommy did you throw your coffee cup on the lawn?" My husband is washing dishes trying not to completely crack up. "Yes Rebekah, I did." "Mommy don't do that again. That was ghetto." "Oh really!? Ghetto huh? Did I just get busted by my three year old?" "Yes mama. That was ghetto why did you do that?" "Well honey I was running late and I didn't have time to come back in the house so I thought I'll just throw this on the lawn and when I get home I'll pick it up, take it in the house and wash it."
"Mama." She shakes her head.
My husband's face is red because he is doing his very best not to blow. The kind of "Bahahaaahaa" blow. So in my "therapist-in-training" way I just laughed for him. And I apologized.
"Rebekah I am very sorry. I was wrong. You are right. That was ghetto. Now let's make a pizza for dinner."
Good Lord people, just when you think you can get a break. Just when you think you can SQUEEEEZE one by, you get completely full-on busted by your daughter who has been alive a total of 42 months.
42 months.
I'm happy to be humbled. She's right, I should have learned this lesson years ago. Don't be ghetto throwin your coffee cups in the yard.
So be it.
Can't wait to see what lesson she gets to teach me tomorrow.
---Stacy

World Peace and Marshmellow Pig Skin

So today this country girl went to the city, and let me tell you, I wasn't too happy about it. First of all, I'm not a big fan of concrete. Second of all, like my hairdresser will tell you, the injustices of the world drive me crazy. I only listen to the radio when I am in the car, WITHOUT children. And that isn't often. So we're talking maybe once a week. And I hear all this mumbo crap from every talk channel and my brain starts to fry and then I start thinking about Jesus and the manger and Eve and when things were simpler, easier, caring-er. I watch the cars go by and my memories flash through my mind like pea soup on a rainy day in Albania. And I think why was I born in Nashville, and why did all those people die in Haiti and what the heck can I do about it here? It's not happening here, right? Right. Or not so right. Not sure which. A mixture of heartache and callousedness. Is this an HBO special? Do I get to turn this off now? Is this suitable for children? Aren't I a child?
This is a blog. So I get to say anything I darn well please. Which is the whole point right? Well let me tell you. I don't like going to the city. I want to stay home and be a farm wife I guess. A farm wife and pretend I live on the prarie in 1850 except I don't.
I don't.
The little girl inside me does though. And she's having a blast. She likes it. She's happy there. She paints there. She sleeps by the fire there and reads books and plays Checkers and makes hot apple cider and pumpkin soup and roasts marshmellows over the fire.
Speaking of marshmellows. Did you know gelatin is made of pig skin? Gross. This should be on the LABEL people. Ingredients: Sugar, Pig Skin, Sugar, White stuff, High Fructose Poison, and PIG SKIN.
Okay I'm back. So I'm at moms here to study for a test. Can you tell I'm workin' real hard on that? I'll get to it. Yeah...that's the ticket. Right after dinner with mom, a movie and a real hard nap!
I'm 35. I'm a mommy. I'm in grad school. I'm sad for Haiti. I want to live in the garden of Eden and pretend none of this ever happened. I guess that's me and Sandra Bulluck...both of us praying for peace in the world...
One day. It will happen one day. It's going to be a friggin' long time from now but one day.
It will be here.
No more crying.
No more sadness.
Just peace.
Ahhhh.
I can feel it already.

"Ladybug Sings The Blues" by Ron and Stacy Jagger

Lucy the Ladybug had just moved to town.
She had no new friends and was feeling quite down.
"Poor pitiful me," she cried. "What shall I do?"
And Lucy the Ladybug began to feel blue.

When up hopped a grasshopper with a "How do you do?"
You're looking quite sullen. Are you feeling blue?"
"Of course I am," whimpered little Lucy Ladybug.
"I'm new to this place, and I've not met the first slug!"

Then along came a bee, a spider and a flea
All crying together, "Poor pitiful me!"
They each thought that theirs was most terrible news,
And each of them had gotten a bad case of the blues.

"Well hello there," said grasshopper, tipping his hat.
"Do you all have the blues? Just what's up with that?!
Then each bug sang its sad, sad song.
And when the others were singing, they each hummed along.

"My flowers," sang the bee, "were as tall as a tower
When a lawnmower came through and each one devoured."
"And my web. Oh, my web," moaned the spider in tears,
"Was knocked down by a broom when I'd lived there a year."

"But mine is the worst," cried the flea in a fog.
"For I've just had to leave my favorite dog."
"It's the collar he's got. I just can't stand the smell,
Such a horrible smell that words cannot tell."

Then the grasshopper hopped to a tall flowering weed
And clearing his throat declared words we should heed:
"While each has the right to feel down, it is true,
Sometimes just a little good action will do.

To spin a new web or to find a new dog
Is just what one needs to get out of a fog.
Often the things which worry us most
Work out in the end to be blessings almost.

Lucy the Ladybug started to giggle,
And one of her wings, it started to wiggle!
"I cannot believe it!" she laughed through her grin.
"I felt all alone and now I have friends!"

"And I," said the flea, jumping up on a log,
"Am on an adventure to find a new dog."
"To spin a new web!" barked the spider with glee.
"And to find some more flowers," buzzed a happier bee.

So think on these things next time you feel down,
And try a big smile instead of a frown.
Then lend an ear and help somebug through
When somebuggy you know is singing the blues.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/ladybug-sings-the-blues/1707986

Good Friends and Nice and Easy

Once in a great while I am completely perplexed by the generosity of a good friend. My mind at times cannot conceive why someone would be so sacrificial and nice to me. A sisterhood in the making. A friendship on the loose. A poem waiting to be written on childhood and caring and loving each other, in spite of daily aggravations like stretch marks, tired eyes and broken dreams. In the midst of life on life's terms we are given, on occasion the gift of a friend, and it soothes our aching souls like warm pumpkin soup by the fire on a cold January day.
All I needed this morning was a couple hours of sanity to take care of some grad school business, some time to read my text and think straight with no "mommy mommy mommy" or a 10 month old climbing my legs or "powing" my face to show his baby manliness.
And wala'. A good friend arrives. With a present in hand, coming to serve. Asking nothing in return.
Miracles still happen. Nice and Easy Root Touch Up and the kindness of a good friend.
For that I am truly thankful.
-Stacy

It a rare thing when your life is changed by a box of six dollar Clairol Nice and Easy Root Touch Up. But I'm here to tell you friends, my life has been forever changed. This gray headed 35 year old woman THANKS the Lord for the miracle.
Praise Him.