Loud and Clear

Driving to church, early morning, my mind streams one question after another, unending, like I95. This route is as familiar as these prayers, a path I have worn down hard these many weeks behind me. Here I am today, all over again.

Covering the miles, my eyes watch the gray pavement just in front of me, and my spirit moves slowly, weighted in my words to God, discouragement close by.

Ahead, something tugs at my thoughts in real time. Pay attention. Cars are pulled off the road, lights are flashing. Traffic gathers. The cruiser and its detainee sit on the left side of the road where I can get a good view, and I gawk like everyone else, expecting to see – not this.

The black pick-up truck has giant letters across its tailgate, the message in white, all caps, loud and clear. HOLD FAST.

My own words – last blog post – back at me.

My response – a choking, bark-like sound, then tears. And now – recounting it to you.

All Over Again, Today

All Over Again, Today

“I feel like I have been led into the desert,” a friend tells me,”a journey that should’ve taken me 35 days is taking me 40 years.”

Another friend confesses with tears, “It’s been a fear of mine that I just kept hidden, and now there’s no way around it.”

Another friend, describing her sadness and longing to me, says “It feels like a new suitcase I carry around all the time and I don’t know how to. It will always be here.”

A friend posts that her son, who requires around the clock care, had a seizure as she drove down the road.”It scared me to death. Please pray for my son tonight.”

I don’t know how faith works, like I don’t know how the lima bean Cutler and I stuck in a baggie with a wet napkin, sprouts. At some moment unknown to us, it shrugged off its coat and exposed its thin, hairy roots to the world – evidence of things unseen.

Cutler rushes off to get his paper, to write the part he sees, and I sit at my laptop to try to do so as well.

I see it in these pieces of women’s stories, and I’m here because I need to remember, to know again, what faith looks like, on this journey, when hidden things are exposed in me, when I find myself carrying something I don’t want, when I feel vulnerable. What will my faith cause me to do with this?

C.S. Lewis, from a book I read this week, reminds me that, eventually, we’ll see that every struggle has been a “small price to pay” for the resulting dependence on God.

“Meanwhile,” he concludes,
“the trouble is that
relying on God
has to begin all over again, everyday
as if nothing has yet been done.”

I came to Him once and for all, I come to Him today.
Flattened by my need for Him to save me, I am humbled by it again, today.
I was healed for all time, today I am being healed as I go.
I know with my head, today I need remember with my heart.
The same question from Him everyday, today I respond again.
There is a continuing from the first I met Him, and there is a returning to Him today.

Cutler bursts in to tell me about our second bean, this one in a closet, where the light only shines now and again. It is sprouting, too.

My friend’s stories unfold next to mine, and they help me continue to see.

The friend asking for prayer – hours later she posts a link to a song called Perfect Peace.
The friend who says there’s no way around it – is finding that way even as she names the fear. “I have never talked about this, until now.”
The friend with the suitcase – I get this message later. “Psalm 38. Picture:” she says, “the suitcase is opened up in front of him all the time.”
The friend in the desert- I see she inserted the tiny, singularly important word led into her sentence.

I think of a note I scribbled this week from a commentary because it stirred me. The ones who held fast to God, even as they wandered in the wilderness, were called by a special name. Dekavim.*

It shares its roots with the words cleave and continue.

What will my faith cause me to do today… with this temptation toward self, or the suitcase still here, the desert around, the vulnerability of love, the fear that presses in?

Touch Him, the woman with the blood flow thought. Faith begins.
Hold fast and continue, today, Dekavim. Faith, all over again.

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Epilogue: There is a third and final bean. It’s in the fridge between the ketchup and cream cheese. It’s cold, seems lifeless.

“Mom, “Cutler says, like a sage, “it just needs to take off it’s coat. There’s a plant inside there, too.”
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*From a website I enjoy. You might too. – דבקות – Devakut – Cleaving to the LORD

A Woman. A Question. Jesus.

It’s a new day, but the this issue, coming from inside me, feels very old. It’s a habit of my mind, a pattern of thinking, deeply ingrained. It leaves me exhausted, and anxious. It reeks of self and pride. Forgiveness has been asked for and given, yet here I am again.

This is what I’m coming with when I sit to read in Mark this morning. Here to meet me is the woman with the relentless flow of blood. Yes, I scratch in my journal, This pours out of me. I feel powerless to staunch it. I am desperate to feel free of this that is unclean before the holiness of God.

The woman thought If I could touch Him… and things were set in motion.

Jesus came near, moving in the eye of a cloud of people, dust and noise. There – the sight of him flashed up ahead – then she lost sight – then He appeared again. She moved toward Him, undaunted, using the crowd’s distraction to her advantage, using the fact that no one would touch her to push her away, unclean as she was. There He was, and she was close enough.

Touch Him.

The thought became hope, the hope spread its wings, and the wings carried her beyond herself as hope is known to do. Her arm shot out like a bird from its cage, her hand landed on the hem of his garment, and her fingers plucked the fringe there.

Jesus halted. The crowd stepped on each other and his disciples must have back-pedaled. “Who touched me?” he asked.

While his disciples questioned the question, the woman stood behind Him, her arms wrapped round herself. Clean. Her hidden shame, her indellible stain, had been touched and lifted. She held tight, embraced her miracle inside, even as Jesus’ question fell on her hearing.

Tell Him. Her arms lowered and she went trembling to His feet.

Her answer was her story, I’m sure a gush of words, and I wonder if it was in the telling that her faith found its voice.

“Daughter,” Jesus responded, telling her everything, “Your faith has saved you.” The Greek word for this is “sozo,” also translated- “made you whole.” With this, Jesus named for her the what had happened in her heart.

This morning there is this story of a woman, Jesus, and the question He asks. It occurs to me that Jesus asked a lot of questions.

It occurs to me, too, that with every question it is as if the world around should pause and listen, and maybe hold its breath – sacred space is being made for someone’s faith to find its voice, take life, expand. A door swings open somewhere, unseen.

In the quiet of this scene and the echo of Jesus’ words, I remember learning that my faith has saved me and makes me whole, not in itself, “But by,” the words of a teacher coming back to me now, “…what it causes me to do.”

This thing I want to live free of, brings me to Him, and a question falls on my hearing, now -

What will your faith cause you to do, here, with this, today?

To Tina on the Occasion of Her 40th Birthday

Do you remember this day?
It was the stuff of memories – warm, green day going down to soft, firefly dusk.
There was birthday cake and candles that sparked,
carnival colors, snapping to life like the neon pink and green of the ferris wheel we rode -
round and round and round…
(which, of course, tumbled small tummies – Jen, taking the worst – laughing, somehow).
Legendary times.
We watched our little ones watch it all,
eyes wide.
Want to ride?
This one, it goes up and down, best one yet,
so fun,
but each seat only big enough for one.
One?
My little big-girl-baby
watches her tribe-mates climb into yellow planes,
lets go my hand
finds her ride,
climbs in by herself,
and then… what?
The unknown, next, is as big as the Ohio sky.
Something cold begins to move across her heart,
chilling her courage as it goes.
This,
you see.
And I see you,
smoothly at her side,
saying those things
you say to us,
and I see her
tell the fear
there’s no room here,
she’s going on a ride.

May your birthday
be the stuff of memories,
birthday cake and candles,
you are loved round and round and round.

I am thanking Jesus for you, sister-friend,
for what your eyes see,
for your courage toward mercy and truth,
for who you are.
And for the way you laugh too (especially at Mike or in movies), it’s pretty awesome too.
I want to offer to others
what you have always given me.

So – 40! The unknown, next…
It’s going to be the best one yet -
Tina’s going on a ride!

Meanwhile

I get more giddy about New Year’s Day than I do Christmas.

It’s not that the birth of the Champion of the World into our helpless midst doesn’t make me shut my mouth in wonder and gratitude. It does. This is different.

Giddiness is what my kids feel when the packages start showing up under the tree. It is the sugar-induced high they achieve after slathering themselves and their cookies with icing all afternoon. It’s glee, and it’s the feeling I get when I bust open my new calendar with all those days of wide open spaces, waiting to be written on. It’s the high of the blank page, where all things are possible, and might possibly be planned.

I choose to believe I am not alone in this.

This New Year Effect lasts long enough to get me through un-decorating, scraping icing off of my kitchen floor, and dealing with the holiday hangovers of my elves. Almost. Because life is, as that Beatle sang, what happens while you’re busy making other plans. Reality may get suspended by the holidays, but sooner or later it will settle back down around me. Or, as they sang in the 70′s as well: What goes up, must come down.

There is the stack of cereal bowls in the sink, the buzzer from the dryer, there are the questions still unanswered, the relationships still in need of work. I begin to resent all the plans I myself scribbled on my calendar. There are good times and wonders to celebrate to be sure, but there are days where the winter light falls harsh on the brown grass as I pull into my driveway, and I chafe against the things that I long to be different. A restlessness surfaces, remains.

These are the days between Christmas and Easter. They are what the Book of Common Prayer calls Ordinary Days.

This is where we live. In the “for now” part of 1 Corinthians 13:12. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, – “

For now, we live in the space of a comma, where spiritual realities appear dim.

We want to be fixed rather than transformed, because it hurts sometimes. A lot.

The cradle morphs into a cross, and Easter seems like a dream.

We travel between war-torn London and Narnia. Aslan’s land is very close, but very far indeed.

But, there are wonderful plans afoot, we’re told. These are plans not of our making, plans beyond our most brazen dream or fondest hope. Plans are at work, right now,for a Grand Reunion, a wedding feast. Other plans. After the comma.

” – but then face to face.” We will look into the eyes of Jesus, and be complete.

Meanwhile, life happens.
Meanwhile, there are those cereal bowls, and the laundry.
Meanwhile, there are those questions and relationships.
Meanwhile there is pain and chafing, gratitude and giddiness.
Meanwhile, there is the Spirit in us, and there is faith, hope and love.
Meanwhile, we have each other.

The Valley of the Shadow

Today I am thinking of my big brother, because it is his birthday. I am older now than he ever was, and yet he is still out there ahead of me, experiencing things I can only imagine.

I wrote what follows about him shortly after he died. Out of the valley of the shadow of death I had to say something about his life.

My Prince Brother
King Dowell
of my little world.
We sailed seas of green
on picnic table ships,
You-the Captain of our fate,
Treader of Unknown Waters, before me…
Turning back, you called me on–
Safe passage little sister!

My gentle Warrior Brother
King Dowell of my little world.
You grabbed snakes
with bare hands,
stepped on nails and never cried,
ran into shadows before me…
Turning back, you called me on–
Keep up little sister!

My Hero Shining Brother
King Dowell
of my little world,
Captain of our fate,
Treader of Unknown Waters,
Runner into Shadows,
always reaching the woods,
before me…
Turning back,
you call me on -
Safe passage,
keep up, it’s okay
little sister!

Someone who had walked through this valley before once told me to expect “grief attacks” — moments, usually unexpected, when something will trigger afresh the sharpness of the loss that never goes away.

I have come to realize that the shadow will loom especially large on the days between my brother’s birthday and his deathday. The moments of memory and then loss will come close together. I will hold my kids a little closer, and hold Rich’s hand a little tighter because fear and sadness will press in close. They know I will cry more or get suddenly quiet, and listen over and over to the Boston and Eagles tapes my brother made for me.

I will, most of all, lean hard into God, who has made a way through for me, my brother…all of us. And, I will write about it all. Over the next months of blogging,some of it will show up here. Maybe it will sound familiar to someone–to you–and encouraging somehow, and this will be something gained out of loss.

Surf Forecast

Beach 1

I am standing on a wide open beach talking with a friend. It’s early evening. Suddenly there is a man running by us, a red board in his hand–a lifeguard in full rescue mode. The pounding of his feet on the sand is audible because everyone on the beach is on alert, collectively holding their breath.

I hear the red flag flapping and snapping in the wind close by. High Hazard, it warns. I look behind me, for the first time, at the lifeguard station and realize someone is up there – as we stand chatting – scanning the shore with binoculars, watching, watching.

Moments pass. The swimmer is alright. Squinting against the sun, it’s hard to see who it is exactly. The hum of voices all around picks back up. A red lifeguard truck begins to drive up and down the beach blaring something from the loudspeaker. What? We look at each other. What are they saying? Dangerous conditions exist. A riptide warning is in effect here…

Watching the shoreline I wonder if anyone out in the water is paying attention. A group of college guys are wading out, out. In my head I demand they stop and decide my boys are never going to college.

The lifeguard truck continues to sweep the beach, warning, warning. People continue to move through the water.

Beach 2

I am sitting on the beach, early morning. I’m alone with God — for the first time in a little while. Waves, wild and green, reach up to me, claiming every inch of sand. I’m here, but when it comes to real communication, I am like my kids when they can’t look me in the eye, I’m all over the place, swirling like the surf. But what about this, God, what is going to happen? How will I…? I go on and on, breathless. I can’t get my footing, hold up my head, the anxious thoughts have come in currents for days, and now they become a riptide. Finally, one true thought surfaces. It’s me. I’m the one out there in water too deep for me.

When it comes to the health and well-being of my spirit-life, the red flag is out. Always. Dangerous conditions exist. Always. There are strong currents that can sweep me away, take my eyes off Jesus, who is my life, catch me up in thinking it’s all on me. They will sweep me away with the stuff, even the good stuff, of life.

God is God and I am not. This is the truth I am either clinging to or choosing to ignore, and it will determine everything else. There is no standing still in the waves.

God, I am so sorry…

Relief comes in like a flood, and calm.

Beach 3

Later, walking back toward my car, I stop to slip on my sandals. In my distraction, I had taken them off without thinking about it. I see now I left them at the foot of a lifeguard chair.

Looking at it, then at the endless surf, suddenly I’m overwhelmed by the ever-present, saving love of God.

You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; its useless. Cultivate God-confidence. (1Corinthians 10:12, The Message)

Native Language

Last Sunday I got to hang out with The Threes (this is a tribe that deserves capitalization) at my church.

We were supposed to talk about how God had a message to deliver to the people of Ninevah, to be delivered by Jonah. The whale episode was not really a point of emphasis this time, but of course The Threes thought this was an egregious oversight, especially because that would mean leaving out the whole spitting-out scene. The very fact that we were eating goldfish crackers—which resemble whales much more than goldfish after all—called for spontaneous reenactment of the story, so it was only fitting we do so.

After some big fun with all that, we tried to redirect their attention back the day’s theme by having them dictate messages to us to be delivered to someone after church. The Threes were favorable to this idea, and made messages for mom, dad, pet and light saber. I understand the love of a boy for his light saber, thanks to my sons, so I took down his message carefully. This little guy didn’t really get, or maybe didn’t care, that I understood, until I started speaking back to him in Star Wars. He looked at me as if I were Obi-Wan himself. Shock and “Hey, maybe this lady gets me” was all over his bright, open face. We went on to have quite the extended conversation, and when I got to tell him that God’s message to him was that God loves him and wants to be his very best friend, I think little Luke Skywalker got it, roger-roger.

Hours later, I read the opening words of Hebrews, translated by Kenneth Wuest, Greek scholar. In many parts and in different ways of old, God having spoken to the fathers by means of the prophets. Of course I thought of Jonah, and our creative Bible teaching methods involving spewing. Would Jonah be able to laugh at all that now? Has it been long enough? His look, after being in whale gut for awhile, must have been a real attention-getter when he walked into town. Talk about creative teaching methods. So many times the stories of the prophets were themselves a part of the message.

In the last of these days spoke to us in (One who in character is) Son…

Wow.
Not in grumpy, freaky-looking, runaway prophet language,
fire and smoke language,
the language of law,
or even of nature,
or a unembodiied voice crying in the wilderness, delivering pieces of God’s message little by little, but, now—I love the way Wuest translates it—in Son.

Person Language. The “what” God was saying became a “who” God has sent. The message was embodied, walked around, accessible, spoke in stories, and looked into faces and hearts. Everything about Him was an invitation simple enough for Threes to understand.

Jesus. In Him, I hear God. In Him I find the way, truth, and life. I’m not after dogma, formula or some higher plane of spiritual existence. I’m not after Bible knowledge, spiritual gifts, wisdom, or even being an all-around better person, or any other thing at all. I am after a Person, a Someone I love and am loved by. A very best friend.

I forget, and try to run after all the things – spiritual things, good things I think I should be gaining—but in the end, I’ve just gotten either full of myself or grumpy and frustrated.

Jesus speaks in the native language God gave us all—relationship. Jesus is God’s way of getting down and looking me in the eyes, and repeating His message over and over, everyday. Be with Me, listen to My words, look at Me. And I get it, today, with a little help from some Threes, roger-roger.

Durable Goods

I’m packing to move into our new house. Suffice it to say I am beside myself with happiness—sticky sweet, cotton candy happiness.

I know that the down-to-the-paper-cone moment will come, where all my fingers are stuck together, I’ve got a blue tongue, and a sugar dive is in progress. Reality will hit. (The first mortgage payment, or a call to the plumber…) But, for now, I will be “in the moment” and enjoy this treat before it melts.

There are things that do last, and, of course, they’re not things at all. Yet, I have a collection of objects that, to me, are more than what they seem. They are the tangible-ordinary speaking to me of the intangible-extraordinary.

God, from the beginning, has given us what we can see, smell, and hear to help us grasp something about realities unseen. To His people, being led to places unknown, God gave a tent filled with candles, incense, a golden ark, a heavy curtain, an altar, and sacrifice to reveal something about Himself along the way. Of course, all these culminate not in an object, but in a Person. God’s love with skin on: Seen, heard, touched, flogged, sacrificed, alive again and observed returning to God. He too gave us bread and wine to help us remember. It occurs to me that all these things can be packed up and taken with the traveler on the move…

Yet, ”Life makes it so hard, sometimes, to know what’s real,” sings Crowder from my iPod as I move around my house, packing. These are some of the things going into a box to keep, things that speak to me of what is real:

• A weathered-looking sign we hang across the kids’ doorway that reads “For Always, Forever, and No Matter What”. It speaks of our love for each other, but wider and deeper and more perfect still: The constant love of God.
• A creased, many-times-taped boxed set of The Chronicles of Narnia from my and my brother’s childhood. It speaks to me of the maddening dash of time, the preciousness of each moment that becomes fairy tale in the re-telling… The reality of, the anticipation of heaven, where my brother is now, where the happy is ever-after.
• A sketch, many times re-printed, of Jesus laughing. Remember, He is here, among us. We are the “joy set before Him,” the reason he endured the cross. With Him, I am utterly satisfied.
• A small collection of birdcages, all the doors flung wide open, to remind me that she who the Son has set free, is free indeed. Free to give without fear, love without strings, to know and be known.
• A snapshot of four chairs circled on a beach. I am not alone here, I live within a community of others who are the broken but soul struck followers of Jesus. We circle up then go out, in the strength of His love and our bond. We remind each other we are not Home yet.
• My notebooks. I have boxes and piles of them because writing has always been the most natural way for me to understand my story, and listen well to the stories of others. These notebooks, like my friends, help me process the moment and the journey, and the reality of both God’s sovereignty and His goodness. Reading back through them, I am astonished at His grace. What do I have that I have not been given? Where have I gone that God has not been there? These are questions that firmly keep the stuff of my life in its proper place, like moving into a new house.

These things are the durable goods of my life. They help me see the now for what it is, and enjoy God there. They help me to be grateful, hopeful, open to what is next. I have a friend who has a little pile of stones on her kitchen windowsill, each a quiet acknowledgement between she and God of His presence in her times. Like the Israelites, she is constructing her own ebenezer. I believe this is wisdom for the way.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11

Stream of Unconsciousness

Driving, by myself, to the beach…

God, You are so good and faithful, and Your timing is perfect. Thank you so much for working things out with the house. Wow, we’re moving! Got to get things packed up. Holy cow, the garage is such a mess. Wait, I’ve still gotta pull out what we need for vacation, and call A and T, and see how the recoveries are going. And, I need to call about the dog, and the boys need haircuts. Maybe on Saturday. Oh, and Cutler needs soccer cleats. I wonder if he will refuse to get out on the field—can we get our money back? I need to pick out paint colors. Look at that beautiful sky You made, God! I‘m going to pull off at this little beach. Peyton needs jeans because he has grown a foot this summer. He is getting so old, we only have him around, really, for a few more years. He is going to be morphing right in front of us and are we letting him…ooh, there is a shell under my heel. Here are the steps down to the beach. Have we done what we need to get him ready? I don’t know how to parent teenagers! Carly is right behind him, and she is going to be a whole different story. I feel sick to my stomach—seriously—I think I am totally messing up with her right now, like when she rolls her eyes, and doesn’t get what I’m trying to tell her…

Aww, look what some little girl was trying to do…

How…funny.
You are, God.
I get it.