I Will Not Forget these Stories

My professor friend and I arrive first in the classroom on this particular morning.  She engages many of her students as they shuffle into her World Religions course at a local community college.  At one point five beautiful Muslim girls come in together--heads covered with lovely scarves, chattering away to each other and to their professor.  The rapport is a delight to watch. Others come, too. Old, young, delightfully colorful characters, all.

I have come to class as storyteller.  A few props: an old-looking vase of ointment (which prompts a funny conversation after class on how long it takes to convert vaseline to a liquid state), a chess board with a few key pieces, a shawl and a large, wooden-looking jar.  And me--dressed in black, because I, too, am a prop.  The stories are about someone else.

And so my assigned topic: tell stories of Jesus' interaction with women in the Gospels.  The woman who comes utterly undone at Simon's house as she encounters Jesus' lavishly forgiving love.  Jesus' unique exchanges with controlling Martha and comfortable Mary whose friendship with their Lord changes them forever.  An isolated woman who bears a large water jar to a well at the height of desert heat but forgets to take it home, and an invisible woman who is desperate enough to risk it all on one touch...and gets far more than she could have asked or imagined.   

The details come bobbing to the surface at the right moments. They are the stories that form "Confidence," and in the re-telling, I find myself again strengthened by Jesus' life-changing touch of each life.  

The room is quiet for over an hour--that lovely, full quiet of an audience that is with you--not challenging, not analyzing.  They have come inside with me--because that's what a real story invites us to do.  And I can think of no stories more inviting than Jesus' unique, healing interaction with women in a culture so different, with needs so familiar.

We chat for a few minutes at the end--because we all need a bit of time to come back to World Religion class at the local community college.  We have been in a different world and, simultaneously, too deep in our own worlds for words, and so we all take a breath, and then they leave for their next class.  One of the Muslim girls pauses on the way out the door and looks me in the eye. "Thank you.  I will not forget these stories."  

And I am humbled.  How complicated I often make speaking of faith in Christ--when what we are all hungry for is the extraordinary Jesus who is at the heart of all the best stories.

A Few Threads of Wisdom

Last month I had tea with a young woman who was in the small group I describe in "Wisdom."  As we talked she pulled out a tattered piece of paper, folded so many times it was falling apart.  And she said, "Remember this? I was out of the country, disillusioned because the thing I thought I was supposed to be doing wasn't happening, and I wrote to you.  This was your response: I've carried for months, and sent it on to many others." 

I had forgotten the email.  As I re-read it, I found myself smiling inside.  It was obviously one of those moments where the Lord handed me many of the threads of wisdom I've gained over the last couple of decades and wove them into a few sentences for the sake of my lonely friend on the other side of the globe.  Since I personally needed to remember them again, I got her permission to pass them on:

Oh, friend, you are on such a pilgrimage.  And I wonder if, at the heart of it, isn't an invitation to take another step in understanding how God works. I wonder if He isn't far more interested in forming your character for the long haul than in giving you the particular scenario you so desire.  [Your specific vision] is, say, silver. Cultivating the humility to do whatever He opens up is, well, gold.

As you describe the [uninspiring opportunity before you], it does sound like the Lord's provision for you being able to be in ____.  And I completely get how frustrating it would be to be there and not be doing what you came for.  But I wonder if you are looking for straight lines when God seems to work much more frequently in crooked ones.

Here's a prayer that I have learned to pray over the years. "Lord, please keep me here as long as you can accomplish your will in me and through me. And when this season is over, please make it clear that you have released me."

At the same time, do continue to lift up the desires of your heart to the Lord.  Yet I'm struck at how hard you are working to make those desires happen.  And what you continually seem to be getting are fistfuls of sand...I recognize the dynamic from my own life.  

What would happen if you stopped reaching, (not just physically, but with your heart) and waited for Lord to open a solid door--or not, as He chooses?... Sometimes we passionate souls look for all or nothing and miss the everyday opportunity right in front of us.

I'm grateful to my young friend for handing back to me these threads of truth.  May they be an encouragement to others as we learn to walk in the way of wisdom.

 

A Prayer In the Waiting

Last night I was attempting to fall asleep to music created for that purpose, when I was suddenly conscious of these words bounding in my head: "Wait for the Lord, keep watch, take heart."  The words quickly found their own mysterious pathway to my heart, and I lay there for quite some time, pondering this central, grace-filled posture of a rightly directed Christian soul. I had again fallen into a moment when "the circumstances I see had become all the reality I recognize," and, like Peter, I was sinking again. ("Songs of Assent,"Simplicity, 46)

Waiting is a major theme in Songs of Assent.  I return to it frequently throughout the book, but this morning I find myself grateful for a particular prayer that welled up in my heart one day last fall and stays put on the page, even when my own wandering heart must return and rest inside its truth yet again.

"Lord Jesus, please come in.  You are so welcome here. You are the one who has made possible the transformation of our dust into fertile soil.  Your Spirit dwells within.  Your Father owns the land.  Thank you for what is coming up that we can see.  Thank you for what has been planted that we will not see for years.  Truly blessed are we as we receive the grace to believe that you will plant your seed, protect its growth and bear your own beautiful fruit in our lives." ("Songs of Assent, " Receptivity, p. 65)

Wait for the Lord.  Keep Watch.  Take Heart.

A Tale of Two Sisters

There were many hidden joys in writing Songs of Assent, but perhaps none of them more fulfilling than working on the text while my youngest sister, Pamela Keske, drew five "folk icons" for the book.  

Simplicity was always there.  I don't even remember when she appeared. I think Pam drew her well over a year before I eventually wrote the chapter that went with her. In this case, the picture helped me articulate the themes in the chapter.

Receptivity began as a quick cheap marker expression of beauty on a Women in the Kingdom retreat with undergrad women. Initially she was a much younger woman with flowing green hair and solid root systems--and then morphed into the intriguingly organic expression of fruitfulness in Christ that she has become. 

Then there was the long conversation about how best to express Lady Wisdom and her home, which included my fifteen-year old niece trying on "Mother of the Bride" gowns at a couple of obliging bridal stores, and bending over trays. Thanks, Allyse!

The day came when Pam and I stood in front of my fireplace with two sets of hands gripping the brick as we began again to conceptualize Confidence...  long after Pam had drawn a polished, but completely different, version.  The chapter had taken on a life of its own and the drawing had to stand courageously but vulnerably at the edge of an unpredictable tunnel to keep pace with the words.  

And Buoyancy? Let's just say I'm glad I was on the other side of the phone when Pam realized she not only had to tackle wind and waves, but that I wanted the perspective from inside the boat, and, oh, by the way, I would like a few really good ropes hanging around, too, if she wouldn't mind.  (Pam reminds me that I also thought I wanted a second boat in the picture...until I saw it drawn in all its fully-furled glory. Nope. I guess I don't like the second boat.) Fortunately, this was the last drawing, and we'd both learned some things about the creative process along the way.

In the end, the "folk icons" took as much prayer and waiting as the book.  Some thoughts came easily, others slowly...but we learned to wait--for God, for each other, for the ideas and for the way to express them in lines of text and ink.

My cover designer later confessed that, when I wrote my initial request for her assistance and mentioned that my sister was the artist, I had just played into a graphic designer's worst nightmare..."Oh, my husband drew the design I want for the book cover on a napkin over dinner last night." But not this time.  This time it was God's great gift of joy to two sisters on a long journey who, together--at least for one timeless moment--have received a mutual gift of abounding grace.  

This morning I read a Psalm that expresses our shared experience of publishing Songs of Assent: "Those who sow in tears, shall reap with shouts of joy!" (Psalm 126:5)  We offer this book in this Spirit, and pray that those who ponder these great realities with us will also receive the Lord's great gift of joy.