Songs of Assent

Wooed By A Baby

2009-12-24T08:49:00.000-08:00

Our son made a tempestuous arrival into the world. An emergency c-section at the end of hard labor would have been climactic enough. But, somewhere along the way, Ethan had contracted a life-threatening virus. My new-born was rapidly whisked to a neo-natal intensive care unit an hour away…and I finally caught up with him four days later.

Not the easiest start. But this little guy was a snuggler, and when that boy, wires, tubes and all, was finally in my arms, he pressed his little body against my neck as though he wanted to crawl inside it. My heart was captured. I had been wooed by a baby.

***

For years I have listened to a relatively familiar song on classic Christmas albums, and, somewhere below my consciousness, wondered why this song belonged to Christmas.

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day;

I would my true love did so chance

To see the legend of my play,

To call my true love to my dance.

Sing! Oh, my love, oh, my love, my love, my love,

This have I done for my true love.

But this year I paused to listen to the lyrics. The next line reads, “Then was I born of virgin pure…” And my heart finally caught on. It’s Jesus calling us to his dance! The carol was mostly likely written in the 15^th century when the movement of planets was still called “the music of the spheres,” and everything was connected to everything else, and all of life was a dance.

This Christmas I simultaneously hear a faint echo of that earlier understanding, even as I ponder the current rich conversation occurring on many levels about life within the Trinity—a mutuality of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit so full that it spilled forth to call back a broken creation into the dance of divine love.

This Christmas we are beckoned to the regal dance of the most excellent of men with grace pouring forth from his lips (Ps. 45:2). We are enticed to the joyful dance of the Lord our God who “rejoices over us with gladness” (Zeph3:17). We are called to join our strong partner who “is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 24). Hope against hope, in spite of all we see before us, this baby invites us, his true love, to his dance.

Jesus: the baby who came to draw the whole world to himself. Oh come, let us adore him.

Borne By What We Bear: Advent Meditation #4

2009-12-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

During the last night of a fall course on Trinitarian Spirituality at Northern Seminary, my students and I recently marveled at Jesus’ words, “…you are in me and I am in you.” (John 14:20) We pondered the practical implications of being surrounded by Christ's gracious life—protecting, leading, guiding, even as we carry His life within us—strengthening, convicting, comforting.

Nearing the end of his ministry, Jesus was opening to his disciples a reality that his mother had long lived within. For from the moment Gabriel had told her she was “favored, ”she knew herself to be “in-graced” by God. She carried a son who would come to us “full of grace and truth.” And she carried him as that same grace poured through the Father’s heart to meet her moment-by-moment need.

And so, as von Balthasar so beautifully says, “she bears what she lets herself be borne by.” (The Threefold Garland)

Grace is in Mary’s steps as she hastens to Elizabeth, and grace is in her trembling heart as her womb has begun to swell and her feet move more slowly back to face the unknown in Nazareth three months later. Grace is with her as Joseph listens to his dream, and strengthens her knees as a donkey sways with her bulging form toward Bethlehem. In her utter vulnerability, grace enables Joseph to find a shelter for her and her child, and grace enables the small family to escape when Herod’s envy would bring an end to earth's redemption before the Father’s grace en-fleshed could unfold in all his fullness.

After Mary and Elizabeth, the first person to know the tangibility of this in-filling grace was Joseph. Pam's picture radiates the joy of a Joseph in-graced, borne on his own journey at Mary's side by the very grace she bore.

“You are in me, I am in you.” We, too, are borne by what we bear. It is the mystery of faith. Like Mary, like Joseph, we carry within us a reality much greater than we can contain. We, too, are surrounded by the very grace that renews us from the inside out. As Advent is fulfilled, let us sing the old carol with an in-graced heart:

O Holy Child of Bethlehem,

Descend to us, we pray.

Cast out our sin and enter in,

Be born in us today.

We hear the Christmas angels,

Their great, glad tidings tell:

O Come to us, abide with us,

Our Lord, Emmanuel.

Heaven's Breath: Advent Meditation #3

2009-12-13T08:56:00.000-08:00

Peace whispered

to her troubled heart

Be still, the Holy One

will rest deep within your waiting womb

Direction given

to her astonished feet

Elizabeth with child

Blessed community in her great need

Joy spread

from mouth to elder ear

Baby leaps and cousin speaks

while world is wrapped in veiled wonder

Dust stirred

from a more ancient song

As mercy's stream tumbles

O'er second Hannah and second Eve

(A meditation on Luke 1: 34-50)

Mary's Response Revisited: Advent Meditation #2

2009-12-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

If God just made a “mirror, mirror on the wall, whose the fairest of them all” kind of selection in choosing Jesus’ mother, then Mary is so far beyond our experience that there is no point in pondering her response to God. She was just a superior sort of being. But if it is God’s grace—the Holy Spirit at work in her—that made her favored, then the story reads very differently. For then God formed and equipped the vessel that he used.

If it is true that God initiated his love and favor toward Mary, then what is Mary’s part in “May it be to me according to your word?” Does God's favor replace the need for a truly human response? Is Mary's "yes" the rather robotic response of a woman who was never tempted to say “no?” If that were true, what would be “human” about this human mother who gave the world's Savior his human flesh and blood, who taught the Word his first words?

When I need refreshment in pondering this dance of God’s loving initiative and Mary’s receptive response, I often turn to the works of Catholic theologian Han Urs von Balthasar. As the Preface to my current book, The Threefold Garland, begins, "to read most any work of Hans Urs von Balthasar is to plunge into a bright ocean where the most familiar truths and events of faith take on a splendor usually hidden from our dull vision."

Amen. And my dull vision is again cleared as I ponder Von Balthasar’s description of Mary’s obedience at quiet center of the world’s turning we call the annunication. He writes, “In so far as [her obedience] connotes the renunciation of autonomous decisions, obedience is passivity; but insofar as it is the readiness to receive everything, obedience is supreme activity.”

A profound definition of receptivity: the renunciation of autonomous decisions and the readiness to receive everything. Von Balthasar helps me see Mary again not as some distant being, but as a true mentor who, in her own deep response to God, quietly challenges my own.

The natural default drive of my soul really likes autonomy. Even when I come to the point of renouncing my autonomy from God, there are still God’s people to be faced. And, oh, how I sometimes long to be autonomous from community. But Mary’s “renunciation of autonomous decisions” presses against my own autonomy armor and invited me to be the person created for communion and community. Hold still, my soul. Release your “right” to decisions made by you alone, for you alone.

And in the place of self-determination, receive everything God would give you instead. Rouse yourself, my soul, to supreme activity. Lift up your heart and hold out your hands. For having died to self, you now can have her back—to carry the life of Jesus into the world.

Heavenly Father, by your grace, enable us to hold still, that we might renounce our right to autonomous decisions. By the power of your Holy Spirit, allow us to awaken to all you desire to give us. May we, like Mary, know the fullness of your favor in our humanity as we prepare for coming of Jesus. In the name of you Son, our Savior, Amen.

Eating Wisdom's Bread: Advent Meditation #1

2009-12-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

Godly wisdom is edible. Lady Wisdom invites us to a meal: “Come, eat of my bread…leave your simple ways and walk in the way of insight.” (Prov. 9:5,6) Mary proclaims that meal’s effects: “He has filled the hungry with good things.” (Luke 1:53)

So what kind of bread am I eating this Advent? What spiritual substance is filling my soul in this season of preparation?

The bread of forgiveness. The “love covers a multitude of sins” forgiveness. I recently found myself in a situation where I had to say, “What is at stake is far more important than what has been taken from me. Release the debt, Carla.” In so doing, joy filled the place where the yeast of resentment was more than ready to rise.

The bread of guidance. Just do the next thing. Celtic Daily Prayer said it so well this morning:

‘Follow Me.’

‘Yes, Lord, I’ll follow You…But, Lord…’

‘Yes?’

‘Where to? Where will I be going?’

‘With Me.’

When I stop striving to get on top of what I cannot see, and rest content in doing what is right in front of me, focusing on the presence of Jesus with me NOW, the bread of undistracted peace fills my soul.

The bread of patience—with myself, others, and my God. Stirrings within myself that I do not understand, responses of those I love that I cannot read, and a God who is, at times, incomprehensible. I wait. For while this bread is not my favorite recipe, nothing appears to be more nourishing in the long run.

It is Advent. We wait, allowing God’s forgiveness to feed our souls and extending part of the same loaf to our neighbor. We wait, doing what is set in front of us and receiving our daily bread—we were never promised a year’s supply at once. And we wait, in patience for the coming of the baby who IS the bread of heaven. Take. Eat. Live.

Oh, come, our Wisdom from on high,  

Who orders all things far and nigh;  

To us the path of knowledge show,  

and teach us in her ways to go.  

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel  Shall come to you, O Israel!

Thankfulness on Deposit

2009-11-24T10:45:00.000-08:00

So….I’m supposed to take a deep breath, count my many blessings, and feel thankful, right? But what if I don’t? What if I’ve just lost a loved one or a job or a friend, and my heart aches...or is numb? What then? Do I just put on my plastic smile and pretend?

Mary, Joseph and Jesus were celebrating Passover, certainly a kind of Thanksgiving as they remembered their deliverance from their oppressors. But if they had been feeling thankful, it was quickly lost under the “great distress” of trying to find a twelve-year-old son who had other plans than a trip home.

I marvel at much in this passage: the simultaneous hunger and wisdom of this twelve-year-old Jesus. The amazement of the crowds that must surely have strained to hear the conversation. But I ache with Mary and Joseph at their exchange over his extraordinary disappearance. “Your father and I have been searching for you.” “Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?”

This must surely have been a moment of pain for this son’s mother and step-father. Oddly, the very deliverance they had anticipated in their Passover celebration is standing in front of them, taking one more clear step on the road to his destiny. Yet I doubt his response invoked immediate feelings of thankfulness on the part of his parents.

But here is what I find most moving. The Scripture tells us that Mary’s response to this distressing moment is precisely the same one she had when the shepherds had come crowding into a stable so many years earlier. She “treasured up all these things.”

And here, I submit, is a key from Mary on the Thanksgivings when the right “feelings” are eluding me. I can place thanksgiving on deposit. I “treasure up” my questions, my journey-in-progress, my losses along the way, and I hold them close as something precious in the process of a re-creation I cannot fathom in this particular moment…but will understand, likely with gratitude, someday. For this same son whispers to Mary and to me what he will one day shout: “Behold, I make all things new.”

Doing the Next Thing

2009-11-16T15:11:00.000-08:00

I have been watching some new bushes pass through autumn. They held their leaves longer than the cousins near them, and turned a mellow shade of gold before becoming barren twigs for the winter. They look right at home in the place marked out for them.

In matters of landscaping, it is good to have a plan. Colors, size, need for light and water and the proper soil—all of these factors matter, and it has taken time…and a good plan by a competent gardener to develop even a simple garden that thrives.

But in the midst of the large-scale planning comes the daily activities. Mow the lawn. Rake the leaves. Mulch those precious roses by the wall.

I find myself in a season where the landscaping for this plot of my own life appears to be somewhat established for the present. There’s been plenty of change to get here: “Oh, but Lord, that’s my soul’s favorite bush. It’s been blooming in the spring and throughout the summer and has really attractive leaves in the fall.” And it is as though the Lord says, “Yes, I know. It was lovely for a season, but I have other plans for this particular space in your life at this point.”

Having been through some tumultuous years, I am beginning to find this season surprisingly restful. And here is the reason: I only have to do the next thing. Teach the class, talk to the friend, write the next little piece. My prayer has shifted from “Lord, help me understand what you are doing with my life,” to “Lord, what is the next thing I am to do today?”

And I think often of Simplicity’s song. Of Mary who asks not for an explanation of God’s great plan, but for simple understanding of the next thing: “How shall this be, since I am a virgin?” And when she is told that the Lord has it well in hand, she responds, “Let it be to me according to your word,” and then does the next thing. Mary goes to visit Elizabeth.

And I find myself wondering how much wasted energy I have spent straining to discern the larger plan. (I’ve never really gotten it right.) I realize again that the Father is a much better gardener than I ever will be, and that “doing the next thing” may not just be a seasonal activity, but the central steps of obedience, freedom and joy in the kingdom of God.

Father, may your Holy Spirit produce in me a trusting heart that simply does the next thing. If I need to know something more, I trust you to reveal it in your time. But grant me the humility and contentment to live in the day I am in, entrusting the months and years to your loving, expert care. In Jesus’ name, AMEN

Anything But Imaginary

2009-11-13T01:24:00.000-08:00

I remember standing in front of a class of Wheaton students over a decade ago and saying, “Having ‘a personal relationship with Jesus’ is easy to talk about, but is often the very reality we struggle to step into.” And I found myself saying something similar to a class of seminarians just last week.

At this point in my life I would be swift to clarify that statement: Jesus has a relationship with us, a love that “will not let us go.” Nothing we do or don’t do can initiate what He has already won for us, and now so freely offers those who, by the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, confess him to be Lord. But this “relationship,” while based in an objectivity so deep that we scarcely can begin to comprehend it, contains a responsive dimension, as well. Our hearts are hungry to know our connectedness to Him at the level of our real experience. We long to know that He is truly present with us.

So last week, I invited my students into a simple, ancient exercise. I asked the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to us, and then invited us to become the blind man healed by Jesus in John 9. We took a few moments to imagine being this beggared, sightless man. They shut their eyes as I slowly read the story to them, simply changing it from third to first person. Within a few moments none of us were “outside” that story. We were in. We were the blind man. We heard the new voice of a man who refused to answer the tiresome question of whose fault it was that we were blind in the same life-sapping ways. We felt (and smelled) the mud He put on our eyes, and the tender, firm fingers that placed it there. We went and washed in the pool. We felt the frustration of not knowing what Jesus looked like so that we could find him. We were pressed into a corner by the religious leaders until we, too, were convinced of whom Jesus was. For when his eyes were opened, the scales came off ours again, too. And by the end, we, like our friend on the page, worshipped the Jesus who came, a second time, to find him.

One of my students, who, six weeks ago was the vocal skeptic as to the “relevance” of classic spiritual practices, said, “OK, I see. I’ve never realized that I’m always an outsider to the Gospels. Jesus touches someone else, but I never thought it could be me. I’ve always stood on the margins when I am being invited in.”

Years ago I read a couple of lines from Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest that changed my life in this regard. He writes, “Is your imagination stayed on God or is it starved?...If you have never used your imagination to put yourself before God, begin to do it now.” (Feb. 11) That insight, combined with the truth that the Scriptures contain the LIVING word that does something while we are listening, has been used by the Spirit of God to draw me into life-changing relationship with the living Lord—over and over again.

This is how I wrote the chapter on Confidence. For when we come to terms with how vulnerable we really are, only the hands on protection and comfort of a flesh and blood Jesus reaching out to us through the pages of Scripture will suffice.

So while we are tempted to think of our imagination as the capacity to see the unreal, when the Holy Spirit harnesses this aspect of our humanity it becomes the capacity to see the unseen. Like Mary Poppins and the children on a “jolly holiday” we pop into the chalk picture—at the Spirit’s bidding--only to find that the view from the inside is anything but imaginary.

Grassroots Gifts

2009-11-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

The story of writing and publishing “Songs of Assent” tells a bit like a mystery. The development of each of the chapters (and their illustrations) mirrors the actual “song” they sing. The “weightless fullness” of Simplicity was written last and once. The picture of Simplicity that also adorns the cover was drawn in an afternoon—long before I had any idea of what to do with her. When the chapter with finished, the picture was already there.

Buoyancy, that “moment-by-moment adjustment of a fragile vessel renewed and propelled by God’s abounding grace,” was a voyage on the high seas. I couldn’t find the “word” to describe Mary’s response to Jesus at the wedding in Cana. For a couple of months I struggled to find the way forward. Humility? No, she was a handmaiden of wisdom. Hospitality? It wasn’t deep enough for the themes resting right under my consciousness.

But when I finally found “buoyancy” (or, perhaps more truthfully, it found me) I was at last enabled to embark on that leg of the journey. I wrote the chapter from my laptop propped up in bed, for I was ill most of last fall, with nautical books of all kinds strewn around the room.

Buoyancy’s illustration was just as much of an adventure. “Pam, I want the perspective from the deck of the ship, with rising waves and a storm in the distance. And I’d like another boat within sight.” Ah, Carla, you don’t want much. And upon seeing her hard work, I instantly said, “Oh, no, I guess the other boat really doesn’t fit.” At that moment I was grateful that my illustrator lived in Minneapolis and I was safely sheltered in Chicago. I am grateful to report that we (and our collaboration) survived.

Yet the sustained challenge in this venture has been to move forward in publishing in a manner that is as organic as the chapter on Receptivity proclaims the real work of the Kingdom to be. Seeds are planted in the soil of our souls and take root far under the ground. In time they bear fruit that can be shared with others. Nothing forced, nothing manufactured. Just seeds planted in their time. There’s an actual phrase for approaching the dissemination of a book in this manner: it’s called “grassroots.”

So here we are, coming up to the first Christmas after releasing this book. This is the season where many Christians turn a brief eye toward Mary. Yet her “habitual availability” to God not only collaborated with the Holy Spirit to give us Jesus, but her responses to the Lord’s ongoing bidding in her life renders rich lessons for own responses as we carry the Spirit of her Son in our hearts and into our communities.

And so we at WaterManuscripts—that would be Wyatt and me—want to extend a gift to you: personalized ease in offering this book to others this Advent and Christmas season. If you have found these meditations on the implications of Mary’s life helpful, we would delight in facilitating the grassroots extension of that gift to others by offering free shipping on autographed copies wherever you would like us to send them within the United States.

This organic offer comes with this prayer: Lord Jesus, may your Holy Spirit wing this book to the hands of those who need to hold it, the hearts of those ready to see. And would that same Spirit prepare our hearts to receive you anew, oh wondrous gift of God.

Riding the Ripples

2009-10-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

From one angle of vision, Mary’s rebounding “do whatever He tells you” illumines the kind of peace so anchored in her trust in Jesus that she could hold lightly to her plans and wait in harbor for her Son’s next move. But from another direction, her initial commentary at the wedding in Cana was itself a risk. Once the words, “they have no more wine” were out of Mary’s mouth, she was involved. What was it to her that the wedding celebration was about to wane?

Mary was a woman who had long known Yahweh’s priorities of mercy and care for those who are helpless. The same Holy Spirit who conceived the Christ in her womb had also brought forth a song of testimony to Jesus’ Father. It is his nature to lift up those who are struggling and fill the hungry with good things. These truths, so evident in the later ministry of her Son, had not been forgotten once the song left Mary’s lips.

Mary’s buoyancy (the moment-by-moment adjustment of this vulnerable vessel to the wind of the Spirit) did not begin with her response to Jesus, but with the initial comment itself.

When she could have minded her own business, she carried the Father’s heart for her neighbor instead. She did not remain safely in harbor when the wind was breathing in her sails. She took the risk, and with it, the adventure the Spirit sent.

Move decisively. Wait patiently. Hold the two together not as an artificial tension between “doing and being,” but as moment-by-moment obedience, now sailing into the wind, now waiting for the next thing. Sometimes I am tempted to think of these dynamics as the difference between a storm and utter stillness, but Mary reminds me that the actual choices are sometimes as simple as a word, a look in one’s eyes, a willingness to turn aside in this moment for the sake of one’s neighbor.

It is easy to see love of neighbor as as a mere ripple in the water when what I am waiting for is a dramatic voyage. But perhaps riding the ripples is far more important than I realize. Perhaps this is what most of the voyage is about. Maybe that's part of what Mary knew.

A Root of Integrity

2009-10-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

When I am in a season of seeking to remember and reclaim why I am alive, I reach for the novels of Elizabeth Goudge. Finding myself once more in that season, I am re-reading my old friends. The Scent of Water is among my top three of her stories.

Goudge, herself a devout Christian who wrote before there was a huge genre called “Christian fiction,” writes a profoundly truthful story of learning to love others in humble, hidden ways--and of discovering the meaning of one’s life along the way.

I find myself with favorite quotes the leave me pondering images and treasuring phrases. Here is one of them: "In obedience lay the integrity that God asked of her. If anyone had asked her what she meant by integrity she would not have been able to tell them but she had seen it once like a picture in her mind, a root going down into the earth and drinking deeply there. No one was really alive without that root."

Integrity imaged as a root drinking deeply from water under the surface of the earth. Such a plant must surely be the fruit of receptivity to God.

What are some of my integrity “roots?” I find myself a bit like Goudge’s character, cousin Mary. I’m not sure I can describe them head on. But when I act in accordance with them, I know water rises to the surface. When I seek to ignore these long-nurtured roots of obedience I wither. I am blocking the water of my own integrity root, choking the life out of it.

So here’s an example: yesterday I came home from Minneapolis by plane. Even a short trip is challenging these days. I would prefer to go behind the mask of my face and pull in. Anonymous. No energy expended for the stranger. I went in and out of integrity for the several hours I spent in long lines and cramped cabins. I was tired, but when I smiled and cared about the stranger next to me, the root found water. And when I pulled in as on my own desert island, I, along with my neighbor, went without the water resting just below the surface.

Lord, have mercy. May I act with the integrity of obedience that my life might tap into the depth of water that bathes those critical roots.

Christ as A Shield

2009-10-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday noon found me sitting in a local diner with one of my "girls." (My girls" are women who were students of mine at Wheaton somewhere in the 90's.) She is not, of course, a girl anymore, but a lovely young woman in her 30's with a passion for the Lord and compassion for the world. Her passion/compassion has taken her on a fascinating pilgrimage over the last decade.

So over our salads we spoke about "Confidence," and how it was that Mary had needed to walk the road from her utterly simple "Let it be to me according to your word," to the much more complicated awareness of "a sword shall pierce your soul," that I believe greatly strengthened Mary's confidence in God. My friend asked me, "Carla, why does it have to be like this?"

My response? To live in a receptive place before God means that sooner or later we have to discover the Lord as our shield. He will protect and heal our hearts, even if he permits them to be wounded. Jesus did not spare Mary. He doesn't tend to spare us, either. Since we cannot simultaneously be self-protective and find our confidence in God, we are, at times, led into places where we have to choose to walk with steady step behind the broad shield of Christ when our natural instincts would be to fight or run.

Today I am still thinking about this conversation as a Canticle of St. Patrick's runs steadily through my heart; I pray this prayer every morning these days, and find comfort in accompanying my prayer with simple hand motions that help my body as well as my soul remember that Christ's protection is all-encompassing:

Christ, as a light

illumine and guide me.

Christ as a shield

overshadow me;

Christ under me;

Christ over me;

Christ beside me

on my left and my right.

This day be within and without me,

lowly and me, yet all-powerful.

Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;

in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.

There are seasons where "yes" to God is the most delightfully simple space in the world. And there are seasons where another "yes" to the same God requires hands to unclench and hearts to stay steady under intense pressure. In these moments we need to know ourselves flanked and infused with the presence of Christ, our lowly, yet all-powerful protector.

That Patient Gardener

2009-09-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

This morning I was making coffee and glanced out the window. The view that greeted me caused me to stop and look closer. My densely green trellis was adorned with a single bright blue morning glory. The first bloom of the summer had appeared.

As part of my gardening learning curve I am now in possession of this important piece of information: when I over-water my morning glories, they will not bloom. Unfortunately, the other plants resting next to them need that water or they will not live. So, being faced with the choice between morning glory blossoms and nothing else growing in the large clay pot, I opted for a green summer.

It's now officially autumn. The majority of my flowers have faded and I have ceased to tend them with any care. Even my hardy mums are about finished. But this morning I saw the first of dozens of morning glories ready to burst forth in the vibrant color I was waiting for...in June.

My thoughts went to my reflection on pruning in "Receptivity." Many friends have commented on the significance of finding ourselves "bound sticks" in the ground--just when we were expecting fruit. My lone morning glory reminds me of the opposite truth--fruit can appear when we are least expecting it. "Weeping may remain for the night, but joy comes in the morning" has just taken on visible imagery for me. Tonight I again affirm that "the Father will take all the time he requires...He is a very patient gardener." (Songs of Assent, 67) But rather than serving as an encouraging reflection on the cultivation of patience, I offer it tonight as a joyful reflection on the delightfulness of God's surprising timing.

P.S. As of Sunday morning there are now 15 blossoms on my fruitful vine.

Uninvited Solitude

2009-10-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

I've had an uninvited visitor in my home for the past several days. She isn't visible to anyone but God and me. Her visit began with a rather unwelcome, but much needed, departure. Nearly two weeks ago my husband dropped everything to be with his ailing mother across the country.

My son is here, but he is now a senior in high school. I am not ailing at the moment, and am certainly not particularly prevalent on his conversational radar. My life is quiet, because when I'm not teaching these days, most of my time is spent at home.

So Solitude decided to show up for a rather intense visit.

Solitude has long been an intimate friend of Simplicity. But I'm drawing to the end of her visit with a renewed recognition that this friend can be a challenging companion at times: especially when she appears uninvited.

I like Solitude when I'm ready for her. Enforced companionship is another matter all together. I have found myself wanting to run away, to find some else to talk to, to do something that would distract me from her presence. But here she's been sitting: in my kitchen, my study, my living room--even in my mail box and email inbox.

"Where can I go from your presence?" sometimes includes God's soul friends--like Solitude.

When I finally stopped running internally and looked at Solitude straight on, rather than just out of the corner of my eye, I discovered that, while she was searching, she was not unkind. We found dreams I didn't know I had, ideas that I have needed for the day and the season, and renewed perspectives that needed long moments to get in focus.

And we discovered other uninvited guests that have snuck in over the past few months: despair, bitterness, anger. They were my more natural dialogue partners, and I needed to get quiet enough to recognize them for what they were. I'm in the process of demanding that they leave the house.

Wyatt gets home on Saturday, and I will be so grateful to see my life's companion again. But I am now glad Solitude came for a long visit. She has given me much to think about, and, in the end, she has reintroduced me to her dear friend, Simplicity.

Living in the Questions

2009-09-17T06:54:00.000-07:00

Jesus' response to Mary's oblique comment about the lack of wine at the wedding of Cana is "Woman, what does this have to do with me?" Mary's response? "Do whatever he tells you." (John 2:4,5) His response to Peter's cryptic question about the future of John's life at the end of the same gospel is "What is that to you? You follow me." (John 21:22)

Woman, what is that to me? Friend, what is that to you? I think my life would be lived in much greater freedom if these questions were inscribed upon the deck of my soul. I am so easily distracted by attempting to dictate what Jesus ought to be up to, and trying to control what my neighbor ought to be thinking, saying or doing.

Everything from what my son ought to be doing his last year of high school to what the church ought to be doing at this point in history churns in my soul with restless regularity. I am my own worst enemy when it comes to living in the kind of peaceful waters that navigate my heart toward the wise responses to these questions: Do whatever He tells you. You follow me.

Perhaps buoyancy, viewed from this direction, could be considered the grace of living in the right questions. When I do so, I find that I have more than enough to keep my heart and both hands fully on deck.

Wisdom's Sister Susanna

2009-09-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

I picked up a compilation of prayers throughout the ages tonight, and found this prayer by Susanna Wesley. It sounds a great deal like my discussion of fantasy lives (p. 112ff), and I had to smile at finding such an articulate description of a similar challenge 250 years ago. Susanna writes,

"Save me from leading an imaginary life in the ideas of others, and so to be eager and forward in showing myself to the world. Forbid that I should retain, improve and adore this fictitious being, while stupidly neglecting the truth. Help me not to contend with men's interest, prejudices, and passions, that rarely admit of a calm dispute, when it can be innocently avoided. May I be so far a lover of myself as to prefer the peace and tranquility of my own mind before that of others, and if, after doing all I can to make others happy, they yet remain obstinately bent to follow those ways that lead to misery, I leave them to your mercy." (Prayers Across the Centuries)

Susanna's words rang even more true to me as I had recently engaged an honest, intense conversation over our common struggle to "retain, improve and adore the fictitious being" while stupidly avoiding the truth. I appreciate Susanna's self acceptance, preferring the peace and tranquility of her own mind, and am grateful for one more window into this internal struggle that so often robs us of energy, peace and joy. May the prayer of yet another mother of the faith encourage us as we, too, fight the mental battles that free us to live inside the present tense moments of our own lives. May the Lord lay his hands on our disordered minds and speak peace to us!

"Treasured"--A New Song of Confidence

2009-09-14T07:10:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine has just released a new book called "Treasured: Knowing God by the Things He Keeps" Leigh McLeroy writes honestly and beautifully about encountering the God who loves her in the midst of real hurts in real life. In this book McLeroy tells her own story of confidence in the God who sees, knows and loves her. And she does it through concrete symbols that bind up reality for all of us: things like a fig leaf, a scarlet cord, a dry waterskin.

The latter belongs to Hagar. Like all of these chapters, Leigh dances between the Old Testament stories and her own journey. Both moments leap off the page. And because McLeroy is so honest, the words create a transparency that invites the reader to join her there.

For example, her chapter entitled "A Dry Waterskin" ends this way: "Like Hagar, I have a God who knows my name. A God who sees. I have never been lost to Him--and neither have you. The scrap of an old waterskin remains to tell the story. He sees. he knows your story. You are His. He has His plans for you. He has been long in the business of naming names, and oh how He loves the sound of yours!"

I need stories that strengthen my confidence in the God who sees. Life is full of vulnerable places that would benefit by concrete objects like a waterskin set right down on my soul's coffee table to be picked up and pondered at reflective moments. "Treasured" is full of such lovely stories.

Remembering "Ma"

2009-09-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight I find myself thumbing through my very worn copy of "Grapes of Wrath." I have another "clean" copy downstairs on my respectable living room bookshelves. The one resting on my desk was already used when I bought it, and is now held together with tape. But it bears the markings from the first time I read this incredible novel in my mid 40's. I return, over and over again, to the extraordinary wisdom, confidence and buoyancy of "Ma." John Steinbeck's initial description of "Ma" through the eyes of her eldest son continues to inspire (and convict!) me. Oh, Lord, strengthen my heart, my responses and my actions! May they reflect you in the good times and in the hard ones.

"Tom stood looking in. Ma was heavy, but not fat; thick with child-bearing and work. She wore a loose Mother Hubbard of gray cloth in which there had once been colored flowers, but the color was washed out now, so that the small flowered pattern was only a little lighter gray than the background. The dress came down to her ankles, and her strong, broad, bare feet moved quickly and deftly over the floor. Her thin, steel-gray hair was gathered in a sparse wispy know at the back of her head. Strong, freckled arms were bare to the elbow, and her hands were chubby and delicate, like those of a plump little girl. She looked out into the sunshine. Her face was no soft; it was controlled, kindly. Her hazel eyes seemed to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and suffering like steps into a high calm and superhuman understanding. She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt and fear, she had practiced denying them in herself. And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials. But better than joy was calm. Imperturbability could be depended upon. And from her great and humble place in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty. From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter, she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook. and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone." (John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Ch. 7)

Can we have literary mothers (and fathers) in the faith? I most certainly believe so. This description of "Ma" stirs up deep longing to be me want to rise and take firm hold of "the inadequate materials" in my life. Vision turns to prayer before the words have had a chance to settle. 'Tis a gift I do not take for granted.

Receptivity in the Storm

2009-09-07T16:42:00.000-07:00

I suppose my Maine stories will eventually dwindle. Apparently not yet. My friends and I had been gifted with one glorious day after another, but, for me, there was one thing yet lacking as our week drew to a close. I really wanted to see a storm.

I was in the little island village on Friday noon when the wind began to pick up and the islanders began to cast concerned looks at the sky. That was my cue to head back to my cottage atop the rocks at the ocean’s edge.

For the next hour I watched the most remarkable storm blow through. We could see dark fingers of cloud formations reaching toward us from the mainland as the wind picked up. At one point I was standing bare-foot on a rock just below our steps, almost unable to keep my balance as the wind howled around me, and I watched the lighting streak across the horizon.

Eventually I moved indoors as the water, blowing sideways, hit the shingles of our weathered cottage with blinding intensity, and, then, passed on to the other side of the island and out again past the island’s eastern coast to the vast ocean beyond. Within an hour the sun shone again, and rest of the day was bathed in a cool, fresh breeze.

Today I found myself on a much calmer shore, the dunes along Lake Michigan, thinking about that storm and how often the Lord uses storms to crack against the rocks in my own soul and make room for water, and thus life, where nothing but barren land had grown before. Sometimes the storms are very visible, and I join others in hunkering down until the wind has passed. But at other times, the storm is blowing very hard in a corner of my soul that only the Lord can really see. He reaches with fingers not unlike those clouds and finds the rock he wants to crack and the tender seedling struggling to grow up through it. And my job? To stand firm and let the storm blow. For on the other side of my Lord's storms are always refreshing breezes and renewed land. For these I wait in expectation.

Deep Calls to Deep

2009-09-02T07:04:00.000-07:00

Not long ago I was searching for simple worship formats for a retreat, and found myself on a site I had discovered years ago. The site, as well as the community, has grown in the interim, and I was so attracted to the simple depth of these prayers that I ordered their prayerbook, Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community, HarperSanFrancisco, 2002.

The Northumbria Community is on the extreme northeast of England, a rugged place firmly bounded between Scotland and the North Sea. But, for me, the westerly orientation of my Maine Island meets their eastern coast in more than geographical affinity. I am struck this morning by two fundamental dimensions of this lovely book.

The first is the Invocation of the Holy Spirit:

Most powerful Holy Spirit,

come down

upon us

and subdue us.

From heaven,

where the ordinary

is made glorious,

and glory seems

but ordinary,

bathe us

with the brilliance

of Your light

like dew.

There she is again--the glorious ordinary, caught up into heaven that she might actually bless the earth.

The second striking feature of this book is "The Community Rule of Availability and Vulnerability"

I say 'Yes, my Lord'

in all the good times,

through all the bad times.

And here my heart sings. This is the central theme of "Songs of Assent" and they rightly name the same life lesson as vulnerability and accessibility. The community writes, "This involves availability to God and to others--expressed in a commitment to being alone with God in the cell of our own heart and to being available for hospitality, intercession and mission. Intentional vulnerability is expressed through being teachable in the discipline of prayer, saturation in the Scriptures and being accountable to one another..." (p.10)

I may live on the other side of the pond, but, in my most alive moments, my heart invokes this same prayer, and wants to live by the same rule. Deep does call to deep--even when my life is lived out in a sub-division on the west edge of Chicago (with one amazing week on that Maine coast.) But it gets pretty rugged here at times, too. May my heart remember and live in this space with the same clarity and confidence as is manifest in these wise prayers.

www.northumbriacommunity.org

Moon and Lamp

2009-08-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

I chose the back bedroom because it had a desk overlooking a path filled with flowers. The other two rooms were oceanside--with breath-taking views. But my window ledge was inches from my pillow on the bottom bunkbed, and after I covered it with a bandana and set out my flashlight to read by, I was more than content with my lot.

I did not yet know about the moon, perfectly framed in that little window beside my head. In the course of the week it would complete its movement to fullness and every night I would watch its course across a clear sky. The memory is fresh and quietly precious, stored in the treasure chest from my week in Maine.

The memory of that moon surfaced in my soul this morning as I read these familiar verses: "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." (Ps. 119:105) I was struck by my reflective moments of watching the moon and how it has taught generation upon generation to reflect with simplicity on the nature of God's guiding word. He has spoken, and like the quietly permanent moon, the words have the same orienting power now as when they were first spoken through the prophets.

A "lamp" is marvelous image for God's guidance, for we who often want a complete internal GPS system receive instead, a single direction at a time. A lamp's domain, like the moon, has boundaries. The angel Gabriel tells Mary nothing about her own family or fiance, only some pertinent information about Elizabeth. And to Elizabeth's house she goes.

This past week I have listened to the heartaches of those with broken and struggling relationships of every kind: in families, between friends, between souls and their God, in the churches that seek to nurture them. I am not immune from my own complicated path. And I have tried to resist the temptation of viewing God's word as a cosmic GPS. All I need, quite simply, is the next word for the next step. And I'm grateful for a moon that waxes and wanes, yet reminds me that the lamp is never snuffed out, and sometimes illumines us with a beauty so surprising that it is hidden, with the word, in our hearts forever.

A Bonsai of Righteousness

2009-08-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

When I was teaching in Thailand, we called them "Teak of Righteousness"--Oaks are not native to Thai soil. But this morning I found myself praying with a wry smile and said to the Lord, "If you are making me a Bonsai of righteousness, I will not fight you."

My life has been pruned back so many times that I have literally lost count of the events--nor even really give it much thought anymore. But this morning I found myself marveling at the apparent skill, time and patience my heavenly gardener is taking with me. And, in looking up the mystery of the Bonsai, I found this description: "They are kept small by pruning the roots and branches and repotting the trees." Perhaps I'm being formed into a Bonsai.

Here the questions I find myself asking these days. Can I be content when most of my days are spent in my house? When the fruit on the tree is cut way back yet again? When I cannot see the roots yet wonder if the Lord isn't reaching in and rearranging some of the deeper things in my soul as well. Can I be content to be small and intentional, a miniature work of art that does not attract attention in the streets. Will I receive the life I have been given--not as judgment or punishment--but as gift?

I wonder if knowing ourselves as small enables us to see the small things better? And if, in fact, the very limitations imposed on life are not themselves the ground for discovering new channels of beauty, truth and hope.

No plant naturally becomes a Bonsai. But then, no tree reaches the majesty of an Oak or the durability of a Teak, either. All are "the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified." (Isaiah 61:3) May we be granted the grace to wait for skilled hands of our gardener, particularly when the view from below does not look very promising.

Contagious Contentment

2009-08-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

My husband is in the midst of "rush"--that semi-annual event that descends upon college bookstores the week prior to the start of classes. He was coming home frazzled every night for days, and falling into bed by 8:00. Our conversations were brief and rather snappy. One would think that after 54 rushes (27 years of marriage times two) I would know he needed some extra support in these moments. But I was in my own world most of the week and not much help.

I woke up on Friday. The house needed major attention, there was no nourishing food to be found, and, most importantly, I was as internally distracted as my environment. So, I confessed my distraction to the Lord, professed my ongoing love and commitment to this academic book guy, and got to work. The house got clean. The groceries got bought. Dinner actually got prepared.

In the midst I found myself looking around at this house we bought 16 years ago over a whirlwind weekend visit the spring before I started teaching at Wheaton. I love it. It's small and wraps itself in warmth around us. I began to taste gratitude again.

And by the time Wyatt walked in the door, I was once again in my right mind. I received yet another infusion of contentment--which must surely be one of the Spirit's most delightful sisters to simplicity. Have you noticed that contentment is contagious?

Becoming Roadside Art

2009-08-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

The images from my last blog have been working their way down to another level in my soul. The beautifully cared for "lobsta" traps, buoys and ropes are a lovely symbol for pondering our creativity with the everyday stuff of life. But, at another level, these images remind me that, to God, we, too, are "a medium for creation..." We are the stuff of His roadside art.

The first 10 verses of Ephesians 2 are such an encouragement. In the verse 1, the Apostle begins by reminding us that we were once "dead in our trespasses." We were traps unfit for use, buoys no longer buoyant, ropes too frayed to be trusted. Nine verses (and an incarnation/redemption crowned by Christ's ascension) later, we are his workmanship, literally, his poetry--his art along life's road. For while there is a definite starting point to our redemption, Christ's re-creative care for those he has made alive is ongoing.

So let me imagine Jesus on Monhegan Island at the end of "lobsta" season. He walks through our bent traps, our water-soaked buoys, the ropes about to break, and carefully picks up each of us. "Here, Father. I recognize this one. She belongs to me. He is mine." And by a grace and a faith not of our own making, our re-creative workman again reclaims his materials for creation. He restores and renews us, preparing us for another season where, as his patiently crafted workmanship, he prepares us to be beautiful and create beauty with the materials he then sets in our hands.

Lord Jesus, may we walk alongside the road receiving the grace and faith to be the art remade in you according to the creative design of your Father. Then, and only then, will we be enabled to make beauty of the well-worn stuff of our lives. Grant us your Spirit's compassionate eye, your Father's gracious heart, and your own patient hands.

Roadside Art

2009-08-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

The “lobsta” fishermen on Monhegan Island, Maine, take “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a medium for creation” (Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker) to a whole new level. During their off-season (which, for reasons of state politics, was already in effect by the beginning of August) they turn their traps and ropes into what my friends and I experienced as roadside art. Who would think that traps, buoys and ropes could be so attractively stored or so beautifully displayed? It was so lovely that I wondered at one point if the island sponsored a contest to see who could use these utilitarian artifacts to out-create each other.

But I think not. I think, instead, that they, being surrounded by constant beauty, could not imagine doing anything else. Ugly had no visible place there. (I'm not painting the island as paradise--humans with all their foibles live there, too. Nevertheless, I rarely saw anything physically out of place, and the island isn't that big.)

And I wonder how to carry the relationship between beauty and creative use of the materials of everyday life back to my context. It isn't overtly pretty here--the Japanese beetles and I are in a fight for my roses, and my grass is slowly turning brown. My house needs more than "straightening" and my need to get organized for the fall is keeping pace.

But these meticulous fishermen challenged me to ask this question: How do I live within the beauty of a "medium for creation" approach when "problems" peak out from the roadsides of my life?

I think the answer begins with gratitude for the little things: the rose the beetle didn't get to, the comfortable chair in my living room, one more year with my high school senior. (Yesterday I got tangled up in the unexpected expenses of high school. Life was a PROBLEM.) But when I am grateful for the beauty of the little things, I seem to have more room to approach the whole of my day in a composed and composing frame of mine.

I cannot live with spectacular beauty all the time. But, but God's grace I can turn my eyes and mind to the quiet beauty around me. Who knows? I may get inspired to create a bit of roadside art myself.