Lighten Enlighten

Peekaboo God

Peekaboo God.... I don't know how many times this phrase comes to mind for me. God is a Peekaboo God. And what I mean by that is he plays with us sometimes, not in a cat and mouse way, but in the playful and loving way a parent interacts with a child. That's what it feels like to me anyway. He shows his face, then quickly hides it, a moment of glory, then he's gone... A sunbreak on a rainy day, the unexpected four-leaf clover found just in the moment you're needing encouragement, a rabbit trail of answered prayers that are sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden. Like Hansel's bread crumbs, he says, "Follow me... Here. Now here. Now just over that log. Now down this path." He plays. And we follow step by step looking for delight and his face to lead us. Are you tracking me? Let me explain further.

We recently fell in love with a house out in Issaquah that got us so excited it kicked us into gear to get our own house fixed up, cleaned up, and on the market to sell, something we've been saying for many years we were going to do. We had a lot of projects sitting overdue, so it took us a couple of months to get it ready to list, and I spent way too much time along the way checking the MLS listing for the house in Issaquah we wanted. Eventually, I felt God gently leaning on me to stop checking it (and rest). At first, I wondered if it was just me or really him, then I felt it more strongly as time went on. I told Jeff, too, so we kept preparing our place and let the Issaquah listing go to the back burner. "Oh, great!" I thought. "This surely means that the house we love is sold and off the market, and God just knows that if we knew it, we'd lose steam and quickly abandon all our preparations to sell. But maybe he wants us to sell anyway, and this is how he entices us to do it." Who knows what it was? But one of the biggest things we were praying along the way was for clear direction (still are), so we decided to be obedient to what he'd led us to so far, obedient to prepare our home to be sold.

It was a Thursday that we got our own house (finally) on the market, so Jeff came home that night, and we sat down to the computer, hand in hand, much like children, waiting excited and a little anxious to check the listing on the Issaquah place. Peering through half-squinted eyes, we pulled up the MLS listing for the house we'd fallen in love with. Gone. Off the market. But not sold, we found out. The listing had expired and had been taken off the market one day (one day!) before we put our house on the market. Crazy! God is leading... "Follow me." (peekaboo) Well, long story short, Jeff stops by the house the following Tuesday to see what the scoop is. "Yep. Delisted," their teenage son tells him, "Contract was up with the realtor." ("Great!" Jeff thinks.) But catch this... the house had already been sold on Sunday, three days after we listed. (And God's face disappears.) It had nothing to do with them de-listing the Wednesday before, but someone came in and scooped it in the very same weekend we listed our house. While we were a little heartbroken at losing what we were hoping was our next home, it was hard not to smile on some level because our prayers were answered: God was leading clearly, and crumb by crumb leading us only as far as the next crumb can be seen. (peekaboo) I mean, what are the odds that Wednesday they would de-list, Thursday we would list, and Sunday they would sell? Crazy, right?

So as a result of falling in love with that place, we stumbled upon another great little house near there that still might be an option for us. Maybe that's why God took us to the first one, who knows? If we bought it, we'd virtually be staring across the yard right at the first house we found (for less money). It also started us looking at a whole different kind of home we would have probably never looked at if we hadn't fallen in love with that place in Issaquah. Since then, we've also found and lost a really great place in Woodinville, too, even more perfect than that one. (This one caused me a few tears.) But again, it felt divinely led that we would find it, fall in love with it, and lose it. "Keep following," it seems like he says. That second home, the one in Woodinville was scooped up the same week we found it, and they hadn't had an official offer in 3 years on and off the market. Again, I look at it and think it's God's clear leading. What are the odds?

Playing Peekaboo with God through this whole moving season has been interesting,  no doubt, and sometimes challenging. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out. The weak side of me wants an answer, and I want it now. Are we moving? Are we selling? Is the next house I fall in love with the one we're destined to move into? Just tell me clearly and tell me everything. But the real me would rather do it this way, delightedly playing games with God as he entices us and teaches us along the way. Then one day I suddenly remembered the educational purpose of playing Peekaboo with an infant: object permanence. All children's play teaches them something of the world around them, and Peekaboo is a game meant to teach object permanence - the concept that when mommy or daddy leaves the room, they still exist out of sight. They don't just vanish into nothingness. Wow. Truly... wow. So each time God's face appears then vanishes and appears again, I learn just a little more about faith, the spiritual version of object permanence, and my faith grows. Each time I become more and more sure that Daddy still exists in the other room well after our fun-loving game of Peekaboo is long over and he's gone.

Foods we're introducing to our 8 month old: peas, carrots, applesauce, cat food, bananas... Wait, what?? No, that's right. She chose cat food on her own. It appears she prefers it to any of the fruits we've introduced so far. Found her still munching away on it 15 minutes later instead of spitting it out like she does all the other stuff she hates. Whose kids is this?

Christmas Is Coming the Goose Is Getting Fat

On a totally different note, I discovered the greatest designer this weekend: Hale Bob! Not that we have a ton of discretionary income we're wanting to spend right now, but I was so excited because I really liked a lot of the things I saw and normally don't resonate with one specific designer. As I was looking, I starting thinking, "Hey... That kind of looks like that one dress I wore to my in-laws' anniversary party!" Turns out I was right. Found out I already own one Hale Bob original. Nice because I could wear it pregnant (here) and also not so pregnant. : )

 

Put this red tunic on my Christmas list! Go, Hale Bob!!

 

Grace: Such a Long Road

Time and again... Grace. May be my favorite Bible word. Probably also my biggest personal challenge, I'm reminded. Reading through Ephesians (last post) because I'm starting a study on Ephesians kind of vicariously through a friend of mine who's actually attending the study herself. (And I'm tracking from home in the workbook.)

The workbook is called By His Wounds You Are Healed by Wendy Horger Alsup, and I'm enjoying her writing so far. Take, for example, the word "grace." I would guess most people have some half-decent notion of what grace means, whether that's a biblical definition or cultural or otherwise. But in reading this week, I was challenged by what she drew out of her own study of the word grace or charis - also meaning "gift" in the original Greek. "The common thread," she says, "In each use of the term is that it is not about giving what is due." This is something I think we'd probably all agree on as a pretty decent intellectual understanding of what grace is: It's not an earned notion but a gift of some sort. She continues:

"When you give back what is earned or deserved, it is not charis. It is not favor or benefit, and it is not credited toward you as anything other than exactly what you are expected to do. Instead, grace does what is unexpected, undeserved, and out of line with reasonable responses. Grace is an unreasonable response - unreasonably good, but unreasonable nonetheless. When we give grace, this undeserved favor that does good to enemies and lends expecting nothing in return, then we give evidence of our relationship with our Father in heaven, because this is his calling card. He is kind to the ungrateful and evil. He is full of grace." (p. 18) - Bolds added

Man... I'm so bad at this. What a challenging word! To do the unexpected when what a person may "deserve" or "expect" is something violent in return. The guy who cuts me off in traffic, the rude solicitor on the phone, the person who throws a disgusted look my way when my son has just dropped and shattered a bottle of olive oil in line at the grocery store... I often don't want to be unreasonably good to any of these people. (And admittedly, too often AM not good either.) But what about deeper levels? What about the person who has truly offended you or me? It's difficult to offer "good" to even the first set of people. What about those who deeply, truly have wounded us? The one who abused me as a child? The friend who betrayed me? The person who lied to me or stole from me? It made me think of the times in my life I've received the "unexpected" from someone. And I don't always mean unexpectedly saccharine sweet either. (Saccharine sweet is much easier to give than sober and purposeful kindness.) Sometimes unexpected can simply be telling someone the truth with an intentional, sober kindness that recognizes our faults and at the same time says, "I see you and love you anyway." I want to extend this kind of grace that Alsop calls God's "calling card" - Grace, the unreasonable response! But it's such a long road. Maybe that's the point. It takes a lifetime, and it grows the giver as much as it does the receiver. I don't know. I just know I've got a long way to go.

Can I get a Wit-NESSSSSSSS-AAHHH??!?

Reading (and re-reading) Ephesians 1 lately, and in particular, verses 18-21 popped out like I've never read them before. They're the kind you hear banged around all the time by believe-it-to-receive-it TV sermonizers, but the idea is fundamentally amazing at the root, whether they abuse it or not.

"I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come." (Bold added.) - Eph. 1:18-21

Put differently, his power set to work in you (and me) is the same crazy display of might that shook the earth and darkened the sun at his crucifixion, bounced bodies from graves when he died, and exploded the very God-man himself back from death and into the heavenlies where it landed him smack next to the Eternal and Everlasting One on the throne. (Amen and Hallelujah.) The very same power! That same power he puts to work in us, and we need to see it for what it is. That's the start of the prayer here in v. 18 anyway, that we would be able to see it and truly know it. (Isn't that at least half our problem? We're hard of hearing and hazy-eyed, weary pilgrims, dumb as sheep, who can't even see straight sometimes. And that's on a good day.) Seems to me that's power crazy enough to conquer just about any fear, make crooked limbs straight, cure the worst broken heart, rectify tanked relationships, and at very least make our day-to-day struggles much more than just a pointless exercise. I don't know about you, but there are days when I need that kind of power. Amen to his continuing good work in us! What do you need crazy God-strength for?

Gutted Lives

Wow. One afternoon recently I grabbed the kids, threw them in the car (along with the dog and cat), and pulled off down the street out of sight to park and wait out the people who were coming to view our house for sale, keep out of their way and all that. I hadn't really made much thought of where I'd parked until I looked up and suddenly was shocked at what I saw: Across the street was a burned out shell of a house, almost completely gutted, with nothing left really but the main frame of the structure. Not exactly something you see every day. Windows were all open air, the ceiling, roof, and much of the wood frame were darkened by smoke and fire damage, the basement flooded from water hoses, and a huge haul-away garbage container like those you see piled 4x6 high on shipping vessels sat in the front driveway , containing the remains of what once was somebody's home. Wood beams and tin air ducts littered the front yard where the demolition crew had been working hard to strip the surfaces and start anew. I got out of the car to ask a neighbor what had happened there ("a fire") and if they knew where the family was now ("don't know"). They were renters with no forwarding address, it appeared.

What struck me though, more than that, was the stark symbolism of the picture I was looking at; the house was a direct icon to me of the family I had known that lived there. I knew them. At least, I had known them in passing anyway. We bought a puppy from them a couple years ago. Looking back on it now, it shouldn't be a surprise that their house ended up in flames. Gary, the dad, who we did most of the puppy business with, seemed like an intelligent, kind, but tired guy with a wife who always had that worn-out, frustrated, and weary look to her. She needed a lot of care, which meant he needed a lot, too. Both their adult children still lived with them, one admittedly on drugs, the other living with her boyfriend under her dad's roof. A younger son, maybe 10ish, seemed to just get lost somewhere in the mix. The older two kids were always very polite and kind to us when we came to visit the puppies, but I couldn't help but notice that they needed care themselves and not just physically either.  Their house was filled with cats and dogs and all the paraphernalia that goes with them, including food and messes everywhere. It probably hadn't been thoroughly cleaned in quite some time. But they invited us in anyway and were happy to sit and talk with us, as we played with their litter of pups, trying to decide which one we'd take home. Really nice people on the surface, but hurting underneath with everyday lives singed by the kind of chaos people get used to. I used to call Gary one of my "peripherals" because he was one of the people in my life who I somehow saw all the time but didn't really know, someone who felt like an unlikely kind of social constant at the time. Driving down the street, getting a latte, stopped on the side of the road helping a lady fix her tire, I saw him everywhere and each time, I thought, a little sadly, "Hm. That Gary... He's a nice guy."

So when I saw their house was destroyed, I was sad for the little I knew of them and for the little I did know, too. I also immediately turned the image inward and wondered what my own house might look like if it were a reflection of the lives and relationships inside. Would it be clean, pleasant? Would it have that breathe-easy kind of curb appeal that makes a person feel at ease as they walk up the front path? Or would it be in ruin or disrepair from too many years of damage and neglect? Would the very air you breathe as you walk through the door be toxic and bitter to the taste? I'm not saying it's a direct correlation for this family because as I said, they were very nice to all of us, but it just made me think hard about all the things people say and do behind closed doors, the way we act when others aren't around. Guess it makes me recall Jesus' talk of "white-washed tombs." I don't want that for my life - white-washed tomb or gutted out house either one. It's a pretty strong visual.

15 Random Things

Got one of those pass-it-along notes from a FB friend recently, requesting that I write up a list of 15 random things about myself and send it out. It sounded kind of fun, but I'm not really the type to forward it along so I thought I'd post it here instead. I tried to post the first things that came to my mind, not necessarily in the order they came to my mind.

1. Every morning I get up, drive to the latte stand, and get a double-short, nonfat, white chocolate caramel mocha with whip.

2. I am a Disney fanatic - not in the sense of buying the merchandise or knowing trivia but in visiting the parks; I would do Disneyworld in Orlando yearly if I could and buy 6-day passes each time. Maybe even twice a year.

3. I pick up languages quickly but am not fluent in any of them, except English of course.

4. I love making others laugh but am not much of a laugh-er myself. 

5. I read Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities in 5th grade, by choice, and loved it.

6. I played flute for 1 year as a kid and hated it.

7. I once had a subscription to Victoria magazine. Yes, that's the lace doilies, floral print dresses, and tea cookies magazine. 

8. Places I dream of visiting are Israel, Egypt, Kenya, and India.

9. I have walked on the Great Wall of China.

10. I have a secret crush on Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

11. Two years ago I was just about certain I didn't need any more kids than the two I already had; now I'm not sure I'm done with three. 

12. Three of my favorite courses in college were Oceanography, Landscape Architecture, and World Music; oddly enough they have little to do with my life now.

13. I thought "lol" meant "lots of love" until a friend enlightened me.

14. I wanted to be an attorney for many years when I was younger until I realized that was my dad's dream and not my own.

15. I'm a much more private person than people probably know.

Drunken Bug

Climbed into bed with the kids tonight, or rather they climbed into bed with us, to do our nightly reading together, and we pulled out the book we're currently reading through. We just finished one of my favorite books as a kid ( Newbery award-winner From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler) and are on to another one, the much lighter Bunnicula: Rabbit-Tale of Mystery, the story of a cat, a dog, and the vegetable-sucking vampire bunny that mysteriously came to live with them. (The boys love it already!) We were all tensely submerged in a markedly skin-crawling section of the story, waiting expectantly to see what the fang-ilicious, zucchini-biting rabbit might do next, when I reached for a sip of mulled wine cider from the mug I had on my bedside table. As I put the cup to my lips - filled with blood-red cider wine, might I add - something jumped up out of the mug, latched onto my face and began wriggling and flapping it's loathsome way up my cheek and into the concave of my eye socket, much like a miniature insectoid vampire bat. Dis. Gus. Ting!!! An unsuspecting fly had somehow fallen to its impending death in my mug, lost its way and its sobriety, along with its ability to fly it seemed, and was now doing it's best to escape what I'm sure was as much a harrowing experience for him as it was for me. I did, at first, believe it to be a jumping spider, which would have admittedly been much worse, but either way, the experience was both astounding and repulsive at the same time. I've never seen a fly behave like that. Normally a fly would just take off flying the minute he got loose. After I flicked him off my eye socket (yes, eye socket!) and onto our comforter, he found his balance and took air, drunk or no, and at risk of being cited an FUI. Amazing. And disgusting. Ew. What is it with me and the bugs of this world? They've got it out for me.

One Thing I Love About my Husband

... Is that he has on multiple occasions said, when we're viewing a potential house to buy, "This is where we could put your studio." Thank you, Jeff, for remembering. And for honoring me. 

I Go to the Rock

Funny now, looking back on that last post, and thinking about my morning today. I found myself driving I-5 with this old gospel chorus looping heartily through my mind:

I go the Rock of my salvation

I go to the Stone that the builders rejected

I run to the Mountain, and the Mountain stands by me

When the earth all around me is sinking sand

On Christ the solid Rock I stand

When I need a shelter, when I need a friend, I go to the Rock

I started singing it first, I think, because Jeff and I had been talking just this morning about literally going to The Rock for lunch - the pizza place, that is. Ha. Then I got a call that the wife of one of our employees had been rushed to the ER for serious internal bleeding that couldn't be explained; he was harried and afraid, it sounded like, and I found myself again singing that song, but this time as a prayer over him and his cherished wife - that they would both go to the Source of strength and all peace during trouble. Not so funny this time. But what really got me thinking later was when I found myself driving home from the counseling appointment I had today where my therapist had been pushing me to go into what was uncomfortable territory for me, places of pain and hurt and still raw wounds, places I'm not keen on going voluntarily. I kept singing and singing that chorus in the car afterward, out loud even, until I realized I sounded like a broken record. You know, that point when what was once a soothing repetition becomes almost a drone or meaningless mantra? That's where I was. "Just sing a little louder, and you can drown it all out." And I kind of smiled remembering my post on Buechner - about how important it is that we look the depravity part of the Gospel in the face and not run away from things that are frightening in our lives and in others'. Funny. Sometimes I wonder if half the reason I write all this stuff down is so I'll better listen to myself later. So here I am, looking those guys in the face again. And going to the Rock.

Why I Love Buechner

I love this man. (As an author, of course.) And here's why:

From Listening to Your Life by Frederick Buechner, "No Theological Axe - Sept. 9"

"As I have long since discovered, the world is full of people - many of them, I regret to say, book reviewers - who, if they hear that a minister has written a novel, feel that they know, even without reading it, what sort of a novel it must be. It must be essentially a sermon with illustration in the form of character and dialogue, and, as such, its view of life must be one-sided, simplistic, naive, with everything subordinated to the one central business of scoring some kind of homiletical bull's-eye. I protest that, in my case anyway, this simply is not so. Since my ordination, as well as before, novels, for me, start - as Robert Frost said his poems did - with a lump in the throat. I don't start with some theological axe to grind, but with a deep, wordless feeling for some aspect of my own experience that has moved me. Then, out of the shadows, a handful of characters starts to emerge, then various possible relationships between them, then a setting maybe, and lastly, out of those relationships, the semblance at least of a plot. Like any other serious novelist, I try to be as true as I can to life as I have known it. I write not as a propagandist but as an artist.

On the other hand - and here is where I feel I must be so careful - since my ordination I have written consciously as a Christian, as an evangelist, or apologist, even. That does not mean that I preach in my novels, which would make for neither good novels nor good preaching. On the contrary, I lean over backwards not to. I choose as my characters (or out of my dreams do they choose me?) men and women whose feet are as much of clay as mine are because they are the only people I can begin to understand. As a novelist no less than as a teacher, I try not to stack the deck unduly but always let doubt and darkness have their say along with faith and hope, not just because it is good apologetics - woe to him who tries to make it look simple and easy - but because to do it any other way would be to be less than true to the elements of doubt and darkness that exist in myself not less than in others. I am a Christian novelist in the same sense that somebody from Boston or Chicago is an American novelist. I must be true to my experience as a Christian as black writers to their experience as blacks or women writers to their experience as women. It is no more complicated, no more sinister than that."  - p. 240

Love it. (Bolds added.) In particular, I love that last passage in bold. If we, as it feels like so many easy-answer Christians (and Christian artists) do, point people to only the redemption side of the gospel, if we ignore or minimize the depravity and pain and sin and struggle in our own lives (and theirs) because it is uncomfortable and distasteful and ambiguous, then we do a serious disservice to the Gospel. We fundamentally dilute the depravity of man in the Gospel story! And yet the truth - no, Truth - of depravity is an essential precursor to salvation and grace and freedom. It's essential in the structure of the Gospel. If there's no depravity (or death, sin, pain), there's no need for crying out to God, no need for redemption. Grace becomes a hollow and meaningless celebration.

Yeah... I think I love him, too, because he loves the overuse of commas - the mark of someone who has way too much going on internally to put to paper. Go, Buechner!

Time for a Change

Well... Guess I've officially switched over to TypePad. Excited for a new season of fellowship and creative endeavors. Looking forward to hopefully writing a little more, too. It's been so long. Looks like this new platform has better options than Vox did. We'll see what's ahead.

Love how TypePad syncs with FB. Learning the ins and out...

Prova, Prova... Testing, Testing

Does this work? Is anyone home? Am I transferring? Where am I?

Connection

Jeff and I were talking on the drive to the ocean this weekend that we are both really enjoying family life right now. Part of it is because he's been home a great deal more lately, even during the week, as we've been working so hard to prep the house to sell it. It's been great for family morale. But part of it I think, too, is that we're maturing into a new life season as a family, somewhere we've never been before, and we're all eager to embrace it. We're somehow more connected than we've ever been, and it's almost like it took us by surprise as we just lived life day to day - painting the house, pulling weeds, changing diapers. The boys are becoming older boys, "big" boys really, and we've got a brand new little girl just to mix it up a little and melt all our hearts when it gets too nuts around here. Crazy! I mean, Mac was driving a go-cart down at the ocean by himself this weekend... By himself! I almost cried but ended up laughing instead as he came into the last lap way too fast, didn't know how to hit the brake in time to stop, and rammed Jeff (and the whole bunch in front of him) hard on from behind. Classic. Guess he's not totally a big boy just yet. We've spent tons of time together recently, playing games, making up fake accents around the dinner table, and just talking about "nothing" sometimes. (I couldn't help but think the other day that all these evenings we spend talking about "nothing" are really a sort of rehearsal for more serious conversations to come. How could we possibly expect that they could talk to us about drugs or girls or peer pressure when we wouldn't be willing to talk about Sponge Bob or Star Wars or kickball at recess?) Such a rich time for us, which is SO nice. We feel more connected than ever with the kids (they're blooming nicely), and I absolutely cherish each time I feel them reach out to connect in whatever way they can.

I was nursing recently and reached out to quietly touch one of Ella's small fingers, trying to memorize those little hands to recall later when she's so much bigger and her hands and feet are on-the-go and occupied with little girl toys or much later with big girl stories and chatting. (Seems like just yesterday it was the boys' baby fingers I was holding...) As lightly as I touched her, she quickly and instinctively snatched at my pinky, curled her little chubby fingers tightly around mine, then smoothly pulled my hand to her chest as if to capture me and keep me for good - busily nursing the whole while, of course. Dang. How I love those moments! It reminded me almost immediately of times when the boys recently have in a similar way snatched my hand to hold as we're walking into a store or church or just down the street. It's usually only for 30 seconds or less nowadays; they don't linger as long as the baby does, at least not anymore. They used to, but they're older now, so it catches my breath when those fleeting moments hit, and I think, "Stay in the moment. Stay awake yet calm. Enjoy that little embrace. You won't have it forever." In some ways those physical connections are becoming fewer and far between as they get bigger, but like anything, there's ebb and flow. Connection changes. Mac had a tough year at school, and it was punctuated by his pulling in toward us and away from us, as his moods hit him. Fortunately, he finished well and seems happier now than ever. I'm seeing a smile on his face that I haven't seen in quite a while - true, pure, delighted - even at age 8 when he can also be so intense and busy with things. Ice is still deciding whether he's growing out of the preschool years, if he's truly the real deal on the way to boyhood or if he should stay in mom's arms a little longer. He needs to grow some still, stretch out and find his place as our family has grown, too; I think he's finally realizing that even though he's not the baby anymore, he's still equally as important and has a lot of his own uniqueness to give as he reaches out toward others. Like we told him, "You're the only one who gets to be the older brother and the younger brother at the same time. That's pretty special." He pulled me into his room the other day to "ask me question," which I was prepared to have be a serious one from the tone of his voice. He climbs up on his bed, points to a specific pattern in the stucco on his wall, and said, "Doesn't this look like a fox, Mom?" Which started us looking for all kinds of things all over his wall. I sat there for quite a while, wondering to myself if there was some other question, or if our Fantastic Mr. Fox was the only one. Turns out he was.

I'll take an embrace whenever they want to reach out for it, by hand holding, by talking together, or by stucco wall picture, and I want to be un-busy enough to notice those times. I'm also not so thick as to believe the embrace is meant to be constant; that's the nature of human individuality and the separate "other,".There's no other way. Part of being a parent, and particularly a mom, is letting your child go, helping them "go," as each day they grow older so they can leave and learn to return to you at times, too. It's like the tides - in and out, toward and away from. And I remind myself - "Wait for it. And savor it when you're blessed enough to receive." Right now, we're in a period of more connection rather than less, so I get to savor more often than not. Thank you, Lord. They're good kids. Interesting how life changes.  

Lost (& Found)

"Sometimes you can just hop in the back of someone's cab and tell them what they're supposed to do. Other times you have to let them look at the ocean awhile."

- "Jacob" from ABC's Lost, regarding Jack and the Island

Lean Into the Darkness and Grow Wise

Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day

Macrina Wiederkehr

A book I'm really enjoying right now is Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day by Sister Macrina Wiederkehr. It came for me just in time, just at the right and proper time. In short, it's a soft and gracefully spoken reminder to take breathing spaces in your day for prayer and soul-healing (Mm!), breathing spaces that might just "allow your soul to catch up." These pauses align themselves with the seven traditional hours of prayer in a monastic community but more naturally with the sun's daily rhythms: midnight, dawn, midmorning, noon, midafternoon, evening, and night. I like that she uses the words "sacred pause" because truly, sometimes that's all the time one can take - a pause. Even so, it's often just enough for the moment. The overall hope is to live more mindfully through our "normal" and hectic days in an effort to, as she puts it, touch the "grace of each hour" despite the chaos the day holds.

The thought of meditating with the flow of our daily circadian rhythms reminds me again that as the hours turn, so our personal seasons turn, as well. Month after month, year after year, midnight, dawn, noon, evening, any given period of personal daylight or darkness may last weeks or months sometimes, it seems. And nothing lasts forever. Like the moon's rotation around the earth as she, in turn, dances her way around the sun, our own rhythms overlap and converge in vibrant, pulsing circles of life, death, and all that's in between. The cycle of birth to death never ceases to fascinate me. This is why - and why, too, I sit down to write today - Macrina's very first chapter was from the start so medicinal. She enters with "Matins" or "Vigils," prayer in the midnight hour, a deep and silent meditation in the thick dark of night, ushering a call to embrace the night rather than fight it. My season has been night, and her words bring much solace. Now while I have yet to physically get myself out of bed for prayer in darkness, I have been comforted on sleep-weary nights, and metaphorically, could not have found a more healing word for life passages that are difficult to endure. I have been flailing around for far too long now in what has been a period of much darkness for me, fighting it, resenting it, exhausted from it, straining for eyes to see in impenetrable, impossible night. But this is where beauty enters with words like healing balm. "Lean into the darkness and grow wise," Macrina says. Instead of fighting the night, may the warrior rest. It was a new thought - leaning into the darkness, accepting it, and waiting in quiet expectation. Close your eyes, don't force them open. Lower your clenched fists, don't fight. And wait to see what the Spirit has to teach in deep night.

She says:

"Rising from sleep in the heart of the night, I keep vigil with eternal questions. These eternal questions are infinite longings that have taken root in the ground of my being. Holding vigil with the Guardian of Life, whose eye shines down upon all who live in terror of the night, I become quiet. In the middle of the night I hold hands with trust and surrender to the One who sees without a light. I, too, see without a light. I welcome my night eyes. My soul is my night light. Night vigil is a time for deep listening. My prayer travels deep into my soul space, into the essence of my being. I go "down under" where the Eternal One waits. I wait with the One who waits for me. Like Jesus, keeping watch the night before he died, I keep vigil with those who wait alone. The darkness has a special kind of soul. I lean into the darkness and grow wise.

"...The angel of night lights a candle in my soul, [and] I am not talking about the kind of candle that takes darkness away. Rather, in the darkness and in the great silence I discover that my soul has an eye that can see in the dark and an ear that can hear in the silence. With my soul's eye, what needs to be seen is revealed in a new way; with my soul's ear, what needs to be heard is felt in a new way.

"...If we do not turn away from this darkness, it has the potential of becoming a nurturing womb for us. Often, it is in the dark times of our lives that our eyes are opened, and we see things in new ways." (p. 29, 31, 32)

Lean into the darkness and grow wise.

I am reminded (and pleased) that from the beginning I believed it was best to accept whatever season God had for me. Only good things come from his hand, no matter how painful. But somewhere along the way I got lost, so committed to being true to my struggle that I was unable to receive comfort. (No, to even "find" comfort...) Now I find myself unwilling, "un-wanting," to struggle any longer. It's okay to not understand every little "why." Let it go. It's alright if I can't control it, I remind myself. And it's certainly natural to be afraid of the dark. I can close my eyes and be safe, even if deep darkness surrounds me. These past few nights at bedtime, if the boys are overly rambunctious going down or if Jeff is still amped up from the day, I crawl in bed and remind him in classic form, holding up a finger as if to put him on pause: "Sh. I'm entering the Great Silence." Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. And I smile.

The funny thing about darkness is that after a while, it becomes a little difficult to recognize the light. I hope that what I'm beginning to see is a glimmer of the dawn. 

The Cup of Salvation

That's the thing with fruitfulness... Life requires death, wealth requires sacrifice.The kernel falls to the ground to become a full stem of wheat. The grape is crushed for sweet savoring. Good things require a yielding, a giving way.

I was encouraged recently reading a newsletter we receive from Times Square Church in New York City; it's the church founded by David Wilkerson, the missionary pastor in the incredible story "Run, Baby, Run" about gang leader Nicky Cruz and Wilkerson's redeeming work with the youth of inner-city 1960's New York. I'm always impressed at their letters, always real, often addressing brokenness, the downhearted, the down and out, and how God meets the broken ones whose seed has fallen to the ground in need of re-birth. So different from the message of suburban mega-churches, it seems. And why wouldn't it be? They're smack in the middle of one of America's most tumultuous, confused, and self-absorbed cities. Each day on their very church step, a block off Broadway, they encounter every painted color of depravity, violence, and hubris you can imagine, a vivid spectrum from Park Avenue to park bench.

This single phrase from the letter caught my attention, and it re-plays itself in my mind often as the days pass: "Drink deep the cup of salvation." Yes. Drink deep. I long for it. And I believe I do, to the extent that I am able. (Drink deep, that is.) I smile and wonder if God laughs at my child-like desire to take the fullness of his cup. "Are you certain?" He says, amused. A chill quickly passes over the arch of my neck, tiny hairs standing on end. "Well, maybe not the full cup," I think to myself. I suddenly see a little boy, one of my two maybe, holding a goblet to small lips, taking a broad gulp, immersing his young palate in the complex and adult nature of fermented vine. He emerges, sputtering, confused at the bitterness and strength in the juice. No, he's not ready. There's yet time. And small doses. But still he reaches out to receive what he can. As do I. God only gives what we're able to bear, and whatever He gives is good. Faith.

So we drink deep.

No matter the sting, no matter the stain, drink deep... as red wine flows from His cup to ours, life-giving blood to parched, constricted veins.

Drink deep, unabashedly, knowing the only one who truly sees is He who poured it.

Drink unashamed as the Vintner's own sacrifice marks the well from which the cup is drawn.

Drink gratefully as mortal flesh yields to divine glory.

Drink deep the cup of salvation.

Fecundity

Wheat & Pomegranate 001

Peace

Peace

I fell in love with this photo from our wall calendar for the month of January, traditionally the month when all devoted sun-seekers pine away after balmy winds and sandy beaches. Not sure I agree with the saying, but I think the photo says it all. Fiji? Tahiti, anybody? Mmmm.

Encouragement

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This message mysteriously appeared on my refrigerator recently, and it was timely encouragement. Kids really know what we need sometimes.

 

 

Body-Bound: Part 2

And here's the thing... I feel like Christians are even hesitant to talk about these kinds of issues in worship because they're so sensitive about crossing lines - as if words like "body" or "lover" are dangerous swear words never to be uttered in church or relationship in fear of hellfire. Yet intimacy issues are, in my opinion, all too relevant to our relationship with God and worship thereof. In a sex-crazed generation, we are a intimacy-deprived church, the very intimacy this generation seeks without knowing it. Too few are brave enough to venture into these waters. I'd like to grow more in my ability to tackle these issues better myself.    

Body-Bound

Last week in church, I was thinking again about the American tendency (or maybe it's more of a Northwest tendency) to be body-conscious, body-bound. We're physically stifled as a people, nervous about how we look, restrained in our affections, and hesitant to be physically demonstrative in displaying our emotions. And it carries into our worship. Each Sunday we exercise heart and mind, soul and spirit, but "body" seems somehow neglected in our endeavors. We're encouraged primarily to focus on freeing our hearts to sacrifice, our minds from the pressures of the week, and our wills from the struggles of sin that hinder our relinquishing pure praise... Focus. Center. Throw off anything that entangles. Our minds pause to savor the lofty ideals set forth in hymnbooks written centuries before. Our hearts leap in joy at God's goodness or melt in sorrow at our depravity and pain. And then, when it seems the stars align, we seize some nugget of truth in the music before us, and we worship. Our mouths open to release praise. Moments of pure worship, truly.

But all the while, and too frequently it seems, the bodies (of the Body) stand dormant, unmoved, staunch and seemingly anchored to the ground. Or if we do worship physically, perhaps, we fall into the same predictable cycle of the same old comfortable mechanisms each week: Sit during Verse 1, stand at the Chorus, lift one hand second time around, lower it in Verse 2, (never ever lift both at the same time), etc., etc... That can be almost just as binding as doing nothing at all. The body is a God-given instrument to be unleashed to worship God freely as only flesh and bone can! There are too many things hands and feet can do that a heart or mind can't do alone. Who knows what things that kind of praise can unlock in a person, what it can communicate to a God who became flesh himself and danced among us? Isn't there a reason God gave a physical manifestation of love between a man and a woman? Can you imagine a relationship with a husband or wife where only heart and mind were exchanged and no body-love? Much would be profoundly lost! And while our relationship with God is compared to the relationship of the Lover and the Beloved, we worship frequently stifled. Hm. I can't get away from thinking sadly that overall, as a God-worshiping people, we are still pretty much body worship-depraved. It seems to me that in this way, at least, we have much to learn from ancient cultures and tribal people groups.

I feel it more in some churches than others, and every once in a while, I feel it in a church that I wouldn't even expect it. Why can't people release their hands, arms, legs, torsos, as freely as they release their mouths? What is everyone so afraid of? I guess it is a little more awkward if you're the only one moving in an entire section of people, but enjoyment is contagious. Maybe you're the spark that someone else needs to be brave. What might happen if we just wait expectantly each week to worship spontaneously, freely with all that we are and see how our bodies want to worship naturally on their own? I think when your body wants to move, you should let it lead you. (And I'm not excluding leading you to be still either. I just think we're pretty good at that already, purposeful or not.) When that toe feels like tapping and you find yourself doing it unconsciously, or your center of gravity takes over and starts swaying to the music all on its own, you should just let it. Or maybe you're so bound up, you need to start with just giving all those digits permission to move at all. Just maybe. I'm not so sure we're destined to end up maniac Pentecostals dancing in the aisles if we let our bodies lead, as it seems so many fear. That's not my experience so far anyway. But who knows? I've got a long way to go, so the sermon's as much for myself as for anyone else. My husband is my inspiration; I can always rely on him to be just a little more crazy, a little more spontaneous, a little more body-un-conscious. (Thankfully.)

It's kind of funny actually that sometimes the easiest thing I find to do in worship anymore is to participate physically. We've visited so many churches in the past couple of years where the worship songs are entirely unfamiliar. But do my feet know that? No. They start to kick around anyway, and it's worship. Do my hands know the words? No, but they move and speak praise without word or spoken thought, even in meditative and slow songs. It may not be traditional, but it's comforting to me, and I know it's glorifying to God. It's a way I can worship when I don't know how, a way to worship when there is no word.

Once Upon a Time

The elementary difference between a muse and a siren is the destiny to which a wanderer is seduced. Both call for equal sacrifice: sacrifice of self. The difference is that with the one the self is sacrificed to creation and with the other, to destruction, with one to birth, and the other, death. It seems to me that we all hold the capacity within us to take either form in any given story.

Be Well

Jeff and I sat down this morning for a few hours and did some overall planning for 2009, analyzing the direction we're heading and setting goals in that direction for four categories: personal, couple, family, and business. The personal category, which I normally find the easiest to lay out when we've done these exercises, sat blank for most of my writing time today. Seemed kind of obvious to me: "Be well." Do I really need any other focus personally right now? It's probably the only focus I want for this next space of time, whether that takes a month, a season, a full year or more. But as I sat there, my "be well" kind of slowly and gently expanded itself into a ladder of descriptive terms, almost a prescription of what I meant in telling myself to be well.

Keep a slow but steady pace.

Be consistent.

Settle.

Be kind.

Be steady, unmoved.

Be silent on purpose.

Speak more in less.

I looked at the list afterward and was amused at my inner self and its longings. It doesn't look like the list of an extreme or intense person, a vivid, passionate person, the kind of person I would normally describe myself as. But it is true nonetheless, very true to where I'm at and what I'm longing for right now. They're not just areas I'd like to grow in but areas that feel like their time has come - extravagant necessities, if that's possible in this life. 

Coffee Shot

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Seem to have the same urge each December - to photograph a tazza of espresso con panna. Not sure why, but I had the same urge again this year, so I set it to the backdrop of our centerpiece and gingerbread house.

The statue is Anastasia, by the way,
who I recently acquired and
named after a
beloved barista at my favorite latte stand.

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Happy Thanksgiving

"A Little Longer" with Passion of the Christ

Holiday Rose

 

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I went out to get the mail a couple days ago and stumbled on a beautiful surprise... this fully-blossomed holiday rose. (Just in time for Thanksgiving!) It faded fast once I brought it inside, but I stole a memory of it before it escaped. I bought this bush two summers ago for it's unique color of petals. The bud starts out blood red, then quickly opens to a very light, flushed skin tone bloom that varies across the face of the flower, sometimes a diluted champagne color and others an almost grayish pepper white. It's tough to see here, but it's likely the strangest and most delicate colored rose I've ever seen.

Keeping the Clock Wound

A savory excerpt from Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art (p. 96) that I read this morning. Mm, mm, good...

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Lewis Carroll was a story-teller, an artist as well as a mathematician, and artists often have a more profound sense of what time is all about than do the scientists. There's a story of a small village (about the size of the village near Crosswicks) where lived an old clockmaker and repairer. When anything was wrong with any of the clocks or watches in the village, he was able to fix them, to get them working properly again. When he died, leaving no children and no apprentice, there was no one left in the village who could fix clocks. Soon various clocks and watches began to break down. those which continued to run often lost or gained time, so they were of little use. A clock might strike midnight at three in the afternoon. So many of the villagers abandoned their time-pieces.

One day a renowned clock-maker and repairer came through the village, and the people crowded around him and begged him to fix their broken clocks and watches. He spent many hours looking at all the faulty time pieces, and at last he announced that he could repair only those whose owners had kept them wound, because they were the only ones which would be able to remember how to keep time.

So we must daily keep things wound: that is, we must pray when prayer seems dry as dust; we must write when we are physically tired, when our hearts are heavy, when our bodies are in pain.

We may not always be able to make our "clock" run correctly, but at least we can keep it wound, so that it will not forget.

"What means 'early'?"

My secondborn asked me again this morning (this is the second time in the last few weeks): What means "early," Mommy? As if I should know. I found it funny that he felt the need to ask, because that's one thing I'm realizing about this whole motherhood thing - I did not sign up for this. What I did sign up for is diaper changes and bandaged wounds, broken sleep and broken bones, packed lunches, packed punches, lots of tears - both mine and theirs, but never once did it occur to me, not once, that I would for what feels like the rest of my prime adult life be obligated to wake up before the crack of dawn to drag two reluctant boys out of bed five days a week to get them to school on time, dressed, fed, awake and alert, nurtured oh so carefully in a patient, loving cloud of sweet motherliness. I know for a fact this was not in the contract. How could I have missed this? Seriously. How? I need my sleep, people.

Mac, like his daddy, is happy to dance and sing in the morning while Ice (the SecondBorn), we're finding out, is more like me in this way. More like me in that he hates mornings, it seems. The two of us were standing in the kitchen last week one school day looking on where Jeff and Mac were flaunting their early-morning capriciousness, singing some wretched song and shaking their booties shamelessly while Ice and I stared on in a haze of sleepy discontent, him sucking his physical thumb and I, my metaphysical one. All of a sudden, he did what we both were thinking; he took his stuffed sleeping toy, Shyee, and threw at Mac. Hard. All the while he stared, sucking, sucking, sucking. We continued to look on in silence. Unfortunately, Jeff is himself my own stuffed sleeping toy, and well... I can't really throw him at himself, now, can I? I would have if I could.

The bright spot is that it is, amazingly enough, getting a little easier for all of us. I read somewhere recently that if you can get out into the natural light in the morning, 20 minutes of light is enough to trick your body into waking up. That's the good part; it seems to work somewhat for me. By the time I get back from dropping off the boys at school, I'm not really sleepy anymore. I still can't say, though, that it's changing my opinion about mornings. (And my husband just asked me what I'm going to do when it gets dark out in the mornings. Darn him anyway.)

Thought this was an appropriate time to post an old cartoon I've been holding onto for years, probably since college. This one goes out to all the early morning haters...

Early Bird

I Didn't Know

Mac recently slammed his finger in my car door. (No, I didn't do it.) He actually did it himself, which seems virtually impossible to me, but he did. He was slamming his own car door and was so excited to get moving, he slammed it on his own finger. It was dark out, and I couldn't see whether it was broken or not, so I was relieved to discover it wasn't once we got in our friends' house where we were visiting. The thing that triggered my memory was that he lay there afterward on the couch, ice on finger wailing, "But Mommy, I didn't know this could happen.... I didn't know." There was something familiar about the cry, but I didn't place it until the next day. He had said that same thing a year or so before when he'd slammed his finger in our sliding glass door - "I didn't know that could happen." It seems to me that's what fear is all about - knowing that it could happen - whatever "it" is. Seems there's a point in our lives where we didn't know, then suddenly we do. The pain hits, the trauma, the wound, and suddenly, we know. What's strange about this incident is that he did know. He'd done virtually the same thing a year before, slamming his finger in a door. That's noteworthy in some way, too, I suppose. One can forget.

New York City

Subway

It was great going to New York this weekend. I really like that city, even though I wouldn't want to live there. Jeff was saying he loves the different people you find - all races, all ages, all viewpoints, all mixed together in a very every day, expected and normal kind of way. In that way, at least, it's heavenly. I didn't take a ton of photos this time, only a few that stuck out to me - things that were a little more unusual than we'd seen before or things we hadn't done yet really. On the airplane over, my body finally gave in to the cold that had been stalking it up until I crashed into the airplane seat, too tired to fight it. And having a head cold, of course, meant that the first day or so there was spent in a bit of a fog, which really was mostly fine with me anyway. Maybe it was because of the cold or maybe it wasn't, but I found myself just wanting to roam the streets, taking in the city, watching the people and thinking/feeling it all out. (There really should be a word for "think/feel.") I didn't really want to accomplish much while we were there anyway, though I guess we really did in the end - the World Trade Center on the 9/11 anniversary, Young Frankenstein on Broadway, the "Festa da San Gennarro" in Little Italy, a UN tour, and one of the last Yankees games in the old stadium before it's torn down. (Pack it in, true Baker fashion, even when we're not trying to.) I'll tell ya this, on a side note: New Yorkers sure have a way with the f-word. It amazes me every time. I've pretty much stopped blushing to hear it used... moms with their kids, shop workers with customers, construction workers, ballerinas, Armani-clad business men, and Chihuahua-toting little rich gals on Park Avenue. Amazing. It really pretty much is just another part of speech in that town, alongside the likes of "verb," "noun," and "adjective." It's a category all its own.
 
Cities around the world smell the same... I love that smell. I've thought that so many times before and was trying to

Chrysler Building #2

think again this weekend what I mean by that, thinking back to some great cities that I've visited: Sydney, Shanghai, Copenhagen, Rome, Chicago, Moscow, Tokyo, Bangkok, Los Angeles, Lisbon, among others. Oh, and Hong Kong, of course! That's one of my favorites... Unfortunately, I was so young in visiting many of them that I only retain a hazy overall impression, but their general form and effect still holds in me. Certain snapshots fly to the forefront of my memory, precious keepsakes that hopefully will endure. I realize, too, that I've been blessed to travel, and the experience rushes back every time I smell that same metropolitan fragrance. They all smell the same to me. Or at least similar. I think about it every time I go down into Seattle. There are definitely certain things that are unique to different cities worldwide; I mean, in an Asian city, you experience much more foreign and strangely non-western scents than say somewhere like L.A. (Or even Rome, for that matter.) And a port city obviously smells different than one that's landlocked. But there's a certain essence that's unique to Metropolis, no matter what country that metropolis is located in. It's the smell of tar... And steam. Sweaty concrete. And exhaust, a touch of cigarette smoke... All mixed together somehow, I guess. Maybe it's the smell of exhaled human air without the trees to recycle it back into oxygen, I don't know. But as weird as it sounds, I love the smell of it. Almost as much as I love the smell of water and green plants and earth. I guess I'm lucky I live near both. 

Airplane Art

2 Way Tree #2

After reading all I could possibly stomach this weekend on the plane back from New York, I pulled out my large moleskine journal and drew this. The more I look at it, the more I like it, and I've kept the page open and out in the kitchen all day today to glance at as I pass. I can't stop looking at it. I think the main reason it's so fascinating to me is because I originally drew it like this...

2 Way Tree

Curious, huh? Or maybe I'm just crazy. But to me, it really seems to work both ways.

I actually prefer it "upside down." How I noticed it was that I went to pull my journal out again last night to look at it ("right side up"), but you know how a moleskine kind of looks the same both directions?... Well, I pulled it out backwards by accident, I guess, flipped open the page the wrong way and thought, "Damn, that's a good picture..."

1st Day of School: Round 2 - 1st Grade

I can't believe it was already a year ago that I was writing about my firstborn's first day of Kindergarten.... And now here I am on September 2nd, a whole year later, the boys in bed, Jeff still working, and Mac is going to be a full-time First Grader in a mere 12 hours. First grade! He is now being officially flung headlong, full time, all day, into that savory, scintillating and sometimes scathing world they call the American educational institution where he'll spend the next 12, 16, maybe 20 years of his life perusing the annals of all academia has to offer his young, eager, and intuitive mind. (When you put it that way, it sounds pretty good. Maybe I'll go back...) I can't help but think that from here on out, that's a lot of time spent under someone else's care and tutelage... 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, 35 weeks and 175 some odd packed lunches a year - 35.7% of his waking hours, to be exact! That's 35.7% of his time that's spent away from his family, away from his home, and alongside teachers, counselors and peers I can only hope the Lord is even now raising up to the task. I started getting a little crazy over it a few weeks ago, just amazed that we've come so far so fast, and I kept saying I couldn't believe he was going to be going to school all day long. I think I maybe overdid it a little, because after a while he eventually started to tear up a little and said, "You mean, all day, Mommy? Like, I don't get home until it's time to go to bed?"

Thankfully - "No, Son."

And I reassured him today, as well, that he didn't have to go to school on Saturday either. He was pretty relieved about that.

I told the boys that when I was a kid in elementary school, I used to get a stomach ache every year the night before school started because I was so excited to go to school. I hope they love it that much. (Though maybe without the stomach ache.) It will certainly be interesting this year watching Mac explore his diverse, colorful and funky new public school as Ice learns to navigate a more reserved, uniformed, classical school atmosphere. A new school each, and to hear them talk, you'd think they're both expecting to find that each of their own schools is the best school in the whole wide world. Works for me.

This I Believe: Installment #2

4. Pursuit of personal transformation in Christ is one of the best gifts I could ever give my children. After I jotted down those first three maxims of my personal credo a couple weeks ago, this fourth one has been trapped floating around in the space they left vacant in my skull. I think it's been floating around in there since then, occasionally striking a synapse or nerve ending, because I keep fighting over the object of that sentence - the "one of." My instinct kept naturally wanting to say it's the best gift I could give, but each time it surfaced that way, my mind fought it, correcting it, subconsciously and surreptitiously scanning scripture passages on my cerebral hard drive for proof of "truth" or "falsehood," editing over the top, saying: It's one of the best gifts I could give. i.e. Fill in the blanks for yourself: "_____ is the best gift I can give my kids." You could fill in almost anything, but almost anything can go south on you unless a person strives to be constantly pliable in Christ's hands, movable, malleable. Love is a gift I can give my kids (and love will come if I become more like Christ, real love, capital-L Love), but if I don't pursue change, if I only strive to "love" my kids (i.e. care for and cuddle them) without pursuing being changed in Christ, love for my children can turn into over-indulgence, possession, obsession, or idol worship with them on the throne. Service and sacrifice I can give my kids, but again, over-indulgence and rebellious, self-inflated children result without the balance Christ brings in the way I relate to them. Allowing his lordship is the only thing that is truly promising when all else can falter. Am I making sense?

The main argument my mind and gut keep having is centered around the subtle difference in nuance between "pursuit of personal transformation in Christ" and "pursuit of Christ himself." I keep thinking that I "should" be saying: "Pursuit of Christ" is the best gift I could ever give my children. I think that would be most biblical, but there's something about it I'm fighting internally. Not that I don't believe it that way. It's just that I really believe it the other way, too, if I can believe both at one time, that pursuit of personal transformation is the best gift I could give my children.  Sitting here, trying to decide what to write next, I realize even now that I'm unprepared to explain further what I mean - partly, maybe, because it's a confusing distinction and partly because I'm still confused myself. Maybe, too, it's the futile and ignorant frustration of trying to strain down a person's entire belief system to a pithy list of a few short sentences. Or maybe it's the late hour, I don't know... But the long and short of it is that if I strive to be hidden more and more in Christ, to have the earth of my sin and dissatisfaction overturned for glory each day I live, my children, my husband, my friends, my enemies will receive far more in relationship than I alone could ever give them. The danger of it being "the" best gift I could give is that self-actualization becomes an idol, and things like service, sacrifice, God's glory and worship fall by the wayside in what becomes a ravenous, isolated pursuit of egocentric self-glorification. I don't know... Now that I'm sitting two paragraphs south, I'm not so sure whether I really care if it's "the" or "one of the." I just know it's pretty darn important, either way. 

This I Believe: Installment #1

Thinking about life lately and the way I live my life and the way I see life. I've been noticing there are a few foundational premises that I return to frequently, and what I've been noticing about these premises is not that I actually return to them to articulate them as a formal belief system so much as that they underlie the fabric of what I do and how I act, how I pursue life, forming a sort of unspoken personal creed. As Christians, of course, we may encounter on any given Sunday any various number of traditional and corporeal, generalized beliefs that have been elaborately and ceremoniously handed down to us by Bible-handlers and Bible-bangers throughout the centuries. I'm not talking about those beliefs, really... those beliefs that we're "supposed" to believe (in the words of the late, great, and recent Mars Hill sermon series); I'm talking about the ones down on a nitty gritty level that you really, truly, really believe are true - more than that, the ones that really make a difference in your life, that almost physically carve out the decisions you make from day to day. I suppose some of those can certainly overlap with Mr. Driscoll's list of items that Christians "should believe," and I also suppose that some of them probably should overlap, but I'm personally a little more interested in those beliefs that really make people tick and mark the color and flavor of their personality and life choices. Those are the beliefs I'm talking about. (Now that I think about it, it would probably be just as interesting to draw up an un-belief list, too, those tenets of faith that you just can't seem to find your way around agreeing into.) Anyway, I'm not sure that all makes sense as I've set it out for you, but it makes sense to me on some level, so I'm going with it. I basically decided tonight that I should start writing down these credos as they occur to me, for personal entertainment if for no other reason. So here are the first couple in a series (to be completed who knows when or in how many installments)... Oh, and they're in no specific order other than the order in which they materialize under my nose. These first few are the ones I return to frequently, saying to myself: "Ahhh, that's why I do this or that...!"

1. God is mystery. He is THE mystery, the "why" in the Great Story, the elusive and seductive secret, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He is both hidden and found, and therefore much of life is about turning over stones. The more I seek Him, the more I find Him; the more I find Him, the more I want to seek Him.

2. There is always more. God is not limited. God is infinite. Hear that: God is infinite. Therefore, there is always more to be found and enjoyed of anything that reflects or is expressed by him, his character, or the work of his hands. There is no true threat of a dead end to personal creativity, humor, intellectual stimulation, because God as The Master Artist, Musician, and Mathematician possesses the ultimate beautiful mind, loaning pieces of that infinite mind as he so desires to the extent he so desires. As such, if we seek it, there is always more to be beautifully created or intricately explored - more songs to be written, more stories to be told, more funny thoughts to be captured, more puzzles to be mastered. Life does not ultimately end up drained up and dry with no fresh water. No matter what age or stage we are in life, there is always the potential to encounter the energy of the original. The next "Big Idea" waits just around the corner in newness with no end to how many times it can become new. There is always more in relationship, too; if man and woman is God's image and God is infinite, then pursuit of his grace through man and womanhood can be infinite pursuit, too. His goodness can be infinite. His forgiveness can be infinite. His beauty can be infinite. His ministry can be infinite. There is no limit to transformation in a person's life, either my own or that of my brother's, except for, of course, the bottomless chasm between human finitude and divine infinity. (While we may be "some," he will always be "all." i.e. We are "loving;" He is Love itself. We are the adjective; he is the authoritative and definitive noun that our lives perpetually strive to describe.) As such, and possibly because of it, there is always a deeper place to be found in another human's touch as there is always a deeper place for one to be hidden in Christ. More of Christ in me can lead to more of Christ in you can lead to more of Christ in me can lead to more of Christ in someone else, and so on and so on.... More grace. More freedom. More love. More power. There is always more. And yes... if that makes me a hungry person, then that is what I am.

3. God's way and intention are always what is best. Little explanation needed here, I suppose. I just believe it. Even if it doesn't make sense, even if I think I knew what God was doing and it turns out he wasn't, even if I'm mistaken about how I hear God speaking... His way is always better than my way, no matter how bad I may want my own way.

Tenacity

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Introducing Miss Charlie

Charlie

When Chopper died, I took a year. When Jack didn't work out, I took a year. But it didn't seem right to wait this time. This is Charlie - MISS Charlie - "Charlie From the Chocolate Factory," as she'll be registered on her papers. We named her after my dad, "Charles James," because he bought her for us. He was honored. It feels a bit like getting married before the divorce is finalized, but Jeff reminded me that the divorce is definitely finalized. And it is. She's super mellow, super submissive, a little hard to motivate. And a little bougie. Much like myself. I find I pronounce her name "Tschzarlie" more often than not, talking baby talk to her a lot of the time (unlike Val). We've never had a female dog before. I guess we'll see how it works out. She's sweet so far, and the boys love her. She's a cuddler, follows us around everywhere, and gets most excited by food or drink (coffee and alcohol included), my kind of dog. : ) Though she does chase squirrels, growling and barking a little... She's got a little somethin', somethin' in her. The last couple of mornings, Jeff has taken her out to go potty around 5 or 6 before he heads out, then he puts her in bed with me to sleep in until I get up. She snuggles right up and tucks in. Good girl, Charlie.

The Church, The Bride

Okay... question for you... (And sorry I can't explain further right now.) But if you've got some free mental space or are stuck on a bus somewhere without a book or riding companion, ponder this for me if you will: If the Church was personified as a woman, what do you think she might look like? (Physically, that is.) Or her scent... what does her skin smell like? What would her habits be? Does she take coffee or tea, honey or jam? Where does she like to go? What does she do with the days she has free? If you wanted to go deeper, how might her overall strengths or weakness as you see them (in reality, as a multi-member congregational Bride) manifest in one single woman? I'm talking about the Church universal, the Bride, but as an individual personified woman, not at the end of the age necessarily as she's sanctified and perfectly joined with Christ but as she exists and breathes across human history from her inception, or "birth" rather, until she's grown and matured.

Obviously a free flow exercise for any of you who are interested, so no pressure. I'll take anything you've got. If you ever think of anything, I'd love to hear what you imagineered. It's the kind of thing I'm certain would be dreamt up better with several heads than one. (... Brainstorming the idea, that is, with several heads. Not a Bride with several heads. That would be more like something out of Revelation. Ew.)

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Whips and chains.

When Seasons Don't Change

I've found myself staring out windows today, whether driving or at home or otherwise, thinking that the incessant rain and blustery winds seem much more like a Northwest November than a June. When summer feels like fall, something's just not right. And I love fall... It's my favorite season. But right now, it's time for sun and water and sand and playtime. For relaxing. And for freedom. And lots of time outdoors. But wind and rain and gray skies are not friends to summer and playtime and freedom. The boys must feel it, too, because this evening at the very first sunbreak, Mac jumped up from where he was playing: "The sun's out, Mom... can I go outside?" And it was a quick sunbreak, a tease, maybe 30 seconds, but he noticed it. I didn't even think they had cared about the rain at all. Or the mysteriously absent sun. It reminded me that we need the changing of the seasons more sometimes than we even recognize, that our inner gears are inherently designed for the sequence and predictability of the cycling of things. I think our bodies crave the seasonal progression - birth, growth, decay, death - because we know it's a cycle that can't be escaped, even in our own lives. Or maybe it's not so much a craving as a "knowing." Maybe our bodies just know, maybe even on the cell level, that we're all locked into it, carried by it, bound by it, enriched by it - a knowing that for whatever reason our Creator thought it best for life to cycle after the Fall. Hm... Or maybe our bodies know and lean into it, knowing too that death isn't the final result, that the seasons are perpetually carrying us toward the newness after, like beautiful and unlikely pallbearers in an exquisite and complicated processional, half parade, half funeral. I guess it's the nature of the finite. And the nature, too, of being reborn. Though I do wonder what life would be like without seasons.

All My Fountains

As I was reading Psalm 87 this morning, the chapter closed by saying, "As they make music they will sing, 'All my fountains are in you.'"

All my fountains are in you... It reminded me of something Buechner said about joy. He talked about "the joy beyond the walls of the world," how sometimes we're overtaken by it, sometimes surprised at its quickening, how "as at snow, dreams, certain memories, at fairy tales, the heart leaps, the eyes fill." Overtaken. Surprised. Isn't that a book - Surprised by Joy?... Yes, it is. C.S. Lewis, of course. (Oh, the immediate satisfaction of amazon.com!) There are seasons in life, in my life anyway, where it feels like all my fountains are erupting with joy, where almost daily, sometimes even often in a day, I'm "surprised by joy" in the words of the late, great Mr. Lewis. Then there are seasons such as now where fountains are a bit more fickle, joy a bit more elusive, and the word of the day is discipline and persistence. Push on. Be good. Work hard. I don't mean to complain because there are good things I'm learning in this period, and I know God is in it. That's a fountain right there. And there are wonderful aspects of my life right now, even though it's not exactly the way I would draw it if I could. I know that all our fountains can't be overflowing all the time, even though I very much believe that God as the infinite Source has every ability to make that happen if he wanted to, but I guess what I'm saying is that I'm really grateful for those times lately when I'm surprised by joy. Frequently it's in art and story for me that "the joy beyond the walls of this world" materializes. Just the other day as Jeff and I sat down to the opening scene in Prince Caspian, I was overtaken by it, reminded again of callings beyond this world, beyond frustration, beyond constraint, beyond the daily push... wooed to joy. The boy, racing his horse across the meadow, escaping the wicked uncle, pursuing his destiny to take back his royal identity.... "For Narnia! For Aslan!"

Later, I sat there thinking it would probably appear pretty silly to someone who doesn't believe in a living God, us sitting there as adults at a children's movie, tears falling, so caught up in a child's fairytale for all its imagery of Christ and victory and pursuit. Maybe silly to a believer, even, who's never re-discovered his ability to be delighted as a child. But I don't care. Call me a fool. Because it's joy I'm unearthing in those moments, and I'll gladly be called a fool for joy's sake.  Joy gives life color, even when the day may be otherwise colorless. It gives hope and renews vision. It takes one's breath away... and gives it back again.

Meyer Lemon Gnocchi

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Every other Wednesday, our second wife comes to visit and the house ends up looking mid-century perfect (or something close to it) for a reasonable exchange of $70. And while I never really get much time to cook anymore, I always find myself wanting to get in the kitchen and get crazy creative on those same Wednesday nights for some reason. So yesterday afternoon after she left the boys and I quickly headed to the store and back to get ingredients for a recipe I've been wanting to try that I saw in Food & Wine magazine a while ago. It's a recipe for all you bread-baking, pasta-making, vegetable-growing, friendship-bread-passing maniacs. It's a gnocchi recipe that was really good but definitely takes some love and care. The recipe says to be careful to not overwork the dough, which I'm sure is true, but if you don't work it enough and don't get enough flour into it, the gnocchi pieces don't get formed solid enough and are too crumbled and unshapely after they're boiled. I added more flour than the recipe calls for this time as I was rolling the dough and would probably add even more next time (though I did also start with probably closer to 1.5 pounds of potatoes than the 1 pound called for). It's a give and take kind of thing. I'll definitely try it again, though I might also try to buy store-made gnocchi and just make the sauce with it to compare the two. Oh, and I made a light chicken marsala with rosemary and mushrooms to go along with it. I think they paired it with trout in the magazine, which would probably be a better choice.

There's just something about the visual of a bunch of fresh cut ingredients that gets me every time... Enjoy!

Meyer Lemon Gnocchi
Food & Wine Magazine, March 2008 (p. 148)

Awkward

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Jeff stayed home with the boys tonight while I took Val to puppy class, and as it turns out I missed one of those "gotta be there" moments. A new little girl moved in next door to us who is Mac's age, and I guess Jeff and the boys were out in the front yard socializing with her tonight when her mom came out to call her in to dinner and give her a kiss... a kiss which happened to be on the lips. Evidently, we Bakers don't do much of that kind of thing with our own offspring because Mac, upon witnessing this mother/daughter lip lock, said very clearly and within solid ear shot of the mom: "Ew. That's kind of awkward." Jeff stood there feeling very awkward himself, not knowing exactly what to say, and the mom quickly responded by saying, "Well, maybe it's because you're a boy." To which he replied with a serious and convinced face: "Um... no." The mom then started into an explanatory string of whats and whys, trying to justify to him why it might just be okay and not some strange kind of deviant behavior, which he very confidently interrupted by saying, "Well, isn't it just more for a wife and husband instead?" Curiosity is bound to kill the cat.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't so much a "gotta be there" moment, as an "I'm glad it was him and not me" moment.  Though I did get a pretty long, hard gut laugh when Jeff relayed the whole story to me after I got home. It's just such an easy story to picture... And kids are just kids, ya know?

De-Compress

Mondays I generally work between 8 and 12 hours. It sucks, but for now that's the routine. The boys and I call Mondays dog days. Tonight after the mad rush to get Jeff out the door and before my second round of catching up balances and other computer work, I poured a glass of wine, grabbed a book, the boys and some toys, and headed for the front yard to breathe a little in between "shifts." The sun had already set, or just about anyway, and I had to put on a sweater to sit comfortably outside in the cool air. The boys began to play, and I began to de-compress.

It was a bit strange coming from hours of staring at an artificially lit computer screen into the freshness of God's evening air; my eyes had quite a time adapting. No matter how I tried to relax, everything appeared kind of blurry or shifty to my weary vision, not at all the bright and soothing visual goodness I knew the trees and clouds to be on normal occasions. I knew it was from too much time on the computer. I started to read but found myself wanting to rest and look around instead. Then after stopping to rest and look around, the landscape still shifting, I found myself wanting to just close my eyes and not look around, to just listen and "be" in every other sense of the word, particularly since my eyes were worn out anyway. But being me, I thought I'd experiment a little, too. I had a theory that it might be a little like getting your eyes to adapt to walking into a dark movie theater. You know how you can close your eyes for 30 seconds when you walk in a dark room, a room that's too dark to at first see anything at all, then open them to pristine cat-like nighttime vision? That's what I figured I'd try. But when I closed my eyes and started to count, I began to wonder why I needed to even count at all. Or at least why did I need to count in real-time, real seconds anyway? I had begun counting, eyes closed... 13, 14, 15... then I started to slow down. What if I counted when I felt like it instead of when the next actual second came? .... 26, 27, 28.... Maybe 29 is 2 "real" seconds after 28, instead of 1. And 30... well, it could be a whole 5 seconds behind. Doesn't matter. And who cares about real seconds or real time anyway? ....33...  34.... Besides, who decided a second as it's traditionally defined should number our days? ....37.... Probably some random guy from some other random time period or some other random country... Anyway, it was really nice, just sitting there "counting" time in non-specific intervals, marking a "second" when I felt like it. I wondered if my natural counting would eventually match my natural rhythms if I did it for long enough, my heartbeat for example. Who knows. I remember thinking at first that I should sit there and count until I breathed a sigh of relief, but then that seemed too uptight to have to worry about so I quickly threw it out. (I'm particularly fond of sighs lately, the kind that really let the tension out, ya know, the kind that fall out naturally when you've finally landed yourself in a place of natural rest. They're great.) Anyway, I'd gotten so happily wrapped up in my counting that I actually surprised myself when around the number 97 my body released a long, sweet sigh that I wasn't anticipating, and I smiled at my ability to surprise myself. I smiled again, kind of laughed out loud actually, when my medicinal counting exercise was finally interrupted at 127 by Jeff's ring on my cell phone, calling to ask some question about how many turkeys somebody or other ordered this week. Of course. And of course it was humorous to me. Real time goes on...

I know I'm kind of rambling (it is a dog day, after all), but I kind of thought that I wanted to put the experience to paper both for my own sake and just in case somebody out there might sometime be interested in trying out my exercise in non-traditional counting. It's a whole new and relaxing way to count the time that normally drives us... If you do, let me know. I'd be interested to see how it went for you.

Update

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Well, Val's a little bigger now... 26 pounds or so. That's over twice what he weighed 3 weeks ago at his check up. Doing well. Biting a bit more as he's coming into teething stage, but he's really learning some basic commands pretty well. It's tough to keep on top of, but I feel like I need to be working a little with him every day. He's a good boy. I caught him in the bathtub in this shot, waiting for I don't know what... Maybe he likes baths. He does pretty well with them anyway.

Holy Cannonball

People, when they die, leave ripples... compassionate people, powerful people, selfish people, normal people. Even seemingly insignificant people. Everybody leaves ripples when their body hits the grave, circles of life, undulating outward from the space they took up in this world. Some people's rings may reach further, depending on the breadth of their influence, but everybody affects this world one way or the other.

A friend of mine and I were talking right before Easter about a passage in Matthew that talks about the death of Christ and describes in detail some of the events that took place upon Christ's death. It was a piece I'd forgotten about, somewhat obscure, but no less miraculous to be certain.

"And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, 'Truly this was the Son of God!"  Matthew 27:50-54 ESV

I had remembered the earthquake, of course, and the temple veil, the centurion's faith, but it was the dead bodies that I'd forgotten about. Isn't that amazing?... Reading it again raised all kinds of questions for me, questions raised right alongside those bodies popping out of the grave. Who were the people that were raised from their tombs? What were their names? What were their families like? Was it any and all of the saints who were buried there or was it just a select few? How long did they live after they were raised, and what were their lives like after they had once experienced death and now had a second lease on life? More curiously, what did they do during the time they were "raised" at Christ's death until they "appeared to many" upon his resurrection? Did they sit and midrash what it felt like to be dead? Play poker, tell stories? Or were they just so amazed to be in flesh again that they just leisurely toured the cemetery gardens, somewhat shell-shocked and enjoying God's creation all around them once more... touching, seeing, smelling? Maybe so. Maybe not. And the piece with the centurion, too... I've always heard it told that it was the centurion who had the conversion of faith, but it says that he and "those who were with him" were filled with awe and embraced Jesus as the Son of God.

The thing that struck me most profoundly is that the body of Christ must have carried an awful weight with it that at death, it bounced those souls right back out into flesh. Talk about ripples... If you really think about it, why wouldn't such a thing happen? Death waits, a certain end for all of us encased in mortality, the sheer and fragile curtain between this side and that. Each of us, for all that we are and all that we will never be, will one day inescapably fall headlong into that pool. And with our falling will come the weight of what we are, who we are, the "who" that we have been over a lifetime, the weight of our image-bearingness and our depravity all at once...  our sin, glory, shame, and joy. All our stories will fall into that pool, too, the times we lived well or laughed hard, sinned heavily, or fell mightily on the grace of God. And there will be ripples. So it should come as no surprise there were powerful and peculiar ripples that day when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Messiah and Perfect Lamb, fell willfully and obediently into the pool of humanity's grave. When his body, encasing at one time both perfect humanity and flawless infinity, collapsed into death, it was the weight of God on earth collapsing into the tomb, Emmanuel - God with Us, the weight of the very I AM, falling with him. Mercy, Righteousness, Grace, Love, Peace, Gentleness, Compassion, Joy, Patience, Goodness all fell into the tomb that day. It was the weight of Perfection, of Holiness, of Glory itself.

Death had never felt such great weight and could not contain itself. It's no wonder there were ripples.

 

Valentino

I'm very proud to say we're the new owners of an 8 week old lab mix who was born on Valentine's Day. As such, we chose the official name Valentino, but most of the time, we just call him "Val." (Unless we're calling him "Hey you, no!") Jeff recently decided his full name should be Valentino "Val Kill-more" Baker. (He's sick that way.) Anyway,Val's cute, soft, pretty cuddly, definitely not housebroken, and sometimes a little too big for his own britches. We're starting puppy training school earlier than later just to make sure he starts really learning who's boss around here. (Or rather, who's NOT boss - namely him.) Oh, and if you leave him in his crate too long, he makes a sound much like an alien getting it's tentacles ripped off. Really. Seriously. It's not natural. Other than that, he's pretty chill so far, which we really like. I keep telling myself his real personality will kick in here in a week or two, and of course, adolescence will hit and he'll be psycho like all adolescent pups. We'll see... But for now, he's pretty fun, and we're all enjoying having a dog around again.

Clamor

Well, we're back, and Christmas is two days past. Vacation was good. Christmas was good. And I'll probably get a few photos posted soon but am trying to upload to a photo site first just so I can get that ball rolling. It was strange coming home with 3 days to Christmas. It almost came and went too fast with us being gone so long this year. But I enjoyed it anyway. Despite the post-Christmas clutter of plastic, paper and boxes around the house, I sat down this morning trying to ignore it in hopes of spending a little time reading, something I need to get back into more solidly. Not officially a New Year's resolution or anything, let's just call it "renewing my day-to-day goals" instead.

I was reading from our Spanish-English Bible today because we recently left my favorite Bible at a church we were visiting, and though I miss our regular Bible, I've really enjoyed reading some of this in Spanish, particularly the Psalms. The English translation is King James, but I think it's even a different KJV than what I grew up on because some of the language isn't familiar to me. I've been going through one Psalm at a time, reading the English first, then the Spanish, then flitting back to the English again on the Spanish words I don't recognize to help with their translation. Without having the English there, I wouldn't get near as much out of understanding the text, but doing it this way - kind of reading between the languages - has really been refreshing. I remember Buechner one time was talking about that, encouraging people to read scripture in other languages to help it come alive. It's a great idea. This morning, I was reading Psalm 121 then Psalm 103, and I came across the phrase - "Con mi voz clame' a Jehova'..." (Ps. 103:4a)

Clame'... Or with more emphasis - Yo clame'. Translation? "I clamored... With my voice, I clamored unto the Lord." More commonly known as "I cried unto the Lord for help, and he heard me from his holy hill." Clamor... What a great word. Clamor, as a verb, is even better. It made me think of a phrase Jeff used recently: "Only the squeaky wheel gets the oil." Also the parable of the widow and the judge in Luke 18 where the widow unrelentingly pursues the unjust judge, pleading her case again and again, until finally he relents just for the sake of silence. It also made me think of the resounding gongs and clanging cymbals of I Corinthians 13; maybe sometimes it is okay to be an instrument out of tune. "I cried to the Lord" carries such general meaning, a more restrained meaning, more civilized, more vanilla. It's not so mild as "calling" to the Lord, but it certainly isn't as strong as "clamoring." Clamor sounds like desperation, maybe even chaos. It's angular and jagged and abrasive. It sounds like screeching tires and honking horns, nails on a chalkboard, infants crying from hunger... Desperate people clamor. And we are not yet desperate, not desperate to the point of clamor anyway. Most Americans, most Christians, most times. Will we ever be? Will we ever need to be? Will we always be so provided for?

Hagar clamored when she sent her only son to sit away from her, out of her sight under a shade tree in the desert, unable to watch him die of hunger and thirst; God heard her clamor. Mordecai clamored when Haman sentenced the entire people of Israel to mass destruction for something so small as an insult to his misplaced pride; God heard his clamor. David clamored and received a piece of Saul's cloak. Mary and Martha clamored and received their brother back from the dead. Tamar clamored and Daniel and the prophets and the woman with the issue of blood... There are times when those who love God are threatened with fear or death, and they are filled with a deep and unknowable peace; their prayer is quiet and still and steadfast. There are other times when this simply isn't so, times when prayer, Christian or otherwise, is a clutching, clawing, bleeding animal and not a clear and pristine, smooth running stream. Even Christ in Gethsemane, for crying out loud! I mean, come on... He's bleeding God's sweet blood his prayer is so fervent! It may be the very picture of clamor itself. I guess to answer my own question, I think there are times when even we are desperate in our pursuit of God, even with all our provision. Or at least there are times when we pray with some level of desperation, when our noise is loud and raucous and uncontrollable, times when eloquence is drowned, logic is lost and no word or thought seems true but - "Help me, God, help me." I think of friends and family who have lost loved ones or have experienced extreme sickness, people we've prayed for, desperately pursuing a favorable response from God. I think of New Orleans and New York and the fume of prayer that must have been rising over those cities in their days of disaster, of Virginia Tech and Columbine. These times, though, are relatively few, and to some extent I thank God for that because it means for the most part we have dwelt in safety. I think too of strangers I have encountered, even recently, whose very persona screamed of desperation, like a clawing in darkness. I pray their clawing is a desperate pursuit in a godward direction. It's enough to make me tremble; how can God not hear? God hears clamor if it's a true calling out of this heap of chaos we're humanly bound to.

Desperate people, desperate prayer, desperate pursuit... Are we so desperate? And is it enough to only be so desperate in times of crisis? Is it unrealistic to think that we could pursue God equally as hard for life itself as for a mere touch from his hand this day, for a word, a light, for illumination? Doesn't seem natural, does it?

Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies - Original Promo

Okay, so I've found a new show; it's called Pushing Daisies, and it's on Wednesday nights at 8:00. It's so great, like nothing I've seen on TV recently. It may be a little too much for the kind of person who really likes the real world and keeping two feet squarely on the ground, but for anyone else, I would think it would be at least remotely entertaining. It's kind of down the same campy stream of movies like Big Fish, Moulin Rouge, Edward Scissorhands, or Amelie, (which is one of my favorite foreign films)... kind of fantasy meets reality meets some strange fifth dimension where I might want to go visit for a while. (Actually, now that I think about it, I do go visit for a while...) Anyway, it made me think that it's the kind of show I'd love to be a part of the cast - so fun. You'd never know what work might look like that day when you show up at the office... Fun stuff.