Fast Away...

There is nothing special about a day because of the calendar legend.  I know that.  Still, here I fidget, feeling that breathless anticipatory hope that comes from a fresh start.  In six hours I will mentally put a period to the sentence that is 2014...and as arbitrary as that seems, it symbolizes the satisfying exhaustion of accomplishment, mixed with relief.
Some years are filled with harder things than others, and those are months of a forced march with all my belongings piled on my back.  Others are dragonfly-skimming-on-the-water days that blur by in a green and blue haze.  Most of them seesaw between.  No matter the tenor of the time, it is distinctly satisfying to call it "done" and move on.  

The new year feels like the great do-over, where all seems possible...again.  Not because I can try to be, do, become, accomplish, but because God's mercies -- which are new every morning -- feel magnified in their newness at the changing of the calendar.  In difficulty, God has been faithful to provide comfort and growth.  He has multiplied peace and joy.  Like Joshua, I want to pick up remembrances as this old year passes, and carry them over the banks into the new place.  

And I am eager to get moving.

The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal.  And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.

You Alone

Lately, I seem to be on the fringes of many discussions, debates and sermons concerning the authenticity of the Bible.  I haven't listened very carefully, except to recognize the repeated hot button words about church councils, translations and the canon of books. These are all things I learned very early in my academics; I have since forgotten the particular dates, synods and heresies that have occurred and reoccurred throughout history.  Today I was invited in with the question, "Why do you believe the Bible is the Word of God?"  At first I had to face the truth about myself that I haven't particularly wanted to enter into the fray.  And then I had to articulate an answer, because there seemed to be no legitimate reason for a sidestep.

I audibly reviewed the instances in which Scripture validates itself, the early church acceptance and affirmation of particular portions and rejection of others, the archeological evidence...and then I had to break off.  Basically, I believe the Bible to be the Word of God because of an internal spiritual assent when I read and hear it.  In its light all the issues of this world make sense.  Like Peter I can affirm, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life."  It is a matter of faith -- what I believe.  And faith in this instance does not mean I am closing my eyes to all anthropological, geological and archeological evidence, rather that I am viewing history from the perspective of truth.

But I am not willing to enter into a debate; I am not adequate to the task.  Instead, I attempt to live "...always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you."  The bottom line is that I was not convinced by any evidence, or discovery or brilliant argument.  It is simply that I believe in my innermost self.  "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God..."  

Perhaps I hadn't realized the magnitude of the gift of faith given to me before I heard these quests for proof repeatedly and urgently described.  Still, while I am tempted to feel overwhelmed at the spiritual gulf these demands reveal, I think of Thomas who lived with and was taught by Jesus Himself -- the dwelling of God with man.  Thomas (companion, friend and student of the Lord) did not believe the testimony of his fellow disciples when they claimed to have seen Jesus, risen from the dead.  He laid down his challenge to faith:
"Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe."  

And Jesus came to him and held out His hands to be touched and tested.
That is what the Bible says.

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Bittersweet Souls

I hear the word so often lately -- and I think I know what is meant.  Still, the sound of it teases at my mind, begging to be pulled apart and examined more closely.  "Bittersweet" --meaning both at once I suppose, as in chocolate (which is lately everywhere).  But I have a difficult time with opposites occurring simultaneously.  Instead, I choose to believe it is a successive state from one to another.  

I'm thinking of bittersweet as in the rambling vine that profuses with lush greenery in the summer and afterward maintains a bony structure highlighted by merrily bright berries.  Its name describes the nature of the fruit at first inedible to the birds that eventually feast on it after a killing frost.  Passing through the trial of extreme cold, the poisonous berry is changed to become sweet.

Somehow these days of tradition carry centuries of expectation of family unity and joy -- too weighty to be met within a community of flawed and fallen people.  Holidays can hold hours tainted with regret and failure brought sharply into focus by the twinkling lights and music of bells.  Superlatives abound, and in their company the gritty reality of relationships fighting a culture of self-gratification seems to echo with lack.   

But the cold days, the painfully numbing days, are accomplishing much that is unseen.  They are cracking the golden hull of self-love to reveal the berry inside...a fruit for a time when nothing else is blooming or growing and the world is huddled in sleep.  The beauty is so unexpected -- a reddish orange blaze on a dead stalk -- broadcasting a beacon of harvest through an otherwise barren landscape.

I do not know who will be home for Christmas, but many will be missing from these earthly houses.  Merry and bright days make for wonderful greetings, as do peace on earth and goodwill to men, but they are merely wishes.  However, I stand with generations confident that after laying aside expectations requiring human fulfillment, beyond the patient waiting through the killing frost, there will be days of sweet blessing.

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.    15th Century Hymn

Clean Earth to Till

The Emerald Ash Borer is decimating the North American ash tree population.  In three more years they could all be gone -- brought down by a brilliantly green colored beetle less than a third of an inch long.  I'm not a scientific person and I usually miss volumes of information, but this species of tree is part of my history.

Lakefront property upon which I grew up was graced by an ancient ash that bordered the front lawn.  Two adults could link hands around the trunk that neighbors declared to be over a hundred years old.  That was "once upon a time" vocabulary to my small self, as a hundred years was basically infinity.  One autumn a hurricane spawned storms that resulted in a limb breaking off.  As thick as most mature trees, it damaged the roof of our house, cracked a cement wall and flattened a fence on its journey to the ground.  It was a mighty giant.  And this week I heard from my scientist friend a little pest from Asia is able to tear through the bark and stop the nutrient supply -- killing millions.

Again, cerebral things of science don't usually stick around in my thoughts.  But this one reverberated because the introduction of the Emerald Ash Borer happened inadvertently through shipping materials.  That strikes a deeper chord.  With all the harm intentionally done by humans in our selfish pursuits, we can wreak devastation accidentally as well.  I'm too insignificant in the environmental power game to do more than recycle and turn off the water when I'm brushing my teeth, but there are many areas of life in which I cause havoc.  Just this week I practiced some hurtful angry words that I fantasized I'd have the courage to say.  Practiced them!  Thankfully, the ugliness that came out of my mouth appalled and shamed me.  But there were plenty of other opportunities in which I chose to speak aloud the selfishness of my heart -- and human beings were hurt.  I pursued my agenda with disregard for the impact on others; I believed and acted as if my comfort and convenience were of supreme importance.

When I think of that beetle, that beautiful killer, I want to remember that I will do much unintentional harm.  Surely I should seek to battle it wherever the risk of damage is even suspected.  As J.R.R. Tolkien charged, there is work to be done in the fields I know.

"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

Courage to Continue

Celebration days, no matter the joy surrounding them, can be treacherously hollow with missing faces. 
Some seasons it takes a lot of courage to live. 
It is my privilege to know many heroic people.   One baked pies for family this week; eight years ago she had her last Thanksgiving with her teenage daughter.   Another cleaned house and prepared for the homecoming of college students on her first holiday without parents.   A missionary served a celebratory dinner while four of her children were filling their plates with traditional fare on a separate continent.
Sometimes bravery is found in the act of simply carrying on.  It is the husband who continues to work day after day knowing that it isn’t enough to keep up with the cost of a home and electricity and heat and food, but it is the only thing he can do.  Or the student who spends years juggling classes and the full-time job that pays for tuition.  Or the parent ready to pick up the phone at any hour, through decades of heartbreak or silence. 

One of the world’s favorite literary characters is Atticus Finch, the lawyer and father Harper Lee endowed with integrity and honor.  A widower, the primary purpose of his life was raising children amidst the social unrest of the South during the Great Depression, and imparting truth to his young son and daughter.
"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.  Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her… She was the bravest person I ever knew.”
Two years ago a bride of six months had her leg, ankle and foot broken in an accident.  Many of her newlywed dreams came to a crashing end as she needed help cooking, cleaning and even bathing.  Her recovery required commitment and grueling therapy.  This Thanksgiving Day she participated in a 15K race for which she had trained months.  Conquering the first four miles of uphill climbing, she began to falter when the road pitched downward and the pain in her foot increased.   As she slowed from the disability, a runner tapped her shoulder. “I followed you up the hill and you got me here; you are not walking.”
Forty minutes later they congratulated each other at the finish line.

It takes courage to live out the details and the rituals of life regardless of circumstances. There is bravery in participating in spite of grief and loss.   I am thankful for these heroes – husbands, wives, daughters, sons, mothers, fathers and friends who “see it through no matter what.”
Their example, despite weakness or sorrow, is often what God uses to get me up the hill.

All these people were still living by faith when they died.  They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.   Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.    Hebrews 11

Picture Perfect

By Wednesday night we will be six out of eight all tucked in under the same roof. And I relish these preparation days filled with list-making, menu revisions, laundry, cleaning and grocery shopping…crammed into every nook of free time. I’ve gladly abandoned new reading material in order to de-clutter closets and cupboards no one will use, swept up in the intoxicating current of anticipation: we’ll be together.
I don’t envision a Norman Rockwell homecoming, because we are not of that mettle.  Invariably I will miss arrivals because I’ll be upstairs frantically making the bed I thought had been finished, or cleaning out the shower trap for the first time since the last visit.  Likely I will find myself sweaty and terse at the failure to achieve unrealistic, innumerable goals.
But somewhere along my path of mothering, these individuals pocketed my independence and scattered it with them on their adventures and travail, and only when they gather near -- briefly-- do I feel whole.

They share a history and I love to see them in the same place...looking back or looking on. They hug and debate and praise and criticize and compete.  I’ve cried a little bit about the missing faces – wishing it mattered to all of them as intrinsically as it does me and knowing there is no way that it could.  They are made of me: genes, prayers, tears, and all my years of trying over and over to learn how to be a parent.  They are made of me – and then so much more. So I sit when there is a moment with just one…and deepen our acquaintance.  If I met him in a staff meeting, or observed her with her client, what would I see?  What if I heard her stories and his songs without already knowing the voices?  Who are they to the people with no preconceived ideas and expectations?

Dusting the cherry bookcase for the third time this week, I polish one from the collection of framed photographs.  Only the best of times were worth capturing on film and the resultant impression is cheerfully perfect.  With scrubbed and smiling faces and matching clothes, everyone is lined up in age order.  Perhaps they hated those outfits for their grandfather’s 80th birthday portrait – but I didn’t.  I hunted for weeks to find a pale yellow that “worked” for everyone.  Like preparation for this visit, I wanted all the peripherals to be aesthetically harmonious.  But those days were seldom neat and never tidy.  Likewise, the minute they crowd through the door – voices ahead of them searching for the others – order will be gone, replaced by the boisterous, messy connecting of old friends. 
And I can barely wait.

To the Trauma Team and ICU at St. Luke's Hospital, Bethlehem, PA

November 3, 2014

Trauma Team, Radiology, ICU

Dear ____________________,

I don’t know your name and I can’t picture your face.  I’ve scoured my medical records trying to piece together the list of people working in the Trauma Center at St. Luke’s Bethlehem on November 3, 2012, but the notes are a bit sketchy for my purposes.

You didn’t know my name at first, and what you saw was not my normal face.  I had been in a car accident and sustained damage to my liver, kidney, spleen, lungs and heart.  My femur was broken, my pelvis was broken, my ankle was broken, my arm was broken; vertebrae, sternum and ribs were broken and I had burns and lacerations on my body.  I am not wealthy or influential or important, but that didn’t matter.  You saw broken and damaged places and you applied yourself to saving my life.  If I understand all the transcripts correctly, it was days before you knew your efforts would be sufficient -- but you exercised your gifts and your skill and persistent, hard work.  After three weeks I was well enough to be transferred to a hospital closer to my home, although I still wasn’t coherent enough through the drugs and the pain to remember much about those days in Bethlehem.  

I cannot imagine what it is to see your side of things in a trauma unit.  But I know how deeply I dig for a word that is beyond “grateful” to give you some kind of glimpse into my side of it.  I walk every morning for an hour on two strong legs, filling my lungs with fresh air as my heart pumps.  I have full use of my eyes, brain and hands for my daily tasks.  I can’t believe the gift to my husband and our four children that you kept me alive -- that they don’t have to go through life with that shadow of sorrow.  

I am THANKFUL every day for the wonder of being here and being whole!  And almost every day I am conscious of your efforts on my behalf.  You should know I do my best to be a good return on your investment into my life and to multiply outward the gifts given to me.  My prayer is that you are blessed beyond measure for the work you do.  

May God continue to give you clear vision, steady hands and a courageous heart as you face broken people and push the limits to bring healing.

Most sincerely yours,

Stephanie

A Mirror Dimly

I've heard there's a hole in the ozone layer south of New Zealand and unprepared visitors to that island become quickly burned by the solar intensity.  This thin sky phenomenon creates a captivating metaphor --because I have seen an opening some days ...to a realm beyond the material.  Closing quickly, or vanishing behind clouds, it is only enough to entice, never a portion big enough for satiation. 

When the world splits a little I feel the echo of eternity and by that faint drumbeat each relationship and task reverberates within the fulness of its setting.  The glimpse can come through a Sunday morning or an evening reading or the stillness within reflection.  Fleeting as a flash of light, it is the closest I get to seeing the thread that connects me to the One that made all things and made me.

At those moments everything strains to grasp at the vanishing dimension because I know there is so much more.  I want to remain knowing and wanting so much more.  The rote duties of my day-to-day are sacred because they are the tasks entrusted to me.  But they are not the goal.  My significance is great in the context of my smallness.  My worries, heartaches and sorrows are relegated to their proper places when I comprehend they are "light, momentary afflictions".  I am as Elisha's servant permitted at times to see the armies of the Lord ringing the battlefield upon which I seem outnumbered.  

"Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away...
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."


As human skin is too frail to withstand prolonged unobstructed exposure to the sun, perhaps my soul clothed in mortality can only survive small glimpses.  Still, while I cannot live chasing those moments of brilliance, I endeavor to carry a measure of their remembered glory into the filtered days.

Important Enough

Yesterday we barreled along the railroad bed and scrambled up the stony rise to stand shouting and cheering somewhere along the eleven mile mark.  One hundred twenty-three runners had set off an hour earlier and this was our last chance to applaud them before the finish line.  I showed off a little -- leaping extra high and running harder than I've done.  I was wearing sturdy shoes and it was a great day to be alive.  

Most days are not so definitively exhilarating.  But then again, most days are not conversely tragic.  The majority are filled with the ordinary that only becomes bittersweet when juxtaposed with calamity and loss.  Two years ago we were very different people.  Most human beings alter over time, but we are a group that is dramatically changed.  We don't talk about it often, because there are few words for the feelings always gurgling beneath the surface once you have caught a frank look at mortality. 

I try to leave the bills always in order now, and pick up my dirty laundry from the floor in case someone else has to unexpectedly deal with the mess.  I don't wait for the right time for certain conversations and I let go of hurt more quickly.  Most importantly, I notice the gifts of the everyday moments.  

In Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town", Emily, who has died in childbirth, wants to go back and see the dear home in Grover's Corners one more time.  She is advised to pick the "least important day" of her life, as "it will be important enough."  As she stands among her family, unobserved, she grieves for what the living are missing, caught up as they are in the details of life.

"EMILY:  It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed... Wait! One more look.  Good-bye.  Good-bye, world.  Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking and my butternut tree and Mama's sunflowers.  And food and coffee.  And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up.  Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you!
Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?

STAGE MANAGER:  No---saints and poets maybe.  They do some." 

It would be too exhausting to live each moment under the weight of the uncertainty of life, and it is a relief to trust that timetable to God.  "In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."  But there is a wisdom gained when you look at life from the other end.

At the finish line yesterday we clapped and yelled and proudly waved.  
In the spirit of poetry we hugged a little harder and stood a little closer; 
...and we took the time to look at one another.

Silver Tales

When I was nine years old I was loaned reading material by the dreaded, taciturn old maid who represented the gauntlet of Second Grade. I had somehow missed being placed in her class, and in successive years usually stayed below the radar of her stern gaze.  Even now I cannot conjecture a scenario in which the exchange occurred, but I know it happened because I had the proof stacked under my bed for years.  The very first I delved into was “The Princess and the Goblin” and I was captivated.  George MacDonald wrapped morals in a robe of fantasy – and the true things were made more so by the fairy tale that delivered them.

At that time of my life I already knew of ugly things and terrifying things and the weight of living.  And then I was introduced to a beautiful princess with a magic silver thread that would lead her back to safety – even through winding goblin caverns.  One dreadful day she forgot to use it and became vulnerable in her blind panic, despite the deliverance coiled in her pocket.

“It was foolish indeed - thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin creature to eat her in at his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of.”

If I learned of dark caverns, I also learned to trust a God who always hears my cries and who "...gives light to those who sit in darkness...to guide our feet into the way of peace."  I suspect all grownups need to find ways to remember that frequently, particularly as fairy tales are not on the daily board of intellectual fare.  Too many times my heart becomes entrapped by the terrible thing that might or will happen, instead of reaching for the strand that leads me back to security and safety despite the circumstances.

I never returned the books.  As I entered ninth grade, Miss Ruth Williams died of cancer at the age of thirty-two.  It hurts to think how young she was when I thought her old.  Still, I'm thankful for the kindred impulse that prompted her to share those dear stories with me.  And I am comforted by the foundation of her hope as she faced things that surely must have frightened her.  

“The world...is full of resurrections... Every night that folds us up in darkness is a death; and those of you that have been out early, and have seen the first of the dawn, will know it - the day rises out of the night like a being that has burst its tomb and escaped into life.”   George MacDonald

Middle of the Story

“Sing in me, Muse,
and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end.”

So says Homer, the blind poet attributed with transcribing the 8th century B.C. journey of Odysseus. Much of the original work survives and has been translated and debated by scholars of Western Literature. However, the authorship and historical legitimacy of the geography and events encountered by the hero in the years following the Trojan War are not so very important to me.
I appreciate best the following pared-down summary of all twenty-four books (or chapters): “It’s a story about a guy who is trying to get home.”

Odysseus confronts storms at sea, cannibals, monsters, typhoons, enchantments and interfering deities in his attempt to return to his wife and son. He is a flawed hero, often momentarily distracted by beguiling options. But fundamentally, he is steadfast in his determination.

He is admirable, and I like to imagine what his story inspired in the listeners from the days when news was conveyed by barefoot runners and history was recounted by nomadic bards. Did his strength or persistence or favor from the gods cause their hearts to be stirred by the telling and re-telling? Were they captivated by his daring? Odysseus’ return to Ithaca is accomplished just past the halfway point, but it takes the remaining eleven books to deal with one hundred suitors that had encamped on his grounds and the final battle he was compelled to wage to win hearth and home.
Is that where the appeal was for Homer's contemporaries?

That is where it is for me. This world has many distractions, dangers, delights and deities. Some years are filled with battle, while others contain months on an enchanted island.

Like Odysseus, I aspire to be "skilled in all ways of contending" -- for righteousness, truthfulness, mercy and love. Despite my flawed and sin-marred self, I want to be an excellent wife, a wise mother, a fair employer, a faithful friend. Hopefully my epic will be filled with redemption, bravery, beauty and forgiveness.

But above all else I want the summary of my life to be, “It’s a story about a girl who is trying to get home.”

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”          C.S. Lewis

Deeper Still

My husband is an artist by personality, education and vocation. Our early years of dating coincided with his time in art school learning from NYC graphic designers the prevailing philosophy that he has referenced as “the grid beneath.” It is a way of looking at things that gives form and balance to all his designs. 
I like that idea of a defining pattern existing as the foundation –whether or not it is overtly expressed. Therein lies a world of order, clear definition, predictability, and safety.
 
But what do you do when predictable and safe fall apart? 
Speaking metaphorically, I have flailed my arms while the grid beneath shattered.  Despite my dogged rejection of heights and my lifelong clinging to solid ground, I have been in frantic free fall. 
Blessedly, the plummeting eventually ended.  I landed on the grid under the one beneath.

It reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ explanation through Aslan of how the worst was not as devastating as it had at first seemed. In fact, the terrible breaking of everything that had been depended on for strength and victory, was actually a freeing from reliance on the wrong things – to a knowledge of the true source of strength. The Narnia heroes were fighting to avoid death, but the ultimate victory was in the undoing of Death.  

“It means that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”

Of course, the story of Aslan’s willing sacrifice is primarily an allegory of the great atonement accomplished to reconcile sinners to God. But the background story of broken dreams speaks loudly as well. Many of my false foundations have been good things – a Christian marriage, a safe family, a supportive community, a strong church body, an excellent reputation. I have used them as the pattern by which I have form and balance.
But in my satisfaction with any of those, I am ignoring the foundation for my life set in “…the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned.”

He is the beginning, and the end, and the grid beneath. 
 
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

The Right Place

My sister remembers the trauma doctor explaining to her and my husband that there were fourteen successive obstacles I had to overcome in order to survive. Each time a treatment or surgery was completed my stats would have to return to forty percent before the next could be attempted. The surgeons would do what they could, but the stabilizing in-between was outside their control or skill. Fourteen times my body met or exceeded the target, and with each my survival was one step closer to being a possibility. 
Perhaps it was the same doctor that communicated to them on the eighth day, 
“She has an amazing will to live.”

I wasn’t really there for most of the drama. My heretofore lazy body was doing the work of fighting, fighting, fighting while my mind was following rabbit trails and gathering wool. And I wonder now, what made the difference?
I live in a community peppered with folks on the verge of Adulthood. They are so very torn -- because they want to do something great. They want to be someone spectacular. And they don’t know how to get there.

I’m thinking that was me in the hospital bed. Without the aid of my conscious mind, I was striving toward survival. Because the great thing, the spectacular thing, is to be alive. 
In all its facets of work and wonder, the created world is just right for the created me. The beautiful anticipation in the pre-dawn sky, the certain splendor of a mountainside blanketed with autumn trees, the electric wildness of an evening storm -- all are beyond comprehension. Sleep is a delight. It is a wonder to fill my lungs with air. 
It is exhilarating to push my legs until the muscles burn.

We wonder, question, debate, study...in everything we do. It is a vast world and there is more to know than we have the days for learning. And along the way there is friendship, with hands to hold through the dark places, and the comfort of the nearness of another human being for joys and trials.

When my second lung collapsed my mind joined my body as I became aware of the intense pain, and the medical crisis. I looked death in the face, certain it was upon me, and consciously thought, “Now I get to see what it is really all about.” 
Instead, I live in this present world, for as many more days as God gives me.

It is the right place to be.

Father, I know that all my life is portioned out for me,
The changes that are sure to come, I do not fear to see;
I ask Thee for a present mind  intent on pleasing Thee.

I would not have the restless will that hurries to and fro,
Seeking for some great thing to do or secret thing to know;
I would be treated as a child, and guided where I go.  
(Anna Waring)

Strength of Purpose

Yesterday I climbed into a canoe. I had been hesitant, wondering if it was possible for my body to flex at that angle, but the opportunity was upon me and I grabbed it. Mustering up courage for the sideways motion with my weak right side -- I stepped over and down. Everything worked, and soon we were paddling across a glassy lake ringed with scarlet tinges while our bow made a smooth arrow of ripples. The sky was a silent shade of blue that seemed to mute all sound but the faraway chatter from the other boaters. 

Into the moment a blur appeared and I looked up at a bald eagle gliding thirty feet over our heads. He swooped, dipping a wing, and then lifted to cross the lake and perch in the top of a tall pine. The image was so right in its immensity, that there was nothing to say. 

Just prior to the canoe ride we had been gathered as a large group on a stone patio within the woods. We had come to meditate on encouragement, and consequently much sorrow, grief, loneliness and fear had been dragged into the open. Sitting in a circle, we represented the spectrum of suffering which has comprised the struggles of the ages. I pictured the millions of times the same scene had been repeated as over and over bruised and bloody bodies were pulled to the side of another...for comfort and encouragement. Time and time again, the burdens have been sifted through and sorted into proper order; nothing permitted to remain as overwhelming as it had at first seemed. 

The origin of the Anglo-French word “encourage” is simply to fill with courage or strength of purpose. Alongside a fellow sufferer willing “to give a reason for the hope within”, we are infused with bravery. 

No situations were changed while we sat there under the trees recounting God’s promises to each of us, but we were filled with new strength for the days ahead. 

Today there was no bad news. There were no waves of repercussion from difficult decisions. No calls or messages came with tales of fresh trials.  Nothing intruded to erase the remembered image of a black and white eagle circling above us in a brilliant blue sky.

Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall. 

 But those who wait upon the Lord will gain new strength: 

they will soar on wings like eagles, 

they will run and not be weary,  they will walk and not faint.

Good Things

A couple of weeks ago we were visited by a family containing one extra-small, one small, and one very-close-to-no-longer-being-in-the-small-category personages. 
The word “delightful” can be overused, but not in the case of these three, as they worked busily at one hundred intricate tasks every minute...usually accompanied by a sort of background singing or mumbling murmur.  Occasionally they would reach up and pull one of us larger ones down into their world of important and curious flotsam and jetsam. I’m conscious of how earnestly we tried to echo the sounds, searching for the importance and meaning through the cobwebs of our age and the responsibilities of the real world.

Into just such a moment of enchanted distraction I attempted to serve breakfast. Pulling at their attention with questions, I barely registered as I asked number of pancakes? spoon or fork? honey or syrup?

“So,” I continued with my stalwart invasion of reverie, “do you want your orange juice in a glass, or do you have a special cup?”

“Special,” came the dreamy reply.

“I would like a special cup also,” stated the one who seems to be looking at the world of grown-ups, thinking that perhaps he is just nearly one of them.

I saw my error clearly. I had been enquiring about the existence of a spill-proof safety net of a drinking vessel, but three pairs of eyes were now sparkling with anticipation over the impending production of a special cup. They were riveted. 
“Special it is, then.” I improvised as I turned toward the cupboard holding all of my drearily mundane options.

That exchange came back to me a few days ago as I reached into the same cabinet for a juice glass. I selected one from the batch I prefer -- the bubbly plastic highball cups. I choose them because they feel sturdy in my hand and seem to hold the right serving size. 
It is what I served to my small-ish guests in that moment of heightened anticipation. 
And my choice pleased them! Not because they had a preconceived standard that I met, but because they trusted my evaluation. 
These were, indeed, special cups.

I prefer the world of small people. It’s a good place to be. I can’t help but see through their eyes the shape of the really real world -- where I am given good things, told they are so, and left to trust that the One who has handed them to me is not improvising but working out a plan He set before I was even the proverbial “twinkle in my daddy’s eye”.
 

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; 

knock, and it will be opened to you.  

For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, 

and to the one who knocks it will be opened.  

Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?  

Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Post Traumatic Ramblings...

I went to talk with a counselor about five months into this new stage of my life. I should have gone again, but somehow it was never the right week to start something long-term. Still, in that brief time, she managed to convey a few things that resonated.  The first was that I didn’t have a choice to have or not have PTS. Frankly stated, I had lived through a terrible event, so I was experiencing post-traumatic stress.

Another truth I learned is that in trauma, your first response is survival. I recall trying to tell the EMT that I couldn’t breathe because the seatbelt suspending me was too tight. His blunt words were, “If we cut the strap you will fall and crush your daughter.” I knew from his tone he was making an important point, but I couldn’t even think of what it meant other than I had to keep waiting for relief. There wasn’t room to consider myself in relationship with other people -- I only knew that I had to somehow get some breath.

To this day I grieve my first response.  That moment stands as a summary of all the midnight black days of pain, fear and grief that our daughter went through alone. I suppose understanding the normal characteristics of this abnormal disorder is supposed to help me see that I was reacting in a typical way -- but I wish I had been exceptional and heroic. I wish I had shown a love that would willingly lay down my life rather than a preoccupation with my own survival.
I wish I had been ...God, I guess.

Ultimately, my recurring struggle is that I would have done this differently.
All of it.
Our turn off that highway would have happened 90 seconds sooner, the car would not have been filled with so much weight, we would have made it across the road before we were struck...the list goes on.
If it were still to happen as it did, each of us would have emerged with a rock-solid faith that proves God’s wisdom and goodness. The truth is much messier than that.

Job confesses, “Though He slay me I will hope in Him, yet I will argue my ways to His face.”  Many times I have “argued my case” to God for not writing this story differently.

In kindness, God reveals His deity to Job, displayed in the creation and sustaining of all things.  And then all of us who are reeling from the trauma of the Fall and living in a world bent by sin hear Job’s confession:  “I know that You can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted... Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know…I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.”

Amen.
No matter our first response, He takes us to the place where we see Him.

To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?

He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might,

and because he is strong in power not one is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel,

“My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”?

Have you not known? Have you not heard? 

The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. 

He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable. 

    

The Testimony of the Work

When the summer evenings nestle a little closer into the days and the morning air promises a more bracing start than last week’s, it is time to lay hurting aside.

Gathering up the late tomatoes and cleaning up the spindly, exhausted stalks I reflect on this changing in the seasons of the earth as well as within me. There has been a good harvest. We have had bounty. And to focus on the mess that remains is foolishness. It is better to just get to work tidying it up so it doesn’t rot the last of the fruit.

Gardening is easier for me than growing. Out-of-doors the perfect balance of soil, seed, sun and water can be relied on to produce sprouts, leaves, blossoms and -- finally-- ripening good things for the table. In my heart things are never so predictable.

Weeds in the vegetable bed are pulled out more effectively than the dandelions and thistles that anchor and flourish in my humanness. I tire. I become frustrated. I am hindered. And usually the obstacles to my cultivating good things are intertwined with people. Sometimes I let them down; sometimes they let me down. Occasionally it reaches outright betrayal between us. Then I am bewildered to be once again feeling such abandonment over the display of the limits of finite creatures to love and care for one another.

Even when the offense is legitimate (which is far less often than I encourage/counsel myself), I focus too much attention on the small sprouts of hurt. Gradually, I choose to nurture those destructive spiny green stalks, to the detriment of the good things. But there is no accomplishment in that -- any fool can grow weeds.

Wisdom sends me back to my Maker. I do not understand why He put such important work in the hands of flawed people, but He has commissioned me to love as I am loved, and to forgive with the measure given to me --  poured out and running over.

That is the task of pulling up rotting and decaying things, and clearing space to nurture the last fruit. It is the testimony of the work, year after year:  plowing, planting, weeding... and delighting in the harvest.

Everything New

Grandmothers can be close to their grandchildren in a way unobstructed by all the expectations piled up between mothers and daughters. At least, that is my experience. My grandmother taught me to grow avocado “trees” from pits, stuff peppers, sew straight seams, and the proper way of pruning flowers.

While I was in college she (and my grandfather) sent me money orders for treats and flew me to Florida for college breaks with them. She would be awake, puttering in the kitchen when I crawled out of bed at 6 a.m. for our daily excursion to gather shells and hunt for driftwood. We played Scrabble, picked fruit, chatted and snacked.

The first time she became a great-grandmother was the first time I became a mother, and her input sharpened. It was she who taught me that I would never catch up to the little ones unless I was awake, dressed, with my shoes on before they got out of bed. She fussed at me to take short naps when they did or, “at least put your feet up.” And she quieted my fears when one of them took three years to speak. “Why should he? He has an older brother that does all the talking for him.”

When I was 27, my multi-lingual, opera singing grandmother died after three short months battling cancer. Although I had been with her many of those last weeks, it was not enough time to prepare me for the immensity of loss. I recall the dazed feeling as I was driven on one of many errands to tidy up loose ends of a life -- retrieving contents of a safe deposit box. Looking out of the window at all the people in their cars I couldn’t believe the bustle going on around me. In line at the grocery store I was struck by the insight: no one could see what I was going through on the inside. Later my focus broadened a little bit and I wondered. How many people, like me, were performing the motions of life while everything was in broken pieces in their hearts?

Simply put, my grandmother loved and admired me. That’s hard to come by. Her absence from my life was not the first hard thing I knew and it was not the last. On the inside, I am sometimes a shattered, reassembled person and I live in a world of broken people. Some of them know me. I like to imagine they recognize the dried glue at the edges or the missing chips with a futile dab of poster paint to cover the raw plaster. It’s likely that so many times of weeping have changed the timbre of my voice. Whatever it is, people encumbered by their own faults and cracks are friends with me.
Unabashedly so.

Paradoxically, these are the people that point to beauty and hope and healing with their whole lives. They are vital to know, because their confidence is deeper than steady jobs, healthy relationships or even life itself. Their hope is in the redemption of all things.
Redemption. Buying it all back and making it all new. That certainty is not a placebo for pain, but a secure joy -- particularly for those who sometimes whisper quietly into the shoulder of a friend, “I’m so weary of crying.”

"Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."  He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"