Seeing God

Lately, "transparency" is a recurring theme of discussion.  And it is a valuable aspect to incorporate into conscious living, since we thrive when we are truthful within our communities. 

Catapulted by the prevalence of the subject, I discussed with a friend the challenge of forgiveness.  She related a helpful description borrowed, in turn, from a college chum.  
"Forgiveness is the act of picking up the coat from the floor and hanging it back on the peg -- day after day."  That analogy works for me, because I am a sin-marred creature.  Unlike God, I cannot remove transgressions as far as the east is from the west.  Forgiveness would be more simple if I could "remember [offenses] no more."  Truthfully, most of my deep hurts require active decisions to forgive, every single morning -- all over again.  

But what about the flip side?  That aspect has been gnawing at me for a couple of weeks.  
When I ask God's forgiveness, I am trusting Christ's atonement for my sins.  And God promises that His redemption is complete so I can boldly come again and again and again.   But what exactly am I asking of another person when I request forgiveness?  If I put it in literal terms, it appears to be more presumption than anything else.  

"Will you overlook the offense?"
"Will you treat me as if I had not harmed you?"
"Will you absolve me of the guilt of what I did to you?"  
 
"Will you pick up the coat off the floor, every day, and hang it up on the hook?  For me?"  

There are matters I have forgiven, in my own time, and usually after much work by the Spirit upon my heart.  What a burden I am transferring when I basically call "time!" to the offended by confessing my wrong and asking them to assume the load of forgiveness on my behalf.

As I cogitate on all of this, I am overwhelmed by the mercy shown to me by people who live a life of forgiveness.  I mourn the hooks I have filled in the hearts of those closest to me.  And I am convicted of how careless I have been of the resources of grace.  It is a better thing for me to battle daily within myself than to haphazardly create messes that other people have to clean up.  

Still, I come back to this transparency ideal.  We live in community, and through the day-to-day living we encourage one another by reflecting God's character.  At the crux of the matter is the knowledge that I will continue to sin against others, even knowing the implications.  I will sin, and I will sorrow, and I will repent...and in faith I will ask forgiveness.  I won't ask because I presume on the goodness of another person, but because I believe God enables us to do impossible things as we live in the light of "such a great salvation."

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.


   

A Time to Keep

 
The first thing I did in the emptiness after the last one left was re-stock the medicine cabinet with band aids, allergy pills and dental floss.  Then I washed, folded and stacked every towel in the house -- by color.  We purchased almond milk and granola that are still there three weeks later, as are the tortilla chips I nibble when I get the crunching urge.  While our children are my favorite people in all the wide world, it feels copacetic to move around our home without them in it.

I finished college at 20, married at 22 and had my first baby at 23.  
By the time I was 28 I boasted four, which elicited murmurs of "God bless you...," whenever I took them out.  There was no time to get ahead of the chaos even with my husband's suggestion, "What you need is a system."  I hadn't been the girl to babysit unless the pay was really, really good and my vague pictures of life didn't include marriage until well after thirty.  Looking back, I'm certain that was a better plan for the health and well being of the people I birthed, but once they were out I did my best to keep them alive.  In many respects the last twenty-three years have been a blur of semi-consciousness interspersed with brief intervals of lucidity that occasionally lasted long enough to plan dinner before it was already late. 

That has all ended.  And it truly doesn't feel bad.  I've read essays about the "empty nest" stage that we've entered and I find the perspective woefully misleading.  To make a metaphor of the recycling movement, I am re-purposed --with much of the same abruptness that propelled me into parenthood.  This change, in contrast with the first, comes with regular time for reflection.  I can deliberate over what I do with my hands, my time, my energy, and the endless possibilities of each new day.  Outside the warp speed (or time dilation) of raising children there is a world that has changed, and I am catching up with the culture around me.  Many things have altered drastically -- but I bring talents and experience to assimilate and interact in a valuable way. 

I am capable of anything, because I'll always be a mother -- the greatest ambition that I never would have thought to hold.  In my newly tidy house there are beds with clean sheets and towels because I'm half-listening for the exciting news that one of them is coming for a visit.  Cell phone innovation chimes small images of faces with accompanying messages about articles to read, job updates, wisdom teeth, and an occasional "I love you, momma".  And, unlike their childhood days, if one of them should require it, I have a healthy supply of band-aids.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 
a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

A Tame Lion

I never used to worry about being a lukewarm Christian -- because the worrying itself seemed manufactured piety.  But these days I have been studying heroes and anti-heroes...and talking about them with high school students who observe and elucidate every inconsistency.  In earliest tales, heroes favored by the gods had supernatural assistance to bend the winds and help or hinder.  As literature progressed, heroes became more limited by human traits.  They were able to accomplish the task or quest, but ultimately failed to achieve happiness because of a fatal flaw.  

Today's protagonists are often equally capable of heroism and villainy, with circumstances influencing their exhibits of valor.  Evil is colloquially termed "bad", and there is no unadulterated goodness. 

If that is the prevailing tone of the culture, what aspects have I absorbed into my own heart?  
Is God really holy, holy, holy --- or merely benevolent?  
Are my good works filthy rags ---or are they shortcomings?  
Is Christ the Son of God ---or a moral teacher?   
It is more comfortable to minimize my sin, the attributes of God, and the enormity of Christ's atonement.  That is a much more reasonable approach in this day and age.  But if evil is diminished then the hero need only be marginally stronger.  What that leaves is a tepid religion...worth spitting out.

"The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused him of being a bore - on the contrary, they thought him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him 'meek and mild' and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies."  Dorothy Sayers

A Little While

It takes fortitude to have faith when it is the middle of January.  Gone are the baubles and visits, the cheery drink and food, and the clamor of things to do and do and do.  Packing up and cleaning up are accomplished almost too soon -- leaving order and space.  
And into these come all the worries and doubts, finding room to pull up every available chair and stay.  Confining cold ensures that they are constantly within the walls with me, because it is hard to leave when the air hurts to breathe.

Somehow it is easier to believe and trust when the sun is warm and I can feel the earth growing...because belief is about life, after all.  Winter darkness squeezing at the edges of the daylight threatens to strangle my hope and shroud everything I see with heaviness and gloom.  This is the season of hope deferred -- and hearts become sick with waiting.  

So I take out God's promises and lay them on the table, the counter, the bedspread -- anywhere my eyes might fall on them.  I recount them in my journal, in my conversations, in my thoughts.  I set my "...mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth."  These are the days I must purpose to see God, because I am easily distracted by my own physical and emotional malaise.  

And -- resolutely -- I clip a bit of dried hydrangea, bake some bread, stoke the fire...and find something to read.


Soon shall the winter's foil be here;
Soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt--A little while,
And air, soil, wave, suffused shall be in softness, bloom and
growth--a thousand forms shall rise
From these dead clods and chills as from low burial graves.
Thine eyes, ears--all thy best attributes--all that takes cognizance
of natural beauty,
Shall wake and fill. Thou shalt perceive the simple shows, the
delicate miracles of earth,
Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and flowers,
The arbutus under foot, the willow's yellow-green, the blossoming
plum and cherry;
With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs--the
flitting bluebird;
For such the scenes the annual play brings on.
Walt Whitman