Before Thorns

I was reading excerpts from an Erie pastor's sermon blog when I came across an oft repeated teaching about Adam and Eve.  Adam's instinct for self-preservation prompted him to shift the blame squarely on his wife, in order to deflect the attention of God's righteous justice.  In that familiar lesson, there was enough rearrangement of words that I heard something new. 

Like so many, I only know connections that have been warped by sin.  With my parents, my siblings, my children, and my spouse I have a history, a track record.  Our interactions have always been tainted by self-love, deceit, jealousy, pride...and the list goes on.  It is a formidable challenge to break the well-worn grooves caused by indwelling sin.  I practice the exercises of sanctification, "put off ___ and put on_____", with years of effort spent to gain a slight victory.  Many times I have raged at myself for not holding back that sharp word or caustic tone -- again. 

But Adam had a connection of pure love with Eve.  They were, together, perfect.  Their communication was always "...helpful for building one another up according to their need that it may benefit those who listen."  And it all existed within an atmosphere where communion with their Creator was unhindered and fully satisfying.

This subject probably veers wildly into doctrine and theology and there are big pieces relevant to proper interpretation that I'm not even thinking about right now.  But the small part of the story that has caught my attention simultaneously wrenches my heart and gives me hope. 
Even the perfect environment did not inoculate Adam against seeking his own welfare before that of his wife.  He threw her under the bus.  He made a choice to save himself and leave her to perish. 

As I do.
Because the corruption at the core of all my relationships is that I look to my own interests, first.  The battle is to love others more than myself, regardless of the hurts and the sins piled up around.
This side of Heaven, the conditions will never again be ideal, but the calling is not contingent on the circumstances. 
It never was.

'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?' And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.   On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.'

Higher Than I

There are great griefs and lesser ones; often the proximity and sphere of influence dictate the proportion of pain. It may not be my child with a granite-carved diagnosis of cancer, but it strikes at my heart because I have a boy who was that age ...almost yesterday.  Likely, hundreds who know his reeling family feel the same way.  I may have dined out in peace last night, but others were dining as vulnerable as I when the world exploded around them. And then thousands who knew someone who knew someone broadened the blast.  Although my son and my city have been spared thus far, and the mourning has a degree of removal in the impact, the overall consequence is an unbearable heaviness.

In this fallen world, there has always been sickness and hatred -- and the destruction caused by each. But lately there seems very little else, and it is piling up all around. Unbelief is supplanting faith, estrangement is dismembering families, open warfare is battering communities...the world appears precariously balanced on the verge of catastrophe, and I feel so very helpless.

Because I have been looking to my own strength, again.  I have been "putting my trust in princes".  I have been hoping in doctors and presidents and common humanity...and we have all failed.  

Seeing around me the waves of this sea I am Peter, emboldened to ask for the display of God's greatness to walk above the troubled water, yet drowning from fear when I acknowledge the ferocity of the storm. It would be impious to minimize the danger, but faith requires more.
Peter faced the reality of his physical circumstances; however, he neglected to account for the magnitude of his Deliverer.

And so I pray.
I intercede for bodies to be strengthened to fight disease and injury.
I plead for mercy and rescue and peace and healing.
Because that is what Peter did when there was nothing he could do.

"But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, 'Lord, save me.' Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, 'O you of little faith, why did you doubt?' And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, 'Truly you are the Son of God.'"

Hear my cry, O God,
listen to my prayer;
from the end of the earth I call to you
when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock
that is higher than I,
for you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy.

Let me dwell in your tent forever!

Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings!

Not Acceptable

I value relationships where conversations go deep -- and ripple outward long after the visit has passed.  It was my privilege to have one of those times this Wednesday, dissecting the poverty and constraint of words.  A fellow bibliophile and wordsmith, my iced tea companion summed it up. 
"Sometimes words are too limiting, so there is nothing to say." 

I read voraciously, consume information from the modern potpourri that is the internet, and converse daily with intelligent people on a broad range of topics.  I deliberately vary my vocabulary. 

However, as my friend so keenly observed, our communication can be warped by words.
That, at least, was my takeaway.  It was poignantly applicable these last few days as my own careless speech created a mess that impacted dozens of people.  My first thought was to flee the country.  "Plan B" involved moving to another state, followed rapidly by a scheme to quit my job and never see anyone again.

When I stand on my own, I fall.  When I glory in myself, I am disgraced.  
Failure is humiliating.
Letting people down feels dreadful, and notoriety compounds the agony.  

However, something vital happens when I am stripped of my robes of self-righteousness: I have to run to Jesus for covering.  I hide where I should have been all along, and from that vantage point I begin the hard conversations from which I am not exempt, even though there are too few words.   

Who can discern his errors?
Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.      Psalm 19

light (NOUN): the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible

It is the first of November and I have my bare feet tucked among the crunchy leaves scattered around my chair.  With my shirt sleeves scrunched to my elbows and pant legs rolled to my knees, I picture myself a human solar panel, feverishly collecting rays to store against the shorter, colder, less bright days to come.  This is unusual weather, and I will not fritter it away indoors.

Five days ago the early morning walk began in darkness compounded by heavy fog (which seemed to add a deeper chill to the temperature lingering just above freezing).  It was easy to limp a bit and grumble a bit more as I battled the first half-mile of the climb. And there where the wooded mountain makes a sharp wall on the left, the moon suddenly cleared a beam through trunks and branches--cutting a narrow path between the road and the sky.  It captivated me the way a sunrise cannot: that swath of light momentarily illuminating the world, as if an unseen switch had been thrown.  The woods, to quote Robert Frost, were "dark and deep" silhouetted in columns either side of that pure white light, and vanishing away at the skyline.

The image has lingered, altering my narrow, frail perspective. 
Sometimes the waiting for daybreak feels impossible, and the intervening hours of darkness seem impenetrable. 
But they are not.

Remarkably, that pre-dawn searchlight was just a reflection of the sun inviting me today to imagine summer has not passed.  The Bible verses learned in childhood come back, "the greater one to rule the day and the lesser one to rule the night."  And echoing a deeper truth, the words of John beautifully illustrated by the dispelling of the blue-black night:  "In Him was life and that life was the light of  man.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

Tipping my head back to feel the last rays on my face, I pause to be encouraged by the truth so clearly displayed this week -- storing it up for a darker day.

The sun shall be no more your light by day,
Nor for brightness shall the moon give you light;
But the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.
Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself;
For the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your days of mourning shall be ended.  Isaiah 60