Prayer

Lord, help me...save me from the world outside of me, trying to crush me and push me into its mold.

But Lord, I have swallowed the world and it is inside of me. Save me, too, from the world within... The world that burns, that eviscerates, that kills like an ever-spreading cancer. Save me from being eaten alive, emaciated, and gutted. Save me from being drowned by the lies swimming in the channels of my mind and heart. . .

You say: 

Take heart, I have overcome the world. The world outside you. . .and the world inside you. The Hell to come, and the Hell you let burn within. I have overcome that like the light overcomes the darkness. Like life overcomes death. 

I am the Resurrection and the Life. 

                        I will lead you to the Father. 

                                  My Spirit will guide you into all Truth. 

                                                      And the Truth will set you free.

Rhythms of Sacred Time

                                                                                                                           Photo by Amy Luschen on Unsplash

There is a white-breasted blue jay out my window. Not a scrub jay, stellar jay, or grey jay—a blue jay. They were common enough where I grew up, but in Colorado, "regular old" blue jays are a special treat. He looks bright against the clear sky and crisp snow. 

Birds and trees draw me deeply into the joy of nature. The stillness of nature. The melancholy of nature. Like the flock of crows I stood silent under yesterday. The clouds were low and heavy, light snow was sifting down, and bird after black bird pressed his outline against the winter sky. 

Today I am reminded of that throng of birds as I listen to Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt. The piece begins with silence; it is somehow sparse and simultaneously spacious. Like the shades of white and grey and black yesterday. The limited light and colour pallet of the snowy day allowed for depth and detail one might miss on a bright day. It was solemn—grand and causing reflection—and expansive. The quiet of the fine, falling snow, the swish of wings—occasionally broken by the coarse cry of a crow, coming in wave after wave—and the weight of the clouds were all sparse and expansive in their own way. It was balm to my ragged, tired soul

The beginning of December feels like a marathon, trying to cram in long hours at work and  with people in every free evening. There are plans, plans, plans—and though they are enjoyable, the amount of scheduling and coordinating is exhausting. To tell the truth, I get very grumpy at this time of year. I don't even want to go to the events. I just want to curl up in my own home, light candles, listen to quiet music, and read Adventy things. But I rarely do that, because the evenings are full. 

Then, in creeps the resentment. I wrestle with this resentment of other people planning my schedule for me. What if I simply want to stay home and not rush, for once? I've tried this a few times, only to fill in the free nights with work or to have someone unexpectedly appear at my door. Indeed, I sabotage myself the most. Whether I stay home or go somewhere with a sigh and a "because I have to" feeling, it all comes from my perspective or perception. The reality is, I feel rushed because some part of me doesn't want to let others down or because I didn't employ good boundaries. I don't start with stopping, much of the time. And so, what should feel like a celebratory time feels like an exhausting rush.

The thing I've begun to see about time this year, as I consider the mo'edim (appointed times/seasons/days) is that I am not good at rhythms. I used to be. I used to have quiet time in the morning, used to go for walks before work, used to have margin. I began much more from stopping (Shabbat) and loved sacred celebrations (Sukkot). I also didn't work full time and knew fewer people in the area. . . which certainly meant there were more free hours in the week to employ contemplatively. 

How did I fall out of step in the Great Dance? When did I begin trying to fill every crevice of the week days with work and people, leaving no room for quiet space with God? I feel like Moses in Exodus eighteen, hearing the people from morning till evening. Rather than evening and morning it is backwards: morning and evening—not the rhythm given by God in Genesis one. So, how do I begin the evening before? How do I begin with Shabbat, stopping? What do I need to leave (Pesach)? And what do I need to learn to receive (Shavuot)?

Perhaps I need to take lessons from Spiegel im Spiegel, to begin with silence. To not fill every crevice in the music of daily life with 'noise' as it were. I need more silent space in my days and weeks. There are always podcasts, books, music, conversations, and more to fill each hour with sound. But what if I chose silence in those spaces? Silence on my walks? What if I chose not to multi-task all of the time? Inside my mind is screaming out, "So much would be left undone!" And I don't mean in the task sense. What would end up "undone" is conversations with people. And I think people are the most important beings in the universe, in life. Or do I?

I know I'm unhealthy when I feel like there is no room for people. But who do I decide to connect with, and who do I need to move on from? I have realised that I cannot possibly stay in touch with everyone I've met or known. Not unless I quit my job, and I have to be able to feed people when connecting with them! What if I'm ready to move on and let some relationships drift apart and the people on the other end want to hang on? 

Here is where I come back to resentment (a constant theme I've noticed in my adult life). When someone is trying to celebrate me specifically (or celebrate with me), but doesn't offer what I feel would be a greater gift (not having to get together yet another night), a wrestling match ensues within. I don't want to hurt someone's feelings (though I have, plenty of times!), but I also don't want to have to do something I don't feel like doing. At that point, I feel like I'm not appreciating the time and effort of another (definitely not okay in my value system), but I also feel like I'm not able to choose how I want to celebrate—so a boundary is broken and I feel stepped on or like my desires aren't respected.

Right about now anyone who might actually be reading this rambling of mine is probably thinking, "What the heck is your problem?! You have friends who want to spend time with you! That is a gift!" Well yes, it is. But sometimes what this actually feels like is: everyone wants a piece of me—to the point that I am so disintegrated that I don't exist anymore. I can't be me, I can't be a whole human, if I'm constantly pulled to pieces. I will be a snippy, snappy, no-good-to-anyone, resentful person if I keep getting pulled to pieces. And the older I get, the more people I know, and the more directions I feel pulled in. 

Since you can't sort out friends like you sort out your closet and take some of it to Goodwill, what is a person supposed to do? Some old friends, like a favourite sweater, you want to keep close. They are comfortable (even when they tell you to shape up) and cosy and just right for any season. But some old friends are like your favourite pair of jeans that have holes in unseemly places. They were great for a time, but some good things have a shorter lifespan than others. You can't keep holding on to the jeans hoping you can keep wearing them. But people...people are intrinsically infinitely more valuable than jeans. If you have tried the slow fade (not answering calls and e-mails as quickly) and have mentioned that life is going a different direction for you and they still hang on, there is friction—which happens to be rather uncomfortable. 

Discomfort isn't always a sign that you need to leave something or someone, it can be a sign of growth, too. But discerning between growth and death is difficult. A baby must grow in the womb to keep it safe, but if it stays too long, it will actually die. A snake must shed its skin to keep growing, and a butterfly must wrest its way out of the cocoon to strengthen and form its wings. Some relationships need to be grown out of, and some need to be adjusted. I often feel the snake reference when I am home with my parents. I love them dearly! But when I go home, I feel like I automatically am being stuffed back into that skin that is ten sizes too small for me now. I choose it; my parents sort of assume it; even family friends expect me to be that person I was. But I'm not that person. I don't fit in that skin. In fact, I am probably more like the caterpillar who has become the butterfly. Not only do I not fit in the cocoon, I'm a very different creature now! But I try to become a caterpillar again because I am back in the cocoon of my parents' home and their world/schedule. Yet I don't fit. And I don't fit in various friendships now, either. For some, I am ready to move on, even if the other people aren't.

On the flip side, there have been friendships I was loathe to lose. I wanted to go back to what we had (or continue it), even when they needed to move on and grow apart. I hated that! So I  do have compassion for the friends I have moved away from and the ones I'd like to step away from. However, I won't continue to be myself or the person that any of my friends like if I keep getting pulled to bits. When close friends begin telling me, "You seem really out of sorts or not like yourself," I know I'm in the downward spiral of being overwhelmed in every area of life. And when I don't feel like celebrating what should be celebrated (or lamenting what should be lamented), I know I'm disintegrating. When I can't feel happiness or sadness, something is terribly wrong, I've been terribly "busy"—unable to connect with myself, but more, unable to connect with God, who puts me back together again when I've begun to splinter.

It is what feels like a lack of time that causes this decay in me. When I think of sacred time and the rhythms of the mo'edim, I feel envious when I see other people living in a place of sacred abundance or holy celebration. I want the quiet space to journal and read poetry and Scripture. That is part of the celebration of any season, but especially during Lent and Advent. I want to begin with stopping—re-creating and being re-created by God. I want to give of myself, my time, my creativity (of which there is none when I'm fractured), my finances, and my hospitality—but I can't give to everyone. And perhaps I un-discerningly choose the wrong people to give to, so that I have nothing left for my old friends... But I want to give to those on the fringes, who often feel unseen, how do I see them and also see my old friends? 

I believe I need to leave my broken way of seeing. I begin to realise that I am seeing the land of abundance as if it were the land of lack. I am seeing the Promised Land as if it were Egypt. I'm seeing a blessing as if it were a curse—and so it becomes a curse to me. I want to receive the gifts God gives as though there were the good He intended—whether it is the gift of time, the gift of friendship, the gift of silence, the gift of space (all of which must be stewarded well); or the gift of lack (which leads me to need God), the gift of small spaces (that I might learn to be myself where I thought I had to be someone else), and the gift of noise (which makes me grateful for the silence and stillness when I am able to receive them).

And now I return to birds—the swift-flying crows, the brilliant blue jay, the cheery little nuthatches I often see on the scrub oaks. . . Birds are a sign of fecundity and a symbol of freedom. Perhaps I am drawn to them, inspired by them, because I long for life and liberty. Not the "liberty" that is really license (doing whatever I want), but of the true freedom that comed from breaking out of one skin to be contained in the next skin. Snakes don't stop being snakes when they shed their skin, they simply grow bigger. A caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly, but it would not be free to really be a butterfly if it continued to use only its legs (like a caterpillar) and never its wings. Likewise, I want to be free to be myself, the human God made me to be, which means I have limits and boundaries, but there is an expansive freedom within those boundaries... Like a doorway limits the size of what can go through it, but on the other side there may be rolling fields and open skies for those who can go through.

“Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

Am I Wanted?

No one ever picked me first at game-time. As a kid, I didn't mind. But there was a particular time where the sting of getting picked last still lingers. I had played plenty of ultimate frisbee and volleyball skirmishes post-high school. We always split off by ones and twos rather than captains picking teams. But I distinctly remember a time when I wanted to go for a walk and everyone else wanted to play volleyball. We didn't have many students, so I was 'needed'—except that one or two persons made it clear that I wasn't any good. I played that day because I felt obligated, but I fought tears over not getting to do what I enjoyed, along with being made to feel incompetent and unwanted.

It is that horrible feeling of being inferior, of being on the outside, that causes so much damage in our world. "Look, God is withholding something from you. He's on the inside of this secret knowledge and you could be, too..." says the serpent to Eve. She takes the bait and bites. "You're all alone. You don't matter to anyone." The enemy whispers this lie, and too often it is answered with bullets and bloody wrists. "You aren't good enough to fit in," says the 'in' crowd. And many people make it their life's goal to become good enough to fit in—never sure if they've made it, even if they get on the inside.

Trying to fit in or accepting that you don't fit in are hard roads to walk. I know, I've tried them both. I like myself and my life better when I'm trying to be who I'm made to be (and more like Jesus)—not trying to be what someone else thinks I ought to be or wishes I were. I hate disappointing my family, friends, or my supervisor—but I don't mind not pleasing people. There's a difference. When I try to please people, to be what I think they need or want me to be, or to do what they want, I am suffocated, stressed, and annoyed with myself. When I love and respect someone, I naturally want to give to them, to build them up, to serve them well.

I am most free to grow and to love others (and to like myself) when I am not needed but I belong and am wanted.

I thought I was longing for freedom, but what I've been longing for is being wanted, not needed. To be needed means to try to fill a void for someone. To be needed means feeling obligated and duty-driven—it can be drudgery. I can try to fill the need, but after a while, I burn out. It is life-sucking to be needed. But to be wanted...that is a different story. I need to know that I didn't just waylay my neighbour on their way to do laundry; that they really wanted to talk with me for twenty minutes about books and what God is showing us both. I need to know that laundry was simply the means to a good conversation, not something more important that I kept them from. I need to hear the actions and hearts of others say:

Come inside from the cold and rest your weary soul

You belong, you are loved, you are wanted

You're not alone

I've missed you so

Welcome home¹

Don't we all need to hear that somehow? We want to be our one-of-a-kind selves—not a cookie cutter person—but also to have someone, some ones, who get us, who welcome us in—to welcome us home. The enemy lies to us and tells us we're on the outside, that we don't matter to anyone (not even God), or that we're all alone...but he's wrong. He lies. 

Home is real. Acceptance is real. Jesus invites us to belong, to rest our souls in Him. He shows us scarred hands and tells us how utterly wanted we are. And He often brings those one or two—or more!—people into our lives who don't try to make us into what they expect or want, but who encourage us to grow, to be better than we are. They love us—even when they know just what we're really like. They remind us that we fit, we belong somewhere. And we do that for someone and some ones, too.

You belong.

You are loved. 

You are wanted.

You're not alone. . . Welcome home. 

_______

1. Joy Williams / Matt Morris: "Welcome Home" lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Unbreak My Heart New

Normal life and my normal self died a few years ago. The problem is, I keep expecting my normal self to resurrect—to look out at me from the mirror again, to take up residency in my heart and home. I keep expecting to be who I was. . .and I keep getting surprised when I'm not that person anymore. The carefree, wide-eyed, faithful-to-have-quiet-time, thoughtful person I used to be sustained wounds so deep that she died. That person is buried under a pile of ashes. Cancer. Death. Divorce. Things that weren't supposed to touch my family torched us. Many of my own hopes and dreams have burnt out, adding their ash to the grave of the person I used to be.

i am desperate, 

if nothing else, 

in a holding pattern 

to find myself.

i talk in circles, 

i talk in circles, 

i watch for signals, 

for a clue.

how to feel different. 

how to feel new. 

How do I get out of this dichotomy? I so often behave in a way that I despise. I know the right thing to do, yet shrink from doing it. I want to go back to who I was or forward to feeling—to being—new. . . anything but this horrible stuck feeling, this stagnant 'living' I've been attempting. The holding pattern never becomes a flight plan and I'm getting desperate. Desperation can push us over the edge, can push us to depression, can push us into a rut, can push us into despising who we've become. In my desperation I've made rash decisions—hoping that a change in life-circumstances would change the dull ache, the incessant indifference into incandescent joy. Hoping I could go back to who  was.

[But,] no one can unring this bell, 

unsound this alarm, unbreak my heart new. 

God knows, i am dissonance 

waiting to be swiftly pulled into tune.

The echoes of the Fall reverberate in my heart, my thoughts, my whole life. . .and it can't be unrung. Carefree me has become careworn and careful—careful not to get hurt anymore. The more I try to gather up all the pieces, to hold them and order my own steps, the less disciplined, purposeful, and joy-filled I am. The more I grasp at control, the less of it I have. Life spins at a crazy pace with no stillness. 

I am all dissonance, the wrong sounds at the wrong times. Saying 'no' when I want to say 'yes,' and 'yes' when I should say 'no' has emptied me. I keep running away from the open arms of Jesus, looking for acceptance from just about everyone else. It's never enough from anyone else, though. The more I look for acceptance from others, the less satisfied I am. Their acceptance rings hollow. All I want is for God to pull me into tune, into step with Him. But running my own way, singing my own song, makes it impossible to walk in step with, or be in tune with, God. My life feels like a cacophony in unconnected, chaotic bursts. 

i know the further i go, 

the harder i try, only keeps my eyes closed. 

and somehow i’ve fallen in love 

with this middle ground at the cost of my soul.

C S Lewis once made the observation that “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road, and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.” Indeed, I know that the more I run away, the more I 'try harder,' only plunges me further into the darkness of trying to control what only God can. I've fallen in love with mediocrity, inadequacy, and complacency at the cost of my soul. I've chosen indifference so many times that I can no longer feel. . .and I'm terrified of remaining thus.

yet i know, if i stepped aside, 

released the controls, you would open my eyes. 

that somehow, all of this mess 

is just an attempt to know the worth of my life…

I want to reach back in time and unmake the mess my life and my soul have become. The more I try to experience meaning and depth, the less I can feel. My desire for control—so I can be free, so nothing else can hurt me—has spilled acid-like onto other people, burning them, hurting them, haunting me. I can't feel pain and empathy to much depth anymore—I've burnt myself out. I'm left with hands full of ashes. The ashes of relationships, the ashes of my emotions—a grey film between me and real life. Is this what being a leper feels like? To not feel. . .to not know I'm being burnt when I'm on fire? 

The more I grasp at life, the more I try to hold onto meaning, the more I want to experience feelings, the more they flee and the less I have. Jesus was right, of course: Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it, but whoever insists on keeping his life will lose it... I keep insisting on life as I think I need it or want it. The more I do, the more enslaved I become. Rather than being satisfied, I am insatiable. Rather than being disciplined I am reckless. Rather than really loving God and others, I run from them and shut them out. Rather than being hurt, I wound—and am insensible to the pain I cause. The more I want to feel, the more indifferent I am. Must I remain enslaved to this dichotomy? Where does change come from? Because it certainly does not come from me or from trying harder. 

Change comes like a breath of fresh air into a musty room—it comes from the hovering, order-bringing, healing Holy Spirit Himself. Change – renewal – can only ever come from God. The more I surrender control, the less chaotic life might be. When I submit myself to God, the enemy has to flee from me, and so I am free. This is the the true paradox: that I must submit to be made free, that surrender leads to life. 

I cannot go back to my normal, carefree self. The quivering of the Fall has shaken my life. I have been rent, broken, and buried. But the Resurrection and the Life is at work in me. He has fallen into the ground and died, bearing much fruit—and He calls me, calls us, to do the same. The breath of life will not fill my lungs the same way it did. . .but perhaps the Breath is a person who will expand my breathing, who will give me deeper life—life etched by sorrow and shaped into something more Beautiful than carefree me could have been. 

I'm desperate for new life. To be a string tightened into tune, no longer wanton but free to be in harmony. No. . . Not desperate. I am confident that there is Hope for new life, for retuning and renewal. That Hope is the Anchor for my soul, to keep me from spinning in the circles of a holding pattern. He holds me steady in the storm—and when the time is right, the Anchor is drawn up and the Wind is given full reign to guide the ship. All things have their times and seasons, their proper channels and right order. When the sail submits to the Anchor even in the storm, or to the Wind under the hand of the Captain, it is then the ship is most free.

______

1. Sleeping at Last (Ryan O'Neil), Mercury

2. C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity

3. Luke 9:24 TLB (The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation)

Wandering in Wantonness, Yearning for Freedom

Why is it that the more I desire freedom, the less of it I have? 

Am I too irresponsible with the freedom I do have? Do I hold so tightly to my freedom that I crush it, like a child might crush a flower in their hand in their effort to protect it? I know that love can be bruised, and even extinguished, if held too tightly—I have been the constrictor and constricted at different points in my life. Love cannot flourish without freedom. 

So too, freedom cannot be true freedom without boundaries, else it becomes anarchy or licentiousness: "[Freedom] requires efforts, it presupposes mental and moral qualities of a high order to be generally diffused in the society where it exists" said John C Calhoun. Freedom must be tempered with morality, or the free-will of one may suffocate or imprison the will of another. Self-determination can easily become selfishness. When I rejoice in my deliverance rather than my Deliverer, I have made an idol out of a gift. 

My history tutor succeeded in teaching me at least one thing in my eight weeks of Oxford learning: Rights entail responsibilities. According to the Declaration of Independence, freedom is a God-given right. Life is a right. Private ownership of things [not people] is a right. With these rights then, come responsibilities. A right is a moral duty, a rule of conduct; it is a just claim and a privilege. When we want a right without assuming the responsibility it entails, it will crumble. Thus, when I want freedom on my terms, I find what I have called freedom is hollow, crumpled in my grasping hand. When I buck the parameters given because they feel confining, am I asserting freedom of will or willful selfishness? 

I want the bit in my teeth so I can have my head. I want to come and go as I please at work, but I need to be subject to the hours of operation, to be available to my co-workers. All the other hours of the week are my own. If I squander my mornings with sleep, having stayed up too late, is that the fault of my work for being too early, or my own, for being undisciplined? And if I feel stifled at work by having to remain indoors on a lovely day, haven't I chosen a job that is predominantly indoors? I have chosen to be subject to that parameter by choosing this job over another. Have I stifled my freedom to go hiking or to sit on my porch to read or write? By no means. There are certain hours of the day when I have chosen not to pursue those things, but they are still mine to pursue on off days and off hours. Further, I couldn't afford car insurance or gasoline, housing or food if I didn't have a job, so I would be less free to live in a mountainous state to hike in if I didn't have my job. 

Freedom has its framework, keeping it from becoming an amorphous, languid, insipid dissipation. I am only free to communicate in writing if I obey the rules of grammar. I am only free to hike if I have strengthened my muscles; taken care to feed my body the right proteins, fruits, and vegetables; looked up a route and driven to it. I can't hike in Buena Vista if I don't get in my car and drive two hours away in the right direction. Because I live in this place, I necessarily do not live in any other place. Is that somehow not free?

I now come back to love not being true love without freedom. When you feel like you have to love someone back because they care so much about you, is that really love or obligation? By very definition, the word obligation means binding. And while freedom involves duty and staying within morality—like a thought is only free to be expressed and understood when it is bound by proper punctuation—it is not binding, or non-freedom. A thing cannot be itself and its opposite. This is why God gave humans freedom of will. Yes, taken out of its parameters it is turned into anarchy, self-indulgence, and licence—these broken forms being the heartbreak and death of millions and millions throughout history. 

Yet what a difference it is to freely give love, without feeling we have to! If we were obligated to love God because He loves us, rather than being allowed to choose to love Him, that would not be love. It would be duty, it would be bindingly obligatory, it would be dull and colourless. I have tried to cause my heart to love warmly because I was loved and felt I must love in return. I have tried to be friends with people who were so needy for love that they grasped at friendship and affection. These relationships do not work. They frustrate and wound both people. When the Bible says we love because God first loved us, it does not mean that we feel we are expected to love God because He loved us. It means we are overwhelmed, awed by His love for us. We are humbled by His love and we want to return it, we want Him to be loved, too! This real love appears similar to loving out of duty, but the difference is in the heart. We gladly lay down our lives, give of our time and heart with no trace of resentment or drudgery.

Freedom is not unrestrained frolic and revelry, as our culture often thinks. That is the definition of wantonness. In fact, wantonness is said to be, "resistant to control, willful; a discordant sound." I shuddered at this definition, because it so accurately describes my heart. I resist control in my heart and in my words. I am willful and selfish. The older I get, the more I find how self-absorbed I am. That makes for a discordant strain in God's harmony. Like Melchor in The Silmarillion, or the little farandolae in A Wind in the Door, I sing my own song, thinking that it is better to be myself than to be part of the mighty chorus, the rooted, life-giving farandola. I want to do my own thing rather than being confined by doing what others want. And in some ways, that is good. I shouldn't go along with the crowd of our culture. But I am a member of the Body of Christ, not an individual. It is freedom to live with, to serve with, to give myself for Jesus—and He says I do that by being part of His body. I don't lose myself by being part of Him. I do not make music by singing my own song, I make discord. When I sing with the host of heaven and the saints, we shake the universe with the song of Illúvitar, the mighty chorus vibrating life and creativity and joy into every atom and galaxy.

All this time I have been grasping at wantonness, lack of restraint. I have not been yearning for freedom after all, I have been craving self indulgence: 

"Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom's instruction" (Prov 29:18 NIV).  

Or as the ESV says, "Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law."  

Prophetic vision and the instruction of wisdom are our parameters; they are the complete thought bound in a sentence, the melody of the symphony. The head of the Body is Christ—the Head has the eyes, and through the brain, the eyes communicate to the rest of the body what it should do. The wisdom and the vision come from Christ through His prophets, apostles, and teachers. I have rarely found these people leading a church, but I have shared many a meal with them around a table, exchanged letters and calls with them, read their books, and lived and worked alongside them. 

Freedom is not unrestraint—that is wantonness. Yet it is not a binding cord, either. Freedom is not a chain, it is a channel. A river that overflows its banks is out of control, damaging property, sometimes killing people. People who cast off restraint are said to run wild, often doing much more harm than a surging river or stampeding [uncontrolled] herd. "That which we restrain we keep within limits; that which we restrict we keep within certain definite limits; that which we repress we try to put out of existence" (Century Dictionary, 1902). When I try to cast off restraint, I am not pursuing freedom. When I seek God's wisdom, it represses sin in me, crucifying my flesh so that I might be fully alive to Christ in my spirit. When I seek God's vision, when I heed wisdom's instruction, then—and only then—am I free. 

Thirty-Two

Today I turn thirty-two. Thirty-two years hold a lot of memories, some good, some bad; some incredibly hard and sad. The years hold memories full of laugh-until-you-cry hilarity, of wonder that humbles and hushes one. Some memories are rich with tender sweetness, with glory unspeakable and beauty that can only be felt deep inside.

I marvel at the pressed-down, shaken-together, overflowing gifts I have been given in thirty-two years. They come in a variety of persons and a myriad of heart shapes. They come in funny little packages, wriggling and red all over, crying their first cry. They come in meals and conversations around tables of all sorts and sizes; on dorm-room floors and grassy bowls, under stars and up rocky paths. They come in sacred moments of stillness, in loud hullos and hugs in airports, and in all the vows I've heard spoken before God's altar. They come in overwhelming swells of music that raise one's heart to God, and in unexpected finances taking one across the Ocean. I have been given the gift of two ears and a lot of time to listen to story after story, sigh after sigh, laugh upon laugh, and so many words of truth and encouragement.

To enumerate the gifts, sheer gifts, I have been given would take many trees and all the books they would make. If I look at just one of my family members or friends, I could write pages about all that we have shared, experienced, or thought through together. Each person God has put in my life is a story of their own, and I love that our stories intertwine—even when some of our together-story has had rough parts. God has used even those sharp, painful, unkind things to shape me—and often a repaired relationship is even stronger because we had to work together (under God) to bring about that healing and repair.

Thirty-two has dawned bright with Colorado blue skies. It has dawned with hope—hope that whatever steps God has for me to take this year, they will bring me closer to Him. Whether I stay right where I am and seek to change, or whether the road takes me on a new adventure, change inside is necessary. Ever since my dad had cancer and other unexpected, devastating things have happened in our family, I have been different. But it hasn't been a good different. I have, in fact, been indifferent. Unconcerned. Uncaring. As if all of my joy got eaten up by a different kind of cancer and betrayal.

For a year or two I had friends tell me I was different, not myself, etc. I felt it—felt like I had turned into someone else, someone I didn't like. Someone who didn't have time or energy to be filled with joy, to simply revel in each day. I miss being that person. I miss being full of vivacity. In the process of recovery, I got sidetracked by a couple of relationships that inhibited my healing. I have prolonged my indifference. Because of that, I told a friend the other day how excited I was to turn thirty-two and put the past three or four years behind me. He didn't ask me why, he instead asked me what I loved about the last year. I began jotting down a short list of highlights, which burgeoned into a hefty paragraph or two. Thirty-one was filled with wonderful people, new experiences (cross-country skiing, for one), beautiful views, the weddings of my very best friends, a lot of prayer, growth inside and professionally, lessons learned at great expense, and some really honest moments.

One of those honest times birthed some some healing that is ongoing. It opened my eyes to a truth I didn't know was true about myself—I feel like everyone thinks I am inadequate because I think I'm inadequate. I spent a lot of thirty-one focussing on myself and my needs, because I've been in recovery mode. I still am, but recovery mode doesn't mean focussing on myself. Healing doesn't come from myself. It comes from God. I want to know God and pursue Him single-heartedly, single-mindedly. I have felt warped and drained by passive aggressive people and by work many times in the last year—my mind divided and scattered. I have felt crushed by the mound of paid and unpaid work I had on my plate. I even felt exhausted by my dear friends, when it seemed like every evening was full and I had nothing left to give. My thoughts have been flighty and undisciplined. I have been living without purposefully sought, well-invested margin for far too long. I have been unstructured in my down time because I think I deserve a break.

Freedom doesn't mean a lack of structure or boundaries, however. Freedom means utilising the boundaries I have been given to become more fully who I am. I am created in God's image. How can I be fully myself, or myself well, if I don't know God well? Not knowing more about Him by reading books, per se, but knowing HIM, like I know my family's inside jokes and habits and moods... I want to know God like that, and so much more than that. Socrates said, "Know thyself," and he was right, it is important that we know ourselves. But we cannot possibly know ourselves if we don't know the One whom we image. We image. To say that make the noun a verb. We image. By being, existing, we image God. And yet we image Him even more clearly in certain ways—caring unselfishly, loving what is good, true, and beautiful—and sharing it with others in a variety of ways; by being single-minded, by being truthful and kind.

Thirty-one wasn't horrible. In fact, it wrapped up more perfectly than I could have asked. The week began with dancing, I got to host a couple of dinners with friends, there was a helpful breakfast conversation with my supervisor and co-worker, I caught up all my looming projects, editing is full-but-doable, and I spent last evening in earnest thought and conversation with a friend whose zeal for the Lord and for life breathed fresh insight and life into me. And much tea was drunk yesterday. So. Much. Tea! And all manner of things are well...

And all manner of things shall be made well. Thirty-two is just a number. But I hope and pray it is a number that reminds me of the year in which I became single-minded. The year I began to know God more deeply than I could have dared to ask or dream...and that I get to live the dream.

What If...

What if freedom's price is higher than I want to pay down the road?

What if the investments of the years, of the now, come up hollow?

What if I am not ready for love until all my chances have passed me by?


What if fear doesn't own me?

What if I am strong in Someone else's strength?

What if that Someone is more faithful than any man I know?


What if all of my friends forget me?

What if there is One who sticks closer than a brother?

What if friendship's price is a high stakes sacrifice?

What if the wounds of a friend are the faithful sort?

What loss, if my heart were not shared with those I have been gifted...


What if all the unknowns crash in on me?

What if the future is darker than I know?

Then I'm glad I can't see it.


I'm glad I know the Faithful One.

I'm grateful that Someone knows what I need and when.

I'm glad my timing is not what matters.

I'm glad this life of mine isn't about me.


I'm thankful for Love Eternal.

Thankful for deep calling out to deep.

Grateful that I am not alone.


I am grateful that the price of my freedom has been paid.

That I know the Light of the world.

That He was wounded for my transgressions.

That I need no longer bear the marks of sin in my body.


I am free.

Free to give.

Free to live.

Free to love.

Free to be fearless.

Free to face the unknown.

Free to be known—and still loved.

Free to drink deep of the waters of Life.


What if...

                                                    ...I am free?

Unforced Rhythms

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”¹

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion?" Well, yes. Yes I am, I thought upon reading those words one morning. Summer is hot—full of sweaty, heavy work. Summer is crowded with delightful people visiting my state, inviting me to join them for celebrations or conversations. This is excellent—but also draining. I crave weekends with no plans or expectations. I tend to burn out like a sparkler sometime in late July. Everything is an eager spark right until the end of the wire. Then I'm simply a bare, hot piece of metal—useless and a bit dangerous.

As if this were not already a difficult season, this summer has been full of more violence than any other which I can remember. Our country, culture, and world seem to be gathering speed for a headlong crash into something history-making, or perhaps even history-breaking. My emotional empathy feels stretched to capacity, to shattering. News reports begin to glance off of me, as if real humans were not killing others or being killed. I feel stuck inside an insidious nightmare from which I cannot wake. I fear losing feeling in my heart—in my outstretched hands wanting to comfort, wanting to heal, wanting to help those who have been bereft of loved ones, safety, and homeland.

Sometimes I shove grieving off to a more convenient time, because I simply cannot bear it and everything else my daily life calls out of me. So, I run to whatever will help me escape the things I don't want to consider or process. They might be the exact same things that normally breathe life into me, but rather than receiving them as gifts, I grasp at them, hoping they will save me. I try to force stories or visits with friends to block out the darkness, the bleeding wounds I cannot heal, the world full of people whom I cannot turn toward God.

Jesus calls, "Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest." Come. I drag my heels a good bit. Rest is deeply appealing, but when? When do I have time to get away with Jesus? It all depends on what I long for. There is always time to do what my heart longs for. One more dinner with friends, one more chapter, jotting another e-mail, a walk under the stars before bed. . .But am I seeking to meet Jesus in those places, or am I using them to distract myself from the destruction I cannot control or stop?

Patiently, so patiently, I hear my Saviour invite, "Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it." Watch how I do it. How can I do that? The answer is not difficult: read the gospels. Study Jesus. How does He treat broken people? How does He treat hardened people—like the arrogant religious leaders? How does He seek rest and refreshment for Himself? What is His motivation, His heart's desire? What work is He is doing which He is calling us to join?

Digging through the gospels shows me layers of answers to all of those questions. In recent years, I have discovered that the last two go together. Over and again in the book of John, the desire of Jesus' heart is to glorify His Father and to obey His will. What is that will? The Father desires to bring His Kingdom to earth. But here is the astonishing part: that is the work which Jesus is calling us to join in with Him! He has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. He has chosen the weak things to exhibit His strength. The Father is bringing His Kingdom through Jesus working in us. We are repealing the corruption and darkness of the Fall by the wholeness and light of Jesus in us.

 “What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are—strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself—accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. 

Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings, and for that matter, one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honoured in the world—all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.  

God's recreation...began with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously as God's people live in the risen Christ and in the power of his Spirit...what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted.”²

Our sorrow and suffering are not meaningless. Our work and creativity have an eternal purpose. God's own beauty, infused in this world and spread through us, is not made for destruction. We are building the Kingdom of God with every act of love, with art and creativity, with thankfulness, with every meal shared. We push back the darkness by the creative and recreative light and love of Jesus at work in and through us. It is not something demanded of us, rather, it is a gift given to us that we get to join Jesus in building the Kingdom.

I begin to understand what Jesus means when He says, "Learn the unforced rhythms of grace." Grace, charis. It means both thanks and favour. God's favour is not forced upon us, and we are not forced to give thanks for His gift. Thanksgiving or delight is an overflow of the heart, the spontaneous response to God's favour. There is that thrumming rhythm of God's grace gifted to us, our thanks to Him, and our delight or joy in giving thanks. So it goes, over and over. It is our choice to receive the invitation into the dance, to let Christ through us build His Kingdom. We must constantly lean into the rhythm, to learn to step into the dance "freely and lightly."

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1. Matthew 11:28-30 The Message, trans. by Eugene Peterson

2. Wright, N T, Surprised by Hope (New York: New York, Harper Collins, 2008) 208-209

Without Injuring Eternity

You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the concert and the opera,
And grace before the play and pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.1 

―G.K. Chesterton

23 August

Yesterday I woke to a pink, cloud-studded sky. I smiled at the rose-grey dawn and pulled the blankets a little closer to enjoy the early morning from my bed. My smile grew as I realised that it was Saturday. Quite by plan, Saturdays are my "solitude days." As tourists crowd the sidewalks, crosswalks, pubs, and coffee shops in my little town, I pull away from the world for a day. There is no schedule for these days, nothing pulling or pushing me toward itself. I often bake or do housework, as there is joy and satisfaction in the work of one's hands. Usually I read, write, and and mute my phone.

This day I rose to read a bit over breakfast. As usual, my phone was on silent; when I looked at it for the time, I saw I had five or six missed calls and a couple of voicemails. A friend asking me a quick favour, no problem. Another friend in town, wanting to know what I was doing for the day. The morning calm, leisure, and quiet broke into feeling restless and harried. Just the day before, as I was about to eat brunch, a friend knocked on my door, coming by to chat for an hour. I had the sinking feeling that this was about to happen again and I wanted nothing more than an uninterrupted day of solitude. In that moment I decided to run away.

I let my friend know I was unavailable for the day, packed a lunch, grabbed my hiking shoes and keys, and drove off into the late Summer day. Thirty minutes later—and three thousand feet higher—I was ready for a hike in the mountains ending in a fen. I had no set course, thus general tromping employed me for a while. When my stomach complained that it was empty, I settled on a flat boulder in the side of the hill to eat and be still. The wind whirled up from the pines, tickling the hair around my neck; its river-rushing roar filled my ears, quickened my blood. A pair of rooks were rising on the same draft of air, coal-black against shining white clouds in the deep, dark blue sky. The warm odour of sunshine-infused pine filled my lungs. Ants crawled around me. When the wind broke its run, there was a silence at once full and empty. Empty of sound, yet expectant and weighty upon my soul.

Closing my eyes, I let the afternoon sunshine and stillness sweep over me to freckle my skin and quiet my heart. I left chronos* time, the time of ticking seconds, and entered into kairos, the time of eternity. Kairos, the time of being without feeling the constraint of time. I may have been on that rock for ten minutes or an hour, just listening to the silence. Before returning to the path, I read a few pages of Walden and was arrested by the line: "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity!"2 Bubbling up within me was an exultant "yes!" to something that has vexed me for years. Like being "only human" or getting general studies "out of the way," the phrase "killing time" grates on my heart. God made us to be fully human. General studies are the strong foundation for a narrowed field. And time, time cannot be killed "without injuring eternity!" Though I disagreed with the next few pages of Thoreau's treatise, that little line rang a resounding bell of truth inside of me. 

We do injure eternity often, I realised as I rambled along the path. It is not that we must be employed in charitable deeds every waking moment, or that our leisure must be spent only in reading great literature, or some other legalism of that sort. No, we injure eternity more widely and subtly than  by outright sin. We live in fragments, sound bites, and megabytes. Our attention is constantly divided from one tab to the next, from a person's face to the screen of our "device", from our task at work or around the house to our e-mail. Whole software and websites exist to make sure we have constant variety in our music, going from slow to fast in the matter of three seconds, our moods changing just as rapidly. I am not a complete luddite, as I am typing these thoughts via my macbook. I have switched tabs to look up various things and even abandoned writing altogether several times since beginning. I am not free from this disintegration of thoughts and actions, but I am often repulsed by how technology supplants reality.

A question I once read has resurfaced in my thoughts many a time since its introduction: If you have fifteen free minutes how do you use them? Perhaps I would answer that I clean around my house, wash the dishes, read, sit on my porch, or say hullo to my neighbour... But more often, I flip open my computer to check my e-mail and the weather for the tenth time. I do not intend to write an e-mail to anyone, mind you, I simply want to see if anyone has written to me. I am decidedly the centre of my own universe in those fifteen minutes. If I choose to do a few chores or look at the sunlight on the leaves or greet my neighbour, I am often removed from myself into thinking of others, into thanking God for Beauty. I am forced out of chronos into kairos—out of the immediate, pressing time into the unhindered eternity. When my thoughts are scattered and disoriented, I do violence to eternity. Rather than bringing God's Kingdom (as Jesus exhorts in the Lord's Prayer), I seek only my own.

These thoughts were budding as I tramped on through filtered sunlight. I turned onto a loop never taken before, deciding to see new things. There was no spectacular view, though there was plenty of fuzzy green moss and a small rabbit with wide eyes. As I set one foot in front of the other, I realised that there is hope and abundant life ahead of me. There are the familiar ways and new paths to travel, much like my hike that very moment. Disappointed expectations sometimes derail me from this truth. Yet I am learning to lay down those dying expectations in order to pick up the gifts I have been given for this time, in this place. I am learning to give thanks in all things.3

When I reached the end of the circuit, I sat on a log looking out at the Pikes Peak mountain system. There are several smaller peaks and various rock formations within the one mountain, and I have yet to tire of the spectacular view. Pulling out my notebook and ink pen, I began listing the things I was thankful for that day. Memories pulled me out of that place and I saw neither the mountains or the trees. Forty or more lines were filled with gratitude. The sun slanted and I knew that kairos and chronos were somehow mixing in a precarious, wild dance. I was both outside and inside time. In that place, yet in my memory. In that moment, but in eternity, too. The giving of thanks for the graces given set me on the edge of time, like a knife blade—not slicing asunder—rather, thin enough to touch. This was where time and eternity met and kissed. As I remembered, as I gave thanks, the Kingdom of God was made a little fuller on earth, as it is in Heaven.** As I received the Beauty of that day, as I prayed often for open eyes and an open heart on that hike, God's Kingdom was enlarged in me—through me.

Nature, as Wordsworth, Thoreau, and others thought, is not an end in itself. It cannot save us from the ills of men, for it too is affected by the Fall. But Beauty—in nature, through art, in words, through music—does something to us. Beauty baptises our imaginations, breathes life into our souls. Thanksgiving joins chronos with kairos, now with eternity. Memory pieces together fragments into mosaics, full pictures of not just our story, but God's Story. Good days, dark nights of the soul, big events, every day graces, tears, laughter, all are fitted together precisely to shade and illuminate the living, shimmering image of God's Story. When we take time to remember, when we let Beauty lead us to worship and give thanks, God's Kingdom is flung abroad more fully on earth, as it is in Heaven. It is where God fills us with His Spirit—where He lives and moves and has His being in us.4 This is the Kingdom arriving. 

*For more on chronos and kairos see Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L'Engle
** For more on the Kingdom of Heaven coming to earth, see Surprised by Hope by N. T. Wright

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1. Chesterton, G. K. "A Grace" in The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), 43
2. Thoreau, Henry David Walden (New York: Signet Classics, 1999), 5

3. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (KJV)
4. Acts 17:28 (KJV)