Won't You Stay with Me?

Dear Aaron,

Once I asked a friend who lost her sister to cancer, "Does it ever get easier?" Her gentle answer was that grief changes, sometimes mellowing, sometimes roaring up at you. I've found that grief is only "easier" if you ignore it and dive into something else...to the exclusion of deep soul reflection.

Perhaps it's only natural that I miss you extra in December and January... The end of Semester and around your birthday. The end of Semester was so traumatising—losing our community to go back to people who didn't understand how much we had all changed... Going back to greyness—both in external and internal landscape—where there was nothing in particular to work towards or hope for. You, Reese, Chelsea, and to a degree Stephen were my lights in dark places when all other lights had gone out. In each of you was the light of the Messiah, spilling out onto anyone in your paths. I'm so thankful for that Light in the greyness; for your steady friendship those handful of years.

As we descend into the darkness of the Advent season, and the physical darkness of Winter, I can't help thinking of the Christmas you visited me in Indiana. It was exhausting, you were a bit flighty at times, and it is one of the sweetest memories I have. When you read Tolkien to me while sitting on the floor in my old room. You, lounging on the woodpile and reading. Walking in the frigid cold and trying to sort out our sore souls, our loves, our hopes... Both of our hopes were dashed, and somehow I missed what could have grown into more with you. Now that I'm married, I don't grieve that loss so strongly, but I wonder what course our lives would have taken if things had been different. They aren't different, though...and so, I miss you.

One day this autumn the song below came across my playlist. Without warning, grief spilled out of my heart and eyes. All I could think of was you...

Medicate, meditate, swear your soul to Jesus

Throw a punch, fall in love, give yourself a reason

Don't wanna drive another mile wonderin' if you're breathin'

So, won't you stay, won't you stay, won't you stay with me?

It seems like there just weren't enough reasons left... You had fallen in love once, if not twice, and that didn't work out. Maybe you threw some punches. You spent time meditating on Scripture and music and good books...you even had medication. And I know that your soul was and is sworn to Jesus. Jesus is enough to make all wrongs right in His time.

So, the words I wish I could have told you and had you really hear are these:

Oh, you're spiralin' again

The moment right before it ends, 

you're most afraid of

But, don't you cancel any plans

'Cause I won't let you get the chance 

to never make them. . . 

 

Don't let this darkness fool you 

All lights turned off can be turned on

I'll drive, I'll drive all night

I'll call your mom

Oh, dear, don't be discouraged

I've been exactly where you are

I'll drive, I'll drive all night

I'll call your mom

I have called your mom—many times—and it has been a help to us both. But I just. miss. you. You were the one who had changed because of Semester. You are the one I shared life experiences and memories with. And I wish I could see who you could have become. You could have filled books with poems and the air with songs. For now, they reverberate, hanging in the air...invisible, just unheard. So close, but impossibly far—the curtain of death hanging between us. 

Oh friend... The darkness may have fooled you for a moment, but the light turned off can be turned on. The Light of Jesus never goes out...and it spilled out of you into dark places. The Light goes on and on, lighting up lives you never knew—but one day you will.

In many ways you have and will always stay with me. For that, I'm deeply grateful. <3

Call Your Mom — Songwriters: Todd Sherman Clark / Noah Kahan

Of Pictures and Pieces

Gloaming is blue and ethereal, with fine flakes of winter shrouding my valley in quiet. The windowpanes in my little cottage are frosted 'round the edges, as I've been simmering a lentil stew and braising some cabbage for dinner later. 

Today has been rather quiet, stillness only broken by the scraping of the snow plough and some shovelling...and the occasional tramp of boots on the stone stairs outside my cosy home. I'm grateful for the quiet space to reflect and pray (and sleep in, after a week of late nights). I'm thankful for my cup of Himalayan Bouquet tea with wildflower honey as I cuddle up in my softest, long grey sweater to watch the snow fall. 

I'm grateful for the foggy, snowy weather, which calms and quiets my soul so that I can come to the Lord in prayer and meditation. And I am so very thankful that the Lord hears me when I cry out to Him. He hears my recent confusion, my aches, my joys, my fears, my hopes. He hears my confessions, my uncertainties, my desires—the ones that so often pull against one another, tearing me to pieces. 

My whole life feels like it's been one series after another of deep desires that pull me in contradictory directions. I thought everyone felt this way, but it turns out, they don't. At least, not all the time or maybe even most of the time. This constant struggle being unique to me and people like me was revealed when I learned my mindstyle: being equally task-oriented and people-oriented. Most people tend to be more one or the other, but not me. It makes work a challenge at times—especially working with other people. And when I'm with people, I can multitask (do the dishes, play games, etc.), but I can't both work on a project with them and also give them my undivided attention. The reality is that what I want most is to sit side-by-side and listen deeply, to share intimately.

While it was immensely frustrating to discover these equal and opposite mindstyles were at war within me, it made sense of many situations and seasons in life—and explained why I get burnt out on work or people. It's been four or five years since this revelation and I feel like I'm still not good at figuring out my balance, at walking with both the left foot (people) and the right foot (tasks), one after the other in rhythm.

The issue is further complicated with God. I love learning about the bigger picture of the Bible and the themes God has woven into His world and His works from the beginning of time. I love it when I finally make a big picture connection myself. But I find myself doing one thing or the other, not both at once: I either read Scripture slowly and methodically, gleaning details or I don't read it at all and listen to others who help me see the big picture. I've done the detail-gleaning most of my growing up life, even into my twenties. I've only begun the big picture learning since entering my thirties.  

In hindsight, I wish these processes had been reversed. I wish I'd known the big picture of God and His story when I was little, filling in the details as I grew and matured. Because when you've been digging up little artefacts for your formative years and you don't know where they go or how they fit together, you do some weird cobbling together of those pieces. You may make a beautiful mosaic or a grotesque image of God, but you will have to take it all apart to put things together in the way they are supposed to go, not how you decided they should go. And how do we (I) do that if we don't know the nature, character, and love of God?

No one person can see God, His world, or everything in Scripture rightly and thoroughly at once. That is one of the many reasons God put us together in a body, in community—both with Himself and with others. This is why we need to read Scripture communally, but also individually (where we can read and absorb at our own speed). 

I've been in a rather long season now of studying the Word in community (both at church and in Bible studies), but now comes the point where I need to jump back in to also reading daily to re-familiarise myself with the words, phrases, and details. They go hand-in-hand. While I love both the details and the big picture, I need a lot of help from intuitive and perceiving people to see the big picture. I don't naturally have that vision. I see the trees, not the forest. And that has SO many positive outlets and uses, but I need to see the forest, too. Just like I need to learn to balance tasks and developing relationships, not at the exclusion of one or the other.

It's easier to learn photography basics in black and white, learning about shadows, shapes, and composition. But when you add colour, it's a whole new field. Both mediums are beautiful. But you can use either and fail in composition, clarity, or depth. You can fail to tell a story—you have to have an informed, intuitive eye for that.

Dichotomies are hard for me. I understand black, I understand white. Where gradations and colours fit in is where I need God and other people to help me imagine. To see truly. When I can't see beyond my own confusions, conclusions, and projected outcomes there is God, holding out truth, light for the path, and hope. Colours. Stories. Pieces of the whole...and the whole story, too.

Where is Time?

Where is time?
Does it live on the bottom of a well,

the bristly back of an elephant,

or under furry-soft moss along a fallen tree?

Does it crouch in the crevices of caves,

under the eaves of fairy cottages,

or over the smile of the man-in-the-moon?

Where is time?

Is it tucked deep in the heart,

with old memories of lost love,

and ambitions that have crumbled?

Is it hidden in the mind,

trapped in formulae and fancies,

buried under long-unused ideas?

Where is time?

Does it flit, forever beyond our fingers

outstretched, fleet as the wings 

of an owl or the feet of a fawn?

Is it running like swift spring streams,

chortling at us from just over the next rise,

or peering down from the treetops?

Where is time?

Does it hide in an hourglass 

or stuck between calendar pages,

awaiting freedom by the flick of a hand?

Is it waiting to pounce upon us,

springing on our vulnerable souls

to carry us away at the end of days?

Where is time?

Living in the hollows of longing 

and in the halls and homes of dear friends—

in children's laughter and delighted hearts.

It hangs on the tip of the crescent moon,

dripping over us in flickering shade

and sweet scents of summer hay fields.

Where is time?

Deep in the wells of our belovéd's eyes,

blue, yet flecked with one rusty speck

and over-full of sorrow and kindness.

It dwells in worlds pressed between 

the pages of books, and in the notes

of a bird's song, evensong, all song.

Where is time?

In the pockets of jackets worn on 

autumn hikes, full of leaves and pine cones—

and in brimming cups of fragrant tea.

It crowds in cookie crumbs shared

with family and friends, and spills

over our tongue, savouring memories.

Where is time?

Settled in the silence of a misty forest or

with a comfortable friend, and in the cries

of gulls and the sweep of crow's wings.

Under every dew-encrusted blade of grass,

crowning headstones, rippling in sandstone

and in the shore's ever-lapping waves. . .

Where, oh where, is time?

I Have Set before You Life and Death

Misty days and Spring rains have given way to Summer heat; screen doors are flung open for cooling breezes; there are pots of flowers thriving on the porch. . . One of those is quite new, a lovely ribbed green ceramic creation with pink vincas blooming over the edge. It was a surprise gift from Nick, when he unexpectedly popped by my office on his day off this week.

Sometimes we need delightful surprises of flowers and monster-sized cookies, soft dresses on sale, and precious days with family. We need sad songs and sweet ones, too. We need bright smiles and long kisses, an unlooked-for hug on a hard day, and honest tears as we work through discerning what is right and best. We need meandering walks to drink in late sunshine and colour-drenched flowers. We need crickets and quiet moments on the porch, talking with God...which I think mostly means listening hard in the silences between words.

It has been both a restful, beautiful Spring with silvery mists and clouds rolling in over the mountains, and simultaneously a difficult season of stress, solicitude, and stealthy sorrow snaking its way into my family. I loved going home in April to take Nick to meet my family and enjoy the glorious spring beauty of the Midwest. I loved driving to Kansas to meet up with my immediate family to celebrate my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary... It was lovely to reconnect with many of my cousins, though the days were laced with a bittersweet undertone, as my uncle's health is deteriorating rapidly. 

Though it may not sound like it, the thread weaving the beauty, the bittersweet, the bite of sorrow is always the Lord of all. Not simply in the Bible Project podcasts or daily lectio divina of Pray as You Go, or even in Tim Keller sermons (how sorrowed I have been with his recent passing!)... Though also exactly in and through those things. Yet it is the Lord asking me questions from the mouth of the man I love, from my best friends, from unexpected sources. There is the question of God giving us choices, life and death—which will we choose? It sounds so easy: choose life! But am I seeing death as life? Will I choose wrongly because my eyes are mis-seeing? And what does that stem from? Is it because I am unused to looking at the goodness of the Lord?

What does loving someone well look like? Lately it has involved both saying what I need and setting boundaries. It involves sacrifice of time, and also listening fully engaged. It means being quieter than I have been lately. Do I remember that God is the Someone I love first? Am I loving Him well?

Questions, questions, questions. . . And Beauty. And sorrow. And joy. And hope. And boundaries. And learning to say hard things. And quiet. And open hands. It all weaves and flows; it all whirls in the delicate dance of this life we live, the air we've been gifted to breathe. All these come as gifts of some kind, even the gifts that feel like pain. As God gently, graciously unpeels our fingers from 'round the things we cling to, we stop strangling them and allow the breath of life to come in. . .

Come, Holy Spirit. . .

*Photo stills from The Cottage Fairy, no copyright infringement intended (I just want to share the beauty)...

When You Lose Somebody You Love

 “One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn is how to lose someone,” sings Scottish musician Nina Nesbitt. Her official music video for “When You Lose Someone” debuted on March 1, 2022 and has been viewed over a million times. The video is replete with heartfelt sorrow and simple images of her holding on to a shadow-person who eventually splinters into starlight.

In a YouTube live chat, Nesbitt says the song is about her specific loss, yet she hopes that her listeners will relate to the lyrics in the many kinds of loss they, too, experience: a loved one passing away, a divorce or breakup, being separated from a loved one by mental illness, or other forms of ambiguous loss. 

Psychologist Pauline Boss “coined the term ‘ambiguous loss’ and invented a new field within psychology to name the reality that every loss does not hold a promise of anything like resolution.” (FN1) We experience this type of loss when our loved one is still with us physically, but dementia or mental illness has taken them away from their minds and from us. We see it in having to co-parent after divorce or in breaking up with someone we still love but can’t marry for whatever reason. Perhaps one of the deepest places we observe or experience this ambiguous loss is in fathers who are physically or emotionally absent from their children’s lives. 

Whether grief stems from an ambiguous or a concrete loss, it shapes us. We can choose to hide either in or from our grief. We can ignore it, we can feel asphyxiated by it, or we can choose to walk alongside it as a companion. Seeing grief as a companion is not easy, nor is it the conventional first step after a loss. As Nesbitt asserts, initial grief often goes

from feeling numb to feeling everything at once

And I don’t know if I wanna cry—

One of the the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn

is how to lose someone

In a sense, the image of holding hands with grief—walking with it rather than fighting it or ignoring it—is an image of us holding the hand of Jesus. He is acquainted with sorrow (Isaiah 53:3-4). He walks with us through loss, mourning with us over what is broken (John 11:32-36). Grief should be our response to disconnection, because it is God’s response to death and disintegration.

The separation that comes from death or ambiguous loss is still something to be reckoned with, even though Christians believe in the resurrection of the dead (I Corinthians 15:20-27) and ultimate reconciliation. When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, relationships fractured in every direction: with other people (Genesis 3:7), with God (Genesis 3:8), with the creation (Genesis 3:17-19), and with ourselves. This sheering apart is not the way it’s supposed to be. The severing caused by death is not how God made his good world to exist. When we experience loss it is the catastrophic consequence of sin (James 1:14-15). 

What about those who don’t know God or understand that death and separation are an outworking of the Fall? For most of our culture, loss is something bad that we don’t want to experience. We want to outrun the ache of grief, the pain of loss. We want to be distracted from pain or become numb to it. But the reality is that our minds and bodies hold the scars of the Fall, whether we know that it happened or not. Surprisingly, Nesbitt acknowledges the continuance of loss:

[It] changes you forever in the blink of an eye

and it’s not something that just fades overnight

it’s something that stays for the rest of your life

when you lose somebody you love

We don’t just “move on” from a breakup or a death. While we shouldn’t stay stuck in the past or stop living the life God has gifted us, there is no such thing as closure when it comes to love. Pauline Boss continues, “‘closure’ is a terrible word in human relationships. Once you’ve become attached to somebody, love them, care about them—when they’re lost, you still care about them. . . .Somehow, in our society, we’ve decided, once someone is dead, you have to close the door. But we now know that people live with grief. They don’t have to get over it.”(FN2) She clarifies that this doesn’t mean obsessing over our lost loved one, but rather living with grief is choosing to remember them, even though remembering might hurt sometimes. 

And that is where the world stops. There is no hope beyond saying “It’s okay to live with grief. It’s okay to miss someone. It’s okay to feel the loss you’ve experienced.” There is no hope of seeing a loved one again. Maybe they disappear into the stars, as in Nesbitt’s music video; maybe they are reincarnated, as some Eastern cultures believe, but you can’t really know your lost loved one again as you did. There is no true hope in those ideas. 

Even Christians sometimes get lured into the world’s idea that “death is simply part of life.” But let's be clear, while death is a reality, it is not part of life in God’s creation. Death is a result of the Fall—it is the great enemy to be finally and fully defeated (1 Corinthians 15:20-26).Thanks be to God that by the Resurrection of Jesus, death is already being worked backwards until it one day is no more (Revelation 21:1-6). As Orthodox theologian and priest Alexander Schmemann expressed it: 

Christianity is not reconciliation with death. It is the revelation of death, and it reveals death because it [Christianity] is the revelation of Life. Christ is this Life. And only if Christ is Life is death what Christianity proclaims it to be, namely the enemy to be destroyed, and not a "mystery" to be explained. Religion and secularism, by explaining death, give it a "status," a rationale, make it "normal." Only Christianity proclaims it to be abnormal and, therefore, truly horrible. At the grave of Lazarus Christ wept, and when His own hour to die approached, "he began to be sore amazed and very heavy. . . It is when Life weeps at the grave of the friend, when it contemplates the horror of death, that the victory over death begins.”(FN3)

We know that Life himself, Jesus, wept over death (John 11:33-36). We know that he has gained victory over death and he offers that victory—eternal life—to all who will believe in him, turning away from sin and toward him (1 John 5:11-13 TLB). But we also know that not everyone chooses to receive beauty for ashes, eternal resurrected life instead of eternal death. Just as Jesus bore the scars of death in his resurrected body, we too bear the scars of separation and loss dealt by the Fall. Grief shapes us. As the consummation of the Kingdom of God draws ever closer, we must acknowledge that some grief extends to eternal death and some grief ends in the hope of eternal life. Right now we live between these eternal and temporal griefs, holding both sorrow and resurrection-hope by the hands as our companions. Perhaps Nesbitt explains it best: One of the hardest things we ever have to learn is how to lose someone.

_____

Footnotes:

1. Navigating Loss Without Closure —OnBeing Podcast with Pauline Boss and Krista Tippett

2. ibid

3. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973), 99-100. 

* All Scripture quoted is from the ESV unless otherwise noted.

Originally posted for Reflect at Summit Ministries

Ash Wednesday IV

Ash and oil

mix in paint

across my forehead

A cross my

forehead boldly bears

stares at me

from the mirror

Dust of death

to wipe away

like life—brief

Unlike the bread,

the strong wine,

both now part

of my body

much like I'm

part of His

Life from death

Life swallowing up

sin's spectre grey

painting a cross

for Life Himself

to die upon. . .

Yet He holds

so much life

death is undone

like ash become

palm once again

___

Photo by Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash

 

“If anything is to shock our souls, 

let it be Hope.”

— Bryan Wandel
 

The Longest Lent

Lent began six months ago today.

Six months ago I was in a cool, dark sanctuary, listening to my vicar say "You are going to die." I didn't know how accurate that statement would be for this year. We rose, row by row. Ashes were traced across my forehead, I returned to my seat. We rose, row by row, again going forward—this time to receive the bread, the wine. In darkness we stepped into February chill. Ash Wednesday was the only evening Lenten service I got to attend in person this year. Not a single evening of Holy week was spent in that dark church sanctuary with fellow believers. We weren't present together in the darkness of Easter morning that bursts into light and noise and exuberant alleluias.

Oh, yes, I "attended" Holy Week services and Easter morning on-line. But that isn't the same—not even close. I haven't worshipped, truly worshipped, physically together with other believers for six months. It feels like the longest Lent in the history of the church calendar. It feels like Easter was an anticlimax or like it didn't even happen... Like it was swallowed up in the darkness, buried in the ashes of burned hopes, dreams, plans, businesses, cities, and people.

This weekend we will gather to remember our friend Mike Adams, who took his life in this season of darkness. He is a standout to me, because he is someone I know. . . But he is one among many. The number of suicides this year are, in some demographics, outpacing the number of virus deaths. Don't tell me this virus is killing people—I know it is—but the power plays surrounding the virus are killing more people in other ways, whether physically through suicide or because of division that makes one citizen stab another for not wearing a mask; or internally, spiritually, emotionally isolating us from one another. . . Keeping us apart at home, six feet away, cancelling events, or putting masks between our faces, stifling our expressions of vulnerability, kindness, concern, and even anger or fear. If no one can see our expressions of pain, how can they reach out to us? And are they afraid to hug us? If I can't see the look of loss on someone's face, how will I know "You too? I thought I alone knew that grief. . ." and be able to wrap them in love?

How do we invite others into our pain, into our sorrow, into our deep joys, into a place of hope, if we cannot be close, see the human expressions of these things across each other's faces? To be isolated while six feet away from someone—to be denied physical affection and warm greetings—is worse than being alone at home. It is the extreme loneliness of being alone in a crowded room. It is like the searing pain of being close to your lover, but being just unable to reach them, to touch them.

This season feels like birth pangs gone wrong, come too late. It feels like something is terribly wrong with the baby, it isn't moving. . . The thing we've been looking toward, the hope at the end of the morning sickness, the joy at the end of labour, the person to join our family has been snatched away, and we are left to bury our dead in isolated grief—with no hugs and no real place for grief or anger to go.

It feels like the longest Lent. But in the normal Lenten season we are together in our lament. We gather together to acknowledge that something isn't right. We encourage one another to take heart that the King is coming. We hope for one another, when someone can't hope for themselves. But this is isolation—not the solitude or quiet reflection of Lent—and it is the work of the enemy of our souls. Dividing, separating in every possible way.

Where is the hope? Where is the empty tomb of this season that has killed us in more than body? Where is the Easter morning coming out of this mourning? Where is the light in this darkness? Where is the King?

Maybe this horrible, longest Lent is in some way our taste of what the disciples felt when Jesus died. See, we know the end of that story, but they didn't. We know on Good Friday that Easter is coming. They didn't. And maybe this interminable Lent is our true unknown Good Friday and Holy Saturday. It is our season where we can't see what is happening in the spiritual realm. We can't see the Easter about to come.

Maybe we will die before we understand what it was all about, but we must know that Jesus will never be held down by death. Jesus will never be defeated by the enemy of our souls. Death and satan will one day be undone. The Kingdom will come in its fullness. And that won't be an anticlimactic Easter in the time of covid. It will be the greatest celebration of life and love and sacred community. . . It will be seeing face-to-face and still living.

Easter is coming. . .

What If. . . ?

What if I weep for you?
You, who can weep no longer,
your eyes fixed on the Author
and Finisher of our faith,
not upon the mounded grave. . .

What if I ache for you?
The ache of separation you don't feel,
you, who are with the Father,
who are here no longer,
yet who dwell in thin places. . .

What if I rejoice for you?
You, who have stepped off
this mortal coil into the Kingdom
coming, to meet in the Kingdom
to come, under Spirit, Father, and Son. . .

What if I reach for you?
Reach out my hand, to empty air
for you, whom I can't touch
until the Kingdom comes, fully
and wholly, Heaven and Earth, together. . .

What if I miss you?
You, who have my heart, still,
though I didn't know it until
too late, when you passed the gate
between here and where I can't be yet. . .

What if I say your name?
Will you come back again,
my dear poet-friend, whom I miss so
fiercely? Will you teach me to see,
show me the ways of the Kingdom coming. . .

What if I love you?
You, bell-ringer, song-singer,
hope-bringer, who quietly gave
all of yourself away—all of your mind
away—all of your life away,
                                             what if. . . ?



I do. . .
              and I will.

Kindness Makes Me Cry

What a month it has been. . . In the last 30 days I have flown on 2 airplanes, been in 1 wedding, attended a second wedding, eaten Chipotle during 2 wedding weekends, danced for at least 2 hours, hand-written 25+ pages (double-sided), talked on the phone for 33 hours, worked more hours that I want to count, welcomed 1 new baby into our community, and lost 1 friend to death.

Two weeks ago I experienced one of the hardest weeks of the year. In the span of seven days I was asked to resign as an editor over a difference of opinions, had to kill a suffering mouse with a rock, offered a listening ear to an upset friend, found out a different friend ended their life, and had to have a hard personal conversation with yet another friend. I called it the week from Hell, because so much of that week was shot through with death in one form or another, and that is the work of Hell.

But this past week was balm to my soul. I didn't work overtime. My sweet neighbour came over for dinner and a walk. My Scripture circle met under a double rainbow, sharing some things I've been chewing on this week—or more accurately, things that have been chewing on me. I wrote my heart out. I got to spend three precious hours with one of my best friends. A couple of friends and my family were so kind to pray for me and check in on me often. My sister sent me a box of sunshine. The friend who needed a listener sent me cheese, chocolate, and flowers in the form of a totally unexpected gift-card. The CEO of our company wrote me a kind note and gave me a gift-card for my ten year anniversary at work. And today, my boss got married. 

Just like the Hell-week had redemptive moments and hours, this balm-week had its dark moments and its bitter tears. But there were so many good conversations in both weeks. So many walks and cups of tea and scudding clouds across the moon. There were invitations into sorrow and invitations into deep joy. There were things that scared me, but I did them. There were things that wounded me and others, but we are walking with one another into healing.

This evening, in the midst of deep joy and fun on the dance floor, without warning, familiar notes washed over the room. I've never seen so many people scatter for exits so quickly when there was no emergency. . . The DJ couldn't have known that playing "Don't Stop Believin" would be incredibly painful for nearly a dozen people. He couldn't have known that a few days ago we found out our friend, Mike, was dead. "Don't Stop Believin" was Mike's theme song. If I heard it blasted from the classroom once a summer, I heard it half a dozen times a summer. I like that song, but tonight it made me sad. Yet, in a way, it was like Mike was there in spirit. Like maybe he was dancing, too. 

This week so many beautiful, good, kind, and joy-filled things happened. It doesn't fill the maw of Hell-week. No. In some ways, it stuffs goodness down the throat of the aching blackness and still overflows everywhere. And in some ways, that gaping emptiness of Hell-week carves a pit in the many of us it touched. The wound of death does not heal here, not fully. I will always bleed a little of my heart out for the friend I lost nearly two years ago. Our world will always bleed a little for the loss of Mike. Goodness doesn't fix the not good. 

Sorrow and grief over many things still clench my heart and make me cry. But the kindness of family and friends also makes me cry. The deep gift of love, the deep joy of watching my friends get married makes me cry. I cried hearing my friends exchange their wedding vows and hearing their people toast them. And I cried tears of loss watching the father-daughter dance, because I want to get that experience and I don't know that I ever will. And simultaneously, I cried tears of anger and hurt that a person who might have given me that chance declined to even try. And I cried the achingly sweet tears that come when you hear grown men say "My life is what it is partly because of you, and I love you" to another man in front of a whole crowd of people. 

Hell-week wasn't all bad. And balm-week wasn't all good. Even something so beautiful and deeply good as a wedding brought all kinds of mixed emotions—joy, pain, sweetness, grief, and hope... Hope of these friends birthing light in the darkness our world is falling into. And lest it all sounds like this hope or joy or kindness springs from my friends, it doesn't. Its source is God the Father, showering His deep affection on us (often through other people) where we are—whether that is a place of pain or gladness, or a mix of sorrow, joy, sadness, loss, hurt, and hope all co-mingled. And let's be honest, we're often an amalgamation of emotions, not feeling one at once, but many (even conflicting) emotions at once. That is the agony and the beauty of being human.

Grief makes me weep. Sorrow makes my heart bleed. But alongside these, kindness makes me cry.

Shalom

Sunlight eagerly pours through white windowpanes, spilling its warmth and hope across my soft chairs, onto my knee, pooling on the floor. A little bird is hailing the day star and Arvo Pärt's Nunc dimittis gently adds its soft refrain.

A friend gifted me a set of four, Polish pottery luncheon plates, one of which is now full with a burst of raspberries, lustrous orange slices, and butter-seared banana bread. My globe-like green Polish mug is nestled on my lap, counter-balancing the morning breeze, keeping me just right.

Something about Spring mornings feels enlivening and hopeful, it feels like home. Something about Spring pushes me to dust dressers, window ledges, and chair legs. It reorders my time and my newly-polished spaces. I often choose to have fresh flowers in my home, but today I have a mason jar full of dried lavender for the sun to warm. There is also a cheery bunch of tiny purple waxflowers and their still-smaller buds, overflowing from a simple glass vase.

There is an excitement in Spring that I cannot overlook in my deep love for Winter. Everywhere I turn is life, light, and freshness. At least, in the natural world, that is what I see. I see the rhythms that have always been continuing. And that is where I want to rest this morning—not to forget the pall that has fallen over our world—but for now, to be present to the renewed order, teeming life, and refreshing breeze all speaking "Peace, be still" to my soul.

Think of the disciples in the storm-tossed boat. They could only see, experience, and think about the raging squall around them. Jesus was sleeping, not unconcerned, but in full trust. As that joyful little bird trills his heart out, I want to join him. As the sun warms the earth, I want to bask in it. As the Father whispers, Peace. Be still, I want to sink into this place of rest, trust, and hope.

Messy Christmas

The branches have traded

Their leaves for white sleeves

All warm-blooded creatures make ghosts as they breathe

Scarves are wrapped tightly like gifts under trees

Christmas lights tangle in knots annually

While many people are wrapping up their Christmas lights rather than untangling them from last year, some more traditional churches are just entering into the celebration of the Christmas season. For them, Christmas begins on the evening of December twenty-fourth (since the Creation, days begin the evening before—think of Genesis 1:5: "...and there was evening and there was morning, the first day" etc.), going through to Epiphany on the sixth of January. 

This year, snow fell like shimmering garments on tree arms a week before Christmas. Yet for many of us, by the time the day itself rolled around, the sun had melted the tree robes and we were down to shirt-sleeves and thin sweaters. I love snow, but who decided that it is “necessary” at Christmas? 

Our families huddle closely

Betting warmth against the cold,

Our bruises seem to surface

Like mud beneath the snow

Some kinds of "snow" feel necessary... We want the blanket of "nice feelings" at Christmas to mask the cracks in our families of origin or in our marriages, in our loneliness and in our broken spots. But holidays have a way of hitting our bruised places. An argument in the car on the way to a Christmas gathering reminds us of the scores of fights we've had all year. The question, "So, are you seeing anyone?" (and you know they want to add "yet" at the end of that query) rankles when you're tired of being alone, or you've recently broken up with someone, or you feel somehow lesser because you in fact don't have someone. Sometimes the bruise is cruel and bone-deep: someone is missing in the pew at midnight mass with you; there is only the memory or shadow of someone you dearly love hovering at every crowded table, making it feel incomplete. 

It is a muddy, messy time, this Christmas. Messy Christmas. That is the phrase my phone auto-corrects to instead of "merry" Christmas. I laughed the first time happened. It struck my cynical side as humorous and morosely accurate. The mud of the Fall still lurks beneath the snow of the now-but-not-perfected redemption. But clean slates are coming. . .

So we sing carols softly

As sweet as we know

A prayer that our burdens will lift as we go

Like young love still waiting under mistletoe

We'll welcome December with tireless hope

Hope. Christmas is replete with Hope. God joining to flesh in a miraculous marriage. The Redeemer was born. Happy, sentimental sigh. 

But the crushing reality is that the Redeemer wasn't born as an adult. Things didn't change when He came. Yes, there was the flash of Heaven, opened to the shepherds. There was a great sign in the heavens, leading the wise men. Then, just like the previous four hundred years, there was a lull. Silence. Hope was born...but He wouldn't be revealed for another thirty years. 

I wonder if the shepherds were like fourteen-year-old me: not subtle, hanging around wherever I could—whenever I could—to be around the guy I was crushing on. Or did they cease hoping? Certainly, unflagging hope is hard to cultivate, especially when your hope is placed in the wrong thing, the wrong outcome, or the wrong person. Those shepherds waited for thirty years. Did they continue to hope? Did they connect that awe-filled night years ago with the peripatetic rabbi stirring up the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Jewish people, and the Romans?

Hope can be hard to cling to in the darkness, but that is precisely where we need it the most. Where we need Him the most. Thirty years before the Rabbi began calling fishermen, the ancient, long-awaited seed of promise was sown, becoming a tender shoot in Egyptian and Galilean soil.

"...For you [John] will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,

To give knowledge of salvation to His people

By the remission of their sins,

Through the tender mercy of our God,

With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;

To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,

To guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:76b-79)

Hope. It comes in through those very cracks we long to cover. He enters into our broken places. He is gentle with our bruises.

Let our bells keep on ringing

Making angels in the snow

And may the melody [of Hope] disarm us

When the cracks begin to show

Like the petals in our pockets

May we remember who we are

Unconditionally cared for

By those who share our broken hearts

_______

The table is set

And all glasses are full

The pieces go missing

May we still feel whole

We'll build new traditions in place of the old

Cause life without revision will silence our souls

Last year, table after table was set, glass after glass filled. But the gaping hole of grief gnawed at me like an insatiable, unwelcome guest. Every table felt incomplete. There was a strange distance between me and everyone I was around. Like I was in a glass bubble and could see them, but I could touch them, couldn't really hear them. Those layers show up in many ways at various times, but all last Christmas I felt it. I couldn't enter fully into anything, because I wasn't whole. I am still not whole. I will always carry in me a bleeding wound. And it will only grow as the number of empty chairs rivals the number of full ones. And one day, the perpetually bleeding bite from grief, from death will kill me. Then I can fully enter in to the Kingdom come, to the City of God and the Feast of the Lamb. Strange how a fatal wound precedes life. 

The missing pieces haven't gaped so glaringly this year, but the numbness is still floating around. My heart, mind, and body are all topsy-turvy this season. The missing pieces can never be filled—but sometimes there is a new friend waiting in a vacant church pew; there is an old friend who remembers the ache with you, and even carries it with you for a bit. 

So, let the bells keep on ringing, making angels in the snow. And may the melody surround us, when the cracks begin to show this messy Christmas.

"Snow" by Sleeping at Last (Ryan O'Neal)

You Feel It

It's a curious thing, being alive—you feel it.

You feel the aliveness even in decay, in aches and pains.
You know life when the wind whispers in your ear,
and when the sun runs its fingers down your cheek.
And you feel alive when the wind is stiff, tries to tip you off a cliff,
when the sun burns your skin red and stains you with pain.

You feel the aliveness in beauty, in the ecstasy and the ache.
When music courses through your body to the gas pedal,
and when it courses down your face in briny drops.
When the sunset and the stars sing a symphony,
and when the storm clouds rage against your pane.

You feel the aliveness in the fear, propelling and suspending.
When terror races through your veins, pumping your legs,
and when it stings like ice, freezing your flight, your mind.
When you're so close to trepidation you can taste it,
you find that you feel frighteningly alive, alive, alive.

You feel the aliveness in hope, in its shock and comfort.
Someone offers a hug, a kind word, an unexpected gift,
and it jars your heart, opens eyes wide in surprise as they cry.
How can something so soothing still stun your soul?
See—impetuous generosity can change your life.

It's a haunting thing, being alive—you feel it.

Dear Elf-Friend

Ten years have disappeared,

Slowly, so-very-slowly in ways,

yet how fast and bleared

go those years of days 

So much has changed, 

and I've changed, too,

but some things stay the same—

like how I miss you

I missed the gift

of your letters, your self,

only when there was a rift

between you and health

Five years, nearly,

since I last saw you, so altered—

I miss you dearly,

even the way your words faltered

So much has stayed:

my foolish words and blind eyes—

but for change I often pray,

and the Lord hears my cries

I miss your songs

and poems, your wonder

and childlike joys, gone,

mind and reality torn asunder

Years and disease

have made you disappear, my friend—

Sorrow brings me to my knees

at how we came to an end

So much might resolve,

but my hopes wane,

as the days and years revolve,

and you don't write again

I miss who you were,

miss what I didn't value

enough when I had it, sir—

oh, if only we knew. . .

If we but knew

how to order our loves,

our minds, our days so few—

how to give thanks to Him above

Had I known

ten years ago,

had I received with thanks,

what difference would that make?

Glory Be to God for Dappled Things (Photo Update)

Typed words have been slow in coming this summer. Conversations have been far more prevalent this summer. My typed thoughts sit in a nice pile of drafts, unfinished. My conversations seem to simply go on and grow as the summer progresses. Poems have given way to painting. I have been thinking about life and Godliness through the lens of Harry Potter and a couple of thought-provoking films; through lots of conversations and the reading of a few CS Lewis pieces.

As it has been a while since I've actually published something here, I thought I would post a few photos from the summer to mark its progress.

Gog and MaGog with Tosha, Michael, and Ben (early June) 6mi

Some painting inspired by hard conversations, sad things happening to friends, and by the moon

Ditto

4th of July with my family!

Some reflections whilst listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Shrine Ridge wildflower hike with Tosha (late July) 6mi

Butler Gulch hike with Tosha (early August) 4?mi

Hiking Mt Sherman (14,036ft) 5.25mi

With these fellows (Aaron and Ben)

The end of the Mt Sherman hike, back by the truck. . .

Somewhere along the way I spent time with a couple of Oxford friends (Kasey June and both Kevin J and Kevin B); hyperventilated with laughter with Lyndi and Katie; watched Harry Potter 1-4 (so far) with the neighbours; watched Cinderella Man with a few other neighbours; had long phone calls or chats on the stairs by my house with various folks; got to see sweet AnnaClaire and talk (over dinner and cheese); sat on my porch and read Lewis while my sweet Brooke-friend journalled; have had a few interesting conversations with our bookstore intern; sat and listened to a local bluegrass band downtown; went to a lecture on Harry Potter and the Way of Power by Kyle Strobel; have had the opportunity to listen to Kevin Bywater speak; and have enjoyed hearing a lot of rain on the roof and the crickets—because maintenance replaced the pool motor with one that is much quieter!

All in all, it has been a very good summer and a growing summer. I am learning to lay down expectations and receive life as God hands it to me. I am learning to put up wiser boundaries with people and work (very much a practise and a process). I am learning to be faithful where I am. I am striving to not violate my conscience in the small matters that add up. I am more alive to Beauty and Hope. The Holy Spirit is breathing His life-giving breath on and in me—turning me from cold stone into living flesh and rippling hair. There is light and high Beauty beyond the shadow—weakness that is power that the darkness cannot fathom. There is life in sacrificial death. Loyalty and friendship have been embodied in stories, in the people I get the priviledge of knowing. Life is full—full of the glory of God.

All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be made well.