Quiet Your Heart: Breathe

Who knew standing in a steamy bathroom post-shower and listening to a lullaby in the mid-morning could be a spiritual experience? In the natural light filtered through the shower curtain the Divine met me where I was. . . Tired. 

Tired of signing paperwork and making phone calls; of learning, learning, learning all I can about loans, escrow, and house-buying; of shopping for flooring, appliances, and furniture; of learning about blood types, figuring out lists of all natural nursery items, what foods to eat and avoid; and of turning in my hours and thinking of all the to-do lists from work, the bank, the birth centre, our new house, and our current cabin. 

My brain and body are fatigued from all the stimuli. And I feel like I've been shortchanging the little person growing inside my womb, totally unprepared for their arrival, as we try to buy a house for them to grow up in. 

Enter a cosy bathroom, after a much-needed shower spent listening to part of a book about pregnancy and natural birth. Stopping after the most recent chapter, I turned on a playlist of lullabies by JJ Heller. A couple of weekends ago I pulled up the list, remembering enjoying it some months ago. I found myself crying over shredded zucchini and raisins while making muffins. Today I found myself tearing up and taking some deep, needed breaths to ground my body and connect with the little body inside. . . And the One who made them both. 

We pray together every evening, and often there are things I'm bringing to the Lord during the day. . . But today I badly needed to whisper out my fears. What if I'm not there for long to be a hand for our child to hold? What if something happens to me or Nick? How will the other spouse keep up the mortgage and parent? What if there's something wrong with baby or they develop some horrible disease?  

Normally I'm not a 'catastrophiser', but sometimes all the stress builds and builds and I finally realise it's there in the form of unspoken, unnamed fears. To-do lists I can check off, e-mails I can reply to, and I can always learn new things. But I can't always keep those nagging fears at bay. Oftentimes I don't even realise they've taken up residence in my heart or the back of my mind. They're what wake me up when I'm tired and want to still be sleeping under the cover of darkness. Somehow at that moment, though I start praying, I can't stop tossing and turning.

Yet when I pause in a moment of reconnecting with myself, my Creator, and the little person He has created in me, I can name those fears. I can hand them to the Lord, asking Him to direct the course of my life, of my marriage, of our parenting journey, and of our little one's story. My next breath isn't guaranteed, nor am I sure of a long life ahead. I never have been sure of those things—I simply expect the breaths and the days to go on and on. There's no way for me to know the number of either. Rather, I know that God will care for me, for my husband, and for my baby in the way we each need.  

When I first listened to the lullaby playlist, tears welled up as I thought of singing them over baby, wanting to root them in trust and my love for them.  But as I breathed out my fears, I began to hear the songs from my Heavenly Father to His tired, weak, fearful child who needed to be reminded that I can trust in His love for me and those I love.

Quiet your heart
It's just a dream
Go back to sleep

I'll be right here
I'll stay awake as long as you need me
To slay all the dragons
And keep out the monsters
I'm watching over you

My love is a light
Driving away all of your fear
So don't be afraid
Remember I made a promise to keep you safe

You'll have your own battles to fight
When you are older
You'll find yourself frozen inside

But always remember

If you feel alone
Facing the giants
And you don't know
What to do

My love is a light
Driving away all of your fear
So don't be afraid
Remember I made a promise to keep you safe

~ JJ Heller, I'll Keep You Safe

Year-End Musings

"You are unique. And you are surrounded by billions of other people, just as unique as you. Each of us is different, with some new angle on the world." 

—The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig

Ah, yes... I am unique. I live my life a certain way with certain rhythms—looking for wonder in  waterdrops and winter, in wassail and weary lines in the faces of men and women. My little cabin has its own flair and friendliness, its own warmth and whimsy. 

You are likely unique in other ways and interested in other things. Your room or home could tell me volumes about you without any words being spoken. 

We long to be our unique, intricate selves. Yet what is it that simultaneously pulls at us, making us long to be like others, to find kindreds? We may not want to be like the 'common person,' but even in our uniqueness, we are looking for 'our people,' the place we fit in.  

What are these at-odds desires that pull at us? The desire to be different, to walk our own path...and the desire to find someone like us?

Love and War

"If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are."

—Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale 

...And that sometimes love turns into war.

—Me

By which above comment I mean: Sometimes when we are loved and inspired to be better than we were, it shapes who we are, even when we are run raw by war.

Come, Let us Judge

Can we get something straight? It is okay to judge. I know it is the unpardonable sin of our society, but it is not unpardonable before God. In fact, he calls Christians to judge.1

Before someone runs off decrying me as a heretic, let’s talk about what judging is. To judge means to esteem, to select or choose, to determine or resolve, to sift or weigh evidence, or to pronounce an opinion between right and wrong.2 In short, it means to assess. Not to be confused with asses: what people make of themselves when they draw no distinction between judging and condemning, trying to shut down reasoned assessment by crying, “Don’t judge me!”

Though the word “judge” may at times be translated to condemn, it is not the first or top use for the word—in either the lexicon or the dictionary. A person can be praised for having good judgment (discernment), but shouted down the next moment for judging (having an opinion). I have witnessed Christians bandy about the first four verses of Matthew 7, only to have them completely miss verse five:

Don’t [judge], and then you won’t be [judged]. For others will treat you as you treat them. And why worry about a speck in the eye of a brother when you have a board in your own? Should you say, ‘Friend, let me help you get that speck out of your eye,’ when you can’t even see because of the board in your own? Hypocrite! First get rid of the board. Then you can see to help your brother. “Don’t give holy things to depraved men. Don’t give pearls to swine! They will trample the pearls and turn and attack you. (Matt 7:1-6 TLB emphasis mine)

Let’s see what Matthew’s words look like, fleshed out in our mirrors, in our daily interactions with people. . . How we make assessments or criticise others is the same measure that will be applied to us. We don’t live up to our own critiques, let alone God’s, so it is important to first know and love God, and next to ask the Lord to help us to be holy as he is holy. Whereby, we are able to not only use God’s word to assess our fellow men, but to first use it to judge our own motives and actions. Though we also sin, it does not mean that if we see a fellow believer outside the boundaries of God’s word that we can ignore his sin. It is our calling to examine our own hearts before God and then to help set our brother straight again (James 5:19-20).

We are to be both bold and humble if we see our brother in sin. Bold in speaking the truth, humble in our motives—do we desire our friend’s good and growth, or do we just want to be right? Before we approach a fellow believer who is in sin, we need to first turn away from any sin in our own hearts and lives. Not long ago, when a friend of mine was angry, he said some very untrue and unkind things to and about me. Though I was praying before our conversation to clear things up, I began snipping at him and accusing him once we began talking. Right in the middle of our conversation, I heard my tone and I knew that whatever else the case may be, I was in the wrong. I prayed silently for the Lord to forgive my attitude, and that I would be humble enough to ask for forgiveness. 

When I next had the opportunity to speak, I took a deep breath and asked if we could start again, asking for forgiveness for my cutting words and haughty heart. The tenor of our conversation changed immediately from heated battle to comrades-in-arms, fighting together against the enemy who sows discord among brethren. Once I had removed the “board” in my own “eye” by confessing my sin to God and my friend, I was free to approach my brother to help him remove the speck in his eye. We are not free to call out sin in a haughty spirit, but instead, to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15)—and love is not arrogant. We are not free to simply say nothing—He who knows the good he ought to do and does not do it, to him it is sin, says James (James 4:17).

Note that I say these things about making a judgment in regards to our fellow believers. Even though God holds us all to his standard, Christians are to judge differently between believers and non-Christians (I Cor 5: 9-10, 12-13). We are specifically called to judge (discern the words and actions of) our fellow Christians; not to throw away the holy gift of speaking wise judgments to evil men, as Matt 7:6 says above. We must speak the truth, of course, but we must let God hold unbelievers to his standard—that is his role, not ours. It is okay to call sin what it is: sin. It is okay to stand up for God’s character. And in the painful times when a brother continues persistently and unrepentantly in sin—even after exhortation and Godly confrontation—Paul tells us we must break fellowship with him (as in the case of unrepentant, gross sexual immorality in I Cor 5:11).

It is okay to judge—to sift a matter, to observe behaviour patterns, to see if actions and words align, to see if there is good fruit and assess the roots thereby. We can do this for all men. We cannot judge (in the condemnation or passing a sentence manner) the hearts of men, because only God knows the heart of a man. We are called to be discerning of what we observe. Let us, “Live life, then, with a due sense of responsibility, not as men who do not know the meaning and purpose of life but as those who do. Make the best use of your time, despite all the difficulties of these days. Don’t be vague but firmly grasp what you know to be the will of God” (Eph 5:15-17 PHILLIPS).

We must not be vague—we must make wise judgments based on what we know of the will and the character of God. We do not have to back away from speaking the truth simply because someone demands that we “do not judge” them. We must ask for the boldness, courage, love, and humility that we need to continue to judge rightly, to turn away from our own sin, and to help our brother to turn away from his, too. So, come, let us judge.

__________

1. See Matt 7:5, I Cor 5:3, 12

2. krino or judge as defined in the Strong's Concordance

Changing Seasons and Cello Strings

I wish I could write words and have them flow out in music. Tonight's words would be cello and classical guitar—calm, reflective, soothing. There would be the deep voice of the cello, humming that there is no hurry, no place to be. The intricate finger-picking of the guitar would be the drops of thoughts all strung together, drip-dropping slow and steady. Tonight's music would be dark cello softly illuminated by stars of silvery guitar. . .the clear calm of night after a whirlwind. 

Because, life has felt rather like a cacophonous, rushing wind in the last weeks. Work and weddings and writing. New seasons and more responsibilities. These punctuated by loss—coming home to me in a score of ways, in unexpected moments or places. Marriage is so very good, but it changes friendships, and the loss sweeps over me in final slumber parties, in having to share my dearest friends in sacred moments. I don't mind being on my own, but I do mind my fellow adventurer's getting swept further up the mountain at new and different paces. 

And yet. . .if I love my friends—and I do—then I want what is best for them. If it is walking with someone else more often than with me, if it is for their deeper good, if it draws them closer to the Lord, then I will not slow their steps. . .I will not seek to hold them back. Now I am encouraged to change my pace, or to call more frequently upon the Shepherd, the Prince of the High Countries. I can still walk with my friends, even if we are not exactly in sync anymore, and I am grateful for that. They still spur me on, encouraging me to go further up and further in.

As the dust of the whirlwind settles, I find myself too much the same. Rhythms are well and good, but they should not become ruts, deep wells to confine my vision and my stride. It isn't that I should stop taking joy in Autumn colours and crisp air and the scent of crunchy leaves. . .Nor should I cease to find pleasure and renewal in making a meal or crafting thoughts with paints or words. I should not find that Beauty is hollow and empty because the season of life has changed. 

Every season of the year has its special Beauty. Each season comes and fades by degrees to make it bearable. Seasons will not be rushed. They ought not be hurried to or through. Each has glories to enjoy. Perhaps each season also teaches us, a little more, how to be thankful even for the things we don't like. Summer's heat and beating sun are what make the mountain meadows blossom. Though I love Winter, many do not enjoy its frigid cold and barrenness. But the sting of Winter's chill brings a rosy glow to our cheeks; the barren trees sway in their unique Beauty—perhaps if they were never bare, we might not realise how rich it is to have their scores of leaves in the other seasons. Even Winter's grey skies make us appreciate blue ones and they give us the chance to stay indoors before a cosy fire with friends or belovéd stories.

Seasons are good in life, too. Or so I tell myself. Reminded that they come creeping in often—though not always—like a green leaf with gilded edges slowly becomes wholly golden. It is a process for change to happen. Thus, I will not lose my friends in a day—or perhaps at all—though the relationships will change. I will not become good in a day, either. I will not form new and better character all at once, but by daily asking for the Spirit of the Living God to have His way in and through me. I must also submit my will, must expect that the Spirit truly will come, in order for new habits to be formed. 

Tonight carries on, like a throaty cello, reflective. The day melds into evening, the stars are o'erhead. A good dinner and a London Fog cannot fix the loss I feel inside; yet I have savoured these special things, being glad for them and for tastebuds, thankful that the change of seasons is gradual this time. 

Refusing to be 'Singled' Out

How Should the Church Treat Singles?

“Another one bites the dust” is the relationship theme song I resonate with lately. I can barely go a month without one of my friends telling me they are dating or engaged. I have been in—or behind the scenes of—quite a few weddings in the last year or two. This is not the first round of this life-season for me. It happened a couple of years after high school, again after my higher education terms, and now that many friends are approaching their late twenties and thirties. There have been quite a few seasons of babies among my friends, too. It is a constant ebb and flow.

None of this is surprising—it is the rhythm of life. It feels new and exciting and surreal when it happens to you or your closest friends, but it sounds pretty normal to everyone else. What might sound abnormal to some is that I am pleased for my friends, but I don’t want to be in their shoes. Oh, I have twinges of unfulfilled hopes when I watch the father-daughter dance at weddings. I am human, I want someone to go through life with—to care about and to be vulnerable with. Sappy songs make me sad every now and then. Sometimes I feel at loose ends, like I should have someone to share something with, but they aren’t there. The longing to be loved is natural, put in our hearts by Divine Love himself.

More often than not, however, I am thankful to be single. Singleness is not synonymous with loneliness. This truth often seems to evade people—especially church people. They ask some strange questions at times, and snarky me replies in my head (well-taught-me answers with much more tact). The one I hear most often rings hollow to me, “About the time I became content with my singleness, I met my spouse.” Strange, I think to myself, I’ve been contentedly, cheerfully, single for many years and ‘Poof!’ I have no husband. Thanks for sharing without caring to enquire whether or not I enjoy being single. Every now and then someone will tell me (none-too-subtly) they would like me to meet their son, though no one has ever followed through on helping such a meeting to take place. Now, I’m not opposed to getting married, it simply isn’t my calling at this point—I am quite satisfied with all that I have and am called to right now.

Words upon words have been written about relationships—both the dating kind and all others (as if those are the only two categories there are). I have heard plenty of married people tell me they wished they had enjoyed their single years while they had them. Many a single friend has told me of their ache to be married. That pain is real, I understand. Usually, I choose not to add my voice to those conversations, as they have been had many times already by people who are wiser than I am.

Rather, I choose to opine about feeling like someone who grew a third head on the spot, or like the Invisible Man at various church gatherings. How should the church treat singles? For starters, it would help not to be pitied or unseen. Singleness isn’t a disease. It would also be great if people wouldn’t ask all those frustrating questions—”Have you tried online dating?”—as if I were dying to get married, or am unaware of how to meet people of the opposite sex. If you are so concerned, invite a few unmarried men and women over for dinner so they can spend time together comfortably. It would be a relief not to be “singled” out—either made an outcast or lumped into groups of other single people. What I am trying to say is that it would be helpful if singles were treated simply as human beings, not as ‘singles’. We are persons, not slices of Kraft cheese.

Churches that don’t have a singles’ group receive my mental applause. The ones that have small groups of mixed ages are hailed with gratitude. How will I ever learn what marriage is if I don’t see it lived out in front of me (in others besides my parents)? Peer groups often feel like the blind leading the blind. I need folks who are older and wiser than I am speaking into my life, telling me their stories, sharing their wisdom and what God is teaching them through Scripture. I have friends in their forties, fifties, and sixties with whom I love spending a long evening—to hear and to share about life and Godliness. I probably need more of these friends. These are the friends who share their homes, their meals, their thoughts on literature and society—the friends who open the Word of God to me.

We are all human beings first. Yes, we are male or female. Married or unmarried. Old or young. Gifted in this or gifted in that. Dichotomies aside, however, we are all in need of Love, of Beauty, of being made Holy as God is Holy. We all need Truth to anchor our lives. We need our family and friends. We need to give and to receive—graciously, humbly. We need stillness and the sounds of life. We need time alone and time in fellowship. We all need Jesus.

Why focus on the things that divide us? Perhaps that is the reason I don’t like being labelled “single”—or “female” or “white” or whatever other label people try to stick on each other. It is not an us-against-them sort of life. Life that truly is life is lived together—and that is much harder than separating off into our little factions or comfortable autonomy, isn’t it?

Secondhand Stories...

Honey-coloured sunlight pours warm across my shoulders, across the flyleaf of the little book in my hands, where a name is neatly inscribed. The name on the opening page is not my own—no, this little book was purchased used, from a cottage crammed rafters to floorboards with many of the book's kindreds. In such cases, I often wonder what would happen if the owner ever sold out of a stack—or even a single tome in the stack—in a crucial placement. Would the roof cave in, leaving a hole of sky-light rushing through?

Ah, but it was the name on the page that captured my attention, not said book's fascinating location when I came across it. The name was common enough, written in neat penmanship in the right-hand corner: Hunter Swanson. He must have been anxious to prove ownership or have his book returned to him, because he had also crimped the page with a 'From the library of Hunter Swanson' stamp. 

Why, then, is his book amongst my collection? By reason that I had inquired after that particular title in the curious, brimming bookshop. From those copious stacks, the proprietor went straight to a single column, fished out the book from sheer memory, and placed it in my hands. I was so impressed with his knowledge of the book towers that I bought the book on the spot. Granted, as I had entered the shop partly in search of that particular title, it was nearly inevitable that I would purchase it if found. 

Yet again I have strayed from Hunter Swanson and his book lying upon my glass-top table. Who would get rid of a book in which they had both stamped and inked their name? Or perhaps I should ask why? Why would a person give or sell their book to a fellow whose shop is held up by mounds of tomes? Did they despise the writing-style of the memoir? Was the book given to them by a Love, no longer part of their life? Maybe those names we see printed on cover pages have been printed in newspaper ink followed by date of birth and date of death. I do not envy the souls who have to sort, share, and sell a beloved's books upon their death. Or perhaps one has a small cabin which cannot store all of their books, so they give away the ones they have never read or do not plan to read.

There are simply handfuls of reasons why one might give away or sell their library. Still, it seems to me that if you wrote and stamped your name inside the cover of a volume, it must be one you like or would like to have returned to you. Perhaps Hunter Swanson will read this and ask for his book back, which would be a bit sad, because I would like to finish it. But I almost wish Mr Swanson would read this and request his book, because then I could ask him if it really was important and what he liked about it. I could know why this slim book ended up in the tottering piles in the first place. 

Sometimes people are like books in a secondhand store—you wonder how they are in such-and-such a state. Are they like they are because they have loved and lost? What has shaped the story of the person walking by in the airport, on the street, at your church? Where are they going? How will our stories overlap? If Jesus has written His love into our stories, does that love spill into the lives of those we meet? If Jesus has written His name across the cover page of our lives, that means He has claimed us, that He wants us back if ever we are lost. He sees something inside of us that makes us precious to Him—He sees His own signature written on the very first page. We are His, and that makes us valuable.

All these ideas germinated from a name scrawled in a small paperback edition of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. For now, the book lives in a good home, producing much thought—and I have only read the flyleaf.

_____________

* Cross-posted at humanepursuits.com

Darkness Comes to Cudgel My Brain

The leaves of the oak tree glisten with rain

As Darkness comes to cudgel my brain

Tonight with fingers, clenched fists—

Probing, pummelling, heaping on shame,

Thick as ghost-fog and obscuring mists.

Birch boles are black in the shade,

Their creamy skin can only fade

Away, shrink away, hide from eyes

Ever-watching since the day they were made,

Swaying into the snare of the lies...

...Lies that enter the heart, rotting the core

Of the trees-turned-dark; of me, a whore

Inside—my mind, my heart—broken,

Fallen in love with myself, wanting more,

Always insatiable for a counterfeit token

Of love—which is only lust thinly masked,

Glossy outside, alluring as red wine, long-casked

And flowing free—with no thought of tomorrow

When the head-shattering pain remains, unasked,

And Darkness leaves in its wake only false sorrow

Which we call guilt, that cannot cover up lust

Any more than gilt leaf can make a bust

Pure gold all the way through, or trying hard

Can make us new; we can only rust

Under sin's corrosion, once innocent, now marred.

Tomorrow arrives, is today; and the heart-shattering 

Pain of disfiguring corruption is scattering

All faculties of feeling, of sorrow, of true shame

And the eruption of sin, full-fledged, isn't flattering—

I am excoriated, a shell, with only myself to blame.

Night drones on within, filling the hollow

With nought but shadows. Here I wallow

In self-pity and despair, I cannot heal

Myself, save myself—this is hard to swallow,

And know with my life, as I no longer feel

Alive, feel at all, or know repentance-giving-grief.

Inside, the Darkness flutters, kicks, seeks relief

In a wail, a cry for life-breath, for the burning

Spirit of Holiness to come as the thief

Who steals my heart, plunders me back, returning

Me to the rightful King of the world wide—

Eyes wide, as feeling returns with the Spirit inside

Of my fragile heart-shards—redemption is here.

Apathy drains out, life surges in to veins long denied

Its crimson tide by the strangling fingers of fear...

Of being found out, found wanting—ludicrous pride

Kept me locked in the gnawing, growing dark

That threatened to keep me trapped like a lark,

Caged. Enraged at my own selfish choices,

But powerless to save myself—the truth, stark—

I begged for mercy, "Yours." A Voice says...

My face is in His hands, turned toward His eyes,

I see them glistening with tears at my cries

For help, desperate though they were,

I couldn't get out of the dirt, I surmise,

Because I was so focussed on me, so sure

That I could do something to save my soul,

Yet always giving up or in, a wobbly foal

Unable to even stand on the legs given me

Without the Spirit's breath standing me whole

And upright—from Darkness I am made free...

"The Light, the Light!" I cry, covering my face,

Feeling crushed by glory's weight in the space

Of my small frame. The holy, searing Light

Is what I need for healing, soundness—both grace—

To fix what I cannot, to cure me from sin's bite.

The Liturgy of Home: Place and Practise

Fog diffuses light and shadow, shrouds the world around me in unfamiliar shapes, bringing with it the damp smells of earth and balsam. Raucous calls emanate from the rook perched amongst the pines. Watching, listening, I sit still—allowing the morning’s wild silence to feed my soul. I revel in weekends and mornings; their hours hold out strong fingers of life and help to me. A cheery kettle often whistles its tea-song as I poach an egg or wipe the table. Benedictine’s chant a Psalm whilst I wash the dishes, my own prayers rising with their strains and the water’s steam.

Morning rhythms thrum through my day, setting the tone for the day’s song. If I begin with a Psalm and moments for prayer, the first melody is strong. If I add to that the kitchen tidying and sweeping, a chord of harmony twines into the day. Weaving in reading or writing—if I have given myself enough time for leisure—the chorus grows more substantial by the time I greet my fellow workmates. This is home—this practise of cultivating habits and routines which chart the course of days and weeks.

I grew up in a home that was less focussed on punctuality and more concerned with ‘life together.’ My mother set routines both around the morning meal and reading Scripture aloud to me and my sisters. My father would engage us all in conversation over dinner, leaving time to read together after the table was cleared or just before bed. Sometimes we would shift our evening routine, having friends over for dinner or coffee. We would hold hands and pray together. There we were, gathered around the table, listening to stories and laughing over the trifling events of the day—glad for friends with whom we could share both words and meals.

Time swirls on as ever—I cannot believe how many years ago I grew up in my parents’ home. I have since moved to my own cottage, a tiny cabin peering out at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Here I have scrubbed, dusted, and decorated. I have laughed and cried, both with friends and alone. I have acquired and organised books and bookshelves. Here I have stocked cabinets with tea and food to serve at the whim of a knock. And here I have learned that being still is a practise—not an intrinsic right that comes with living solo.

It seems safe to say that home is a place of comfort and cheer, of peace and pleasure. If you do not believe me, think of the households where there is chaos, violence, stony silence, instability, or abuse. Out of these dens come hurting individuals, hungry for peace, yearning for safety and love. Acceptance and care, feeling like they belong, is the home-feeling they are looking for—whether it comes from a gang or a healthy family.

Indeed, home is a place, not a nebulous placeholder, like your internet browser’s so-called ‘homepage.’ Yet home is much more than a tactile frame of timber and glass. Home is a practise—the practical application of routines and daily liturgy. Home is private—a place to rest and a bulwark from the buffeting tempests of life-storms. Home is public—an open-door-hospitality sort of shelter for friends and family in times both of laughter and tears.

We live in a culture that is anything but home-like. It separates, drawing individuals off into solitary pursuits, or keeping families so busy that a meal together is an anomaly. Busy-ness and individualism are the antitheses to home life, community, and sanity. Keeping a frenetic schedule allows precious little time for reflection, an act of both soul and spirit that is needed to balance reality and dreams.

Knowing that reflection is an essential need, I make space for it in my mornings and weekends. Sometimes this means setting aside books and screens, simply looking out the window as I enjoy a meal, or sitting on my porch watching the rain drip from the pine needles. Other times, this means going for a solitary walk. As I was reflecting recently, I realised that the way my parents raised me and my sisters was not perfect, but it was good. The ‘life together’ aspect of the dinner table, of evening recreation, of opening our home or going to friends’ homes, of working together in the garden or to make dinner set a theme for my life. These things painted a robust and rich picture of home for me.

We need flourishing homes in our lonely, fragmented culture. Are our homes the sort that cast a beam of warm, golden light out into the dark of night? Do the weary, worn, busy travellers along the road of life find us—and our dwellings—places of solace? May the habits we practise—order, hospitality, togetherness, and reflection—shine out into the inky night as a beam of hope for all who see it and choose to come inside.

Why?

Oh, the questions we ask You, Begetter of the universe. 

You, Who spun waves and particles into golden light, we question if Your hands are big enough to hold us. You, Who breathed life into our spirits and our dusty frames, we pause to ask if You care about us. You, Whose finger carved words into the dirt, we ask if You care enough to write our stories, to show us what You want from us and for us.

You, Who entered time, slipped into skin, felt rejection and loneliness—we presume You have left us when our blind eyes cannot see You, and Your presence is not palpable. You, Who are called the Light of the world, we ask where You have gone when we wander in darkness. You, Who carefully marked the trenches of the world, poured its foundation, and sent the Cornerstone, why do we think You are incapable of answering our question marks?

Why does our friend have to walk through that valley? Our family member suffer that pain? Why do our own hearts, crushed, drip red in the darkness and in the blaze of day?

We ask when You will show up, why You allowed tragic loss, why there is emptiness sucking at our hearts like a black hole. Why does the darkness feel overwhelming, when the Light has rendered darkness outmoded, dead, and chased away?

There was a time when You stepped into our world. When eternity became now. You bought us back from hopeless death. And still we question. Still we scream. Still we shake our fists and walk away. You, Who never promised life would be easy, we expect to right everything, now. You, Who never explained Yourself to Job, we expect to spell out every answer to our every why? We expect You to operate like we do, to think in our human boxes, in our narrow line of sight. You, Creator, Sustainer, Holy One, Alpha, Omega... You, immortal, immutable, invisible, we ask to explain Yourself to our finite minds, to contain Yourself in a kernel of knowing that will fit inside of us. But You cannot be contained in our minds, in our paltry understanding, or in our broken hearts.

You are bigger than that—vast, eternal. You fill us, overfull, and splash out onto those we touch. Your love only multiplies. The ringing of Your Truth reverberates throughout the galaxies, resounding through the entire universe. How can we think it is all contained in one book, in one heart, in one mind, in one planet? 

It is not that we do not need to know why—sometimes we cannot know an answer so immense. We are too close to see the whole, to see clearly. We cannot explain away pain, abandoned hearts, our death valleys, or all the other dark shadows that cross over our lives. Neither can we explain why the storm clouds come to us, or why the Light doesn't break through and scare all our monsters away. Maybe we aren't strong enough to endure the illuminating rays that would break those clouds, eliminate that darkness. Perhaps we are being made ready to bear the weight of light—something weightless in our world—that, coming from the heavenly realm, is so dense that it would crush us. 

In a moment of unknowing I whisper, But why, God? Then, I choose to hang my question on these spoken pegs of Hope, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. I do not always know what that Mercy looks like in this moment, in this day, in this shadow world. What form will Mercy take? Sometimes His Mercy is severe. Once, it took the form of flesh, nailed to a cross—suffering with us.

God is not "out there" but right here, with us—even when I cannot feel Him or see Him, and the clouds do not part. He is not against me—or you. He does not say why He does what He does, or why He allows various things. He withholds His mighty hand at times, and I don't know why. I only know He will not leave us all alone.

Lord have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Grant us Your peace.

Well Donne

Once, I was in a sea of persons at the airport and I heard chime over the loudspeaker, "Paging John Donne. Please come to ___ airlines service desk." I laughed. Probably it was John Dunn, a common enough name. But sometimes I have wondered if that announcer was more interested in literature than in paging people. Perhaps he was playing a hilarious joke that only he, and a very few other literary travellers, could smile about to themselves.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

~ John Donne

The Telltale Heart

Do You Listen to Your Heart, or Does it Listen to You?

Have you ever realised that Disney princess films and pop love songs have the same mantra? Think about it, they all whisper the same line: listen to your heart. There is even a classic 80's song by that name. Some of the lines are as follows:

Sometimes you wonder if this fight is worthwhile
The precious moments are all lost in the tide, yeah
They're swept away and nothing is what it seems,
the feeling of belonging to your dreams

Listen to your heart
when he's calling for you 
Listen to your heart
there's nothing else you can do...

 There is nothing else you can do... Really? Are we simply trapped in the dichotomy of listening to our hearts or listening to outside opinions? As with most dichotomies presented to us, this one is false. We do not have to listen to our hearts to be happy (happiness is temporary, anyway), nor do we have to live under someone else's idea of success. When life does not go as planned, when we feel the pressure of needing to achieve the American dream, or we feel miserable because we have not achieved some idea of love, success, and affluence, we absolutely should not listen to our hearts. We should not listen to the world, or even well-meaning Christians breathing out 'feel better' pop psychology.

What other option do we have, if we ought not listen to the world or to our hearts? We need to tell our hearts. We need to speak Truth to our hearts and minds, even when we feel miserable.  The most oft quoted reason for unhappiness I hear from my friends is, "I don't have a boyfriend!" Is a spouse your idea of success? Have you made a good thing an idol? Do not wallow in the misery of what you have not. Speak Truth to your heart, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing," says the writer of Proverbs. Marriage is good. But if you are not married, then singleness is your garment of glory. 

I want you to be free from the concerns of this life. An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord’s work and thinking how to please him. But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife. His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband. I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.

 ~ St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 7

Perhaps you are in true lament, a valid thing for Christians to do. You are not wallowing, you are deeply lamenting the loss of a person, a dream, a good thing, or the way your relationship with God used to be. Speak Truth to your heart in this, too. Lamentation is not a sin, but in the midst of grieving, remind your heart to hope.

The valid lament: 

For I used to go with the multitude;
I went with them to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and praise,
With a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast.

Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

 The equally valid Truth spoken to the heart/soul:

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance.

(Psalm 42:4-5, NKJV)

We may not be yet in the place where we have hope in God, and certainly not in a place of rejoicing. However, we must speak Truth to ourselves: hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, as the English Standard Version words it. The Psalmist is reminding his own heart of how he used to joyfully praise God. Yet it is no longer he who is so full of praise that he is at the head of the people going to God's house. Does he sit down an kick and scream? No, he tells his heart to hope in God, for at some point in the future he will again be able to Praise Him.

Perhaps you are in the midst of many crises all at once. I know many persons who are in that place - health troubles, family frustrations, financial crunches, and cars breaking down are just part of their stress. In that place I am tempted to say, "God, a little kindness, some ray of hope would be great right about now. Look at all I am going through, I deserve a little help." Yet I do not dare to believe that I deserve anything from God. All is gift, as a friend of mine told me recently. It is true, all is gift. I cannot win God's goodness or kindness. I cannot earn my redemption and salvation. I do not deserve any good thing from the hand of God. All He gives is a gift, and all I can do is to receive that gift with an open (not grasping) hand. This I must remind my heart, when it would rather think it was entitled to good things.


Finally, after you tell your heart what is True, do not become myopic. Do not dwell on how right you were and how wrong your friend was in an argument. Do not sit on the couch feeling overwhelmed when there is laundry to do, or dishes to wash. Speak Truth to your heart and then do something. Sometimes that means taking a long walk -- without a friend, phone, or iPod. Sometimes it means cleaning your house. And sometimes it means looking at the trees and the sky, simply listening to the silence.

~ Johanna

 

We Are Still Trees

A rook's coarse cry rends the snowy hush of this pearl-grey afternoon. On my desk awaits a piece of crusty, warm, homemade potato bread - liberally spread with butter. My thoughts turn to the brisk walk I enjoyed this morning...

Fine snow blew from every direction. Stinging my eyes, settling on my nose, eyebrows, and hair, it filled my very soul with vibrant life. Along the paths I tread were birds, birds, birds: a flock of  three dozen robins, a brace of red-shafted Northern flickers, a downy woodpecker, and (my favourite) a pair of nuthatches. Drawn by the chatter of birds, I turned into a quiet cul-de-sac, enjoying the view of fast-falling snow upon tall golden grass. Next to that avian sanctuary a line of snow along the trunk of a pine tree caught my gaze. A fir, slanted at a forty-degree angle from earth. How had I not seen it before? 

I paused my forward motion to drink in the sight, to ponder this tree's perseverance. Like other trees, it grew straight and up. Unlike other trees, it did so at an angle, rather than perpendicular to the ground. Some hardship or radical impact had drastically changed the course of this pine, yet it remained a tree, growing as it ought.

This gave me pause to think on my own life, and the lives of several of my friends. We do not pursue life at the pace of forty-plus hours a week, an MA or DPhil, spouses and children, or numerous other things many consider the mark of a 'normal' person. We pursue the good life from a different angle.

We study both books and persons not for a diploma, but for the sake of challenging our minds and hearts. We work as a means to keep our lights and heat on, to put food in our cupboards, yes. But we also see work as an end itself, something to be enjoyed; whether it is the work that gives us the funds to put bread on the table, or the work of making the bread to put on that table. When we do not have spouses and children of our own, we learn instead to enjoy the time spent with married couples, children, peers, and those older than we. Being gracious is a continual refining process. Opening my home, pantry, and heart to others takes effort, but the rewards are bountiful. 

 My friends and I are humans, cultivating life, growing as we ought: toward God, with others,  while stewarding the gifts (physical, mental, emotional) given by Providence. Though we desire and seek things that other persons do, we are often seen as 'not normal', because we seek those things differently. We desire friendship, enjoy Beauty, find work cathartic,  want to enrich our minds, etc., like any healthy human being ought. Yet those of us who undertake to live fully are seen as stumps, as compared with growing trees.

The fact is, we are much like that fir tree, growing upward and in a linear direction, but at an angle. We are still trees, still growing as we were designed to grow. Our position relative to the ground has simply changed due to hardship or a radical impact... But we are still trees.

~ Johanna

The LORD is King Forever

The Lord sat enthroned at the Flood,
And the Lord sits as King forever.
The Lord will give strength to His people;
The Lord will bless His people with peace.

~ Psalm 29:10-11

When the flood waters rose upon the earth, God was the ruler of the Universe. He saved Noah and his family through those violent waves. The LORD sat enthroned when David wrote Pslams, tended sheep, killed Goliath, and when king Saul tried to kill him. God reigns now in the midst of our political and economic woes, and more personally, in the thick of our own sorrows and great joys. Indeed, the LORD is King forever. He is always on His throne, constantly sovereign. He is the One who will give us strength in our weakness, and hope in our hurting and brokenness. 

I do not know how many times I have read Psalm 29, glazing over those final verses, but this week when I read them, I saw them. I heard them. I knew something in them was more true than I knew (experientially) before. God is good. God is King over all of creation, over all circumstances. It is God who is our Strength in our weakness - and we are always weak. And only God Himself can grant us peace. 

When I read these verses this week I realised something else: if God is our King, our Strength, and our Peace, He is also worthy of our praise. Circumstances do not dictate whether or not God is worthy of praise - He is always worthy. It is we who must learn to praise Him when life is at its highest joys, and its deepest sorrows.

I will praise You Lord my God
Even in my brokenness
I will praise You Lord
I will praise You Lord my God
Even in my desperation
I will praise You Lord

And I can't understand
All that You allow
I just can't see the reason
But my life is in Your hands
And though I cannot see You
I choose to trust You

Even when my heart is torn I will praise (trust) You Lord
Even when I feel deserted I will praise (trust) You Lord
Even in my darkest valley I will praise (trust) You Lord
And when my world is shattered and it seems all hope is gone
Yet I will praise You Lord

I will trust You Lord my God
Even in my loneliness
I will trust You Lord
I will trust You Lord my God
Even when I cannot hear You
I will trust You Lord

And I will not forget
That You hung on a cross
Lord You bled and died for me
And if I have to suffer
I know that You've been there
And I know that You're here now

~ Johanna

Music: Heart and Soul

Do you ever wish you could sit down at a piano and have your ideas flow out of your fingers? Perhaps you can do that. I cannot. I have a hard enough time letting my thoughts flow through my fingers to the pen or keyboard. But music... Music has a way of reaching to our souls more deeply than so many words on a page.


A lively tune can set our feet and hearts to dancing. Some songs pierce our hearts with their Beauty, their depth. Other pieces rend our hearts with their pain and loss. Music can make us feel courageous, patriotic, melancholy, vulnerable,  pensive, inspired, or cheerful. Music can both break our hearts and mend them.

Music is something to which we respond. It moves us, makes us, breaks us. Yet we make music, we break music (rap?), we try to make it fit to ourselves. One of my former tutors wrote a short bit about this here: Symphony As Landscape. The comments he made intrigued me: 

"For me, the music is not a soundtrack to something else; it is its own reality and it makes a first claim on me. Put very roughly, as I listen, I surrender my attention to it; I am less important than the music and my attention is on it and not on anything else. I am aware of its contours and features; my feelings about them are secondary, not primary."

(Rikky Rooksby)

There is something remarkable about music... It is both a thing to tame and create, as well as a thing that creates various feelings, moods, or resolutions within us. It is obviously a gift from God -- only God's gifts are set in tension like that.

Music is not simply 'background noise' - it is its own 'self' as it were. It has a personality imbued from its creator, yet it has themes and lines of its own, apart from how the composer may have planned things. Visual arts, writing, crafting things, music -- they all have a way of taking on a direction and 'self' of their own. If the creator is willing to let his work live, that is. I think it is these moments in our work, our play, our sub-creating where we most 'image' God. When our work takes on its own 'personality', it is often then that God speaks to us (and others) through us. We just have to step aside and let Him breathe the life into the work.

~ Johanna

For more thoughts on this, please do yourself a favour, read The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers, or Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle.

Post Script:  I write this from an writer's perspective, not a musician's. A musician would more deeply understand the soul and the way of music. I can only try to grasp a little of how music influences me, and how (like other mediums), music is its own being with its own 'personality'.

Our Work is Our Play

Drudgery is not what our work is meant to be.
Our work should be our play.

~ Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water (pg 199, Waterbrook Press)

Monday mornings seem to have a connotation of displeasure. The weekend is over and it is 'back to the grind'. Or is it? The etymology of the word grind is to 'destroy by crushing,' the very opposite of create which means to 'beget or bring forth, to grow.' What do you do at work each day? Do you destroy things, or birth new ideas and items? 

Now think, what do you do in your 'play' or down time? Often our time spent in recreation (literally re-creation) is very focused. Perhaps you like to trail run or rock climb, both take training, eating well, and dedication. Or maybe you, like me, enjoy cooking. I find it a delightful challenge taking various elements and combining them into something entirely different. There is ingenuity and creativity in bringing forth new recipes. And so it goes -- reading orders one's mind. Writing requires discipline and effort. Sports demand physical stamina, sweat, and work. Playing an instrument requires continual practice.

Not all play is re-creative, however. There are plenty of things one can do in their down time that is really a grind. Things like oversleeping, getting drunk, and 'vegging out' in front of the television or computer can wear down a person's mental acuity and physical initiative. If you feel drained and mentally numb after your day off has it really been profitable?

"Go on with your work as usual, for work is a blessed solace." 

~ Marmee in Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (page 184)

Indeed, work is a blesséd solace, it is our play, even. For our work and our play should both be a creative, birthing process. We may receive financial compensation for our daily work, perhaps even for our re-creation (writing, crafts, concerts, and so forth done outside of our daily work). Both work and play should leave us feeling tired -- not with an empty, dull ache -- but because something has been accomplished. 

God created (a work in itself!) work for Adam and Eve. He gave them responsibilities and work the very day they were brought into being. Work was not a retribution for the fall, it is not a curse. Vain toil, resistance to the order we are trying to bring are a part of the curse, but work itself is not.

Have you ever noticed that the weeks you have the most work are also your most productive at home? Work helps us to order our time, to make the most of our freedom. I find that the weeks I have the most hours in the mailroom are also the weeks I write the most blogs, letters, and e-mails; the weeks I spend time with my friends; the weeks I am more dedicated to cleaning my home, or cooking more exotic meals. Our free time becomes more valuable when we have less of it, so we are more apt to choose to employ it, rather than squander it in lacklustre choices. 

Tomorrow is Monday, a chance to see our work as our play. Tomorrow is a chance to revel in bringing forth new things, or helping others to birth ideas and products. Today we can choose to waste our time in vain pursuits. Or we can learn to re-create, that we might approach tomorrow with a refreshed body, mind, and heart. 

~ Johanna

To the Full!

Stiff fingers peck the keys. My face is rosy from a brisk walk in the nippy Autumn air. A tea kettle is rolling to a boil over blue flame, and the smell of freshly baked bread permeates my home.

Home... How glad I am to have my little cabin to trot back to after a walk in the chill, stiff wind. How gratefully my frigid fingers wrap 'round a mug full of tea.

Tea, the perfect thing to warm the body and the soul -- especially when a pot is shared with a good friend.

Friends! I am thankful for not just one or two close and dear friends, but whole hands full of fingers --and feet full of toes-- on which to count the blessings of kindred souls.

Souls and spirits and bodies, too. I am cheered to know that God made us with depth. He gives us a mind, a will, emotions, a body, and something inside that cannot be seen, but communicates with His Spirit as well.

Well -- all things shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Like airline tickets changing and helpful persons getting things put right, long walks and talks, words of wisdom from books, and everything else from today.

Today is all we have, let us enjoy God's blessings great and small, living well and sucking the marrow out of life.

Life! Let us live it to the full...

“Dear old world,” she murmured, “You are very lovely. And I am glad to be alive in you.”
-Anne of Green Gables

~ Johanna