Here's to the Firelight

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air

Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,

And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet

Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of Storm.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Snow Storm

_______

We watched the first red blaze appear, 

Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 

On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 

Until the old, rude-furnished room 

Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; 

While radiant with a mimic flame 

Outside the sparkling drift became, 

And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 

Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 

— John Greenleaf Whittier, Snow-Bound

It is snowing down in big flakes from the street lamp circles tonight. There is the hush that comes with it. Kept within my cabin by the drifting snow, there is no radiant fireplace—no flickering flames to 'drive away dark spirits'. The dark spirits of loneliness crowd into  my little house and it feels like all friends are shut out, indeed. There is still a cosy "privacy of Storm" feeling, but whenever I think of Whittier, there is a bittersweet ache. You see, Whittier reminds me of you, my friend.

My copy of Snow-Bound is in a slim green book. A book that used to be yours. A book with your mother's handwriting in the front, inscribed with the year I last saw you. How can six years go so quickly and feel so eternal? So much has changed in those years—especially in my family. Too much has stayed the same—especially in my bad habits. Six years ago last week, I flew to Alaska to see you. I was worried for you. When I finally found you, waiting in your truck, my worry increased. The lack of sleep from many flights wasn't helping, but even so, my panic mode rightly kicked on. Something was desperately wrong with the friend I once knew. He was gone. . . Gone away, leaving someone else in his stead, someone I didn't know.

What I didn't expect was that I wouldn't see you again after our initial time together. You dropped me off with your friends and left me. Though they graciously looked after me that day and the next, dropping me off at the airport in good time, it wasn't strangers I had come to visit. Yet it was only strangers whom I found. You were a stranger to me—not letting me hug you, not making eye-contact with me, not making sense, not feeling safe. You simply left me.

What I didn't expect was to have you cut me off after that visit. You made sure I got home okay, but from that time on you didn't call and you didn't respond to my letters. It would be years before I found out that you never even opened my letters after that point. All because I wasn't someone else. Being myself—your friend—wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. I sat at the airport that February, tears running down my face, feeling horribly abandoned. . .because you had left me.

No one seemed to understand what a devastating loss it was to me, your friendship. So I swallowed my grief deep inside of me. What I didn't expect was to feel abandoned for all those years. You would cross my mind with great frequency, and I felt a wall. . .a barrier that I couldn't cross. And you wouldn't cross it. Or maybe you couldn't cross it either. I reached out my hand again and again—hoping—but yours never met it. You left me to reach out into the unfriendly darkness, alone.

What I didn't expect was how much I trusted your last promise to me. As long as she was safe and alive, I need not fear for your life. But I guess it got to be too much, living. And maybe you forgot that promise. All I know is, one September day, you left me—irrevocably. I didn't expect that the previous five plus years of ache would come spilling out in wave after wave after wave.

In one sense, you died years ago, but I didn't know how to grieve that living death. So, I tucked it away inside of me, because no one else cared, no one understood that aching, living loss. But in your physical death, people cared, they tried to help, they listened, they hugged me. . . At last they understood that I was experiencing a deep, deep loss. Wave after wave after wave of grief left me gasping.

What I didn't expect was to find this gem in abandonment: Abandonment (n.): from 1839 as "condition of being forsaken." In music, Italian abbandonatamente is the instruction to play so as to make the time subordinate to the feeling.

Not the feelings subordinate to the restrictions of time. . . No, time must surrender, be sub-ordinate to the feeling.

The first six weeks of grief were like a hurricane, one pounding wave after another, huge and crushing. Then I finally had a lovely day hiking with a friend, a day where I didn't cry—and I felt so disloyal to you. I visited your family a few weeks later—the time together was both healing and intensely painful. Remembering heals, but it leaves a bigger hole, a deeper ache. I felt like you had died all over again.

Then I'm not sure what happened. . . Maybe it was self-protection, but in December I was mostly numb. I wanted so badly to remember your visit ten years before, but it was like it had been erased from my mind—and not only mine, but everyone else's. There were no photos of our time together, few memories. . . I just wanted people to talk about you with me, but it was like you were gone, like you walked out of our memories. And again, it felt like no one understood why it mattered so much that we were friends, why it hurt like Hell that you were gone. It was still so raw that all I wanted to do was cover up my hurt, yet I wanted to share it, too. . .

What I didn't expect was the waves of loneliness. In my home. At my parents' house. At work. With dear friends who didn't understand. With friends who expected (even more so now) me to 'get better' or 'get over' my grief. I didn't expect this clawing, craving loneliness that nothing can fill. I didn't expect the emptiness, the feeling invisible, the feeling abandoned to drive me to distraction. But it has.

If numbness felt horrible—like fuzz between me and everyone and everything—distraction feels. . .not horrible. It even feels normal. Not exactly like nothing happened, but certainly like I'm pretending on the surface that nothing happened. I am silly at work, I laugh with friends, I flirt with the mailman, I try to reach out to others, I fill too many hours with noise—audible and visual. But in the distraction and in the intense loneliness I have been reckless, terrifying myself. Behind it all, I miss the grief (though it still washes up at odd hours). The steady waves of grief have been my connection. My companion. The distraction hasn't been all bad—it has pointed me outward; it has made me face some things internally; it helps other people feel more normal around me (I think)—I have too often felt like a "death's head" as Lewis described it in A Grief Observed. I don't want people to feel like they need to avoid me or to feel awkward around me because I am grieving. So, I've hidden my grief over your loss yet again. But I feel out of step from God, from others, and from you, because I stepped out of the flow of grief. 

For months I tried to maintain the feelings, tried to grieve well, to the point that I was exhausted. So, I took a break. . .but the break has ceased being restorative (like a sabbath day) and has morphed into laziness (like a month of Sundays). I keep wanting to go back to the grief, but I've changed and the grief has changed, and I can't go back. I can only go forward. . .but I don't know how. I feel lost about how to grieve now, about where I should be at this point. I can't compare my grief to others'—I just want to know for myself where I need to be. I don't know, though. I simply know that I feel lonely like I never have before. I feel abandoned. And that feeling does not yield to time. Six years later, I still grieve that you left me.

Six months later, I grieve that you abandoned life. I don't want to ignore the emotions or push them aside until I can 'deal with' them. I need to know these feelings—not to be ruled by them, but to know them—and I need time to be subordinate to my emotions. It can take as long as it needs to take to grieve. And the grief is allowed to change. There must not of necessity be colossal breakers all the time to prove that I care about you. I don't have to cry every day to prove my friendship and affection. There will always be a hole in my life without you. And there will always be so much of me that has been shaped by you that you cannot be wholly gone. You may have left me, but you also changed me. You shaped me in so many ways.

Distractions can be okay for short stints. By the kindness of God, this season of distraction has had its healing moments, in spite of its recklessness. Still, I want the upcoming season of Lent to be one where I learn to hold grief and gladness together. Not one or the other, but together. I want time to be in subjugation to the feelings. If I need to feel sad, even in front of other people, then I will. I don't have to be 'over' my grief by now. I will never be 'over' the grief that you are gone. There will always be the absence of you in my life. Even if your presence was quiet, and sometimes unnoticed, it was monumental to me. I miss you so very much, Aaron. I pray that the flame of your fire is radiantly mimicked upon the sparkling snow of my life. 

Unbreak My Heart New

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

i am desperate, 

if nothing else, 

in a holding pattern 

to find myself.

i talk in circles, 

i talk in circles, 

i watch for signals, 

for a clue.

how to feel different. 

how to feel new. 

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

[But,] no one can unring this bell, 

unsound this alarm, unbreak my heart new. 

God knows, i am dissonance 

waiting to be swiftly pulled into tune.

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

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

i know the further i go, 

the harder i try, only keeps my eyes closed. 

and somehow i’ve fallen in love 

with this middle ground at the cost of my soul.

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

yet i know, if i stepped aside, 

released the controls, you would open my eyes. 

that somehow, all of this mess 

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

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

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

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

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

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

______

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

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

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

Dawn of Redeeming Grace

The Dayspring hath dawned on Christmas morn. Yet...something about the darkness and the aching longing of Advent feels much more comfortable to me than the rejoicing of Christmastide. I am far more at home in the shadowy dusk and predawn, because that is where I have lived all of my life. I know my Guide, but I have yet to experience full redemption—that "dawn of redeeming grace" the Christmas carols tell us is coming.  I struggle to be truly excited about Christmas Day and Easter morning because I understand Advent and Lent, but I do not fully comprehend celebration, not yet. 

Sadness I know. Regret I am familiar with. Frustration and agony over the Fall I deal with often. I am faced with darkness around every corner, tinging life events, colouring my own heart...But I do not know, cannot bear, the illumination of full redemption, the face of the I AM Himself. 

The truth is, Christmas Day always feels like a letdown to me. It rushes by in a whirl, no matter how many times we start the day off with those beautiful, savoury passages from Isaiah, Luke, and Matthew. I want to be slow and quiet. To sit with the people imprisoned in darkness and watch dawn's light lick the edge of the sky. I want to magnify the Lord with Mary, to know with Simeon that a Light from on high hath visited those in darkness. I want to sit in a cosy chair with a cup of tea, all curled up, waiting for day to come—not sleeping late because I was wrapping gifts until the wee sma's. I want to watch snowcapped peaks turn violet and rosy in the morning light.

I want some elusive ideal Christmas. But what I want doesn't matter—what matters is what I've been given and how I steward that. To simply roll with soupy stuffing and lukewarm turkey. To not expect a stunning revelation when conversing with my extended family, or even my immediate kin, over the holidays. What I've been handed is prayer time with dear friends that replaces candlelight service this time. It is a crisp bill, unexpected, from a family member. It is a small arm squeezing my neck hard and a little voice saying, "You're my best!"—with a grin that wrinkles the little girl's nose and squinches her eyes. It is the genuine interest in the nine-year-old's voice as he shows me his lava lamp. It is singing songs and re-writing poems...and laughing hard when you slip up. 

Sometimes it feels like I've missed the baby in the manger in the late night wrapping and all those imperfect, cacophonous moments strung together. It feels rushed. . . But then, labour is not quiet, calm, and perfect. It is not slow and steady, like a sunrise. Still, Mary treasured up these things in her heart. The fact is, labour ebbs and flows, it pushes hard, it screams in the night. It is a bloody, messy cacophony. It feels like forever in the waiting, in the pain. Then it is a blur and a rush, white hot heat, a lot of breathing hard. Then comes the squawk of the baby. Then comes seeing his eyelashes and his perfect little fingernails. Oh, the pain is still there, but the endorphins rush in and fill the new mother with an awe and wonder that drives the pain to the periphery. She has thoughts and eyes only for her baby. 

I don't need whatever I've dreamed up as perfect and slow Christmas Days. Maybe I'll get to try that at some point...but I think I would miss the bustle of the wrapping, the cooking frenzy, singing Christmas music loudly while we all do our part to get ready for guests. I often want to savour Christmas Day—but what I want doesn't matter. What God gives is what matters. He gives Himself. He gives us family and friends. He gives us good gifts and we take them for granted—whether it is time with family or our health, time off or a travel fund to raid when the weather goes awry. Whether it is His Spirit whispering to us in the midst of the hubbub, "The Dayspring from on high has visited the sons of men" or an arm 'round our neck and a tiny voice saying, "You're my best!" Either way, He gives us what we need. It is our foretaste of redemption, preparing room in our hearts to know the Fullness of Joy.

Intimate with Brokenness

show me who i am and who i could be.
initiate the heart within me
until it opens properly.

slow down, start again from the beginning.
i can’t keep my head from spinning out of control.
is this what being vulnerable feels like?
. . .
i’ll run the risk
of being intimate with brokenness.

—Ryan O'Neal
{Sleeping at Last—Son}

Is this what being vulnerable feels like?

Did I need to be broken in the same way—yet different than before—to initiate, to resuscitate, my heart? Does numbness have a deep wound at its root and as the cause for its flight? So often healing begins with kindness or conviction, never with condemnation. It is condemnation that inflicts some of the deepest scars, the broken places I can't heal myself. But conviction is the breath of the Spirit blowing on me, making my stone heart flesh again—like Aslan breathing a stone creature alive.

Conviction is a tearing apart from what I have conformed to, grown around like a vine about a tree, as flesh around shrapnel. It hurts like hell to unwrap from that lie, that action, that cover I've let become part of myself.

Conviction is a tearing-up over my brokenness, my sin, how I have wounded the Father who loves me. The kindness of conviction comes in humbly seeing anew my Lover, Who does not divorce me—put me away from Him—but Who calls me by His name. . . Who calls me Belovéd, though I have played the whore, chasing other gods.

If the broken things have to be healed at the root—have to be met in the brokenness—then I'll run the risk of being intimate with my brokenness. Growth germinates in the ground of healing, in the soil of holiness. Healing takes time. Holiness is a process. Just when I think I'm finally learning, I find that my brokenness is deeper than I ever knew or suspected. I find the healing just beginning in places where I think I should have healed long ago. I get frustrated at all the tiny shoots popping up where there should be at least slender birch trees—if not a steadily-growing oak or two.

Why have I made so little progress in the span of my thirty-some years? I should be so much farther along by now. But I'm not.

I could stomp and be angry that all I have are these little shoots. . .Certainly I am disappointed that my crop is so immature. But I will choose to be glad, to give thanks that growth is happening at all. I will give thanks and offer up these tender shoots to the LORD as a firstfruits offering. I will let Him do the pruning and the nurturing of these habits that He is reordering to help me image Him. I will take joy in the work He is doing, not dwell on the years the locusts have eaten.

I'll run the risk of being intimate with my brokenness. . .

Dark Nights

Serpentine sorrows weave their way through my thoughts tonight. It has been one of those days where things go well, but one person after another lets a little bit of ache show through. I see the hurt, yet the trying to be vulnerable so the heart won't harden. I see broken bodies and broken hearts. Sick bodies and sick souls. I see carnage and horror in the streets of Paris. The pain piles high; the daily struggles of how to move forward after the death of a loved one, the death of a relationship, the death of a dream. 

These are not my sorrows, they live in the lungs and limbs and sore hearts of others. But those 'others' are my people. My friends, my family...My neighbours across the globe. What do we do when the Fall is crushing us? Not in one splat, but slowly pressing down on us, like a heavy stone, like the steadily rising tide, like oppressive darkness... Then what?

Under the pressure of the Fall, I am reminded of the relief of the Incarnation. Sometimes I have wondered why God created mankind if He knew that sin and death would enter the good world He had made. That is because I am inside the story, too close to the events to understand the Author's intent in each minute portion of the story.

 O me! for why is all around us here

  As if some lesser god had made the world,

  But had not force to shape it as he would,

  Till the High God behold it from beyond,

  And enter it, and make it beautiful?

  Or else as if the world were wholly fair,

  But that these eyes of men are dense and dim,

  And have not power to see it as it is:

  Perchance, because we see not to the close;—¹

As Tennyson points out, we do not know the close—but God Himself sees the end from the beginning. He knew Eve would succumb to temptation and that Adam would fail to stop her. God knew the price He Himself would have to pay to right the world from the chaos of the Fall. He knew that He would love us and we would spit in His face. That He would forgive us, and we would run into the arms of other gods again and again. He knew He would be vulnerable with us and that we would use His own love and mercy against Him. He knew these things, too, when He created mankind—and He went ahead and made us and loved us and died for us anyway.

The Curse may crush, sin may seek to squeeze the Life out of us, darkness may seem like it is draining the Light out of the world... But the Curse, the darkness, does not know the ending. Life will win. Light will oust darkness forever.

So when the perishable is lost in the imperishable, the mortal lost in the immortal, this saying will come true: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’ ‘O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?’ It is sin which gives death its power, and it is the Law which gives sin its strength. All thanks to God, then, who gives us the victory over these things through our Lord Jesus Christ!²

Somehow, God makes the ending better than the beginning, even when dissonance is introduced in His symphony. He weaves it into His strong melody and brings resolution and redemption.

Blesséd, blesséd, blesséd be He!


____________________

1. Lord Tennyson, Alfred "The Passing of King Arthur" Idylls of the King (Public Domain)

2. I Corinthians 15.54-57 (PHILLIPS)

To Be Fully Known

And I don't want the world to see me...
...I just want you to know who I am¹

Omaha, Nebraska. That paragon of culture is precisely where I spent a long weekend with friends. Now, I know that many of you will think of steak, cornfields, and farmers when you hear the word Nebraska, but there is quite a lot to that Plains State aside from plains. The highlights of my weekend were all cultural experiences: from the Joslyn Art Museum, a symphony, and a gourmet dinner, to a tea emporium, exploring the grounds of a mansion, and spending time in prayer at a beautiful Catholic edifice.

Though we spent less than an hour at the Joslyn Art Museum, it was meditative time well invested. Upon exiting the European art section, there was a small room containing a Monet painting and a small bronze statue of Auguste Rodin's Eve. Unlike many portrayals I have seen of Lady Eve, this one was not sensual nor was it sanitised. There she was, naked, with no hand covering her sexuality, no long hair hanging down to hide her womanhood; she hid only her face. Though she was bronze she was not brazen—contorted in remorse and agony for the curse she had unleashed upon mankind. When I gazed upon this mortified Eve, I saw fear and sorrow. I saw vulnerability. I saw humanity in the wake of the Fall. I saw the hope of repentance. I saw myself.

How can human hands take cold metal, making it live in ripples, effulgence, and emotion? How could the artist cast one woman who would resonate with so many of the women who gazed upon her abject form? Yet somehow, in broad strokes, Rodin made just such a woman. Eve in all her remorse and repentance was a woman—she was human. From this bitter moment of knowing sin, a veil was placed between God and man. 

From this time forth, humans began to hide—and we choose to hide behind much more than fig leaves and excuses. We hide behind our accomplishments or our identity, behind our careers, cars, or kids. We hide behind walls that we have built, brick by brick, barb by barb. We hide behind our intellect and our to-do lists, behind styles and having it all together, behind addictions and amusements—we hide because we are afraid. We are afraid that we aren't smart enough, handsome enough, or successful enough. We are afraid to let anyone see our mess, our turmoil, our uncertainties, our weaknesses and inabilities. And when our first emotion isn't fear, it is fear hidden under the guise of pride. We pride ourselves on our achievements or our brutal honesty or some other thing, in order to prove that we are enough, we are strong, we are worthy of love and acceptance, or at least of respect and awe.

What if we were like Eve, not hiding our humanity—for it is our glory, our being what we were made to be. What if we did not try even to turn our eyes away from our Maker in agony and ignominy? What if we recalled Isaiah's words, that our Maker is our Husband and that the Holy One is also our Redeemer (Isaiah 54:3)? What if He turned our faces toward Himself, sought our eyes with His, and called us His belovéd? There is no "what if?" about that—He does exactly that. From the very first He has pursued us. 

Beginning with Adam and Eve, in the cool of the evening the Lord sought them, He called out to them "where are you?" (Genesis 3:9). Adam answers the way I so often do, "...I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." (Genesis 3:10) "...I was afraid, because I was naked..." I was afraid to come to You, Lord, because You would see through my accolades, accomplishments, and intellect. I felt vulnerable and raw, so I didn't want to come before You. I have sinned and I couldn't wash it off. I want to fix myself before I come to You. Slowly, slowly I am learning that this is when He cups His hand under my chin and searches out my eyes. The searing Love in His own eyes burns away my impurities, illumines my darkness, heals my brokenness, makes me worthy. It isn't that there is no consequence for sin, there is. Yet it remains that the payment was made by the injured party. The One who covenanted with us is the One who paid the redemption price when we broke the covenant. The Holy One is our Redeemer.

Like Eve, I forget the kindness of God that leads to repentance and I can think only of His Holiness. I forget that His wrath is directed toward my sin, not my self, so I hide. I try to be fit enough, smart enough, encouraging enough, anything-else-enough-to-atone-for-myself—except being vulnerable enough, honest enough, and humble enough to come before Him. 

The irony in all my fears, in all my brokenness, is that I deeply want to be known—to have someone know me as I am and not walk away. Those great theologians, the Goo Goo Dolls, put it this way: And I don't want the world to see me/'Cause I don't think that they'd understand/When everything's made to be broken/I just want you to know who I am¹. They understand the ache of every human being, the desire to be known—but also the fear of being known. We don't want the whole world to see us as we are, just the one person who will know us for ourselves and not run away. It is a scary thing to be vulnerable with another person. What if they betray you? What if they reject you? What if they take what they know about you and use it against you? That is the risk of love. A risk we fear and long to take, all rolled together.


Love is the risk God chose to take on mankind. He chose to create Adam and Eve, though He knew the Fall would happen. He chose to love them, even though He knew they would choose not to trust Him and would break the world He entrusted to them. He chooses to love us, even though we put up walls or try to win approval rather than receiving His gifts of love, reconciliation, and redemption. He chooses to love us, even though we often snatch gifts from His hand, yet run away from Him when we don't get our way. And even when we nail Him to a cross with our manifold sins, piercing Him to His very heart, He still loves us.


Perhaps I see less of myself in Eve after all—at least she stood before her maker in all her nakedness and sorrow. I run from my Maker in those moments, or try to cover myself with the flimsy fig leaves of my accomplishments and intellect. I ache to be known, yet I fear it. I want to be naked and unashamed before my Maker rather than clothing myself in my own attempts at being "enough".

“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.²”

O my Maker-Husband, let me be content in Your Love. Let me be vulnerable enough to come before You. Make me able to know that You are enough and that You make me worthy.




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1. The Goo Goo Dolls, Iris (Written by John Rzeznik, Warner Bros. 1998)

2. Lewis, C. S., Prince Caspian (Scholastic Inc., New York, 1987) 211-212

All Scripture is taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

A Chalice Remade

Well-worn, chestnut-coloured floorboards creak beneath the many feet entering the hushed room. A reverent quiet is—mostly—kept, it is a time of preparation for the special yearly observance. My friend and I arrive early, a rarity for me, to settle our hearts and minds for the Ash Wednesday service. Yet my mind is awhirl, reflecting on the day's conversations, expectations, frustrations, and disappointments. In spite of outward tranquility, my thoughts are uneasy.

Without sound or ceremony, the clergy and chalice bearers file down the centre aisle. We stand until the vicar invites us to pray the Lenten collect. Then, kneeling before the King of all things, we seek to know that our sin is costly. Only the life-blood of God's own Son could buy us back from death, the paycheck of our sin. My heart sought to stay focussed, prodding my mind to read along, if listening alone was not enough.

The Epistle reading proclaimed that unfathomable paradox, that God "made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him"1, a text that baffles both my mind and heart most days. This evening, though, I read the familiar words wanting to be moved, expecting life, yet being disappointed in my expectation. God's word is not something I can use to contrive an emotional experience, thankfully. Only His Spirit at work in my heart and mind can bring truth alive. As I rose with my row to receive the imposition of ashes, I knew that I needed to be emptied of myself and my own chaotic thoughts.

Sweet-smelling charred palm dust smudged thumb and forehead. A cross marked upon my brow, as I knelt and heard the familiar words, "Remember that thou art but dust, and to dust thou shalt return." The service continued, but I found my mind coming back to my frailty. I am but dust? How can this be, when my body is the hale and healthy flesh of one just entering their thirties? Yet, I am not deceived by my feelings of immortality. Hiking in dangerous places and sliding on ice have both punctured my security at times. The recent, unexpected loss of a family friend in her early twenties reminds me that the breath in my lungs is always a gift.

I am fragile. This realisation makes me both afraid and angry. I don't want to be frail. I rebel at being made of clay, the "poor potsherd, patch, matchwood"2 that I am. I am the thing formed irritably asking my Maker, "Why have you made me like this?"3 God fashioned me to need things—from food and sleep, to intimate relationships and love. I wonder if my needs make me frail. No, sin makes me breakable—my needs make me vulnerable, open to depending on God and others, rather than only myself.

My fears of the unknown, the uncertainties haunting my thoughts, the turmoil of my whole day led me to cry out from my knees, "I am flying to pieces, God! Hold me together." The tiny sting of communion wine on my tongue turned my heart to God's reply, "I have fashioned you to be a chalice to bear me." Here I was asking God to hold me together—that my fragments would not turn to wounding shrapnel—and His response was to tell me, the thing formed, that I was to hold Him! This is the mystery, that the Maker inhabits the made—or maid, in the case of Mary. The Potter clothed Himself in clay. The ones who need to be held together by God will be made to hold God.

I walked out into the darkness of evening unafraid, because the Light Himself dwelt in me. My foaming thoughts were not immediately quelled, the questions inside were not somehow answered. Still, I wrestle with my flesh, with distractions and restlessness, with fear and uncertainty, with a complaining tongue and a heart of stone. Daily, I must ask to be emptied of myself and to be held together by God, that I might be filled—like a chalice of Eucharistic wine—with the Holy Spirit. This is the purpose the Maker has for the thing made—whether I am a clay pot or a silver chalice—to hold Him as He holds us together.

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1. II Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV)

2. Hopkins, Gerard Manley, “That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire” Selected Poems and Prose (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books Ltd, 1982) 66

3. Romans 9:20b (NKJV)

All Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.

Nurturing the Tree of Friendship (n.)

"Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more."  

—The Fox in The Little Prince1

Think for a moment of the most famous friendships in history and literature. What names come to mind? For me it is always King David and Jonathan; Frodo and Samwise; and Anne and Diana. In my own life there are nearly a dozen soul-knit friends, kindred spirits, whom God has seen fit to bring into the dark places when all other lights go out. Usually they come singly, but sometimes in pairs. Always they bring friendship in their hand like a gift

In Western culture we use the word "friend" to mean a number of relationships, from an acquaintance to a friend so close that our souls really do seem knit together, as the Scriptures say of David and Jonathan. My Kasey-friend is vastly more dear to me than my friend John, who happens to be our mailman at work. In a way, I am friends with both, and I am friendly towards both, but one can read my soul, be part of my soul, the other has no idea what the shape of my soul is. Beyond a sliding scale of what friendship means, we have social media influencing our understanding of "friends"—making a noun into a verb, and making you feel like you know a person because they update their status bar every day or every ten minutes. If I know what someone made for breakfast, the song they are listening to, and the quotation they re-posted, I still do not know their essence, their ousia, via their social media site. I know their being by living with them, working with them, arguing with them, getting sick of them, and still wanting to be around that person the very next hour or day. We learn someone's quirks, endearing habits, turns of phrase, and morals by living with them in the daily—at school, work, or home. I cannot "unfriend" my neighbour, I live with her. I cannot decide I only want to be friends when it is convenient, nor would I want my friends to treat me that way. Friendship is time-consuming and takes hard work. It is also gloriously fun, deeply personal, and enriching to one’s soul. Thus, I rebel at the co-opting of the word "friend" in social media, when its etymology is much richer: dear, beloved, to love, to woo.2 A friend is one who walks with us to Mordor, in spite of the deadly peril, believing always that we will return home together...Yet even if they lose hope that we will live beyond Mount Doom, they would never dream of leaving our side, choosing rather to carry us—and die with us if need be. A friend helps us to dream again when all our hopes have crashed to the ground. A real friend speaks truth to us when we are being snippy, selfish, or unrealistic—even at the cost of our annoyance or anger toward them at hearing that truth. We return friendship when we receive rebuke, shine the spotlight on our friend’s accomplishments—rather than seeking our own glory or downplaying theirs—and walk through the valley of the shadow in silence, hope, and companionship with them.

Said more succinctly and wisely, “Friendship is an obstetric art; it draws out our richest and deepest resources; it unfolds the wings of our dreams and hidden indeterminate thoughts; it serves as a check on our judgements, tries out our new ideas, keeps up our ardor, and inflames our enthusiasm.”3

Friendship indeed does all these things and more. Surely only a handful of these infinitely valuable and intimate are ever granted in one whole lifetime. In ninety-nine out of one hundred cases I would say that is true; but sometimes that one hundredth person is given extra gifts. I am one who has been given an abundance of these gift-friendships. I could never earn them—and I certainly do not deserve them—but I do cherish them. It is sometimes difficult for me to make enough time to maintain all of these friendships, but none of us seem to mind when there is a gap of time between calls, walks, or letters. We pick up where we left off and begin to share our hearts at some point. This does not leave much room in my life for casual “friends”—whom I would call acquaintances. Yet every now and again, I have dinner or coffee with an acquaintance because they are still a valuable person, even if I cannot invest more time with them.

What I have discerned in our culture is that many persons seem to devote much of their time to their acquaintances, leaving themselves little or no time to invest in one of those Samwise and Frodo friendships. No wonder the most common answer I receive to “How are you?” anymore is not “fine” but “busy.” Work, meetings, coffee dates, and various events—along with films, television, and internet browsing—fill up all of our waking moments until we hide beneath the covers at night.

I purposely have to pick one to two evenings a week where I have no plans, where I am not scheduled to make dinner for anyone besides myself, drive somewhere, or run errands. Mostly I end up washing dishes, writing, reading, or going for walks on these evenings. If I am free, I am able to attend to my neighbour when she has had a bad day; or call one of my friends around the country to hear about their souls. To foster intertwining, deep friendships, we must be available. We will have to attend. We must learn to see beyond the surface, seeking to know not simply “How was your day?” but “What made it good or hard?” and “How are you?” as well. We have to listen to the answer, not merely hear it.

To cultivate rich friendship, like husbanding a vineyard, there are times when we have to cut off sucker shoots. Activities, the number of acquaintances we spend time with weekly or monthly, and having our computer or phone on can be sucker shoots. It is hard work to figure out which friendships one ought to pour into. Goodness knows I have invested heavily in some unwise acquaintanceships and too long ignored some close friends. My real friends have been gracious to receive me back again, even as my heart recovers from overextending myself in short-lived comradeship.

That said, it is worth taking the risk of being friends, being vulnerable, being loyal to someone. You should be able to tell a person’s character fairly early on if you spend much time around them. Likewise, they should be able to tell if you are trustworthy and faithful. Will you keep their secrets, or will you gossip? Will you hold them when they cry? Will you share your hard moments with them? Will you drop by unexpectedly and not care if their hair is a mess and they are in their comfy clothes with holes in them? Will you let them do the same with you? Do they bring strength and beauty into your life? Do you build them up behind their backs, before their peers, and in a whisper for their ear alone? Do they make you live in reality, yet encourage you to dream? Does your soul thrill at their hopes?

Friendship is a give and take, not using someone or smothering them with affection. Friendship is made of mundane things like grocery shopping and folding laundry. It is made of looking at sunsets and stars and sharing hopes and fears. There is camaraderie in drinking tea—or coffee, if you must—and just looking at the world together, not saying much. Friendship is indeed an art, a way of life, a choice, a gift. Like all gardens and fruit trees, some friendships have their seasons and then comes the Autumn. Let them go. Cherish the friendships that are like apple trees, blossoming in Spring, green in Summer, bearing fruit in Autumn, and bare in Winter … Yet blossoming in Spring again. Cultivate those, for friendship is the tree itself. 

~ Johanna

* I am writing above about same gender friendships. Male/female friendships do not work quite the same, unless it is within the bounds or marriage. Then it is even closer and richer than anything I have known or described. It is important to have friends of both sexes, but male/female friendships outside of marriage cannot share in the same depth as male/male or female/female friendships.

** Cross-posted at Conciliar Post

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1. de Saint-Exupery, Antoine The Little Prince (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971) 67
2. Friend (n.) Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001-2014 Douglas Harper
3. Sertillanges, A. G. The Intellectual Life (Washington D. C., Catholic University of America Press, 1998) 56

Full Life, or Full of Life?

"Are we living more fully, or are we just busy? A full schedule is not indicative of a full life. Sometimes a full schedule is the mark of a very empty life... Because we do not know how to live in the silence and stillness of life."

These are the words I penned this morning in my journal. They left me pensive. How many days do I simply fill up with tasks to take my mind off hard or uncertain things? Do I simply have a full life, or am I filled with life?

 

Over the weekend I went on a very enjoyable snowshoeing trip with my roommates. Though our days were full, they were also re-creative. Though we were on a sort of schedule, we were not so busy that I could not slip away to read Psalms and pray on the sunny deck. We were not so set on this or that as to miss the Spirit's leading... 

We spent Sunday morning writing down aspects of God's love and sharing how we saw various traces of His love in one another. I was handed a blood-red heart that read "life-giver" -- I nearly cried. So often I feel inadequate. I have received many gifts (even the trip itself was a birthday gift), rivers of love, vast amounts of forgiveness, and a multitude of patience from my friends and family. I feel like I have nothing to give in return. Often I feel like a needy child crying out of hunger, only my hunger is for love and acceptance. I am frail, weak, incapable of love without the Love of God. I cannot save myself. 

Like others, when I am loved on I feel the need to somehow repay that kindness. But Love does not seek to be repaid. True Love desires the good of others, asks for nothing in return, and believes the best about others. God loves us with an everlasting Love, knowing we can never love Him as He deserves. His Love teaches us how to love others, and how to love Him. Yet we love so imperfectly... Thus, I was overwhelmed to receive the little heart with the words "life-giver" inscribed upon it. I feel like all I have ever done is take, but God spoke through my friends that day. He showed me that He is at work in me, helping me to practise giving.

 

With all of my recent travels to Florida and to Rocky Mountain National Park, lunch dates, dinners with friends, travel, work, etc., I feel like my life is very full. But I find that I am actually filled with life when I take time to be still before the LORD, allowing Him to order my thoughts and my steps. Certainly He uses conversations with others, fun weekends, and even work, to deepen my life. But if I never take time to be still before Him, to let Him direct the way I reflect on things said and done, then I only ever live on the surface of those events.

I want depth... I want to be full of life. I want God to work through me to give life to others. I want to walk in humility and dependence. Because all I have and all I am is from God. I am poor and needy, yet He has looked upon me. I am weak and broken, yet He is my Strength and Healer. God truly is the Strength of my heart, and my Inheritance forever. 

Blesséd, blesséd, blesséd be He!

~ Johanna

Vulnerability

Do you ever feel like you do not have what it takes? What exactly does it take to be a man, win a girl's heart, provide for yourself (or others), or to meet someone's standards?

My real question is, what are you hiding behind? When Adam and Eve disobeyed God they realised they were naked. In that moment they experienced a strange new feeling: the need to hide.

Webster's 1828 Dictionary defines naked as: discovered; unarmed; defenceless; open; exposed; having no means of defence or protection against an enemy's attack, or against other injury. Due to our current, almost exclusive, use of the word 'naked' to mean 'unclothed' we often substitute the word vulnerable to express those ideas.

Who do you allow to see you naked?

Who are you willing to allow to discover you, unarmed, defences down emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually? Is there anyone with whom you are always willing to be vulnerable? Someone who does not laugh at your deepest dreams, hurts, desires, feelings of failure, and lack of meeting standards (yours, theirs, or God's)?

Be honest.

We do not have what it takes. We withdraw from others, even God, at some point. There are times when we become uncomfortable and want to hide.

I will be honest. I hide behind my personality, my intellect, and my appearance. If I am friendly, fun to be around, cheerful, kind, and hopeful, then surely others will like me. In my general circle of friends if I am intelligent then I obviously have what it takes to be a well-respected, thinking Christian - or even a good member of society. If I shop at Goodwill but look classy, I will not appear as poor or uneducated. I am so afraid of people seeing through my façade of being a good Christian, a valuable member of humanity. I think that I can determine my own worth. Somehow I believe the authority to set the standards for what it takes to be good or valuable is mine.

But God.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5.8) God loved us when we were unlovable. God loved us when we spit in His face and ran the opposite way of His outstretched arms. God loved us when we did not have what it takes. God loved us when we were naked and vulnerable. And He still does.

"To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable."

~ C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

It is God Who makes us lovable. It is God Who has what it takes. It is God Who has the authority to set the standards, and God Who meets them. God was vulnerable enough to love us first. He was naked on a tree, spilling out his life blood to make His love visible.

~ Johanna