I Have Set before You Life and Death

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

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

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

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

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

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

Come, Holy Spirit. . .

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

Hosptitality for the Life of the World

   

When you walk through the front door of my home, twinkle lights, pressed leaves, and a few hundred books greet your eyes. Written across one mirror you’ll see the words, “I want to join God in bringing healing into people’s lives¹.” Though I’m not a doctor, a counsellor, or a pastor, I desperately desire to help heal the brokenness I encounter daily. For me, offering this healing many times looks like evenings of connecting with others over a meal.

While the embodiment of hospitality comes in many forms, my tiny cabin best allows for evenings of feeding others’ eyes and appetite with beautiful, savoury food in an atmosphere of warmth and openness. This sort of hospitality not only shares a meal but feeds another’s soul by seeing them and being seen by them, by listening to their soul and holding back advice unless asked.

For some of us, limited space invites creativity in how (or how many) we can host. Recently, one of my single friends said he can’t host people since his apartment doesn’t have a table. But while hospitality often happens around tables, it also comes curled up on couches with mugs of something hot or nestled in armchairs with plates perched on our knees. Whether we serve gourmet food or simple fare, feeding the body helps us connect with others in a more open, relaxed way—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. There’s nothing like inviting a friend into our space to enjoy being present with one another.

Healing Begins When We Embody Scripture

God starts the story of the world with plants for food, with trees that are both beautiful and edible, delighting the senses. God provides daily bread for the Israelites, bodily food as a sign of His hospitality and faithfulness in the wilderness. Jesus begins His public ministry at a wedding feast, turning water into wine, an image of His blood poured out for many. Jesus deliberately comes to us embodied, offering His body as food and drink (John 6:48-51) for the life of the world.

God’s hospitality floods the pages of Scripture, so it is every bit on purpose that in the coming Kingdom of God, the blessed are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:6-9). In that supper of feasting and drinking, our bodies and souls will be made glad in His presence.

Our bodies are never overlooked in God’s story. They connect us to Him, to others, and to the earth in a myriad of ways. We experience our selves in our bodies, and these clay houses can serve as the doorway from hurt into healing. With a warm meal and a hearing heart, I join God in bringing healing to others by inviting them into sacramental life² in my tiny home.

_____

FN 1: Boyett, Micha, Found (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing, 2014) pg 16

FN 2: “Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence. A meal is still a rite—the last “natural sacrament” of family and friendship, of life that is more than “eating” and “drinking.” To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that “something more” is, but they nonetheless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life.”  

Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1963) pg 16

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

Originally published for the Navigators' Spring 2022 edition of Upfront.

A Shadow of Beauty

I woke in darkness to the jingle of my alarm and the chatter of birds. Perhaps the birds knew it was the first day of Spring and were thus employed with extra jubilation, but my suspicion is that they greet every morning with such exuberance. I listened to their Lauds—their morning prayer-chant—with a slow smile on my sleepy face. Finally pulling myself out of bed as the sky became a deep rose-gold. I never can decide if I like sunrise or sunset better, I'm glad I don't have to—I can simply like them both for their own sakes. 

Being the first day of Spring meant it was my friend-and-co-worker's birthday, and I had offered to make breakfast for the office. As I toasted English muffins and poached eggs in my cast iron skillet, I turned around to rinse my hands and saw a lovely moment: a reflected shadow. The sun coming through my antique windowpanes lit up the tawny dried grasses in the bottle on the sill, but the shadow it cast made them look like fresh wildflowers. I paused my poaching liturgy to snap a photo of the spiritual reality bowing before my eyes. 

There are times in life when all we can see are the dried grasses of our dreams or best laid plans. No matter which way we look at them, they are brittle, dried up, monotone kindling tucked in the corner of the sill. But maybe the problem is that we keep looking at the broken dream or the mislaid plan, whilst God is nudging us to turn around and look at the reflected shadow. When we turn, we see flowers outlined on the wall. We see the contour of each stem and leaf; each pod becomes a glory of its own. The dried grass looks different from this perspective, looks fresh and lovely and renewed. 

Sometimes the shadow is full of beauty, not mere darkness. Sometimes the shadows that fall on our lives are not snuffing out the sun, they are the evidence that there is sunlight. Without light there couldn't be shadows cast, after all. All would be utter darkness, impenetrable, blinding. For darkness, as well as overpowering light, blinds the eyes after time. But shadows are a mix of light and solid things; they are the delicate darkness dappling the wall.

One of the darkest things I have witnessed is my faithful sister being turned out of her home and her marriage. We could only stare at the pieces all around, the shattered lives of those affected, with shock and disbelief and horror. How did this happen? Those pieces looked sharp and irreparable and bleak. In many ways, they are. But when we stop looking at the shards and begin to see the light shine on them, through them, around them, we see the shadow reflected on the wall. We see Beauty and hope springing out of dead things. It isn't the restoration or reconciliation we hoped for, but other good things are germinating. There is Beauty in the shadow, as well as beyond it. There is light high beyond the reach of darkness, as Samwise discovered in Return of the King:

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

The Fall and all its evil is but a small and passing thing from God's perspective. There is Light and there is Beauty that evil cannot touch. There is unseen Reality that cannot be destroyed, even when all the seen is turned into so much ash and concrete dust. The truth is that God is Real—He is high and beyond the reach of evil. God is the Light of the world, and it is His light spilling on and through and around us that casts a shadow of Beauty on the wall of life. Many times we get too busy looking at ourselves to see the whole Beauty-filled outline; to see the Light by which we see—but He is there, prodding us to turn around and see what the Light has made new.

Squirrel Life

A pair of squirrels is playing tag in the autumn sun: around the fir, across my porch, over my roof. They flirt their tails and chirrup, they thunder boldly through the day, through life. Perhaps I envy them their simple lives—unworried about elections or the future. Yet, the squirrel can’t think about the fact that it is a squirrel. It can’t wonder what the purpose of its life is or if it matters in the world and the universe. A squirrel simply is. It fears predators and looks for food; it mates and bears young. The squirrel sails into the pumpkin on the porch with his tiny, fur-fringed hands; he turns brusque and reprimands when someone gets too close to him.

I, however, am not a squirrel. I get frustrated over elections. I am anxious about the future of our country and world, about the future for my niece and nephew, for the child being born today. I grew up with old-fashioned ideals and aspirations, with courtesy and a deep appreciation for human life. I grew up with a sense of wonder, with an awe of the numinous, with a firm belief that there is hope outside of my small self.

I grew up much like a squirrel. Like squirrels, people worked to make a home and provide meals. Fears were few and obvious, or so it seemed at first. I didn’t know cancer or divorce from personal places. War was in the Gulf, policemen were valiant and safe. Right and wrong were easy to discern. The people where I lived were the comfortable, trustworthy sort. Terrifying things were “out there”, not inside my safe world. But the borders of safety were breached. Evil and Sorrow and Death crossed the threshold. Not far behind were Uncertainty and Fear. I discovered that hard things, scary things were outside of my parents’ control, and certainly outside of mine. Squirrel-life shattered.

Sometimes I don’t like the realities and responsibilities that come with sentient, incarnational human-life. I don’t always appreciate the boon (or burden?) of being able to question if there is reality or if truth exists and is knowable. At times I let fear paint the picture that life is dark and crumbling and frightening. I let in the lies that marriage will fail, that motherhood steals one’s identity and is stifling, that tyranny and the ungodly will win.

Truth did not shatter with squirrel-life, however. Truth, in fact, illuminates life and gives me a clearer view. When the enemy of our souls portrays shadowy, suspenseful, formidable scenes of what life is for or is going to be, God stirs up the embers of truth. When the fire of truth is blazing it casts the shadows away, it gives me light to see that there is hope, there is redemption. All manner of things shall be made well. Sadness will come untrue.

When shadow-lies are shot-through with truth’s light, beauty and goodness gleam: as Christians we are the bride to a Bridegroom who will never desert or abandon us—He remains faithful, even when we are faithless. Marriage will not fail ultimately. I am reminded that children are a joy, that they deepen us and our ability to love and to sacrifice. Being a mother is part of one’s identity if they are called to that, but it does not mean they have to give up all the rest of their giftings. Mothers, in fact, change the world through their ideas, the truth they speak, and through their children, too. In the bright light of the truth I am reminded that Christians throughout history have faced wicked governments, evil oppression, violence, death, and injustice. Many in other countries face these things today. But evil cannot exist without the good thing it mocks and twists. And one day, if not now, it will be done away with, and the good, the true, and the beautiful will stand solid and bright and real.

Our salvation does not come through politics and laws. If those things we’ve looked to save us begin to crush us, they reveal themselves as the false gods they are. Some trust in chariots, some in horses—some trust in presidents and some in their own way of life—to save them, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God (Psalm 20:7). If, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we must face the furnace, we still need not bow down to false gods. We will rise and stand upright (Psalm 20:8).

Like those men before us, we know that God can save us; even if He chooses not to deliver us from the fire, we are not lost. Our destination is sure and steady—even when we have wracked our limited minds over the questions of truth and certainty and reality. We question, we seek certainty, we have that uncomfortable gift of knowing that we don’t know it all. We walk in the questions, and we walk by faith. In that balance we thunder boldly through the days and we thunder through life, not like squirrels, but like the sons of God we are.

Have You Noticed Beauty?

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul. 

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I have notice that many folks claim that humans are animals. After all, we are mammals and are classified as Homo sapiens in the scientific realm. But that is a mere classification. God tells is from the very beginning that humans are different than animals. We are made in the image and likeness of God. While the animals may also have been formed from the dust of the earth, it was only into man that God Himself breathed the breath of life. 

I have noticed something else: all animals eat food, but only human beings arrange food on their plates and take photos of it. Only humans stop to watch the sunrise or the moonrise for the sheer beauty of it. Only human beings write poetry or draw and paint—even from the dawn of time. When Adam first speaks of Eve, it is recorded in a couplet. When Eve is tempted by the serpent, she sees that the tree is pleasant to the eye. Perhaps it is a few readings too many of Lewis and Tolkien for me to hope that God formed and filled the world by singing the words of creation. Even if He did not, two books of His word brim with poetry and songs. 

I have noticed that on my most exhausting days of travel or work what I long for is Beauty. To watch the sun set and the stars creep into the sky, one by one and then in clusters. To read a story or a poem. To listen to an album straight through while I eat my dinner. To dance in my kitchen. To make food, yes, but also to group it by colour on my plate. To sit down—feet free of shoes—listening to the evensong of birds give way to cricket choruses. To listen to an audio book because I'm too tired to read anything beyond five lines. 

I have noticed that when I'm not reading much or stopping to enter into the Beauty I see in creation, it is then that I have no words. I cannot write. I make a poor conversant. I feel too tired for friends. I run and run, but it is more like a crawling car on petrol fumes. In short, I get crabby and withdrawn when I am not able to be immersed in Beauty in some form. Goethe explains why: there is a sense of the Beautiful which God has twined into the human soul. We are different from the animals...and the angels, and from God Himself. Yet neither animals nor angels are made in God's image, only man is. We are distinct—imaging God in our very being, in our capacity to know and appreciate Beauty, in our cultivating and stewarding whatever things God gives to us, from children and gardens, to art and music. 

I have noticed that Beauty is a gift that we get to enjoy. That we are allowed to savour the words of a poem on our tongues. That our eyes burn with the glory of a sunset or a sky on fire with meteors. That our hearts nearly burst in the highest swell of a song, either poignant or joy-filled. It is a gift to know that Beauty itself is a gift. It is a gift to know God and to be known by Him. It is Beauty that leads us to praise. Beauty is our companion to draw us into worship. It is Beauty that beckons us to enter into itself and find that we are in the courts of God. Beauty it is that leads us further up and further in.

Have you noticed?

Childlike. . .Wonder

Chill air makes me pull my covers closer just as my alarm buzzes. I roll over, swat my phone, and snuggle back under the blankets. Then I slit open one eye to see what the morning has brought. Suddenly I am all awake: the sky is grey, but the evergreens are shadowy jade, frosted with feather-flakes of snow. Snow! It is early this year, and cold, and...delightful. I can hear sleigh bells in my dreams, and though I am quick, I can never quite catch a glimpse of Jack Frost as he paints my windowpanes—which is a stunning feat, as I have a dozen panes before my desk.

My blood quickens at the thought of wandering out in those downy flakes, listening to the strange hush that snow always brings with it. My body is slower to answer the fairy calls—after all, covers are warm, the air in my house is decidedly not. After a good amount of standing by the heater, I am layered enough to sally forth into a world drenched in cold and quiet. There is wonder in the wintry wind. Magic laces the limbs of Old Man Cottonwood.

I stop on the bridge to watch the morning. Great puffs of snow shake off branches and glide into the stream. They are gone, liquid water once again, what moments before were airy snow-castles. The aching chill in my legs prods me to walk again. Still I watch the morning—the dancing snow, the plump little birds along my path—and I wonder about things. Do other people wonder about "things?" I wonder. I walk on, thinking of how the brown hedge next to me was teeming with living colour this Summer. How I clipped a lavender flower from it to wear in my hair. Do people my age wear flowers in their hair?

I question more and more whether I am an adult, or just a child inside an adult's body. Certainly I have learned some tact since childhood. Wait, is that tact, or have I learned to lie? Have I learned to gloss over something that I obviously see and am curious about? When does snow lose its magic and become merely an obstacle on the road? Do you become a grown-up when you step around a puddle rather than jumping in it? Does progress in years mean regress in seeing details like feathery finch bellies, pale peach against the snow? Does paying bills mean you stop chasing the rainbow's end? Does reality awaken us from our dreams?

The lenses of child-eyes have been mine for quite a long time. I think folks snicker at me sometimes after I walk by, wreathed in flowers or Autumn leaves. People often try to tell me that reality will burst my bubble; outlining various horrors, as if they are reality's servants, sent with sword in hand. One of my neighbours thinks I only appreciate happy endings, that I just pretend the Fall didn't happen, and that I need a dose of darkness to snap me out of fairy tales. Yet I realise that fairy stories have plenty of dark and morbid moments; many end unhappily-ever-after. I know the darkness of the Fall in my own heart and brain; in bitterness, betrayal, and broken bodies. I know Sorrow's shears, clipping off friendships that should have grown; snipping life out of loved ones, far too soon. It is always too soon, too young, too much...The Fall is too much with us.

The Fall is too much with us—should we shrink away in fear? Do we pretend it isn't real? No, that is a childish response, like hiding under the blankets from invisible night-fears. Thin quilts won't turn the blade of the Black Riders. What then is our defence? A heap of philosophy books to explain away the evil in the hearts of men? That is a cheap grown-up trick. Let us then be childlike—not childish—and revel in the fairy snows, walk so that we may see Beauty—rather than to burn calories. Let us know that the Fall happened, but not allow it to be the end of our stories. As Chesterton asserts, "Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey."1 Indeed, I need childlike faith that Smaug can be defeated—I already know that he exists. So for the Fall, I need to know it will one day finally and fully come untrue, because it daily threatens to undo me.

Yes, there is roadkill by the sidewalk, graffiti on the dumpster, and scraggly undergrowth along the river path where I walk. I do not deny these things. But there are majestic trees, glimpses of a snow-capped peak between branches, delightful bridges, and cheery little birds piercing the morning with sweet songs. It is Beauty that leads us to worship. Beauty, that restores sanity to our weathered souls. It is Beauty that turns our focus toward the One who made all things Beautiful in their time.2 That One is trustworthy and true, and He will make everything sad come undone one day...Interweaving myth into a Man and fairy stories into facts. 

---

1. Chesterton, G. K., “The Red Angel” in Tremendous Trifles (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1920) 130
   
2. Ecclesiastes 3:11 (ESVUK)

Fearless

Grey trees have barely given up their leaves before dark, swirling skies trace those limbs with white. The rising and falling of the seasons in their steps of the Great Dance have nearly made their circuit. Consequently, my mind is recalled to the beginning of this year, with all its fresh hopes and vague possibilities. Memories step out, one by one, only to be swept back into the dance of time. Grief and Beauty waltz together. Sorrow beats time with Joy. Suffering looks quietly into the eyes of Hope. Bitterness clasps hands with Forgiveness. The motif of the Dance this year seemed strange when originally given to me by the Instructor Himself back in those fresh, first days of January: Fearlessness.

In the nativity of the year I thought being fearless meant meeting obstacles and adventures head on. I had inklings of what some of the hurdles might be, hopes of what the adventures would contain. I little knew how difficult the hardships would be. I did not reckon that adventures were risks that could fail and wound miserably.

Much of the year held such sore trials that it seems to replay in black and white rather than colour. Deaths. Friends and family worn out with the things required of them. Betrayal. Being cast out by loved ones. Uncertainty. Deeply wounded hearts. Bitterness. Prodigal children. Loneliness. Certainly not all of these things visited me, but they have been visited upon such close friends and family that they have affected me very personally. I look back upon this year and see marriages crumbled; dreams burnt up; loved ones buried; relationship turned to cold, dead embers—I see ash.

Woven throughout, like intricate dance steps, are flashes of colour: lime and ochre aspens, glowing in warm sunlight. Dazzling white smiles of friends visiting and visted. Lavender and white cosmos along my walking path. Pink, brown, green, and black ink, flowing with words of hope, cheer, and life. Orange-red sunlight, pouring over the foothills at dawn. Bright blue eyes filled with whimsy. A rain of golden leaves falling like a shower over me and a friend. Sly red foxes on night walks and gift-mugs. Green in every crevice of long-dry mountains and sidewalk cracks. Mottled grey, brown, and red stones, illuminated by liquid sunlight in a chuckling, clear stream. Hazy blue mountains and burnished clouds at sunset on my solitude hikes. The navy velvet of the night sky, pierced by silver stars... All the colour of this year radiates from Beauty, love, and personality.

The Psalmist reminds us to worship the LORD in the Beauty of holiness... It is the Beauty that leads us to worship, that breathes life into dead places. When we see a wildflower in the wilderness, hear a single burst of birdsong on a chilly morning walk, know the love of another, it is then that the breath of life rushes into our souls.

I am tempted to look at the snow out my window and see flying ash. So many dreams and hopes have become but fine dust in my hands this year. Instead, I do the only thing I can: I pour every last handful of ash on God's altar, asking Him to raise a flame of Hope. Not a fragile "thing with feathers" as Emily Dickinson calls hope, but a solid, weighty anchor for my drifting soul. I ask for new, richer dreams; for restoration to rise like a phoenix from these pale ashes.

I am learning that to be fearless does not mean to be foolhardy, but to hope in the midst of burning dreams. To be fearless means to love, because perfect love casts out all fear.

Many months ago I read something about pain and fear... It broke my heart then as it does now—and every time I re-read it. It is the real Hope and Beauty in the midst of sorrow that stares at me from these words:

I wrote in my journal: So here is what I want to remember and never forget: Anxiety is the devil. Fear is a taste of hell because it cuts us off from the ever-offered rest of God’s love. And fear cannot do one damn thing to avert the thing feared. 

Sorrow, on the other hand, is a kind friend, and when it comes, grace comes, too, and all the tender mercies of God. All fear is the fear of loss and death; all love comes with a price tag of pain; all true sorrow has its counterpoint of joy. And it’s real. We’re living it in the most vivid way. 

 And if we’re running along the beach laughing at one moment and weeping over the grief that is coming the next, well then, this is life abundant, the full package. And the joy is more real than the grief because the joy is forever and the pain is for but the passing shadow of this life.

Lanier Ivester, Love Begets 

The Fog of Holy Mystery

What do you think of when you hear the phrase 'holy mystery'? Desert mystics wandering in flowing robes? Gilded saints on chapel ceilings? Incense streaming toward Heaven? I confess to having barely a vague knowledge of the mystery of the Divine. Holy mysteries are inchoate ideas at best, dark shadows in my head at most – nothing substantial enough to put into words. 

Today, however, I began to understand that holy mysteries are something akin to the fog filling up the bowl of the valley, pouring in over the lip of the foothills. The veil of mist hides familiar mesas and canyons. I know something of what is behind the veil from seeing the low hills on clear days. Perhaps holy mysteries are something like that, where most days all I see through the fog are blunted edges and shapes fading into grey. Then, for a moment, the clouds swirl up and I can see more clearly what is really there, only to be enveloped again the next minute. Knowing God is like that, moments of clearly seeing beyond the edge of the fog, seeing the substance further in, and then the shade descends again.

In other ways, I know the mystery of the Divine like a solitary bird flying off into the mist, its lone cry echoing back my heart's. Winging its way along it is swallowed by the depths and layers of cloud. I wonder if it will find a flock to join, or a place to rest its weary wings. So, too, I muse whether I will be able to rest my fainting soul, or find a flock with whom I fit. Or will I just fly into the grey and be lost? Is there anything real beyond what I can see? In the swirling moments I believe there is, because I have seen the shapes become solid. Yet, even when the mist o'ershadows the mountains I know by Beauty and by sense that there is more. More than the glimpses. Things more real than I can see or touch. I don't know how I know, but I do. Ah! There it is, the divine mystery: Beauty moves us toward the reality so real that we can only see shadows of it now. One day we shall see it –see Him– face to face.

For a moment the slow-pouring fog shifts and I know that when I want to enter into Beauty itself – when I want to be the sunset, or the symphony swelling, or the seagull on the wing – those aching moments are when the Divine pierces to my heart, like a shaft of sun through a storm cloud. I still cannot see what is to come, but I know the sun is there, and there are solid things beyond the shrouding mist. 

The beauty of this world is like layer upon layer of dark fog and storm clouds, melting the edges of evening into night. But the Beauty of the world beyond, the world to come, the redeemed world will be the crisp lines of leaf edges against a blue sky, of dappling shade, of falling leaves and sifting snow, of a forest of firs, and rocks upon rocks to climb and feel and see. It will be more, different, deeper. It will be like a keen wind in our lungs. We will be wonderstruck, as if seeing silver stars for the very first time. It will be layer upon layer of real... And there will still be those thin stratus clouds all salmon and coral and purple at sunset. The Divine will be fleshed out, walking among us again, and we will be new and able to see. 

~ Johanna

With a Thankful Heart

Do you ever have one of those weeks that is so busy it feels like two weeks in one, but when you reach the end of it you can't figure out where your time went? This week was just that sort for me. 

Though I am only 'part-time,' I put in nearly 40 hours at work. This gave me the chance to talk with my supervisor and a co-worker for several hours during some projects, to listen to 'A Christmas Carol' twice (two different versions), and to sing a myriad of Christmas carols (as I work by myself most of the time). I read a book in a couple of evenings; had two or three long phone conversations; went to see some fantastic Christmas lights (timed to music) with my neighbours; got to ride in my friend's classic Mustang (amazing!); organised a discussion group on Roger Scruton's 'Why Beauty Matters*'; spent an enthralling evening in the Air Force Academy Chapel listening to Handel's Messiah; and spent a lovely Saturday with my 'roommates' celebrating Christmas.

I could probably write several posts about Scruton's documentary, at least one about the Messiah (which could even overlap with Scruton's work), and probably a handful of posts about Christmas with the girls yesterday.

However, I want to write about thankfulness. I have been hounded in conversations, letters, Scripture, books read, et cetera to consider the rôle of gratitude in my daily life and character. And that is just this week! 

Thankfulness ought to mark a Christian's life thoroughly. Yet I find myself too often like the Israelites, much to my chagrin, complaining and grumbling. Who am I kidding though, about what can I complain? 

-- I am on the upswing from a cold and have realised how wonderful the 350+ days of the year are when my head isn't foggy, my nose doesn't run incessantly, and I can taste my food and enjoy it thoroughly.

-- After reading a book this week where one of the characters lost his legs in the war, I began to appreciate my legs and feet much more (especially since I'm on my feet for hours every day at work).
 

-- Upon taking a brisk walk in 12º weather this morning, I was extremely grateful for my heater, electric blanket, working stove, and mug after mug of hot tea.

-- Earlier this week our maintenance man, Anil, fixed my leaking tub faucet, and I was reminded of how grateful I am for 1) running water in my house, 2) hot water, 3) water pressure in my shower and sinks, and 4) clean water. Some countries don't have any of these things.

-- I'm also thankful that Summit employs a full-time maintenance crew. Some of whom shovelled the walks this morning, even though it is their day off.

-- I found Irish Swiss cheese (an oxymoron?), raspberries, and hummus on great sales this week, along with the things I needed for some Christmas gifts. 'Small' things like that really make my day!

-- Also, I have a job that pays my bills, yet gives me time to pursue reading, spending time with others, travelling, and my book-buying and tea-drinking habits.
 

-- Extravagant pleasures: my own computer and wi-fi in my home.

Yet all of these things are not even the greatest gifts I am thankful for this week. I enjoyed a couple of hours talking with my dear Oxford flatmate, Kasey; conversations with my parents and both of my sisters; and enjoyed our discussion -and the insight offered- during the reading of the Christmas story with the roommates yesterday. I also enjoyed a long letter from my friend Danielle (thank you!), and several e-mails from various friends.

I just finished reading the book of Acts this week. Often Paul had his life threatened, was beaten, stoned, nearly drowned, etc., yet in all those things (even being in prison for two years before being brought to trial!) he was full of rejoicing. He found all those things worthwhile to endure in order that the news about Jesus could be spread. I want to be like that, and I know I'm not. Yet I am thankful for the desire to change and grow. Now to walk in that way...

There is much more that I am thankful for, but I will save it for my next blog post. Until then, I leave you with a Muppet-y thankfulness!

*As a note, if you choose to watch Scruton's documentary, please be forewarned that there are many graphic and disturbing images throughout the film.