Empty Hands

I want to hold my worth in my hands;
to trace my accomplishments
in gilded letters on spine and cover;
to smell them in ink and paper.

But my desire is a dream awakened,
and all I can trace are tears
of shame, that I have nothing
to hold out in offering but empty hands. . .

Empty hands—not clenched fists,
angry, or grasping at given gifts;
Empty hands, ready to hold another's,
to serve, to open and receive. . .

To receive trust—a hand placed
in mine by a friend or a child;
to receive that broken bread,
spoken over, speaking over me: "You belong."

To belong, to be welcomed,
is not something I can close my hand
around—my palm is empty
on this pilgrimage, ready to give.

I cannot hold my worth in my hand,
but I can hold His most precious Body;
hold the hand of one in His Body;
be a hand in His Body—empty. . .

There Must be More. . .

PC: Brian Masbaugh (slacklinemedia.com)

I want the world to be different. . .

I want to respond in kindness every time. To have enough of God's love in me to always be ready to give to others. I want fear to evaporate. For old-fashioned values to be held by everyone. And I want to not get hung on one side of a dichotomy or the other. I want to see this life and this world bigger. To see possibilities. To know how to walk the balance of hope in the face of despair, or that of love in the proper tension of the truth.

My sister told me recently that I wanted to have my cake and eat it, too—like keeping a beautifully arranged dinner and yet cleaning the plate in enjoying all of its flavours. I do. I want it to be true that Good wins in my lifetime. I want the shadow to be small and passing, and for it to pass away right now. For the high Beauty to swoop in and save the day—and the nighttime, too. I long to live in the not yet, because the now is so broken. I long for perfect relationships without underlying currents of tension, annoyance, hurt, or frustration. I long for the fully redeemed Heaven and Earth, and confess that I kick against the breakage in which we still live.

I have been given hope and permission to dream more richly, to see God as bigger than the false dichotomies we are so often handed. . . And then comes the thud—the fact that not everyone else has been handed that gift, or that they have not received it yet, anyway. When I ask for answers and have the problem reiterated, it doesn't help. When I say, "There has to be more than just this—God is bigger than these two bad choices," I get blank silence.

When I've been told that God is bigger than my small vision, but I'm not expected—or even allowed—to see more, I get frustrated. I feel like I'm constantly on the outside and the majority is convinced that there is only one key to get in. But I am not convinced. I don't believe that my life is on hold until I get married or move or have a different job. Yet so many others believe those very things that I begin to live like I believe it, too. But I don't. I don't believe that a circumstance change is what will let me in. 

When it comes to relationships with fellow humans, surely I don't have to be relegated to being friends with only women—and mainly single ones at that. God made us whole humans. He made us to need others—male and female, single and married—in whatever state we are. What I don't know is how to practise the truth that God's vision, His world, His Kingdom is here and now. 

How do I maintain healthy relationships with my long-distance married friends? How do I have rich and healthy friendships with the men in my life? How do I love my single friends well? What is the best way to connect with my local married friends? Confessedly, I'm tired of getting shut out of various friendships because I'm not married. What changed with that ring? Don't we still have some of the same loves in common? Can't we still encourage one another in our most holy faith? Does my friend having a husband suddenly make all of that disappear? If so, it's no wonder that I've looked on marriage with a dubious eye in years past.

If what I've been told is true—that I belong to the Body of Christ, throughout time and space—then why don't I feel like I belong once my friends get married? Why do I feel like I'm a second class human as a single person? My admission ticket to the Body of Christ is not a gold band. It is being sacramentally connected to Jesus, the Head. It is receiving the very same Body and Blood that every other Christ-follower receives. 

I don't have to only have friends like me—that would keep my vision and theirs too narrow. I need people of various ages in different stages of life: single, married, with children, with grandchildren, in various vocations and with a variety of interests and talents. I need people who have different perspectives to help me enlarge my view of God and His world—of His universe. And I need to help enlarge the vision of others. . . Like those who see that there is a problem and think there are only two ways to deal with it. But God doesn't call us to impale ourselves on one stake or the other of these dichotomies. He calls us to the much harder task of another way, of balance and counterbalance—of a slackline walk. And that over a canyon. The stakes are high if we fall, but the stakes are sharp and deathly wounding if we jump to one side or the other, too. We must constantly keep our eyes fixed on Jesus to keep our balance on the slackline. To look to the right or to the left is to lose the view of our Anchoring Point—the Fixed Point in a world of turning. To look to one side or the other is to fall.

I don't want to pendulum swing, I want to walk the straight and narrow. I don't need people to paint the problem, I need help to find the answers. I don't want to see the world as small—it is not. I want eyes, heart, and mind to see how long and how wide and how high is the love and the glory of God. I want the now to step into the not yet. For time and eternity to meet. For chronos to cross into kairos. For all manner of things to be made well. For the shadow to pass and for the stars to shine through to us, to draw us near to them and yet to leave us alive. . . so much more alive than we've ever been before. The glory of God is writ large, but we need His perspective to be able to see it whole, not in pieces. We need to set our eyes on Jesus—the Author and Finisher of our faith—to keep us balanced on the slackline, rather than teetering over the brink, swaying left or right. 

The world is bigger than we've been led to believe. There are more than two options for how life can work. We know about what is past. We live in the now. . . and we long for the not yet to arrive and make all things new. We long for redemption to be fulfilled. We've been told the world is different than we've believed for so long. . . Now we get to learn to live that difference, to dream bigger, to see more than we could before—to not get stuck on the outside, but to finally get in.

Unless I Die...

Unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. 

But, if it dies, it will bear much fruit. 

—Jesus

A darkening sky greets the great eye

blinking open its shutter to morn—

o'erhead, coarse comes a rook's cry,

from here dreams appear bleak and forlorn

Here, in my cramped, close cell I hear

the neighbour dog howl a lament—

the dirt and the dark I fear,

they close in and my choice I repent

Buried, buried unseen and deep,

with the dog next door I mourn—

my eyes, dreamless now, can only weep,

trapped in the earth like a kernel of corn

How long must I suffocate,

freedom denied, in this dank tomb?

Life with death I conflate,

Later to find my prison mould a womb

The waiting feels empty and long,

but the Gardener waters the earth

about me, and o'er me raises His song,

stirring my spirit, breathing rebirth 

The confines feeling so like death

are the only means of shedding the husk

of flesh strangling my dreams, my breath,

clouding my eyes by dusk

White rhizome rises, unfurling green,

fresh air floods my chamber, tight,

in my heart awakens a dream

after my soul's dark night.

Thirty-Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Through the Cracks

Violence cracks our world,
leaves lives black and blue
emptier than when day broke,
leaves lives numb and days grey

Shadows crawl stealthily,
silently blotting the beauty
our eyes can only see
by the sun's bright rays

Darkness is like a shroud,
clothing our dying senses
too poisoned to see value
in life or how gaping death is

Hope seems like a dream
in the inky night, intangible,
unreal, a delusive phantom we're
weary of being told is substance

Faster and swifter, now,
the shadows come, thrusting
our world into the chaos of darkness,
we are unable to feel, unable to heal

Lives are bleeding out,
much faster and swifter, now,
running across thirsty ground,
fracturing families and dividing men

Swifter and faster than
eye can see, light shoots across
the night, like a bullet's flash—
light dispels darkness in an instant

It comes unexpectedly,
like hope revived, alive and
real to hold to, no longer a ghost,
but now an Anchor for battered souls

Light shines in the night,
and the darkness cannot cover it,
cannot understand, cannot hold out,
so the shadows flee, like paper-thin dreams

Slowly, slowly, now,
men begin to understand, to see,
to apprehend truth—they are set free,
and they begin to heal, begin again to feel

Cracks allow the light
to shine through—lives black
and blue are healed, made new,
as Light and Hope overflow thirsty souls