Granola, Roots, Reality, and Creeds

I jokingly asked my sister how she felt about me becoming 'granola'—washing my scalp with honey and making my own toothpaste with four simple (safe) ingredients. The more I hear about what ends up in our food (even in the flesh of produce, which should be 'clean' but is poisoned), the more granola I become. My sister's reply was that she was fine with my granola-ism, as long as I wasn't becoming [politically] liberal. 

My working hypothesis is that everyone who loves and serves God should be both conservative and liberal...not in the realm of politics, but in many areas of life: 

Be a liberal giver of time and money and love. 

Conserve water and electricity and land. 

Liberally feed your neighbour—feast in times of joy, and in times when joy seems too far away to recall. 

I'd like to say we should be conservative when it comes to how often we give our opinions and complain... But the thing is, while it's fine to have varying opinions, absolute truth still exists and should be our standard—and the Bible talks about doing everything without arguing or complaining.

Something I've been thinking about in recent months is discerning truth from lies, knowing a genuine, untainted product from something cheap, imitation, or poisoned. It seems harder and harder to find candles, clothes, toys, furniture, textiles, or even food made from sturdy, real things—things untainted by plastics, poison, heavy metal, toxins, etc. I can't just go to a different store to find clothes made out of real fibres—woven, pieced, and stitched by someone who was not forced into labour as a child or as a religious/political slave. Even if I could somehow sew my own clothes (trust me, no one wants to see how that disaster would go), where is the fabric coming from? It feels impossible to find solid, real things in our ever-shifting world.

The same goes for those in governments, agencies, big tech, big pharma, media, education, etc. It seems that their native tongue too often is lies—to the point that they can't stop themselves from believing their own deception. Who can we trust? Are the people we trust in giving us the whole truth, or just the portion of information they want us to see to paint a certain image of a person or our world? It all feels surreal.

So I find myself coming back to what I know is true and real and beautiful: Jesus the Messiah is King and Lord. Of all of creation itself. Of individuals. Of His Kingdom in Heaven which is breaking into Earth... Jesus is real—the Son of God the Father, co-equal in power and majesty with Him and with the Holy Spirit. When we say the Nicene Creed at church every week it is a moment of time that transcends clock time, rooting me and those all around me into reality. There is real wood. Real earth. Real flesh. Real blood. Real Truth. Realest of real Life. 

It's been a long while since I've practised the spiritual disciplines, and my soul feels it. I need solitude. I need simplicity. I need quiet. I need prayer. I need to meditate on Scripture—to savour it, not just to hear it and have it snatched away by the cares of each day.

Ephesians tells us to dig our roots down deep into the soil of God's love, being filled with the fullness of the Father:

"...that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19 ESV)

Let us be rooted and built up in Truth. To rest in the Real. To cultivate depth. Let us meditate on God and who He is...

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, 

Maker of Heaven and Earth, 

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, 

the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,  

begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.

Through Him all things were made.

Who for us men, and for our salvation He came down from Heaven,

And was incarnate by the Holy Spirit through the Virgin Mary,

And was made man.

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; 

He suffered death and was buried.

On the third day He rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; 

He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. 

He will come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead, 

and His kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life, 

Who proceeds from the Father and the Son. 

Who with the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.  

—Amen.

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.

Old-Fashioned Virtue amidst Newfangled Technology

Cricket songs in full thrum and twinkling hosts of fireflies—that was the world I lived in as a child, until either the mosquitoes or my mother corralled me into the house. Then there would be stories with Dad, during which I would draw horses or a poor replica of the Dawn Treader—or whatever else happened to be the subject of the story. We had a Saturday night show or two that we would watch as a family; there were stints of Captain Kangaroo, Reading Rainbow, or Disney afternoons, and the occasional film. Yet, by and large, my childhood was spent out-of-doors, riding my bike, playing ‘pioneers’ or ‘office’ with my neighbour girls, drawing, or reading.

Screens entered my daily life in high school, when we obtained our first family desktop computer. I started typing out my stories and editing a magazine for some school fellows. When dial-up internet made it to our home, I stayed up until the wee sma’s instant messaging friends or keeping up long e-mail correspondences with comrades scattered across the country.

Some parts of my imagination were laid to rest about the time I began having a screen in front of me often. Playing ‘pioneers’ with the neighbours was abandoned and I sorely neglected my model horses. I began writing stories instead of acting out the plots I had read or thought up with my friends. This may have been a natural shifting point for my imagination, but natural or not, technology facilitated the change. I had taken a step away from tangible reality, putting up a screen between myself and a first-hand experience of  life.

I was—and admittedly, still am—drawn to that flickering blue light like a moth to a flame. Yet something in me rebels, too. I have tried, in recent years, to take a child-like step backward. Now I often take the screen from betwixt myself and the colourful, sparkling,real world around me. I have a cell phone—a flip phone—that I turn off when I don’t want to be bothered. I read real books and write letters by hand. My upbringing without much ‘screen-time’ resonates all these years later in what feels life-giving. Though work and leisure often involve some form of glowing technology, when I write by hand or take an evening walk, or when I make dinner or fix my car, I feel more alive.

Screens seem to eat away at imagination and ingenuity. Sometimes it frightens me how prevalent screens are—I can’t hide myself or my yet-to-come children from them. But I have learned that there are ways to encounter the tactile world without the screen-barrier. Though we live in a different age than the technologically limited one in which I was raised, when I have children, I still want them to know the smell of a rose before they see one on a tablet. I want them to learn to roller skate and ride their bikes; to love going to the library for good books to read together; to want to colour or draw rather than watch a cartoon; and to know that if they say “But I’m bored!” they can do chores, not watch television.

This does not mean shunning technology; it has its place as a useful tool. The fact that I can call home whenever I want to without long distance charges is wonderful. My computer aids me in all kinds of endeavours—from looking up recipes and getting driving directions, to listening to music or audio books. Still, I want my children to learn how to use a map before they learn to use MapQuest; how to play music as well as listen to it; how to cook by ‘eyeballing it’, as well as by measuring every last thing; and how to read out loud proficiently, by listening to others and by practising the art themselves. I would like to have a big enough piece of the out-of-doors to let my children run around. A place to try to catch a squirrel through their own inventiveness (as I amusingly watched my neighbour children attempt recently).

You see, my desire is that ages and ages hence, my children will send handwritten thank you notes for gifts, and that they will text to let me know they made it somewhere safely. I want to be part of raising inter-dependent adults—persons who can use common sense in taking care of themselves and their possessions, but who know they are part of the Body of Christ, the Communion of Saints. I want them to have ‘old-fashioned’ virtues and to know history as they walk among ‘newfangled’ technology and speak truth into the present.

*This essay originally appeared at HumanePursuits.com

In a Glass Darkly

Have you ever seen a photo of yourself, or caught your reflection in a window and wondered, "Who is that person?" Sometimes I see my reflection in the mirror and I catch wisps of the flyaway, carefree girl that I am. Yet there are moments, usually in photographs, when I see the old soul inside of me. Hopefully that means I look wise and thought-full, rather than crinkled and worn down by cares. But I wonder... 

I remember not being very old, looking into the storm cloud blue eyes reflected back to me and realising I was the 'me' behind those eyes, the 'self' inside that little strawberry blonde head. I had that moment of knowing that I am myself. Sometimes we ourselves notice the way the light catches our eyes, or that fine lines are appearing where none lived before. A look we have never seen our pensive faces wear is reflected back in still water, or captured on film. For a moment we see the selves we are, we catch a glimpse of ourselves from an outside perspective.

The realisation, the knowing whisks away with a blink of our round eyes. I catch myself wondering, "Can we see rightly or are our eyes too fractured?" This question came to me first under the night sky. When I am upset or uncertain, I often look to the heavens to put myself in perspective. Planets shine strong in the darkness. Stars' light illumines my eyes and my heart as I breathe out prayers to their Maker and mine. In the nighttime all I see is shadow or—due to my astigmatism—light splayed, spilled, splitting in all directions.

Do my real eyes see reality, or only a fragmented reflection of what is real? Even the glasses I wear to right my vision do not fix the aberration that makes lights star out, especially at night. I hunger for the answer, to know if my real eyes see the world as it is. I hunger still more for the questions that arise when I stand small in the inky night. I want to see, to know, Beauty. I want to catch that pensive look of mine in a photo and be in wonder that that is me, the self I am. I yearn to be. I want to am (if one can break grammar rules in the desire to live ontology).

Saint Paul's words rise up in me; like a clarion call they ring and reverberate through my heart and mind: 'For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.' Or as another translation says: 'Now we see things imperfectly, like [fuzzy] reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.' The Fall is like an astigmatism, distorting our view of reality, of God. Even putting on the glasses of God's word and seeing the world from His side does not change the fact that we live inside the brokenness of the Fall. We see more clearly, yet not perfectly. The edges waver and star, making us blink to clear our eyes. The constant hope before us is that the Fall's breach and fragmentation will one day be fully healed and made whole. As gloriously proclaimed by Saint Paul:

In my opinion whatever we may have to go through now is less than nothing compared with the magnificent future God has planned for us. The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. The world of creation cannot as yet see reality, not because it chooses to be blind, but because in God’s purpose it has been so limited—yet it has been given hope. And the hope is that in the end the whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God!

A Living Vapour

Fresh morning sun peered into my eyes as I swung my car onto the main road in town. I cruised toward a church I had never entered, realising—as I pulled between the mustard-coloured lines to park—that I did not know where to go. I stood uncertainly, looking back and forth between the looming church and the sad-looking parish centre behind it. I made the decision to poke my head in at the parish centre, as the lovely church looked a bit too imposing to enter without someone by my side. A slip of paper on the glass door confirmed that I had chosen correctly. Skirting the infant baptism class, I veered toward a room sparsely filled with ladies of various shapes, hair colours, and backgrounds.

Walking into a group of persons is intimidating enough for me, let alone a group of grown-up women belonging to a denomination I'm unfamiliar with, all of whom I had never met in my life. Yet, I was determined to attend this morning of prayer and meditation as soon as I had heard about it. That determination walked me through the double doors and to the first table where someone caught my eye and smiled. I chatted with a woman while waiting for the tea water to boil. I introduced myself to the ladies at the table where I set my things. I probably looked like a wide-eyed protestant from a mile away, but they were all kind enough to explain things for me when I asked. I tactfully neglected to ask why women's gatherings never supply protein-rich breakfasts, hoping the fruit and assorted breads would keep my morning appetite satisfied.

Soon, we filed over to the spacious church in little knots of chattering women. My tentative, shy feeling whisked away as I stepped under those dark, wooden rafters and my nostrils caught a strong scent of incense. Dust-brown pews invited us to sit in the sunlight sifting down from high windows. I chose a spot a bit apart from the kind ladies I had shared breakfast with. Quiet and reflection are hard for me to practise in close proximity to other persons. We practised two variations of lectio divina, meditating on a passage of Scripture from Isaiah, and then on the calling of Matthew, using a Caravaggio painting. We sang a few hymns in English and in Latin. I journalled and prayed and reflected over more Scripture. We were guided through a much slower and more deliberate Mass and celebration of the Eucharist.

Over and again during the morning I was drawn to a stream of soft light pouring onto the altar floor. At first I could see lingering incense smoke illumined in that shaft. While the aroma of incense dissipated throughout our time in that hushed sanctuary, it did not leave my memory. I remembered how the light had caught the final tendrils of sweet-smelling smoke as I stepped in through that dark doorway. The beam of light had taken the invisible trail of vapour, giving it form and substance. I thought about how our prayers are to rise to the Lord as a sweet aromatic waft of incense. That is all we are, a breath of wind, a curl of blue smoke, nearly invisible—until the light rounds out our contours and gives us substance. Only the Light, Jesus Himself, makes our prayers visible, real, and dimensional. We—who are but a puff of smoke and then we are gone—He makes solid, visible creatures. He rounds out our spirits, souls, and selves by shining His light not on us, but through us. "...Blaze again like fire in every leaf", says Malcolm Guite. It is the Light shining through the smoke, through the leaf, that shows the substance of the thing pierced by the Light.


Truth is multi-façeted, like a luminous jewel. This day the truth I saw was that both our prayers and our selves are but a vapour, then they are gone. Both need the Eternal Light to shine through them to make them solid, real. Like the ever diminishing scent of incense, our prayers fade and need to be re-kindled. We must daily speak joy. We must continue to cry the mercy of God. We must bring our requests again to God...Not because He forgets, but because we do. We so quickly forget our wraith-like wreathes of praise, the persistence in our petitions, the Kindness that leads us to repentance. Our prayers either rise into the Light Himself, or they flit away into the rafters, losing substance and depth.


As I stepped out into the crisp air and noon-day sun, my eyes re-focussed from cool semi-darkness to overwhelming brightness. The sunlight that had peeked into my green eyes in the morning, now laughingly showed me the world boldly, clearly. The light revealed the depth and the contours of all around me. Light in our world only shows what is there, but I am learning that the Light Himself makes things real by shining upon them, through them. I climbed into my car and tilted her toward home, reflecting on my need for the Light to illumine and enliven me.

Speaking Scary

"Don’t let the sun set till you’ve done one thing that sort of scares you."

—Ann Voskamp

Clear Colorado skies are a rich cyan blue, beckoning me to jump into an adventure. Sometimes I receive the call of all that glorious wild and go for a long drive in the mountains, looking for a pull-off where I can tromp. I like adventures, after all. Some days, though, I stay home and watch the cotton-clouds sail over my roof on the breeze, content to look out the window as I write. Whether it is pen to page or keys clicking their rhythm, I can soar to those azure heavens or plumb the depths of pain with words. Some words are hard to wrestle onto the page, but others are plain scary to pen down. What will people think if I write that? Words don't seem to care what others think, they demand entrance into the worlds—of story, of prose, of conversation. They teem with life-giving substance, building worlds, building others up, furnishing frameworks for ideas and dreams. In order to craft a believable story one needs the right words—the sort that steal us away from the concrete planet our feet rest upon and fly us into a place so rich and vibrant that it becomes more real to us than the trees swaying o'erhead.

Words can draw us in to something bigger than ourselves, be it uncharted lands or the love of God through His very own Book. Yet words can be scary, too. They can paint nightmare images, twist into hideous lies, or wound our hearts. However, it is God who gives us the scariest words. They are the sort that breathe life: I was wrong. I forgive you. Can we try again? Help me! God, I trust You. Yes. I love you. These words are hard to say because the monster of pride or the fear of the unknown chokes us. What if we trust God and horrific things still happen to us? What if we speak out our love and it is taken advantage of or rejected? What will people think of us if we admit that we were wrong? What if we tell someone our hurts or struggles, will they run away? If we tell someone we forgive them, doesn't that mean we have to live like we have forgiven them? These words are hard, the implications are far-reaching, and they can scare us.

Yet maybe our world would be richer, the earth beneath our feet more dear, the sky above fully alive, if we spoke these words more often. Maybe our love would grow if only we dared to share it, in word and in action. Perhaps we would free others from the tyranny of stagnation if we forgave them and were able to see that they could be much more than we ever thought. If we speak and act on these frightening words, our view of God would likely deepen, allowing Him to be God and reminding us that we are frail. We might find ourselves in deep waters, in broken places, being honest about our hurts. Still more, though, we might find that the Word Himself speaks to us in these places, breathing His very life into dead places, healing hurts and hearts.

What is one scary word or phrase you need to say before the sun sets? Is it I was wrong or I trust you, or I love you or I believe, please help my unbelief? Sometimes the scariest thing I do in a day is tell God that I trust Him and that I'm saying yes to what He asks of me. He asks hard things sometimes. Often. And they usually include other people—not always the kind I like to be around or who are easy to love. Sometimes He asks me to be still—both to be silent and not to be restless. I strive a lot with God and with others—for God to ask me to stop striving is difficult. To say yes to Him is hard—it is scary. But it is always good. Will you join me in saying scary things to God and to others?

The Word Made Flesh...

"Nails, spear shall pierce Him through
The Cross be borne for me, for you
Hail, hail the Word made flesh
The Babe the Son of Mary"

—What Child is This?

"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory..." So says Saint John's opening chapter. The Word was made flesh...The Eternal Word was spoken into time, was made into finite man, frail flesh. What did the Son of God gain by this? Insults, rejection, and threats of stoning. Nails, thorns, and a spear thrust into His side. He who was Light and Life was dealt a death-blow. Yet the darkness cannot overcome the light. Death is swallowed up in life. The Word sounding and resounding in time and space does not come back void. That Word is robust, full of Truth and grace.

Many times it seems that "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth goodwill to men." That God's promises and gifts are puny next to the prince of the power of the air. However, when Paul says that death is swallowed up in life—and John truthfully proclaims that the darkness is expelled by the Light, unable to overcome it—we see that God's gifts are rich and vibrant next to shadowy, gnarled phantoms. We still live like a people sitting in darkness, trapped into thinking there is a monster in the shade...But the Light is dawning—more full of life, rich hues, and Truth than the paltry darkness that seeks to blind our seeing eyes. The Light is real. The promises are solid. The Hope of our souls was made flesh and He tabernacles among us. Now—and forevermore.

Hail, hail the Word made flesh!

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)

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

Real Work

Vivid memories are stored for numerous reasons, from shock or surprise, to excitement or pain. One such memory of mine is of a friend picking me up for a weekend adventure. Five minutes into our drive, she asked the question that made my hackles rise, "How long do you see yourself working in your current position?" 

Even now my heart rate increases and my blood pressure rises. I hear her underlying question, "When are you going to get a real job?" I could have retorted, in good Madeleine L'Engle fashion, "'What is real?' Is it that which our hands close around, which our eyes see? No! The things which are most real are unseen, according to St Paul. We 'know' not by sight, but by what something actually is. So what is a real job by your own definition?" I did not respond with a single inquiry, however.  It is difficult for me to articulate my position instantly, putting the question-asker on the defensive when they have clearly offended me. It is probably healthier for my friendships that I am slow on my feet when it comes to replies.

Though my answer that day did not cause my friend to question her assumptions, I have questioned them many times since then. Her query not only wounded my heart about my work, it revealed a sore misunderstanding of both reality and work. A 'real job' in my friend's mind boiled down to tangible ends: healthcare, pay checks, and a retirement plan. I am sickened to realise that most persons in our culture (and the civilised world at large) would agree*. Horror! 

Let us recall to mind St Paul's assertion that, "the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." (II Cor 4.18b) Thus, the most 'real' things are intangible things like honesty, graciousness, patience, compassion, hope, and so forth. But I do not want to dwell upon reality so much as 'work'. What is work, and what is work for?

Often the word 'work' elicits a groan. Many persons think work is synonymous with 'unenjoyable misery' it seems. However, the Online Etymological Dictionary defines work thus: "physical labour, toil; skilled trade, craft..." And Dorothy L Sayers brilliantly and succinctly calls us to see work in this way:

I asked that [work] should be looked upon, not as a necessary drudgery to be undergone for the purpose of making money, but as a way of life in which the nature of man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfil itself to the glory of God. That it should, in fact, be thought of as a creative activity undertaken for the love of the work itself; and that man, made in God’s image, should make things, as God makes them, for the sake of doing well a thing that is well worth doing.

 ~ Dorothy L Sayers, Why Work

Some jobs are not worth doing. Many items do not fit a need and are not worth making*. A work should be undertaken because it is good in itself, or because it benefits others. Perhaps this is why many persons dread Mondays – they are not doing something that breathes life into their own or others' souls. Even more painfully, because what they are doing is not worth doing.

Another reason for frustration in work is that the goal of the work is good, but the way it is gone about is not structurally sound, so those good ends are never attained. I once worked helping children learn and grow, a most worthy calling in itself. Yet, I could not bear to be around my co-workers. They came in every day to earn a pay check and benefits, for recognition and renown. I saw children chastised and held back because my co-workers did not try to understand their little oddities or help lead them out of ignorance. For the brief time that I was there I sought to love on those children the most. In the end, I could not remain in my position because the whole structure was misdirected and fragmented, there was no redeeming it from the inside. 

Finally, what is work for? Ideally, our work should fulfil a need, bring order or healing, or serve and enrich others, while bringing us joy. Certainly things like street sweepers, rubbish collectors, waste management, and other unpleasant jobs must be done. We live in a world with rubbish and decay. But even those jobs seek to keep persons well and make towns aesthetically pleasing; they are simply different ways of being a doctor or an artist, who also keep persons healthy and make things that are pleasing to the eye. And when we bring order to a place, person, or situation there is a sense of satisfaction.

We are called to various forms of labour, as varied as the personalities we possess. And often we are called to a conglomerate of labours, each worthy in its own place – lifting this or that, writing, cooking meals to share, asking good questions to spur thoughtful conversation, saving lives, cleaning up sickness for a friend, making music, bearing and raising children... It is hard to birth an essay, as it is hard to lift fifty large boxes, or to raise children day in and day out. But just because a thing is difficult does not mean it is not a joy. And just because something gives life to our souls does not mean that it is not real work. And just because we do not earn a pay check for much of our work does not mean it is less important. When we enjoy the work of our hands, finding it pleasurable, then we may rejoice in the kindness of God. For He made us to take joy in creating, cultivating, and caring in multi-fold ways.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul. 

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait. 

~ A Psalm of Life, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Stanzas two and nine)

Just as labour comes in many forms, so the payment of labour does, too. It may mean insurance or a pay check, or it may be satisfaction in the work, or it could be that someone goes home well, or that order and beauty have been made. My hope is that my life shows my friend, and those who share her mindset, that living life well, working hard, enjoying beauty, and loving others all go hand in hand. In the end I want to love others well through the work that I do. Let us then be up and doing, with a heart to labour and to love.

~ Johanna

*While it is good to work hard in order to afford travel, own nice things, etc., nothing in our world is certain. Not jobs, banks, health, retirement funds, or anything else. Only God is unfailing. 

*On this topic of work being a good in itself, see C S Lewis' essay Good Work and Good Works

Unmasked...

"Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God."

~ A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

I began a letter to a friend with this gem, found tucked inside the book I am currently reading (One Thousand Gifts). I was to find over and again in my week's reading (and my music-listening), references to eyes and sight. I discovered the soul of faith in the Psalmist, who says, "To You I lift up my eyes, O You Who are enthroned in the heavens1". We who have faith will set our eyes on God as the servant looks to his master, or the handmaiden looks to the hand of her mistress2. If we dare to look into the face of our belovéd Father, faith is the gossamer tie that binds us to Him; fine, sturdy, and only visible in the light. We see Holiness burning in His countenance. We view His faithfulness in all of history past. 

This gazing on God does not leave us unchanged, however. Indeed, it does something remarkable: it removes the masks we hide behind.

"...At all times I wonder: can anyone with the oily stains of a pride-splotched heart see God? I look down at the stained skirt of my apron, washed in moonlight. And I think I can stand here? I think I can brave this Beauty? Not an empty tinny beauty, but a Fierce Beauty, Flaming Fire Who burns through the thick masks and leaves the soul disrobed. I am naked and I am right ashamed. I know how monstrously inhumane I can be... [M]y neck has been stiff and graceless and I have lived the filth ugly, an idolator, a glutton, and a grace-thief who hasn't had time for the thanks."

– Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts (pp 115-116), emphasis mine

Those words burned into my mind's eyes and memory this week. It is in Thanksgiving to God that our masks are burned off by His fierce, flaming holiness. We turn our faces to Him and He excoriates whatever is not true, whatever is impure; that we, with unveiled –unmasked– faces might reflect His glory3.

Eyes open round. Here I am again, marinating my mind in II Corinthians chapters three through five because they are vibrant, robust, rich. Our own faces must be –and remain– unveiled to reveal God's glory3. Here I am reminded that we are frail earthen jars, full of cracks and full of the light of the glory of God manifested in the face of Jesus Christ4. We heave and groan in this earthy habiliment of flesh, awaiting the day, not when we are unclothed, but more fully clothed... The time when we will leave the body of the shadow-lands behind, to be robed in the most real body, the most real selves. It is whispered that we will become solid persons6. 

Thanks be to God!

~ Johanna

1. Psalm 123.1, ESV

2. Psalm 123.2, ESV

3. II Corinthians 3.18, NKJV

4. II Corinthians 4.6-7, NKJV

5. II Corinthians 5.1-8, NKJV

6. See The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis for more on this idea

What Is Real?

Have you ever noticed that books for young readers tend to ask deep questions about meaning, being, purpose, life, and reality? Story is a wonder-full way to explore and answer life's greatest questions. This is yet another reason I recommend reading children's books often. 

  

"What is real?" This question is posed again and again throughout Madeleine L'Engle's book A Wind in the Door. It is a question we ask through all of life, as well. "What is real?" Is it what we see, touch, taste, hear, smell -- in short, our experiences? Or are the 'realest' things unseen, like love, hope, friendship, God, and truth?

You can't take a handful of friendship with you anywhere. You cannot cut open the heart of love and  vivisect it. And even if you travelled across all of time and space, you could not get to God's country. Though His country exists, it isn't somewhere you can reach like that. He has to bring you there Himself. I have a hunch that God's country is far more real than we can imagine while we are in our own country, like Lewis describes in The Great Divorce.

What is real, then? The seen? The unseen?

We live in a world where the seen, the tangible, are considered the substance of reality. But we know from Scripture that the 'realest' things are those that are not seen. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

I have been thinking about this in relation to the Lord's Supper recently. What transpires in the bread and the wine administered at the altar rail? I will not delve into the various views on communion here, I will simply state that I believe that the bread and the wine are icons of the truth that I am feeding on the spiritual Body and Blood of Jesus. 

So, an image is something that helps us catch a glimpse of reality.  A poet, a storyteller, could not work without images. Nevertheless, an image is only an image, a reflection not unlike the reflections of the shadows of reality in Plato's cave.

If an image is not easy to define, an icon is even more difficult. We usually think of icons as corrupt images which ought to be broken. But it is only an icon misused [...] which needs breaking. A true icon is not a reflection; it is like a metaphor, a different, unlike look at something, and carries within it something of that at which it looks.

 ...An icon, if it 'works,' is more than itself; it bears a fragment of reality.

~ Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet (pp 17-18)

 
My friend, Stephen, asked why many evangelicals act as if receiving the Lord's Supper as a spiritual reality is somehow less potent than the  bread and wine being the actual body and blood of Christ. He insisted, "Isn't it much more than that?" Well, what is real? Certainly actual flesh and blood are real. Yet if an icon bears a fragment of reality, and if our unseen 'spiritual man' is being fed by that reality, then receiving the spiritual body and blood of Jesus is indeed potent, weighty, and life changing. It is, in fact, more real than tangible flesh and blood.

We must understand that it is a serious thing to receive the Eucharist. We must examine ourselves to see that we are in the faith, not eating and drinking condemnation on ourselves in the blesséd bread and wine. We must allow the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, to reshape us into real men.

 

~ johanna