Quiet Your Heart: Breathe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But always remember

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

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

~ JJ Heller, I'll Keep You Safe

Noli Timere

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

A Psalm of David

The Lord is my Shepherd [to feed, guide, and shield me], I shall [experience nothing as lacking]. He makes me lie down in [fresh, tender] green pastures; He leads me beside the still and restful waters. He refreshes and restores my life (my self); He leads me in the paths of righteousness [uprightness and right standing with Him—not for my earning it, but] for His name’s sake.

Yes, though I walk through the [deep, sunless] valley of the shadow of death, I will fear or dread no evil, for You are with me; Your rod [to protect] and Your staff [to guide], they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with [a]oil; my [brimming] cup runs over. Only goodness, mercy, and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life, and through the length of my days the house of the Lord [and His presence] shall be my dwelling place.

Edges

Five years ago, I walked the grey streets of Oxford, my mind gnawing on something that one of my tutors had said to me over coffee. Being away from home and all you know will make you feel the edges of yourself. He meant that I need not cling to my conservative moral beliefs while I was out from under the eyes of people who knew me. I think he was worried that I was naive and easily led, rather than a tenacious soul who poked at ideas to make sure I knew what they really were before—or even after—believing them. Thankfully, I had spent many months and years thinking over the things I believed and why. I may have appeared fresh-faced and over-trusting, but underneath, I had at least a bit of perspicacity.

My tutor was right about something, however—Oxford did make me feel the edges of myself. I knew where I stopped and the ancient stones began. I knew—perhaps more intimately than ever before—how small I was. I knew I was nothing special, yet simultaneously unique and necessary, because God had chosen to form me and bring me to life at a given point in His story. 

Since my term in the City of Dreaming Spires, various events and seasons in life have made me feel the edges of myself. In Oxford, it was both the unfamiliarity of the city and the suddenness of the adventure given to me. The city was established and bold, ever busy and meandering like the Thames. It made me feel young and small, but adventurous and curious—much like a child who is afraid of the dark, but unafraid to ask 'embarrassing' questions or play make-believe as if it were real. I felt solid, at home, present in Oxford.

Other experiences have made my edges known in precisely the opposite way. I have felt like the proverbial fish out of water, disoriented and unable to think clearly, let alone ponder slowly and deeply. Sensory overload and all-things-new have made me cling to God, knowing my best defence was to take a deep breath. Inhale. Lord have mercy. Exhale. Christ have mercy. 

In the midst of feeling uprooted I pray frantically, I don't know anything, I have nothing solid under me... Jesus, anchor my soul, keep me from drifting. I don't know, but I trust You. His steadying hand isn't always tangible. Sometimes I flail while He holds me, until I tire out enough to hear His whispered, Peace. Be still. It's His call to stop thrashing and know that I am held. I am loved more than I can understand with my questioning mind. When I don't know, I feel that my edges are dull—yet discernible. The Father's lithe hands grasp my slippery self and He holds me secure, bringing me to a place of quiet rest in the middle of uncertainty. 

When I feel most like myself, when I feel at home, my edges are distinct and crisp. When I feel least like myself, adrift in the scary ocean, my edges are still known, but blunted or warped. In both cases I am being shaped by the Maker. He helps me to grow deeper, healthier, and more like Himself. He shaves off my warty tendencies and calloused feelings to reveal that He is pruning me—from the edges inward—into His image. Christ have mercy.

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

“Empty space tends to create fear. As long as our minds, hearts, and hands are occupied we can avoid confronting the painful questions, to which we never gave much attention and which we do not want to surface. 'Being busy' has become a status symbol, and most people keep encouraging each other to keep their body and mind in constant motion. From a distance, it appears that we try to keep each other filled with words and actions, without tolerance for a moment of silence.” 1

—Henri J. M. Nouwen

On a breezy, rainy evening a few weeks ago, I sat on my porch, thinking. It was too dark to read or write, too Beautiful to do anything but sit still in the ferocious gloaming. It was an evening empty of plans—a dangerous thing for one's thoughts. On such occasions, I tend to corner my thoughts and make them own up to what is lurking behind various façades. This particular evening, I had a sore head, having hit a soft spot on a metal beam at work that day. Without warning, my thoughts strayed to the fear of my own mortality.

I have vaguely considered that 'one day' I will die, and I am not afraid of what lies beyond this life. . .But this was different. I came nose-to-nose with the reality that I am mortal, terminal. Fear bristled in my head, blossomed in my heart. Why, I could easily fall on the uneven stairs leading to my cabin and hit my head. I could be incapacitated for life—or even die. All it takes is a moment—a wrong step, not looking twice in my car mirrors—suddenly all of my vitality is shown its frailty.

Fear spread its talons in my thoughts, surging on to think of my parents, now in their sixties. My parents are not immortal. Tears pricked my eyes. I will not borrow trouble! I told myself. I began to tell God my fears, not to give them a rigid reality, but to name the fears so they could be defeated. Yes, I am temporal, I could die on my stairs or in my bathtub or whilst driving—but the possibility of death is not going to stop me from living. You may breathe a sigh of relief, I still plan to shower. . . And to walk to work, drive my car, and hike as I please.

Rather than allowing fear to paralyse me, I choose to let it galvanise me—to dare to live life. In the face of fear I have fresh appreciation for hearing my parents' voices, in giving thanks for my beating heart. I will not live in fear's shadow, I will not allow it to dog my steps. I will enjoy this evening's sunset, this summer's wildflowers, this hour of thinking and writing. Daily I take it for granted that I will awake in the morning; that my heart will keep beating—even if I forget that it does so and don't remind it to keep on. In this instant I am thankful for this organ that circulates my blood, that allows oxygen to flow to my brain so I can think of the right words to pen.

The fears and questions I often push down with daily tasks, with reading copious amounts of Harry Potter, with unceasing strains of music—these questions and fears surface in empty moments. I am the one who chooses the still evening on the porch, to sit under a tree on my walk and marvel at the burnished clouds. But I am not the one who brings to mind the thoughts, the fears. Those come unbidden. The fears of being alone or not being enough. The questions about why I chase freedom or attention from various individuals. Questions I cannot answer—like why I still crave sin when I know it doesn't satisfy. I would rather avoid “confronting the painful questions”, the craven fears—but if silence is part of my life, I cannot stop them coming.

It is here, in the stillness, that I disagree with one word in Nouwen's quotation: create. Empty space does not create fear, it only gives it the time and place to bob up in the stream of our thoughts. I can distract myself at work, around others, with my reading and correspondence—but not in the silence. Our culture is one that fears silence first, because from it, deeper fears arise. Yet how can any of us meet our fears head on with truth, with life, with hope if we suppress those petrifying questions? We must allow silence in our lives in order to know the fears and questions that motivate or manipulate our actions. Only then can we confront fear with truth and life. I find, indeed, that the antidote to fear truly is the perfect love of God giving me courage to live, to do, and to make room for stillness.

____________________

1. Nouwen, Henri J. M., Reaching Out (New York, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group) 73

Cross posted at Conciliar Post and Humane Pursuits

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?

A Chalice Remade

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

____________________

1. II Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV)

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

3. Romans 9:20b (NKJV)

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

Why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lord have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Grant us Your peace.

Under the Shadow...

Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide;
Oh, receive my soul at last.

Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me.

All my trust on Thee is stayed,
All my help from Thee I bring;
Cover my defenceless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.

 ~ Charles Wesley: Jesus, Lover of My Soul

O Frabjous Day!

Happy 110th birthday to my childhood heroine, Gladys Aylward!!

I have always admired her trust in the LORD, her willingness to serve Him in spite of obstacles and everyone she knew saying 'You can't do that!', and not knowing what she was walking into when she bought her ticket for China.

Miss Aylward is also a testament that a little cleaning girl can do seemingly impossible things when she trusts God and submits herself wholly to Him. That is pretty inspiring to this cleaning girl over 100 years later.

The name 'Gladys' means 'lame or disabled' - this certainly was how many persons viewed Gladys in regards to being a missionary. They always told her she was unfit for the work she believed God had called her to do. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak [and lame] things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. (1 Cor. 1:27)

Thank You, Jesus, for Gladys Aylward and her obedience and submission to You.

~ Johanna