Missing Out

"Let's see, I can fit you into my schedule next month." Yes, my neighbour actually said that to me. I smiled a little, since it was still early in the current month. Then I sighed inside. I used to be that person. Some seasons I still am, because friends are only in town at certain times and you make crazy work.

Summer is my losing-sanity season. I sweat at work for long summer days. I sweat on the hiking trail drinking in freshest mountain air. I sweat when I show visiting friends around town—somehow it's always sunny here when people want to amble downtown. I sweat most when someone asks me to get together—Um, no thanks. I'm physically exhausted, I can't people—is what my brain thinks. My mouth sometimes follows suit, declining as graciously as I can, or sometimes saying yes. I resent the event if I say yes and haven't had an evening or three for margin, so I try to learn the dance steps of balance.

Perhaps it is because Millennials crave experience that they1 are novice dancers of this balance. There is an intense fear of missing out on all kinds of experiences. If you don't believe me, try this: think of a time you were invited to an event you weren't too excited about attending. You decided not to go—then spent the entirety of an hour, or the evening, vacillating on whether or not you should have gone. Classic symptoms of the fear of missing out. It rears up in other forms, too. For example, always looking to what is coming next, rather than enjoying the present moment, day, or season. It is snowing? I wish it were summer. It is summer? It’s it far too hot to do anything. Too bad it's not autumn! And on it goes. Millennials or not, I think many of us wrestle with wanting something in the future, neglecting to enjoy what we have now. We're so afraid of missing what we might have that we, in essence, throw away what we do have.

After one particularly draining year and a very unbalanced summer, I began to purpose to miss out. Because Sundays were largely taken up with church and co-leading youth group, I began to make Saturdays my sabbath or solitude-day. Was it difficult to say no to events with friends on Saturdays? You bet. But, I needed a day not to have anything forcing me to be on schedule in some way. Even if I have a hike all planned out for a Saturday, alarm set for some golden hour of the morning, I am going because I want to and I know the drive and the hike will both recharge me. And if I don’t get up when the alarm sounds, it’s my own choice to sleep longer and hit the trail late. No one is going to call and ask where I am—you can’t “oversleep” if there is no timetable. I turn off my phone many Saturdays—one doesn’t always have to be available. I may write or reply to emails, not because I feel the pressure or demand to, but because I want to write. I will probably putter around my kitchen or do some housework, but I will also sit on my porch and watch the clouds sail along, turning all pink in the evening. I rest. I breathe. I perspire. I am inspired. All because I miss out.

By saying yes to a sabbath, I end up saying no to other things. However, I have learnt that missing out means having more depth and sanity in my life. Missing out often means I don't make room for shallow relationships. Staying to help a friend clean up after the party often leads to heart-to-heart conversations. Conversations that could not have happened during the ever-in-motion gathering. Missing out means hiking alone and praying—meditating on the things I haven't had enough thinking time in one stretch to ponder during the week. Missing out means some things get written that never would have, had I not purposed to be home a couple of evenings a week.

Missing out means I rarely get invited to social events anymore, so I stress less over how to say no. This is a relief, as I don't enjoy disappointing people. I no longer waver with guilt when I stay home from an event—especially if I never even knew the event was happening! I get invited to the important gatherings by the friends I know well—celebrations I want to say yes to anyway. I don't maintain too many surface friendships [acquaintanceships] when I get left off certain social lists. I have a lot of tea dates and let's-go-for-a-walk-and-talk dates with my friends. There are many small dinners in my even smaller cabin. I don't miss out on the conversations where we're laughing until we cry, and crying until someone offers a gentle look and the kleenex box.

I don't miss out too much, because I am learning to be present. Being present in the quiet evenings on my porch with a mug of tea. Present—just watching snow and silence swish down. Present in praying and looking and thinking and thanking on hiking trails, meeting friendly people and dogs as I go. Present in washing dishes with friends and in offering kleenex. Present in the laughter and the tears and the sane moments in between. Present to hear the ups and downs of the relationship all along, so that I can cry and squeal with delight when my friend calls to tell me she just got engaged. Present to the still, small voice, whispering through the pines, singing from the stars, holding out hope while I sit in the ashes, holding me up when I can't stand.

Miss out. Try it. Miss out on the surface stuff. Choose to have a solitude evening or day. Guard it—let me tell you, it is hard to guard my sabbath. Miss out sometimes on listening to music or podcasts or anything but the wind in the trees, just for an evening. Miss out on leaving one party for the next, so you can stay late to wash the dishes and talk. Miss out, so that you, too, can learn to be present.

__________

1. Though I technically fit in the Millennial bracket, the way I was raised—being born barely in the Millennial window, having much older siblings—places me in a different lifestyle than many of my peers.

O Stellar Beau

I looked into the sky last night

   with upturned, amorous eye,

              to catch a glimpse of the Hunter

           who treads the Winter sky.

There he was in all his might,

            I gazed quite long upon the sight

                     of his stately form and arcing bow,

                          his star-studded belt shone bright.

I tromped on, past bend and tree,

     to find the Hunter, peering at me!

O, it made my heart quiver

                  with a hope that anyone could see.

Alas, alas! We are lovers, star-crossed

in the truest sense—he is all star

                 and I am all alight with love from afar,

                  love that even distance cannot mar.

How marvellous that he has trod

          the great dance steps—none forgot,

             no falter of his magnificent form

                      on the waltz floor breathed by God.

Across the sky the Hunter sings,

      a silver star-song to the Pleiades,

       to the fairest sister of them all;

                        thus, the Winter sky with music rings.

Ever valiant his bow keeps at bay

Taurus, the bully of the fray,

               and so they dance, one Winter sky

                    to the next—half the world away.

He's sinking Westward more each night,
my longing heart can only sigh,

                        aching with dreams of the starry Hunter,

                             until once again his crescent bow I spy

                  rising up in the Winter sky

                                     to proclaim that my Love is nigh...

Alpine Beach House

What is a red house with a

green roof, all shore-like and

windswept, doing atop a red cliff

o'er a small town in the foothills?

It abides, abides, abides with

no surging tides to greet its clapboard

sides or to fill its window-ears with cries 

of gulls, wild cries in grey skies and shoals.

Its white trim traces its outline

and though its backdrop is all alpine,

the red house seems on shoreline

on the cliff-high it rests ever benign.

And the wildness of the ocean sweeps

tawny grasses into motion 'round the 

red house, far from rumpled surf and 

water's turbid emotion, clawing at the turf...

But the red house with the green roof

is solid and sturdy proof that although

the ocean winds may blow, blow, blow,

the water's flow cannot reach its gnawing tooth

from far off coast so aloof from Colorado.

Shadow Reflections

I walked home from the stars

last night, and found upon my way

a branch, as an elderly hand in sway,

its shadow on the wall made scars.

Painted limb appeared more real

than the mesh of winter twigs

twining about in grey-green sprigs;

the shade-tree’s lines dark enough to feel.

I pondered how I would like to be

a clear shadow on history’s wall,

though I could only grapple with the Fall,

redemption shown in depths of two, not three.

All we are is but flickering shade—

yet in this season of Bright Sadness,

even shadows reflect in crisp blackness,

the glory of the King, fresh made.

Let Us Grieve

How many times has someone told me lately, "The Jewish culture has it right..."? Oddly enough, two or three unrelated persons have said this to me about the custom of shiva, the week of grieving the Jews enter when someone has died. "...[T]he visitor comes to the house of mourning, silently, to join the bereaved in his loneliness, sorrowfully to sit alongside him, to think his thoughts and to linger on his loss."¹ Indeed, the Jews are right.

Grief and mourning are uncomfortable in all cultures, but Americans more than most seem to eschew this process with gusto. Let us be "Happy, happy, happy," anything but grieved. Let us paste on a smile and say life is all right when everything is tumbling down around our ears and we feel desperately alone. Let us only close our church services with clapping and upbeat songs. Let us be anything but silent or sorrow-filled. Let us celebrate sunny days, but ignore brooding rain. Let us get over that break-up next week, the death of our child next month, and the loss of our father by the time we return to work. Let the healing be instant. Let us do anything but lament. We're afraid of sorrow. We don't want to hurt before we heal. We rebel and reel because we can't control grief. 

Some friends of my family lost their sweet, college-age daughter in an icy car accident last year. Her death has changed every family member's life. Christmas and New Year's will always be cast with the pall of her final days in the hospital; of praying for a miracle that never came. I don't know why—and I don't pretend to. Our friends don't need us to give stupid, hurtful platitudes. They just need us to sit with them in the ashes. They need us to remember their joyful daughter. They need us to talk about her if they want to, to talk about anything else if they don't. Their other children still need their parents to be their parents. They still need to be recognised in their own accomplishments and lives. And they still need to be allowed to grieve—yes, over a year later... For the rest of their lives.

The loss never goes away. That person once existed in this world and now doesn't—that is a continual loss. Loss doesn't have a time-table. Grief pricks when you weren't expecting it...but it is okay to mourn. Let us weep when we remember someone we have lost to the ever-insatiable monster of death.

It is much easier to say that about someone else's loss. It's so much harder to live the daily emptiness. There are always regrets, things we wish we had said before that final parting... I wish to goodness sakes I had talked with my grandma on the phone when she was in the hospital. She had so many people there I told my mom I'd wait. I lost my chance to talk with her again. Though I had made sure to tell her I loved her when I saw her last, well, that doesn't change my weeping right now. 

It's been two years since her death, and it still bubbles up unexpectedly. I catch myself laughing at things only my family would understand, said in Grandma's voice... "You heard the story, you heard the story!" I catch my breath sharply when I remember, without warning, her saying, "Of all the grandkids, you're the most like me." I catch the tears rolling off my nose at all these memories welling up in my mind and in my eyes. The smell of homemade fried chicken always takes me back to childhood birthdays at Grandma and Grandpa's. For whatever reason, I remember my seventh, tenth, and twenty-first birthdays vividly, there in that Wanamaker house. That house which was their home for half a century, where my dad grew up, and where I learned how to use a slinky—because they had stairs and we didn't. That house which now belongs to somebody else who has no knowledge of its history. That house that no longer holds my family, yet holds so many of our memories.

Like I said, we can't control grief—when or where or how it will punch us. But it will hit with a hard right hook, or that unseen uppercut. Let's be honest, we like to control things. Our appearance to others; how we spend our time and live our days; what we do and what we don't do; what we eat; what we read...but we cannot control sorrow. It leaks out of our hearts and eyes on the sunny days and the rainy ones. When we laugh and when we swallow that lump in our throats. We cannot make the loss smaller, it only grows bigger with all the things our loved ones miss. It only grows sharper when we can't ask their advice, hear them tell a story, or catch their laugh in our ears. That is the nature of a curse. Of the Curse. And we cannot control the force of the sucker-punch. I want to say that what we do in the face of the Curse is live...but one day the Curse will try to annihilate us, too. For a time, the voracious Curse will feast on life. But only for a time.

There is a rumour that one day, everything sad will come untrue.² One day, death will be—finally and completely—eviscerated and defeated. That the grave will have no inhabitants. That death will be swallowed up in life. That God-who-became-man (a Jewish man, no less), myth-become-fact, will complete the redemption process. And all will be made well. L'chaim! To life!

Until then, we weep and mourn. We grieve and lament. We let sorrow chase us into the arms of our Father. We laugh and we live. L'chaim!

Indeed...The Jewish people have it just about right.³ 

___________

1. Comforting the Bereaved

2. “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?" "A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land... (Tolkien, J R R, Return of the King, emphasis mine)

3. Except for that whole not-believing-Jesus-was-the-Messiah-and-crucifying-Him bit. 

Lent Week 5: Judica—Veiling Sunday

Judica: Veiling Sunday

{Lent: Week Five}

Veiled, all veiled

around the sanctuary,

from the cross

to the icons,

to the spiritual

Body and Blood:

bread and wine

Veiled, all veiled

inside my self,

from my heart

 to my mind,

will, and emotions;

behind the mask

of "All's well!"

Veiled, all veiled

within the Disciples'

understanding and hearts—

the Master among

them as they

argue which of

them is greatest

Veiled, all veiled

in holiest Sanctuary,

a thick curtain

to separate man

from Holy God

because of sin—

a Sacrifice needed

Unveiled! Christ Unveiled!

Upon the mountain,

Behold His glory!

Upon the Cross,

Behold the Man...

Unto His mother,

Behold your Son...

Unto the world:

Behold the Lamb!

*This is the missing poem in a cycle of Lenten poems I wrote last year. All of the others were written on the Sundays of Lent (usually after church), but this one eluded me as I had a guest in town. It came to me today, and so I am adding it in to complete the collection.

The Fullness of Rest

LORD

Here I am

Empty

Please fill me

with Your Spirit

I am hungry

for Your word

Increase

my self with 

You

LORD

I am not

Still

I strive inside

and You wait

for me to

Cease

to rest in

You

LORD 

Gift me Your 

Mercy

Christ have mercy

Grant me Your

Peace

Fill me with

Yourself

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.

Planned Obsolescence and a Culture of Death

"Oh, I know how to use that mixer, my grandma's is just like it!" I said to my hostess as she pulled out her mother's mixer. She looked pleased and then sighed, "Yes, this one is still plugging away, unlike the things they make now. Planned obsolescence they call it. So your products have a life-span of only a few years." The term was not new to me, nor the concept—but that didn't stop the conversation from bothering me. Manufacturers don't want to make a sturdy product, they want to make a cheap product that has you coming back to them every few years. They mismanage our resources—plastic, metal, glass, labour—in order to make a profit.

Far from being a mere economic tactic, planned obsolescence makes its way into other areas as well. The trend of building ugly-but-functional buildings has been the rage for quite a while, with the added 'luxury' of being able to demolish the building at will if it gets outmoded, overcrowded, underused, or any number of other reasons. When I lived in Oxford for a term, I felt at peace even on the fast-paced sidewalks, because I could always duck into an ancient alleyway, or take the next block up. Even if I stayed on George Street, the buildings were far older than anything Colorado can boast, the churches beautiful and unambiguously churches, and one could hear bells chime the quarter hours from anywhere in the city.

Oxford was not built to be replaced one building at a time—as evidenced by a building from the 1500s on a main thoroughfare. Granted, that house was being used as a mobile phone store, but they hadn't torn it down to build a disposable storefront. The English built things to last far into time. Architects like Christopher Wren built beautiful libraries, chapels, cathedrals, and colleges to last—sometimes dying before the work was finished because of the precision and enormity of the building process. It was no light matter to build a cathedral or a school. They would be a place of teaching and refuge for generations to come, they must be built well, they must be beautiful and inspiring in their construction.

This same mindset of building things to last was brought by the English who settled the American Colonies. The earliest cities in America have some lovely architecture, buildings that have withstood the elements and fads. However, in the early 1900s came this ploy of obsolescence. From buildings and cars to mixers and light bulbs, manufacturers began the process of making things disposable. Now we are deluged with plastic containers, glass bottles, and ubiquitous grocery bags made merely to be thrown away. I am two generations down from the 'Greatest Generation' who lived through the Great Depression and the recycling drives of World War II. In two short generations, we have gone from conserving to consuming-with-abandon. The shift began with things like planned obsolescence and it has grown into a killing field.

The industrial revolution turned the whole of humanity into two groups: consumers and producers. Distinctions made by man to obfuscate our calling as human beings, imaging God. Human beings began to be redefined under man's terms, a slippery position for anyone. When persons are defined as either consumers or producers, immediately they are given different values. Rather than the intrinsic worth of being human—made in God's image—humans are given arbitrary values based on their production or use in society. People become what they do, rather than who they are.

When a person too weak and small to fight for themselves is considered a hindrance, it's okay, they are disposable. A quick 'procedure' and presto! the unwanted 'problem' is gone. Snuffed out by 'progress' and a woman's 'right' to kill another person. But if you call a person a 'problem' and say 'remove tissue' rather than 'kill' it sounds less like murder—it's much more sanitary that way. What happens when a person is old and unable to contribute to society? They are shuffled off into homes; separated from families who need to be reminded that everyone deserves compassion, that they themselves are not immortal, that death comes for us all. But we shove aside death and thoughts of our mortality, rushing on in the consumer-producer wheel. Worse still, many elderly are shuffled off this mortal coil by doctors, nursing home workers, or other 'aides' when there isn't enough money or room to pour into a 'useless' person. But human beings are not machines, they are not their ability to produce. They are not animals. They are image bearers, beings—full of worth because they are made in the likeness of God, unlike any other creature.

Manufacturers are not really to blame for abortion and euthanasia—their planned obsolescence is only a symptom of a shift in thinking and beliefs. The philosophies of eighteenth, nineteenth, and following centuries have come to fruition in this culture of disposable stuff and disposable humans. If it breaks, buy a new one. If it's old, throw it away. The jump from stuff to humans isn't far when you base human value on what one does, rather than upon who one is. No wonder God calls us to be stewards, caretakers of resources (oil, plastic, glass, plants, time, money), as well as one another. We are to steward—guard and care for—human beings even more than we are to till the ground or cultivate our imaginations or repair our cars and mixers. We are to cultivate our hearts and minds and culture into thriving grounds for life.

Rise Up, O Church of God!

A challenge to churches to rise up to their calling

Often a friend of mine tells the story about when his wife became a Christian, "She started reading the Bible in Genesis and began to get bogged down. I told her to skip all that and start with Matthew." Sometimes I wonder if his wife ever got horribly confused to begin reading the story three-quarters of the way through. It would be like reading The Magician's Nephew first on your initial reading of The Chronicles of Narnia. Yes, you would see how Narnia began, but the significance of many seemingly arbitrary pieces of the story would be lost on you until you read the rest of the series.

I've wondered if my friend's wife ever went back and read the old covenant parts of the Bible. Are there things that still seem puzzling or arbitrary to her—even now—because she is missing so much of the story? Sadly, I don't expect the church to have taught enough from that first chunk of Scripture for the connections to be made. Nor do I expect, with a husband battling cancer and two high-energy children, that my friend makes the effort to figure out the Old Testament on her own. She has been told it is difficult to understand, that it is boring and outmoded—why devote what little time she does have to something like that?

Many churches across America do Christians a disservice with these well-worn lines. From implying that—or saying straight out—"The Old Testament is boring," to playing only upbeat closing songs, churches are defrauding their members. They are giving people the Instagram version of God, His word, and the set-apart life. Too many churches focus on the sentimental aspects of God's character, read mostly the New Testament or “practical” Old Testament books, drive worship by emotion—rather than emotions by worship and thanksgiving—and offer no place of refuge, silence, and healing.

Real life in a fallen world includes cluttered minds, broken hearts, and deep sorrows. We cheapen words like “grief” and “tragedy” through hyperbole and overuse, and so have no language to lament with those who experience tragic loss when it comes. How does the church help people who are grieving? Pointing hurting people to professional counselling is good and loving, but what about training up a body of wise, kind, and honest counsellors to help one another? Churches could teach people truth—the good, the hard, even the ugly; they could teach people the value of life, the good of life, and what weather-all-Hell's-darts love looks like in daily words and actions.

What if churches taught God's story from the beginning? Then people would know how catastrophic the Ffall was; would see its sinewy hands reaching long fingers out into every part of God's story that it could; would see how desperately God's people tried and failed—and tried harder and still failed—and how utterly wretched they would always be until the promised Messiah came. Then we might understand why the Incarnation was so monumental, pivotal, in the narrative—because after bondage, struggle, failure, and darkness, the Light dawned, the captives were set free, and God's people were given a Saviour who would succeed. We might see that the Cross truly is the crux of the story, and that our lives and times flow directly out of that turning point in history. We might begin to understand that God is making all things new, which means this earth as well as human beings—and what we do now matters for eternity in a way that keeps us from being apathetic Nihilists.

What if churches allowed silence in their worship—no background music, no mere twenty seconds to pray silently—but minutes of silence to enter into the presence of God? What would people do if they had to be still—no phones, no talking, no noise to distract their minds? Would we come face-to-face with our mortality, with grief, with our own brokenness, with the overwhelming grace of God which is deeper than all our vilest sins? What if there were no distractions to console or ease our minds? Would we have to stand naked before God in wretchedness and let him begin to heal us?

What if churches regarded their enemies as a threat? "The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries,"1 said Pascal. Diversion—distractions and amusement—are where we seek solace for misery, and irony of ironies, we are made miserable by diversions. They drag our attention from the God who is there—present with us in every moment—putting our minds on what we don't have or making us feel emptier than when we first reached out for those glittering distractions.

Aside from the distractions we choose on our own, we are constantly occupying a space where spiritual hosts of wickedness rule and war. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."2 What if churches reminded us frequently that we are in a battle; that we must take up the armour given by God; that we must seek refuge in God; and that we must use the word of God as a weapon on the battlefield of our minds, wills, and emotions?

In short, I am issuing a challenge to churches to rise up and take their calling seriously. Be ekklesia "called out ones". Don't be like the world or use its gimmicks—be a training ground for saints, helping us to be holy and presentable to God through Jesus Christ. Let the word of God—old covenant included—order the teaching, not the speaker ordering God's word to do as He wishes. Let us seek lament and silence and raucous joy in turn in worship. Remind us that our enemies are active and that we need protection and proaction. Teach us the truth, and pray for us to speak it with fierce boldness and tender love. Oh that we would see Jesus!

__________

1. Pascal, Blaise, Pensées (Public Domain, Project Gutenberg) 49

2. Ephesians 6:12 (NKJV)