Eucharistia

How about Thanksgiving in July? Don't mind if I do...

I am thankful for friends, a beautiful symphony, picnicking in the park, and enough rain to permit fireworks in the Springs this 4th of July. 

Loved having the weekend to clean my house a little, to write letters, and drink copious pots of tea.

  

Reading The Little Prince aloud with Tyler whilst drinking tea and eating lemon bars. 

“Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

 

 

 

 Finding a new Summertime song that I want to listen to over and over again... for FREE!  Listen to the first one called Ordinary Day.

Making mango salsa... And eating nearly an entire bag of chips with it in less than two days. :)

Ephesians 1-3 this morning:  "And this is the plan: At the right time He will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God,  for He chose us in advance, and He makes everything work out according to His plan." (Ephesians 1:10-11)

God is the master Director - letting the actors on the stage ad lib and still having the story go the direction He has for it.

Thought-provoking discussion about evil from Peter Kreeft (digested whilst making zucchini pancakes this morning): Ten Uncommon Insights Into Evil From LOTR. He could have used Harry Potter for his insights as well. 

"Here is evil's weakness: it is limited to power, it cannot use weakness. It is limited to pride, it cannot use humility. It is limited to inflicting suffering and death, it cannot use suffering and death. It is limited to selfishness, it cannot use selflessness... Evil can only destroy and give death, it cannot create and give birth." ~ Peter Kreeft

Talking to Jacob before bed... Just because.

And life's 'daily-ness' is thanks-giving. Eucharistia. To breathe and talk, to walk and smell damp pine, to see colours and to hear our immortal neighbour children squeal with delight (or whine at naptime), to just be for the hour at dawn over a mug of tea... Yes, this life is good.

Immortal Friendship

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

~ William Penn, More Fruits of Solitude

Is Nothing Wasted?

They cut down half the tree at the first turn on the trail up to Red Mountain. It was an aspen or poplar of some sort, and I had had many a thought whilst gazing upon it. Half of the tree is clothed in green leaves, but the other half was mostly dead and bare. 

The juxtaposition of life and death had snatched my attention several times on that hike. Sometimes reminding me to be thankful for the beauty of life when seen in the shadowy presence of death. Sometimes it reminded me that I am like that tree - full of life where God has come in, yet plenty of dead branches of sin still needing to be removed.

When I saw that the dead half of the tree had been chopped down, my first response was to check the tears rising in my eyes. Why should I be sad that someone removed a tree that was sapping life from the living half? Would I be sad if God just cut out all of my sinful deadness and removed it? No, that is ridiculous. I rejoice when He clears out the deadness inside. But sometimes -- always, I think -- it hurts when He prunes away my sin.

Sometimes we must endure unbearable hurt. We must recall that pain is not always a result of our own sin. All sorrows and hurts can be used for our good, though I cannot always remember that when I am walking through the depths of the valleys. 

Today has been one of those days where I want to bear someone else's pain, but I cannot -- it is too much for me, and it does not alleviate them. When I looked out over the city from the foothills tonight, I realised that the hurt I feel for my friend, though it seems crushing to me, is only the hurt of one person amongst those thousands. One hurt among the billions across the globe. I cried out to God, asking how He could possibly bear the brokenness that fills His world. Then I walked home past that brokenness. And it revolted me, rather than melting me, which I think sin ought to do. Yet I want to move beyond the repulsion to the point where I can lift broken things up to God, the only Redeemer and Re-creator.

The Lord reminded me several times tonight that He is making things not like they were, but better than they were. He is not only restoring us and the whole world, He is re-creating us. There is hope, beyond those darkest moments, most vile atrocities, and heart-shattering pains. How do I know? Because one day it was true to say that God was dead, and we killed Him. Because He became our sin, and His own Father turned His face away from Him. Then He turned death upside down. And one day, He will do that for us, too.

The hurt that broke your heart
And left you trembling in the dark
Feeling lost and alone
Will tell you hope's a lie
But what if every tear you cry
Will seed the ground where joy will grow

And nothing is wasted
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted

It's from the deepest wounds
That beauty finds a place to bloom
And you will see before the end
That every broken piece is
Gathered in the heart of Jesus
And what's lost will be found again

When hope is more than you can bear
And it’s too hard to believe it could be true
And your strength fails you half way there
You can lean on me and I’ll believe for you
Give it time, you will believe it too

Nothing is wasted
Sometimes we are waiting
In the sorrow we have tasted
But joy will replace it
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our redeemer
Nothing is wasted

~ Johanna

Culinary Fun

No one should have ever taught me how to make scones.

Cranberry orange scones, with a hint of ginger, made this afternoon. Note the tea kettle and teapot ready for use alongside those scones...


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Baking isn't my area of expertise, or passion, however. I much prefer cooking. Last night I made roasted red pepper and garlic hummus (note my re-use of a hummus container for this project). God made the fruit in the background.


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I also got a haircut and slightly different style yesterday, thanks to my dear friend Rebekah.



And just now three sweet friends (Colleen, Asha, and Caitlin) dropped in to sample my cooking - fun! I must be off to the airport to pick up my Lyndi-friend.

Until next time, I remain ever under the Mercy.

~ Johanna ~

Sushi!

Last Friday I ordered a sushi mat and wooden spoon. In preparation for its arrival, I picked up some Nori (seaweed sheets), wasabi, cream cheese, cucumbers, and avocados at the grocery. All together (including the sushi mat), I spent about $12 for supplies to make ten rolls of sushi.

Today the mat arrived!

I made sushi rice. I sliced the veg. I hunted up my nice pair of chopsticks. I pulled out the wasabi and soy sauce. I rolled it on the sushi mat... And presto!

Oh the places one can go in the culinary world with combinations for sushi! Any suggestions for my next venture?

~ Johanna

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

The Icon Tree

"...Indeed the only way in which I can make real to myself what theology teaches about the heinousness of sin is to remember that every sin is the distortion of an energy breathed into us - an energy which, if not thus distorted, would have blossomed into one of those holy acts whereof 'God did it' and 'I did it' are both true descriptions. 

We poison the wine as He decants it into us; murder a melody He would play with us as the instrument. We caricature the self-portrait He would paint. Hence all sin, whatever else it is, is sacrilege."

~ C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm Chiefly on Prayer

Fog renders the foothills out my window nearly invisible this morning. In much the same way, sin renders the good thing from which it derives existence unrecognisable, incomprehensible. There is so much good in the things God made, because He made them, and He is goodness itself. Yet when we take a good thing and turn it on its head, it becomes vile, wretched, utterly broken. Lewis chooses well when he says that sin is sacrilege. Sacrilege is defined as a "crime of stealing what is consecrated to God." Indeed, that is what every sin is; stealing God's glory, or God's good thing and using it to satisfy our cravings, to harm others, or turning it into an idol.

God is greater than our sin, more imaginative and redemptive than our corruption of His good things. All we can think to do is twist something good into cruel, sick, selfish means to our own ends. God, however, creatively, completely, redeems brokenness. He turns the Fall upside down in the most ludicrous and paradoxical ways.  The God of the universe, Creator of all things, becomes part of the creation,  dwells inside the universe. He Who could not sin, became sin itself in order to make us the very righteousness of God. When the first Adam failed to obey, the Second Adam fulfilled the Law in spirit and in truth. When we could not atone for our sin, the blood of the perfect Lamb was shed in our stead. Who is this King of glory?

This King of glory rode into Jerusalem one day to the shouts and praises of His people. They shouted words to the effect of, 'Save us, O King!' that day. Less than a week later they screamed, 'Crucify Him, crucify Him! His blood be on us and our children!' And what was condemnation for this demand, was turned right side up. Rather than guilt and culpability remaining on those who appealed for Jesus' blood, that same blood was upon them, to cover all their sin. Rather than covering their hands in blood, Jesus offered to sprinkle them entirely to remove their condemnation.

Often Christians will say this all took place on the cross. After all, that is where the blood was shed. But many innocent men have been killed (though no other sinless men have been executed), how does the bloodshed of an innocent man save anyone? Partly it is because Jesus was sinless and took the penalty we all deserve and He did not. The wages of sin, the payment for sin, is death. So Jesus died on the cross, that image we see throughout the ages in churches, on necklaces, on wall art, and more. So He paid a debt that we owed and could not pay. So what?

This is where many Christians miss the mark. Too often we stop at the cross, we end the story on Good Friday, and Jesus is still in the tomb. What I love about Eastertide is that it is the co-mingling of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Day. The fact is that the tomb is empty, and the One Who formerly occupied it had the authority to defeat death.  In fact, He had the authority to declare to those chained in darkness that He had won. 

The cross is no icon of hope at all if the empty tomb is not set beside it. The cross does not tell the whole story -- not without remembering that the cross is empty and the tomb is empty because Jesus is alive.

“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!"

 ~ Luke 24:5b-6a

Let me encourage you not to turn the very cross of Christ into an idol. We do this when we do not tell the whole story, when we forget the risen Christ. 

Let the cross instead be an icon to us. An icon is a real object that reminds us of a historical or spiritual truth. Let the wine be drunk physically to remind us of the blood shed to save our bodies and souls. Let us bow to the cross because it reminds us that Jesus is our King, and we must revere and honour Him. Let us delight to be where the Composer has placed us in the melody of His symphony. Let us look at the scarred tree, the paintings of the scarred hands and feet, and be reminded that He was pierced  and wounded for our lust, anger, pride, and over desire. Let that empty icon tree remind us to seek the living Jesus.

Blesséd, blesséd, blesséd be He!

~ Johanna

We Are Still Trees

A rook's coarse cry rends the snowy hush of this pearl-grey afternoon. On my desk awaits a piece of crusty, warm, homemade potato bread - liberally spread with butter. My thoughts turn to the brisk walk I enjoyed this morning...

Fine snow blew from every direction. Stinging my eyes, settling on my nose, eyebrows, and hair, it filled my very soul with vibrant life. Along the paths I tread were birds, birds, birds: a flock of  three dozen robins, a brace of red-shafted Northern flickers, a downy woodpecker, and (my favourite) a pair of nuthatches. Drawn by the chatter of birds, I turned into a quiet cul-de-sac, enjoying the view of fast-falling snow upon tall golden grass. Next to that avian sanctuary a line of snow along the trunk of a pine tree caught my gaze. A fir, slanted at a forty-degree angle from earth. How had I not seen it before? 

I paused my forward motion to drink in the sight, to ponder this tree's perseverance. Like other trees, it grew straight and up. Unlike other trees, it did so at an angle, rather than perpendicular to the ground. Some hardship or radical impact had drastically changed the course of this pine, yet it remained a tree, growing as it ought.

This gave me pause to think on my own life, and the lives of several of my friends. We do not pursue life at the pace of forty-plus hours a week, an MA or DPhil, spouses and children, or numerous other things many consider the mark of a 'normal' person. We pursue the good life from a different angle.

We study both books and persons not for a diploma, but for the sake of challenging our minds and hearts. We work as a means to keep our lights and heat on, to put food in our cupboards, yes. But we also see work as an end itself, something to be enjoyed; whether it is the work that gives us the funds to put bread on the table, or the work of making the bread to put on that table. When we do not have spouses and children of our own, we learn instead to enjoy the time spent with married couples, children, peers, and those older than we. Being gracious is a continual refining process. Opening my home, pantry, and heart to others takes effort, but the rewards are bountiful. 

 My friends and I are humans, cultivating life, growing as we ought: toward God, with others,  while stewarding the gifts (physical, mental, emotional) given by Providence. Though we desire and seek things that other persons do, we are often seen as 'not normal', because we seek those things differently. We desire friendship, enjoy Beauty, find work cathartic,  want to enrich our minds, etc., like any healthy human being ought. Yet those of us who undertake to live fully are seen as stumps, as compared with growing trees.

The fact is, we are much like that fir tree, growing upward and in a linear direction, but at an angle. We are still trees, still growing as we were designed to grow. Our position relative to the ground has simply changed due to hardship or a radical impact... But we are still trees.

~ Johanna

May it Be According to Your Faith

Since Christmas I have been meandering through the book of Luke. Granted, I took a deer trail through Psalms, and a sashay through  bit of II Corinthians, too. Still, I have been taking my time about getting through Luke, thinking about what Jesus said, what He was really like... And what the people around Him were really like, too. More than once persons come to Jesus asking Him to heal them and He responds with things like, "Your faith has made you well," or "Let it be according to your faith."

What if I asked Jesus to make my [near-sighted] eyes able to see? Would I really have the faith to lay aside my glasses and be able to see perfectly whilst driving? What about my spiritual eyes - do I think Jesus has more authority over spiritual things than physical things? It is sad that I think Jesus is more able to heal my heart than my eyesight. He made both my heart and my body, He has equal authority and ability to heal them.  Yet He has every reason not to - not if healing is in proportion to my faith. My faith is cramped, atrophied, beggarly. I have lost  much of the childlike innocence that believes without wavering and doubting. I have grown old, and my Father is younger than me (to paraphrase Chesterton). I hate growing old, talking of lifeless things, forgetting how to believe, knowing now the double meaning behind various phrases, and the sordid like. 

I do not think innocence means ignorance. I believe it is a knowing, a belief, that transcends  --even halts-- senility of heart and mind. In a way, innocence is the deepest knowing, both clarity of sight and of insight.

My more youthful self asked yesterday (after reading of the lepers who were cleansed and the nine who never came): "What if every time I sinned it appeared on my skin like a boil or leprosy? What if I then had to go around shouting out, 'Unclean! Unclean!'?" I shuddered, knowing I would be hideous beyond imagining. Then I had a feeling of relief and joy: I was unclean, but since God made Him Who knew no sin to be sin for us --for me!-- and in that same act made us to be righteousness itself, I am no longer unclean. Though I still wrestle with sin and my own fleshly desires, God forever sees me as redeemed through the blood of Jesus... Because God is not trapped in our linear time like we are. He sees us as we are - though we see ourselves as still becoming, in our limited time-line existence.

Something about knowing that I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus gives me more faith. Perhaps seeing the miracle --it is nothing short of that-- of being made righteousness itself reminds me that if God can do that great (vastly more far-reaching) work, He can heal my eyes, or cancer, or broken arms and broken hearts. May it be according to our faith.

~ Johanna

One Sweet Song

My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray;
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you
For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make life, death, and that vast forever
One grand, sweet song.

 ~ A Farewell: by Charles Kingsley

Do you do noble things, or merely dream them? Do you use your cleverness (or other natural giftings) for good? In short I am asking, is your life a sweet song? The way you respond to things big and small, the way you treat every person, matters. Either your  bitterness or your kindness will live on long after you die. It is a matter of letting God's Spirit work in you, or quenching Him.

The line, "Do noble things, not dream them" is probably my favourite of this poem. I dream of grand things, when really I should just write a letter of encouragement to my friend's younger sister. I aspire to loving others, when I ought to call that person I do not relish calling --  they are worth being listened to. Noble things come in small choices sometimes. We must learn to do the small noble things if we expect to accomplish the great ones. There lies the sweetness flavouring life's song.

~ Johanna