A Shell Dishabited

The rumble of thunder reverberates off the foothills. Damp pine-scent laces the air. A trio of squirrels seek refuge in the spruce that touches the sky with its tip-top branches. This is the stillness of the very first Summer Saturday–my day of solitude and sleep, of caramel-filled chocolate and endless mugs of PG Tips. It is a fairy sort of daylight, ripe for reading Fantasties or Lord of the Rings. I can see sunlight slanting through the clouds, glancing off the whiskers of one of those squirrels. His dew-bright eyes are full of curiosity and mischief. 

O me! That I get to live in this world, to see with my two green iris-eyes the wonders of this day. To sniff up the fresh sweetness of the earthy pines. To hear the chirrup of birds, the clash between thunder and lightning, and the drip, drip, drop of the rain-song. I am given the gift of a cool breath of air, kissing my neck, swirling my honey-red hair. It is all balm for my soul after this labour-intensive week at work, after hard news. How can anything post-Fall still ring of Truth and Beauty? But it does. How can the creation still shout of God's glory when lives are sticky, shattered, crumpled messes? Yet it does!

My aching limbs are full of tired. My soul is searing-hot with pain of a different sort, for a loved one, and another, and still more. My prayers climb to the heavens, fly beyond the clouds to the ever-listening ears of the Father. No longer is weariness confined to muscles, it sinks its shaft far into my very being. Prayer presses deeper the helpless feeling, the weakness I walk daily. I feel emptier still... And then the rain comes. Splattering on the shingles, splashing on the glossy green leaves. The rain flows down to the thirsty earth, giving itself with joy. The droplets sink lower and lower still, into the dark red earth, into the deep fir roots. Those pines reach higher to brush the skies. The higher cannot stand without the lower,* whispers each drop. The higher cannot stand without the lower!,* sings the spicy fragrance of pine needles, wafting upward. The dark clouds empty themselves of rain, that the dusty earth might be refreshed again.

Is that it, Lord? my heart queries. Must You empty me of all of me so that I might be full of only You? And once I am full of You, will You pour Yourself out on others? Empty. Full. Cracked and broken to spill out the kindness of God, lavishly gifted to me. I cannot hold it in, like the rainclouds cannot hold the rain. I cannot keep it to myself, like a stagnant pool. God's loving-kindness is poured out on undeserving me. To keep it from stagnation, it must flow out from me to others. It is not earned, it is given with joy. It cannot be kept, it cascades down in delight.

A poem comes to mind about this emptying and filling. It reminds me that if I am replete with myself there is no room for God to fill me, no place for Him to overflow in my life: 

If thou could'st empty all thyself of self, 

Like to a shell dishabited, 

Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf, 

And say, 'This is not dead', And fill thee with Himself instead.
But thou art all replete with very thou

And hast such shrewd activity, 
That when He comes, He says, 'This is enow
Unto itself - 'twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for me.' **

What if the thunder, full of itself, did not roar the echo of power from the Creator? What if birds decided to sing their own dissonant song and could not communicate with others of their kind? What if squirrels ceased being squirrelly? And what if the ground decided it was too full of tree roots and the firs came crashing down? If nature began to do as it pleased, rather than living by God-given instincts, chaos would ensue. So what do I expect to happen if I am replete with very me? Can God fill me with His loving-kindness if I am already full of self? Will I be able to shower others with His goodness if I cannot receive it? Certainly not! I must be empty so He can fill me. God pays me–pays all of His children–the great compliment of accomplishing His will and work through me–through us–if we will let Him. 

I want to be like the rain falling deep into earth's heart; to be a shell dishabited. Going low to make others tall. Overflowing. Empty. Ready to be filled, to let my life be the sweet aroma of Christ in me, the Hope of glory.***

~ Johanna

______________________

 * Thomas á Kempis, The Imitation of Christ: Being Thankful for God's Grace
** Sir Thomas Browne, If Thou Could'st Empty All Thyself of Self
*** Colossians 1:27 (NKJV)

New Arrival: The Conciliar Post

I am very pleased to announce the launch of a website called the Conciliar Post. This blog is comprised of persons from various church traditions who have come together to discuss life, death, worship, art, books, personhood, education, work, orthodoxy, and their beliefs about various social and church issues. Several of the authors are personal friends from my Oxford experience. The articles–by and large–are well written, witty, and thoughtful. 

My favourite article to date is a piece by Stephen Sutherland about current trends in worship. He begins his post thus: "Certain modern expressions of Christianity exhibit a knack for appropriating, or producing cheap knockoffs of, current cultural trends. There’s money to be made from “Christian” music, movies, novels, comic books, mints, and others I likely have not heard of yet. Less materialistically (and less cynically) there is an opportunity to redeem various parts of their culture, although how abstract concepts of “art” or “entertainment” can be redeemed, and how fallen man, incapable of redeeming himself, could redeem something else, remains murky."

You may also note on the authors page that I have graciously been included in the council of writers for this venture. Though I feel a bit out of my league, I am grateful to be given the opportunity to write for a wider audience, to share the gift God has given me in a new venue. It is a challenge already for me to stick with a writing schedule, and I fear that writing may begin to feel like work rather than a creative outlet... But writing is work. When I sit down to type, I often look up three paragraphs later and find that an hour has disappeared. By the time the final sentence is in place, two or three hours may have run their course. Then comes the hard part: editing and hunting through the thesaurus to find just the right word for this or that sentence. The challenge is good and will help hone my ability to write–or so I fervently hope!

Back to the CP blog. If you are a word addict like I am, you may be wondering about the definition and etymology of the word 'conciliar'. Well, if you are truly a word addict, you already know these things. I am still a novice addict, so I had to do some research. Here is how founder, Ben Cabe, explains the name of the blog on the about page: 

Conciliar comes from the English word “council” (persons convened for deliberation) and Latin “consilium” (assembly, consultation). Historically, “conciliar” has been used in reference to the great ecumenical councils of the Christian tradition. In everyday language it designates a gathering of Christians for the purpose of serious reflection upon matters of theological importance. The name Conciliar Post designates this site as a place for serious and faithful dialogue about significant issues in our world.

Interested? Please head over the Conciliar Post website to read an article or two. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the variety of topics, scholarship, and adroit writing presented.

~ Johanna

Treading the Sea of Darkness

Noisy chatter clutters the lobby. The porch overflows with sound, seeping from every crevice of the hotel, like grapes, crushed. And I? I feel alone. Wearing the mask of a smile, while my soul wrestles with the Fall. I slip out into the rain-cooled air, the cloak of night hiding me from peering eyes and piercing laughter. 

How many times have I sat in a crowd of persons, even those I know, and felt the icy tentacles of loneliness? How often have I painted a smile on my lips, yet my eyes are belied by tears? Can I number the times I have listened to another's excitement while holding in my sorrows? How often have I concealed my joy in the face of someone else's pain? I do not begrudge those emotionally mixed moments. I do not regret that I have the privilege of of weeping and rejoicing with others. Nor am I deeply hurt that only a few look carefully into my honest eyes to see what is inside. Then I wonder, how many times have I not looked closely at bloodshot eyes? How often am I so lost in my own life that I neglect the trials and joys beneath the surface in others? 

This is the Fall–this neglect of others–written large and painted in bold black. The Fall, that locks us within ourselves, isolating us from God and man. The Fall, so murky and deep as to drown us in its depths. It is the Fall that prevents us from seeing life as a whole. We see only bits and pieces of our own lives—of others' lives—and we think those slivers are the whole story. We slosh in the muck of those black-sodden brushstrokes, seeing only a tary mess as far as our eye-scope can reach. 'This isn't how the story is supposed to go', we whisper fiercely to ourselves, kicking to stay afloat. 

But how is the story supposed to go? We think we have a decent plot. 'In the end this would bring God praise. Isn't that good? Isn't that the goal?' We do not see that the darkness of sin has been made the paint for the brush, the ink for the pen. The viscous stream in which we are drowning is the ink, undried. All the harrowing horrors of the Fall that dig their claws into our hearts, our homes, and our heroes have been ground into charcoal-hued pigment, brushing letters on parchment. Our grandiose plots for how our story should go are so small they are invisible upon the page. We swim in the depths of merely one letter, thinking it is our entire story. The Author and Finisher of our faith sees our script from the right perspective, much bigger–yet humbler–than we ever dared to dream or hope. 

Just because God allows us to be free agents in the writing does not mean that we are the author. Though He gives us the intolerable compliment of using our hands, our lips to accomplish His purposes, it does not follow that we know how immense the story, how deep the brokenness–and deeper still the redemption. We do not know how those letters, words, paragraphs, plots and subplots are being woven together to form a far-reaching tale. A true tale, meant for all the world, not only our corner of it, in this place and time.

What about the days when the narrative is dark, when we have tread the turbid waters of the Fall so long that we cannot muster another kick? Will the waves overflow us after all? God forbid! I say this fervently, yet, I am not the one abandoned by my husband. I am not left fatherless. I am not the one cast out by my family for doing the right thing. I do not have to face the long road of loneliness ahead if no reconciliation comes. No, but I can walk alongside my friends in those dark places. When they cannot tread thick waters any longer, I can hold them and swim for them. When I tire, it will be another's turn to support them. This is the body of Jesus, working together toward whole-ness, toward holiness. This one dark letter is not all that is on the page, it is not the whole story, though we or others may stick fast in one place far longer than we thought possible.

I still want to hide the holes in my soul, punctured by the Fall. I want to hide my own sin. I want to run away from the pain that the sins of others have caused me, my family, and my friends. I want life to be full of good things that are delightful and do not wound. But what I need it not to hide, is not isolation. What I need—what we all need—is for 'the light to shine in the darkness, and the darkness not [to] overcome it.' We all need times of solitude, not to forsake others, but times before God in honest conversation, times away to draw us back into the body of believers, toward holiness. Sin separates, it is said. Let us be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, then. Let us reconcile others to God by walking with them in their darkness—even when the journey is years long and the dawn is far, far off. May the light of Truth shine all over the darkness, making the Author's story—so much bigger than what we planned or imagined—visible to the watching world.

Lost, lost are all our losses;
Love set forever free;

The full life heaves and tosses

Like an eternal sea!

One endless story!

One poem spread abroad!

And the sun of all our glory

Is the countenance of God.*

~ Johanna

___________________

* George MacDonald, 5th Hymn to the Night

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

The Art of Grieving

Drip-drop. Drop-drip. Plink! Glorious Spring rain drips off the gutter-less eaves of my cottage this forenoon; every now and then one drop making a sharp ping off something metal below. Steady, strong notes to set the rhythm for the day, those water-drops. I draw icy water for the kettle, waiting for its warm whistle as a Southwest wind kicks up its heels. The song of the rain slows, softens, becomes silent. Whirling this way and that come the downy flakes of snow. 

Pungent Earl Grey tickles my senses as I gaze long at the steady, slanting white. I am very much alone, but not in the least lonely. Solitude need not make one solitary. Fog, snow, roiling grey skies – they are all friends. The damp, chill, and quiet give one time to pause, to recalibrate the soul toward stillness and Beauty. When we make the time to hush, not writing, nor reading, nor listening to the ever-present music that pervades our senses, we are able to be. We are able to grieve or mourn, to ponder and reflect, to pray and listen, to know and be known.

Stillness and reflection often seem colossal threats to our current 'culture of noise'. Particularly in the process of grieving, perhaps the greatest conundrum in this age. In times-not-long-past, there was a set period for mourning in which the mourner at the least wore a black band on their arm, if not complete outfits of black. Now we hardly even say someone has died, but that they have 'passed away'. We have funerals and weddings in 'Life Centres' at cemeteries. Our culture seeks to sanitise death from all its ugly brokenness. I am very, very pro-life, but even I cannot ignore the effects of the Fall. We cannot pretend that death is routine, neat, and 'part of life'. It is not. It is a violent affront to God the Creator. It is madness and fragmentation at their extreme end.

Grieving is a slow process; whether it is the death of a loved one, the loss of a friendship, or the crumbling of a cherished dream. It takes silence and prayer to walk the road of sorrow. Yet, not even the evangelical church seems to accept this. Half-truths are still lies, yet they ring forth from our Postmodern Evangelical churches and the reams of pages in 'Christian' bookstores: God must always make bad things good. We must always smile and say we are well, that it is good to be alive. Christians are always to be happy, happy, happy - which translates to fake, fake, fake. God will make all things well, but probably not the way we think He should, and often not on this earth. It is good to be alive, because we were made for life - but 'good' does not mean 'easy'. 

The Anglican response to death in the prayer book does not ignore the creeping shadow of death, nor does it wallow in the Fall. It brings one's focus back to God, the Author of life, the Redeemer of death:

Thou only art Immortal, Creator and Maker of mankind;
and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and unto earth shall
we return. 

For so Thou did ordain when Thou created me,
saying, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
All of us go down to the dust... 

Yet even at the grave we make
our song: 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Even at the grave we sing of the Hope to come. We weep and mourn in Hope. This is not easy. We may sing our alleluias through teeth clenched, through stinging tears. But we have Hope: Jesus Himself, the Resurrection from the dead for all who are 'in Christ'. And when death takes from us one who does not know God, we lament even more. Again, we cannot pretend that death is normal. It is grotesquely abnormal. We still mourn loss. 

Learning to lament takes times of silence, of being. It can take the form of long walks, writing poetry, playing or writing music, cleaning vigorously, cooking and baking (for oneself or others), painting or drawing, gardening, crying, and many other things. Strikingly, lamentation is often pro-creative. By that I mean that we find an outlet for grief, anger, and sorrow in making, in serving. 

Look at the first line of the Memorial Prayer - it calls God three things: Immortal, Creator, and Maker. We tend to think of the last two words as being synonyms, but they are Names and have nuances. A 'creator' begets - the thing begotten is from himself, is part of himself, like a child shares the 'humanness'  and DNA of its parents. A 'maker' is a companion or a spouse, as well as one who designs or constructs. So, the act of creation is intensely personal and part of the creator-begetter. The act of making is taking something already in existence and fitting it together; as one takes flour, water, and yeast to make bread; or wood, nails, and varnish to fit into a wardrobe; or chisels and marble to form a sculpture; or a man and a woman together fashion a marriage. 

In grieving we image God by making. We turn to pro-creation to pro-cess (move forward, continue). We seek solitude and silence in order to better serve, because the act of serving (helping one's neighbour with various tasks, inviting others over for dinner, etc.) brings us outside of ourself so that we do not dead-end in grief.

This brings up the other aspect of lamenting. To lament, I said, one needs times of solitude. But one also needs time with others. God says in the beginning that, "It is not good for the Man to be alone". God was right there with the Man, but still says he is 'alone' or without a match (or mate) of his own. We need other persons. We need friends and family who will be still with us, who will listen to us. We need others to serve with our creative acts. We need those close to us to cry with us, and also to make us laugh. 

The hush of snow is heralding a chance to ponder, time to be. This late Spring snow is a gift before I step into the bustle of Summer. The silence of a full day to process and grieve is worth the thanks-giving. Right here and now I learn to be still and know... and to be known.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

~ Johanna

Love Will Have the Final Word: Jason Gray

When Jason Gray's ‘Love Will Have the Final Word’ came out, I had been listening to his previous album ‘A Way to See in the Dark’ on constant replay for about a month. I didn't think any other set of songs could really express my own steps in life better than that record… I was wrong.

When the song ‘Not Right Now’ came on, all I could do was sit there with wet eyes and a raw heart. Finally, someone who understood that Christians need to grieve. Not every song or story ends happily or quite the way we might want. Oh, God’s story ends better than the beginning – of that I am firmly convinced… Just, our stories have loss and pain and we don’t need happy-go-lucky pat answers. We need a place to grieve. We sometimes need our friends to shut up and sit down in the ashes with us.

Every song on the new album expressed the reality of brokenness, the depth of re-creation, the aching need for real friendship, and much, much more. I have never heard such a real, painful, hopeful set of songs that express the fall and redemption so powerfully and beautifully. 

~ Johanna

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

Even in the valley of the shadow the stars shine...

Deep red light streaked across my kitchen panes yesterday morning. In the fog of sleepiness I thought of the line, "Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning," then rolled over for a little more precious slumber. 

When evening came, I honestly have no idea what colour the sky was... I only knew that the red dawn was followed by an evening call. "She's gone." Words I had been anticipating for a week. Words I have been dreading to hear. Words one never quite knows how they will receive until they have to. 

Blindly I walked out into the night, feeling the cool Spring air revive my tumbled thoughts. Revive: breathe new life into... How could I have so much life in my lungs when her lungs were empty now? I walked harder, feet pelting toward the mountain. I needed space. Stillness. Steadiness. 

Clambering up the washed out path, I reached a flat place, panting. Stopping in the darkness, my eyes adjusted enough to look up at the mighty beams of light above me. Mighty, yet so distant as to appear but pin pricks in Heaven's canopy. My eyes traced the trio of beacons in Orion's belt. There sat Betelgeuse, a splendid red orb in the hunter's shoulder. Red. Like the morning sky... 

I reeled, seeking for an anchor in the midst of my anguish. Next to me the rush of snow-melt in the stream sang its joyful, gushing tune. Above me the wind swept through the pines and over my sorrow-streaked face. O'erhead the constellations solemnly trod their seasoned steps. How many times has the earth revolved around the sun? And there are the Pleiades every Autumn (in this hemisphere), peeking above the low ridge, beginning their trek across the sky. My eyes will only see them only a little longer before they visit the other half of the world. Then we will see the Summer crown rising in the next season.

Even in the change of seasons there is a constancy, like the river and mountains, trees and stars, and the continual rising and falling of the sun and moon. Even as the wind brings a change in the weather, it is still the same familiar wind we know from every playful Summer caress, or wild Winter dervish. Even as my dear 'snow season' melts into golden and royal purple crocuses, there is a familiarity in the pattern of the year. 

New hope springs up in me. The ebb and flow of life remind me of the Creator's hand holding all things together, ordering the strides of the universe from day to day and night to night. How much more incredible is it that He orders my daily and nightly steps, small as I am? He Who is acquainted with our grief walks with us through the dark valley of the shadow. 

One day, death will stand on its head and everything sad will come untrue. Because He danced the reel of this earth, and died our death for us, and is so full of life that not even death could hold Him... It had to let Him go into abundant life. This is another grappling hook for my soul... Yet the fullness of Life found in Christ does not mean I am cheerful in the face of death. Oh, the face of my own death, maybe. I am not afraid of what is to come, though perhaps that is because I don't know how truly grave and mysterious and real and joyful it will be. 

But in this shadow before the real, this dream before the waking, I feel the rending claws of death. I see it filling its voracious appetite with unborn children and frail grandmothers, with soldiers and civilians, rich and poor. I shudder at its touch on my shoulder, upon my family. "Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion!" cries my soul. I seek refuge under the shadow of the wings of my Father in Heaven. Here I will hide my shredded soul, until the Healer begins –no, continues– His work to remake this fragmented me into something Beautiful. Here I will hide, until a flame rises out of the cold ashes. Here I will mourn, and He will weep with me, even though He knows the end of the story and has told me that all shall be made well. 

Helen Margaret Marie Sophie Byrkett 

27 December 1919 – 17 March 2014

~ Johanna

Through Lenten Lands

"Gurgling he went under, and the River closed over his curly head. An exclamation of dismay came from the empty boat. Frodo was just in time to grasp Sam by the hair as he came up, bubbling and struggling. Fear was staring in his round brown eyes. " 

~ J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Gurgling. Spluttering. I come up for air like Samwise, fear staring wide out of my blue-green eyes. The year has surged forward like a massive, unlooked-for wave, knocking me into the eddying current with nothing to cling to but the empty air. Yet like Sam, an invisible hand grasps mine, pulling me out of the swirling abyss of my fears and the rush of time. The Anchor of my soul keeps me from drifting away completely, like Frodo pulling Sam into the boat on the Great River. 

I have most certainly fallen out of the boat, out of the rhythm in the dance known as the church calendar, since Epiphany. I came home and life capsized. One hardship after another has loomed up in the lives of my friends and family - hardships no one ought to have to face. Yet here they are, unexpected, unwonted. The river of time hurls me against the rocks along the bottom. Snap! I hit the end of the slack in the line between me and the Anchor: Ash Wednesday, the commencement of Lent. A rhythm. A season. A kedge. 

Ashes. How strange that a season which begins with ashes ends in resurrection. The Resurrection is the true myth of the Phoenix rising from the ashes. That snags my attention. I crave the hope of new life from the sooty shards of many things: marriages, friendships, cancer, hopes crushed, and the like. I feel the sweeping motion of a cross rubbed on my forehead and the Rector reminds me, "Remember that thou art but dust, and to dust thou shalt return." This reality bites deeply today, as tomorrow I will walk alongside a companion whose mother died on Friday. 

Another Friday in history, death claimed its greatest defeat: the Son of Man, God Himself. But that Friday was followed by Sunday, when the teeth of death were uprooted by the Resurrection and the Life. Our resurrection Sundays are multi-fold, as we are brought further and further into life. The more we die to self, the more we are fully alive. When everything we know is engulfed in raging flames, we are further refined. We are given cleansing and forgiveness through the ashes. 

God offers us an incredible trade, Give Me your ashes and I will give you My Beauty. He always takes the 'losing' side - giving us priceless gifts in return for our brokenness, broken promises, and broken hearts. He promises to take the penalty if we break the covenant, though that is completely unheard of in covenant making. He gives us good gifts when all we have to offer is broken and marred. He clothes us in His Beauty when our grubby hands are full of cinders.

Closing my eyes I feel the cross traced on my forehead. I taste the wafer and the wine. These are more than icons, more than shadows. They are real acts, real elements that remind me of the reality that death has been, IS, defeated. Reminding me that all the burned up dreams, hopes, and relationships we are experiencing, are the ashes from which God's glory will rise. As my very dear friend said last week, "When the breaking is deeper than we think it can be, [God's] redemption must be deeper still." 

~ Johanna

Loneliness or Solitude?

“Language ... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone.”

~ Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now