On Melancholy and Miracles and Waking Up

the melancholy:

Sleep is forgiveness.

It falls, drop by drop, washing the dust of the day as it ushers in a clean slate and the promise of tomorrow. Sleep feels like rain and sounds like poetry.

Except when it doesn't. Except when you toss and turn and can't find comfort, when your mind only finds its form in the dark of night. Sometimes joy doesn't come with the morning and God, forgive me, please.

Let me just admit here that I've been bitter.

Let me say this out loud because it's important to say the hard things out loud- I've been whiny and miserable and exhausted and desperate and sometimes straight up mean. Grace makes it possible to be completely and utterly vulnerable. This time grace tastes bitter.

I feel heavy. And I imagine I'm not alone here, right? We carry it on our backs all day long. The plates we keep spinning. The baggage. The emotions. The failures.

And my God I am tired. 

A numbing melancholy has been my coping mechanism these last months where our lives were turned upside-down, shaken out like change on the floor. I'm not saying it's good. But this happens from time to time, I know. It keep us on our toes. And while I realize down the road we'll look back and see all the layers of struggle woven together as only time can do, right now, today, I'm not exactly counting it all as a blessing. I'd have to squint one eye and let it blur into oblivion to convince myself there's a silver lining.

So I've made the decision to keep both eyes open instead. To call it what it is. Frankly, I don't have the energy for anything else.

It's survival mode in these parts after all.

* * * * *

the miracles:

The holidays manage to show up year after year whether I'm ready to receive them or not. The holy-days. That's what it means. Holy. Advent is a time for hope. And joy. It was so odd this year, if I'd had any energy I would have used it to say it all looked pretty ludicrous to me. Me, with both eyes painfully and begrudgingly open. My heart wasn't there. I hated that it was snowing and -30 degrees and the garden was shriveled up and in hiding. Cold and dead. Nothing holy about that.

I should have known better. I did, I do. But I'm sleep deprived, so give me a break here.

Matt was out of a job and we felt like we were drowning some days. There were layers of other stresses. Layers like a cake when you have no appetite, and the insomniac icing on top is enough to make you turn all sorts of crazy. I'm human and I'm telling you I couldn't do it. So I stayed numb to the twinkling lights and carefully cut paper snowflakes and fancy gift wrap and baby Jesus and talk of hope and joy and why couldn't I just sleep?!

I know it's better to feel deep the pain and grief, whatever it is. I know. Sometimes, though, lives are fractured and it takes a miracle to break through the window so we can be ourselves again- our whole selves.

I don't know how it all started, really. Friends offering help, dinner, cups of coffee, fixing our brakes on the van. Random cards with encouragement or checks in them from loved ones and then a group of strangers who heard about our situation and decided to care and pay most of our bills for the month. Now, people. Hear me say this- sometimes help from strangers is enough to bring you to your knees. It was. It did.

And it kept happening, like salvation does, even when you're miserable and it hurts to walk or hold a conversation. It happened every time I looked someone in the eye and knew they actually wanted to help. They listened to me vent. They were kind and gentle when the world had been cruel. They kept my head above water. 

I'm still here, standing with one foot in the muck, still fighting my way through today on 3 hours of sleep. I know my kids don't have cancer, and I know the world is plum full of pain beyond what I will ever know and I should be grateful. But this is my today. It's still there when I want to hide under the covers and emerge in April. It still asks for breakfast and needs laundry done.

* * * * *

The night before Christmas Eve I  pulled into our driveway at midnight, snow crunching, thick and fresh. In front of my bright yellow door sat a massive pile of wrapped Christmas gifts. I sat there and stared them down, confused. An anonymous someone had bought us all presents and labelled them each thoughtfully, and there were so many presents! We're minimalists when it comes to Christmas, and not just out of necessity which was this year. But this- this was a gift all its own. I had never seen my kids so in awe of Christmas and in such wonder!

We all need space to wonder. To be kids again. I needed it.

I could keep going... more offerings, more help, another mortgage paid out of kindness. Friends and family to share meals with and roll out lefse with and community dinners to sit all together, shoulder to shoulder...it all reminded me what it means to be human. I am no island, it turns out. Surprise, surprise.

He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. -2 Corinthians

* * * * *

There's a story about Jesus feeding a multitude of people, who knows the real number, maybe 5,000, with just a basket of a few loaves of bread and two fish. What a joke, right?  Jesus took what there was and started feeding people. They ate until they were full. And there were twelve baskets worth of leftovers.

I don't need to know how this miracle happened. I know it happens. It is my story.

* * * * *

the waking up:

I have seen the hope of healing. I'm watching it ripple out all around me, touching the sick, lifting the weak, feeding the hungry. It is simple and unassuming. It takes human hearts and hands that choose Love. Sometimes I am the weak one, sometimes the sick, sometimes the one too self-absorbed and arrogant to notice the miracle. But gospel is good news for everyone, and it is FOR the weak. That is where I find myself again, at my most fragile. Because what the world calls worthless, our Creator calls his own.

I'm tired. I'm still begging for sleep that feels like forgiveness. Sometimes I lie awake next to my husband whose only full-time job these last months has been taking care of his crazed wife, and I feel guilty for worrying and guilty for all we have and thinking I need something more. I am privileged at the expense of another family maybe oceans away. During the day I can skate right over the top of that deep darkness. Ignorance is bliss, and that isn't a conversation for the dinner table. But guilt is meant to drive us to change. I need to be fully awake, fully alive to this wild world for that part.

I do need sleep and I desperately need healing. I am writing this because you probably do, too. But no man ever died just so I could get a good nap in. Soul healing is rooted deep and true and merciful. HOPE.

There is a time for rest and then there is a time to Wake Up. I will hold the melancholy close, calling it by its right name, for as long as it is a part of me, knowing bits of joy are found even in the darkest places.

I'm trying.

Wake up to the day, stretch out and feel the warm sun shining on your face, feel all the love and all the pain, side by side, bound together as they were meant to be.

Rise and shine.

Today is National Coming Out Day.

A host of emotions emerge with those words, especially when we're speaking as followers of Jesus, or people seeking Truth and our Creator. My faith has intersected my life and shaped my responses to the world and its array of beauty and corruption.

Maybe we should call it National Learning to Listen First Day.

This isn't an issue. It isn't a problem we can solve with the correct formula and a sharpened pencil. Contrary to many of my brothers and sisters I do not believe it is black or white, right or wrong, in all situations. Push me in a corner and I will still maintain that this is the wrong conversation, based upon who I know Jesus to be.

No, we're not tackling an issue here.

We are listening to people.

People. Humans. You and I. My neighbor. My child. This earth is full of human beings.

We are not robots. We are not merely assigned a number, as Hitler showed strips all human dignity. We are named. We are loved deeply by the One who gave us breath. We bear that image or something divine, something bigger, something true.

We love by showing each other dignity. We do that by listening. Always listening first.

* * * * *

Last weekend my dear friend came to visit from out of state. We have had an intensely deep friendship through the years. I have watched her whole world change and mine has changed alongside hers. I've witnessed her love for Jesus intersect with her homosexuality and I have wrestled with this- God, I have wrestled! I have cried with and for her. I have spoken honestly with her since the day we met. Because of that, a few years ago I made the decision not to attend her wedding. That conversation was the most painful I have ever had. But she loves me. She listened and respected my wrestling and how I live out my faith. My friend showed me more grace that day than I have ever been able to offer back. And I'm not the same.

She has taught me what grace looks like.

* * * * *

Much has changed in my heart since then. Ground has shifted again, left me standing with a better view of the horizon. The shifting knocked me out cold. The questions and doubts and wrestling with God is hardly over. I'm learning that it's the wrestling, the willingness to go to the mat with this, fight it out, live honestly and authentically, that's the place where I experience God. And I believe that's what God is asking from us.

How I frame my questions, my faith, my interactions with people has changed drastically. Many concerned friends continue to be, well, concerned. I'm okay with that. Having concern for one another is a good place to start, after all.

I am concerned about my friends (known and unknown) who have felt misunderstood, unheard, who have been treated callously because of their sexuality. I'm concerned about those who live in the dark because it's safer than having to deal with the backlash of coming out. It concerns me that in general, we, as a society, and more importantly, we, the church, have not begun the conversation by listening.

When we love someone, we pull up a chair.

When we love someone, we treat them with dignity, worthy of our time and energy.

When we love someone, we set ourselves and our preconceived ideas aside.

When we love someone, we earn their trust by being a friend in the daily stuff, the regular, the mundane.

When we love someone, what hurts them hurts us.

When we love someone, we call them by name instead of categorizing them by their sexuality.

When we love, we choose to listen first.

* * * * *

We need to practice the sacred act of pulling up a chair. And as a person who is trying, really wrestling with how to love people well, I'm offering a listening ear if you're willing to share your story. And I will share mine.

All is not Lost.

I wore last week like an overcoat. A heavy one. Know what I mean? I often write some similar description, because that is when I sit still just long enough for thoughts to settle and spill out.

The human heart is a fickle thing. It leads. It betrays. We hide it and we hide ourselves from others' hearts. We shape it and name it Love, and that Love feels like chains one day and wings the next.

* * * * *

We do see what we are looking for so very often, don't we? We look for the beauty, we see it in sunsets and babies' faces. We look for pain, it is there, like our own shadow, we're unable to shake it off. We look for emptiness, we see chaos. Look for meaning, and you will see cosmos and design, leaves fashioned like fingerprints, an apple tree as sustenance.

I choose how I view my life, how I see the people around me.

* * * * *

There has been much conversation about how our little town should deal with the homeless that wander our streets. After last week's three-part series in the newspaper that was picked apart, labelled as racist and insensitive by some, I have this sense of stirring. It is not the flurry of emotional responses that create change, but it is a slight shift of awareness, a wondering. Change stirs the pot slowly, evenly, careful not to splash. (The last of Justin Glawe's articles is here: http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/content/homeless-bemidji-no-easy-answers-homeless-their-advocates-and-city)

My husband, who has worked with the homeless for the last seven years, spoke wisely. We are just people. We all wear the same flesh. We all bear a human heart.

We learn about the human heart when we try to understand one another, especially those unlike ourselves, those that are labelled and misunderstood. We learn about the human heart when we see a brother suffering and allow our own hearts to break with theirs. When one suffers, we all suffer. And I soothe myself with this truth, as though saying it out loud will provide a shoulder to lean on or nourishment for the hungry.

And is it by chance that the same morning that this article was printed and left on the doorsteps of the masses in their separate pretty box-houses with spare rooms that sit empty all winter, is it by chance that just when his voice was heard, if only in print, that Andy, another homeless man featured, photo and all, was hit by a car in the early morning hours, in the heart of a city that doesn't quite know how to help it's most vulnerable?

I don't believe much in chance.

Andy was Butch's friend. I've talked a lot about Butch, the homeless man I encountered right before his body washed up on the beach. (Butch's story found here: http://prodigalstories.blogspot.com/2013/06/when-jesus-goes-by-butch.html) I've talked and talked and talked... at least we're talking, when we don't know how to help, we talk. We communicate. Even that is hammering a brick out from the walls built before our time. We talk. We hammer. We feel helpless. We're reminded to be hopeful. Grateful for the hands that do the dirty work.

It seems like yesterday that I met Andy on the sidewalk. He stopped me when I said hello, held up a card full of logos and asked if he could use that card at McDonalds. I nodded, yes. He said, "Good. I really need food. I'm  hungry." Everyone who spends any time downtown has had these encounters. And just recently I handed a sandwich to another man I didn't know sitting with a prosthetic leg on a busy street corner. It was blustery cold that morning and he was wrapped in a dirty blanket. He smiled graciously as he took it and thanked me. Then he said he was walking across the country for homelessness, and would I please remember him by his name? "I'm Kevin. Don't forget my name." I won't be able to forget.

It takes courage to believe that all this human suffering matters to the Creator of the galaxies. It takes courage to beg the question, and to not offer a pat answer. Courage to right the wrongs. Yet more courage to see these streets as holding us all together, one and the same, whether running or sleeping on them. And it will take courage to face a complex issue with complex but tender human hearts in the balance, with grace and longsuffering and persistence. It takes courage to be there in the messy places, instead of the comfort and bliss of ignorance.

For me? I don't take this timing lightly. It's a drumbeat that has been low and steady. A rhythm of grace. Of human hearts beating, one and the same.

As long as someone cares, all is not lost.

Rest in peace, Andy.

* * * * *

Why would you ever complain or whine,
saying, "God has lost track of me.
He doesn't care what happens to me"?

Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?

God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.

    He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine.

He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.

    And he knows everything, inside and out.

He energizes those who get tired,

    gives fresh strength to dropouts.

For even young people tire and drop out,

    young folk in their prime stumble and fall.

But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.

    They spread their wings and soar like eagles,

They run and don’t get tired,

    they walk and don’t lag behind.
(Isaiah 40)

On Rubble and Compost

It has taken rumors of war to remind me that Syria is my neighbor. I can see its children running with mine, wild and free, through the tree line if I squint a bit, re-imagining the shape of this earth. It all caves in together, doesn't it?

The fear, the weight of the new reality we live in, sits heavy in my pocket. It's the rubble of hillsides and homes that have been blown up by the enemy. The Enemy, which we rush fast to name and sentence to death.

It isn't fear as much as it is despair that drowns us, I think. The feeling of hopelessness, complete loss of control and peace down deep, when the bits of good seem darkly overshadowed by the world's cruelty, even evil, as some call it. We shudder at the hatred we see in the headlines. And we see so many headlines. Status updates. Tweets. The events of the day, the very cold, desperate, hard facts of life like rubble in pockets cause us to drag our feet, sink into despair, raise a skeptical eyebrow at the thought of our children's children living peaceful or even safe lives.

If the Enemy rightly named is anger, or hatred, which I believe it is, then threatening this hatred is not the answer but will only make it swell with more hate- kill its leaders and many will become martyrs. Terrorists love their truth as much as I love mine.  Reasons have been offered for this by people wiser and more articulate than I, and I look to their words as I take up my hay fork and turn all this dirt, all this waste over and over again in my head and my heart, turning as an act of faith that eventually the trash will once again become usable earth, something that holds the possibility of life. This is me, turning my compost of sorts.

I look to Wendell Berry, who I've recently discovered to be a prophet for this generation. He wisely says "To treat life as less than a miracle is to give up on it." He has taught me of the beauty, the sacred and subversive act of farming. Hands to earth. Hard labor. Dependence on sun and rain and community. Tending the garden as prayer.

I look to Madeleine L'Engle, as I have for more than a decade, because it pulls me up and out of despair. She taught me that we have strayed far from the land, from story, from imagination and fantasy, and it is our loss. She challenges me, invites me, even, to stop dividing all of life into the categories of good and evil and start seeing my choices and my reactions as either creative or destructive, as promoting life or promoting death.

I look also to writers like Annie Dillard, whose quote recently surfaced: "Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there." We do have the option of seeing the beauty instead of the chaos. It is not completely out of our control.

And that all leads me this week to Barbara Kingsolver, a story-teller I've only begun to notice, quite frankly. I'm in awe of her grace that pours onto the pages, whether in story or essay. She says "God is frightful, God is great--you pick. I choose this: God is in the details, the completely unnecessary miracles sometimes tossed up as stars to guide us." Take heart, she says to me.

But back to Syria and this devastating predicament at hand. Kingsolver offered me a wonderful parable I need to share. Not her own, but the Greeks' understanding of their enemy, and of our enemy today, because, in fact, while something new is upon us, nothing is ever really new.

The story of Jason and the Argonauts is a favorite tale of heroic adversity. The enemy, the dragon, was slain and fell to the soil. Each of its teeth grew into a new enemy, and Jason finally couldn't fight his way out. Kingsolver says, 'It took a woman who loved him, Medea, who whispered into his ear a simple truth: Hatred dies only when turned on itself. This force could not be extinguished by the sword, she told him; only a clever psychological strategy could vanquish it. Jason took her advice, throwing a rock cryptically and inciting an internal riot of rock throwing in which the dragon's-tooth warriors destroyed one another. Later on, encountering another dragon, Medea again stops Jason from drawing his sword with a gentle hand on his arm. This time, rather than allowing a new field of hatred to be sown and reaped, she moved quietly to the mouth of the sleeping dragon and gave it an elixir of contentment so it would remain asleep as she and her lover passed by.'

"It would require the deepest possible shift of our hearts to live in this world of fundamental animosity and devote ourselves not to the escalating exertion to kill, but rather to lulling animosity to sleep. Modern humanity may not be up to the challenge. Modern humanity may not have a choice," Kingsolver writes. "We are alive in a fearsome time and we have been given new things to fear. We've been delivered huge blows but also huge opportunities to reinforce or reinvent our will, depending on where we look for honor and how we name our enemies. The easiest thing is to think of returning the blows. But there are other things we must think about as well, other dangers we face. A careless way of sauntering across the earth and breaking open its treasures, a terrible dependency on sucking out the world's best juices for ourselves- these may also be our enemies. The changes we dread most may contain our salvation. And the stinging truth that we aren't entirely loved for our ways in this world? This thing could eat us up or save us. We are in no position yet to declare the moral of our story."

Despair says the world will always be this way, bent toward selfishness, love of power and force and ultimately sowing anger. Despair clutches the rubble in our pockets in case we need to fight back. Despair concedes that you and I have no real control over our future, or our children's future, or the future of those families we don't know around the planet we share.

But hope says it doesn't have to stay this way, that there are true and good victories in every generation and every day, however seemingly small the wonder.  Hope takes imagination and puts the dragon to sleep. It turns the rubble into art, and weapons into farm tools. Like Jesus said, there is another way.

So I will do what I can to steer my heart away from despair. I will be honest with my children about war and honest with them about hope of our country living better, not stronger, because there is no bomb big enough to eradicate hate. I will turn the compost until I can plant seeds of life in it, and with hard work those plants will sustain us. My children will learn about miracles by watching flowers bloom and by pulling carrots out of dirt. We will seek love and compassion and humility and bring bits of heaven to this earth.

Take heart.

When a homeless guy gave me a voice

It's been a month since I posted about my encounter with a homeless man named Butch. I didn't think all that much of the post when I wrote it just to get the weight off my chest. But that is usually how the truest stories are told. Well, this particular story took all my theological rants and questions and tossed them in the air like dust and isn't that really where it all starts anyway?

Here it is if you missed it: http://prodigalstories.blogspot.com/2013/06/when-jesus-goes-by-butch.html

And when I say 'encounter' what I really mean is my lack of encounter and the conviction that followed. This isn't a story I'm particularly proud of. Acknowledging that you missed something, that you're sorry, that your instincts are often self-protecting, these are vulnerable places, the dark corners you'd rather hide. I'd rather hide.

But something happens when we open ourselves up to each other, I'm finding. Something happens that stirs us down deep. Some kind of wonder- a communal head nod, an understanding that this is bigger than just me, that below the designer shoes scattering on concrete our roots are intertwined and we are at our core dependent on one another if we want to live well. Whole-hearted. Unafraid.

* * * * *

We went to Butch's memorial that same evening after I posted. I had to know more about who he was, and maybe give myself permission to feel so strongly about a stranger. My husband has worked with the homeless in our town for the last 7 years, so this world was nothing strange to him, but for the stay-at-home-mom and her kids to enter into it, well, you better believe I felt awkward. For about 3 minutes. Then one older man cried and leaned against me and said that Butch was like his brother...he looked into my eyes and told me not to ever forget and did I know how much his heart hurt? I'm undone. All these people who loved Butch, who walked with him every day, who were his family, they poured out their hearts in stories and tears and showed grace to the outsider and I stood there, on that bridge, bleary-eyed and humbled and speechless. Even my kids were quiet, taking it in. Someone else told me not to feel guilty, that my honesty was important, that it was brave love. Then we lit candles and put them on tiny rafts and said a prayer together and watched them float off into the water as night came and gently wrapped its cloak around our shoulders.

* * * * *

It's been a month and now I'm thinking my voice matters after all. I'm thinking I'm not alone in feeling helpless and overwhelmed at the broken world at my doorstep, and not alone in wanting to do something about it. Right where I am. Kids in tow. Owning my simplicity and awkwardness until it's not awkward anymore.

If I believe it all matters, that we all matter, then my role IS important, and maybe this is my role. To speak out for the ordinary people, to make space for the conversations so that extraordinary changes can be made in ourselves first, and our community next. I'm finding there are pockets of people who are far ahead of me here, and I want to learn from them.  What is your role, I wonder?

Whole-hearted. Eyes wide open. It's time.

Thank you, Butch.

The hot button issue.

I am exhausted today. Probably like everyone else. I'm overwhelmed and emotionally a bit fragile and it hurts to walk and I hate that I thought it would be gone by now and it's not. I feel pitiful.

But that's not really who I am. In my spirit I feel like a bird who just had its cage door opened for the first time- a bit hesitant, a little scared, but intrigued and overjoyed that there is a whole new beautiful world waiting to be discovered.  I feel like I've been shaken and a lot of the extra junk sifted out. Fell onto the floor boards and my bare feet like a shedding of skin and I feel fresh. I feel ready. Expectant.

There are glimpses of grace here. The simple, the mundane, that now I see are more than they had appeared-  even these are sacred. Pay attention. This small thing, this waking up of the spirit, it matters.

Today I am a paradox. The wonderful thing about this is that it demands that you acknowledge that the two very polar sides are not opposing at all, but are intertwined in places unseen. They don't just balance each other out as though on a linear cosmic balance board.  They reside in the tension, in the deep, in the questions. Tension is fast becoming a cliche word, and I'm in danger of overusing it, but I can't think of another English word that feels right. That's a challenge. Find me one please. Maybe I should make one up.

* * * * *

I read a blog post this morning that stirred up some new questions in me surrounding the homosexuality conversation. I am wishing all my Christian friends would read this, let it be another voice, mull it over like I am. I wish it would stir us, keep us up at night if it hasn't already, remind us of this tension and caution us to tread gently, choose our words more wisely, refine our beliefs a bit. New voices matter. 

This is not a complete theological exposition. It is personal thoughts from one human being living in the tension to another. Somewhere in the comments (which are also insightful) he says this:

I am not asking people to change their beliefs about gay marriage,

 but instead I am asking people to struggle more deeply with the implications

 of that belief, so that we may be better equipped to spread a

 compassionate gospel. We are to grieve with those who grieve — if the

 application of the scripture is as hard as you say it is, then it had best be applied 

with tears and tenderness, lest we crush those we serve. Those tears and tenderness can only be acquired through deep struggle with the cost of our words.

With that said, here it is.

http://sacredtension.com/2013/07/08/three-reasons-the-traditional-perspective-on-gay-marriage-makes-me-uncomfortable/

If you are willing to be a part of this conversation, let's all agree to do it well, to speak kindly, and be respectful. I have failed at this enough times to know the damage it does. But it's too important to ignore.

On listening when it's awkward

It happened in the back of the grocery store. I was simply trying to grab some chicken for company that night. I was an hour behind, frazzled, company was already waiting at the house and supper would be late. Again. One of those situations. You know the kind. I am quite sure I looked the part.

But she was looking for me, I think, for someone, anyone. It really shouldn't have been me. Not that day at that moment when I was consumed with my own shortcomings and guests and busyness.

She shook her head first as I reached across the corner of her mostly empty cart for that chicken. I tried to keep to myself, I did. But I heard her say, "I can't even afford to buy food anymore. How are people supposed to eat?" I get it. I ask that myself with 3 growing kids and a 10-year-old boy-man who needs a full meal at least every hour. (Well, thankfully now he recognizes he doesn't 'need' it like other people who don't have enough. He is a tender soul who often reminds us of our exaggeration. Even when we think we need to eat, we won't starve, he points out. Not unless we do that for a month. Not like in Africa, he says. Truth.)

I nodded and smiled in understanding, placed the chicken in my cart and tried to keep moving. I failed.

I'm not sure I could even begin to explain the extraordinary details this woman poured out to me about her life at that exact and inconvenient moment. Not a moment as in a minute. More like an hour. Right next to the frozen chicken and blocking traffic on a holiday weekend. Smooth it was not. I learned about her husband dying 5 years ago from the medication that has now been recalled. I learned about her house that's been on the market for nearly that long, all about the new deck, the realtors, borrowing even more money for a fence to maybe block the messy neighbors. I saw the desperation in her eyes as they welled up with tears. She leaned in uncomfortably close and told me she does go to the food shelf when she has to, but she doesn't want to tell anyone else because her children don't know how bad things really are. She'd hate to be a burden.  I learned about all her children, their names and her grandchildren's names and hobbies...the time her daughter almost died because of alcohol...how she found sobriety and God...the abuse in her childhood...the very specific timeline of her travels and moves across country to nowhere-ville Minnesota, "right up next to Antarctica", she said, and laughed out loud. And when this woman talked about her husband, I tell you what. Her tired face lit up like Christmas morning. "He wasn't the romantic type," she explained, tearful and quiet. "But he was my partner in life. He never left me. And I loved him."

My heart swelled with admiration, with sadness, with longing. And my eyes filled with tears, too.

There were a few very brief lulls between her rambling thoughts and I tried to close the conversation by checking my phone and the time, remembering everyone waiting for me at home. I turned my grocery cart the other way, as if to slowly wrap it up, offer goodbyes and blessings, move on from this stranger. On to more pressing matters. Like chicken. And company. And glorification of BUSY.

But I couldn't do it. She intrigued me with her earnest outpouring, her vulnerability and honesty. For reasons I won't ever understand, she picked me. At first I was slightly annoyed by this hangup, catching glances from people scooting around us, odd looks, curious looks. They didn't phase her.

"I believe in Life! I believe in God! Don't ever stop praying for your children," she was almost dancing now, "but they all have to learn their own hard way. Even when you think it might kill you!"

Now she had completely captured my attention, disarmed me. And now, of course, she was ready to say goodbye. She introduced herself, even gave me directions to her house. She grabbed my hands, looked straight into my soul, thanked me sweetly for listening, and turned to leave.

And I wept. For what, I'm not positive. In front of the company. And it was good.

* * * * *

I have prayed for eyes to see people, for opportunities outside of my small community of friends to allow these strange and fleeting lives to intersect, for moments that glimmer with purpose. I've prayed that somehow maybe I could make a difference, make the world a little less lonely. And when I didn't genuinely have the desire, I asked for even just the desire for the desire. Sometimes that is all I can honestly offer. I believe the Giver has honored that feeble and fumbling heart request I call prayer. It was answered in an awkward moment, at an awkward time, with a sort of awkward stranger. And I'm fairly confident it wasn't for her benefit, but for my own. One encounter at a time, breaking down the barriers I'm realizing I have erected. Opening the eyes of my heart by paying more attention to those around me, those fragile and divine and messy and beautiful people. Because we're all together in this chaos.

It's all very awkward. The best sort of awkward.

 There are no strangers here; only friends you

 haven't yet met. -- William Butler Yeats

* * * * *

I know I'm not alone. Have you had a similar experience? What did it teach you?

When Jesus goes by 'Butch'

I can't sleep.

My mind is slipping in and out and then drips right through my tired fingers and I'm not sure I can save it this time.

It's that sort of night, though. The kind where the rain on the window is telling a story you forgot you heard as a child. The kind of night that slows the clock- as real as when you're sitting in the dentist chair and that fifteen minutes may as well have been fifteen dreadful hours. That sort of magic happens on these nights. And it appears so commonplace. You should have noticed it there yesterday like the smudge on the bathroom mirror, right between the eyes.

Drops keep falling. Falling and falling and speaking a language of deeper truths. Truths about how things should be. How they were meant to be.

I saw him last Thursday, down by the lake shore. I was picking up my ruggedly handsome and sunburned husband and middle son and friends from their canoe adventure up the Mississippi River. They were back, survivors of the wild twisting and turning 67 miles by canoe. And it was Matt's birthday. The pies were waiting fresh on my kitchen counter.

He staggered a bit as he walked, head down and eyes quiet. 

All the littles were running around, joy-filled shrieks and windblown hair. There were seven of them altogether. Our two families tend to combine, and we relish those moments.

I saw him. And then I did it.

I whispered to my friend that he was walking toward us and we should really gather the kids. You know, someone was mugged down there just the other day. 

The words slipped out. Slipped just like my mind did tonight. 

I gathered the littles and still looked him in the eye and smiled as he passed. Said 'Hi there' and thought I meant it. 

We scurried along. We sang Happy Birthday. We ate pie. We listened to stories of fishing and storms on the river and campsites and wildlife from excited and tired little boys. 

: : :

The next morning I saw the headlines. A body had been found washed up on that same beach. A homeless man.

My gut knew before I even looked at the man's picture. It was the same eyes, the same long ragged hair. Except he had a name this time. On the streets and with his friends at the church where he often stayed and ate he was known as Butch.

: : :

I've been shouting from the rooftops for awhile now that Jesus is found in the outcast. I've studied this. I've thought and prayed and read and talked a lot about this. I've stepped outside an inner-circle church community to focus on living this. And now here I am, reading the news, seeing his face, learning his name, and all I hear is my judgment. Better safe than sorry, especially with kids. I can easily justify my concerns. And hey, I did smile and say hello. What more could I have done? I mean, really, what could I have done?

I'm naive. Admittedly. But slightly less than I used to be. I know it wasn't a moment where I could have prevented a tragedy. Maybe. Maybe the tragedy wasn't even that I judged someone I knew nothing about out of unfounded fear. Maybe the tragedy wasn't that it happened.

Maybe the real tragedy is that it happens.

We talk a lot about love. Especially loving the unlovely. And in a moment, old habits return and fear rules our hearts once again. We miss the miracle in the common or ugly or unknown. We miss Jesus.

I did. I missed him. And I mean it. I'm grieving a complete stranger, wishing I would have looked a little deeper in those eyes, asked him if he was enjoying the summer sunshine at least, connected. I missed something there and I feel it now, that loss, that groan for a life, for God to come fix all this mess and my fearful heart and turn it into something useable. Something closer to the way things were meant to be.

People are meant for knowing one another and for knowing their Maker. Sometimes you find that you meet Jesus in the grocery store line, on the street corner, or walking down the beach. Often he or she doesn't look a thing like the blond-haired blue-eyed painting we've bought and sold as gospel. We're meant to share life with one another, inter-connected instead of independent. Tearing down walls and labels and stereotypes and injustice and poverty one day at a time by inviting people over or in conversation instead of building fences and installing security systems and keeping our children safe from strangers.

We were meant for so much more than this. And I am sorry.

: : :

The rain is still falling, still saturating the earth, still scattering across the glass like ants whose hill was barbarically stepped on. It is this story of Life and the groaning and suffering and longing for our world to be made whole again, a return to Eden. I am pulled back to my childhood, back when I knew everything was alright in the world. When stories were true.

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.

Whenever you did one of these things to someone 

overlooked or ignored, that was me— you did it to me. - Jesus

: : :

I hear that Butch had many friends, that he was a kind and gentle man, that he had lived here for many years. He is loved and missed.

     ***Due to the response of this post, and after going to  Butch's memorial service, I wrote a follow-up post here:  http://prodigalstories.blogspot.com/2013/07/when-homeless-guy-gave-me-voice.html

The Theology of Soup

I am making soup tonight.

The process is an art form (channel your inner VanGogh with me for a minute). Saute onions and fresh-chopped garlic in rich, yellow butter...

At this point you can choose to just stop and eat, because this is perfection in a pan, right  here, people. My love affair with onions gets a little out of hand, I'll admit. I can't resist.

...otherwise, you can add some other veggies like carrots, mushrooms, peppers, cook and douse with seasonings. Add some homemade chicken stock you cooked the day before (this is a MUST for anyone who cares about flavor, health or their pocketbook- that covers everyone, right?) and simmer. Simmer. Simmer some more. Then you get to lean over the pot, breathe in the deep aromas, feel like you brought world peace and solved the earth's hunger problem all with a handful of vegetables.

There is an element of magic in making something out of nothing. Whatever unused produce is in the fridge. Left-over meat or rice. Turning it into a full and appetizing meal and filling my kids' bellies with nutrients. It's a primal ritual. Satisfying, not only to our stomachs, but right down deep to the soul.

Soup-making and people-feeding has become the core of my faith and every day life. I could recommend more than a handful of amazing books that have helped me put these ideas into words and works- books like Take This Bread by Sara Miles and Bread & Wine by Shauna Niequist top the list. I'm apparently not alone in my sentiments. We have dubbed Thursday evenings 'Soup Night', when I make a big pot and welcome anyone and everyone to join us for a simple supper. It is good to practice what you preach. I'm taking baby steps in this department.

Tonight I plan on using up some potatoes and squash, a bunch of cilantro that has lingered a few days in the crisper. My goal is to let nothing go to waste! Why throw it away when you could turn it into a new meal? I aspire to be as passionate about resourcefulness and stewardship as I am about flavor and nutrition. I suppose that requires discipline and practice as well, like any good thing.

When Jesus fed the five thousand, he took the few loaves of bread and fish and distributed to everyone and they were satisfied. As if that weren't miracle enough, afterward he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.”  So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the leftover bread.

God always uses the bits and pieces of us that we think are useless, that we would otherwise just throw out. But God is Master Artist and Chef- the Creator of all good things- and nothing, I mean NOTHING is wasted. Not even our flaws. Not even our garbage. Instead, God makes things new. Breathing life into dust. Speaking light into darkness. Beauty from ashes. You get the picture.

Make something simple and beautiful today, share it and be nourished.

* * * * *

God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it. --C.S. Lewis

"Alright, then, I'll go to hell." - Huck Finn

I ran across a phenomenally written blog post today. I have to share it.

http://brianzahnd.com/2013/06/when-america-went-to-hell/

Provocative title, eh?

Well, it's got me thinking. About slavery then. About injustices now. About re-reading Huck Finn and Uncle Tom's Cabin (bumping them up on the must-read-this-summer-list).

In Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck had helped hide a slave, his friend, Jim. Huck knew from Sunday School, however, that hiding slaves is a sin and will send you straight to hell. So Huck writes a letter to Miss Watson telling her where she can find her slave, finally ready to save his soul. Huck doesn't want to go to hell. But he loves his friend even more. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” — and tore it up.

Huckleberry Finn. Giving us a lesson on loving your neighbor. 

"Neighbor" was a messy word back then- certainly it didn't mean slaves! Who are we quick to exclude now? I can think of more than a couple possibilities.

But back to the Civil War.

Zahnd explains the irony of the revivals that swept through churches before the war:

Millions had “accepted Jesus” and shouted hosanna, but they did not know the things that make for peace. They prayed a sinner’s prayer, “got right with God,” and kept their slaves. They had a faith that would justify the sinner while bringing no justice to the slave. They had faith that gave them a ticket to heaven…and a highway to hell.

Probably without even knowing what they were doing these Christians had quite effectively used Jesus and the Bible to validate their racist assumptions and protect their vested interests. They went to church on Sunday. They got saved. They loved Jesus. They waved their palms and shouted hosanna on Palm Sunday. But like the crowd in Jerusalem eighteen centuries earlier they didn’t know the things that make for peace. And Jesus wept over an America headed to hell. The churches were full and slavery continued…until the Civil War. Then 623,000 people died for the sins of America.

This is a heavy bit of history. Have we learned from it? In Luke, Jesus said, “How I wish that you of all people would understand the things that make for peace.”

The things that make for peace. 

Jesus.

How can we better love people? How can we be peacemakers in a war-hungry world?

Zahnd warns:

If we console ourselves with the promise of heaven in the afterlife while creating hell in this present life, we have embraced the tawdry religion of the crusader and forsaken the true faith of our Savior.

Are we more concerned about churches being full, or that 'slavery' has continued?

Dear God, let us learn from our mistakes.

Bridges.

Communication, on the other hand, is painstakingly difficult and increasingly complex when so much of it happens in typed word and emoticons instead of voice inflection and body posture. Complex, but not impossible. After all, being face-to-face with someone and engaged in conversation does not necessarily mean there will be greater understanding or mutual respect or better chance of converting the 'other' to your own worldview.

STOP.

That is what we want, isn't it? If we're honest? We so passionately believe in our own worldview, our own interpretation of right/wrong that it must be our goal to communicate this truth adequately so the one in disagreement comes to this full knowledge as well. After all, love means telling the truth.

We are addicted to answers, to the idea that all views have opposition they must fight, addicted to labels. The yes/no, the right/wrong, the us/them, the black/white, anti-/pro- paradigm.

I don't buy it.

The real stuff of life happens in the tension, in the conversation, in the bridge-building between two opposing sides that both seek to convert the 'other'. I use the term 'tension' purposely. It is tense. It is uncomfortable. As the saying goes, when you're a bridge you get walked on from both sides. Truth.

Lately the gay marriage debate has taken the spotlight, and necessarily so in MN. I see my FB feed fill up with passionate conservative friends taking a stand for 'truth'. I see my equally passionate progressive and gay friends pushing back, standing for 'equality'. I have dear friends on both sides of the spectrum, and I've been known to offend both sides at times. I'm learning. Slowly. Too slowly.

If there's one thing I've continually felt God's pull toward in my life in the last couple years, it is that I am to be a bridge builder, in this conversation and others. Living in the tension. It's become my mantra of sorts. I'm not trying to sound cliche. Nor am I trying to side-step having to answer hard questions. I'm just learning to recognize that without building relationships and communicating by listening first, nothing will ever change.

So I choose to stand in solidarity with the Other. Because that is the example I see in Jesus. Feel free to disagree with me- plenty do. 'But Jesus said, Go and sin no more!' you say? Yes, he did. After he had taken the sinner's side, risking his own reputation and even his life. After he let her know that he did not condemn her. Then, and only then, had he earned the right to speak into her life.

Time to follow suit. Earning that right, earning trust in a relationship takes time. Serious time. And it involves much listening and not a lot of talking.

It's easy to dismiss someone out of ignorance or intolerance when you don't have to put real faces to the labels. It's not so easy to do once you've heard their story, listened to their heartache, felt their pain or confusion, called them Friend. Relationship is everything.

So much misunderstanding. So little listening and too few relationships being built between these two camps. It breaks my heart. I believe it breaks God's heart as well.

Can I be a bridge? It's certainly seen as risky business, often labelled as lukewarm, not holding to Scripture, divisive. I've been told it's not real reconciliation without repentance. I disagree. And we can disagree.

We can seek to elevate these conversations to a place that earns back the trust and respect where it was lost. We can see the beauty in diversity by creating space for these honest discussions. We can speak louder that the image of God exists in ALL people, gay and straight. We can ask honest questions to better understand instead of merely convert. We can decide that it isn't about agreeing on interpretations of Scripture or on a political hot-button issue. We can recognize that it's about how we love the one who disagrees with us. I haven't done a great job of this myself.

I'm saying it now, out loud, because I HAVE to.

***For the conservative person: How can you, or how can the church, better love the LGBT community? How can you better seek reconciliation with those who disagree with your interpretation of Scripture?

***For the progressive person: How can you seek reconciliation with those who view marriage in the traditional way? How can you love the LGBT community while respecting the conservative view and even inviting them along in that process of learning by listening?

Demanding conformity to beliefs is not helpful, nor is it the unconditional love that Jesus exemplified. Maybe our refusal to repent of our intolerance is precisely what we need to repent of. Maybe the first step looks like humility and more genuine questions than we think necessary. Maybe it looks less like choosing sides and more like bridge-building. Maybe saying 'congratulations' to a newly engaged same-sex couple doesn't have to mean you condone it. Maybe it's just an extension of some much-needed dignity. Maybe it's the first step toward a relationship- one that you can learn just as much from as them. It is possible to disagree in a variety of respectful and even hospitable ways.

‘Rather than being disappointed in less than complete agreement or understanding, I’ll be grateful for even small steps we can take together in challenging dangerous features of the status quo and opening up better possibilities for the future.’ – Brian  Mclaren

Small steps. What do you think?

Rock-sitting, veil-tearing, and learning to shut up.

“And then there is time in which to be, simply to be, that time in which God quietly tells us who we are and who he wants us to be.  It is then that God can take our emptiness and fill it up with what he wants, and drains away the business with which we inevitably get involved in the dailiness of human living.”  ~Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

I know we are called to movement. To change. To growth. But sometimes I feel like that's not possible until I sit myself down and get comfortable in an uncomfortable sort of way. Comfortable like sitting on a rock is comfortable.

I mean, this learning to be business is harder than change. It takes patience. Letting go of control (it's an illusion anyway). It takes focus to be still and listen. And I'm not talking about being physically still, because that is way too easy for me these days.

No, I'm talking about stilling my heart.

Mind.

Spirit.

In a culture that idolizes the race toward success, this s-l-o-w-i-n-g  d-o-w-n makes us feel restless, even lazy. But that's hardly the case.

"Be still," God whispers.  "Know that I am God." 

Be still. Not static, but still. Lean in a bit closer. Now listen.

I'm not one to expect God's voice to be audible. I'm sure it happens. Not to me. 

I don't expect writing in the clouds. Not anymore. (yes, there's a story behind that)

I don't need a lightning bolt to tell me where to go next.

I need God.

That is all. It is enough. Just knowing, remembering, that I am God's. I belong. I exist because of Love. That makes me loved unconditionally. And not just this, as if it weren't enough, but I get to be with him! There's that word- with- it keeps popping up everywhere now that I'm looking for it. I get to be with God, in relationship with him, I get to bear the image of my Creator. I have complete access to something divine because 'the veil of the temple was torn in two'. Top to bottom. It was rendered useless, meaningless, nonexistent.

What does that mean for me, sitting on this rock, in this hard place, trying to just be?

I'm not entirely sure yet. I do know that back then there was a boundary, a barrier between the holy and the profane. The sacred and the mundane were separated.

But then something provocative happened. Jesus showed up. As a baby of an underprivileged and unwed (impure) family. His life becomes a story of reconciliation, one where all the rules are turned upside-down. A rescuer, he was, but not in the typical sense. God became flesh and came to dwell with us. With us.

Jesus essentially tore back the curtain that separated us, the creation, from being with our Maker.

So I get to sit here and take it in. I get to stop trying to do good things for God and just be with him instead.

Stunning.

* * * * * * * * * 

Be-ing is an odd thing. But it is what we were created to do. After all, when asked what God wanted to be called, what his name is, God answered "I AM". There it is again. God is. And that isn't just enough, it is everything.

So this place I'm in, this rock that I sit on, uncomfortable and quiet as it may be, is the very best place for me to lean in and hear my Maker whisper these truths back in the wind, in the rustling oak trees, in the bubbling stream...that I am loved just because he loves. Because all is sacred. Because of Jesus.

Because I AM, too.

One Week at a Time...

One week ago today I was here:

Majestic cliffs. Divine hot springs. Walking sticks and exploration. Wildlife and moss and mountain passes that make you hold your breath and the smell of sweet cedar in the air.

Oh, Missoula, I love you!

But then we packed our workhorse of a van full of sunburned but happy bodies and headed back to drop our good friend, Bailey off at her new home in Billings. The time was sweet. The goodbyes sweeter with a touch of bitter, and somehow we survived the trek across the North Dakota nothing and back to our little cottage in the pines. Home.

We desperately needed the get-away, we had been made painfully aware with Matt being treated for stomach ulcers just days before leaving. Stress will do that to a person. Cause you to stop everything and re-prioritize- reset your life. But this, also, is good and necessary.

I had planned on writing about the many blessings found on our adventure to the Big Sky. I had planned on sharing how miraculous it was to have just finished my herbal remedy for Lyme Disease and, for the first time in well over a year now, to have almost no pain. I could write an entire blog post on the rejoicing over this wondrous timing, considering I'm back on another medication/remedy now and the hurt is returning. Still, a glorious week. GLORIOUS.

I had planned on putting words to seeing our Creator in Creation. I did. I do.

But then things rarely go as planned.

I got a frantic phone call from my younger sister the day after we got home. She was pregnant with twins, one of which she had just found out had died. There was already much suffering, but this was a new desperation in her voice- she was only 25 weeks along and in hard and sudden labor. "Please just pray I don't lose this baby, too."

I cried. I stayed up all night by my phone, waiting for text messages from our other sister who was with her. Yes, she needed an emergency C-section.

I have the most precious new baby niece, at 1 lb. 11 oz. She is a miracle- a fighter. I know so many who have gone through these situations, but never in my family. We're new in the NICU. And I get to be there tomorrow to hold her tiny finger.

Somewhere in the middle of these huge life moments there are still dishes to wash and garden to plan and backpacks to fill and laundry piles. The piles. And my mind is somewhere else.

I'm not sure there is any other way today. This is Life. And only one week, at that. Somehow the lows make the highs that much more profoundly special, and rejuvenate the soul just enough.

God, be enough.

5-minute Friday :: Prayer

Prayer has always confused me.

When I was younger and passionate about living for God, spending time studying and praying with others, even being part of a very charismatic intercessory prayer group, I always wondered why it felt incomplete.

Since then I've stepped away from most of the circles where prayer is on the program, part of the routine, or a fill-in-the-blank.

Right?!

I can appreciate the well-intentioned and genuine believers who lead these times of prayer, making sure no one's request gets left out. But I have never understood why we feel the need to repeat, almost word-for-word, what was just said out loud, as if God wasn't really there to hear it the first time. Or do we repeat it for our own benefit?

Regardless, I find that prayer for me these days is severely lacking words. When I tell myself I'm going to pray, groans fill my heart and bubble up instead of a poetic masterpiece. I love language. But my language cannot begin to contain my pleas for God to be with me. Isn't it communion we desire instead of merely communication?

With.

I am reading the book 'With' by Skye Jethani with a group of friends. I am only half-way through, but am amazed at the profound but simple truths he draws to the surface. Today I read about how Jesus didn't die merely to inaugurate a mission or to give us a second chance at life. He did not just demonstrate principles of love for others to emulate or to appease divine wrath. "While each of these may be rooted in truth and affirmed by Scripture, it is only when we grasp God's unyielding desire to be with us that we begin to see the ultimate purpose of the cross."

What does prayer look like from the perspective of living with God?

Jethani tells the story of Mother Teresa being interviewed by Dan Rather in the 80s. He asked her, "When you pray, what do you say to God?"

"I don't say anything," she replied. "I listen."

"Okay," Rather said, taking another shot at it. "When God speaks to you, then, what does he say?"

"He doesn't say anything. He listens."

Rather didn't know how to continue. He was baffled.

"And if you don't understand that," Mother Teresa added, "I can't explain it to you."

* * * * * *

We are the Created

  How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car. ~Brennan Manning

We are messy creatures, we humans. 

We bear the image of our Creator. Complex. Marvelous. Emotion-filled. We are little creators ourselves, having been given the mandate and the innate passion to imagine and build, to sing and learn, to birth new life and tell our stories. We are the Created. And here we are creating, because it is what we were made to do.

And all of Creation is called Good.

Check out this photo montage called 'Created Equal'. Do it. Right now.


http://www.ufunk.net/photos/created-equal-les-contrastes-de-la-vie-magnifique-projet-photo-de-mark-laita/


Did you look through them all? Did you see their faces? The stories behind them? Did you recognize something in each of these people that is also written in the mirror?

We are messy but intriguing creatures. And we may be Good, but we do not always do good, spread the good, create goodness. Often we choose to not really see one another, to disengage. We pass people by in favor of maintaining our idea of today's success. We try not to look into the stranger's eyes because it's awkward. Or maybe because we don't want to feel the conviction of knowing we should say something or do something to help or just to know them. We are far from the reality of the many people we encounter every day, aren't we?

I'm missing out not knowing these folks, especially those different from myself. Missing the chance to listen to their story and learn from them.

But if I say I believe that all of us, ALL of us, however crazy or smelly or intimidating, bear the image of our Creator, then I have to force myself to step outside of my own self-protective bubble and look into the stranger's eyes, engage when it's uncomfortable. I am craving the connectedness- the community of Creation that I know it was purposed to experience together.


**************


It was a rough week. It really was. Like, want-to-hide-in-the-closet-and-cry sort of rough. I'm guessing you know the feeling. Few of us can evade the human experience. I was saddened and shocked at the lack of redemptive creativity in the people I expected it from, and equally surprised by stunning acts of redemptive creativity from those I hadn't. Wait- what?! I totally didn't expect her to speak that kind of truth into my life!

I'm finding that just when I think I have someone figured out, labelled and tucked in a box neatly on a shelf, I put expectations on our relationship- whether complete stranger, close friend, spouse, barista... but that is exactly when I am surprised by the people around me, surprised when I see the authenticity of Jesus in someone unexpected, or have the opportunity to show a person some needed dignity by looking them square in the eyes and greeting them with a smile.

Dignity changes things.

Listening opens up the doors for creative community with those we least expect.

These are good surprises.

On seeking wholeness and puddle-jumping

Just when we can take it no longer, spring shows up. 

I cannot even begin to describe the glory in the warm sun, fading snow drifts, breaking out my new puddle boots and bright yellow spring jacket, not to mention the smiling faces of my kids bounding off the bus in t-shirts, stomping through mud, the shrieks of joy, smiles from strangers while running errands. We are all feeling saved today! This weekend is brimming with hope and joy and we are giddy with anticipation!

Today I genuinely believed that sunshine was the cure for my brokenness.

But it's not.

It is, no doubt, a life-giver, a source of growth and warmth in a cold world. It drags the seasons behind it in compliance, and us as well. Still, not my cure-all, as much as I try to prove otherwise tromping purposefully through the deepest side of a glimmering pool of melted snow.

This afternoon all my inner messes were covered up with the pursuit of just a little more sun, the pursuit of wholeness. But as soothing and healing as it was, it was more like salve on open wounds than miraculous healing.

I've been guilty of reducing God to the one who is making me whole, complete. Is that my greatest desire- to feel whole instead of this nagging brokenness? I do hope for that wholeness and there are moments where I catch a glimpse of it, like today and the wonder at the beauty of the seasons and these life cycles. But I'm talking bigger picture here, and I'm beginning to think God is more than that perfection that we imagine lies at the far-reaches of eternity.

See, I desperately need a God who is with me when the sun doesn't shine.

Maybe wholeness isn't the right goal when it becomes almost a fantasy.

Maybe certainty isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Maybe they've become idols.

Peter Rollins says, 'God is in the midst of life, and where two or three are gathered together, and not out there to be grasped but rather in the depth of life itself.'

Embracing our brokenness, our mess, our failures, without being overwhelmed by them, is where we find wholeness and meaning. Isn't that the scandal of the life of Jesus? That this Good News is for the screw-ups, for the cast-offs, for the ones who deserve it the least?

Read the Psalms and you'll see proof that God is in the full range of human emotions. This life sometimes is not full of hope and joy- sometimes life feels full of crap. God is there.

Sometimes we're stuck in the dead of winter. God is there. 

And when the sun isn't enough and my wounds open again, God is there. In this. Right here with me.

Learning to Lean In

She leaned forward over the table and set her mug of lukewarm coffee aside. Words soft but lips tense. "How can you be sure that all this struggling means anything?" The sadness behind her eyes was piercing and impossible to ignore.

I certainly don't know much. Each year the number of truths I know beyond a doubt shrivels. Each year questions replace the list of doctrines. Each year my view of God expands. It has settled, sifted, much of the I'm-not-so-sure-anymore falls through holes I poked out of my skin like a sieve. But what remains! The tiny diamonds, glistening anew, beauty begging to be marveled... it cannot be denied. This sifting is painful and sometimes gives way to loneliness. The sifting, the questioning while still intently following has brought me into much sadness. It's the same sadness I saw across the table- one that knows there is hope or the questions wouldn't have even escaped her lips. Oh yes, my friend, there is hope.

I reach in and show her one of those diamonds I've spent years cleaning off, painstakingly, gently. Still dusty and raw.

You lean into it. Press into the questions, the doubts, the pain, the struggle, all of it. You stay there awhile, in the wondering, in the loneliness, in the waiting, leaning into the biting wind instead of running to safety. You keep on leaning and saying the hard things out loud and naming the hurt, owning this place, the shifting ground you've landed on. You lean in, until you're sure God is there, too.

But shouldn't we know? I mean, that's what faith is for. I am supposed to have faith.

We've lost so much of the richness of that word- know. Knowledge is something of the intellect, taking place in the brain. But it's deeper than that. To know deeply is something more than just knowing consciously. It's more than my finite mind can explain like facts on a power-point presentation. It digs, sharp and deep, down through myself to the core of who I am. That thing- and it is a thing of substance- it is my absolute foundation.

I know that what God creates God will not abandon.

I know my calling and everyone's is to co-create by Jesus' example of the power of love over the love of power.

I know that nothing can separate me from that Love. Not even death.

I know that the human condition is one of pain, but I also know that I find my life when I offer it up in service, not when I act independently, grasping for control and security. Instead I can invest infectious love into my community and trust that others will catch on to the notion that either we all matter or none of us do.  Repeat: Or none of us do.

I know that my perspective of the joys and struggles is so very small, and I must trust a bigger story.

Much like childbirth, the more we tense up, clench our jaw, fight the pain, the more it hurts. Mommas know. I learned by my third delivery that the key to suffering was to surrender. This process has to happen. It takes everything within me to not fight back, but to breathe and focus on release of all tension. And you know what? The pain doesn't go away, but somehow it hurts less. And there is such freedom in trusting the process will give way to LIFE.

******

I am listening. Keep talking. There is no rush. And there's always more coffee.