Of Heroes, and Falling into Wells
A write-in hero
I scratch his name
in Hebrews 11 margin
alongside Abraham
Joseph
David
and the name
of the hero’s bride
I remember
the sparkle
and laughter
the power
and strength
the life that poured
from coal-burned lips
as we rambled
desde un pueblo
al próximo
to set captives free
in places called
Empedrado
Barranqueras
and Resistencia
His eyes
I imagine
still twinkle
with Father-love
but only behind
curtains shame
pulled down
and under heavy lids
of loss and gain
that feels like loss
Grace reaches that far?
A Little Light in a Dark Place
I live on a quiet cul de sac at the edge of a small town in a sparsely populated state.
You could say of folks like me that we don’t get out much.
We get up in the morning and go to work or school. Or maybe we go to coffee and get our blood pressure checked and pick up the mail. Store clerks know us and we wave at everyone we pass on the road going home. If we pay attention, we’ll see a church on nearly every corner as we drive the twenty blocks across town.
What do we know about the darkness here?
I’m thinking we know just about as much as you.
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Loving Monday: Unqualified
I wonder what difference it would make if I quit striving to glorify God in my daily work.
What if I stopped using the Bible as the foundation of my business plan or the basis of how I carry out my duties to my employer?
What if I didn’t seek to minister in the midst of my business relationships?
Or stopped looking for avenues for Gospel proclamation while I work?
What if I gave up trying to integrate my faith and work altogether?
What if . . .
. . . What if I just seek first His Kingdom?
Period.
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Wearing God Out
In the quiet of morning that still felt and looked like night, God and I sat together in my office.
Well, sat isn’t the right word. The creaking of my knees still rung in my ears as they bit back at me, unhappy with their place on there on the floor. And God? I don’ t know what position He took. It was too dark to see.
I remarked to Him that I felt tired. Days ran long and agendas overflowed. And I considered those things He said about rest, about easy yokes and light burdens and unforced rhythms.
I liked how they sounded.
And I asked Him to let me feel a little of that mysterious, backwards rest He grants in the midst of everything but.
Probably my imagination. But I may have heard a snicker from the corner of the room.
I wondered then at the character of this Friend who likes to tease.
This One who said “Let Me give you rest that makes no sense” in one breath and “keep going, don’t stop, push on” in another.
This same One who said, “I dare you. Try to wear me out.”
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Loving Monday: Why Family Matters
When mortality comes knocking, it seems always to spur just a little more woolgathering.
On an ordinary day, we might give a passing glance to our mist-like days, numbered few here on earth. But when ends come, even when they’re beginnings, the contemplation grows more into enveloping clouds.
Such have been my days this past week, most of which were spent in the warmth of a century-old farmhouse of a friend as family laid to rest father (and husband and brother and uncle and cousin and friend and neighbor and mentor and colleague and . . . ).
So it comes as no surprise to me that when John W. Beckett tackled the subjects of family, prayer, vision and values in his chapters of Loving Monday this week, the pages of my book flipped back to the chapter on family.
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Feeling the Rhythm Again
Stalled out.
One foot slides forward, the other stays put as the drumbeat of the first verse echoes back, and I stand straddling the text.
I set aside the online Bible, as much as I love my Biblegateway.com. The feel of worn paper better moves in my heart. So I reach for my leatherbound and push fingertips over the words.
Turning pages fails to drown out the drumming while words march in straight lines and the ground rumbles beneath my feet with the rhythm.
The rhythm.
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Loving Monday: Risky Business
Seven minas remain unaccounted for.
That’s my conclusion when I read Jesus’ parable of the ten minas in Luke’s Gospel.
The man of noble birth, before embarking on his quest to be made king, called ten servants and gave them ten minas with instructions to “put the money to work.”
Never mind the part about how much his subjects hated him and trailed behind to subvert his plans. He became king anyway. Once crowned, he sent for the servants to make an accounting.
The first reported that his one mina earned another ten. The second showed how he took his one mina and netted five more.
A delighted king put these faithful servants who understood return on investment in charge of a number of cities commensurate with their earnings.
Another servant cowered in fear and unwrapped his one mina from a protective cloth. He returned it unharmed, but unimproved. The king, who did not want just his mina back but wanted back his mina plus, flipped a royal nutty and gave the man’s sparkling but solitary mina to the servant with the keener investment sense.
So we know that story. And we know Matthew’s version of it with the three servants and the talents of money apportioned to them based on their ability.
But what about the other seven in Luke’s record?
What did they do with their minas?
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Medicate or Mourn?
I called my dentist and asked him if he could meet me at his office. He was kind enough to agree.
Yes, it was a Sunday morning. Yes, I left church just before the worship service started. But had I waited until the next day, regular office hours, that small area of swelling would have looked more like I’d sprouted a second head out of my neck.
Isaac’s elbow-plant to the right side of my face the night before during a tickle fight (this was several years ago) turned out to be well placed. It released to the surface the mysterious origin of two long years of pain and discomfort.
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Loving Monday: What Are We Doing Here?
“Do you ever look back on the day and wonder what we’re doing here?”
Debbie closed the case file we’d been brainstorming and set it on her lap. She leaned back in the side chair and took a deep breath, and then just looked at me in that way of hers. The one with the light smile, knowing eyes. The one that always told me that she knew my struggle.
It was hers too, though it was a fight she fought much better than I.
“You know what we’re doing,” she said.
“I don’t,” I replied. “Not really. Debbie, if I made two lists — one of all the things that make my heart beat and one of all the things I do here every day — and pinned them up side by side on my cubicle wall, it would be a perfect list of opposites.”
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The Conversation