Sight to the Blind
When our youngest was in Kindergarten, the school nurse sent home a note suggesting we have his eyes checked. He had not done well on the school’s vision exam.
We did not rush him to the optometrist.
In our defense, he seemed to see just fine. And this would be the same nurse who called about every week or two, with the giggles, to tell us that J.P. was in her office, again, with an ice pack on his head because he’d smacked it on something, again.
When we did make an appointment shortly before he began first grade, we hung our heads in the Parents’ Hall of Shame.
Stetsons
My old friend wore a lot of hats.
He worked as a gold miner before he went off to fight in the Army in the second World War. He earned himself more than a few medals and swept a beautiful young girl off her feet at the USO. A glimpse of her smile melted his heart down into his combat boots, and he came home and married her.
Later on, he drove an old green truck hauling logs. A guy can still hear old truckers out west spin yarns about a death-defying trek he took with his load through a treacherous mountain pass. He helped build a barge that was a part of the construction of the Alaskan pipeline. He ran a grain elevator, and built his own motel.
When he retired, he bought a dairy farm in South Dakota.
True, my friend wore a lot of hats. But the old cowboy wore only two Stetsons.
Preparation Day: 104
These all look to you,
to give them their food in due season.
When you give it to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.
When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
– the psalmist, just saying what is
(from Psalm 104)
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More Than You Wanted to Know
I think, sometimes, we create elaborate fantasies about what other people’s interactions with God look like, or how we think ours should. Like the Choir of St. John plays in the background and incense explodes out of some people’s Bibles when they open them.
It’s not like that. Not at my house.
For one thing, I’m not allowed to do incense. I’d burn the place down.
And that choir sings, but only during work hours when I ask Pandora to pipe it into my office, where I work alone. And only when I haven’t replaced it with a curious mix of The Glorious Unseen, Leland and Brooke Fraser. And only after the boys have left the house. They already wonder about me.
Sometimes, I believe the myth myself — thinking that those transcendent times when soul, body and spirit all come together and meet him in a way that leaves me both more dead and more alive than I’ve ever been in the same moment are the norm, rather than the scattered and elusive rare jewel.
Case in point: yesterday. At the risk of appearing insufficiently reverent, let me tell you how my morning with the Father went yesterday. It was more the norm than the rare jewel. And it may just be more than you ever wanted to know.
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Preparation Day: 55
I call to God; God will help me.
At dusk, dawn, and noon I sigh deep sighs —
he hears, he rescues.
My life is well and whole, secure in the middle of danger
Even while thousands are lined up against me.
David, in Psalm 55
The Message
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Preparation Day: 148
Praise God from earth,
you sea dragons, you fathomless ocean deeps;
Fire and hail, snow and ice,
hurricanes obeying his orders;
Mountains and all hills,
apple orchards and cedar forests;
Wild beasts and herds of cattle,
snakes, and birds in flight;
Earth’s kings and all races,
leaders and important people,
Robust men and women in their prime,
and yes, graybeards and little children.Let them praise the name of God—
it’s the only Name worth praising.
His radiance exceeds anything in earth and sky;
he’s built a monument—his very own people!Praise from all who love God!
Israel’s children, intimate friends of God.
Hallelujah!
Company
I don’t realize that I stopped thinking during my time there alone in my seat. I listened, I watched, I recited when it was time. And when it grew silent I bowed. I don’t remember that God was saying anything. I don’t remember that I was saying anything. I think we were just there, together, enjoying each other’s company.
As I sat, bent over toward the front of the pew with my face in my hands, I felt the priest’s hand on my head and heard him murmur a blessing.
I hadn’t heard him approach. And I was not startled.
Have I None
Acts 3
Peter reached deep into the pocket of his tunic and turned up a wad of lint where a coin should be.
That’s what I like to think, anyway.
The man whose feet and ankles would not support him — leaving him to the limited care of others who would carry him to sit by the gate and beg the equally limited mercy of yet others who would pass by him — he asked Peter and John for alms and I like to think Peter first dug deep into his pocket in search of something substantive to give him.
The text doesn’t say so. I just like to think it sits there between the lines the Spirit found fit to put into print.
(Dis)comfort
“Learning to sit in silence means pushing into discomfort. Just like breaking in a new pair of Levis means wearing them when they’re still a little crunchy and chafe against the skin. Breaking in the mind and body to be still means letting it be uncomfortable — staying still past those moments where it feels natural and pushing the boundary out a little farther each time.”
Preparation Day: New Year’s Edition
About Preparation Day
But you’ll welcome us with open arms
when we run for cover to you.
Let the party last all night!
Stand guard over our celebration.
You are famous, God, for welcoming God-seekers,
for decking us out in delight.
Whatever Idiotic Way We Can
I always thought I came to Jesus on May 11.
It was Mother’s Day 1975. I was eleven.
That’s what the baptismal certificate says, anyway.
The Saturday night before, I called my parents into my bedroom. They sat on either side and my scrawny legs hung off the side of my twin bed with the wadded up blankets because I didn’t then, and do not now, find much use in straightening sheets that would just mess up again. I told them I knew it was time. I cried.
I’d seen it done. You were supposed to cry.
Preparation Day: Christmas Eve Edition
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
::
May you blink in the radiance of his light,
bask in his increase of your joy,
and rejoice with abandon at his coming.
Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones.
::
Joining Deidra for Christmas Sunday morning
Re-Gifting
It’s been a long week, pretty well blurred into what feels like one single, unending day. Yet, time’s been short.
My dad sent this. I thought it was worth a Christmas laugh. It’s at least as funny as this morning’s realization that I’ve consumed nearly a half gallon of well expired milk in my coffee over the course of this week.
Explains a lot.
In this spirit, I’m re-gifting a laugh to you:
Source: The Argyle Sweater by Scott Hilburn (www.gocomics.com)
Thanks all, for your prayers during difficult days at our home.
Preparation Day: “Who’s Afraid of You Now?” Edition
About Preparation Day
But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:
Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!
With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.
(From 1 Corinthians 15, The Message)
Not Another List
I had a cold morning on the road. Thanks to a miscalculation on my drive time, I had an extra hour between appointments. I pulled off the interstate and sat in a parking lot scrolling through my Twitter feed to burn some time. I felt the familiar weight drop in my lap — that one that comes from scanning headlines promising me that I can attract a thousand readers to my blog in just weeks, order my home life, produce mature children and achieve intimacy with God, each in just five simple steps. Or three. Or sometimes six.
Simple steps multiply exponentially on the Twitter. It starts out as five, but by the time one reads them all, it’s a good 826 steps to follow.
The Sycamore Tree
Luke 19:1-10
Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man
Every night it was the same.
The man reclined at an empty table, leaning in to reach his earnings from the day. That’s what he called them anyway. The people who paid him, they called the piles of dull coins he amassed something else.
He dropped three into a worn pouch and slipped it back under his belt. He didn’t like to be caught short if he needed provisions on his day trips. Zacchaeus glanced up to see light from dying embers playing on the polished bellies of the spice jars that lined shelves around the room, imported from all around the East.
He made sure the window shutters were closed, then lifted a board from the floor under his chair and removed a smooth wooden box. He wiped the dirt from the top, opened the case and slid the larger pile into his savings cache, the clinking of metal against metal echoing hollow in his empty room.
He stared a while at the third pile, fingering a silver coin. This stack was smaller. Exactly one-tenth of the day’s total. With a sigh, he gulped down the last of the wine from his goblet and and stepped away from the table. Zacchaeus climbed on a stool, opened a cupboard and pulled out a large sack. He dropped the coins in, one by one, and put the pouch away, leaning his forehead onto the closed door.
Why did he bother setting these aside? The priests at the temple never accepted his portion. They called his tithe unclean, just like him, closing their hands and lips tight and looking off into the distance whenever he approached.
He went back to the fire and fumbled around for the needle and thread, cursing the tailor as he took up the hem on his one-size-fits-all robe.
Preparation Day: 106
About Preparation Day
Still, when God saw the trouble they were in
and heard their cries for help,
He remembered his Covenant with them,
and, immense with love, took them by the hand.
He poured out his mercy on them
while their captors looked on, amazed.
Save us, God, our God!
Gather us back out of exile
So we can give thanks to your holy name
and join in the glory when you are praised!
Blessed be God, Israel’s God!
Bless now, bless always!
Oh! Let everyone say Amen!
Hallelujah!
– Psalm 106: 44-46, The Message
Thanksgiving
Oh, thank God—he’s so good!
His love never runs out.
All of you set free by God, tell the world!
Tell how he freed you from oppression,
Then rounded you up from all over the place,
from the four winds, from the seven seas.
Psalm 107:1-3 (The Message)
From my outpost east of town awaiting dawn this morning, telling my thanks
to God for His inexhaustible love and the blessings of this past year,
in all their crazy shapes and sizes.
And thanking all of you for encouraging me week after week
with your friendship and your presence.
May your heart swell with deepest gratitude and joy today.
On Silence, Nouwen
It is a good discipline to wonder in each new situation if people wouldn’t be better served by our silence than our words.
But having acknowledged this, a more important message from the desert is that silence is above all a quality of the heart that can stay with us even in our conversation with others. It is a portable cell we carry with us where ever we go.
From it we speak to those in need and to it we return after our words have born fruit.
–Henri Nouwen
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Nouwen, Henri J. M. The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry. New York: Seabury, 1981. Print.
When Jesus Creeps You Out
John 6
He didn’t bill the hillside seminar as a Lunch ‘n Learn, but when the crowd approached at mealtime, he divided up rations sufficient for just a small boy into portions enough to feed around 5,000 folks and still send doggy bags home with the twelve.
The people let full bellies do their thinking, and thought then to make the Miracle Man their king.
He slipped away to the hills before they could get a good grip on His robes.
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Preparation Day: 90
About Preparation Day
A Prayer of Moses, Man of God
God, it seems you’ve been our home forever;
long before the mountains were born,
Long before you brought earth itself to birth,
from “once upon a time” to “kingdom come”—you are God.
So don’t return us to mud, saying,
“Back to where you came from!”
Patience! You’ve got all the time in the world—whether
a thousand years or a day, it’s all the same to you.
Are we no more to you than a wispy dream,
no more than a blade of grass
That springs up gloriously with the rising sun
and is cut down without a second thought?
Your anger is far and away too much for us;
we’re at the end of our rope.
You keep track of all our sins; every misdeed
since we were children is entered in your books.
All we can remember is that frown on your face.
Is that all we’re ever going to get?
We live for seventy years or so
(with luck we might make it to eighty),
And what do we have to show for it? Trouble.
Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard.
Who can make sense of such rage,
such anger against the very ones who fear you?
Oh! Teach us to live well!
Teach us to live wisely and well!
Come back, God—how long do we have to wait?—
and treat your servants with kindness for a change.
Surprise us with love at daybreak;
then we’ll skip and dance all the day long.
Make up for the bad times with some good times;
we’ve seen enough evil to last a lifetime.
Let your servants see what you’re best at—
the ways you rule and bless your children.
And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us,
confirming the work that we do.
Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!
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Psalm 90, The Message Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
Efficiencies
I dug for my phone under the army green flap of my back pocket. Shaking in the cold, my thumb skipped across the screen and missed the Answer button the first time.
Lyla! Are you walking in the ditch?
Knee-deep in sharp brown grass anxious to poke out of South Dakota snow, I looked up at the blacktop above me and had no answer but a sheepish “Umm. Yes.”
A former colleague had driven past moments before on that same asphalt ribbon and spotted me there in the rearview mirror. She wanted to make sure all was well. “Why are you walking in the ditch?” she asked.
Again, I had only one answer: Roadside therapy.
The Things I Don’t Know
Why had no one ever pointed out those brilliant instances of literary intercalation in Mark? Why had I never heard about Athanasius? Why had I never recited the Nicene Creed? How could I have attended church for two decades and never learned about the Babylonian exile? (Andrew Byers, Faith Without Illusions: Following Jesus as a Cynic-Saint)
I laughed and answered out loud as I underlined the writer’s lament at discovering, upon his arrival at seminary, the many, many things he did not know.
Come on, Byers. What rock had you been living under? I learned about the Babylonian exile in Sunday School.
But the Nicene Creed? I did not encounter it until college. And even then I wasn’t sure I was permitted to recite it. I discovered Athanasius just last year, though he played a crucial role in the history of Christendom, standing contra mundum some seventeen hundred years ago to defend the truth of Christ’s deity and incarnation when its very core was up for grabs.
And the Gospel of Mark’s literary intercalations? That one I had to look up the other day.
Just to find out what the word even meant.
Opening Space
My living room sofa is wearing out. I’ve spent a little time with it lately and so I notice more when I get up that I’m leaving an imprint behind in the earthy plaid cushion. It could bother me, if it didn’t make itself so welcoming. Sort of like saying, “Look here, I’ve saved a seat for you.”
When I pull up a blanket on a cool fall afternoon and settle in with a book, the hollow of the foam and springs folds around me and I think how a davenport can seem made for me, the way it fits just right.
The long read — being still for an hour or more — it’s something I seem to have forgotten in a feckless habit of turning a few pages at the end of the day or between appointments, just filling in the gaps. But in taking the long draws I find the time required to enter the space between the pages, to separate the voices from the noise.
I’ve forgotten how important the space is.
The Conversation