Forever I Will See You

A blog post for my fellow vollies and staffers, you know who you are…eavesdropping allowed for everyone else. :)

I’ve grown accustomed to your face, to the glimpses and smiles, to the silence in the chatter, to the ways we move as one yet, for each other, create space.

The sea splashes, we turn to hear.  It speaks of eternity, oneness, power, humility. We try to comprehend, understand.  The message escapes us, yet somehow we live it.

Empty milk jugs, baaing lambs and wild winds become routine, absolutely normal.  We remember another place, another time, a dream we must reenter, but not quite yet. Jugs, lambs, winds are our now, so we sit together just to sit together, we walk together just to walk together. We linger, for the time is short, the ending in sight.

Like Dun I, we stand up yet bow low. We hold hands as we let go.  Rainbows bridge us into new tomorrows, into colorful beginnings, into the kaleidoscope of life. Waving we say hello, waving we say good-bye.  Nothing lingers, yet is without end.

I’m gone, but you’re still with me.  I see your eyes in my dreams, I hear your voice in my ear, I feel your heart in my chest. Our time fades in memory, but stays sharp, deep within me.

Forever I will see you, I cannot imagine less, for I’ve grown accustomed…I’ve grown accustomed to your face…

What Do They See?

On a glorious autumn day (high is 70, trees are turning), I’m in the library, observing the great outdoors through a wall of window.  Perched on the second floor, I look out over a small lake surrounded by trees bursting with red, orange and gold.  The sun shines bright, a blue jay flits from branch to branch.  It is a scene from a Hallmark special presentation or a Disney flick.  I half expect to see Laura Ingalls skipping through the trees with her little dog, Jack, nipping at her heels…

Inside, where I am, though, sniffles and coughs assault–at least six different souls are coughing and sniffling, oh and one baby is crying.

Tis the season of change, tis the season of cold and flu.

In Minnesota, seasons change dramatically.  Winter is a white barren wasteland, a frozen tundra only ice fishermen and hearty skiers and snowmobilers appreciate.  Short days and snow shovels rule.  Spring is winter melt-off season–mud buddies up with bright green buds and tender shoots.  New life asserts itself and claims a win.  Summer shouts “Life” and throws a party replete with long days, warm nights and lush vegetation.  Minnesotans come out to play!  Autumn is bittersweet.  We know the party is ending, that death is winning yet the season splashes us with days like today.  Even when we’re sneezing and coughing, we smile.  Autumn has a short life, yet like fireworks shot into the sky, it goes out with a splashy blast of color and pomp.  We pause, look around and say “awww”; we rake her leaves into piles and jump; we celebrate her final moments, even as we cough and clear our throat.

I don’t know why autumn finds us clutching Kleenex.  I was taught colds and flu had to do with viruses and germs, not weather changes.  Yet we all know, yes, we all know more is afoot than mere germs and bacteria.  Death asserts itself over more than just the landscape.  It knocks at our door too and many of us taste it in the form of sickness.  Since death is the ultimate illness, most of us get off lucky with only congestion or a sore throat.  Some, though, will die this week.  Some have already died this week.  I know of at least three who’ve passed on this week…how about you?

Autumn officially began a week ago yesterday.  The days continue to shorten, cool air overtakes warm, plants die or shed and go dormant, birds shrug and head south, squirrels happily bounce through leaves with their harvest.  We celebrate bringing in the sheaves–we bring them in as we start hunkering down with Nyquil close at hand.  Most of us will survive this round with death, we will win…this time.

One day our autumn will come.  Death will pop in and, one way or another, we’ll slow significantly, we’ll be invited to embrace death.  We’ll shed the mortal, the sensible, and enter the immortal, the ineffable.  Just as surely as leaves turn color, just as surely as milkweed seeds fly, we’ll exit the known and enter the unknown.

Who we are as we pass will be noted by those who, like accident scene gawkers, slow to look.  What will our parting mean to them?  Will they see splashes of God’s glory as we go?  Will they pause and say “awww” at the beauty of our dying?  Will we die with love flowing through us?  Will our death encourage them to live well?

I don’t know, I can’t see my last day.  I suppose it could be today…  What do they see? Is it beautiful like an oak in autumn?  Is it bursting yellow and red with His love and goodness?

What do they hear?  Is it a song sweet to the ear?  Does it make a heart sing praises to the One who gives and takes away?

What will they recall when they speak of me?

As I grab a Kleenex and stifle a cough, I wonder…maybe I have more time, maybe I’ll survive this year’s season of dying, maybe God will give me time to surrender the places I cling to, the people I grasp at, the dark corners I keep to myself.  Will I do it, though?  Will I surrender?  Will I say “yes” to all He asks, even when it hurts terribly?  Can He be trusted to make my life sing so my ending is beautiful?  Can He be trusted to use what is so that, after I die, what was creates a glorious what will be?

I’ve been sitting here quite awhile…the shadow of the building is encroaching on the tree line.  Darkness descends, day is ending.  Autumn will give way to winter.  My day is coming, yes, my day is coming…

Compliments and Corrections

How am I doing?

At one of St Olaf’s workshops on move-in day, a speaker mentioned that St Olaf students are encouraged to be in close relationship with their professors so they know how they’re doing in the class. Unlike high school, homework assignments are rarely turned in for grading, tests are infrequent–usually only a mid-term and final– so to know how they’re progressing, students must be in dialogue with their professors.  Relationship is an important piece in the educational experience at St Olaf.  Communication and relationship are integral parts of the culture.

Does the same concept apply to my life in a spiritual sense?  Am I in regularly checking in with the Teacher of Life to see how I’m doing?  Do I take time to pray, ask and listen for feedback?

When He speaks

When Jesus speaks, do I hear what He says or do I hear what I interpret Him to say?

If He has words of correction, do I hear them or dismiss them?  When warned that I’m not “getting” the coursework, do I shrug and focus elsewhere or do I hunker down, grab the Bible, call a friend wise in His ways and take a close look in the spiritual mirror?

Ugh, I’m a shrugger…no wonder His Hand of correction is so busy in my life.

What about when I get a Divine Thumbs up?  Just like compliments from people, I struggle to receive His “well done”–I don’t believe He is speaking to me.  Instead, I think of how I miss the mark. I do not receive His praise.

What if college students dismiss a professor’s correction or praise, if they do not listen to feedback? Or, instead, what if they interpret it to say what they want to believe (insert “I’m an ‘A’ student, I’m doing fine!” when the prof shakes her head and wags her finger).   Would personal spin win the day instead of what is true? Could trust be established in such a relationship?  Would such students even desire a relationship with their prof?

Tests

By shrugging at praise and correction, I resign myself to knowing how I’m doing only when a test comes along.

Life quizzes happen all the time: where will I let my heart wander in this situation?  Where will my mind meditate?  What will I say?  How will I react?  Will I get defensive or pray for direction?  Will I ask God to use me instead of doing or saying what I think is best?  How will I spend my free time?  How will I respond to this call for help?  Will I ask God to help me see this person as He sees her or will I default into my opinion?

Full blown tests, though, they’re less frequent.  When a big nasty lands in my lap what is my response?  Do I look to God or do I start screaming at another?  Do I ask for heavenly perspective or do I drop into despair?  Do I ask for Divine Direction or do I grab the chain saw and cut down beautiful oaks to forge my way through? Do I pause and pray or do I hammer away with blame or rage?

My response is closely linked with whether I’ve done the coursework, passed the quizzes– whether I’ve learned lessons along the way that prep me for the big exam.

I need to pay closer attention to those daily quizzes if I’m gonna have a shot at passing an exam.  Maybe I should be more grateful for the little daily annoyances.  Maybe I need to see the blessing in them instead of calling them “annoyances”.

And then there is the Quiz Giver, the One trying to help me learn His Way.  Can I muster the courage to visit the Prof and ask how I’m doing?  Am I willing to hear His Evaluation of my progress?  Dare I ask Jesus to help me better prepare for life’s Tests?  Would I be willing to take a pre-Test or engage in more daily lesson work so my heart would reflect His Heart when a blast from hell hits me hard?

I can do nothing

All I know is that without Him, I can do nothing…nothing according to His will, according to what is best. Whether I’ll let Him live within me, move through me, whether I’ll be surrendered enough to get out of the way and let Him work–maybe that is the moment by moment test that enables me to sit through the big exam…

Will my “yes” to Him be perpetual?  Will I listen and follow where He leads?  Will I trust Him even when He leads me into places unsafe?

Real Relationship

This is close communication, real relationship–student receptive to correction and praise, reorienting as He requests, affirmed to the core at Jesus’s pat on the back. Professor and student enjoying each other, in step, together in love, moving forward through all life’s lessons, all life’s exams.

Where Love is Transmitted

A whole hour.  Today I spoke with my son, Charlie, for a whole hour.  He is a busy junior at Boston University, so our chats are usually squeezed between his activities and classes–short snippets, sweet snippets but snippets nonetheless.  Today, though, we shared a whole, spacious hour.

He told me about the musical he got a part in, the intricacies of quantum physics (he is a physics major now), his terrific roommate,  how he schedules his days, his patient Spanish professor, his “things are going really well” girlfriend.  I shared happenings at home: empty-nest angst and adjustments, new ventures, financial frustrations, updates on friends. We gel well, Charlie and I.  Actually, it has less to do with me than with him–he gels well with everyone. As others say, Charlie has never met a stranger. An hour with him is all honey, sure sweetness.

At times during our conversation, I realized I wasn’t hearing what he was saying, instead I was delighting in his voice, his cadence, his being ringing through the receiver.  I was listening to his essence more than his talk. I was smiling at who he is.  I was with him.  I’ve done this since he was a baby–reveling in the sound of him, hearing his soul spill up and out and joining it, coming close beside.

I wonder if God has similar feelings about time with us, His kids. Does He ever get lost in us as we present Him with our petitions, our protests, our pleasures?  Does He know us so well that He knows what we’ll say next, so He checks out and delights in just being with us?  Is the “being with” more important than what is said or even desired?

Maybe, as I glimpsed today with Charlie, “being with” means two, regardless of distance, are actually with one another.  Maybe in “being with”, we’re together in spirit.

If so, I’m betting that is where love happens, the place where love is transmitted…in the being with…

Adoration Today

Image via Wikipedia

Every Thursday morning I spend an hour in a Catholic chapel, they call it Adoration.  I sit in silence and pray, read, pray, read, pray, pray, pray.  Today, I randomly opened books situated nearby. What I read stuck, so I share it here…

I will restore you to health
and heal your wounds,’
declares the LORD
Jeremiah 30:17 (yep, the Bible)

The prayer-book bookmark sat at March 17th,  St Patrick’s Day.  The brief bio said: Patrick started evangelism of Ireland at my age and in 33 years he converted the entire island–peacefully, no bloodshed.  He died at the age of 77 having brought Jesus Christ to those who ripped him from his homeland as a teenager and made him their slave.  In the Middle Ages, Ireland was known as the Island of Saints as many churches and monasteries bejeweled its landscape–what a tribute to what God can do through one surrendered soul willing to reach toward those who wound his heart, steal his young adulthood. (pic is of the mountain where St Patrick shepherded as a slave)

A devotional book of “words” from God opened to a page that spoke of how God wants families to stay together, how both mothers and fathers are responsible for the well-being of the children, how mothers can’t bring what fathers bring and fathers can’t bring what mothers bring–children need both parents.  Some don’t grow up, some stay children and refuse to take responsibility, they harm their own children.  Parents are responsible for the moral and physical well-being of their kids and when a spouse threatens that, it is permissible to leave the spouse or remove the child from harms way.  Protect your children.

Just before leaving…

A hand on the shoulder from a fellow pray-er, asking how I’m doing.  She knows my struggle–some Thursdays we talk, others we don’t.  “It’s really hard right now” is all I can muster, as tears well up.  She rubs my shoulder and assures me she is praying and that things will get better in God’s time.  I believe her.  She takes her seat, I grab a tissue for the well is spilling over.  I cannot see.

P’s and Q’s to Connect

The migraine lifted just before bed last night.  Three days of pounding pain finally gone.  I slipped under the sheets sighing, smiling, ready for sweet slumber.  Sleep eluded me, though, as persistent hunger pains had replaced the stabbing pain behind my right eye–I’d been eating light for days and was famished.  So, at 10:30pm, I slipped into to the kitchen and began scrounging through the fridge and cupboards.  Spoon-sized Shredded Wheat was in hand, but decided against it.  I almost made a fried egg sandwich, but somehow tuna won the day.

I popped a slice of bread in the toaster and opened a can of StarKist.  Instantly, Boots, our tuxedo cat, appeared out of the shadows with his full “meow” on.  When it comes to tuna, our easygoing kitty turns into a downright demanding cat.  At attention, with eyes boring into my back, he mewed mercilessly til I spotted the floor with tidbits of tuna.  The feast was on and nothing else mattered–whether I was in the room became unimportant, whether the roof was caving in was unimportant–he was in kitty heaven.  Whoever said tuna is kitty cocaine is on to something…   After creating an open-faced tuna on toast dinner, I realized Boots had moved on–he’d inhaled the treat and, most likely, had returned  to Emily’s lap downstairs.

As I reflect on my relationship with God I wonder if I don’t have a bit of Boots in me.  Do I want something/anything more than I want to “be” with Him?  Do I sit and demand that He give, give, give without caring whether it is He who gives it or if it comes from somewhere else?  When gifts are given, do I acknowledge His hand behind the giving or do I simply consume and keep on going? Is He on the radar or am I focused on getting what I want and He is a means to that end?

When Charlie & Emily were young, I taught them to say “please” and “thank you”.  Every time they left for a friend’s house, I would remind them of their “P’s and Q’s”.  Every time they returned from a friend’s house, I’d ask them if they remembered.   I think they got it, as parents commented on how polite they were.  I’ll bet they still say “please” and “thank you”.   Of course, I was only thinking of raising “good” kids by instilling this habit, but, as I think about it, I see that simple courtesies and gratitude help people “see” each other, it helps us connect, even bond.

Looking back (for they are 18 & 20 now), I don’t think I taught them to say “please” and “thank you” with God.  Well, I guess the rote dinner prayers always included “thank you” for the food–we said plenty of those, if that counts.  It is a heart place I’m referring to, though, not a memorized prayer said in haste so the potatoes don’t get cold.  I guess I never taught it because I saw God like Boots saw me last night, as one practically obliged to give good gifts to His children–”it’s part of the deal, God, hand it over!” has flashed through my heart more times than I care to admit.  I saw God as many Americans see merchants, as a means to an end instead of as someone they’re in relationship with.  In Minnesota, we say “please” and “thank you”–we’re “nice”, you know.  But I wonder how many of us actually mean what we say, how many of us actually say it with conviction and out of a desire to “see” the other, connect with them, even bless them.

OK, back to God.  Time to get my “P’s and Q’s” on.  Time to remember this isn’t a transaction, this is a relationship. Time to ask with my heart and not my selfish desire; time to say “thank you” while overflowing with gratitude instead of a “it’s about time You showed up!” chip on my shoulder.

Like Boots presently–who is laying on my arm and purring– I can come to God, find forgiveness and start again, ready to connect, ready to bond…in His arms and laughing.

Thank you, Father, thank you, Jesus…THANK YOU!

Hidden Fault

According to Haiti Quake Caused by Previously Unknown Fault, New Data Show, January’s devastating earthquake in Haiti was caused by an unknown fault.  Until recently, the earthquake was blamed on the Enriquillo fault.  Now scientists agree they’ve discovered this new Haitian nemesis.  Hidden and powerful it remained out of sight til its big earth-shattering, death-dealing debut.  Experts also wonder: is it part of something bigger?  Is it part of a previously unknown fault system?

Reflecting, I wonder…does hidden sin behave the same way?  Is it submerged and covered up, not readily visible?  Does it build in pressure until it pops and wreaks havoc?  Could it be connected to a whole system of sin?  When the buried beast rumbles, do we not see the source but instead blame faults already revealed– faults we’re comfortable with or that are socially acceptable?

I understand that it is better to have many small earthquakes than one big one.  Small earthquakes relieve pressure and make a large, devastating earthquake less likely.  Can this understanding spill into our spirituality?  Can we assert it is better to surface sinful thoughts–small quakes–before they grow into full-blown “devastate others” acts?   Aren’t we wise to nip sin in the bud by confessing our sinful thoughts and repenting of them, before  they turn into destructive deeds?

We think we control our hidden, dark subterranean chambers, the “insignificant” ones we allow that no one knows about.  Yet shadows deepen, pressure increases.  Unless confessed and repented of, tension builds–the chambers morph and take on sharp edges, they begin to shift and assert themselves.  We can no longer keep them ‘down there’.  They surge to the surface, shake foundations, crash safe places, create chaos.  Souls left standing are handed horror…

As others rush in to bring comfort, survival skills and healing hands, the terrorized must choose, rebuild or move?  They must decide what is in the best interest of the ones they love.  A choice with serious consequences, a choice that affects many, no matter what is chosen.  Like the Haitian people, they must decide whether living on this fault line is worth the risk.

Hopefully Haitians are seeking God for direction, for whether to stay or move to safer ground.  Hopefully He is also sought for direction by those who live in the nightmare of a sin induced quake.  Best yet, hopefully He is sought by those whose sin took over and shattered lives, by those who brought horror home.

Few of us can relate to the plight of the Haitians–at best, most of us are observers.  We sit in our comfy air-conditioned homes and read the headlines.  Maybe we even send a check now and then.  Yet, as followers of Jesus, we move mightily in the spiritual realm through prayer, there is much we can give…

On the eve of the seven month anniversary of Haiti’s earthquake, the community of Taize invites us to pray:

God our hope, send your compassion upon all those who are undergoing the great trial. When we are taken aback by the incomprehensible suffering of the innocent, enable us to be witnesses to the Gospel by our lives and to make the comfort of your Holy Spirit accessible to all. *

About to post, I realize…this prayer is also fitting for those spinning from sin’s impact.  Do you know someone like this?  Is it you?  I pray it again for those I know who are left standing, horror in hand…

*copyright © Ateliers et Presses de Taizé, 71250 Taizé, France. Permission granted to reprint.  Entire prayer for August 12, 2010 is posted at: http://www.taize.fr/en_article10941.html

The Unknown: a repost

 
My laptop caught a virus this a.m. and I’ve only a minute to spend at the library computer…so, here is a repost from ’08 on mystery.

Thanks for supporting Mary & Dan, my guest bloggers last week, with your visits. :)
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Mystery…

I don’t know about you but the unknown draws me…ever since a child I’ve loved a good mystery, been fascinated by life after death, Loch Ness, Bigfoot and UFO’s. They perk up my interest and invite me to come and check them out. As soon as I could read I was devouring Agatha Christie novels and have since come to appreciate the PBS series of her work as well as their series on Sherlock Holmes. As an early teen, I remember reading about life after death and UFO’s. I hear there are TV shows out there that are mysteries of sorts (i.e. CSI), but the glimpses I’ve caught of them seem to do little but feed dark places, so I don’t watch.

Another mystery is the spiritual realm: I didn’t believe in the spirit realm, not really, until I started encountering it… The temptation has been to be drawn into it, to focus on it.  Bad idea, I know. A temptation I try to keep surrendered to God.

God has almost always been large in my life, but until recently I didn’t see the mystery linked with Him–I was pretty sure I had Him locked up and figured out. As I grow in relationship with Him, though, the mystery grows. The more I understand the less I ‘get’, the more questions I have.

I’ve heard that old saying that ‘familiarity breeds contempt’.  I guess God is making sure the mystery stays alive so I don’t get too comfy and punchy, He knows how to keep my heart open. There is a certain tension to mystery/the unknown that adds spice to a relationship, helps keep it alive. Too much, too soon almost always turns a romantic relationship into a contempt fest (modesty on all levels matters). Ongoing discovery is the joy of long term relationships and marriages. If we stay open to one another, we’ll find we discover more and more with time, but also discover that there is so much more we don’t know and may never know. I think the same goes with our relationship with God…He keeps us guessing.

The reverse is not true, though, and this is what boggles my mind: God knows us inside and out, upside and down, through and through and loves us unconditionally anyway. No contempt, no distancing, just unabashed love and good will.

I’m staying in this mystery relationship and know that some day all will be revealed and it will all fit together and, like the end of a good mystery novel, I’ll be able to say “Ahhh, of course, now I see.”

The Key to Balance

I’m sitting in a dorm room in Fischer Hall at Wheaton College.  My husband and I have been here all week for a Christian conference.  Only a few minutes (literally) til I’m off–here are some things I’m learning.

The main message of the conference is to find balance in one’s life between the feminine and the masculine.  Attributes of the feminine are being, receptivity, relationship, creativity, intuition, contemplation, listening, openness.  Masculine attributes include doing, initiation, work, rationalism, activism, leadership.  Each person needs to have both–women have special gifting in the feminine, men in the masculine, yet each gender needs both to be whole.  We also need both in our communities/societies for balance.

As Christians, the key to balance in our relationship with God is simple.  We are to: listen (the feminine) and obey (the masculine).  God, the Father, initiates, He speaks (masculine) and we listen and receive (feminine) and then obey (masculine).

Time to go…will be totally off-line next week as I’ll be with our church’s youth on a mission trip.  I’ve asked some friends to write posts for me while I’m gone.  Hope you stop by…

Setting the Stage

That verse.  You know the one:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Christians often quote it, we claim it for ourselves, we assert God’s blessing in our life through it.

About a week ago, God prompted me to randomly open my Bible and read.  I sensed He had something to say to me about a struggle I was having in a relationship.  So, I did.  It fell open to Jeremiah 28, which kicks off with a prophet saying that God would rescue the Israelites, His chosen people, from exile in two years’ time.   I smiled big as I turned this into a message for me:  two-year turnaround, two years and things will be “all better”.  Well, I thought, there IS hope.  God will come through. Then I kept reading…

It turns out the prophet who said this was lying, giving false hope.  He was verbally shot down by Jeremiah–the real prophet of God–and then shot down by God Himself.  Shot down dead.

At this point, I started squirming.  Did I want to read more?  Maybe I should have stopped after verse 4, after the “wow I can live with that–praise the Lord!” proclamation of the false prophet.  If I would have stopped,  I wouldn’t have known it was all a lie.  Instead, I’d be happily whistling “Awesome God” or “Holy, Holy, Holy”.  But nooooo, I’d gone too far for that.  I couldn’t, in good conscience, chuck the rest of the story for the nugget I was happy with.  The nugget had lost its luster…I had to look for the gem, God’s real message for me.

Jeremiah unpacked the truth. In chapter 29, he says the Israelites will be rescued in 70 years, not two years.  The “plans I have for you” verse is in this chapter and refers to plans for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the hearers, not for the hearers themselves.  A collective jaw drop surely happened as they realized they would always live in exile, they would never get to go home.

God doesn’t leave them without purpose, though, for in those 70 years, God says to: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.  Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (vs 5-7)

Gulp.

I got it…the message, that is.  I need to stop thinking about myself, my comfort and well-being and start looking at setting the stage for future generations…what will be in their best interest.  From these verses I see that includes not only the basics–food, water and shelter–but healthy, stable, God-centered marriages and families that pray for and seek peace with their enemies.  Do you see the grandkids in these verses?  Yep, they’re there…

You know the best part of all of this, the part that makes sacrifice now so worth it?  It emerges from the verses that immediately follow “the plans I have for you” verse.  Listen as God speaks about His relationship with the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the hearers:

Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” (vs. 12-14)

They’ll have intimacy with God…an intimacy so deep that God allows Himself to be found by them.  An intimacy that leads them home…

Oh Holy Spirit, please set the stage through me…

–image retrieved from picapp.com: http://view4.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/8392667/birds-flying-formation/birds-flying-formation.jpg?size=500&imageId=8392667