Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Today I am thinking of my big brother, because it is his birthday. I am older now than he ever was, and yet he is still out there ahead of me, experiencing things I can only imagine.

I wrote what follows about him shortly after he died. Out of the valley of the shadow of death I had to say something about his life.

My Prince Brother
King Dowell
of my little world.
We sailed seas of green
on picnic table ships,
You-the Captain of our fate,
Treader of Unknown Waters, before me…
Turning back, you called me on–
Safe passage little sister!

My gentle Warrior Brother
King Dowell of my little world.
You grabbed snakes
with bare hands,
stepped on nails and never cried,
ran into shadows before me…
Turning back, you called me on–
Keep up little sister!

My Hero Shining Brother
King Dowell
of my little world,
Captain of our fate,
Treader of Unknown Waters,
Runner into Shadows,
always reaching the woods,
before me…
Turning back,
you call me on -
Safe passage,
keep up, it’s okay
little sister!

Someone who had walked through this valley before once told me to expect “grief attacks” — moments, usually unexpected, when something will trigger afresh the sharpness of the loss that never goes away.

I have come to realize that the shadow will loom especially large on the days between my brother’s birthday and his deathday. The moments of memory and then loss will come close together. I will hold my kids a little closer, and hold Rich’s hand a little tighter because fear and sadness will press in close. They know I will cry more or get suddenly quiet, and listen over and over to the Boston and Eagles tapes my brother made for me.

I will, most of all, lean hard into God, who has made a way through for me, my brother…all of us. And, I will write about it all. Over the next months of blogging,some of it will show up here. Maybe it will sound familiar to someone–to you–and encouraging somehow, and this will be something gained out of loss.

Surf Forecast

Beach 1

I am standing on a wide open beach talking with a friend. It’s early evening. Suddenly there is a man running by us, a red board in his hand–a lifeguard in full rescue mode. The pounding of his feet on the sand is audible because everyone on the beach is on alert, collectively holding their breath.

I hear the red flag flapping and snapping in the wind close by. High Hazard, it warns. I look behind me, for the first time, at the lifeguard station and realize someone is up there – as we stand chatting – scanning the shore with binoculars, watching, watching.

Moments pass. The swimmer is alright. Squinting against the sun, it’s hard to see who it is exactly. The hum of voices all around picks back up. A red lifeguard truck begins to drive up and down the beach blaring something from the loudspeaker. What? We look at each other. What are they saying? Dangerous conditions exist. A riptide warning is in effect here…

Watching the shoreline I wonder if anyone out in the water is paying attention. A group of college guys are wading out, out. In my head I demand they stop and decide my boys are never going to college.

The lifeguard truck continues to sweep the beach, warning, warning. People continue to move through the water.

Beach 2

I am sitting on the beach, early morning. I’m alone with God — for the first time in a little while. Waves, wild and green, reach up to me, claiming every inch of sand. I’m here, but when it comes to real communication, I am like my kids when they can’t look me in the eye, I’m all over the place, swirling like the surf. But what about this, God, what is going to happen? How will I…? I go on and on, breathless. I can’t get my footing, hold up my head, the anxious thoughts have come in currents for days, and now they become a riptide. Finally, one true thought surfaces. It’s me. I’m the one out there in water too deep for me.

When it comes to the health and well-being of my spirit-life, the red flag is out. Always. Dangerous conditions exist. Always. There are strong currents that can sweep me away, take my eyes off Jesus, who is my life, catch me up in thinking it’s all on me. They will sweep me away with the stuff, even the good stuff, of life.

God is God and I am not. This is the truth I am either clinging to or choosing to ignore, and it will determine everything else. There is no standing still in the waves.

God, I am so sorry…

Relief comes in like a flood, and calm.

Beach 3

Later, walking back toward my car, I stop to slip on my sandals. In my distraction, I had taken them off without thinking about it. I see now I left them at the foot of a lifeguard chair.

Looking at it, then at the endless surf, suddenly I’m overwhelmed by the ever-present, saving love of God.

You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; its useless. Cultivate God-confidence. (1Corinthians 10:12, The Message)

Native Language

Last Sunday I got to hang out with The Threes (this is a tribe that deserves capitalization) at my church.

We were supposed to talk about how God had a message to deliver to the people of Ninevah, to be delivered by Jonah. The whale episode was not really a point of emphasis this time, but of course The Threes thought this was an egregious oversight, especially because that would mean leaving out the whole spitting-out scene. The very fact that we were eating goldfish crackers—which resemble whales much more than goldfish after all—called for spontaneous reenactment of the story, so it was only fitting we do so.

After some big fun with all that, we tried to redirect their attention back the day’s theme by having them dictate messages to us to be delivered to someone after church. The Threes were favorable to this idea, and made messages for mom, dad, pet and light saber. I understand the love of a boy for his light saber, thanks to my sons, so I took down his message carefully. This little guy didn’t really get, or maybe didn’t care, that I understood, until I started speaking back to him in Star Wars. He looked at me as if I were Obi-Wan himself. Shock and “Hey, maybe this lady gets me” was all over his bright, open face. We went on to have quite the extended conversation, and when I got to tell him that God’s message to him was that God loves him and wants to be his very best friend, I think little Luke Skywalker got it, roger-roger.

Hours later, I read the opening words of Hebrews, translated by Kenneth Wuest, Greek scholar. In many parts and in different ways of old, God having spoken to the fathers by means of the prophets. Of course I thought of Jonah, and our creative Bible teaching methods involving spewing. Would Jonah be able to laugh at all that now? Has it been long enough? His look, after being in whale gut for awhile, must have been a real attention-getter when he walked into town. Talk about creative teaching methods. So many times the stories of the prophets were themselves a part of the message.

In the last of these days spoke to us in (One who in character is) Son

Wow.
Not in grumpy, freaky-looking, runaway prophet language,
fire and smoke language,
the language of law,
or even of nature,
or a unembodiied voice crying in the wilderness, delivering pieces of God’s message little by little, but, now—I love the way Wuest translates it—in Son.

Person Language. The “what” God was saying became a “who” God has sent. The message was embodied, walked around, accessible, spoke in stories, and looked into faces and hearts. Everything about Him was an invitation simple enough for Threes to understand.

Jesus. In Him, I hear God. In Him I find the way, truth, and life. I’m not after dogma, formula or some higher plane of spiritual existence. I’m not after Bible knowledge, spiritual gifts, wisdom, or even being an all-around better person, or any other thing at all. I am after a Person, a Someone I love and am loved by. A very best friend.

I forget, and try to run after all the things – spiritual things, good things I think I should be gaining—but in the end, I’ve just gotten either full of myself or grumpy and frustrated.

Jesus speaks in the native language God gave us all—relationship. Jesus is God’s way of getting down and looking me in the eyes, and repeating His message over and over, everyday. Be with Me, listen to My words, look at Me. And I get it, today, with a little help from some Threes, roger-roger.

Durable Goods

I’m packing to move into our new house. Suffice it to say I am beside myself with happiness—sticky sweet, cotton candy happiness.

I know that the down-to-the-paper-cone moment will come, where all my fingers are stuck together, I’ve got a blue tongue, and a sugar dive is in progress. Reality will hit. (The first mortgage payment, or a call to the plumber…) But, for now, I will be “in the moment” and enjoy this treat before it melts.

There are things that do last, and, of course, they’re not things at all. Yet, I have a collection of objects that, to me, are more than what they seem. They are the tangible-ordinary speaking to me of the intangible-extraordinary.

God, from the beginning, has given us what we can see, smell, and hear to help us grasp something about realities unseen. To His people, being led to places unknown, God gave a tent filled with candles, incense, a golden ark, a heavy curtain, an altar, and sacrifice to reveal something about Himself along the way. Of course, all these culminate not in an object, but in a Person. God’s love with skin on: Seen, heard, touched, flogged, sacrificed, alive again and observed returning to God. He too gave us bread and wine to help us remember. It occurs to me that all these things can be packed up and taken with the traveler on the move…

Yet, ”Life makes it so hard, sometimes, to know what’s real,” sings Crowder from my iPod as I move around my house, packing. These are some of the things going into a box to keep, things that speak to me of what is real:

  • A weathered-looking sign we hang across the kids’ doorway that reads “For Always, Forever, and No Matter What”. It speaks of our love for each other, but wider and deeper and more perfect still: The constant love of God.
  • A creased, many-times-taped boxed set of The Chronicles of Narnia from my and my brother’s childhood. It speaks to me of the maddening dash of time, the preciousness of each moment that becomes fairy tale in the re-telling… The reality of, the anticipation of heaven, where my brother is now, where the happy is ever-after.
  • A sketch, many times re-printed, of Jesus laughing. Remember, He is here, among us. We are the “joy set before Him,” the reason he endured the cross. With Him, I am utterly satisfied.
  • A small collection of birdcages, all the doors flung wide open, to remind me that she who the Son has set free, is free indeed. Free to give without fear, love without strings, to know and be known.
  • A snapshot of four chairs circled on a beach. I am not alone here, I live within a community of others who are the broken but soul struck followers of Jesus. We circle up then go out, in the strength of His love and our bond. We remind each other we are not Home yet.
  • My notebooks. I have boxes and piles of them because writing has always been the most natural way for me to understand my story, and listen well to the stories of others. These notebooks, like my friends, help me process the moment and the journey, and the reality of both God’s sovereignty and His goodness. Reading back through them, I am astonished at His grace. What do I have that I have not been given? Where have I gone that God has not been there? These are questions that firmly keep the stuff of my life in its proper place, like moving into a new house.

These things are the durable goods of my life. They help me see the now for what it is, and enjoy God there. They help me to be grateful, hopeful, open to what is next. I have a friend who has a little pile of stones on her kitchen windowsill, each a quiet acknowledgement between she and God of His presence in her times. Like the Israelites, she is constructing her own ebenezer. I believe this is wisdom for the way.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11

Driving, by myself, to the beach…

God, You are so good and faithful, and Your timing is perfect. Thank you so much for working things out with the house. Wow, we’re moving! Got to get things packed up. Holy cow, the garage is such a mess. Wait, I’ve still gotta pull out what we need for vacation, and call A and T, and see how the recoveries are going. And, I need to call about the dog, and the boys need haircuts. Maybe on Saturday. Oh, and Cutler needs soccer cleats. I wonder if he will refuse to get out on the field—can we get our money back? I need to pick out paint colors. Look at that beautiful sky You made, God! I‘m going to pull off at this little beach. Peyton needs jeans because he has grown a foot this summer. He is getting so old, we only have him around, really, for a few more years. He is going to be morphing right in front of us and are we letting him…ooh, there is a shell under my heel. Here are the steps down to the beach. Have we done what we need to get him ready? I don’t know how to parent teenagers! Carly is right behind him, and she is going to be a whole different story. I feel sick to my stomach—seriously—I think I am totally messing up with her right now, like when she rolls her eyes, and doesn’t get what I’m trying to tell her…

Aww, look what some little girl was trying to do…

vacuum beach

How…funny.
You are, God.
I get it.

Tammy

Tonight I’m thinking of someone who, in one moment, lived out an aspect of grace that’s hard to put into words. In that moment, she gave me a story to help me say some of what I know of it. She put out her hand to me at a time when another in her shoes could have—would have—kept right on going.

I was walking on a fitness trail along the road. It was a popular park in town, and most people were there in pairs or threesomes. I was new in town, knew very few people, and never ran into a familiar face anywhere. I didn’t expect for someone to call to me from their car, and I never imagined that when I looked up, it would be her. It was as surprising, as grace usually is. She had driven by with a friend, seen me there, engrossed in my own thoughts, looking down at the trail, alone. It was getting dark. She had seen me, the outsider, the new girl, who had just gotten the job she worked so hard and long to get. We had both just gone through rigorous interviews, one try-out after another. Had it been me, flying along in my car with my friend on the way to somebody’s house for a night of chocolate chip pie and conversation, would I have turned around?

Tammy turned around. She called out to me, invited me to jump in the car, come to the party, and know her friends.

I can’t say I remember much else about what happened that night, except that I was astonished, and am astonished still, at that moment when someone called my name, someone who had every reason to keep on going, who had no reason to stop.

Not only did she stop, she opened the door and invited me to feel something I didn’t expect to feel for a long time, if ever—familiar.

I haven’t spoken with her in years, but she is one of those people who have been written into my story because of something they taught me, gave me, showed me, that has become indellible. Tammy, calling my name, inviting me in, taught me about the grace of hospitality. It was as warm and fragrant and promising as the smell of chocolate chip pie sitting between us on the seat of the car.

Tonight on Facebook I learned that the cancer in Tammy’s brain is spreading again. What is ahead for her and her family is as rigorous as it gets.

I pray for them, for her, and stop at my computer to try to work through what makes my heart groan for them. The questions. The pleas. In the midst of it, shining in the darkness, there is that moment where her path crossed mine and she made it luminous with grace.

Tammy, I am praying for the darkness to become light around you, knowing you are not alone on the trail. You made it so for me. Grace to you, and peace.

Smashed Bottles

Carly and I went to the Riverside Arts Market on a date last Saturday. We ate shaved ice and beignets, watched a juggler and belly dancer, and fingered necklaces and things that sparkled. Creativity on full display.

Eventually, we wandered into a booth selling Smashed Bottles. These are glass bottles that look like someone has sucked all the air out of them, leaving them flattened, with only a bump where the bottom has folded in.

The merchant explained how they find bottles, heat them in a kiln until, essentially, the glass melts into itself. “After being being put through heat of that intensity, then cooling, the glass itself becomes three times stronger than it was originally. These smashed bottles,” he said proudly “will not break easily, and you can’t scratch them. You can cut on them, do whatever. They’re still glass, but stronger.”

There were transparent bottles, white, green and blue bottles, wine, whisky, and water bottles for us to touch. Some had the labels perfectly intact, the artwork encased in the glass. Some were made into cutting boards, trivets, or dip holders. Others were hung up to make windchimes. A few were melted together to make a birdbath. Every one was different and begged to be examined.

I’m reading Ahab’s Wife (think MobyDick, not Elijah) by S.J. Naslund. The author speaks in the voice of Una, writing her memoir. If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her! And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead.

“Yes,” I said out loud when I read that. Faces swirled through my mind, and then tears down my face with the true-ness of it as I thought of women I know who have had the air sucked out of their souls by loss, uncertainty, pain, loneliness, waiting.

If writing my memoirs, I would agree with Una’s observation, but qualify it. Coming through suffering may make a woman strong, but not always beautiful, not always gracious and open.

I have known women who come out of that place angry and closed, as if the bitterness of that terrible cup, and the unanswered questions are sealed into their being. They may be hard to break, yes, but they scratch at the slightest touch, and their edges are sharp.

Then there are the women I know who are luminous in their strength. I want to be around them, harboring the secret hope that they’ll let their secret slip, write out a “how-to” like a recipe on a slip of paper. Their graciousness smooths over my rough edges, and their humor helps me take myself, and the world, less seriously. Forget their age, their season of life, whatever may be coming next. They move through the rounds, days, and weeks with an air of assurance, not apathy, nor fear.

I have talked to these women and watched their lives. Mix their stories with what I can see for myself, and it is true—the waiting, heartache, and loss have worked a change. They are still the same women they were before, but somehow altogether different too. Still glass, but stronger. Each experience was different, and intimate, and they don’t attempt to say exctly how it was (words cease doing justice) but anyone who has been there knows this: Each, in their own way and words, tell me that when they got to that place, Someone was already there.

Someone who was, at one time, left hanging dead. Or so it seemed.

He came back, the same, yet altogether different. (To talk to a woman, first, calling her by name, assuring her).

Look for Him, melt into Him, and you will not be ruined or left. This is what I hear from their stories.

His intensity there – the preservative, the transformative.

And on the other side, there is the surprise of grace sealed into the soul, the capacity for life, usefulness, joy.

I don’t know yet if this is true in Una’s story. I’ll tell you when I’m finished with the book. I want it to be true in mine.

I bought a few of the pieces in the booth to give to luminous women I know and tell them how they are, in truth, smashed bottles.

I will need to go back and get more.

Over-invested?

“Invest and invite.”

As the church, it’s how we participate in what God is doing in our world. I love Jesus, so that’s what I, this somewhat introverted, relationally-cautious person, am called to do. With help. Supernatural help.

It has been quite a ride. I may not have left my caution to the wind, but I am definetely dangling it out the window. My introversion means I make frequent stops at rest areas, but I eventually merge back into traffic. I want to be where Jesus is, and He’s where the people are, and as people we are all in motion, becoming either one thing or another. We are lousy with potential. Along the way, asking for it, I am becoming a people-nut. Like Jesus.

This is a miracle.

Having not arrived yet, there is also the potential to get waylaid. Bogged down. Off track. Over-invested.

This is a tension.

Recently, God put things together so that someone we’re getting to know came to our church. I won’t go into the whole morning, but it didn’t go well. It was pretty clear our new friend wasn’t going for the guest speaker, or his delivery. Truth, even as it was, I don’t think our friend heard the love. It was important he heard the love. Add to it that they came late, missed the music, and had to sit way in the back. Afterward there was a little chit-chat, they got the kids, and were gone.

I felt sick. Then I felt mad.

I felt I had valid points as to where God had not come through, and I got a good monologue going about it, to Him. I began to lose steam when it finally became obvious, from my own thoughts, what was really bugging me. It was like God was sitting back going, “Wait for it, wait for it, it’s coming to her…”

I was worried we had missed a good reputation-building opportunity in the neighborhood. Ummm… For the… Church. Okay. For us.

Ew.

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, or are your ways My ways,” is what came to mind in my silence. His ways are high ways, they run on a supernatural plane, going places I simply cannot fathom. His ways are true, completely Other and Above. He has no temptation, not even the potential, to fall into graspy, invest-in-you-to-feel-(fill in the blank) about myself.

When it comes to me, there is always the question: who, exactly, am I hoping to lead others into a growing relationship with?

All the fire in my being all fired up is pride-fueled, not the “fervent love” for others the Bible calls me to.

I got home and looked up the “high ways” verse. In Isaiah 55, the context is about how God’s word “shall prosper in the thing for which (God) sends it,” and how He will lead His people out of spiritual exile into their homeland. The expected end of things will not be as I might imagine, but it will be, above all, “To the Lord, for a name of renown.”

So much for God needing me to worry about His reputation.

Once all the muck is cleared away by God’s word doing its job on me, a tension remains. The Greek word for “fervent”, used by Peter to describe how I’m called to care about people, can be translated, “an intense strain”. How do I love intensely without getting too intense? Are there limits to how much I care, even if what I care about really is that someone have a relationship with Jesus?

Maybe, if I have a limited view of love and God’s sovereignty. He is Higher, Supernatural, and He loves this friend, and all the others I invest in, beyond limit. He will have His way. The minute I lose sight of Him, I go my way, which is short-sighted, exhausting and void of any real love at all.

Maybe I need to spend less time imagining exactly how I expect God will carry out His ways, and just pray… For the person involved, for Him to channel His love through me,and for everything to be “to the Lord, for a name of renown.”

Maybe I need to let the emotions that are going to come with investing and inviting be something I lay out before God, asking Him to burn away the pride and the graspiness, leaving only a heart He can use.

Maybe, while out there, in motion, after Jesus, the tension— of keeping love one thing and not the other—will become part of the miracle. Could that be, after all, one of “His ways?”

In obedience to the truth I will purify my soul for a sincere love of my brothers and sisters, and love others fervently from the heart. 1 Peter 1:22

Songs Everybody Knows

I am praying for the bartender at a local bar. He is king over a world where we, the church, are the outsiders.

We want to have the musicians leading us Sunday morning, play there Thursday night. They will play their music and some songs everybody knows.

Sunday is ours. Thursday night belongs to the bartender. This is his turf, the environment he has created, the community where he is king. He’s good at it. Could we learn from him? People want to be here. And we want to be with people.

We want to have some time with that couple across the street, the co-worker, the brother-in-law, the people in our worlds that aren’t open to church, but are open to us. We want to know them better, find out what’s going on with them, listen between the lines and learn something. Just people, in a bar, on a Thursday night.

We see the image of the incomparable God in the person across the table. We have a connection with her, camaraderie with him, a commonality with each other. We, people at a bar on a Thursday night, want to see if there could be more available between us. We want to hear some songs everybody knows. We are outsiders, looking to be in. Together.

We, the church, know God’s heart has gone after this person. Our hearts want to follow His, so we are not above being intentional. Strategic. Maybe we will mention the band will be playing Sunday morning. We will pray for a wider opening, an opportunity to tell what God has done, for God to move.

So, first, I am praying for the bartender. I hear he wants nothing to do with church. He just wants people to come to his bar. He wants music everybody knows. He decides what happens on Thursday nights. We want him to decide for us.

We, the people of God, know He can change the heart of the king. He brings outsiders in and turns insiders out—to find each other, in a bar, on a Thursday night.

Will you pray with me?

Did you say my name?

It’s a wet Sunday after a Big Game, and everyone is at Town Center trying to get soup and a hunk of bread at Panera. They are also trying to get a seat. I find one, probably because of the view it has of the overflowing trash can. But I’m not here for the view, I am here for the peace, which can be relative and to me means noise I don’t  have to deal with personally.

I have my bread hunk, soup and my book, and I am only somewhat aware of the stream of people stopping at the trash can. They stop, weigh the look of the towering stack of plates and napkins against their ability to add their own plates and napkins there like a backwards game of pick-up-sticks.

Eventually, I am deep into my chapter and the noise tapers off. The nearby door opens, swings shut,and whoever it is stops in front of the trash can. There is a  long pause, followed by an even longer sigh. It has started to sprinkle rain again. I glance up.

Everyone has gone and it looks as if the Big Game has been re-played at Panera, and a lone girl in an apron is left to deal with it.

I get back into my book, only slightly aware of her struggle as she attempts to get the bag out of the can. It goes against all the laws of physics and gravity and any other laws like that for this girl to get that bag un-sunctioned from that heavy, unwieldy metal can.

“JESUS!”

It is more of a statement than anything else. I wince in a way that is more an apology to Jesus than anything else. I take it personally, you see. Mid-wince I am interrupted by what feels like a hand, cuffing me across the top of my head.

She’s talking to YOU.

I get up in a hurry and go beside her and we get the bag out of the can, with the top of my head still tingling and both of us getting wet in the rain.

I go away thinking about who really needs to apologize to who here…about the fact that I am not here for the view, I am here for peace…and mostly about how, more than anything else, it’s time for me to start taking the name of Jesus personally.

Older Posts »