Although I wrote this piece 3 years ago, after the Sandy Hook tragedy, the thoughts are still salient in light of the recent outpouring of violence.
For all my friends with young children – there is no need to overwhelm your children with sadness, but it is important to engage them in some conversation. If you don’t … who will?
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Great I Am,
Gentle and Loving Creator,
Who knows me better than I know myself.
Ignite within me a deep desire to allow
the reality of your presence into my heart
– the space to rest there –
Thereby creating within me a peace,
that is not of myself nor of mine own understanding,
yet so deeply rooted inside of me,
that not matter where i am or
what is happening I will know,
with great confidence,
that I am within your watchful care.
I pray this in the name of your Son, the Prince of Peace.
Through the power of your indwelling Spirit – Amen.
Sometimes in the fall, when the afternoon sunlight is just right you can see the grain of the wood in the body on the large crucifix over the altar at church. I marvel at how the grain matches the pattern of the muscles it fills; concentric shadows and layers repeat the shape. I wonder at how the wood feels about being used for such a precious form; conveying the love of God to those who look upon the image.
My modern mind mocks me for a minute; as if wood had feelings. Then I recall the psalm that reminds me that all creation praises God and shows forth the truth of him. Nature cannot help but convey God, for it has no free-will. It does what it was created to do.
I on the other hand struggle to know what I was created for.
My free-will gets in the way. The very gift of choice has the potential to prevent me from fulfilling all that God has intended me to become. I was created to be an image bearer; bearing his image to a lost and dying world. I want people to see the grain of my wood, the inner marks that are only visible when the surface is scratched, shaped or polished.
Lord, help me be open to your shaping so that when the light hits me just right others might see the concentric layers of what is inside me. Without you I am as shapeless as I am aimless, unbounded, out of control. Give me your shape. Mold me with a firm gentleness, so that I will know and others will see the very thing that gives me shape and animates me – you.
“Careful, you may have used up your quota of miracles.” he whispered, with a deep regard and care for my trial.
Is it possible to indeed use up my quota of miracles? Is there such a thing? Does God keep track of the number of times He has helped, or provided in my time of need? Does He keep count? Could there possibly be an end to His grace, His love, and His mercy?
As though God were dispensing a commodity, something that could be used up. A natural thought, yet a wrong thought. Wrong because it misunderstands the nature of God.
He cannot limit Himself, for He is grace, He is love, and He is mercy. These are not things He gives away, they are the things that make up His being. He cannot run out of Himself.
Limit-less is He,
without boundaries,
without measure,
without tally or score.
Frivolous, spendthrift,
totally in love with me.
I remember the childhood strategy to spelling a tricky word: “Why is dessert spelled with two ‘s’s’? Because you always want two servings.”
Well, I’d like to spell desert with two “s’s.”
“I want two servings of desert, please,” I ask with outstretched plate.
I want two servings of quiet.
I want two servings of reflection.
Yes, I want to be cut off from the abundance of modern life, and fully connected to the thin place the desert can offer, to enter into a double offering of closeness to God.
Double offering of stillness.
Double offering of reality.
Double offering of honesty.
How did life become so fast, so frenzied? I yearn for the stillness that the desert brings.
The air is still, the people are still, the hills are still, the vegetation is still, the dirt is still.
Quiet.
Some look at the desert and see death and stagnation.
I look at the desert and see stopping and quiet and reflection and pause and breathing.
There I hear my respiration. I feel my heart beating. In the stillness, my thoughts are free to move outside of me – outside of self. No longer preoccupied, I see creation; birds, bugs, animals. The stuff that is always going on around me without my notice. The peaceful rhythm that nature is.
The world is full of man-crafted devices, of machines – moving, whirring, spinning, moving, going, getting, gaining.
My body is a God-crafted device, made for life in a garden; a place where “green things thrive.” Where I am needed to attend and to notice. To see, and to experience the masterpiece of a flower, of the complexities of a bee, of the delicate intricacies of a butterfly.
So, will I answer the call to retreat? The call of the wilderness? Will I intentionally move into the thin space? Will I approach the veil and allow myself to be still and just breathe? Quietly? Within the beating of my own heart? My heart, a soft and fleshy 7 pounds of blob. A blob that God causes to contract as it pulses and pushes blood through my fleshy frame, my weak, easily damaged frame.
I will answer the call. I will make my bed, put my papers in order, fill my gas-efficient auto with fuel and travel to the mountains – intentionally moving away from the world. I will go further up and further in. Why? Why this counter-cultural move? Because I am called. I have set my heart to listening, osculta, listening with the ear of my heart, and so I hear, and so I must obey.
I have lived ignoring that call; years of simply listening to myself, and to the world. I should have ignored the world. I listened because expectations compelled me. Inside I knew I wasn’t smart enough to know how to lead myself – and now I rest in knowing that I am not.
I have searched and I have found the One I can trust. Rather I have been found by Him. He was calling me in my search. He is the One I can follow, He cannot disappoint, for He knows not how.
So, deep in listening, I have no other option but to follow.
He calls me to the desert.
A place with two “s’s” to my mind.
Two “s’s” because I desire a double helping of the fullness there.
The fullness of the thinness.
The world offers a fullness that is empty.
The desert offers a thinness that is full.
Full of Him – empty of me.
Thick with meaning – devoid of chaos.
Quivering with potential – but only potential, until I answer.
Will I answer?
Will I enter?
Yes
The psalmist is speaking to the “living part” of himself, his soul. The living part of his being is cast down and heavy – disquieted. I understand this.
If this “disquiet” is a part of the Psalmist’s experience, a byproduct of fears and oppression, why does the modern person become concerned when feeling this way? As though we’ve done something wrong; that we haven’t had sufficient “good thoughts” or maintained a positive attitude. Yet heaviness and disquietness are the soul’s natural reaction to life’s difficult situations.
This passage appears to be an internal discussion between the writer and himself. I benefit from the progression of thought expressed.
“Why are thou cast down, O my soul?” He is surprised at his own heaviness.
Then he encourages himself, “Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him.”
As if to say, “Why are you sad, take heart, something will come of this difficulty, something worthy of praise. God has proven himself in the past, He will not absent himself this time, take courage – be still.”
This psalm speaks to me in two ways; first, that to be heavy or disquieted is a natural state of my soul in response to fears and worries. Second, that when life causes me worry and distress, I should encourage myself by remembering that God hasn’t failed me and that when the turmoil has passed I will have something to be thankful for.
Counterintuitive? Yes. But that is the point.
It’s that time again, time to prune my roses and select new bushes from the myriad of bareroot roses available this time of year. I’ve decided to add the new John-Paul II rose. A fragrant pure white rose with 5” blossoms. Bareroot roses are usually sold in January and February, which is their dormant season. They come packaged in plastic bags with their bare roots packed in sawdust. A healthy plant will have 3 or 4 bare canes protruding out of the bag. These ugly barren canes will eventually blossom and become a beautiful rosebush.
I remember when we first started our rose garden. We had lived in our home about 2 years and decided to tear out all the existing shrubs in the front yard and plant 12 bareroot roses. The whole family worked several days: digging holes, measuring fertilizer, opening bags, discarding sawdust and arranging the bare stocks. We attracted the attention of a neighbor boy, Chris. He sat and chatted with us each day. He was so curious about what we were doing. As we finished up that last day Chris said, “Can I ask you why you planted all these sticks in your yard?” It never occurred to me that Chris had never seen a bareroot rose being planted. He must have thought that we had lost our minds.
I began to explain how bareroot roses work. Chris’ young face revealed to me that he did not have enough life-experience to believe my “bareroot theory.” I encouraged him to watch the sticks over the next 5 months. I tried to support my “theory” by telling him I had planted sticks before and they do, in fact become roses by spring. As I reflected more on our conversation it struck me that faith is like planting bareroot roses. It is only with the knowledge of who God is and what he can do that we can faithfully carry on, looking for the eventual blossoms – even in the darkest, dormant seasons of our lives.
I remember one such period in my life, I’ve had many. It was early on in our marriage, my husband had an awful accident. The doctors didn’t think he would live, let alone walk or ever work again. During that time I struggled with suicidal thoughts and was prone to panic attacks. We lost everything in a matter of months – everything, our car, or home and our source of income, not to mention the toll it took on my young husband’s health. I took on a second job while he recovered. I rode a bicycle to and from work. Many times shopping at the market and somehow struggling home with milk and bread.
Throughout that year it was the faith of others that got me through. My parents mostly, they kept encouraging me, praying for me. I had never experienced the deep, deep feelings of isolation that engulfed me during those days, I was only 23. I wish I could tell you, I turned to God and I felt his presence along side me … I didn’t. I had no choice but trust those who knew God and knew that he was there – even though everywhere I looked there was little to no evidence of his presence or existence. What I experienced was just a small taste of the isolation that Christ felt in his last moments on the cross. His final words calling out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt 27:46)
I’ve come to understand that faith isn’t a “program” just something to follow to make hardships disappear. No, faith is what keeps me connected to God. But faith, just like everything else that is important to us, takes work. It takes discipline, a commitment to things that will grow our faith. Things like regular prayer and Bible reading, seeking God’s direction in everything, being connected to a church that will keep you accountable, and surrounding yourself with people of faith.
Odd, but at difficult times, it’s my spiritual disciplines that I want to abandon first. The natural thought is “Well, this isn’t working. There’s something more that I should be doing.” But it is during those times that spiritual disciplines are most important. Faith isn’t the end; it is a means to an end. The End is a closer relationship with God. Faith is what allows us rely on him, to get through those dark times – and emerge on the other side stronger and better prepared for the next challenge that life brings. Christ called out to God in those last moments; did God deliver him from the cross? No – God permitted the pain and sorrow because he had something bigger in mind.
Although I never presume to know the mind of God, I have learned that I can trust him, trust that he has something bigger in mind for me. I look back at that dark time in our marriage and I can see that God was at work and present. It gives me assurance and I can rest in the knowledge that he is present, regardless of how things might appear or the isolation that I feel. Just like my rose garden, there may only be sticks this winter, but I know I will have roses in the spring.