A Fistful of Keys

I could write my life in keys.  The first key I remember was to our 1878 farmhouse my parents bought after we moved back from Intercession City, Florida, where daddy had been in Bible College.  It was a squarish house that I now know was in the Federalist style of architecture.  It was just down the gravel county road from my grandparents’ small farm outside Burlington, Michigan.

Skeleton Key

There was no inside plumbing or running water, but the house was one of my favorite childhood memories. The key to the front and back doors was what Daddy called a “skeleton key,” I guess because it had a thin back bone, a round head, and notched feet that unlocked the door.

Vintage Ford

Then there was the key to my grandfather’s 1932 Ford.  That was key to the adventure of running boards, scratchy horsehair upholstery, and putt-putt-putting down the country roads at the speed of a tortoise.  When my pastor-parents were out of town for a church convention or state board meetings, Grandpa and Grandma would drive into town to pick me up from school. I sat on the prickly back seat with my chin on the windowsill to watch the farmers plowing the fields or harvesting the crops.  Sometimes a killdeer would limp away from the edge of the road to distract us invaders from her eggs that she had literally laid in the edge of the road, where it was hard to tell the gravel from her small spotted eggs.

Daddy and Mother had a “wad” of keys.  I always wondered how they knew where they went. Some went to the church and its various doors; some went to our parsonage, to my grandmother’s mobile home, and my other grandparents’ farmhouse, though they ever locked only the front door to their house.  On my grandparents’ back stoop there was a bolt that went through a hole in the thick wooden door.  The bolt had a string attached to it with a ring on the end, and the string ran through a wooden block nailed beside the door.  The string with its ring hung in the corner beside the door where grandma propped a mop on its handle so the mop could hide the string.  We just knew to move the mop, grab the ring, and pull so that the bolt would slide out of the holes holding the door. Tight security!

Years later as a budding lyricist, I was to hear a song by Stuart Hamblen, one of the greatest songwriters of all time, that had this line:                            
Each day is a measure on life’s little string;
When reaching its ending, tired eyes will behold
The string tied to the door latch of my Father’s house—
One day nearer home.
I knew exactly what that image meant, though he didn’t mention the mop.

Vintage Clamp-on Roller Skate

I had two treasured keys of my own, too:  the key to my sidewalk skates and a tiny key to a diary I got for my birthday one year.  The diary key was so small that I was afraid I’d lose it, so I kept it tied with a ribbon to my journal.   What I wrote was never very secret-secure.  Ah, but my skate key!  That I kept on a string around my neck.  Every recess and noon hour, I would skate the sidewalks and black-topped teachers’ parking lot around the school with my friends.  Unless there was too much ice and snow, we were skating. Skating was our passion!  Skates for sidewalk skating had no boot, then, but clamped onto our saddle shoes; the key closed the clamps until they were tight.  The skates also had a leather strap that buckled into place around our ankles to hold the skates in place.

Now the keys to my grown-up life hang on a key holder by our back door.  One day when Benjy was small, one of his friends ask him why his parents had so many keys.  “Because they have a lot of keyholes, I guess,” he answered.  I think that is as good an answer as any.  Gates, padlocks, ignitions of cars, trucks, buses, golf carts, guest houses, utility closets, garages—all these have need of keys. Some have been there so long, we’re not sure what they go to, but we’re afraid to throw them away in case the keyhole is still somewhere in our lives.

Hearts and minds and souls have keys, too, and once we discover the key, and someone opens up to us, well, we just never throw away that key. But hearts and souls must be opened with integrity.  No heart may be ripped off or broken into when using spiritual keys.  These keys must never be used to control tender hearts or to take advantage of the innate longing for Love hidden deep in every soul.

Here are the keys Saint Paul gave us—fruit of the Spirit, he called them.  These are well-made keys that never stick or get jammed, but open the strongest bolt locks smoothly and without force.  These keys have names engraved on them.  Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness.  Goodness.  Faithfulness. Gentleness.  Self-control.  How our locked-up relationships need this fistful of keys!

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Natural Habitat for Human Beings

In my life I have been given many wonderful gifts: lovely handmade embroidered items, expensive works of art, earthy rustic crafts, primitive water paintings on simple newsprint created by the chubby little hands of children. I have been honored and complimented. As a lyricist I have had the thrill of hearing the songs I’ve helped to create recorded by famous singers and sung by congregations in our own and many other languages. These are all gifts I treasure.

But none of these gifts have been so valuable to me as the gift of a rich childhood and youth in a solid, loving, celebrating home. The heritage of a family who loved God and each other, who greeted every new day with anticipation and openness, shaped my values and taught me that life was good. The healthy balance of discipline and freedom, the love of simple things, the respect for all kinds of persons, a deep reverence for God--all these wrapped up in special moments and given to me in the package I call my childhood.

I truly believe that most of what I’ve been able to do with my life has been a direct result of the rich heritage I enjoyed. I am certain that my family gave me a head start on life with a realistic concept of God and His Son, a love affair with nature, and an excitement for living. My home brought me to the threshold of adulthood with a secure confidence that I was loved, and a deep responsibility to myself and the world around me for developing whatever special abilities and gifts God had given me.

Young Gloria and her sister, Evelyn

My mother, who was an artist and writer, taught my sister and me to see what many others missed. She gave us a deep appreciation for beauty and books and a great love for words and language. Daddy was the master of spur-of-the-moment parties on a shoestring: a Dairy Queen after church, a roadside picnic breakfast, the presentation of a special dress he’d scrimped to buy for Mother for an important event.

It was Daddy who gave me my very own garden spot (even though he had to dig up the thick, green sod to do it) and gave me full rein to plant anything I wanted to. I learned from him the joy of “preferring one another,” as every summer we would take fishing trips to the far north because Mother loved to fish. I remember him digging fishing worms, cleaning bass and catfish until midnight, lugging soggy rowboats into and out of the lakes, and rowing for miles, all for the joy of seeing Mother get so much fun out of “hooking a big one.”

Three generations - Gloria’s mother, Gloria, and her daughters Suzanne and Amy

At our house everything was an event, and it was to our house that Evelyn’s and my friends always came to “hang out”; we knew that if we needed a place for a gathering of any kind, it was okay to volunteer our place. Mother was the confidante for many a teenager, and it was not uncommon for someone in distress to knock on our door at midnight seeking comfort and advice. It never occurred to me to keep anything from her. She was my best friend. Soon our own children were running to her house whenever they needed someone to talk to or simply a place to be. She taught our son to paint with oils and to see things in a world around him that others miss. She critiqued our daughters’ poetry and boyfriends. She was their best friend too.

Bill’s parents, George and Lela

When I married Bill, I found another big, loving family – an Indiana farm family, who loved the earth and celebrated harvests and holidays, Sundays and birthdays with big dinners and warm family gatherings: tables groaning with home-grown vegetables, fresh corn-fed meat, and steaming fruit desserts; children of all ages and sizes scampering around the patriarchs and assorted distant relations; the joyous noise of adult conversation, shrieking children, and spontaneous music.

Because we so appreciate our own heritages, Bill and I chose to live near both our families. We believed there was great value for our children in knowing their roots, which gave them a sense of perspective and continuity. In a society as mobile as the one we all live in, Bill and I feel very blessed that we were able to offer our children a close relationship with their extended family and close friendships with their young cousins and aging relatives. Living close to our extended family has not always been problem-free, but we feel the benefits far outweigh any problems.  Good or bad, family is family and life is life. Children need a realistic view of the influences that have come together to make up the sum total of what they are.

As Bill and I welcomed Suzanne, Amy, and Benjy into the world, we drew from the rich heritage we had been given to work toward becoming the kind of caring, compassionate family we believed God wanted us to be. Now our children and most of their children have homes of their own, and Bill and I find great delight in watching them and their spouses pass on to our grandchildren the principles our parents gave us. We are all still “kids under construction,” fed and nourished in the soil of our shared pasts from the seeds God has planted in us. Just as our parents contributed so much to our children’s memory banks, we are now helping to make memories for our children’s children, and soon, their children. 

The home is the natural habitat for growing human beings and shaping eternal souls. Every moment, whether we know it or not, we are molding new generations of lives. Let’s make these precious moments count. 

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The Thread of Life

Life is like a spool of golden thread.  The thread is placed in the hand of a newborn who holds it while the thread is pulled through day by day by the ones around who love him. But soon the awareness of familiar faces, food, smells, sounds, and gentle touches begins the learning process of holding the thread of life in his own hands.

A child learning “all them new things”—as Bob Benson quotes his little son Tom as saying when watching his baby brother Patrick—soon grasps the thread and begins the rushing through the thread of new discoveries to the next adventure so fast there is not time for considering.  With so much cord yet to unwind, the child can’t wait to ponder today’s piece but lets it fall behind him for the fascination of what is yet to be run through the fingers.

The thread, though sparkling and golden, is thin at first with little dimension. There is just too much excitement about what comes next!  Gradually, though, the thread of the growing child begins to have some texture and volume; she begins to recognize that each day’s discovery comes with a memory of other days and other similar times and brings a history to the new experiences.

Trials and errors, joys and disappointments start to give each day’s learning some context.  The drawing of each new adventure begins to be painted on the background of blue sky (or gray), water or desert, flatlands or mountains.  The thrill of something new is tempered by past memories.

As adolescence turns into adulthood, each new measure of golden thread has, itself, dimension and volume, for braided into it is former fibers of laughter and tears, past successes and failures, remembered joys and sorrows of earlier explorations.

As the thread of life passes the midpoint of the spool, perspective is added to the texture.  Whereas the goal of earlier pursuits might have been knowledge and adventure, the latter half of life, hopefully, becomes the quest for wisdom and depth.  Instead of life-experiment being about the pursual of things tangible, material, and immediate, there comes a vacuum that only things intangible and spiritual can fill.

The longer one lives, the more substantial grows the golden thread, either encumbered with the baggage of possessions and reputations or enriched by appreciation and gratitude for insights and deep relationships.  There comes a sense of “rewinding” the spool, savoring each experienced-before place, friendship, family gathering, and holiday with the perspective and appreciation that only a history with God can give.

No wonder the Psalmist sang, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”  He could well have sung “Taste and see and touch and hear and smell the wonder of life, because all good and perfect gifts come from above”.

Parents can teach children from the start to notice—to taste the tastes, to feel the textures (and feel the feelings), to hear the sounds, to see the beauty, and smell the aromas of life. Perhaps only the rewinding of life’s golden thread, can intensify the depth of gratitude and teach the deep wisdom in savoring life.

Finally, all the disconnect of individual experiences are gradually braided into the thread of life until we literally see that thread tied to the Bright and Morning Star, blown by the Mighty Rushing Wind into the presence of one who is Faithful and True—The Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End of our fragile golden thread of Life.

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Home--The Most Loaded Word

Writers, especially poets, learn to choose words that come with their own built-in emotional baggage.  This is especially true when one wants to say a lot in as few words as possible.  The right well-chosen few words can cover more territory than a whole carelessly constructed paragraph.

One of the words that carries such built-in DNA is the word home.  There are other words listed in the thesaurus as synonyms: house, dwelling, abode, residence.  See what I mean? Home says more.

 Most of us have lived in several houses.  We have had many addresses.  We have built or bought different styles of dwellings and stayed there long enough for them to qualify as residences.  But home, well, that’s another story.  If your heart says you need to go home, where would that be?  What does that place look like in your mind?

Some of us would say it’s the place we now live; the place we raised our babies and planted our gardens and decorated rooms to suit the tastes and activities of our family.  Others of us would name a place we haven’t been in years; the homeplace where grandma lived, or daddy built, or the kids grew up.

For some, home means a part of the country that shaped our view of things or gave us our roots.  The South or the Plains, the Smokies or Colorado.  Some of us long for the lake country or the red dirt of Georgia, the coast, or the wide-open spaces of the old west.

Some long for a home they’ve never had.  Abuse, estrangement, mobility, or divorce may have kept them from ever having a sense of place.  On the outside looking in, they’ve ached in some deep place to identify with that tone in others’ voices they hear when they say “home.”

This is the season for going home. Making our way back to the place and the people that shaped us, helps us remember who we are.  It helps us remember the stories, hopefully the good ones, that we want to pass on to our children so they will know who they are, too. Sadly for far too many, though, this is the time for digging deeper into a commitment to recovery from pain, estrangement, or alienation.

The good news is that whether or not we have had a healthy shaping place, we are being called by one, nevertheless.  One way or another we can all go home.  That’s what the gospel is all about. That is what this Jesus we follow came to do: to bring all the lost children of the Father to the only perfect home.  And when we get there, we’ll know our hearts have been there all along.  We’ll hear the only perfect Father—say, “Welcome home, my child.  I’ve been waiting for you!”

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IN GOOD HANDS

Did you ever handle a mud dauber's nest? It, like us, is made from the breath and saliva of its maker mixed with a little dusty earth. If a strong hand holds one, it must be tender, or it will crumble. Even when the hand is trying to be careful.

God holds just such a fragile creation in His mighty hand. He knows that we are dust because He made us Himself from the dust of the earth and His own breath. When things happen to us in the natural course of life on this earth, we feel as if we are about to crumble and sometimes ignorantly ask, "Is God doing this to me? Why is He being so hard on me? What have I done to deserve this?"

Don't fool yourself; if God were being hard on you, His mighty hand would make a puff of smoke out of you. No, His hand is holding you, tenderly, surrounding you so that the pulverizing forces of life won't destroy you.

Do you deserve His mercy? Or life's storms? That is beside the point. He loves you—that's all.
He feels deeply sorry that you hurt so. He has removed your transgressions from you and holds you in His hands. He remembers that you are dust. Psalm 103 says it best:
He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.

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Steal Away

If Jesus himself had to “get away” to detox from the press of the crowd and the demands of His calling, if the Lord himself had to escape “to a quiet place” to hear from Home and have sweet communion with his Father, then I am not about to beat myself up anymore when I just have to disappear sometimes to restore my soul. 

There was a time when I thought I had to justify my time of solitude—write something publishable or be able to see the result of time alone in actual product.  But no more!  I am coming to believe that finding my spiritual tank on EMPTY is reason enough.  And I don’t have to rationalize, even to myself, spending a day at the cabin or in my potting shed just reading, painting, or even taking a nap.  Empty is dangerous, and whatever it takes to refill my soul is wisdom, not foolishness.

We live in a culture in which success is rated by product.  How much can we do?  How much ground can we cover?  How many appointments can we keep?  What is our output? 

The teaching of Jesus is counter-culture.  Jesus says:
“Consider the lilies...”
“He who would be greatest must be servant of all…”
“Become like a child if you want to be in My Kingdom… “
“Don’t be anxious about tomorrow...”

We are called to walk this earth, but in walking the earth some of the mud sticks to our feet.  In time it’s hard to tell where the mud stops and our feet begin.  Maybe that’s why we are called to wash each other’s feet:  to get ourselves free of the dirt so that we can, then, walk the earth again.

Over the years there have been several times when a motley group of burned-out artists have gathered on a mountain top or by a state park lake to eat together, sing together, confess our frailties, and rest from the road. We took quiet walks through the woods, paddled some kayaks across the lake, and prayed together.  We laughed our heads off and wandered off sometimes to be alone.  Don’t ask what happened there.  It was too precious to violate the sweet trust that emerged.  I’m just saying the time was more valuable than gold.  Literally.

Time to restore is valuable—whether the stolen time is alone or with others in community. No product needed. Just a rejuvenated soul is treasure enough.

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The Tyranny of Empty

There’s a hole in the heart. And it’s not a small tear, it’s an opening that gets bigger and bigger the more we try to fill it with accumulations, accomplishments, and accolades. It starts with legitimate needs that at first can form a framework for becoming an adult; things like discovering our gifts, getting an education, finding a place to live, obtaining transportation, cultivating friendships, looking for a life partner. But, as Richard Rohr says in his life-changing book, Falling Upward, if we don’t begin to fill that container with something eternal, we begin to fill it with things that are not.

Sooner or later we begin to discover that void is God-shaped, and if we don’t fill it with God himself, it becomes a gnawing hunger that is omnivorous. It can eventually eat everything we thought would fulfill our needs. And this hunger is universal. It might have an American appetite, but the hunger is universal. It may seek to be or follow American idols, or build castles in American suburbs, or subdue its demands with designer style or a growing internet following, but the hunger is not satisfied, the chasm gets more immense, and the appetite for substitutes becomes more insatiable.

Eventually, the cavity begins to devour the framework. The vocations begin to unravel, the fabric of marriage and family life begins to fray, charm no longer guarantees attention at the table, and bit by bit the anchor will not hold.

What does it take to get our attention? The glorious news is that all along the goodness of God has been pursuing us like the “hound of heaven” who will not “rest or let us rest until we are finally perfect,” as C.S. Lewis so aptly put it. We can spend life running away from God’s love; we can wear out ourselves, filling the void with all kinds of substitutes and addictions, but finally we can turn around and fall exhausted into the arms of the Love that will not let us go.

All the scattered pieces of our lives will finally come together, and the puzzle will begin to fall into place. As a person, as a culture, as a country, the only solution to the gaping emptiness is surrender to the One who has been chasing after us the whole time.

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Lord, My Friend Is Depleted

Lord, my friend is depleted.

The day after day demands of caring for the man she loves
as his health seems to crumble in her hands
is sucking her dry.

Small victories, huge defeats,
encouraging moments,
discouraging days
see-saw over the arched
frame of her optimism.

But gradually the weight added
to both ends of the teeter-totter
has begun to cut deep into her spirit.
Hold her up, Lord.

Help me today to know how I can
ease the load,
maybe give perspective to
what comes to feel like
a win/lose situation.

Lord, some days it looks like a
lose/lose prospect.
But we both know—
and her husband, my dear friend, also knows—
that under it all it’s really a win/win situation.

Lord, death is not the problem.
It’s the daily grinding away of the dying process
that wears our spirits raw.

Let friendship be a healing balm today.
Let us laugh; laughter heals.
Let us cry; tears bathe the wound
Let us have good conversations
about children, politics, travel,
work, writing and speaking—
good conversation about the stuff of life
that diverts our attention.
Let us reminisce; memory
gives perspective on the present.
Let us pray; prayer teaches us
to relinquish control
to the only One who knows
where we’re all going
and how we should get there.

Lord, thank You for my friend.
Heal her spirit today;
let me be the one to nurse her to wellness today.
Come, Healer of Spirits. Make us whole again.

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Longing To Be Free

ONE MORNING on the national news, there was a story about a young African American police officer whose associates at the department met him, as he reported for duty, dressed in the hooded garb of the Ku Klux Klan. Even women on the office staff and other department employees joined to taunt and frighten him. The prank went on a long time before they told him it was a joke and had him pose for pictures with them all in their costumes of discrimination.

On the news, this handsome young father was being interviewed by a reporter about the incident. "How did you react?" the reporter asked. "I was terrified on the inside, but all I could think to do was smile; he answered. "When I got home, I sobbed like a child."

Later the offenders, fearing reprisals and wanting to take back the photos they gave him, threatened the officer.

As I watched this young man trying to process such a deep and ugly violation by those he thought he knew and trusted, by those who served with him day by day under an oath to uphold justice, I felt powerful emotions rise within me. I felt anger at the indignity and at the violation of so many of the codes that hold any decent society together. I felt deep sadness at the breaking of the human spirit and the robbery of the self-respect of a fellow human being. I felt brokenness in my soul as I saw his pain and realized that all of us are capable of hurting each other deeply.

I left my house to go to the village for breakfast. As I sipped hot coffee, I watched a toddler across the room struggle to escape his mother's arms. He wanted to explore the café and then, perhaps, get close enough to slip through the screen door into the morning sunshine.

Every person innately longs to be free. This toddler knew it even in the womb. The time clock kicked in one day and the same little body that had been content to grow in the security of that liquid environment began to make its way—force its way—through the narrow confines of the birth canal to a place where it could be free.

The passion to be free is built into the very fiber of creation: the seedling pushing against and bursting from the protective casing that carried it to its resting place; the gazelle racing from a predator; the squirrel, high above the ground, leaping to a distant limb to escape the competition.

Since the fall of mankind, people have used others to achieve their objectives. From the building of the kingdoms of Egypt and Rome to the present conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the strong have taken advantage of the weak. But the dream of freedom cannot be snuffed out by force or manipulation. Sooner or later, people will have their freedom— sometimes at any cost.

Down through history, dictators and philosophies have attempted to enslave the human spirit. Blood has flowed like rivers in the fight to regain human dignity. The Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Emancipation Proclamation have taken their places with other great instruments of liberation to testify to the human passion for freedom. The official seals of governments were burned onto these documents that have deeply affected our own way of life.

But never has a document of freedom had the power to alter the course of history and change human lives like the declaration bearing the blood-stained brand of the Cross. And this seal is burned not on a piece of paper but on the very souls of all who were enslaved by sin. The document is a simple invitation: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28).

Prison bars, heavy chains, dungeons, concentration camps, and shackles: none of these can hold a candle to the bondage of the human soul devised by the father of lies. But no release, no emancipation, no pardon can bring freedom like that bought at Calvary. That is freedom indeed!

Let freedom ring!

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Art - The Language of the Soul

There are some things we cannot communicate to others or articulate for ourselves by using statements, spread sheets, or ledgers.  Words hammered into manuals, mission statements, and creeds fall far short.  There are thoughts so much higher than our thoughts that they must come to us in inklings (they are all our finite minds can hold at one time), and even these droplets from the ocean of truth must come by revelation.

God used art.  He used it way before He carved simple rules on tablets of stone on Mt. Sinai-–these were only emergency rescue measures, concessions to the destructive dictates of our small perceptions and fallen inclinations.

But in the beginning was a love song breathed into the formless void so moving that the building blocks of all things filled the void, and from these vibrating sound waves all things began to “live and move and have their being”.  He flung heat and warmth, color and light on the canvas of utter darkness, and, as James Weldon Johnson tried to put into words, He “spangled the night with a thousand stars”.  But, oh, it was much more than that.

With humor, with delicate detail, with intricate precision, He created, not just for the moment but for limitless generations of life to come with built-in safeguards and adaptive potential we are even now only beginning to recognize and appreciate. Yet all of creation was but a postcard, inviting us to something beyond.  We can only imagine.

There has to be a song.  There has to be inspiration.  There has to be revelation for which we then need metaphors and pictures, drama and music and dance, to hint at what we have perceived. 

Some things are eternal not temporal, transcendent not immediate.  Some truths are so immense that they escape even the most sophisticated of measuring sticks and weighing scales the human mind has developed. 

Glimpses of these truths overpower our systems.

And so we sing.  We tell stories and write poetry.  We employ the language of symbol.  We dance.  We dramatize for each other the insights too big for our formulas or explanations.  And we believe.  Yes, we believe.

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I Remember Daddy

Rev. W. Lee Sickal, my daddy

Daddy was a Pastor, and he was perfect for that work.  Like the father I knew at home, Daddy was caring, steady, dependable, responsible, and righteous.  I say righteous in the best sense of that word, for he had a passion for right, and right guided his decisions, whether those were spiritual, social, domestic, or financial.  He tried in our family, in the church, and in the community to “do the right thing”.

My parents’ wedding picture

Daddy loved my mother and was extravagant in appreciating her.  He always said God ordained for them to be together because she had all of the gifts that he lacked and together they were an effective and formidable team.  He was thorough and loved research and study; she was instinctive and creative.  He was social and loved to experience fellowship; she knew how to do everything—and I mean everything—with beauty and flair.  She could pull off a happening!  Both of them loved people and were generous with their time, our home, and what finances they had.  They both loved deep philosophical concepts, were thrilled with new insights, and enjoyed nothing better than a challenging discussion.  Our dining room table was the place to be if you wanted to learn, be challenged, or hear some great stories.

Daddy and Mother in front of the parsonage

To this day, I think of going to the phone to call them to come across the creek to our family room to hear the newest song we have written, especially if it contains a deep theological truth.  If I had one wish, it would be that they could be in our life for a day or two to experience what God has done with our songs and to hear what our children have created, since they left us when the kids were young.  Maybe God has made provision for them to at least hear some of the praise and rejoicing that has been sent heavenward from concerts and from the private hearts of believers as they worshipped through the music.

Daddy walking me down the wedding aisle

I always thought my dad was the strongest person I ever knew, that nothing could get him down.  But one time in his life I saw him almost lose his faith and his joy.  He was in a very discouraging pastorate fraught with problems.  He couldn’t seem to see any change taking place in the lives of people he poured his heart out to teach and lead.  It was a real wake-up call to me to learn that good and Godly men were vulnerable to discouragement and even despair.  I knew I had been one of many in my father’s life that just assumed he was impervious to defeat.  I realized after I was more mature, that everyone needs encouragement and soul support.  

Out of that experience came a lyric to which Benjy wrote music and Amy recorded on the CD Some Things Never Change.  The song was titled “My Disheartened Old Hero” and maybe it is a good song for Father’s Day—to remind all of us who are fortunate enough to have had a great dad to say so!  And to be specific about all of the things we appreciate about our “righteous” fathers.

 This Father’s Day and all days, I will give thanks for a strong and Godly father.  Because of him, it has always been easy for me to believe in God.

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A Morning Prayer

Thank you, Lord, for morning.
Each morning is a baby born,
a seedling sprouting,
a clean sheet of paper.
Each morning is a fresh start and a mystery to explore.
Today, Lord, I explored a small dirt lane
       that led through a stand of virgin pine
              where no logger’s saw,
       in the pursuit of progress,
                            has ever toppled
                               these proud conifers.
Their straight, black trunks were contrasted
against the unspoiled white bark of paper birches.
The lake they surround was still and veiled in morning mist.

Loon with chick on her back

There, far from the madding crowd
was just the private performance of loons
calling to the wood ducks and
Canadian geese.
Wherever geese and whistler swan exchange
morning secrets, I am at home.
Do these timid and magnificent creatures
nestle in the reeds on eternal shores?
This new page of morning,
I will fill with praise and thanksgiving.
Thank You, Lord, that I can hold this pen—
this is Your sweet gift to me.
May the love letter I write on the page of this day
make Your great heart glad.

Sun-bleached sheets ready for the beds

My grandmother was legally blind.  I remember her running her hands over the kitchen floor to see if there was anything gritty or sticky that she couldn’t see.  She felt the sheets as she spread them, fresh from the sun-bleached clothesline, over the bed and tucked them into the corners of the mattress.

I see her hands making yeast rolls or egg noodles, her hands far more accurate than other bakers about the elastic texture of the dough because she saw with her hands.

Grandma’s hands sensed the texture of dough

She could read the words in her large-print Bible by holding a magnifying glass over the page while wearing her thick glasses.  How she loved the scriptures, because she read the verses word by word.

As a child in the summer I sat with her on the fieldstone porch while she peeled peaches or apples or tomatoes to can for the winter.  She always let me take a turn, too, at dashing the plunger into the churn when she was turning the rich cream from their two jersey cows into butter.  She would tell me stories of growing up in Missouri and of her Irish Mahoney siblings on the farm. 

Purple iris glistening with raindrop diamonds

 It was when I got to spend the night with my grandparents that I learned how wonderful it was to see the morning.  Sunrise was not to be missed!  The sunbeams on the morning glory blossoms and the raindrop diamonds on the irises and gladiolas were rare and priceless gifts.  Grandma would tenderly hold the blooms close to her eyes to see the shades of color and talk about the amazing gift of morning.

Morning.  I still love morning best of all the times of the day.  To see morning.  To inhale morning fresh with dew.  To smell the newness and hear the birds’ first songs at break of day and touch a new bud or hold the wonder of a purple or yellow iris bloom in my hand, still wet with last night’s rain—this is the gift of morning. 

Morning at Gaither’s Pond

 After my grandmother died, we found her incredibly worn large-print Bible. In its pages, was a folded paper with a poem on it in her handwriting.  Where she had seen it or heard it, we never knew. I only know that years later two song writers set the poem to music. I attach it here, sung by Terry Blackwood and the Imperials. It’s called “The Secret”. 

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Free To Be Grateful

I was born three months after Pearl Harbor was bombed.  I remember (barely) rationing of certain materials and food stuffs, gas, and metals.  I can recall my mother’s friends talking about “the war effort” and “rolling bandages”.

My uncle Ken Lynn Sickal who earned the Purple Heart

I grew up with a cousin (born in the same month as I) whose father, my father’s only brother, was wounded in action in New Guinea and was given a “purple heart.”  At four years old I wasn’t sure why the real heart he had wasn’t good enough, but my family spoke about it like it was an honor to have the purple one.  When he came home to claim his little daughter from my grandmother and grandfather who were caring for her, he brought a new wife who was the army nurse that had tended to his wounds in the army hospital.  As it turned out, she was from Mississippi and had the only real southern accent in our family.

My uncle finished his education in literature and theater with a civil defense loan and taught in the Chicago area until he retired.  He and his army nurse wife Louise had four more children.   Phoebe, the eldest cousin who was like a sister, kept in touch, and Jeannie, one of the other four children, came to spend the day with me when we were singing at Willow Creek Church. 

Pastor Lee Sickal, my father

My father never served in the military but became a wonderful pastor who, with my artist/writer mother, built strong congregations in Michigan.  Both of them had a passion for people and instilled in my sister and me a love for God’s kingdom the world over. Faithful service in pastoral ministry is not for the faint of heart, and often requires a rededication to love as Jesus loves, serve as Jesus served, and sometimes quite literally wash feet as Jesus did those of the disciples who He knew would later betray and deny Him. Years later, after my father passed into eternity, letters, calls, and visits came from former parishioners who expressed to my mother their stories of gratitude for his consistent service in the army of the Lord. Their faith and often that of their children were some of the results of my parents’ commitment to their calling.

Aunt Lillie saying goodbye to her son Glen

One of Bill’s earliest memories is of his sixth Christmas Eve, when, at his family’s Christmas gathering, word came that his Aunt Lillie’s handsome son Glen had been killed in Germany only a few weeks after he had been deployed.  This bright young man was engaged to a lovely girl and had hoped to go into the ministry of the Nazarene Church where he had been active in the youth group.  From then on for years, there was a certain sadness for Bill about Christmas Eve, and the Gaither family celebration. Maybe that is why we tried to make new memories with our children on Christmas morning.

 Like most families, ours has been affected by the loss or injury of one of our own who served in the defense of our country.  For Aunt Lillie, the fracture to her soul caused by losing a son never fully healed, though she lived to be in her nineties.  And my family was changed forever by “the war”.  Many men and women who have experienced the horror of war carry deep wounds.  Scar tissue of the spirit finally forms, and life goes on.  But nothing is ever quite the same.  There are emotional sacrifices that go on long after “Johnny comes marching home”.

The freedom that we treasure in America is unique in all the world.   As we begin the summer season traveling, gathering, worshipping, and celebrating with our families, let us take time to savor our freedoms.  Let’s use these freedoms—rare in the world—to do good things.

We are free to help others,
free to assemble,
free to be generous,
free to pray,
free to learn,
free to criticize and question.

Let us always be aware that freedom is not free.  It has come at great cost, a price that should cause us to live aware and grateful.  And may we never misuse this precious freedom or use it as a license to take away someone else’s freedom.

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Footwashing

I grew up with yearly foot washing as a part of the Easter week.  It was considered an important ordinance of the church.  

For me, my first time to be a part of it was memorable. 

There was a dear Saint in our congregation that we often gave a ride to church, so she and I had a special relationship.  She always had pink wintergreen mints in her purse for me, and with them came the assurance of how much she and Jesus loved me. 

My mother prepared me for my first foot washing, telling me about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet and how the actual service would be, including that there would be a curtain across the fellowship hall separating the men from the women, and someone dipping clean warm water into a basin.  A long linen towel would be wrapped around my waist and then I would kneel down and dip water with my hand up over the person’s feet I would be washing. Then, she said, I would dry their feet, set the basin aside, and stand to give that person a hug.

We would all be singing some of the hymns about surrender, commitment, and the love of Jesus. 

When the Thursday night before Easter came, we gathered in the fellowship hall, our chairs in a circle, and a basin for warm water placed at each seat.  I sat between my mother and Lilly Moser so I would not be apprehensive.

All went as mother had explained.  I was 4 years old and in the company of sincerely committed women of the church.  I took this ordinance very seriously. 

All went well. I washed Lilly Moser’s old and swollen feet, dried them with the very long towel tied around my tiny self, then stood to hug her. She smelled of lavender as she wrapped her arms around me.

Then came the moment for which I was not prepared… Lilly got down on her swollen, arthritic knees and began to wash my feet. Everything in my young heart was silently crying, “Oh, no! You are not supposed to wash my feet!!”   I had heard the Peter part of the story and suddenly knew why he so objected to Jesus’s act of servanthood.  I never forgot how difficult and cheerfully Lilly got up from the hard floor and enveloped me with her genuine love for me. 

“Where He leads me, I will follow…” the women around me sang, “…follow all the way.”

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Mothering

Much has been written about mothers.  Greeting cards, books, and songs have celebrated the virtues and influence of mothers.  Sadly, much has been said, too, blaming mothers for desertion, wrong teaching, negligence, and damaging modeling.

I, too, have written to honor one of the best mothers a child could have who taught my sister and me to love people, notice and embrace life, and walk uprightly before God.

But here, I would like to celebrate the joy of being a mother.

When Bill and I were in the first two years of our marriage, we had several conversations about how good our life together was and how having children might challenge or ruin our insulated joy.  We lived in a sweet little house Bill’s parents rented to us just across the driveway from their family home.  I was finishing college, doing my student teaching, and taking the last classes in literature, French, and sociology.

Bill was teaching English at our local high school. We had begun writing songs together, and he was also directing the choir and leading worship at a nearby church.  By the second year of our marriage, I was also teaching French and English at the same high school.  What could be better?  Would a baby interrupt this bliss?

Then in December at the end of our second year, Suzanne entered our world.  And, yes, she interrupted everything!  As I have said many times since, we can make our plans, but God is in the interruptions.

To know that I held a piece of eternity in my arms was life-altering.  And to realize that what this baby thought and felt and believed about life and God was largely my responsibility, was both sobering and exhilarating.  That this tiny wonder was totally dependent on us for everything brought an abrupt halt to self-absorption!  We would now be on call 24/7.  Her cries were a call to read her signals and to find the wisdom to interpret them.

And then there were three. No matter how I tried to be prepared for motherhood, I found my capacity to know what our children needed was insufficient—and would get more so the older they got. This made me seek wisdom from others who had more experience.  Motherhood was a call to humility:  to admit what I did not know, to listen to wiser input, to consistently ask God to give me what I lacked.

I remember thinking that my quiet meditation time was over.  I wouldn’t have time to enrich my life with devotional study and prayer.  Oh, but what I didn’t know was that with our babies’ first words came wisdom that punctuated everything I’d ever learned from my devotional life. From the mouths of babes and sucklings...

Comments like, “Mommy did you know that rainbows live at Easter?”  Or when finally giving up a pacifier, “Here, mommy.  Take this thing.  It’s empty.”  As our children grew so did their questions, questions if I was honest, I’d asked myself.  And their insights sometimes took my breath away.

Now that they are adults with children of their own, they are my peers and many times my advisors.  How motherhood has stretched me, blessed me, challenged me, changed me would take not just this short essay, but books.

I can only say this Mother’s Day that next to serving the Lord and walking life’s journey with the man who loves me, being a mother has been my life’s greatest gift from God.  The three children that made me a mother have also made me pray more, laugh more, cry more, learn more, and grow more than all of the rest of my experiences put together.  And of all the honors or titles I could ever be given in a lifetime, the greatest by far is the stand-tall-title—Mother.

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Expressing the Inexpressible

Of all the cardinal claims of the Christian Faith, the Incarnation, from start to finish, is the most immense for believers to wrap our minds around. That God himself would choose to actually come to be born as one of us, to live and walk and die with us, takes indeed, a leap of faith.

The rough-sawn wooden bookends of this carpenter’s life—from manger to the cross—redefine symbol and icon.  Just wood—not gold or silver or jewels or fine, rare fabrics—but just wood, becomes the symbol of an invitation that would exclude no one.  That we could know God came to embrace us all.  And this Son-of-God Christ debunked so many centuries-old conceptions of who this God is and what were His actual characteristics.

No longer haunted by a fear-based faith, we are invited to move in closer, trust deeper, and accept a new revelation: while we thought we had to do outlandish things to approach this God, He had instead been pursuing us all along.  Instead of wrath and anger being his earmarks, this God has all along been wanting to transform us by love, a love that has the power to pull us in, allow us to be honest, give us the energy of an on-going resurrection. Yes!  Easter everywhere!  New us!  New way of seeing! New joy beyond common human perception!  New revelation—Life is everywhere!  The death-pull is broken.

 Fortunately, and maybe miraculously, those who knew this Jesus, wrote down what He said and did. In letters, in conversation, in hindsight and foresight, they wrote it down.  From wildly different viewpoints, they told the story.  A doctor and a teen-ager, a conniving tax collector and some common commercial fishermen--they told of everyday friendship with this new definition of God.

Yet there was so much to the story that in the end, they threw up their hands in despair at their limited ability to tell it all. “It would take a library of books to tell it!”  they said.

And writers and witnesses have tried ever since to tell their own personal resurrection stories.  I, myself, have tried.  But words are inadequate.  How does one “bear witness” to an internal Easter, a discovery that there is eternity in every moment, an ongoing resurrection?

I have tried in speech and in prose.  But perhaps the story—the big story of God-with-us—can best be told in poetry, because in poetry more of the story is between the lines than on the lines.  Poetry is about the something else, the something that can only be an inkling of something eternal, something transcendent.

Marry that poetry to the right music, and the something else of a story can by-pass our temptation to analyze, and go straight to the eternity of our souls. 

This song lyric I wrote twice.  After the first version, Bill decided on a totally different musical direction.  So, I wrote this story again.  Here are both attempts to tell a story beyond words. Yet, I will try again...and again...and again.

THEN CAME THE MORNING (original lyric)

They had sealed His broken body in a half-way finished tomb,
And even that was loaned them by a friend.  
Then they spent the endless hours wondering
who would be the next
And why things so perfect had to end. 
And if it weren’t enough to haunt them that their hopes
and dreams were gone, 
Shattered by the hammer and some nails, 
The silent accusation of the fear that gripped their hearts 
Made a farce of everything He’d told them from the start. 

They said now that it was over she should go and get some rest. 
She was sure they all had meant well with their words, 
But for her it wasn’t over; it would never, never be! 
Her child would always be alive to her. 
The things that she had stored away there deep within her breast
Paraded back and forth across her mind-- 
From the moment she had felt this baby leap within her womb 
She’d known somehow that life could not be sealed up in a tomb. 

It seemed I’d gone forever without a ray of hope, 
My prayers just echoed empty down the hall. 
The statements that I made returned at night to question me, 
And no one seemed to answer when I called. 
Music, the joy, and all the friends I had were gone, 
And all I had to hold to were His words 
That promised to be with me and never let me go,
So that is what I held to;
It was all that I could know.

Sometimes we meet together in our cloistered upper rooms; 
We drink the wine and share the broken bread, 
And promise one another to be true unto the end 
To all the things our Lord and Master said. 
And yet, when we are facing the dark times of our lives, 
Those “Hallelujahs” seem so far away. 
Our failures and our humanness is all we see or hear, 
And all our best intentions seem to melt and disappear.  

But when the final word is spoken, and the last farewell is said,
And gone is all our chance to sell or buy. 
When the last child is delivered and the last soul laid to rest, 
And all the tears are shed we’ll ever have to cry. 
When the sands of time have sifted through the minutes and the days,
What’s done is done and what is said is said, 
Just before the music fades from all our songs of faith and hope, 
A trumpet blast will bring the shout of victory, and we’ll know – 
Death has lost! Life has won!
And morning, morning has come!

Lyric: Gloria Gaither
Copyright ©2019 Hannah Street Music


THEN CAME THE MORNING (Version 2)

They all walked away, there was nothin' to say--
They'd just lost their dearest Friend;
All that He’d said, now He was dead--
So this was the way it would end.
The dreams they had dreamed
Were not what they'd seemed
Now that He was dead and gone;
The garden, the jail, the hammer, the nail--
How could a night be so long?

The angel, the star, the kings from afar,
The wedding, the water, the wine--
Now it was done; they'd taken her Son,
Wasted before His time.
She knew it was true;
She'd watched Him die, too;
She'd heard them call Him just a man,
But deep in her heart she knew from the start
Somehow her Son would live again....

 CHORUS
Then came the morning!
Night turned into day,
The stone was rolled away;
Hope rose with the dawn!
Then came the morning!
Shadows vanished before the sun--
Death had lost and life had won,
For morning had come!

Lyric: Gloria Gaither
Music: William J. Gaither and Chris Christian
Copyright © 1982 Gaither Music Company ASCAP,
HomeSweetHome Music

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Pomp, Procession, and Palms

The children come down the aisle of the church, waving palm branches then gathering to hear the story of another time, another place when children and their families lined the streets of Jerusalem, laying palm branches along the way or waving them in the air as Jesus passes before them riding on a donkey.

Parents smile from their church pews, snapping shots with their cell phones to send to grandparents in Florida.  Neither the children nor the parents realize the depth of the story they are recreating.

 So, what’s it all about, Alphie?

Finally, it was time. Unlike the day of water-into-wine, Jesus was ready to admit that He actually was the prophesied King of the Jews.  He planned His own announcement in response to the crowds that had followed him for the last three years.  Unlike other kings and royalty who made their triumphal entries riding on the backs of the finest-bred and highly trained steeds, seated on the tooled and jeweled leather saddles, Jesus sent his disciples to borrow a donkey.  And it wasn’t a donkey trained to carry burdens, but a young foal never before ridden.  He would announce His royal reign in the language of the poor, using the transportation of the powerless.

Like his entrance into the world, He would once again confuse every expectation of how a king should come.  Without fanfare, this king had been born to a peasant girl in a borrowed stable, bedded down in a feeding trough for, yes, donkeys.  And unlike the lineage of kings or even the carefully kept lineage of male Jewish ancestry, His father would not be Joseph of the lineage of David, but God Himself, and his human lineage would be that of His mother Mary.

Yes, once again breaking all expectations of how a king should come, Jesus rode into Jerusalem when the city was crowded with people in town for the festivities of Passover, and not only Jews, but people from many other cultures, as well.  Admirers of this man who healed leppers, fed thousands with a boy’s fish lunch, and opened blind eyes, lined the street to get a glimpse of Him. Some even took off their coats and laid them in his path. Like a selfie, they would have their coats marked by his donkey’s footprints to prove they had been there.

And they waved palm branches.  To all cultures gathered that festival day, palm branches had meaning.  To the Greeks, palms meant the winner of a race or another athletic contest. Palms meant Winner!

To the Romans, palms echoed victorious gladiators or reigning emperors. Palm leaves were woven into the crowns of conquerors.

To Egyptians, palms proclaimed immortality.  Ironically, palms lined funeral processions and were laid across the bodies of the deceased.

And to the Jews who sang “Hosanna!” their song and their palms harkened back to the deliverance from slavery, and their commitment to return to Jerusalem in holy pilgrimage.  “Hosanna!” meant “Save us now!” Palms of deliverance! Songs of Salvation!

 Did the by-standers that day have a clue that this Savior who came to them on the vehicle of “the least of these” would be, indeed, the victor over sin and all kinds of bondage?  Did anyone on this celebrative day know that this “triumphal entry” would also be his funeral prelude?  Did they know that this irregular monarch would not make laws but fulfill them?

 Did they have an inkling that this “conqueror” would be the conqueror over sin, death, and the grave?  That, indeed, their palm branches would symbolize an immortality not just after death, but one that would infuse their days with the power of the eternal.

 Winner of a race?  Little did they know that they were watching, then and in the days to come, the final victory lap of a race whose end would be declared by the runner himself with the pronouncement, “It is finished.”  Did they have any insight into how immortal his reign would be?

And do we, who place palm branches in the palms of our children and pull out our cell phones to capture and mark this moment, have a clue to the eternal promise of singing “Hosanna!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord”?

 Triumphal, indeed! 

Unshakable Kingdom

They came to follow Him,
Drawn by what His promised them
If they would sell all that they had;
He said that God would send
A kingdom that would never end
Where all the poor would be rich.
And in their discontent
They heard what they thought He meant—
Heard that the weak would be strong,
Bread would be multiplied,
Hunger be satisfied
And every servant a king.

But He went His quiet way,
Giving Himself away,
Building what eyes could never see.
While men looked for crowns and thrones,
He walked with crowds, alone,
Planting a seed in you and me—
Crying for those who cried,
Dying for those who died,
Bursting forth, glorified! Alive!
Yet some of them looked for Him,
Sad that it had to end,
But some dared to look within and see
The kingdom of God, a kingdom that would never end…
The living, unshakable kingdom of God!

Lyric: Gloria Gaither
Music: William J. Gaither and Michael W. Smith
©1985 Gaither Music Company and Meadowgreen Music Company
(admin. by EMI Christian Music Group). All rights reserved.

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Christ Walks the City

Bethlehem, Galilee, Gethsemane--he walked there. But today Christ walks the concrete sidewalks of Times Square, 47th Street, and Broadway, and as he walks his feet are soiled, not with the sand of the seashore or the reddish dust of the Emmaus Road, but with the soot and filth of the city.

He walks the "great white way", and his face is lit by the gaudy neon signboards of materialism. He walks in the shadows of the dark alleyways, where faces are not lit at all.

He walks with children and goes where they are taken, when they are enticed and bartered, to gratify some sick perversion. He walks the steaming hallways of welfare hotels where mothers cry themselves to sleep in worry and despair.

He does not sleep but lies beside the broken in their vermin-infested shelters and hears the homeless groan in their delirium; he walks between the bodies as they wake, touching heads of matted hair, offering a hand to lift the men and women who are stiff from lying on the drafty floor.

He walks the streets of Harlem and Chinatown, Brooklyn, and the Bronx and stops to stand with those whose buildings smolder, whose sons are lost to drugs, whose mothers are evicted, whose daughters sell their bodies for a meal.

He walks the subway aisles offering his seat to the old, the weary, the pregnant. He is jostled with the throngs at rush hour and reads the signs that offer satisfaction from Jack Daniels or a hot line to call to rid one's body of a growing life.

He is pushed and shoved through Grand Central Station, elbowed and ignored, yet in the crowd he feels a measure of virtue flow from his being and searches through the faces for an honest seeker passing by.

Christ walks the city. I've seen him there. I've seen his blistered, broken feet, galled by the shoes without the socks. He walks the city on children's feet that grow too fast to stay in shoes at all. He walks the street in high-heeled shoes that pinch the toes but attract the client.

He walks the city. He stands behind a table serving breakfast, drives a truck that carries sandwiches to the grates where homeless sleep to garrison themselves against the cold. He climbs the narrow staircases to purge the burned-out buildings and restore them into homes again. He paints and disinfects and hauls out trash.

I've seen Christ stand by a dental chair fixing worn-out teeth; I've seen him tutoring a drop-out and heard him say, "Keep reaching for the sky." Christ holds a baby whose mother is a child herself, so needing to be mothered--and holds that mother's mother in his arms at night when prayers become such groanings that they cannot be uttered. He groans with them all, a mother to three generations of motherless.

Christ walks the city and carves saints in stone for some cathedral, the cherubim and seraphim with faces of the street. He weaves the cloth that transforms rags into a lovely tapestry. Christ dances when he himself can find no other way to say, "I love you", to a world in which there is left no word for "Love".  He acts the part that tells the story of how that Love invaded humankind, for only story tells the Story.  Christ incarnate.  Christ the living, walking parable, takes to the stage to be the Story.

Christ the advocate walks the city. "You have an advocate with the Father," he said. That is done. But now the powerless need an advocate to the government, to the red tape, to the powers-that-be. Christ walks there. Jesus, "our lawyer in heaven", walks the city to become a lawyer in the streets, filling out welfare forms, phoning case workers, petitioning agencies, drafting legislation to protect the poor. Christ the advocate walks the city.

Christ walks the city's Ivy Halls where students debate his existence. He holds out his nail-scarred hands to the agnostics and invites them to "touch and see". He is there at the "gay caucus" and the "feminist rally" and the meeting for the "anti-war demonstration". He, who is question and answer, he who sets brother against brother yet whispers "peace, be still" to the turbulent waves, walks here.

Christ walks the halls of government and in his presence, statesmen hammer out the laws. The just and the unjust, the honest and the ruthless, those who struggle for truth and those who live the lie convene in his presence, for Christ walks the marble halls of government, sifting the "wheat from the chaff".

Christ walks the corridors of justice. He is in night court and stands with the accused and the accuser. He who is truth and mercy and justice weighs them both and walks both to the judge's chamber and the prisoner's cell. Christ is no stranger to locks and bars. He paces with the convicted her narrow space and hears the curses of despair. Yes, Christ is present in the prisons where fear has built walls around the heart thicker than the walls that guard against escape and higher than the barbed wire that makes an ugly frame for the grey skies. He walks the empty corridors and offers the key of freedom to whosoever would become citizens of a new country, a different kingdom. It is the very key he offers to the judge who is also a captive, a key that makes both the sentencer and the condemned free men and women--family.

Christ calls all to communion. The table of the Eucharist is spread. He takes the bread. He is the Bread.  He breaks it, breaks himself and offers this brokenness to us explaining that if we take it, we ourselves must be broken and consumed. He takes the cup. It is the pouring out of himself. He says, "Won't you, too, be poured out with me?"

The table is long and spans centuries. Some leave the table to go in search of silver. Some chairs were empty from the start, for though many were invited, some had wives to marry, parents to bury, houses to build, empires to manage. Those who have come are a motley blend of ages and nationalities, races, and genders, privileged and disenfranchised. But they are all poor and hungry and needy. Slowly, they break the bread--again and again--and lift their morsels to their mouths. It does not go down easily. Sometimes it sticks in the throat until the wine is passed. The pressed and poured-out fruit washes away the dryness.

The bread--"my flesh"--and the wine--"my life's blood"--together make a sacrament of joy, and the rite becomes a celebration of paradox. In the breaking we have become whole. In the pouring out, we have been filled. In bringing our poverty and hunger and need, we have been made rich. In daring to sit with seekers whose differences we did not understand, we have been made one.

Christ the paradox walks the city. He is the broken, and he is the healer. He is the hungry and he is the Bread of Life. He is the homeless, yet it is he who says, "Come to me all you who are overloaded, and I will be your resting place." He is the loser who makes losing the only way to win.  He is the omnipotent who calls all who follow to choose powerlessness, and teaches us how, by laying down all power in heaven and in earth. He is the sick, and he is the wholeness. He who said, "I thirst," is himself the Living Water that promises we will never thirst again.

Just as the disciples in the Emmaus house recognized their Lord through the broken bread and the shared cup, so our blindness turns to sight in Holy communion, and we see him for who he truly is.

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Journal-worthy

First, let me say how much I enjoy all your comments on the blog.  I read every one and learn from them.  They also inspire and encourage me to keep sharing the insights God and life are teaching me.  I love it when you comment, share the blog with others, and click “Like”!

A few blogs ago (Friend in a Café) someone posted this comment: “I often thought about writing in a journal, then realized I don’t have a lifestyle that merits a journal.”

I’ve been pondering that comment ever since and decided to address you who might feel that your life isn’t journal-worthy.  I would also like to hear from you who don’t feel that way.

First, never buy a “diary”.  Journaling should never be a tyrant that forces you to keep account of every day or makes you feel guilty if you don’t.  Just find an empty, well-bound journal, one that pleases you to hold and of a size that you can take with you.

Second, if a moment means something to you, write it down.  Don’t wait for an important or consequential event.  Just a regular moment will do.  Did you love smelling the bacon frying and the aroma of morning coffee?  Write how it made you feel or a memory it evoked.  Did the sunrise on the new-fallen snow or the golden wheat field behind your house make you clap your hands inside? Describe it.  Notice the fairies dancing in the dew drops outside the kitchen window?  Say so!  Catch the moment!  Did your child say something surprisingly insightful?  Write it down.  You think you’ll remember, but you won’t unless you write it down. 

Don’t be pressured to write a lot.  Put a date at the top of the page and then scribble a few sentences. Think of it as if you are texting yourself.  Sharpen your focus; pay attention.  Then, tell the pages what you are seeing and feeling.  No flowery language is needed.  Journaling is like a prayer.  You don’t have to impress God...or the paper.

Third, if you spend the day sad or depressed or discouraged, tell your journal before you go to bed.  Puke it all out on the pages.  Are you frustrated or angry?  Vent to your journal.  Then let it go and go to bed.  Don’t re-read it the next day or maybe the next week or next month. I have a feeling that when you do re-read your entry later on, you will have gained some perspective.

Fourth, take your journal with you to lunch in a small café.  Keep it in the car while you’re waiting for the kids to come out of school or while waiting for road construction.  Sip a latté in an airport coffee shop and read the stories around you in the faces, the body language, the interactions (or lack thereof). Write what you see and listen with your heart to the messages. When you get up in the morning, write down your dreams.  Don’t try to interpret their meaning; that may come later. The main thing is to learn to pay attention to life around you and inside you, and record it for this moment.

When you have your devotional/meditation time, keep your journal close.  If you are reading the Bible verse for the day, read the whole chapter.  Pay attention to the story, the context of that verse.  I guarantee you will have a new revelation or fresh insight that will speak to your day. You’ll want to write it down.

Over my years of mostly sporadic journaling, I have discovered a few things.
1. What I thought was important at the time, turned out not to be, and the things so common I almost didn’t write them down, turned out to be very important.  Someone has said “big doors swing on very small hinges”.  Yes, journaling has let me know what is important—and what is not.
2. Journaling has taught me there is a difference between
     --acquaintances and relationships
    --calling and career
--setbacks and failure
     --success and accomplishment          
     --power and authority.
3. God is always up to something in my life.
4.  I have learned
--everyone needs to belong
--I need silence and solitude        
--meditation and centering are needs as innate and ancient as Adam and Eve
--silence needs to be coupled with reflection if it is to be restorative.
5. Eternity starts here. There is eternity to be found in each moment. My job is to recognize it and give myself away for things that last forever, for forever starts here.

I hope you will start journaling if you haven’t.  And I hope whether you are a life-long journaler or a brave new starter, you will share your experiences with us.

This song is the journal entry of my life.

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