A Voice Beyond Sound

How many times has this incredible verse spoken itself into my days of desperation?

"Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way, walk in it, whenever you turn to the right or whenever you turn to the left."  (Isaiah 30:21)

When I am totally unable to handle a situation and am so bewildered by it that I don't even know how to pray, my prayer becomes simply an opening up to the Spirit of God.

Waiting is never an easy thing to do, but in these situations waiting is all there is to do. In time, there comes a strong impression, stronger than an audible voice, saying "This is what you must do."

With that nudge of illumination comes a courage beyond any human bravery and an empowering to do what God is showing me to do. When I have obeyed, I go back to being the timid person I usually am in my own strength.

It only takes a few of these amazing experiences to develop a fearless trust in God who calls Himself Light.

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De-consecration

I read in a recent issue of Architectural Digest that a church in Detroit has been “de-consecrated” and turned into a Fine Arts Center in a new arts district of the city.  I had never seen that word before, though I hear it’s been happening in other places.

That made me wonder how, exactly, does one “de-consecrate” a place of worship.  Does a community have a de-consecration ceremony in which art enthusiasts actually form a public procession to carry out from a formerly consecrated space, the art, the cross, icons, golden candlesticks, offering plates, hymnals, choir robes, and communion chalices? 

Do the re-constructionists remove the anchors from the altar, the communion table, and the pulpit and join the procession, moving this dedicated furniture out into a newly secularized parking lot to be auctioned off to the highest bidder? 

And once the artifacts of worship have been removed, is there a vacuum to suck out the sacred?  In the de-spiritualizing process, does some holy dust stay floating in the sunbeams streaming through the stained-glass windows to settle on the newly introduced secular art?  Does some of it flow out through the wide-open doors and, in spite of everything, does some righteous residue fall on the children playing in the neighborhood or the homeless sleeping on park benches in the nearby park?

Or do the molecules of breath, breathed over decades of prayer, stay, as do water and matter, only just changing form and remaining forever?  Could the congregants who have dedicated their babies, exchanged wedding vows, confessed their sins and found forgiveness and salvation, sung, rejoiced, and mourned there take a box of consecration with them down the street and release it into some empty storefront space to consecrate into something sacred?

Do the de-consecrated pews that end up on the front porch of some Cracker Barrel still carry the spirit of the holy in the wood that was seasoned by the atmosphere of supplication and praise still whisper “holy, holy, holy” to those who sit there waiting for a table inside?

And that makes me wonder if there are architecturally beautiful buildings that still bear the sign outside but are slowly being “de-consecrated” by the people who still gather there for “church” but are detached from the Lord they once worshipped in that place.

Maybe, on the other hand, it’s time to carry our dedicated pews and communion tables and altars and pulpits to the town green or city squares or prisons or youth centers, and change these pieces of furniture and artifacts and symbols into the actual eucharist and communion, living sermons and places of prayer our Lord intended them to be.

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Then Came the Morning

At first, after a death, there are things to do: arrangements to make, friends bringing condolences to receive, stories to tell. But after the funeral and burial, reality sets in. The sympathizers go back to their work and lives. The flowers lie wilting on the grave. The leftover casseroles are scraped into the garbage disposal. The house is empty.

Bits and fragments associated with the one so recently present begin the long caravan of reminders: a pair of gardening shoes by the back steps, an old wool plaid coat in the hall closet with a wadded-up tissue and a pack of Clove gum in the pocket, a scribbled note in the margins of a favorite book, a roll of half-exposed film still in the camera, a layaway slip with only half of the payments recorded in the pocket of a worn leather wallet. As the days go by, the other reminders lie in ambush: a fragment of a song on a passing car’s radio, an old joke overheard in the grocery store, the smell of a certain kind of fragrance. As Emily Dickinson once wrote, “the sweeping up the heart and putting love away” is the “saddest of all industries enacted upon earth.”

Grieving is a private thing after the public ceremonies surrounding a death are over, and no two ­people do grief alike. Some drop out of sight, avoid human contact. Some are terrified of being alone and surround themselves with ­people. Some treasure a loved one’s possessions; others clean them out and move to a new setting not so laden with memories. Some need to talk again and again through the memories and the emotions that go with them. Others clam up and act as if nothing has happened.

We ­don’t know exactly how those who walked with Jesus processed the public execution of their gentle friend. We do know that one of his friends, a wealthy man named Joseph from a nearby town called Arimathea, went to Pilate and asked to have Jesus’ body released to him after it was taken down from the cross. Joseph was an official of the Jewish Council and had enough status to make the request. We know, too, that Joseph had already purchased the linen shroud and that he wrapped Jesus’ body himself and placed it in his own tomb carved into a rock.

We know that everything had to be finished before sundown that strange surreal night because nothing remotely like work or preparations could be done on the Sabbath. But after sundown, how did these very different personalities deal with the reality of Jesus’ death: There was John, the gentle lover; Peter, the impetuous; Thomas, the cynic; Mary Magdalene, the much forgiven; Luke, the scientific processor; Salome, the doer; young Mark, the observer of detail; and Mary, the over-protective mother of James. Each must have had a unique reaction.

The Sabbath was a day of required rest, but did they wait in silence? Did they meet at each other’s homes and talk it all through? Who first felt rage at the wasteful loss of this man? Who sifted through events for some clue that would make sense of it all, give some logic to this spiral of circumstances? Who of them was in denial, wondering if it had all been a horrible nightmare from which they might awaken any moment?

For the doers, the sunset on that Saturday night released them to get busy. Three of these were Mary Magdalene; Mary, James’ mother; and Salome. Preparing spices gave them a practical way to work out their grief, and preparing Jesus’ body would let them do something to show their deep love for this friend who was now gone. Had any one of them caught His line to the Pharisees about restoring “this temple in three days”? Were any of them secretly wondering if, by some act of the Divine, He would return to them? Which of them felt despair?

One thing is certain: nothing halts the grieving process like a resurrection!

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This Could Be the Dawning

We think about it most during a national crisis. It's then we hear people speculating about the end of the world and which events point to the close of time as we know it.

Bill and I have experienced several such crisis moments. We remember, for instance, the bombing of Hanoi and the escalation of the Vietnam War.

When I was in college, the whole country held its breath during the Cuban Missile Crisis, waiting to see whether nuclear weapons would be deployed (intentionally or by accident) in a moment of intense international pressure.

The Gulf War, because its modern, more destructive means of warfare, we feared, could ignite the oil fields of the Middle East and blow us all to kingdom come, making us speculate about end-times prophecies. We could see how the battle of Armageddon with soldiers on horseback and hand-to-hand combat might actually occur in this war.

More than once in the last several decades, the bombing raids on Lebanon or the terrorist attacks in Syria, the Golan Heights, or Tel Aviv had us scurrying to Daniel and the book of Revelation for details that might match those on the evening news.

Then the next thing we knew, the explosions from terrorist attacks were not somewhere else but in Oklahoma City, New York, or aboard an airliner on which someone we knew could have been scheduled to fly.

Since the end of the twentieth century, the earth itself seems to have become weary. Pollution and the irresponsible use of her resources have stretched this generous planet to its limits. Like a body aging, the earth now inches its way toward the time when, like a spirit escaping the worn-out encasement that held it, those inhabitants who have established homes elsewhere could fly away, leaving this earth to turn to dust and blow away. We can sense it. Soon, like a pod that holds a seed, the planet could explode, break open, and disintegrate having outlived its usefulness.

No wonder denial and despair are epidemic in our culture. For those who have invested everything in the disintegrating things of earth, these are desolate and desperate times. But there is excitement in the air for the people of God. The promise we feel in our bones is like the thrill of the countdown for a launch to the moon! Every world event encourages a letting go of stuff and a laying hold of the hope that is within us. The darker the world gets, the brighter burns the morning light.

We have always been "pilgrims ever wandering, just looking for a place to rest our souls." Our home, our hiding place, has never been the edifices of earth, though while we are here, we have taken up temporary residence in them. No, the Lord Himself has been and will always be our safe hiding place, our rock on which we build a life. If the planets disintegrate, He alone will be our trustworthy home.

As the psalmist said, "Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word... Uphold me according unto thy word, that I may live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope." (Ps. 119:114, 116)

So instead of depression, our lives are filled with an exciting sense of urgency. In the place of despair, our hope burns brighter and will until the need for hope is replaced by the incredible reality of a new day dawning.

We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand--out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. (Romans 5:2-4 The Message)

Yes! And amen.

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Party or Perseverance

Two verses, one from Psalms and another from Matthew tell the Jesus-followers what to expect.  One is a prophecy from the Psalm that is about Christ, and the other from Jesus’s own words to his followers after Palm Sunday and before the celebration of Passover in the upper room. Here they are in part:

From the Jesus Psalm:  Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness; I looked for someone to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. (PSALM 69:20)

From Matt. 21:  ...you will be hated by all nations because of me.  At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other.... but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. (Matt. 21:9)

Still today it is the same. Everyone loves a party. Free food and favor will draw a crowd every time. Everyone tunes in to the gospel of positive thinking, but that attention gets very short if the positive thinking is long term and entails some getting worse before it gets better.

Throw a free picnic and you can't keep an accurate count of the multitudes that show up. But drag those same folks to Gethsemane at night with Calvary in view, and you lose their attention, even if on some grand philosophical plane, they profess to understand. Esteem seems to be generated by being the bold and the beautiful, the wealthy and the powerful.

But lay down the power, become poor, quit being a party animal, and let the tears flow, turn ugly from pain, and you, too, will be able to count your friends on one hand. But oh, what true friends!

Jesus’s still askes the question he asked when theologians without discernment couldn’t sign up for the requirement that His followers would need to eat and drink His very self, the life force of the Spirit.  “Will you also go away?”  He asked his disciples, knowing that even one of these closest twelve would eventually betray Him to be crucified.  Then Simon Peter answered for us all: “Lord, to whom shall we go.  You have the words of eternal life,”

Eternal is the operative word here. Will we choose long-term commitment to short-term advantage. And can we recognize what is eternal in this moment? Because now is forever. Forever starts here. Party or perseverance.

Now is forever; forever starts here—
My treasure in heaven is what I hold dear.
The things that I value, will show in the mirror—
Now is forever; forever starts here

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Games We Played

Some games are worth repeating. Games I played with my grandmother, my mother played with me, and I played with my children and their children.  Some games were fads or popular for a season.  But some taught us all things that will never lose their value with the changing seasons of life.

I just read that old typewriters like Underwoods, original old record players, Easy Bake Ovens, original Etch-a-Sketches and Chatty Cathy dolls are all valuable on the antique markets.  All are “antiques” because they have been replaced by better options or some new fad. Ah, but the great games!  They only get richer with each new generation who have new stories to add to conversations they trigger.

PICK-UP STICKS--Patience, focus, and skill—how we need those qualities in these times!  While pharma looks for meds to stem the tide of ADHD, I suggest a pot of hot chocolate and a few rounds of pick-up sticks.  Joyfully, the advantage of this game will go to the younger, steadier hand, so laughing at grandma’s less accurate skill will encourage greater comradery.  But the trade-off might be that grandma as more patience for finding just the right angle to flip the stick!

CANDYLAND--This game teaches that skill and cunning aren’t always the way to win.  Sometimes there is no advantage in experience, either.  Life and CANDYLAND teach us that no matter how long we’ve played or how lucky we think the colorful path is that we chose, getting to our goal is just dependent on the card we draw and how we react to the set-backs none of us saw coming.  Sometimes winning is just the joy of not taking ourselves too seriously and playing the game together.

DOMINOES—At first we play this game with children who are learning to count and match.  But gradually the set of dominoes gets bigger with more possibilities, strategies, complications, and objectives.  Gradually, too, we add more players and relationships to the community of players. This is one game Bill and I still play with friends as adults because it challenges our skills to think ahead, strategized, and sometimes get foiled by what we overlooked.  But then, there is always another game!

CHESS—I never learned to play chess but our grandson Liam and others who play it tell me it is the ultimate strategy game—a game that demands more skill the longer they play it.

CARROM—When I was a kid my family had a Carrom Board.  We played this game by thumping the carrom men with our finger or using a stick called a striker. The game was sort of a smaller, more affordable alternative to pool and demanded a similar kind of skill and practice to get the men into the pockets on each corner of the board.  I seem to remember that Carrom was approved by some of the members of our church, while pool was not.  Go figure. Maybe that was a life lesson all its own.

FLINCH—Still to this day there is a box of Flinch cards on the kids’ table in our family room, and we still play a game or two of Flinch when our youngest grandkids come home.  I’m always reminded of playing this game with my grandmother while we listened to The Green Hornet, Judy Canova, and Lum and Abner on her console radio in her living room.  Flinch is a game that teaches its players to count forward and backward by adding to piles of cards on the table that begin with either the numbers one or fifteen, numbers that each player must play first from each hand dealt. The “hands” in this game are just to facilitate playing the cards on the player’s “Flinch pile”; getting rid of the Flinch pile cards is the object of the game.

These days I am getting down to the end of my Flinch pile.  I am not sad about that; it was, after all, always the point of game.  And today I have been dealt a fresh hand to spend on my short-term and long-term objectives.  I have been playing long enough to be as good at counting backward as counting forward.  With each hand I must do both, always keep close watch over the actual goal of the game.

Where have I been?  Where am I going?  What will it take to assess where I’ve been in the light of where I am going?  Most of the conversations I have with our grown children and their grown children are focused on these questions.  Some are better at counting forward.  My experience in counting backward and assessing what was (and was not) most helpful in getting to where I am has come from both winning and losing, and both have been not only helpful but necessary in gaining enough wisdom to walk with confidence into what the rest of the game might hold. And no amount of learning, experience, skill, or persistence will prepare me--or them--for the random surprises life will deal us.  In it all, none of us will be wise enough, accomplished enough, or skillful enough to be enough. Only the Lord and Father of us all can lead us through whatever surprises life has in store until our hand is played, and we are out of dominos.

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Life Expectancy

Cats are famous for having nine lives, but I’ve never read any statistics on the life expectancy of gerbils.  I can only speak from experience, but my guess is it’s much longer that the size of this tiny vertebrate would tend to suggest.

When our kids were growing up, we had a cavalcade of pets, as do most active families.  All told, we had five collies, bowls of fish, a few rescued robin hatchlings, mallard ducks and Canadian geese salvaged from the jaws of foxes and vicious turtles.

More than once our kids acted as surgery assistants while my mother cracked out her needles and threads to sew up the bellies of geese after stuffing their intestines back into their stomach cavities.  A couple of times she used their popsicle sticks as stints for setting broken bird legs. One time Benjy and a friend were fishing for carp with corn as bait, when a hungry swan dove down for the corn and swallowed it—hook, line, and sinker, as they say.  The hook full of corn lodged about halfway down the swan’s graceful neck.  Gasping for air and unable to swallow, the swan gladly let us catch her and take her to the vet.  The vet looked helpless at the prospect of working on a swan and said to Suzanne and me, “It will probably die.”

“Oh, no!”  I said.  “You are going to slit its throat vertically and take out the hook.”  The vet looked at me as if I’d swallowed the hook and said, “I don’t have a surgical assistant this afternoon.” I pointed with my thumb to the two of us and said, “We’ll be your assistants. Give this sweet bird some anesthetic and let’s get started.”

We kept the recovering swan in a big box in the playroom so we could keep watch over her and offer her bread soaked in milk as she was able to swallow. When she breathed, the intake of air whistled through the stitches like a kid who needed to blow his nose.

That night Suzanne had invited a friend for a sleep-over, and they slept on the playroom couch hide-a-bed so they could keep check on the swan throughout the night.  At 6:30 am, the Young Life prayer group called the Campaigners came for their hot chocolate, doughnuts, and prayer for their classmates. When they left, Suzanne’s friend said, “This is the craziest house I ever stayed in.  I didn’t sleep a wink, between the whistling swan gasping for air all night and the “campaigners” showing up at the crack of dawn!”

Oh, well.  That was pretty much normal for our house, so I guess if it was sleep the poor girl needed, she might have chosen to have had an overnight with some other friend.

But I digress.  I was talking about pets. One of our most famous pets was a gerbil we called Charlie.  He was fun and happy and a joy to watch as he spun himself around the gerbil Ferris wheel in his cage.  The kids would take him out sometimes to run up and down their arms or play under the covers before putting him in for the night.

One time Benjy had some friends over to shoot rubber band guns in the basement. Suzanne had a bit of a crush on one of the boys and to impress him, swung Charlie around by the tail. She was mortified to find that she had fractured Charlie’s tail right in the middle.  Forever after that Charlie’s tail was a perfect L.

Charlie was no dummy.  He learned to reach his little arms through the bars of his cage and flip open the door latch.  Mostly, when he got out, we would find him and put him safely back where he belonged, but after one escape he was gone longer than usual. We searched high and low (literally!) but no Charlie.  For days we listened at night in the quiet hours, but there were no tell-tale scratchings to give him away.  We searched behind the chairs and couches and in the cupboards and pantries. We didn’t even find his tiny droppings.  Poor Charlie! He must have escaped outside into the cold or died from starvation in some dark closet.

Finally, we just gave up the search and gradually quit talking about him. Charlie was a lost cause that only made us sad when we saw his still little wheel in his deserted cage.  The cage door we left open just in case, and for a while we left food in his feeding trough. but we never awoke to find Charlie had come home on his own.  He was just gone.

At last it was November.  After Thanksgiving I pulled the Christmas decorations out from above the garage ceiling to sort for December.  And in the basement from under the stairway, I drug out the nativities, including the little one made of paper mâché that the children had put up themselves when they were small.

In that box there was what seemed to be shredded packing that I didn’t remember using.  That’s when I heard a familiar scratching way back behind the water heater where the nativity had been.  Sure enough, it was Charlie, alive and...well, at least alive. He had found water where the hose to the washer sometimes dripped from condensation. And for food?  Isn’t paper mâché made with corn starch glue?

I’m just saying, Charlie with his L-shaped tail was alive, and two shepherds, a lamb, and half of the virgin Mary were gone. Charlie was greeted with squeals of joy from the kids, the cage latch was reinforced, and we all—including Charlie—had a very merry Christmas, sure that cats have nothing on gerbils for life expectancy.

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The Stuff Love's Made Of

The Stuff Love’s Made Of

To order full video: Bill Gaither: Some Things I Need to Say
You may also enjoy, Love Songs by the Gaither Vocal Band

To order book with poem: When Did I Start to Love You?

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Curls and Seams

She combed through my wet hair, clean from washing with green Prell shampoo, then parted off narrow vertical portions.  One at a time she wrapped the wet sections around her finger, making curls she then secured vertically with bobby pins.

Gloria at age 4

It was Saturday night—bath night—and the pinned-in-place curls were soft enough to sleep on.  By morning they would be dry, and mother would remove the pins, gently brush out the curls, forming shiny ringlets for church.

After our breakfast of bacon, eggs, and biscuits, she would pull my freshly ironed dress over my hair. I would find clean white sox with lace around the edges tucked into my black patent leather shoes to put on for church. Most of my dresses had a sewn-in sash that mother would tie in a bow in the back. She had made all of my dresses, as well as those of my sister and her own.

She was an expert seamstress, a skill she learned from her mother that equipped her to work before I was born at a designer dress shop in Battle Creek called the Francine Dress Shop where she was part of the designer sewing team.  She also modeled these dresses in style shows and for magazine and newspaper ads for the shop.

My red satin dress

Mother was a stickler for finished seams and sculpting details that made a garment “hang right” as she used to say. And both mother and her mother loved quality fabrics.  One of my favorite dresses when I was around ten years old was made of red satin with a white yoke.  I felt so beautiful when I wore it, and at ten beautiful is important. I didn’t wear this dress to regular church; it was saved for special occasions.

Most of our life revolved around the church, since daddy was the pastor.  Even special occasions were special services like New Year’s Eve watchnight services, area conventions, or performances of the Easter and Christmas plays and programs mother wrote and directed.

From the time I was four years old my parents pastored churches in small towns, churches that were struggling that they nursed into strong, stable congregations. This was a full-time job, and I don’t remember ever hearing the phrase “my day off” from my father’s mouth.  Our phone rang at all hours and on every day in the week with calls from someone who was in trouble, in need, or in a hurry.  We had weddings in our living room, cook-outs in our back yard, and area youth skating parties at the rink just down the road. Our car was the taxi for kids or older people who didn’t have a ride to church.

Like getting my hair set on Saturday night, watching my mother construct fine garments out of good fabrics, or hanging out in the barn where my dad made beautiful things out of wood, I saw my parents take whatever characters a community provided and love the best out of people, then patiently train and encourage them into a strong commitment to the Father of us all.  Some characters were more difficult or complicated than others, but my parents thought everyone had the potential to become more than even they believed they could be.

Some of the toughest old characters were there just the best challenges to my dad.  I watched him take on crusty men who wanted nothing to do with the church and persistently and consistently meet them where they were. Some never came to church but came to respect and embrace what the church stood for.  Others became some of the strongest believers with the most amazing testimonies to what God can do in a life.

Burlington Church when we first went there

We went to the Burlington church when I was four.  I literally grew up with many of the families that became (and are still) a part of that church. One family had children my age.  I remember one Sunday when most of the families were snowed in from a serious blizzard and, for good reason, couldn’t make it to church.  But daddy shoveled out our driveway and went to the church early to shovel off the steps and porch of the church. He turned up the heat while mother put some pine sprigs and holly on the communion table.

“Well, at least we’re here and God’s here!” my dad said.  About the time we decided it would be just us, in drove a big farm tractor with George and Eleanor Funk and their three small children, bundled up to their noses in coats and scarves and hanging on for dear life to the tractor seats.  They lived in the country and probably the farthest from the church.  But, bless their faithful hearts, they were there to worship, snow and all! 

Gloria at 14 with Sunday School class she taught Janet Funk right in front of Gloria

What an impression that made on this little eight-year-old!  I have never forgotten the beauty of the Family of God. Just a few weeks ago on our 61st anniversary, we got this text from the woman who was the four-year-old on that tractor that snowy day in Michigan:

Happy Anniversary, Gloria and Bill!  I just want you to know that I am thanking God for both of you...still impacting people with the gospel all over the world!! And, Gloria, you and your family have impacted my life personally for so many years!  I know God is blessing your family.  Have a special celebration of your years together.

Much love,   
Janet  

The Funk family were just some of the great “regular people” who have been giants along my path.  And whether I’m called on to curl hair, make a dress right, shovel off a walk, or plant roses that won’t bloom until after I’ve moved away, I just hope that all I do today will be done right and for the glory of God.

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The Journey Continues

This first month of the New Year, the journey continues.
The star promises that the Messiah is already a reality in this earthen world,
and hints that there are those who have found Him—
some have even embraced Him.

Yet for even those who are wise enough to seek,
this day is a desert day of dust and sand,
plodding and enduring—until the star stops.

Most of us believers—who travel in caravan—visualize as we go where that star-place will be.

We can’t help feeling that the place must be wonderful—
an oasis, a resort, a fine abode fit for a King.

Like those first travelers,
we are way too literally minded
to keep focused on the wonder
of the Incarnate One, Himself—
that He is the wonder.

Will we be disappointed with the destination of this day’s journey
when we find no place spectacular?

Will we, like the poet, miss the glory of the summit
because of bramble distractions?

Lord, today as every day, the hope of finding You on my journey—
that starring promise—
guides and pulls me along the dusty way.

Satisfy my seeking heart with the pleasant reality of Your sweet Self,
resting there in the familiar surroundings of common things.

And, Lord, fill me with gratitude
for Your provisions along my way to You.

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A New Day, a New Year

Lord, on this new day of the New Year I am thankful perhaps most that last year is over and a new page has been turned. I know the moment that marks a new year is in reality no different from any other moment. Each moment gives me a chance to make a better choice, take a bigger risk, avoid a careless word, and embrace a glorious joy.

But sometimes we need a sacrament--a party, an event, a mark on the national calendar--to shake us from our routine. We need a landmark, a finish line, a line in the dust that says, "Here. Here is the place to begin. 

So, I am thankful for this moment. This New Year's Day is a closure to pain, an opening to joy, a celebration of past victories, a funeral for past failures, an open door to exciting and terrifying possibilities, a back-turning on all that would drag us downward. This is a moment. I choose to love it. I will do the hard thing today. I will speak the truth today. I will forgive and offer grace today. I will receive forgiveness and give it today. I will not be cynical today.

I will laugh freely like a child at what I see, at myself, at the sheer loveliness of life. Today I ask for no burning bushes or eruptions of Sinai. I do ask for the eyes to see the bushes already aflame with awesome frozen beauty glistening like diamonds in the air. 

I ask for ears to hear the voice of God in the thunder. I ask for the sensitivity to feel the pulse of the universe when I press my breast against the warm sand on the beach. May I taste the honey on the purple roadside clover and the sweet tender end of the stems of native grasses.

May I thrill to the gentle touch of snow landing on my cheek, laugh when my nostrils send smoke rings of steam into the morning air. Today may be as hard as yesterday, but make me a new woman in the living of it. Tomorrow may be as glorious as my best memory. Make me a new woman to celebrate it. Thank You. That's all I have to pray. Thank You.

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Glimpses of Your Body United

There are glimpses, Lord, of Your Body united
and these glimpses are beautiful.

They let me know that this harmony, health and peace are possible,
and, in spite of other times that shatter this vision,
You will draw us like a magnet to Yourself.
There will be a time
when all the broken and dispersed pieces of Yourself
will come together in beautiful reality.

Lord, sometimes I feel as if I’m living in the valley of dry bones—
surrounded by parched and bleached body parts
disconnected from each other,
unable to perform the simplest function of the living.

But then I hear a voice and a sweet wind brushes my face
like angel wing tips in a dream.
I see a strange movement.
I feel an innate desire for being connected
moving through the bones:
a song sung in harmony,
an embrace between two who thought they had nothing in common,
a move to forgive before forgiveness is requested,
a meltdown of the spirit in some small group studying Your Word.

I feel it then in my own bones—a pull drawing me to the Head of focus.
I sense a warming in the marrow, a kindling of fire.
These times make me dare to trust
that the dislocated body parts will not only adjoin,
they will form the body of a beautiful Bride,
breathless with infatuation,
as she walks with perfect grace toward her Groom.

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My Body Aches

Lord, my body is throbbing from fatigue from all the Christmas preparations.

When I stop to consider the Messiah and His coming, I can't stop my mind.
I keep making mental lists of details, names I want to remember, things I have yet to do and foods I must buy or prepare. But I am not complaining, Lord. I love having a reason to do special things in Your name for people I love. I am grateful that Your coming makes the whole world sing! 

The business of Christmas brakes us all—even those who don't know You for themselves—from the craze of commerce for profit and accomplishment and turns our attention to others. The bell-ringers of the Salvation Army have become as much a part of the joy as Santa at the mall. And although the crèche can no longer be assembled in the city square, more of us are taking time to tell the children why we make the manger and its tiny Occupant such a part of our homes.

I feel the urgency more than ever to make for another generation a celebration that will make this the most important event of the year. This must not become just another day or even just another holiday. We must tell each other and the children that this Babe in a manger was and is the coming together of heaven and earth. But, Lord, help me keep that focus in my own heart.

Help me remember that there is nothing of value that doesn't demand sacrifice and effort. You Yourself came on a quiet night in a small town, but it wasn't the idyllic, effortless night depicted in the windows. There was blood and water and pain. There were insufficient provisions and fear. There were visitors at a time when Mary must have wanted privacy. From then on, You were putting Your own needs as a human being on the back burner for the Big Picture.

So, it is not out of character for Christmas to be wonderful and demanding, a time when fatigue and effort are invested for a few amazing moments of glory. It is for love. All this day, let me remember it is for love. 

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The Waiting

It is advent. 
I am waiting – waiting for Your coming, Lord.
There are so many places where I wait for Your coming.
You came to Bethlehem, that tiny place of an almost forgotten promise.
You came to Nazareth, a in no way spectacular town,
and You came to Bethany, Capernaum, and Jerusalem.

There are places in my life that await Your coming.
Here – where Your message of reconciliation is so needed;
or there – where Your tears could fall like they did over Jerusalem. 
I need You to come where it would take at least a choir of angels
to make the dullest of hearts aware of something eternal. 
I wait for Your entrance into those dark places of disbelief –
the crude and mundane corners of my existence so in need of starlight illuminations. 

Come where there is little privacy, comfort or warmth –
where animals feed and lowly service is offered.
How many times have I plunged headlong into the celebration of Your coming
without being assured of Your actual arrival?
I have gone more days than three “assuming You to be in our presence.”
But advent is not for scurrying or for assuming.
It is for waiting. 
May I recognize You when You come
not as the peak moment of our preplanned celebration,
but as the subtle surprise,
the simple object of wonder,
the God of small things.
I wait.  Come, Lord Jesus, come.

National Day of Thanksgiving

This day of national Thanksgiving
I have personal gratitude to bring to You,

For treasures on a very personal level:

For the fire in the kitchen hearth this man I love
kept burning through the night;

For the hodge-podge of wonderful objects-
furniture, pictures and child-art wall hangings-
that make up this home's cache of memories;

For the tables set by our sweet daughters
and the ghosts we see of those
who have sat in these same chairs over the years,
talking, laughing, crying, pouting, praying.

For the bubbles I feel in my stomach just knowing that any moment
children will burst through the door.

They will run to throw their arms around my legs,
children full of excitement for this happy day;

For the memory of those so dear
who were once so much a part of this day-
now thankful to be around Your big table;

For the pain You've brought us through, that distilled into victory,
making this and every moment sweeter
like the sap of a tree, bled into a silver pail,
then boiled around the clock
to make the golden nectar we call maple syrup.
Each drop is a big price--yet so sweet.

For Your presence, Lord,
that is the fire to distill,
the breeze to cool,
the storm to bend us low,
the sunshine to draw us upward.

No wonder our forefathers took such risks
and even died for the promise of a soil
on which they could kneel in repentance
and a clear space into which they could
freely speak their gratitude
and worship to You.

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Driving Through the Mountains

We've been driving through the mountains, Lord-
winding our way in an air-conditioned car up the narrow road
cutting through the towering oaks and maples,
pines and tulip trees.

The mountain laurel and sassafras sprouts are at eye level as we drive along
and I know the fragrance is heavenly
mixed with the musky smells of mosses and rich earth.

Why was I so timid, then, Lord,
when I suggested we roll down all the windows?

Why was I so easily silenced
when someone said the wind would mess up our hair?

Now, I know we will return to the flat plains with our hair intact,
but not our spirits.

The mountain trails were beautiful to behold,
but You gave us at least five senses
as avenues to transport food to our souls,
and we settled for using only sight.

We could have filled our nostrils with fresh mountain air
fragrant with a hundred rare perfumes.

We could have heard the leathery rhythm band
of colliding oak leaves accompanying
the song of a thousand birds.

We could have felt the wind in our hair, caressing our faces.

We could have stopped
and touched the shagbark hickories
and the smooth beeches.

We could have pulled up a small sassafras seedling
and nibbled on a sliver of root.

We could have peeked under a tulip leaf
to find the lovely yellow and orange blossom
so rare to huge trees.

We might have stopped at one of the pull-off places
and leaned over a cliff to see the valley below
and beheld vistas that would have taken our breath away.

But at least, Lord, we didn't sweat
and our hair didn't get messed up.

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Children on the Carousel

I watch the children on the carousel this morning, Lord.
They are mesmerized by the glittering horses,
the bejeweled elephants,
the undulating lights.

The merry-go-round starts to turn as the music plays,
and, one by one,
the images familiar:
mother, father, tables, cars, grass-
blending into a spinning blur-
disappear.

The children gradually come to embrace a new reality,
the world of bright, flawless animals,
colored lights, music box sounds.

Only peers populate their brave new world.
Their wide eyes become fixed
on the mechanized, artificial wonder—
blind to any other reality.

Lord, am I, too, spinning in my artificial world,
caught up in glittering plans,
dazzled by artifacts of our culture?

Are my ears so tuned to the tinny sounds
that fill my hearing that sweet voices of those I love
can no longer be distinguished from the din?

Has the centrifugal force of my running-around-in-circles
blurred Your dear face into oblivion?

Is my whole perception of reality
based on the habits and lifestyles of those who spin with me?

Slow me down, Lord.
Let my contrived machinery run out of steam.
Let the music stop.
Pull me out of my trance.

Let the light bulbs go out;
let the sunshine stream in!

Blow Your clean, fresh breezes into my stupored face.
Give me a hand, Lord.
Lift me from the phony conveyances
and set my feet on solid ground.

I may be disoriented for a while, Lord.
Steady me with Your strong arm.

At first, I may be blinded by the bright light of Your truth.
Be patient with me
until I can refocus on the images
You want to reveal to me.

Lord, lead me into a quiet place
where I can learn to hear the gentle sound
of the clear brooks of Living Water.

And, when I can bear it, let me hear Your voice;
let me see Your face;
let me walk in Your paths;
let me recognize the eternal in every fragile moment.

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Let's Talk about Seeds

Before sun and moon and stars, before there was light—there were seeds, just waiting, waiting full of the power of potential. 

As soon as there was land separate from the waters, there were plants with seed just waiting for light, just waiting for sunshine and the pull of the moon—there was the potential of reproducing every tree and plant God made on the face of the earth.  Before there were fish or birds or animals, before there was hunger, there was food—plants to bear flowers with seeds and fruit with seeds.  Seeds everywhere just waiting.  Before there was sunshine or dew, before there was seasons or cycles, there were seeds, just waiting.

And the seeds had intention:  to make more and more of whatever held the seed, perpetrating  ad Infinitum, a lush harvest to feed everything that was yet to be created.  Before the need, the seed.  Before the hunger, the food, Before the privation, the provision.

photo by Angela Kellogg

How like God to think ahead, to transcend the logic of all lesser creatures, to supply the needs of His creation before he made the life that would need it.  No wonder the metaphor of seeds is sprinkled throughout the sacred scriptures.

The poetic prophet Isaiah gives purpose to the rain and snow, that purpose being to come down as precipitation to make the seeds do what they were made to do, to bud and flourish so that they would “yield seed for the sower and bread for the eater.”  Only then could the moisture return to the clouds. That moisture (rain and snow) is a metaphor (says Isaiah) for the life-giving word that goes out from the mouth of God and does not return until it accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent.

The result?  We who receive the water of that word will...

...go out with joy and be led forth in peace
The mountains and the hills will burst forth
in singing before you, and the trees of the field
will clap their hands!

Not only is the refreshing rain that opens the seed the word of God, in Matthew the seed itself is the living word, and the tiny seed a metaphor for faith that can move mountains. In II Corinthians the seed is used to represent generosity in caring for those in need, seeds that keep on reproducing. I Peter talks about the difference between the seed from human reproduction and the seed that is eternal, the imperishable seed that makes us a part of the family of God. This seed of God is Jesus who took on the body of the seed casing (human form), a human body, so that He could go all the way to dying like a seed must do, so that the living, eternal seed could burst out, alive and green!

The Provision that preceded all things calls to the eternity in each of us, making it possible for us to bloom, “not of perishable seed but imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (I Peter 1:25)

This is the season of seeds.  Every grain of wheat, every kernel of corn, every soybean, every finished marigold or zinnia, every cattail by every pond, every apple, pear, and peach—all the fruit of every harvest is provision for new life.  Every seed surrenders to the burial of decay so that in the darkness of soil, its casing will give way to the promise of provision.

Let the abundance of seeds keep us from dark thoughts, fear, and despair.  God makes provisions before we are even aware of our need.

To All the Poets I Have Known

I am a debtor.  My life as a writer/lyricist has been infused with the generous gifts of others—some I’ve known intimately, some I’ve walked with for a time, some I’ve never met.  But I own them a debt I keep trying to repay
for giving me a poet’s eye,
a poet’s words
a poet’s pen.

They taught me to see beyond the object to the origin.
They taught me to recognize in the particle, the purpose.
They tuned my ear to hear not just the score being executed by the orchestra,
but the angel voices who first sang the music to the composer.

They taught me to pull back the camera of my eye
far enough from the seemingly unrelated specifics
to find big picture.

They modeled for me how to take the broken
fragments of a dream and push the shards
into the wet plaster of another day
to form a mosaic more beautiful
than the vapor of imagination.

 THEY ARE THE POETS I HAVE KNOWN.

 Here are but a few:
--My mother, who made me a designer wardrobe out of bargain
fabrics, masterpieces out of oil paint and canvas, legends
out of farmers, and funding for world change
out of a penny-a-day.

 --Louisa Bowler, a high shool English teacher
who insisted that a fifteen-year-old
had something to say to the President.

 --Milton Buettner, who barely escaped China
with his life when the Commune
rounded up the missionaries,
then inspired a class of Anderson College students
to write better than they ever thought they could.

 --The father of Thomas Wolfe who never got to be
the sculptor he wanted to be, but spent his life
carving tombstones so his son
could write great American fiction.

 --Lawrence Fogelberg, who spent his days
leading a high school band in Illinois,
but gave his artist soul so his son
whose songwriting inspired me
to capture life in song.

 --Stuart Hamblin, whose cowboy ballads
confirmed my belief that a song lyric
could be a whole sentence and that the audience
was as smart or smarter than the performer.

 --Garrison Keiller and Madeleine L’Engle who made me
trust the power of story.

 -- dozens of other poets whose skill with words
showed me that indeed the “pen is mightier than the
sword”.

And I owe a lifetime of gratitude to the man with whom I fell in love more than six decades ago because I recognized the poet in his soul--and the fine singers who have taken to the world what we have written in words and music.  They have given voice to the song in my soul.

I wrote this lyric as a love song to all the poets I have known.

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Harvest

Lord, it is harvest time.

The ripe fields are being cut,
their full grains carried by conveyors
into waiting trucks,
then driven off to storage bins.

Huge wagons loaded with baled grasses
move like awkward prehistoric animals
through the country roads, groaning
with the weight of their burden.

Apples and pears,
sweet and full,
are sorted into wooden crates
to be the central joy of craft festivals.

Root vegetables are being dug
and hidden in dark cellars
against the threat of winter.

Everywhere the reaping of fruit
and grains
and grasses
celebrate the faithful work of spring planting
and hot summer cultivation.

This, Lord, is the season to rejoice,
the season to enjoy,
the season to rest from labor
and to dance in streets and country roads-
around warm bonfires.

I feel it in my bones, Lord.
I, too, am entering the season of harvest.
For so long I have wondered what I would be when I grew up.
For so long I have done, as faithfully as I knew,
just what the day demanded of me:
daily tasks, tending children, meeting deadlines,
passing out love, finishing routines.

All the while I felt as if one day I would "turn out"--
do something special,
be something when I grew up.

Now, half a century of my days have passed
doing "regular" things the best I knew.

I smell the smoke of autumn fires,
and feel the days shortening.
I hear the rustle of "gathering in”.

I can see now, that the daily being
was what I was to do.
Even now, my days are so "regular,"
my chores so unspectacular.

Yet, I feel a festival in the air.
My grandchildren dance in the leaves on the hillside.
My husband hurries home to be warmed
by hot soup and a fire in the kitchen hearth
and by our well-tested love.

My work has, on wings of its own,
found its way into places I will never go,
but joy has returned on the wind
to sing at the festival.

Yes, this is harvest time.
The fruit is ripe and sweet.

Help me. Lord. to see the life You’ve given me
in a new and joyful perspective.
Help me to embrace the process of seasons.
May the harvest bonfires
be a sweet incense to Your nostrils, too.

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