The Open Door Saga Continues

Doors left open over night. (which made it in to the blog.)
A homeroom class that leaves the door of my building open to the great wide world multiple times every day, no matter what the weather.
Garage doors getting stuck open.
All these giving life a recurring motif over the last month or so.
And now this:

Two different times today young men stood while I walked from a great distance...at least 20 steps or so--stood to hold a door open for me. The first young man was very young, maybe 2nd or 3rd grade, and I don't know his name. I commented on his amazing politeness and patience for waiting while I walked the long way to the door. He lifted his chin and smiled largely, and for a moment he was like a son to me. The second young man is in 8th grade, and his name is Joseph. And I began to reflect:

So many of our life stories that we assume matter so much...but they matter so little.
So many of our life stories that we forget the moment they happen (and these boys have probably already forgotten holding the door for a woman at a distance today.)
We assume these stories matter so little...but they matter so much, because they speak things we don't hear, and they reveal things we don't see. And I began to wonder:

When the great equalization and justification and glorification (known to many as Judgment) comes, will we ever recover from the jolt we take in the course of resetting our priorities on things of eternal significance?


Mat 25:34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Bless This House, Oswald and the Owner

Today's entry in the Oswald Chambers devotional Daily Thoughts for Disciples seemed so fitting to what has been "proving" itself in our lives lately that I felt the unction to include it:

We sometimes wrongly illustrate faith by the faith of a businessperson in a bind. Faith commercialy is based on calculation, but religious faith cannot be illustrated by the kind of faith we exhibit in life. Faith in God is a terrific venture in the dark; I have to believe God is good in spite of all that contradicts it in my experience. It is not easy to say that God is love when everything that happens actually gives lie to it. Everyone's soul represents some kind of battle field. The point for each one is whether he or she will hand in, as Job did, and say, "Though things look black, I will trust in God."...
The basis of faith in God is that God is the Source and Support of all existence, not that He is all existence. Job recognized this, and maintains that in the end everything will be explained and made clear. Have I this kind of faith--not faith in a principle, but faith in GOD, that He is just and tue and right? Many of us have no faith in God at all, but only faith in what He has done for us, and when these things are not apparent we lose faith and say, "Why should this happen to me? Why should there be war? Why should I be wounded and sick? Why should my friend be killed? I am going to give up my faith in God.'


"Faith in God is terrific venture in the dark..." We lived this idea out in the course of anchoring our claim on this house in yet another way. We came up against a financial obstacle that we'd missed seeing, one that to many people might seem just a drop in the bucket--in fact, to us one year ago it would have been but a drop in the bucket; but now, it was a large enough obstacle to cause us to reconsider our "call" to this house entirely. Riding along with my sons and discussing our potential problem, I answered my 11-year-old's query about what we were going to do with, "Get used to living in this van."

But the day of discovery of this particular obstacle was also a day when God's messengers bustled with activity about it. In the end, my husband put this obstacle in front of the wife of the owner, and she released us from the financial obligation. An amazing, astounding act of grace extremely rare in our society, unless it is blatantly given to such as the shoeless in the Appalachians and the likes. Rarely is it given to someone who "looks" like they shouldn't need it. And that is a story in itself, but rather than run that tangent, I'll simply share the email I sent her Thanksgiving Night:


I felt the unction to send you this note about the day you gave us grace on this house for this need. We were at a difficult point then...so many things that were "supposed" to work favorably for us ended up working against us...from the help of our moving crew to the assurances of a renter at our old place so that our investment there would be freed up. By that day, Scott had almost hit a wall with regards to his faith that God really was involved in our decision to try to receive this house...in fact, he almost hit a wall over whether God was involved in much of anything with us. I hadn't lost faith in God so much, where I was faltering was in my sense of my own perception of His communication toward me. (I have his permission to share his faltering faith along with mine.)

The funny thing was, that morning, I woke up from a dream where these words were playing in my head. "Trust the woman..." Then my morning Bible reading had me reading about Lydia, the woman who offered hospitality to Paul during his missionary journeys in the book of Acts...offering grace specifically in a place of abode. Then during the devotions time at my school, the woman in charge of choosing a devotion read us the story to Babette's Feast in which a woman who secretly has great skill in cooking spends all her lottery winnings to offer a feast for the people who took her in during the French Revolution. The message was feminine grace in a place where a woman had the power to give it. All morning, women extending grace were parading before me. Later, when we discovered we'd missed the part of the lease that told about that payment, you took Scott's call and made a reality out of the day's foretelling of grace extended by a woman of influence.

Thank you so much. Today was really a day of joy and peace because of the grace you extended. We pray God will remember your generosity and bless you in kind.

Faith in God vs. faith in circumstances, and all to the affirmation of divine and human interactive relationship--a hallmark feature of life lately.

More of Being Barnabas

You wonder why you are stuck in this job. You are not so proud a man as to complain that the job is not impressive, rather your despair is that does not pay well enough for you to feel like you are supporting your family. We looked at the possibilities of good that might be hidden in this work you find yourself doing: of how time spent in such a job might give you the evidence of your family's love as a thing not solely dependent on what you do to make ur lives easy and materially rich; in short, that we do not measure your worth by the paycheck you bring home...I know this is a thing a man hopes is true but only a few families are positioned to "prove" the truth. You response was that you didn't want us to have to pay such a price for this evidence to be given of our devotion. I know the feeling. You are not the only one who is costing others their convenience and comfort. In part I think you work where you do to confirm things not just about you, but also about who I am to be. Here yet again we are being given instructional significance in that way I mentioned earler, as God's sermon illustrations for all creation. You work for a uniform rental company called Arrow. Look at what that says about you and me:

During dark days in the national life of ancient Israel, one king discovered a long forgotten book which was God's word to His people. No one remembered it really anymore. When this king discovered the book, he read it and was horrified at how far the people had drifted from their prescribed relationship with their Lord. Though other prophets lived in that day--such as Jeremiah and Zephaniah--this king chose to consult an obscure woman prophet to receive the Lord's word concerning how the people should respond to this scroll they had found:

So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asahiah, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college;) and they communed with her.
2Kings 22:14.

--and her husband was a keeper of the wardrobe, while she dwelt in a school.

They inquired of her for the sake of the Josiah, the king, who had just come to discover the word of the Lord...later, this name, Josiah, is connected with the Branch in Zech 6, and I have had a lot of thoughts about this one, the Branch, of late. Lots to learn about this one, but most pointedly these words form a description:
Take of [them of] the captivity, [even] of Heldai, of Tobijah, and of Jedaiah, which are come from Babylon, and come thou the same day, and go into the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah; Then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set [them] upon the head of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest; And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying,
Behold the man whose name [is] The BRANCH;
and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD: Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both. (both seeming to me to mean between the Branch and the one true Vine, Jesus Christ.) And they [that are] far off shall come and build in the temple of the LORD, and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto you. And [this] shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God.

Even that your company is named Arrow bears significance:

And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the Lord GOD shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. Zech. 9:14

Do not lose heart, my love, nor faith. Even as things look foggier here, they are growing crystal clear in the places that will last.

Bless This House, Part 2

Our stories matter more than we know. Here it is again, repeated from scripture; accompanied by a funny vignette on how it works.

Ephesians 3:9-13 says His plan is "to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord." Look at the prepositions again. What does that say to you? Paul speaks of this as a mystery of the church, indeed much of the church gives little attention to this honorable role they have been given: that of making the manifold wisdom of God known, and this accomplished BY the church TO the principalities in the air. You are the sermon to beings that can see you even though you don't notice them. And rarely do we know what these angels are discovering about the wisdom of God through us, but that does not change the divinely given order for it all. "

Upon coming to an understanding of the truth of this passage earlier this fall, we decided to cooperate with God about this house we just moved into, serving willingly as those illustrations in God's "sermon to the angels," as this was what He seemed to be asking from us. To agree to such a thing is not an easy task, but at least He is faithful in letting you know what "story" you are re-playing as a reminder, or even what story you are finishing that was left open-ended. We have been without internet for several days, so all the plots and sub-plots will need to layer over several days worth of blogging. But the story of our moving crew is a good place to start.

Our expectation was that the move would be difficult--if not near impossible--with the crew we had. But two days before the move, we learned that our church has a group that helps with emergencies exactly like ours. So a call was made to the group's leader to see what kind of help we could get for this move. She was going to try to add 4-5 people to our meager number. We breathed a sigh of relief.

When moving day came, however, no one from the church contingency was able to help. I don't share this news as a complaint nor to draw up a boil of shame on any of them. No, my point is that in this particular story, the church isn't supposed to be a help. However, I wouldn't be surprised if those that skipped helping simply so they could watch the Ohio State vs. Michigan game don't hear something about this missed opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus...but even that is not for me to decide. (And the game was on at our place for a good part of the move, anyway.)

No, in time I came to realize that this is after all a house established by the Lord, and when He walked such a story the first time around, the help given to Him by the actual "church" of His day was rather tepid until it turned downright dangerous. And this is the story we are re-viewing for the angels, reminding them how it was and teaching them how it might be when God begins to take active steps to revive His chosen people--the Jews, to restore them to Him, even as prophet after prophet foretold. As I wrote my original blog on our "receiving" this house, I said our move represented to me the idea of God moving His own people through revival into an awakened awareness of the nature of Jesus Christ. So the question became, just what would Jesus' crew of helpers look like in a story like this one? In a word, they were perfect.

First of all, if you include our two sons in the crew--which is fitting as they HAD to help--we had a crew of 7, God's number to represent perfection. And that's where God's sense of humor kicks in, for this crew was anything but perfection by most people's standards. It consisted of two women, three men, and two children. One of the men is diabetic and was having blood sugar issues, as well as having trouble with torn cartilage in one knee, requiring a knee brace and bringing considerable pain through the work. Another younger man, one we think of as a nephew if not almost another son, lives with the family of one of his friends as he has been estranged from his mother ever since she had him unjustly incarcerated in a juvenile correction center because he refused to live with her boyfriend. One of the women was cramping due to the onset of her menstrual cycle. One of the men was blind in one eye. One of the women has a physical condition that has diminished her strength. Finally, the little guys did the best they could to help by entertaining themselves, staying out of the way, and carrying what little they could handle. Though they didn't complain about it, they were famished by the time dark set in and the buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken were put on the table. The littlest one ate two platefuls of dinner rather than picking at the meal as is frequently his habit.

What did that mean? It meant we had representation from the following groups:
the sick
the lame
the unjustly imprisoned
the unclean
the young
the blind
the weak
the impoverished
and the hungry

Seems I remember Jesus saying these are the ones He came to serve. Guess they are saying that--as much as they are able--they will serve right back. So goes part two of the larger story of this house.

Chiaroscuro

CHIAROSCURO(n.) In Lighting or Scenic design (and the Art world), Chiaroscuro means the use of contrasts of light and shade, especially in order to enhance the depiction of character and for general dramatic effect. Many painters are said to be masters of Chiaroscuro (especially Rembrandt, Caravaggio etc.) From the Italian words chiaro 'clear, bright' and oscuro 'dark'. From the Random House Word of the Day website.

Here is a term I ran across again (one I haven't seen since my own days in high school) while making lesson plans for my theater class; but it also fits the contrast in many of our dreams of late, and most recently fits the complementary contrasts in my flight observations: between night flight and day.

In the broadness of day's light,
Man's ambition looks less bold
than when it gleams in the dark.

Here and there
only a thimbleful of human complication
is dumped,
marring the ordered chaos
that is the harmony of the hills.

A landscape for a giant child,
a boy-child
content to roll his grandmother's piecutter
back and forth over a sooty dough.
Haphazard, but consistent.
Back and forth.

And nothing but the putty-threads twining, twisting
making everywhere accessible,
these to show
how much man runs to and fro
in this giant child's world.

But because the strategies of this place
are too great for me to comprehend,
I look up,
and so You lift me.
Far above the view of either man or mountain
up to where we can stand and gaze
across a beach of clouds, one
scattered with basins of blue: the sky.
I looked at the frothing,
the furrowing,
the bubbling...

"You took Peter walking on the water, " I say,
"Now take me walking on the clouds."
And from Your place on that shimmering expanse
You reach out and--without hesitation--
take my hand.

edited to add this verse:
"Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth...
To Him who rides on the heaven of heavens, which were of old!
Indeed, He sends out His voice, a mighty voice.
Ascribe strength to God;
His excellence is over Israel,
And His strength is in the clouds."

Babel Revisited

(observations while flying on a dark night)

On a dark night
the Spirit of the Lord
moves over the face of the earth.
And while He moves, He observes.
He sees that man has created stars of his own.

Like hand-flung glitter lie
specks of silver and gold,
copper and bronze.
Lights that glow...
a frozen flow over black velvet mountains of earth;
lights tossed,
even as God's own hand
throws much the same essence into the sky.

For in this day--
and almost everywhere--
on that foundational field of black,
civilization encrusts the soft earth with the crystal light,
and like variegated fronds of precious metal
splays over the hills:
intricate, delicate,
rich, hard.

And so...

God looks up.
God looks down.
God sees the beautiful and the terrible,
observing what we've done,
His image the clay
in our hands.

God looks up.
God looks down.
And He wonders if we have found
yet another way
to be Babel.

But then--
--if the dark night is a clear one--
when the Spirit of the Lord
moves over the face of the earth,
He sees one more thing--
a thing that matters much:

For hidden in that black velvet
are rivers of life.
Dark as the rest of creation are they
in the night season, still
that invisible issue comes visible
when the water is kissed by the moon.

Elusive, but real--
as here for a moment,
a slow flash appears
as a silver thread gleams,
and there
a forked stick of light.
Here a luminous cell pulses
along an earth-artery,
spilling...there
into a light-disc:
a lake suddenly awash with opaque brightness.
And where the moon and the water touch largely
shadowy ripples glide like wraiths.

For the light must move,
being the offspring of it parents:
ever moving, ever reflecting
moon and water.
Too soon the water slips
to black again, lost from sight.
And the moon--without its consummator--
Is alone once more in the darkling sky.


But, on that dark night--
When the Spirit of the Lord
moves over the face of the earth--
He sees more than just this new Babel,
He sees the land still married,
and He honors the covenants He made.


Deu 33:13
¶
And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the LORD [be] his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath,

Deu 33:14
And for the precious fruits [brought forth] by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon,

Deu 33:15
And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills,

Deu 33:16
And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and [for] the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let [the blessing] come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him [that was] separated from his brethren.

Grandma's Present

Preparing to give some gifts is a chore...selecting wrapping, etc. Preparing Tickle-me Elmo for presentation hardly brings one to tears, but I believe 18th birthdays are magical, and my oldest son turns 18 tomorrow. Today I put together his "magical" gift and wept all the while I did it. It is both a stamp quilt made by his great-great grandmother and a scrapbook of poems and pictures I assembled, mostly candid shots of him with his grandparents interspersed with poems written by his grandma...the one who died almost exactly 11 years ago.

He was the only grandchild she really knew, but the legacy of the poems should be to all the grandchildren. Her heart was not one to play favorites. A few excerpts from the scrapbook-poems are below:

To Buddy…
I’ve missed you…
Where did you go?
I looked up and you were gone
Carried away in a pretty blanket…
…off in the night…
I’ll keep your crib up
and my chin.

Well I’ve got glasses
But I can’t find them now…
They’re not in my coat pocket
But since I have my coat,
I’ll stitch that seam in it…
When I find my glasses.

O Brave young girl
And I have two…
So bright, so beautiful
Somewhere…

Is this the night for me to sleep?
Who tucks me in?
Who will listen to my prayer?
‘Hi, Honey,’…
May I pray with you?

Gosh it takes a lot of fuss
For me to sit here.
My books, my cup of tea,
My glasses, my pen…
I should have thought to go before I sat down here.

Where are the angels?
Is there one before the one of death?
Should we look that up?
Or just look up…

Grandmas eat sugar and they are sweet.
Grandpas eat pepper and they shave it off
before they can kiss grandmas.

Will you thread this needle?
And find the blue thread
In my sewing box.
I’ll sew a memory…
I’ll mend this and
It won’t hurt a bit…

Grandpa got the Old Maid
And I laughed and laughed
And then he kissed me
And I smiled and blushed…
What a romantic game!

He doesn’t have to be anything
Just to be a boy…
He can sit on these books
In this chair
And solve this puzzle
For me…

Dear Buddy,
I’ll say goodbye here –
And leave the marbles
But I have a plot
Where you can use them –
There’s so much marble there already
And here’s my pen
And my glasses.
You write the sequel.
Love,
Grandma

And so he did. The following excerpt also made it into this scrapbook. He wrote it when he was in middle school.

...after you’d spank me
you’d always come and hug me
kiss me on the forehead
and tell me that you loved me

gee, now I see
what you want me to be
I’ll try and do my best
you put my heart to the test
so I have a dent, out of love
what I wouldn’t give for one more hug
from Grandma.

Sky-Writing at Night

Thursday night we flew out for my husband's best friend's wedding. And while the weekend was certainly dedicated to the magic of their nuptials, the flight out was a deeply spiritual moment of meditation and communion in the air, and all for me. I am ever astounded by the surprise visits I receive...but I should never be surprised by the ones that come to me when I fly...for the air is my element after all.

It began when the sun was setting on the far side of the plane. Out the window on my own side, a soft blue sky rested on a layer of clouds, clouds that puffed and curled, like a foreshadowing of the rich frosting on the wedding cake. Above those cloud-curls and cutting across that powdery blue was an arc, a band of pink and misty gold. All this was hanging below an almost full moon, white-bright and glistening.

And my heart said to God, "How amazing that You'd make such a beautiful scene and all for Yourself as man does not naturally have this view."

And Your heart said to me, "But this sky I made for you--as I knew you'd be up here to see it tonight."

Then I mumbled to myself and glanced back into the cabin, rejoining the other passengers as they slept and read and used laptops. I chided myself for entertaining such grandiose thoughts, told myself I had not heard You at all.

But when You perceived my thoughts, You said, "You must learn to love yourself better than that. Otherwise, how will you ever get any closer to comprehending My love for you? Will you only walk in your current knowing of the depth of My love for you? Why can't you believe that I'd take one miniscule patch of sky for you and that on but one out of a multitude of nights and fashion it for you simply because I love you? You think that it is too much for me to offer you?"

So I sent my gaze back out the window and I received the sky, like a newly betrothed woman drinks in the sight of the engagement ring on her finger so did my eyes hungrily lock on the band of pink and the gem of a moon. And as my gratitude swelled, You gave me even more in response to my faith; a deeper sign that the sky was mine, and that in being mine by faith it became more than mine. It became everyone's in the way they are connected to me, even without their knowing.

For the plane took a strange turn to the north again and flew over the first glitter of light from a city on a hill. Now out my window hung the sunset in full: a deeper blue and at the very horizon a satiny ribbon of brilliant red. Blue and red glowed in the sky and no other colors. Blue and red, the colors that say home and family and chosenness between Thee and me and mine.

You turned and tipped that plane to the direction opposite its heading for a brief moment. You gave me Your message in the sunset, then set us back on course into the darker sky. And I stayed with that view through that tiny window as the colors dropped away into the blackness of night where I even yet contemplated You.

Then I wrote a psalm into the dark. (Maybe I will put it here, and another day maybe I will speak of Our communion in the clouds as I flew home on the Sabbath. ) But for now, I'll simply remember how on that night as the plane began to drop, You spoke to me one last time. Whispered down to me as I left You there, hovering in the air, You said, "Now you know why I'd fashion a sky just for you...because of the way you give it back to Me."