More Rock Piles and Dying Stories

We ended school last week with the story of one rock pile built to commemorate a covenant of peace. And I wrote about that. Then on Sunday, another rock pile--rather two--figured into the sermon. I put the Scripture text below--but in essence this rock pile was invisible to the human eye until a miracle of God brought the rocks to visibility, to accessibility. It is one of my favorite "pile of rocks" stories in the Bible. Has been for a couple of years now.

As a friend of mine noted, there are many rock piles in Scripture, making it pretty easy to come across such stories with some regularity--but still the thematic nature of of all these rock piles struck me, making me all the more serious about what my pastor recommended: take time to remember the dying stories of life, the ones that shouldn't die. This pile of rocks was placed so that the Hebrews children would ask their fathers, what is this rock pile all about?

"What stories are dying all around you that need to be revived?" he asked us.

A thought-provoking question, especially in this culture that is so driven by that which is immediately urgent, whatever it may be. Who takes time to stop and consider such a question? Still, it is important. He closed by petitioning us to make note of those memorial rock piles, prayed that they inspire us to run the race well that takes us past them. He quoted this verse:

Hbr 12:1
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us...
...and he reminded us to seek that vitality for future purpose so that we might live well this verse from Hebrews 12.

Funny, that word vitality; it is another thing that has come before my eyes multiple times lately. One reference to it was in a health magazine. In it, the author of The Creation Health Breakthrough makes the following observations about vitality: "As a society, we judge our health by what we don't have; so if you don't have high blood pressure or diabetes, we figure you must be healthy." But she adds that what many Americans don't understand is that "if you have clean arteries but have a life without purpose, you're still missing a key ingredient of vitality."

The most significant reminder (aka rock pile) about the beauty of that vitality of life, however, came to me not from anything in my daily life or reading. Rather it came to me in my prayer life. Over the course of the last couple of years, I've walked in a more interactive, intimate experience with You, my Lord. One of the observational results of this to me was an incredible attraction to You that hadn't been a part of me before--an attraction to Your personality that took me a long time to define. It was in part this supreme vitality, but layered with that vitality was something I had a hard time quantifying until I realized--I was experiencing a personality completely devoid of all neuroses, empty of every hang-up, free of any inhibition that was driven by self-consciousness. Such "pure health" would come across as cocky, were it not for the depths of love and outward-interest that completely imbued it. A brush with such a soul can hardly help but leave the recipient so temporarily rich with vitality that the effect is ironically dizzying and weakening. It is this vitality that is--for me--the rock pile hidden under these currents, memorialized in the story of the Jordan Crossing.

It is a story to remember and share: the incredible enjoyment to be found in Your company--David spoke of it when he sang, "Better is one day in your house than a thousand elsewhere." He wasn't just waxing poetic. He was piling memorial rocks. Help me to ever see them, Lord!

Memorials to the Jordan Crossing
When all the people were safely across the river, the Lord said to Joshua, 2 "Now choose twelve men, one from each tribe. 3 Tell the men to take twelve stones from where the priests are standing in the middle of the Jordan and pile them up at the place where you camp tonight."
4 So Joshua called together the twelve men 5 and told them, "Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the Lord your God. Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder-twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes. 6 We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future, your children will ask, `What do these stones mean to you?' 7 Then you can tell them, `They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord's covenant went across.' These stones will stand as a permanent memorial among the people of Israel."
8 So the men did as Joshua told them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan River, one for each tribe, just as the Lord had commanded Joshua. They carried them to the place where they camped for the night and constructed the memorial there.
9 Joshua also built another memorial of twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, at the place where the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant were standing. The memorial remains there to this day.
10 The priests who were carrying the Ark stood in the middle of the river until all of the Lord's instructions, which Moses had given to Joshua, were carried out. Meanwhile, the people hurried across the riverbed. 11 And when everyone was on the other side, the priests crossed over with the Ark of the Lord. 12 The armed warriors from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh led the Israelites across the Jordan, just as Moses had directed. 13 These warriors-about forty thousand strong-were ready for battle, and they crossed over to the plains of Jericho in the Lord's presence.
14 That day the Lord made Joshua great in the eyes of all the Israelites, and for the rest of his life they revered him as much as they had revered Moses.
15 The Lord had said to Joshua, 16 "Command the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant to come up out of the riverbed." 17 So Joshua gave the command. 18 And as soon as the priests carrying the Ark of the Lord's covenant came up out of the riverbed, the Jordan River flooded its banks as before.

Rock Piles & Dying Stories

For three days, God, You have put altar piles before my eyes, so I decided to blog about it.

When I googled altar of stones for a fitting illustration, I found everything from Andy Warhol's rendition of the Rolling Stones tongue-hanging-out logo to a marble bust of Sharon Stone; I found everything from current, poorly-shot photos of people's in-home altars-- where one amateur's knick-knacks are another man's spiritually meaningful symbols--to the carefully crafted shots of altars found in archaeological digs--where experts are busy "...decoding ancient stone monuments."

And none of this was what you'd taken me to the stone piles to see. So I built my altar pile in my own mind, and here is what I see. First, I see that the rocks are gathered for the sake of remembering things that should not be forgotten. This is the most important thing about the pile.

Pro 22:28
Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.
Pro 23:10
Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless.

I think now of a dream I had, and told of here--my favorite dream. In it, I climbed into a unique upper storey of a house. Clothes instead of stones were what was piled in heaps everywhere in the strange wooden place of this dream. Above this place, via a hidden passage, was a magnificent and spacious apartment, lavish and well-kept despite it's uninhabited status. I was the first to find it, but I knew I was not to be the last.

On Friday, I went to pick my child up from a birthday party held in a refurbished log cabin. The children wanted us to see this unique house--and climbing to view the upper storey gave me a strong impression of being in this life's stage-setting for a re-enactment of that dream. It put me almost to the entrance of that amazing mansion hidden in realms above, and I hold my breath at the thought that this might be a true interpretation.

But for now, I pile stones.

The first stone is formed by the story we heard in chapel on Friday. It was the story from Gen. 31 of the building of a pile of rocks to serve as a reminder between two men who were for 20 years each others' almost enemies. Jacob and Laban were hard-pressed to co-exist, but the rock pile they built was called "witness heap" and "watchtower" as a sign of a final covenant of peace between them.

The second stone is more personal, but of much the same material as the first. For days now--as blog entries show--at least since Easter, I have had speckled things occupying space in my conscious mind. I dreamed of speckled animals. I was given as a gift a set of seven speckled eggs. They sit in a pottery dish on my dining room table, etc. And in this same chapter of Genesis, Jacob knew it was finally time to be set free of his father-in-law's tyranny and injustice when God sent him a dream telling him it was time to move on, a dream in which God reminded him of the speckled-markings that indicated the animals that were his rightful inheritance, his God-ordained inheritance. Due to the dream, Jacob left, under secrecy, until he was three days gone. At that point, Laban caught him. But God also led Laban through a dream, such that in the end "...they took stones and piled them in a heap, and they ate there by the heap," in a covenant meal of peace.

We followed that Bible story's retelling with a passing of the peace of our own--a sharing of bread. We spoke of many things the sharing of bread might signify, but for me it was this: it was taking that which the Spirit of God has put within me--what is the nature of Christ within me by divine dispensation through grace--and sharing it with another, and receiving that same Christ from him/her. Early Christians described this absorption of each others' new-life-in-Christ essence by the term "communion of the saints." It is a thing destined to be a beautiful part of our communal experience when we enter the next life. Christ prayed "that they may be one even as We are one" in hope that we would know deep soul intimacy not only with Him but with each other. Such is His profound humility and open heart. For me, this bread sharing symbolized that future state of being. Like a foreshadowing of the wedding feast of the Lamb, we became one in the exchange of bread, in the exchange of Him.

The first piece I broke off my roll and shared was with a friend who serves as the Christ figure in the school. And interestingly, we ate our bread in honor of his wife, who is currently estranged both from him and from the faith. Still, he thanked me for making her feel welcome and special and important. And we ate in faith that all would be well with her in the end. The last piece I exchanged with another friend, exchanged interestingly for his own last piece...and this time the prayer was for our children--boys whose own stories are like seedlings, ones that seem to show potential to have their own fruit to bear--fruits that may ripen toward the taste of friendship's bond that was evident in the lives of David and Jonathan. We prayed that such love might be a thing of strength, a thing that would continue to another generation even through the lives of such as these two little ones.

A third stone was piled that day. I sat next to a young woman--I've spoken of her here before. When I exchanged imaginary bread with her (because we were both completely out of bread by the time we found each other) and when I prayed for her, I told her I saw her as a beautiful gemstone set in the foundation of the city of God. This was the picture I saw for her when I prayed. She, too, was part of a pile of stones for remembering. She showed me that a friend of hers had given her a bracelet that morning. It was like a charm bracelet, only it was hung all around with colorful bits of stone and quartz, as well as a hammered silver piece engraved with the words: "...as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord..." a quote taken from the verse that goes: Jos 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

And so this girl is a type of an altar within an altar. And that was a beautiful part of the story, too.

And while this book of the Bible that she took me to bridges the gap to another pile of stones that were brought up from the depths for remembering today, stones are nevertheless heavy things that take time to move and consider. These stones are enough for now, and the rest aren't going anywhere. (smile)

Legacy Prayers as the Poppy Grows

An obscure Norwegian theologian recently put the idea of legacy prayers to my mind. These are prayers so constructed that they have a power to live and function beyond the life and/or personal contact between the one doing the praying and the one receiving the blessing of the prayer. Legacy prayers he said are like long gentle rains that offer continuous nourishment to a dry earth.

I know that legacy prayers sprang from my grandparents' lips, the fruits of which I continue to receive. Now as I come to see my days as a praying parent roll toward an eventual but definite end, my own legacy prayers come into the spotlight. What shall I pray for my own, and for other dear ones besides my offspring? What shall I pray such that not only temporal things are given the lingering scent of a loving God, but more importantly that eternal things are bathed in His aroma?

While I do not yet have the words for the prayers themselves, I certainly saw the beauty of evidence that they work. It is said in Scripture: For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; Romans 1:20
This day's observations are evidence of this truth.

We took a drive for Mothers' Day
that took us through a town
whose economic collapse
was something sudden
and extreme.

I noticed a common thread
in the landscape there
common to things I've seen
in other such places.

And the thread was spun like this:
tattoo parlors and piercing salons
where crisp barber shops once stood;
liquor stores as frequent
as other towns
--towns with less pain to forget--
might sport the white collar favorite,
Starbucks or
(because there are still children present)
MacDonald's;

What else sits
in that part of town zoned commercial?
The rusty shadows of old retail logos,
long removed from those ghost-town properties;

And in the residential parts
houses--
abandoned or not--
whose first thought-prompt thrown
to a passing viewer says,
"Grant me this dignity:
Imagine my appearance as it was
fifty years ago,
in the days of my glory."
And some viewers will accomodate the request,
and some won't.

These and so many other scenes like them,
these are the signs of land-death
come too sudden and too harsh
to a community.

...But still...
Both everywhere
and nowhere expected
(as these were planned and planted long ago)
the parade of perennials comes forth.

Unperturbed by the rise and fall of an ecomony
they are reborn again and again:
the deep purple iris
the glowing red hollyhock
the aster and the peony
they bud and bloom and dance.

But more than any other right now:
the Bonfire poppy flames.

Though long-days dormant,
(indeed bearing no noticeable foliage
when out of season)
still
like crepe-paper festivals
when the heart most craves a refreshing ornament
--and in those times
when the land lays in startled death
("Is this not the intended season of life?" it cries.)--
Then
then these bold ones bloom and blow,
blow in the winds likewise unchanged
(thought they came and went and came again.)
They dance in the same winds
that blew across the hands that planted them,
many years ago.

Purgatory

None of the churches I've attended have ever contained the doctrine of purgatory, but today's events certainly served as metaphor for such a state of being, should one exist. It was this day that we went to the storage yard of the towing company where the car was taken after your crash.

We went there to retrieve whatever could be retrieved from the remains of your vehicle. The short trip tired you, and so you are napping now, but for a while this afternoon you mustered the strength to ride to that place where nameless insurance companies rent space for the storage of those cars that can no longer serve their masters but whose final fate is not yet established. Some auction will be the final end of most of them--their parts, their scrap metal salvaged for other uses. But for now, their unique identities are not yet lost, only sequestered away in this hidden yard.

We rode to the gate and then walked the rest of the way to the car. It was like walking across a mosaic-tiled plaza as small shards of bluish glass and red and yellow bits of plastic crunched under our feet. In fact, the whole place was like a weirdly serene courtyard, and I could almost picture a fountain in the center of this gravel space encircled by cars just inside a chain link fence.

As I looked at these remains I thought how much they tell things we'd do well to remember, for there next to an old Buick was a fairly new BMW. And just behind a lustreless Olds was the tail end of a Mercedes, pushed back in a corner, as if its presence in this place could be somewhat kept secret, hidden--it couldn't, and how silly to think it mattered here anyway. Who sees them? What difference can they make in this place? And there were sad signs of other things that could no longer make a difference: a jack lying flat on the ground all alone, for what good could a fresh tire do for any of these wrecks? An oil can lying abandoned on a hood. Why open the hood and put oil in an engine that no longer fires and moves? Might as well go dry.

But strangely, there was beauty here, too. The foul smell of exhaust was missing. In fact, a sweet scent of some spring bloom wafted over the fence, coming out of a nearby wood; and the sound of bird songs was everywhere--all the more obvious because no revving engines served for competition.

Thirty dollars a day the insurance paid for a car to sit in this holding place, so no car stayed here long. All go ultimately to auction where that final value of each part is reckoned. We gathered scant armloads of things still undamaged: the garage door opener and a pair of sunglasses strangely un-bothered as they clung to the sun visor; a briefcase, a duffel bag--things that would bend and give space to those other things that would not bend on impact.

Quietly, we chatted with the man who ran the towing service. We stood there in the bright sun, made brighter as the gravel and grey dust and bits of glass reflected it back toward its origin. We shook his hand, before we left. And yet again, I looked at your broad shoulders, watched you walk a stride that becomes less and less strained and more and more familiar as the pain subsides. Once again, I thanked God that you are not yet in some place so much like this one, but made for mankind.

Food Fit for a Pioneer...

There are days when the bodies and minds of my family members
need to remember what it takes to live long and healthy lives--
on those days I broil our fish or steam our chicken, and couple the meat with flavonoid-rich veggies al dente or fresh salad.

But there are other days when it is our hearts that need to remember what it takes to live long and healthy lives--
and on those days I fry up sage sausage, potatoes, apples and onions in a skillet--and offer second helpings. And we savor for hours the lingering aroma and remember the important things of a good life.

Rainbows without Rain

A few years ago, I drove down a small-town street and saw a man walking along the sidewalk. Seeing him made my eyes go misty, made me gasp as if cold water had just been thrown in my face, because this man swung his arms in a unique way as he walked. When I was a child, I remember my grandfather swinging his arms in just the same way: palms open and facing due backward, not in toward his thighs, as is more common. It was a signature walk that never really registered with me as a child, not until I saw it again in that other man years later did it mean anything. And although my grandfather had been dead a good 25 years, nevertheless seeing that one small gesture brought the memory of Grandpa so full in my face that many other memories came along in that same flood, much like a point of breakage that collapses a dam, spewing a sudden rush through long dry channels reserved for memories. And as that mental water line rose, it swelled with the many times I saw grandpa walking. A rare gift was the feeling that came with that flood, a thing richer than just the experience of such "memory-water" when it is contained in the glass bowl of the rational mind, for it is more than just knowing what you remember; it is feeling it again, too.

The same type of liquid rush washed over me last night, but it was more like a rip tide, for it was connected to you, my husband, and you are in a channel still very active and bubbling with life. But circumstances yesterday brought the realization too near: the certainty that one day, the channel of life shared between us could indeed run dry. It happened when I looked over at you on the couch--one of many times I felt compelled to check that you were ok. While I watched, you stretched your arm a certain way that is characteristic of you. Like the swing of my grandpa's arms, it was a gesture that had never really registered with me consciously, but apparently has struck me many times subconsciously, because when you stretched, a knife-thought went through me: "That is so intimately you, and to think, I might have never seen that again." I couldn't help but let myself ponder, "what if...?"

What if instead of all of us sitting here in the living room watching a movie as you lapse in and out of a doze induced by painkillers--what if all of us were here, except you? One second lived differently in the course of your day, one glance in another direction. It really did come down to that. And I've lived through enough deaths of those dear me to know how it feels to run that canal, too. How incredibly fortunate I felt sitting there, hearing you breathe, just breathe, nearby. I must confess, I work very hard not to take anything about you for granted, but I see there is one thing I do take for granted--and that is your very life. I never really think about the day I might have to learn to live without you in my world. I never think about the era of my life when I'll only really "see" flashes of you on rare moments when someone crosses my path who happens to bear some distinctive commonality to you. Or will it be the other way around, as you find you cross paths with some woman who flips her hair or waves her hand in just such a way that you see me in the movement?

I hear you talk about this accident. You tell some people you were lucky. You tell others that you had all but given up thinking God really intervenes in the affairs of men, but that this incident makes you wonder if you should revise this opinion as it certainly seems possible that you were tapped on the shoulder by some guardian spirit. "Look back," says that voice that works like instinct. "React to approaching danger!" And in so doing, you saved not only yourself but maybe the whole family in the car in front of you as you absorbed much of the energy of the crash, and yet had put yourself at such an angle as to receive the least injury to yourself.

You pause and make thoughtful humming sounds as I tell you what Nolan's teacher said about the accident when I picked him up after we finished the long vigil in the ER: she said that your reason for being in this world is obviously not yet finished. Did I tell you that yesterday morning, when the boys and I left for school--about an hour before your accident--a huge rainbow sliced across a brilliant peach and blue sky, although the sidewalks were dry--there had been no rain. And I thought: a rainbow, the Bible tells us they are promise that God will not destroy. And wasn't it just that? Do we not know a God so loving that He'll give a rainbow even without the rain to those who care to get out and see it? He set the sky for me one time when we were on an airplane. I wrote about it. Yesterday, He set the sky for you, my love!

Literally for years now in your dreams you have seen yourself experiencing a shift in position, a change that gives you a new perspective on the larger purpose behind your role in the affairs of mankind. And in every one of these dreams, that new perception led to new activities on your part. So as you've now walked through this--your only encounter with a near-death experience--I wonder if these dreams are beginning to become your reality? I pray that if these are to be days of heightening awareness for you, that you might indeed find that larger perspective, that unfinished reason for being in this world.

And yet again, I am awed to be the woman in your life!