I was going to make this a chapter in my story about the Bride and her Beloved, but doing a little research makes me see I need to stop and record what I found.
My love--you know how you wonder about what leads us. "Maybe you're just psychic, a precog--not particularly involved in something relational with a Creator-being, just wired to be different. maybe that's all our dreams are, psychic stuff." you say. And this statement comes as I give you evidence to support it: dreaming that a friend is in danger of losing her baby, dreaming I become one with the child's mind, being its voice as it say it wants to share life with the mother, and dreaming people/angels stop what they are doing to help in this cause. Then I learn a few days later that even as I dreamed this, that very friend of mine was indeed needing such a dream-prayer, as she was 9 weeks pregnant (which I knew) and was so severely dehydrated that she was hospitalized for three days (which I did not know until after the fact.) She's fine now, but how strange that such things continue to happen in my nocturnal life.
But as to whether such things are guided by a benevolent creator or not, you feel a nagging doubt, for where else do we see evidence of His benelovence in our lives? And I can certainly understand your having questions, not bitterness so much as legitimate questions. How can we know? I think there are other things to consider--ones that tie what I/we "see" in these dreams to Scripture and to life, and do indeed point to a personality that speaks their origins. For example--and I told you about this one yesterday while I was still in my questing stage for an answer to this little riddle: I dreamed of a red gem stone followed by a white gem stone as they "skipped" across my field of vision. This happened a little less than a year ago. I pondered it a while, as despite its brevity, it had that "super-dream" quality to it...but eventually without further revelation, I forgot it. Then yesterday, I did a load of laundry, and as I pulled the clothes out of the washer, at the bottom of the tank I found two little stones--the polished ones that are used in games like mancala, etc. One red one, one white one. The dream came again and hit me full force. Still, though I had no idea what their reference might be. I prayed, "God, what is the point in showing me these little stones, the red one and white one--the blue one, if there is to be no context for them?" (The blue one was another old dream that came back because it became real in my life. I dreamed this one about a year and a half ago(?) In it, I sat down at a new desk at work and as I cleared the drawers of stuff left behind by the previous owner, a blue stone, like a little blue pearl, was in a drawer--a stone that I realized mattered a lot, as it was the missing one from an antiqued-silver figurine I had. I got the figurine and sure enough, the stone fit exactly. Now I just needed glue to make it stay in place. This was the dream. Then last week, I received a different desk for this school year, as mine was accidentally appropriated for another room over the summer break. As I went through the drawers of my "new" desk, one that had belonged to my youngest son's teacher last year, and pulled out her stuff to return it all to her, guess what I found in the drawer? A blue stone...not a pearl exactly, but enough in keeping with the events of the dream and its stone that it all popped back into my mind.) What is the meaning behind the little stones? What are they telling me to do, to pray?
Then I sat down today and began to look for a reference for the next installment in the little poetic work I'm doing here regarding the Bride and the Christ, and as I read the reference I was seeking--seeking for an altogether different reason--I found Narnia, so to speak. I saw the red and white clothing and realized why these references, what I am to pray, and that these are not the things of random psychic flotsam in a cosmic consciousness, but are directed, and have been prearranged, preannounced, and now explained with meticulous care. The main thing that strikes me is that my own daily life again must recede into the realm of "that which doesn't matter as much as I think it does." For a Being awaits the work of prayer to be accomplished, waits to ride out on a white horse; and his robe is dipped in blood, and he is followed by an army robed in white. Like two small stones skipping out, on their way to being at the bottom of a profound cleansing of all other robes. In the language of the One who speaks to me, it is as loud as audible words to my physical self. I can question the significance of my own daily travails to the One who makes such pronouncements, but His existence is irrefutable to me. I pray that we make it through these trials to stand side by side in His strength again soon, my love! I pray that most diligently!
And I pray--with the words of a child and not a wise man--that the red and white stones do indeed go skipping on their way!
The prompt:
Revelation 19:10-14
"...Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."
Christ on a White Horse
11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
The Beloved and the Bride
When the Bride's Sabbath was ended,
she took up her work
as a Bride of a King.
Sitting beside Him, she packed baskets,
filled with goodies,
each unique, but for one thing:
every basket held a small box:
a velvet-covered frame caked in gold filigree
encrusted with gems:
A rococo masterpiece.
Every basket, every time,
she would carefully open the box
and check for the pearl hidden inside.
Oh, some recipients would settle short of the mark;
and
enthralled by the be-jewelled box alone, they
would never think to open its latch.
For these,
the pearl's presence made no difference.
But others would wonder...
and these must find the answer to the mystery of their faith,
the treasure in the velvet depths.
Each time a basket was readied, she would hand it to a soul
awaited commissioning.
And she would speak a destination:
"Barnard's Loop," or
"the Trapezium Cluster..."
and with a smile, she would add the blessing:
"Find Life."
The her Husband would stretch forth His hand
and a flash of light would vanish the basket and its holder
from their presence.
Once, between baskets, she turned
to her Husband, her King,
and she laughed,
"I don't know why I put so much care into these baskets--
--if their carriers don't find You again,
these are just worthless trinkets they carry."
He smiled in return and took her hand,
playing her fingers like harp strings,
and said,
"Ah, but the ones who do find Me--
what amazing things they do with those trinkets."
So she continued in her bequeathing:
a hope here, a dream, a talent there.
Another pause,
and she observed:
"I never knew I'd love my work so much
in this place.
I never dreamed You'd make such responsibility to be
my allotment.."
"No? Did I not tell you I had other sheepfolds?
And in this place, many mansions?
Why should I not trust you with the workings of them?
You chose Whom you would serve; and
in dark adversity, you stood by your choice.
You chose well. And so here,
Love can be love openly,
in work and in rest."
She shook her head,
quoting ancient words,
"What is man that Thou art mindful of him?"
And so she regressed to a former work,
back into the womb of her former self,
pausing in the basket-filling to embrace this other work,
a pre-historic work by her fully-born standards:
she prayed for the world of the womb:
"O Ancient of Days,
O Exalted One,
may Man have such a heart as to never be disgruntled
should You choose to expand love yet again,
encompassing new creation.
May Man retain such knowledge and wisdom
that he would allow his home,
the new heaven and the new earth,
to serve as launchpad
for all things fashioned by
the One known as
Creator.
May Man never question the balance of the scales
those measuring his worth--
--as once before at such a climax
a great star fell,
lightning from a cosmic sky,
a sky that had not known gravity
had not known balanced scales
before that day.
Now,
at such a climax again,
let creation, primed and groomed,
sing Your praise
should Your Dayspring Love's light
diffuse evermore."
she took up her work
as a Bride of a King.
Sitting beside Him, she packed baskets,
filled with goodies,
each unique, but for one thing:
every basket held a small box:
a velvet-covered frame caked in gold filigree
encrusted with gems:
A rococo masterpiece.
Every basket, every time,
she would carefully open the box
and check for the pearl hidden inside.
Oh, some recipients would settle short of the mark;
and
enthralled by the be-jewelled box alone, they
would never think to open its latch.
For these,
the pearl's presence made no difference.
But others would wonder...
and these must find the answer to the mystery of their faith,
the treasure in the velvet depths.
Each time a basket was readied, she would hand it to a soul
awaited commissioning.
And she would speak a destination:
"Barnard's Loop," or
"the Trapezium Cluster..."
and with a smile, she would add the blessing:
"Find Life."
The her Husband would stretch forth His hand
and a flash of light would vanish the basket and its holder
from their presence.
Once, between baskets, she turned
to her Husband, her King,
and she laughed,
"I don't know why I put so much care into these baskets--
--if their carriers don't find You again,
these are just worthless trinkets they carry."
He smiled in return and took her hand,
playing her fingers like harp strings,
and said,
"Ah, but the ones who do find Me--
what amazing things they do with those trinkets."
So she continued in her bequeathing:
a hope here, a dream, a talent there.
Another pause,
and she observed:
"I never knew I'd love my work so much
in this place.
I never dreamed You'd make such responsibility to be
my allotment.."
"No? Did I not tell you I had other sheepfolds?
And in this place, many mansions?
Why should I not trust you with the workings of them?
You chose Whom you would serve; and
in dark adversity, you stood by your choice.
You chose well. And so here,
Love can be love openly,
in work and in rest."
She shook her head,
quoting ancient words,
"What is man that Thou art mindful of him?"
And so she regressed to a former work,
back into the womb of her former self,
pausing in the basket-filling to embrace this other work,
a pre-historic work by her fully-born standards:
she prayed for the world of the womb:
"O Ancient of Days,
O Exalted One,
may Man have such a heart as to never be disgruntled
should You choose to expand love yet again,
encompassing new creation.
May Man retain such knowledge and wisdom
that he would allow his home,
the new heaven and the new earth,
to serve as launchpad
for all things fashioned by
the One known as
Creator.
May Man never question the balance of the scales
those measuring his worth--
--as once before at such a climax
a great star fell,
lightning from a cosmic sky,
a sky that had not known gravity
had not known balanced scales
before that day.
Now,
at such a climax again,
let creation, primed and groomed,
sing Your praise
should Your Dayspring Love's light
diffuse evermore."
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
A Prayer for My Love...
O God,
My husband prayed for me on here, a prayer given some time ago. I re-read it; and even though he doesn't visit here much anymore, I take comfort every now and then from the words he said in prayer over me. Now he needs someone to pray over him. So I ask some of the same things for him that he asked for me--
He's tired. He needs rest, but he has no corner of time in which to take it. The "sweat of his brow" isn't even affording my husband the fruit that You told Adam he'd harvest--and that was in the context of being cursed! Little wonder Scott begins to doubt that You are real. As he puts it, "I see myself as a pretty resilient guy (and I'd agree) but I've taken so many hits lately that I'm not sure I can get back up after another one."
For example, the fact that even as he is trudging through life not feeling very well ever since the car wreck (and not getting a concrete diagnosis as to why he still doesn't feel "quite right") even now he has to deal with weird things like the IRS making some error that in essence split him into two people. Because we reported his income on our joint return two years ago, the IRS looked at this "other Scott" and classified him as a person who never paid his taxes on the income his work-place reported and therefore this Scott now owes the government $12,000 in taxes and penalties for not filing his income taxes. Who in the world does this sort of thing happen to? Is it common, or is it as fantastic as it seems to me to be? An hour's investment on the phone got him through to someone who could "reportedly" correct this strange split-personality the government tried to lay on his tax-life, but the stress of finding that letter in the mail and knowing that once again a potentially devastating loss lay at our doorstep, and that once again we were at the mercy of others--at most all he could really do was to explain the truth of our situation to the IRS agent and provide documentation of our filed and accepted tax forms and hope for the best. Our own empowerment to make justice prevail was non-existent.
So he is worn down. Hit after hit--from the expected to the wildly unlikely--are taking the grit right out of his heart for the future. If he is a tool for the testing of the integrity of others--even to the point of testing the IRS, good grief--then I pray You'd lay him down and let him rest. He's worn down to the nub with all this use in Your hand--by His own estimation. You claim to know us better than we know ourselves, but he is so battered right now that he is struggling to hang on to his belief that You are there at all, let alone that You care about his welfare. O God, love my husband! Love his life! Make him lie down in green pastures and restore his soul!
In the name of my Lord who died to set men free!
Amen
My husband prayed for me on here, a prayer given some time ago. I re-read it; and even though he doesn't visit here much anymore, I take comfort every now and then from the words he said in prayer over me. Now he needs someone to pray over him. So I ask some of the same things for him that he asked for me--
He's tired. He needs rest, but he has no corner of time in which to take it. The "sweat of his brow" isn't even affording my husband the fruit that You told Adam he'd harvest--and that was in the context of being cursed! Little wonder Scott begins to doubt that You are real. As he puts it, "I see myself as a pretty resilient guy (and I'd agree) but I've taken so many hits lately that I'm not sure I can get back up after another one."
For example, the fact that even as he is trudging through life not feeling very well ever since the car wreck (and not getting a concrete diagnosis as to why he still doesn't feel "quite right") even now he has to deal with weird things like the IRS making some error that in essence split him into two people. Because we reported his income on our joint return two years ago, the IRS looked at this "other Scott" and classified him as a person who never paid his taxes on the income his work-place reported and therefore this Scott now owes the government $12,000 in taxes and penalties for not filing his income taxes. Who in the world does this sort of thing happen to? Is it common, or is it as fantastic as it seems to me to be? An hour's investment on the phone got him through to someone who could "reportedly" correct this strange split-personality the government tried to lay on his tax-life, but the stress of finding that letter in the mail and knowing that once again a potentially devastating loss lay at our doorstep, and that once again we were at the mercy of others--at most all he could really do was to explain the truth of our situation to the IRS agent and provide documentation of our filed and accepted tax forms and hope for the best. Our own empowerment to make justice prevail was non-existent.
So he is worn down. Hit after hit--from the expected to the wildly unlikely--are taking the grit right out of his heart for the future. If he is a tool for the testing of the integrity of others--even to the point of testing the IRS, good grief--then I pray You'd lay him down and let him rest. He's worn down to the nub with all this use in Your hand--by His own estimation. You claim to know us better than we know ourselves, but he is so battered right now that he is struggling to hang on to his belief that You are there at all, let alone that You care about his welfare. O God, love my husband! Love his life! Make him lie down in green pastures and restore his soul!
In the name of my Lord who died to set men free!
Amen
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
The Bubble and Isaiah 65
I dreamed once of the Bride of Christ walking, and she wore a beautiful gown. The gown had a lining-layer of peachy-gold over which swelled and popped myriads of different bubbles, all glowing warm colors as they rose. Scripture says that the Bride's gown is made of the righteous acts of the saints, so I began to think of each bubble as a righteous saint getting his/her share of space on the gown, or maybe as a particular facet of righteousness being made real by the various saints called to activity in its context. Interestingly, I found this article about our understanding of the formation of bubbles:
Scientists had thought bubbles form when jostling liquid molecules create pockets of low density in the liquid containing relatively fewer molecules than surrounding regions. Most of the time, other molecules will just rush in to fill in these air pockets. However, an exodus of molecules can also occur, causing the pockets, or bubbles, to grow.
David Corti, a chemical engineer at Purdue University in Indiana, compares the process to scaling a mountain. A pocket of air begins at the bottom of one side of the mountain (the liquid phase) and must climb the mountain and reach a destination on the other side (the vapor phase) to become a bubble.
"A small bubble needs to climb up one side of the mountain, cross through a reasonably well-defined mountain pass before it rolls down the other side of the mountain towards forming very large bubbles," Corti explained.
According to the conventional view, once the bubble makes it over the pass, it tumbles down the other side of the mountain like a snowball, picking up more molecules and growing bigger.
The new computer simulation suggests there "is no other side of the mountain," Corti told LiveScience. "Once it gets over the pass, we have found that the mountain just disappears, in a sense."
David Corti, a chemical engineer at Purdue University in Indiana, compares the process to scaling a mountain. A pocket of air begins at the bottom of one side of the mountain (the liquid phase) and must climb the mountain and reach a destination on the other side (the vapor phase) to become a bubble.
"A small bubble needs to climb up one side of the mountain, cross through a reasonably well-defined mountain pass before it rolls down the other side of the mountain towards forming very large bubbles," Corti explained.
According to the conventional view, once the bubble makes it over the pass, it tumbles down the other side of the mountain like a snowball, picking up more molecules and growing bigger.
The new computer simulation suggests there "is no other side of the mountain," Corti told LiveScience. "Once it gets over the pass, we have found that the mountain just disappears, in a sense."
This is interesting to me in part because of the timing of my exposure to this information--the idea that at the end of the uphill climb comes an easier time than was once understood for anyone "riding a bubble." The question of "life after the hard mountain climb" has been tantamount for me of late, too. I blogged several entries lately lamenting things that need to change and don't as well as things that change disruptively. I've questioned how to understand the role of faith in a world where a God who "can" simply seems like He "won't." The mountain pass seems to go upward without end.
"Why, God?" I've asked several times. How do I hang on to the belief that after this life, peace will prevail? Sunday I stood in church and underneath the song I sang, I prayed for forgiveness because I sang about You as a mighty deliverer, but I felt no assurance of the truth of those words. Our relationship leaves me no doubts about the fact that You love me, so why the hang up in finding peace among the living in this world where You are after all the Overcomer? Why the constant barrage of "bad luck" happenings, year after year? What is the lesson I'm not learning? Strenuously, I asked, where do I hang my hope in this particular phase of life? Can I be sure I haven't missed the boat, leaving You to the re-teaching of the same lesson over and over again, the lesson that I'm too pig-headed to learn? The bubble-mountain swells, now looming large enough that to look to the horizon feels mighty precarious, but belief in what is on the other side of the mountain is still uncertain to all but the eyes of faith. Now this article says there may not be another "side" to that water-molecule mountain that the forming bubble traverses. And this scientific discovery seems to match the spiritual discovery You made available to my grasping soul.
I reasoned with You, like Job, pointing out that even as You send signs of a "blessed inheritance" being ours, nevertheless hardship prevails, delaying that inheritance to the point of its very existence being questionable. And if that inheritance is so important as to be announced to us, then what purpose lies behind all the trouble? "What do we need to figure out so You can relax this hedge of trials around us, God, and bring us out of the maze of this life and bless us? Must we die to receive this inheritance? Is that the end of our faith?" But again, all believers have that hope, and it hardly needs special revelation as to its coming. So what is this inheritance, and when will the peace and nearness of You no longer be compromised by the forces of this world? Is this so hard to accomplish? Are my prayers full of strength and effectiveness in all area but this one? Again, why?
And God was gracious and opened the eyes of my perception. This, too, I dreamed now that I think about it. White, translucent scales fell off my eyes at the touch of Your hand in a prayer-dream once, and I wondered at the time what I wasn't seeing, but I knew I should pray to see. It left me with not a little trepidation. Now the scales have certainly fallen off regarding this particular challenge to my faith. Funny how those dreams come back to mind when their associated prayers come real, because I dreamed that dream of blindness a year ago at least, and haven't thought of it since. But now, it revives, even as my vision is changed. God knew I needed His character clarified for the health of my faith, and He accommodated that need, even teaching me to ask for it ahead of time. Such is His way of working.
Mainly, the larger picture of my situation came to me as two randomly given scriptures came tumbling in on top of each other in my study-life. The first was this:
"God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight; but
to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may
give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for
the wind." Ecclesiastes 2:26.
The second reference encompassed practically the whole chapter of Isaiah 65, the chapter about the righteousness of God's judgment. God spoke to the future of those who prepared a table for "Fortune" and a drink offering for "Number, or Destiny" (both these names in quotes are the literal translations of the names of the pagan deities mentioned in this prophecy, but I can't help but think of the contemporary emphasis on prosperity in off-shoots of Christianity and the concurrent emphasis on gematra in off-shoots of Judaism, even I myself have found You speak to me in numbers, but not to the point that I deify the numbers as the prophets of my fortune, nor do I look to the wealth of this world as a sign of Your approval of me.) As to what was to come for those who are so inclined in their worship, Isaiah claims God says the following:
Therefore thus says the Lord God:Both of these references remind me of the balance that my self-focus is primed to ignore. Strangely, seeing that my life is caught in this balance actually increases my significance (instead of lessening it as a surface glance might incline me to believe) to the God who will ultimately deliver me. So often You answer questions with questions, Jesus. The one You put to me: will my current level of faith accept the delay in the "blessing of me" as being a good thing for others in the sight of God? Eventually, there will be people living--and appear likely to be on earth even now--for whom it is true that when the "former troubles" are no more, it will be because those troubles are hidden from Your eyes, forgotten entirely. When Your divine balancing act occurs, the price I pay now will flip over to being a cost to those who have it easy, easy at the exclusion of You from their lives. I've known this tenet of the faith before, but never quite so deeply as it strikes me now.
"Behold, My servants shall eat,
But you shall be hungry;
Behold, My
servants shall drink,
But you shall be thirsty;
Behold, My servants shall
rejoice,
But you shall be ashamed;
14
Behold, My servants shall sing for joy of heart,
But you shall cry for sorrow
of heart,
And wail for grief of spirit.
15
You shall leave your name as a curse to My chosen;
For the Lord God will slay
you,
And call His servants by another name;
16
So that he who blesses himself in the earth
Shall bless himself in the God of
truth;
And he who swears in the earth
Shall swear by the God of
truth;
Because the former troubles are forgotten,
And because they are
hidden from My eyes."
And You ask me to look in that same chapter, where You say:
"As the new wine is found in the cluster,
And one says, 'Do not destroy
it,
For a blessing is in it,'
So will I do for My servants' sake,
That
I may not destroy them all.
9
I will bring forth descendants from Jacob,
And from Judah an heir of My
mountains;
My elect shall inherit it,
And My servants shall dwell there."
You show me those grapes. You ask, "What do you have to say about My omniscience in sight of those grapes when they are put in the lap of your current life?" I want to say that if my patience, perseverance and willingness to wait for that inheritance in any way protect that new wine that hides in the cluster on the vine, then help me endure these days until You reap, help me remember Your purposes.
So once more I am reassured of Your power to prevail, and of the why behind Your hesitancy to set me/us free. Somehow, it seems, when I break free of the bondages of this life, in those days when Your elect and Your true servants receive what waits in Your hand, bigger change is in the offing than just an easement and a small blessing on our daily burdens. This time, it is going to be different.
So again, I will believe and anticipate that world You have in the palm of Your hand; the world You hold loosely, not yet scattering it at the feet of Your people, but nevertheless moving Your cupped hand nearer to their famished hearts, giving them a peek at what You hold there for them.
The Glorious New Creation
17
"For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
And the former shall not
be remembered or come to mind.
18
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create;
For behold, I create
Jerusalem as a rejoicing,
And her people a joy.
19
I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
And joy in My people;
The voice of weeping
shall no longer be heard in her,
Nor the voice of crying.
20
"No more shall an infant from there live but a few days,
Nor an old man who
has not fulfilled his days;
For the child shall die one hundred years
old,
But the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed.
21
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
They shall plant vineyards and eat
their fruit.
22
They shall not build and another inhabit;
They shall not plant and another
eat;
For as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people,
And My
elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23
They shall not labor in vain,
Nor bring forth children for trouble;
For
they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the Lord,
And their offspring
with them.
24
"It shall come to pass
That before they call, I will answer;
And while
they are still speaking, I will hear.
25
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
The lion shall eat straw like the
ox,
And dust shall be the serpent's food.
They shall not hurt nor destroy
in all My holy mountain,"
Says the Lord.I can hardly read those words without my vision going tear-blurred, God. If the picture You painted weren't so beautiful, it would be so much easier to wait.
Nevertheless, thanks be to God for the vision.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Change and Confession
Too much change in the air:
So much change that I could blog a dozen blogs on that one topic;
So much change I only really have time for one.
I could talk about my son going to college.
I could talk about going back to teaching after summer break.
I could talk about beginning a new "moonlighting" job selling wares at Farmer's Markets, town festivals and hopefully church bazaars. I'm sure I'll blog on this one as I wade deeper into a whole new community of people: the crafters. (smile)
Mostly today though, I need to focus on the one change that appears to be under the spotlight of my spiritual and relational life. My husband has joined a Christian rock band.
Several things strike me about this band:
--It is a ministry band, so it is something my husband has prayed to have in his life for a long time, and now it is being given to him. But...they play music that sounds like a cross between Van Halen and Heart (they have a gal singer.) Because of my own tastes, even in rock music, being quite far removed from this sound, I can't say I draw any affinity-inspiration from hearing them. (By no means am I saying this to be critical, for they are quite good at what they are doing. I'm just stating it as a necessary element in this string of self-reflection.)
--It is a band that has decided to practice in our basement. Because their sound resonates outside the house (particularly the bass and drum parts) I skulk out to the garden to water it of an evening, hoping I don't wind up being the one to take the lashing if any neighbors should decide "enough of this!" And I duck my head when I'm out front and people drive by, turning and staring with a startled look as they pass the house with their car windows open. My problem: I really don't want to get a "reprimand" from the community group. Having always been a quiet, cooperative and accommodating neighborhood member in the past, the thought of this change of personality in the community makes me unsettled, especially if I wind up being the front man should criticism be raised.
--I fear what it will ultimately demand of me personally. The band members are wonderful people, I really like all of them a lot. They are enthusiastic in what they are doing, but sometimes this frightens me in terms of what requirements will unconsciously be laid at my feet based on their priorities. How do I decide what boundary to set about my own time? Am I "supposed" to watch their kids and cook them meals as they practice since they have decided to practice at our house? So far, I've resisted this because of my own personal history. I've been drawn into that type of situation before, and I know how difficult it is to set a boundary after "services rendered" become the norm and the expectation. It is especially frightening because the future is a big unknown as they book gigs and look to grow now that they have a full complement of players/singers. Taxation without representation started a revolution once, and a fear of such a state of being for myself seems to be steeped in my own personal roots. One of the other band member's wives forgot to pick him up after rehearsal last night, so I'm wondering if I'm not the only one in the wings struggling with these feelings, but I can't speak to her feelings definitively.
--Paradoxically, that last point leads me to consider the one non-change that I think is troubling me the most. Minor points of change I could take if it were not for this one thing: the lack of power to positively affect the directional flow of the waters of my own life lo, these many years. This has been really tough for me. Now past years already cast in stone and stony shadows of the future loom as I once again experience things presented to me one way that then pan out to be something different. Somehow this taps some hissing volcano in me, because even in small things, this sense of encroachment prompts me to react badly, as it is all too familiar.
Am I alone when I notice that life seems like a constant uphill battle against manipulation? Is this a female thing? A middle-class Christian woman thing? And how do you fight it without looking like a hag, for none of it is conscious manipulation, it is just everyone pressing against the nearest wall as they seek to make their own priorities the ones that come out on top in a priority scramble. It's the American way, after all. But as has already been noted by contemporary sociologists, there's no vast frontier to launch our dreams across, in fact there's so little space left for "growing" in America now that for someone to grow literally and figuratively means someone else has to give up space. How do we take turns and play nice? And do I as a woman have a turn at all? No wonder the women's and civil rights revolutions happened. Or maybe that's putting the chicken before the egg. But waxing philosophical hardly solves my problem.
So how much space will I give up? For instance, how do I react when this space is invaded: I'm repeatedly told one thing, but then another happens...and not by forces unavoidable, but by some level of choice, and in a way that puts a negative turn on my own life. The first few times this sort of thing is accompanied by an apology, but when that proves too painful or maybe too obviously repetitive to justify, then come the times when I'm presented with the argument that the "change" from the original plan should be seen as justified because it is such a small change after all, or even worse, because I am supposedly mistaken in the way I remember things anyway. That last one makes me want to put a fist through a wall in frustration, because it feels like I am being told to swallow something dishonest, it feels like I no longer warrant the apology--and a fist through a wall seems the only way to make some space and get some oxygenated air. But maybe this is the very place where You, O God, are trying to teach me to quit trying to breathe. We all are called to die daily. Why am I surprised when I find I have trouble sucking in air? Why am I making it about me? So I come back to this:
It is important to remind myself that I am not intending to say all this not as complaining, but as confession. I can't believe that all these self-protective fears and whining are the right way to go.
My husband dreamed once that he and I were walking in a fun house; a spotlight over us helped us find our way. But as we went, that spotlight kept shrinking until in the end of the dream, the lighted floorspace was only large enough for the two of us to stand in. Currently, I feel a shrinking on my side of the light. And as I read today's devotions, I came across a pertinent quote: "You husband will never truly be yours until you have first given him back to God. He is yours only when you are willing to let him go wherever God calls him and do what God wants him to do." (Lisa Trotman) I thought I'd done this, but I forgot that in being one flesh with him, this "giving back" feels like cutting off a limb. Oh, God, as You call my love to follow the dream You planted in his heart, am I the one asked to pay the price? Am I the one called to cook everybody pizzas while he is down having fun flailing on the drums? (smile) Is his dream my drudgery, not according to his plan, but according to Yours? So do I wish for him to abandon his dream? Of course not. He's loving this, and I love it for him. But my question is whether I am allowed to dig my heels in and say I won't be a band flunky. I feel guilty because my reactivity seems inordinate. I'm reacting in part through what I've learned over the years as musicians have been everywhere in my world, and almost all of them assume that everything in life is peripheral to the nucleus of their music, and when it is music for You, well I feel ashamed for reflecting even this much on the topic of my "rights"...
You told me, God, that You were going to work on fear in me--that You were going to teach me to be less fearful. I must admit, this one hits right to the quick of me. Without Your strength, there's no way I can help but fear that if You decide to bless my husband's music ministry, it will consume every shred of freedom I have left after the havoc of these last few years. None of this is attitude-stuff to be proud of, so I can certainly understand why You'd roll up Your sleeves and go to work on me.
I read this morning in the Psalms.
"When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groanings all the day long,
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer."
This summer has indeed been a summer of drought. Every evening I have to water my garden. If I don't, forgetting to water for even one day, the plants begin to wilt. The garden has produced faithfully, and richly; but it has required much work, some cutting away, some sacrifice. Surely, down in the depths of me, these conditions mean something larger to my soul.
So what does the Psalmist do when he realizes his drought-ridden life?
"I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,'
And You forgave the iniquity of my sin."
In this Psalm, transgression means rebellion, sin means missing the mark, and iniquity means moral crookedness. God's responses are forgiveness, literally lifting; covering, literally hiding away or concealing; and not imputing, literally not counting.
My wrongs are not toward my husband and his band--although I may already be coming across as brittle about being drawn into the life they are building together, and for this I should apologize. My sin is in not believing that You can take my husband into this without at the same time making the "drought of summer" even worse in my own life. Right now, so much of what I come across seems to hammer home the idea that submission to him means I become invisible to You, woman lost yet working hard to support all the glory that You have intended for man. And I am not the originator of this thought. Many would say it is exactly the way You ordered life, but part of me feels like it is a "moral crookedness" that leads to the "rebellion" that is in my heart. Justified or not, my own brick of iniquity has its place in the wall of life's imperfection and needs confession.
Like the Psalmist, I give it to You, God.
I pray that You mold my heart into something that is able to rightfully support my husband without becoming a sad puppet of a human myself as I seek to accomplish this goal. I pray I still have a place in his life as he chases so many dreams that all seem to call out to him. To quote the Psalmist one more time:
Leads us both in the paths of righteousness, for Your name's sake.
So much change that I could blog a dozen blogs on that one topic;
So much change I only really have time for one.
I could talk about my son going to college.
I could talk about going back to teaching after summer break.
I could talk about beginning a new "moonlighting" job selling wares at Farmer's Markets, town festivals and hopefully church bazaars. I'm sure I'll blog on this one as I wade deeper into a whole new community of people: the crafters. (smile)
Mostly today though, I need to focus on the one change that appears to be under the spotlight of my spiritual and relational life. My husband has joined a Christian rock band.
Several things strike me about this band:
--It is a ministry band, so it is something my husband has prayed to have in his life for a long time, and now it is being given to him. But...they play music that sounds like a cross between Van Halen and Heart (they have a gal singer.) Because of my own tastes, even in rock music, being quite far removed from this sound, I can't say I draw any affinity-inspiration from hearing them. (By no means am I saying this to be critical, for they are quite good at what they are doing. I'm just stating it as a necessary element in this string of self-reflection.)
--It is a band that has decided to practice in our basement. Because their sound resonates outside the house (particularly the bass and drum parts) I skulk out to the garden to water it of an evening, hoping I don't wind up being the one to take the lashing if any neighbors should decide "enough of this!" And I duck my head when I'm out front and people drive by, turning and staring with a startled look as they pass the house with their car windows open. My problem: I really don't want to get a "reprimand" from the community group. Having always been a quiet, cooperative and accommodating neighborhood member in the past, the thought of this change of personality in the community makes me unsettled, especially if I wind up being the front man should criticism be raised.
--I fear what it will ultimately demand of me personally. The band members are wonderful people, I really like all of them a lot. They are enthusiastic in what they are doing, but sometimes this frightens me in terms of what requirements will unconsciously be laid at my feet based on their priorities. How do I decide what boundary to set about my own time? Am I "supposed" to watch their kids and cook them meals as they practice since they have decided to practice at our house? So far, I've resisted this because of my own personal history. I've been drawn into that type of situation before, and I know how difficult it is to set a boundary after "services rendered" become the norm and the expectation. It is especially frightening because the future is a big unknown as they book gigs and look to grow now that they have a full complement of players/singers. Taxation without representation started a revolution once, and a fear of such a state of being for myself seems to be steeped in my own personal roots. One of the other band member's wives forgot to pick him up after rehearsal last night, so I'm wondering if I'm not the only one in the wings struggling with these feelings, but I can't speak to her feelings definitively.
--Paradoxically, that last point leads me to consider the one non-change that I think is troubling me the most. Minor points of change I could take if it were not for this one thing: the lack of power to positively affect the directional flow of the waters of my own life lo, these many years. This has been really tough for me. Now past years already cast in stone and stony shadows of the future loom as I once again experience things presented to me one way that then pan out to be something different. Somehow this taps some hissing volcano in me, because even in small things, this sense of encroachment prompts me to react badly, as it is all too familiar.
Am I alone when I notice that life seems like a constant uphill battle against manipulation? Is this a female thing? A middle-class Christian woman thing? And how do you fight it without looking like a hag, for none of it is conscious manipulation, it is just everyone pressing against the nearest wall as they seek to make their own priorities the ones that come out on top in a priority scramble. It's the American way, after all. But as has already been noted by contemporary sociologists, there's no vast frontier to launch our dreams across, in fact there's so little space left for "growing" in America now that for someone to grow literally and figuratively means someone else has to give up space. How do we take turns and play nice? And do I as a woman have a turn at all? No wonder the women's and civil rights revolutions happened. Or maybe that's putting the chicken before the egg. But waxing philosophical hardly solves my problem.
So how much space will I give up? For instance, how do I react when this space is invaded: I'm repeatedly told one thing, but then another happens...and not by forces unavoidable, but by some level of choice, and in a way that puts a negative turn on my own life. The first few times this sort of thing is accompanied by an apology, but when that proves too painful or maybe too obviously repetitive to justify, then come the times when I'm presented with the argument that the "change" from the original plan should be seen as justified because it is such a small change after all, or even worse, because I am supposedly mistaken in the way I remember things anyway. That last one makes me want to put a fist through a wall in frustration, because it feels like I am being told to swallow something dishonest, it feels like I no longer warrant the apology--and a fist through a wall seems the only way to make some space and get some oxygenated air. But maybe this is the very place where You, O God, are trying to teach me to quit trying to breathe. We all are called to die daily. Why am I surprised when I find I have trouble sucking in air? Why am I making it about me? So I come back to this:
It is important to remind myself that I am not intending to say all this not as complaining, but as confession. I can't believe that all these self-protective fears and whining are the right way to go.
My husband dreamed once that he and I were walking in a fun house; a spotlight over us helped us find our way. But as we went, that spotlight kept shrinking until in the end of the dream, the lighted floorspace was only large enough for the two of us to stand in. Currently, I feel a shrinking on my side of the light. And as I read today's devotions, I came across a pertinent quote: "You husband will never truly be yours until you have first given him back to God. He is yours only when you are willing to let him go wherever God calls him and do what God wants him to do." (Lisa Trotman) I thought I'd done this, but I forgot that in being one flesh with him, this "giving back" feels like cutting off a limb. Oh, God, as You call my love to follow the dream You planted in his heart, am I the one asked to pay the price? Am I the one called to cook everybody pizzas while he is down having fun flailing on the drums? (smile) Is his dream my drudgery, not according to his plan, but according to Yours? So do I wish for him to abandon his dream? Of course not. He's loving this, and I love it for him. But my question is whether I am allowed to dig my heels in and say I won't be a band flunky. I feel guilty because my reactivity seems inordinate. I'm reacting in part through what I've learned over the years as musicians have been everywhere in my world, and almost all of them assume that everything in life is peripheral to the nucleus of their music, and when it is music for You, well I feel ashamed for reflecting even this much on the topic of my "rights"...
You told me, God, that You were going to work on fear in me--that You were going to teach me to be less fearful. I must admit, this one hits right to the quick of me. Without Your strength, there's no way I can help but fear that if You decide to bless my husband's music ministry, it will consume every shred of freedom I have left after the havoc of these last few years. None of this is attitude-stuff to be proud of, so I can certainly understand why You'd roll up Your sleeves and go to work on me.
I read this morning in the Psalms.
"When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groanings all the day long,
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer."
This summer has indeed been a summer of drought. Every evening I have to water my garden. If I don't, forgetting to water for even one day, the plants begin to wilt. The garden has produced faithfully, and richly; but it has required much work, some cutting away, some sacrifice. Surely, down in the depths of me, these conditions mean something larger to my soul.
So what does the Psalmist do when he realizes his drought-ridden life?
"I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,'
And You forgave the iniquity of my sin."
In this Psalm, transgression means rebellion, sin means missing the mark, and iniquity means moral crookedness. God's responses are forgiveness, literally lifting; covering, literally hiding away or concealing; and not imputing, literally not counting.
My wrongs are not toward my husband and his band--although I may already be coming across as brittle about being drawn into the life they are building together, and for this I should apologize. My sin is in not believing that You can take my husband into this without at the same time making the "drought of summer" even worse in my own life. Right now, so much of what I come across seems to hammer home the idea that submission to him means I become invisible to You, woman lost yet working hard to support all the glory that You have intended for man. And I am not the originator of this thought. Many would say it is exactly the way You ordered life, but part of me feels like it is a "moral crookedness" that leads to the "rebellion" that is in my heart. Justified or not, my own brick of iniquity has its place in the wall of life's imperfection and needs confession.
Like the Psalmist, I give it to You, God.
I pray that You mold my heart into something that is able to rightfully support my husband without becoming a sad puppet of a human myself as I seek to accomplish this goal. I pray I still have a place in his life as he chases so many dreams that all seem to call out to him. To quote the Psalmist one more time:
Leads us both in the paths of righteousness, for Your name's sake.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Thumbelina...
Who can say what it is that flips the switch in a child's mind such that suddenly she comprehends something new about the colors she sees on the stiff pages in her chubby little hands. This is more than something to chew on or to feel. These swirls and patterns represent the very things in her larger reality. And something magical is borne in her.
Recently, I came across a children's book that may have been the one that tripped my own particular version of this consciousness: this knowing that patterns of color and line can be representational. I had a strange experience with this little picture book when I came across it again, now as an adult. Simultaneously I saw it with both my infant eyes and my adult ones. My infant eyes remembered a picture of a little person floating in a mass of red. The memory is as clear as can be. But my adult eyes now, in seeing this little book again realize that this picture of Thumbelina has her sitting inside a red tulip. I had no context in my infant mind for interpreting the tulip, nor did my mind register it well enough to define its shape now, not until I saw it again. "How very fascinating," I thought. My frame of context is so much larger. But how odd to realize that it was a thing that grew gradually within me: that first came my comprehension of drawn human figures, but later came the richness of meaning in the background scenery.
Curious to see if the phenomenon would repeat itself, I flipped to another page. Not surprisingly, my recollection of a scene in which a girl and a pair of eyes sat against a background of swirling blue and green, this one turned out to actually be Thumbelina and a frog using a lily pad as a boat while they floated in water. I can hardly describe how strange the sensation was, having these very early memories triggered, even as my adult awareness superimposed the fuller, richer meaning of the illustrations over that infant-view. How strange to re-tap my child-mind so directly, to relive the experience of simply seeing the one thing that mattered or was comprehensible, even though I was in a vague way aware of surrounding colors and shapes.
It is all the more strange because of how familiar those "limited-vision" memories strike me here in my current state of being. Only, now the picture-book is a spiritual thing--and I am but an "infant" in so much of what I see, so limited in what I can comprehend and interpret. When I have these "visionary" experiences and dreams, they are so like the perceptions of the infant-me. Although I "catch" the primary point, still much of the peripheral environment is incomprehensible. I wonder if one day those background images will come clear as I "grow up" into a richer awareness of my spiritual environment and cut loose my fixation on the things that look most familiar in my physical world.
Aside to God--
So strange, but so exciting to hear such a message, such a prediction from You concerning the wisdom that will be mine, regarding the doors of awareness that You'll be opening. Give me the courage to throw off what is of no account, O God, and take me to that next level as I plunge into the depths of Thee.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
A Contemplation
Taking a Sabbath is easy when work is a chore and hobbies wait for such a break as this--
But, taking a Sabbath is more challenging when work is a pleasure much like a hobby,
only a hobby done for pay.
I have never conceived of such work until now.
Never...never before has the thought of taking a break, a holiday, a vacation
seemed like a sacrifice of potential-joy and contentment.
What does one do on such a Sabbath? And...
What am I to learn about You, O God, as I come into this new and long-lost awareness
of work and its fallow times, as You originally meant them to be?
But, taking a Sabbath is more challenging when work is a pleasure much like a hobby,
only a hobby done for pay.
I have never conceived of such work until now.
Never...never before has the thought of taking a break, a holiday, a vacation
seemed like a sacrifice of potential-joy and contentment.
What does one do on such a Sabbath? And...
What am I to learn about You, O God, as I come into this new and long-lost awareness
of work and its fallow times, as You originally meant them to be?
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Secondary Colors
Thanks be to God for the layers.
For the fugue
For the plaid
For the sauce.
For the baby who sucks at a dry thumb;
For the old woman frail in the sun
who goes riding her bike in the heat,
and her pink kerchief bobs rhythmically.
Both the old and the new layer trying,
trying simply to cover the bone.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
The Mantle (part 5)
As time spent in the blossom
for the bee;
so was my time in the mantle.
But when I swarmed in its interior,
I knew I was meant
for more.
Such invested time is not just for this day,
(as the bee knows life)
but for all tomorrows also
(as those know life who await a coming harvest.)
Even though the days of budding vines,
the blooming grape vines,
are the season of love--
there is
nonetheless
that harvest to consider.
And even though I sit amidst these gnarled roots,
a bee for now,
considering how fair and pleasant
is the lily Thou art,
my King,
I know Thou are also
strength.
So I return to my origins:
What can I say of the One who reaches
and grasps the curtain of heaven
to pull its light from the rod where it hangs
to wrap it about Him like a garment;
whose mantle of light flashes
embroidery of honor and majesty
for its insignia?
What do I say when He comes, walking on the wind,
in His perfect knowledge?
I have seen His mantle of light
but I likewise know it hidden;
hidden from the wise and given to babes
to sing its comforts.
He bows the heavens to come to man, but
comes hidden in dark waters.
He bows the heavens to come to man on the wings of the wind, but
so small and seemingly insignificant.
Do I remember that You are the One
who will uncover the foundations of the earth,
one day?
Do I remember Your light, though for now
Your canopy is dark waters?
I will remember, but not because
I am so wise;
I will remember because calamity
makes me know it.
My adversity requires it of me.
The lining that hates me, rubs me.
For in it resides the divided heart of my enemy.
But this is the secret I have learned,
cocooned in this cape,
and I am no longer speechless:
"As the fruit of adversity is given by his hand,
(yes brought by the hand
of my strong enemy)
nevertheless,
he is powerless to stop its transformation
to sweetness
under Thy mantle.
And even now, the moth invades the lining;
it only knows to feed in the dark
and die in the light.
How did he not see the way of the moth?
(After all, this is the law of life.)
As for his harvest, his crop rots,
grown too large for him to manage.
Pestilence: this is his hoe.
But pests, though willing to work for their own bellies' sakes,
still grow unruly.
He is anguished, but he is proud.
Even now, his chin is high as he looks above these fields he took,
where locusts swarm the dying harvest at his feet.
Denial keeps his head high,
his gaze firmly above
the death of his self-ordained inheritance.
His subjects are instinctive;
they know nothing
but to feed
till all is gone.
They have been taught nothing of sacrifice.
(Again this is the law of life for those
he calls to allegiance.
How could he not know the way of it?)
As for me, I understand the thread that binds--
faith
hope
and love--
where moth and rot find no bounty.
I will remember that You send from heaven
to rescue me.
I will remember that I needed You, O Strength.
I will remember even when You bring me to that broad place
where my thirst is slaked.
And though a wall rises--
broad, black, gleaming--
(who can gaze up its dizzying span?)
still You will make me leap over it,
like a vine that creeps,
a bewilderment
seeing that it comes
from a root that looks
(effectively)
dead.
One day, I will stand at that wall's summit
where this mantle that now hangs from my shoulders,
(limp and a little strange in its rippling folds)
this veil will whip in a strong wind.
And there, no part of it will suffer questions
regarding its crafting.
No, not there.
Then I will look out and see that it is time,
(when the golden blossom fit for bees
becomes a white field fit for harvest.)
And I will raise my hands in adulation, crying:
"You lifted me here. Even me.
Though many were against me,
--and I but a work of mixed clay--
yet You avenge me.
Let the God of my salvation be exalted!"
Chorus:
Job 38:12Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; [and] caused the dayspring to know his place;
Job 38:13That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
Job 38:14It is turned as clay [to] the seal; and they stand as a garment.
Job 38:15And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken
for the bee;
so was my time in the mantle.
But when I swarmed in its interior,
I knew I was meant
for more.
Such invested time is not just for this day,
(as the bee knows life)
but for all tomorrows also
(as those know life who await a coming harvest.)
Even though the days of budding vines,
the blooming grape vines,
are the season of love--
there is
nonetheless
that harvest to consider.
And even though I sit amidst these gnarled roots,
a bee for now,
considering how fair and pleasant
is the lily Thou art,
my King,
I know Thou are also
strength.
So I return to my origins:
What can I say of the One who reaches
and grasps the curtain of heaven
to pull its light from the rod where it hangs
to wrap it about Him like a garment;
whose mantle of light flashes
embroidery of honor and majesty
for its insignia?
What do I say when He comes, walking on the wind,
in His perfect knowledge?
I have seen His mantle of light
but I likewise know it hidden;
hidden from the wise and given to babes
to sing its comforts.
He bows the heavens to come to man, but
comes hidden in dark waters.
He bows the heavens to come to man on the wings of the wind, but
so small and seemingly insignificant.
Do I remember that You are the One
who will uncover the foundations of the earth,
one day?
Do I remember Your light, though for now
Your canopy is dark waters?
I will remember, but not because
I am so wise;
I will remember because calamity
makes me know it.
My adversity requires it of me.
The lining that hates me, rubs me.
For in it resides the divided heart of my enemy.
But this is the secret I have learned,
cocooned in this cape,
and I am no longer speechless:
"As the fruit of adversity is given by his hand,
(yes brought by the hand
of my strong enemy)
nevertheless,
he is powerless to stop its transformation
to sweetness
under Thy mantle.
And even now, the moth invades the lining;
it only knows to feed in the dark
and die in the light.
How did he not see the way of the moth?
(After all, this is the law of life.)
As for his harvest, his crop rots,
grown too large for him to manage.
Pestilence: this is his hoe.
But pests, though willing to work for their own bellies' sakes,
still grow unruly.
He is anguished, but he is proud.
Even now, his chin is high as he looks above these fields he took,
where locusts swarm the dying harvest at his feet.
Denial keeps his head high,
his gaze firmly above
the death of his self-ordained inheritance.
His subjects are instinctive;
they know nothing
but to feed
till all is gone.
They have been taught nothing of sacrifice.
(Again this is the law of life for those
he calls to allegiance.
How could he not know the way of it?)
As for me, I understand the thread that binds--
faith
hope
and love--
where moth and rot find no bounty.
I will remember that You send from heaven
to rescue me.
I will remember that I needed You, O Strength.
I will remember even when You bring me to that broad place
where my thirst is slaked.
And though a wall rises--
broad, black, gleaming--
(who can gaze up its dizzying span?)
still You will make me leap over it,
like a vine that creeps,
a bewilderment
seeing that it comes
from a root that looks
(effectively)
dead.
One day, I will stand at that wall's summit
where this mantle that now hangs from my shoulders,
(limp and a little strange in its rippling folds)
this veil will whip in a strong wind.
And there, no part of it will suffer questions
regarding its crafting.
No, not there.
Then I will look out and see that it is time,
(when the golden blossom fit for bees
becomes a white field fit for harvest.)
And I will raise my hands in adulation, crying:
"You lifted me here. Even me.
Though many were against me,
--and I but a work of mixed clay--
yet You avenge me.
Let the God of my salvation be exalted!"
Chorus:
Job 38:12Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; [and] caused the dayspring to know his place;
Job 38:13That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
Job 38:14It is turned as clay [to] the seal; and they stand as a garment.
Job 38:15And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
The Mantle (part 4)
Lawlessness,
by choice or ignorance,
makes for a bracing climate;
and love waxed cold
in the days when
the cloak was but a lining and a promise.
So I rolled over
(some would say repented)
and looked up to the layer that was above me:
the white,
the light.
"Be still,
sink deep," said a whisper.
I gazed up for some time,
heard new voices,
and finally,
I understood the rip.
When I crawled out
of that cape, my cave;
I sought the Giver
(as He had planned I should do.)
Still waiting at the base of His Tree,
He'd laid a feast for me, it being
one glittering edible morsel,
sheer life--
rich like bread,
juicy like fruit.
Intimate was our discourse, this time
much like wisdom
though first unspoken, later
gurgles to wash the grasses,
quiet, unobtrusive
as an ancient spring.
"Now, my sister, my wife," He said,
"What do you know of the mantle?"
"I know the answer to the question
we all ask whether we realize it or not--
the question in every heartbeat
in every breath.
The question of the silent part.
The question of the rip.
How can He allow it?"
He nodded.
"Yes, many are the glowing bottles in heaven,
filled with tears
and scented with that question."
But I continued. "There is more, though.
It is this:
What can separate me from the love of God?
That is the courageous heart of the rip, isn't it?
Many faint-hearted will fall at that first doubt.
That first perceived flaw in the fabric.
Few will press on to see the point of it.
Diabolos,
(that "one who casts through")
does indeed cast about
fitfully in that between-place
even now thinking:
there will be a weak spot in the fabric
along some seam,
a place ripe
for greater tearing.
See, O king, and rend your clothes.
What will you say when the women under your rule
are reduced to eating their own children.
See, O priest, and rend your clothes.
What will you say as you perceive a witness of blasphemy
(you are power-drunk beyond discernment)
on the tongue of God Himself
in the flesh.
What witness do we need?
One small, calculated rip.
What rush of power through the ragged edges.
What will you say, O wicked queen who would steal the throne from Judah,
when once she found the rip.
She killed her own offspring, not for food, but for power.
Athaliah, Jezebel:
you are the same:
you who transfuse the blood of the weak,
(even your own blood, just flowing in new wineskins)
to ferment a cup of power.
You drink it down. Does it satisfy?
Athaliah--
Whore of Babylon--
even you will rend your cloak
when you see the boy king, secretly preserved
taking his rightful throne.
But remember,
(and so few do)
that though a woman tried to kill him
a woman also saved him.
And remembered the woman who bled
all those years;
but perceiving wholeness in a cloak,
even the hem,
because of Who wore it,
she became evidence.
"Further witness we do need."
Still said the priest corrupt.
And witness is given:
The witness of a curtain
a flowing wall of separation.
What thought the man who fashioned the loops to hang it:
This is the price
of my unholiness--
this like the heavens--
a curtain between me
and my creator.
Separateness.
Must it always be?
But the curtain one day experienced consummation
with the very flesh it represented--
and it ripped.
The rip, my Lord,
is made of nail scars and a sword
formed by earthquakes and dark skies;
but the rip opens a chamber unseen by ranks of humans
for generations.
Who was the first to dare?
Who was the first to peer into that inner sanctum,
when once light came again
To find it quiet,
covered in dew.
"And so you have the question," said the Giver, "that matters most."
There was a tabernacle made, a veil;
but now,
what can separate me from the love of God?
(When the sun was darkened
and the veil was ripped)
What can separate me from Your love?"
by choice or ignorance,
makes for a bracing climate;
and love waxed cold
in the days when
the cloak was but a lining and a promise.
So I rolled over
(some would say repented)
and looked up to the layer that was above me:
the white,
the light.
"Be still,
sink deep," said a whisper.
I gazed up for some time,
heard new voices,
and finally,
I understood the rip.
When I crawled out
of that cape, my cave;
I sought the Giver
(as He had planned I should do.)
Still waiting at the base of His Tree,
He'd laid a feast for me, it being
one glittering edible morsel,
sheer life--
rich like bread,
juicy like fruit.
Intimate was our discourse, this time
much like wisdom
though first unspoken, later
gurgles to wash the grasses,
quiet, unobtrusive
as an ancient spring.
"Now, my sister, my wife," He said,
"What do you know of the mantle?"
"I know the answer to the question
we all ask whether we realize it or not--
the question in every heartbeat
in every breath.
The question of the silent part.
The question of the rip.
How can He allow it?"
He nodded.
"Yes, many are the glowing bottles in heaven,
filled with tears
and scented with that question."
But I continued. "There is more, though.
It is this:
What can separate me from the love of God?
That is the courageous heart of the rip, isn't it?
Many faint-hearted will fall at that first doubt.
That first perceived flaw in the fabric.
Few will press on to see the point of it.
Diabolos,
(that "one who casts through")
does indeed cast about
fitfully in that between-place
even now thinking:
there will be a weak spot in the fabric
along some seam,
a place ripe
for greater tearing.
See, O king, and rend your clothes.
What will you say when the women under your rule
are reduced to eating their own children.
See, O priest, and rend your clothes.
What will you say as you perceive a witness of blasphemy
(you are power-drunk beyond discernment)
on the tongue of God Himself
in the flesh.
What witness do we need?
One small, calculated rip.
What rush of power through the ragged edges.
What will you say, O wicked queen who would steal the throne from Judah,
when once she found the rip.
She killed her own offspring, not for food, but for power.
Athaliah, Jezebel:
you are the same:
you who transfuse the blood of the weak,
(even your own blood, just flowing in new wineskins)
to ferment a cup of power.
You drink it down. Does it satisfy?
Athaliah--
Whore of Babylon--
even you will rend your cloak
when you see the boy king, secretly preserved
taking his rightful throne.
But remember,
(and so few do)
that though a woman tried to kill him
a woman also saved him.
And remembered the woman who bled
all those years;
but perceiving wholeness in a cloak,
even the hem,
because of Who wore it,
she became evidence.
"Further witness we do need."
Still said the priest corrupt.
And witness is given:
The witness of a curtain
a flowing wall of separation.
What thought the man who fashioned the loops to hang it:
This is the price
of my unholiness--
this like the heavens--
a curtain between me
and my creator.
Separateness.
Must it always be?
But the curtain one day experienced consummation
with the very flesh it represented--
and it ripped.
The rip, my Lord,
is made of nail scars and a sword
formed by earthquakes and dark skies;
but the rip opens a chamber unseen by ranks of humans
for generations.
Who was the first to dare?
Who was the first to peer into that inner sanctum,
when once light came again
To find it quiet,
covered in dew.
"And so you have the question," said the Giver, "that matters most."
"And if I may be so bold, I think I have the answer;
the answer of the heartbeat and the breath.
There was a tabernacle made, a veil;
but now,
what can separate me from the love of God?
(When the sun was darkened
and the veil was ripped)
What can separate me from Your love?"
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
The Next Car on the Last Blog Train...
Would God leave me wondering in the anguish of my last blog without bringing forward the beginnings of His answer?
Apparently not-- although that answer does not follow the same fashion currently popular: the terse text message. His "ways" produce an answer that is a blend of the natural and the fantastic, the practcial and the poetically scriptural.
When we returned home from camping, I found one of my squash plants utterly wilted. I began immediately to research the problem. There were some signs that bugs were beginning to infest the plant, but the primary diagnosis was mildew. The plants had grown so prolifically (and I had failed to prune them, I must remember that lesson) that air did not circulate well under those broad leaves and the rains that finally came turned the plant's ground level to mildew. So I followed the advice of my plant-doctor text: spray it with a mix of baking soda (essentially salt: the purifier) and water and watch to see what happens. After pulling out the worst of the wilted and mildewed stalks, I waited to see if blooms would reappear. This morning, it looks as though they might.
That's the natural event that melted into a gardening vision I had last night. In that almost-dream state, right before sleep when I do my last prayers of the day, I "saw" something that looked like a grasshopper, only it had a green human head with a tiny crown on it. It was feeding on what my heart told me was my "inheritance" from God. As I looked at it, it looked up from feeding on the shambles of my crop like it felt a change in the wind. That prompted a more figurative direction to my prayer. The last thing I prayed before sleeping was to turn to that part of God's nature that causes Him to be described as Wind. I asked that He blow these heartless feeders to another "field." Still, I slept fitfully, as I can hardly avoid the stresses of knowing my "field" will not sustain me with what's left in it. Something supernatural must indeed happen or we will "lose the field."
This morning, when I got up and got my coffee, I peeked out the window and saw--there in the early morning light--the first few brave yellow blossoms reappearing on the squash plant. OK, I thought. I'll give the plant another day before yanking it. I'll keep watching. Then I sat down to my morning Bible reading. This was the passage I found where my Bible fell open, followed by another passage: the Psalm that happened to be the one in my reading progression for today.
Lord, You do have a way of making Your point! Thanks for the petitioning prayers of Solomon--his legacy prayer that reached pointedly even to my own need so many generations later than when he prayed it; and thanks for the faithful and confident, hopeful and appreciative prayers of his father David. Thanks, for when I can not find the words for myself, I can borrow theirs!
28 “When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when enemies besiege them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come, 29 and when a prayer or plea is made by any of your people Israel—each one aware of his afflictions and pains, and spreading out his hands toward this temple— 30 then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive, and deal with each man according to all he does, since you know his heart (for you alone know the hearts of men), 31 so that they will fear you and walk in your ways all the time they live in the land you gave our fathers. 2Chronicles 6
5 O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
You maintain my lot.
6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Yes, I have a good inheritance.
7 I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel;
My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.
8 I have set the Lord always before me;
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will rest in hope.
10 For You will not leave my soul in Sheol,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
11 You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16
Apparently not-- although that answer does not follow the same fashion currently popular: the terse text message. His "ways" produce an answer that is a blend of the natural and the fantastic, the practcial and the poetically scriptural.
When we returned home from camping, I found one of my squash plants utterly wilted. I began immediately to research the problem. There were some signs that bugs were beginning to infest the plant, but the primary diagnosis was mildew. The plants had grown so prolifically (and I had failed to prune them, I must remember that lesson) that air did not circulate well under those broad leaves and the rains that finally came turned the plant's ground level to mildew. So I followed the advice of my plant-doctor text: spray it with a mix of baking soda (essentially salt: the purifier) and water and watch to see what happens. After pulling out the worst of the wilted and mildewed stalks, I waited to see if blooms would reappear. This morning, it looks as though they might.
That's the natural event that melted into a gardening vision I had last night. In that almost-dream state, right before sleep when I do my last prayers of the day, I "saw" something that looked like a grasshopper, only it had a green human head with a tiny crown on it. It was feeding on what my heart told me was my "inheritance" from God. As I looked at it, it looked up from feeding on the shambles of my crop like it felt a change in the wind. That prompted a more figurative direction to my prayer. The last thing I prayed before sleeping was to turn to that part of God's nature that causes Him to be described as Wind. I asked that He blow these heartless feeders to another "field." Still, I slept fitfully, as I can hardly avoid the stresses of knowing my "field" will not sustain me with what's left in it. Something supernatural must indeed happen or we will "lose the field."
This morning, when I got up and got my coffee, I peeked out the window and saw--there in the early morning light--the first few brave yellow blossoms reappearing on the squash plant. OK, I thought. I'll give the plant another day before yanking it. I'll keep watching. Then I sat down to my morning Bible reading. This was the passage I found where my Bible fell open, followed by another passage: the Psalm that happened to be the one in my reading progression for today.
Lord, You do have a way of making Your point! Thanks for the petitioning prayers of Solomon--his legacy prayer that reached pointedly even to my own need so many generations later than when he prayed it; and thanks for the faithful and confident, hopeful and appreciative prayers of his father David. Thanks, for when I can not find the words for myself, I can borrow theirs!
28 “When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when enemies besiege them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come, 29 and when a prayer or plea is made by any of your people Israel—each one aware of his afflictions and pains, and spreading out his hands toward this temple— 30 then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive, and deal with each man according to all he does, since you know his heart (for you alone know the hearts of men), 31 so that they will fear you and walk in your ways all the time they live in the land you gave our fathers. 2Chronicles 6
5 O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
You maintain my lot.
6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Yes, I have a good inheritance.
7 I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel;
My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.
8 I have set the Lord always before me;
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will rest in hope.
10 For You will not leave my soul in Sheol,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
11 You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16
Sunday, July 29, 2007
What Constitutes a Geriatric Daydream?
A random question? Right now for me, it isn't. It's everything. The question that seems ready to blow like a geyser of the mind: am I too old to think dreams come true (even short-term ones) for me? Too old to anticipate good things, too old to activate that remnant of childlike wonder and excitement that was once so vital to my heart? Will the disappointment be too profound when real life fails to measure up? Here is my meaning: As a child, I joyfully anticipated holidays. I'd lay under the newly trimmed tree, looking up through her branches, expectant of the glories coming on Christmas morning. I'd thrill at what was soon to come: the smell of the cookies baking, the gifts appearing, the music playing. And Christmas would come through in all its glory.
But now, if I look forward to the traditional cooking of the Thanksgiving dinner, stomach flu hits my faithful diners. If I look forward to family time spent making cookies or sharing things like gift-wrapping, carolling, hot chocolate and candles, well there is either no money to buy even the most meager supplies or if there is money, then time is lacking. Strangely, if I don't allow myself to anticipate anything festive, festive things might very well happen; but only by random luck, and not as the climax of days spent in wonder and expectation. So, have I locked too many wonderful things from days past all up into one bloated dream? Is that my problem?
Quite recently my family had one of these "flops" in a category not reminiscent of childhood for me, and thus not glutted with happy nostalgia. Camping is a cultural phenomenon that I've only recently joined, so it would make a good litmus test of my tendency to overblow as I don't have enough background with camping to have false-memory expectations. And we as a family all enjoy the activity. So this summer, we planned a camping trip. My kids looked forward to it, I looked forward to it--for weeks we couldn't wait for the day to come when we would load up the van and take off for the woods. We daydreamed from our sparsely scattered former trips: nights making s'mores around a camp fire; days spent lazily on a beach, me reading a book in the warm sunshine, listening to the waves lap at a lake shore where the kids built sand castles and paddled in the water. Lovely walks along the wooded shores in the evening. Photo ops as the children pick wildflowers.
But because we expected these...
We found that even though this whole summer has been plagued with drought in our territory-- touted to be the worst drought in 40 years; nevertheless, the only three days of nearly continuous rain fell during our camping trip. Our campsite was swampy at best, a mud pit more typically.
The fire: a choking pit of damp-smelling smoke.
Wildflower-picking while traipsing the woods: this year is the worst yet for poison ivy, so keep the kids out of the brush, say authorities.
Time at the beach: on a good outing we'd glean 45 minutes of lightening-free swim time. The water chilly, the sand heavy and dark. As for the "grassy" parts near the shower house, these were scrub grass littered heavily with goose poop. Briefly I waded into the waters with the children, but lake water just doesn't feel the same when you approach it from a physical state of uncomfortable dampness; no, not as lovely as say a cooling drench applied to hot, sun-baked skin. Still, I made that effort to cavort with the children, but ended up hollering at them because they were whining and fighting. Gone were the last of my idyllic pictures of nurturing good humor in the family despite the hardships of this trip. I gave up and--while walking back toward my towel--heard some stray child mutter, "I'm glad she's not my mom." (I almost turned and snapped at him, "I'll just bet you are!" But I restrained myself.)
I spread my damp towel on the hard ground and sat down. I tried escapism--reading my book I figured was a safe past time. But then looking up, I saw flocks of water fowl swooping over me. Another nearby child pointed just above my head, "Look that one has a fish in its mouth!" Naturally, I had visions of fish guts spilling out all over me. I'd learned to expect such things, to fit the flavor of the trip. Thankfully no fish guts fell. Still, even as I was breathing a sigh of relief over that respite from bad luck, the same child said, "Here seagull, seagull, seagull, have some chips..." and he threw a handful of soggy potato chips right at me, causing the squawking birds to flock all around.
I sighed, it just wasn't like this when we camped here before, I reminisced mournfully. It was then that I began to find my question about unrealistic dreams beginning to take shape even as I shuffled the boys back to the tent (just in time to duck under cover as the next deluge hit.) I dozed on a soggy sleeping bag while they fought over which one was cheating the most at a game of checkers.
The worst trouble, however, hit the night that it didn't rain; for that was the night the raccoons and foxes decided to invade our camp. First, I heard what I swore was a cougar growling on my very picnic table, this at about 2:30 in the morning. Shining a flashlight out the tent flap, I caught a glimpse of glowing eyes, then a red hide and tail swooped off the table and disappeared in the dark. Maybe a fox after all. Strangely, a few days prior, I'd had a dream of animal eyes gleaming in the dark. I'd very picturesquely (at that time) attributed the "vision" to being a reassurance sent down from above, a sign that all was well, as I continued to grow into a spiritual being so closely aligned to my Lord of Light that I'd become all but invisible to the creatures of the dark...another thing I'd once dreamed. Foolish romantic, me! What was I thinking--staging my dream so figuratively complimentary. Ha! I should have recognized that premonition as one of those I'm given sometimes for a warning before a time of personal horror. (Granted, this too is a sign of compassion from a higher power, but no one really looks forward to that type of compassion because of where it points.) Yes, it was hard to appreciate that dream for its true benefits, because a second attack hit our camp that night, finally prompting me to give up on sleep. I climbed out of the tent, rebuilt the fire, collected a pile of stones, made some campfire coffee and sat there in my chair defending my small swatch of turf. After all, my children had to eat over the next two days, and those raccoons had learned to open our cooler! How strange and surreal it was, those hours from 3 - 6 am, feeding the fire, smelling--even when I couldn't see them--the raccoons whenever they grew bold in their approach, shining my flashlight into their troops of eyes--often 8-10 creatures came at a time--chucking rocks at them and yelling to drive them away again. Finally, I threw my last rock as the morning light made that last critter visible, a shadowy figure running across the dimness of the edge of my campsite. Later, while buying more wood at the bait shop, (replacing what I burned in the all-night vigil) I stood swaying, bleary-eyed while the shopkeeper talked on about how the raccoon population has exploded this year and how the dept. of natural resources was even setting traps to catch them. I grunted, heading wearily back to the campsite, where it was once was more beginning to rain. At that point I was too tired to do any more of the reflecting I'd done in the adrenalin-rushed wakefulness of the long hours in the dark, when I looked at the firelight flicker on the trees and listened to the animals rustling the perimeter brush.
There in the dark, I'd longed for my husband, but he couldn't take the time off work to spend those camping nights with us, (nor could his back have endured a night of camping followed by a day of work. But he joined us for the weekend.)
There in the dark, I'd considered life. I'd wondered at the strange balance: if it rains all night, and turns the low end of the tent into a small interior pond and the picnic canopy into the "waters of the firmament above" that once were dumped on Noah, if these are our circumstance, then the animals leave us alone. But come a decent clearing coupled with a relatively empty campground, and our holdings were at the mercy of nocturnal scavengers. The next night, however, was the start of the weekend, and so the campground was glutted well before dusk, going from a state of two distantly-placed tents to a small kingdom where every slip was filled with classic fishing-community campers. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a landscape formed where men still put out strong-smelling cigars on the bottoms of their boots, where women "fixed their hair" not for beauty's sake, but simply so they didn't go up in flames as they cooked over the fires, and where old-fashioned sweat pants and huarache sandals made a styling combination everywhere. That night, people left food out all over the place, but not an animal came in sight, well except maybe a few all-too-human ones.
Recently, I read an article about de-stressing life, and it recommended "developing the art of selective perfectionism." Only require 20% perfection of yourself, and realize that 80% of life's tasks can get by with a "just good enough" attitude. But does the 20/80% rule apply to the expectations surrounding current and/or future circumstances? 80% of the time, learn to settle for "just good enough?" And sadly, lately, even that percentage is running high as even the weather seems to mock our joie de vivre--and even in that 20% guaranteed window. Ha!
So what did I do? I held it together. But when we returned home, I cried like a baby while I lay in a hot bath, nursing bites from mosquitoes who had found their way to places only my husband is allowed to visit. Shameless creatures. Why, God? I had to ask. Was it true--that spiritual premonition of the scavenger eyes--was the dream indeed given as a spiritual sign, but one that said that I need to take adversity with a grain of salt, realizing that adversity might be the very source of protection I needed from something even more unpleasant: predators. Was I not recognizing the gift adverse circumstances offer, for these hard times just might hold at bay things and creatures whose own love of personal comfort shielded my life from their thievery. What's more, was this trip a sign that I need to guard against isolating myself too much, even though in some ways I feel myself growing more and more like the people I once called strange? I slept well when the creatures of the night felt outnumbered. Much less work for me. What am I to do with that knowledge?
Aside from these nuggets of wisdom gleaned from this most-unpleasant-camping-trip-of-my-life--I refuse to write it off as a total loss, since everything at its barest minimum is a learning experience, right?--still, I find that deep aching question remains unanswered, and as I consider what comes next in my life, as my physical and mental capacities change, as I consider what to do as my livelihood transitions, as my calling seems to press toward things impossible, as dreams cry out to die peacefully: dare I look forward yet again, to believe change can be potentially positive? Dare I dream of things beautiful and peaceful and restful ever happening (for me) in the future? Times past, I always answered that nagging question with: "Give it time--" But what about when time doesn't bring the promised change of season? What does that mean? Years roll by and nothing improves, in fact it gets worse. What does that mean? Who is the failure? Anyone? And, dare I hope even yet, to find that place, that sweet spot where I long to be, before I die? Even more precariously, dare I cling to the expectation that death itself can even offer its promised relief? Some say it is easier for someone who has nothing to believe in after-life bounty; but my experience has been that times of earthly bounty actually make it easier to believe in well-stocked heavenly barns. Such is the norm of this life, why not believe in the expansion of the same in the next? No, it is the extended lean times that make one think: if ever empty now, then what assurance of fullness anyplace?
And so I find the gleaming eyes of the attacker of my soul--it is this that is the dark-night predator I face, the one who is after my un-touchable stores even now, here safe again at home. Despite these many signs of crisis, so many that even my prayer partners shake their heads and ask what we need to pray about this week, to my embarrassment--nevertheless, I must decide what I will believe. Do I believe I have that heavenly mansion even as I saw it in another dream: something like a white house nestled on a hill in front of a larger, evergreen-swathed hill. A place where a gazebo with a swing waited for me; where a book, a picture hat and a pair of soft moccasins waited for me. Where a beautiful view of a valley gleaming in the deepening sunlight, waited for me. Now--do I believe the dream is my portion when I leave this place I call life and go to that place that really is life?
But now, if I look forward to the traditional cooking of the Thanksgiving dinner, stomach flu hits my faithful diners. If I look forward to family time spent making cookies or sharing things like gift-wrapping, carolling, hot chocolate and candles, well there is either no money to buy even the most meager supplies or if there is money, then time is lacking. Strangely, if I don't allow myself to anticipate anything festive, festive things might very well happen; but only by random luck, and not as the climax of days spent in wonder and expectation. So, have I locked too many wonderful things from days past all up into one bloated dream? Is that my problem?
Quite recently my family had one of these "flops" in a category not reminiscent of childhood for me, and thus not glutted with happy nostalgia. Camping is a cultural phenomenon that I've only recently joined, so it would make a good litmus test of my tendency to overblow as I don't have enough background with camping to have false-memory expectations. And we as a family all enjoy the activity. So this summer, we planned a camping trip. My kids looked forward to it, I looked forward to it--for weeks we couldn't wait for the day to come when we would load up the van and take off for the woods. We daydreamed from our sparsely scattered former trips: nights making s'mores around a camp fire; days spent lazily on a beach, me reading a book in the warm sunshine, listening to the waves lap at a lake shore where the kids built sand castles and paddled in the water. Lovely walks along the wooded shores in the evening. Photo ops as the children pick wildflowers.
But because we expected these...
We found that even though this whole summer has been plagued with drought in our territory-- touted to be the worst drought in 40 years; nevertheless, the only three days of nearly continuous rain fell during our camping trip. Our campsite was swampy at best, a mud pit more typically.
The fire: a choking pit of damp-smelling smoke.
Wildflower-picking while traipsing the woods: this year is the worst yet for poison ivy, so keep the kids out of the brush, say authorities.
Time at the beach: on a good outing we'd glean 45 minutes of lightening-free swim time. The water chilly, the sand heavy and dark. As for the "grassy" parts near the shower house, these were scrub grass littered heavily with goose poop. Briefly I waded into the waters with the children, but lake water just doesn't feel the same when you approach it from a physical state of uncomfortable dampness; no, not as lovely as say a cooling drench applied to hot, sun-baked skin. Still, I made that effort to cavort with the children, but ended up hollering at them because they were whining and fighting. Gone were the last of my idyllic pictures of nurturing good humor in the family despite the hardships of this trip. I gave up and--while walking back toward my towel--heard some stray child mutter, "I'm glad she's not my mom." (I almost turned and snapped at him, "I'll just bet you are!" But I restrained myself.)
I spread my damp towel on the hard ground and sat down. I tried escapism--reading my book I figured was a safe past time. But then looking up, I saw flocks of water fowl swooping over me. Another nearby child pointed just above my head, "Look that one has a fish in its mouth!" Naturally, I had visions of fish guts spilling out all over me. I'd learned to expect such things, to fit the flavor of the trip. Thankfully no fish guts fell. Still, even as I was breathing a sigh of relief over that respite from bad luck, the same child said, "Here seagull, seagull, seagull, have some chips..." and he threw a handful of soggy potato chips right at me, causing the squawking birds to flock all around.
I sighed, it just wasn't like this when we camped here before, I reminisced mournfully. It was then that I began to find my question about unrealistic dreams beginning to take shape even as I shuffled the boys back to the tent (just in time to duck under cover as the next deluge hit.) I dozed on a soggy sleeping bag while they fought over which one was cheating the most at a game of checkers.
The worst trouble, however, hit the night that it didn't rain; for that was the night the raccoons and foxes decided to invade our camp. First, I heard what I swore was a cougar growling on my very picnic table, this at about 2:30 in the morning. Shining a flashlight out the tent flap, I caught a glimpse of glowing eyes, then a red hide and tail swooped off the table and disappeared in the dark. Maybe a fox after all. Strangely, a few days prior, I'd had a dream of animal eyes gleaming in the dark. I'd very picturesquely (at that time) attributed the "vision" to being a reassurance sent down from above, a sign that all was well, as I continued to grow into a spiritual being so closely aligned to my Lord of Light that I'd become all but invisible to the creatures of the dark...another thing I'd once dreamed. Foolish romantic, me! What was I thinking--staging my dream so figuratively complimentary. Ha! I should have recognized that premonition as one of those I'm given sometimes for a warning before a time of personal horror. (Granted, this too is a sign of compassion from a higher power, but no one really looks forward to that type of compassion because of where it points.) Yes, it was hard to appreciate that dream for its true benefits, because a second attack hit our camp that night, finally prompting me to give up on sleep. I climbed out of the tent, rebuilt the fire, collected a pile of stones, made some campfire coffee and sat there in my chair defending my small swatch of turf. After all, my children had to eat over the next two days, and those raccoons had learned to open our cooler! How strange and surreal it was, those hours from 3 - 6 am, feeding the fire, smelling--even when I couldn't see them--the raccoons whenever they grew bold in their approach, shining my flashlight into their troops of eyes--often 8-10 creatures came at a time--chucking rocks at them and yelling to drive them away again. Finally, I threw my last rock as the morning light made that last critter visible, a shadowy figure running across the dimness of the edge of my campsite. Later, while buying more wood at the bait shop, (replacing what I burned in the all-night vigil) I stood swaying, bleary-eyed while the shopkeeper talked on about how the raccoon population has exploded this year and how the dept. of natural resources was even setting traps to catch them. I grunted, heading wearily back to the campsite, where it was once was more beginning to rain. At that point I was too tired to do any more of the reflecting I'd done in the adrenalin-rushed wakefulness of the long hours in the dark, when I looked at the firelight flicker on the trees and listened to the animals rustling the perimeter brush.
There in the dark, I'd longed for my husband, but he couldn't take the time off work to spend those camping nights with us, (nor could his back have endured a night of camping followed by a day of work. But he joined us for the weekend.)
There in the dark, I'd considered life. I'd wondered at the strange balance: if it rains all night, and turns the low end of the tent into a small interior pond and the picnic canopy into the "waters of the firmament above" that once were dumped on Noah, if these are our circumstance, then the animals leave us alone. But come a decent clearing coupled with a relatively empty campground, and our holdings were at the mercy of nocturnal scavengers. The next night, however, was the start of the weekend, and so the campground was glutted well before dusk, going from a state of two distantly-placed tents to a small kingdom where every slip was filled with classic fishing-community campers. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a landscape formed where men still put out strong-smelling cigars on the bottoms of their boots, where women "fixed their hair" not for beauty's sake, but simply so they didn't go up in flames as they cooked over the fires, and where old-fashioned sweat pants and huarache sandals made a styling combination everywhere. That night, people left food out all over the place, but not an animal came in sight, well except maybe a few all-too-human ones.
Recently, I read an article about de-stressing life, and it recommended "developing the art of selective perfectionism." Only require 20% perfection of yourself, and realize that 80% of life's tasks can get by with a "just good enough" attitude. But does the 20/80% rule apply to the expectations surrounding current and/or future circumstances? 80% of the time, learn to settle for "just good enough?" And sadly, lately, even that percentage is running high as even the weather seems to mock our joie de vivre--and even in that 20% guaranteed window. Ha!
So what did I do? I held it together. But when we returned home, I cried like a baby while I lay in a hot bath, nursing bites from mosquitoes who had found their way to places only my husband is allowed to visit. Shameless creatures. Why, God? I had to ask. Was it true--that spiritual premonition of the scavenger eyes--was the dream indeed given as a spiritual sign, but one that said that I need to take adversity with a grain of salt, realizing that adversity might be the very source of protection I needed from something even more unpleasant: predators. Was I not recognizing the gift adverse circumstances offer, for these hard times just might hold at bay things and creatures whose own love of personal comfort shielded my life from their thievery. What's more, was this trip a sign that I need to guard against isolating myself too much, even though in some ways I feel myself growing more and more like the people I once called strange? I slept well when the creatures of the night felt outnumbered. Much less work for me. What am I to do with that knowledge?
Aside from these nuggets of wisdom gleaned from this most-unpleasant-camping-trip-of-my-life--I refuse to write it off as a total loss, since everything at its barest minimum is a learning experience, right?--still, I find that deep aching question remains unanswered, and as I consider what comes next in my life, as my physical and mental capacities change, as I consider what to do as my livelihood transitions, as my calling seems to press toward things impossible, as dreams cry out to die peacefully: dare I look forward yet again, to believe change can be potentially positive? Dare I dream of things beautiful and peaceful and restful ever happening (for me) in the future? Times past, I always answered that nagging question with: "Give it time--" But what about when time doesn't bring the promised change of season? What does that mean? Years roll by and nothing improves, in fact it gets worse. What does that mean? Who is the failure? Anyone? And, dare I hope even yet, to find that place, that sweet spot where I long to be, before I die? Even more precariously, dare I cling to the expectation that death itself can even offer its promised relief? Some say it is easier for someone who has nothing to believe in after-life bounty; but my experience has been that times of earthly bounty actually make it easier to believe in well-stocked heavenly barns. Such is the norm of this life, why not believe in the expansion of the same in the next? No, it is the extended lean times that make one think: if ever empty now, then what assurance of fullness anyplace?
And so I find the gleaming eyes of the attacker of my soul--it is this that is the dark-night predator I face, the one who is after my un-touchable stores even now, here safe again at home. Despite these many signs of crisis, so many that even my prayer partners shake their heads and ask what we need to pray about this week, to my embarrassment--nevertheless, I must decide what I will believe. Do I believe I have that heavenly mansion even as I saw it in another dream: something like a white house nestled on a hill in front of a larger, evergreen-swathed hill. A place where a gazebo with a swing waited for me; where a book, a picture hat and a pair of soft moccasins waited for me. Where a beautiful view of a valley gleaming in the deepening sunlight, waited for me. Now--do I believe the dream is my portion when I leave this place I call life and go to that place that really is life?
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
The Mantle (part 3)
So the cape became my world; and it sang to me a patchwork melody.
First, the patch of origin sang in solo.
I was the first;
before me
no one needed such a covering.
I looked upon Adam in his glory;
I ran alongside him crost garden vistas,
legs lost in those mists that rose from the earth.
I was the deer that pants beside still waters
in the days before he knew Eve,
in the days before they knew shame.
When the Master Designer took my life to cover that shame,
Adam ran his hands over my silky hide, even as it hung
from his own shoulders,
smoothed my hide and ceased to wonder
what this thing--death--must mean.
He felt no quiver of life, only supple sacrifice.
And he knew.
So though covered, he dredged the depths of this newer shame,
but shame with a purpose and a hope...
and the cape was begun.
A second patch sang out, a harmony of color...and of blood,
the swatch of a larger coat, fashioned to favor
one named Joseph,
(or "Jehovah has added"
ah, but added what?)
a swatch-song given to hide a hatred,
for this one was hated by his father's other sons.
"What is our future as long as you are around?" they reasoned.
"Surely with your light extinguished,
our father will cease to be dazzled
will see us again.
Bless us, too, Father!" they cry,
without considering the brackish waters
of their own baptisms.
Yes, a second patch sang out, a harmony of color...and of blood.
For years, the father ran his hand over the colors matted,
stiff with dried blood.
For years he thought the blood his son's.
But in truth, the blood of a kid, a drenching to hide the pride of the usurper.
But the lie does not prevail, nor the strength of the wicked.
The life that wore the cloak--not lost, but growing stronger,
arranging opportunity for redemptions to be offered,
and able to sustain in the day of need.
Then a third patch sang a strain of variation,
a phrase of diverse colors,
and ambition.
A greedy mother
of an evil warrior,
sitting at her window
pondering her son's exploits.
"Have they even now divided spoils?"
(She thinks surely yes.)
"Does he even now
bear the cloak of his prey,
diverse colors,
the envy of any would-be conqueror?"
She sits at home, at peace
and gleeful
there among her handmaidens.
Was that cloak-dream sufficient solace, Mother?
For your son fell in battle
as your counterpart, Deborah,
(a mother in Israel)
stood tall on Tel Megiddo,
singing her victory songs alongside the warriors.
One patch stitched for foolish self-will,
two more for pride and jealousy.
Though supple and beautiful,
how much they chafe the heart of flesh.
Sadly, one more in this cluster of color,
even here no rainbow-promise rides the colors.
No, they adorn an enemy lusting
and impatient for his gain.
Tamar, young and beautiful,
draped in the diverse colors
of the virgin daughter
of a favored king.
Why does she cook her brother meat?
A gift of service, a moment of trust, a voice of reason.
But in his heart, the dark glow of false need,
so a contrived arrangement
steals her chastity, throws her away.
She rent the cloak and dusted it with ash,
(love and compassion burned to hopelessness
make for a filmy cover.)
Such is her swatch's song.
Patches of pride stitched to patches of sacrifice.
What will be next?
A child's lullaby, this small patch sings hauntingly.
A woman longs for a son, many years.
A woman longs for a son, in the presence of so many
gloating mothers.
At last, her hope is realized.
But she has made a promise.
A covenant with God that will not be broken.
Young Samuel, her son, will live
and grow to manhood in the Lord's house,
not her own.
A cloak is carefully made, and made.
Hannah's own hands doing the artful work
As she sews, she prays,
(so many ways of constructing his covering.)
One small joy:
Every year she sees him, once.
Every year a new coat given,
and ever bigger is the labor of weaving, sewing--
more fabric needed,
more prayer, too,
prayer to fight that bitter clutch in her breast,
as his childhood flows away,
as her decision to give becomes more fossilized.
Sacrifice and resignation;
things done that can't be undone,
things good, but painful;
things misunderstood...
She lays awake at night, and wonders about his dreams,
(wishing she could comfort him in the dark)
She wonders if he will ever really understand
this strange covenant she made with God;
trusting God's wisdom, but
wishing it could have been different
anyway.
I drew a ragged breath at the song of that fuzzy little patch.
"No more for now," I cried out. "Little wonder this part is the lining. Who can bear to see, hear so much of it at one time!"
Then voices hushed, so that only one remained
--the voice of the Giver--
Who whispered through the opening, "Do not fear.
"But rest a while, and know
some patches sing songs glorious.
And you will hear them in the land of the living."
First, the patch of origin sang in solo.
I was the first;
before me
no one needed such a covering.
I looked upon Adam in his glory;
I ran alongside him crost garden vistas,
legs lost in those mists that rose from the earth.
I was the deer that pants beside still waters
in the days before he knew Eve,
in the days before they knew shame.
When the Master Designer took my life to cover that shame,
Adam ran his hands over my silky hide, even as it hung
from his own shoulders,
smoothed my hide and ceased to wonder
what this thing--death--must mean.
He felt no quiver of life, only supple sacrifice.
And he knew.
So though covered, he dredged the depths of this newer shame,
but shame with a purpose and a hope...
and the cape was begun.
A second patch sang out, a harmony of color...and of blood,
the swatch of a larger coat, fashioned to favor
one named Joseph,
(or "Jehovah has added"
ah, but added what?)
a swatch-song given to hide a hatred,
for this one was hated by his father's other sons.
"What is our future as long as you are around?" they reasoned.
"Surely with your light extinguished,
our father will cease to be dazzled
will see us again.
Bless us, too, Father!" they cry,
without considering the brackish waters
of their own baptisms.
Yes, a second patch sang out, a harmony of color...and of blood.
For years, the father ran his hand over the colors matted,
stiff with dried blood.
For years he thought the blood his son's.
But in truth, the blood of a kid, a drenching to hide the pride of the usurper.
But the lie does not prevail, nor the strength of the wicked.
The life that wore the cloak--not lost, but growing stronger,
arranging opportunity for redemptions to be offered,
and able to sustain in the day of need.
Then a third patch sang a strain of variation,
a phrase of diverse colors,
and ambition.
A greedy mother
of an evil warrior,
sitting at her window
pondering her son's exploits.
"Have they even now divided spoils?"
(She thinks surely yes.)
"Does he even now
bear the cloak of his prey,
diverse colors,
the envy of any would-be conqueror?"
She sits at home, at peace
and gleeful
there among her handmaidens.
Was that cloak-dream sufficient solace, Mother?
For your son fell in battle
as your counterpart, Deborah,
(a mother in Israel)
stood tall on Tel Megiddo,
singing her victory songs alongside the warriors.
One patch stitched for foolish self-will,
two more for pride and jealousy.
Though supple and beautiful,
how much they chafe the heart of flesh.
Sadly, one more in this cluster of color,
even here no rainbow-promise rides the colors.
No, they adorn an enemy lusting
and impatient for his gain.
Tamar, young and beautiful,
draped in the diverse colors
of the virgin daughter
of a favored king.
Why does she cook her brother meat?
A gift of service, a moment of trust, a voice of reason.
But in his heart, the dark glow of false need,
so a contrived arrangement
steals her chastity, throws her away.
She rent the cloak and dusted it with ash,
(love and compassion burned to hopelessness
make for a filmy cover.)
Such is her swatch's song.
Patches of pride stitched to patches of sacrifice.
What will be next?
A child's lullaby, this small patch sings hauntingly.
A woman longs for a son, many years.
A woman longs for a son, in the presence of so many
gloating mothers.
At last, her hope is realized.
But she has made a promise.
A covenant with God that will not be broken.
Young Samuel, her son, will live
and grow to manhood in the Lord's house,
not her own.
A cloak is carefully made, and made.
Hannah's own hands doing the artful work
As she sews, she prays,
(so many ways of constructing his covering.)
One small joy:
Every year she sees him, once.
Every year a new coat given,
and ever bigger is the labor of weaving, sewing--
more fabric needed,
more prayer, too,
prayer to fight that bitter clutch in her breast,
as his childhood flows away,
as her decision to give becomes more fossilized.
Sacrifice and resignation;
things done that can't be undone,
things good, but painful;
things misunderstood...
She lays awake at night, and wonders about his dreams,
(wishing she could comfort him in the dark)
She wonders if he will ever really understand
this strange covenant she made with God;
trusting God's wisdom, but
wishing it could have been different
anyway.
I drew a ragged breath at the song of that fuzzy little patch.
"No more for now," I cried out. "Little wonder this part is the lining. Who can bear to see, hear so much of it at one time!"
Then voices hushed, so that only one remained
--the voice of the Giver--
Who whispered through the opening, "Do not fear.
"But rest a while, and know
some patches sing songs glorious.
And you will hear them in the land of the living."
Covenant
Isaiah saw, in one of his visions, a very strange covenant. Incomprehensible--until you meet this woman described by Dr. Kingsley Fletcher in his book, The Power of Covenant. But years before Kingsley's encounter with a prostitute, Isaiah saw visions of days of collapsing economies and political unrest, of power imbalances and enfeebled compassion. In those days, Isaiah said, comes this prostitute, singing and dancing:
Isa 23:15
And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot.
Isa 23:16
Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered.
Isa 23:17
And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.
Isa 23:18
And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing.
Today I read of one woman who walked on this vision's thread of truth, making its inscrutability scrutable. What's more, that foreseen wine of life divinely poured into her crucible for the blessing of many peoples, her merchandise for the Lord, was also distributed--even after her death.
Isa 23:15
And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot.
Isa 23:16
Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered.
Isa 23:17
And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.
Isa 23:18
And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing.
Today I read of one woman who walked on this vision's thread of truth, making its inscrutability scrutable. What's more, that foreseen wine of life divinely poured into her crucible for the blessing of many peoples, her merchandise for the Lord, was also distributed--even after her death.
Thank You, God, that from antiquity even to this day there walk men whose hearts are larger than their fears of the inscrutable and whose lips and hands do not hesitate to act according to Your unction even in these matters."When I was about 20 years old, I left my homeland of Ghana to preach the
gospel in Abidjan...During one of my evangelistic meetings in this former French
colony, I met a young lady from Ghana who had come to Abidjan to earn money
through prostitution.
She heard me tell the story of God's love and how His Son gave his life on
the cross to save us from our sins and restore us to His covenant family.
The moment this woman received the message of God's love, an eternal transaction
took place. God.s love instantly filled her heart and life, despite the
fact that her body was nearly wasted away in the final stages of AIDS by that
time...
This woman knew she couldn't go back to Ghana because prostitution was
frowned upon in that culture. She had used much of the proceeds from
selling her body in precious years to send her children and her brothers and
sisters through high school, and to secure the living of her parents.
Her family thought she had a good job in the city, unaware that they would never
see her again. Her activities as a prostitute caused her to contract a
disease she couldn't even name and now she knew instinctively that death was at
her door.
Without much thought or regard for herself, she decided to do something
that most religious people would consider repulsive. She just knew she was
supposed to give the remaining money she had earned from prostitution, so I
could buy an airline ticket to go abroad and preach the Word of the Lord...She
supernaturally entered into covenant with the One who saved her. He had
given all He had for her; now she told me she wanted to invest all that she had
in His work...
I could have refused her gift if I had listened to the religious thoughts
in my mind: After all, that money is tainted. It was earned
through prostitution--it isn't worthy of being used in the Lord's
work. The the Lord spoke to my heart, saying, "It is Me. I am
working through this precious woman."
As the woman requested I used the money she gave me to fly from the Ivory
Coast to France where I ministered both to the Portuguese community there and to
the prostitutes in that nation's largest cities. By God's grace, I was
able to share my sponsor's story and final request and led many prostitutes to
the Lord." pp. 10-12, The Power of Covenant.
Monday, July 16, 2007
The Mantle (part 2)
How does one comprehend a story that emanates from fabric moving?
Every fabric has its timbre, so I was told.
And I determined to explore the voice of my new cape.
I rose up.
I ran, and I listened.
I danced, and I listened.
I tread softly through the dewy fields at dawning, and I listened.
I clung to a sheer rock face in a strong north wind,
cast my gaze across a landscape wherein even valleys prove rugged and inhospitable,
and I listened.
When I returned, He asked me,
"What did you discover?
Was the mantle not reticent in the peaceful places?
Was it not eloquent,
and pressing loquacious in the whirlwind on the mountain?
Tell Me, what did you find?"
"I noticed the finished edges are well-spoken," I said
even as I thoughtfully rubbed the stitching.
"These hemmed seams have voices prepared to expound,
and in any condition of weather.
But this end--the one I finally laid across my shoulders;
this end is different.
It is ragged.
Whenever I turned it out to the world, it flapped silently,
no matter what the condition of air."
He squinted, "So you noticed it said nothing to justify itself, then?"
"It did not," I agreed with a short nod. "Why is that?"
He reclined into the gnarled roots of the tree then, renewing
the place where He'd spent His days of waiting
for me.
I sat, too, and received a beguiling smile.
"The ripped part is indeed the place to best begin,
after all
it is the portal that reveals a prime significance
of this mantle.
But, the voice of the jagged part told its story only once;
for its story is not one of perpetual reaction to external conditions, no
its story was told in its ripping-moment.
And you must know the rip more intimately
if you are to learn that story."
Then, He rose and for a time, left me pondering.
How was I to do this? I wondered.
Eventually, I removed the cloak;
spread it out and
slid my body into the space between its parts:
that part which is ever on display,
and the part offering only the occasional glimpse of its essence;
the part designed for show (thus the cloak's public splendor)
but likewise subject to the just-force of weathering,
and
the part ever near, ever touching
yet rarely regarded in its
fleeting exposure.
Between these I crawled, and
in this strange cocoon,
in this strange womb,
where light and sound waned vestigial
and where peace descended,
there
I began to dream.
Every fabric has its timbre, so I was told.
And I determined to explore the voice of my new cape.
I rose up.
I ran, and I listened.
I danced, and I listened.
I tread softly through the dewy fields at dawning, and I listened.
I clung to a sheer rock face in a strong north wind,
cast my gaze across a landscape wherein even valleys prove rugged and inhospitable,
and I listened.
When I returned, He asked me,
"What did you discover?
Was the mantle not reticent in the peaceful places?
Was it not eloquent,
and pressing loquacious in the whirlwind on the mountain?
Tell Me, what did you find?"
"I noticed the finished edges are well-spoken," I said
even as I thoughtfully rubbed the stitching.
"These hemmed seams have voices prepared to expound,
and in any condition of weather.
But this end--the one I finally laid across my shoulders;
this end is different.
It is ragged.
Whenever I turned it out to the world, it flapped silently,
no matter what the condition of air."
He squinted, "So you noticed it said nothing to justify itself, then?"
"It did not," I agreed with a short nod. "Why is that?"
He reclined into the gnarled roots of the tree then, renewing
the place where He'd spent His days of waiting
for me.
I sat, too, and received a beguiling smile.
"The ripped part is indeed the place to best begin,
after all
it is the portal that reveals a prime significance
of this mantle.
But, the voice of the jagged part told its story only once;
for its story is not one of perpetual reaction to external conditions, no
its story was told in its ripping-moment.
And you must know the rip more intimately
if you are to learn that story."
Then, He rose and for a time, left me pondering.
How was I to do this? I wondered.
Eventually, I removed the cloak;
spread it out and
slid my body into the space between its parts:
that part which is ever on display,
and the part offering only the occasional glimpse of its essence;
the part designed for show (thus the cloak's public splendor)
but likewise subject to the just-force of weathering,
and
the part ever near, ever touching
yet rarely regarded in its
fleeting exposure.
Between these I crawled, and
in this strange cocoon,
in this strange womb,
where light and sound waned vestigial
and where peace descended,
there
I began to dream.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
The Mantle (part 1)
(...on being in the garment industry, spiritually speaking. A patchwork of Scripture.)
What can I say of the One who reaches
and grasps the curtain of heaven to pull its light from the rod where it hangs
to wrap it about Him like a garment;
whose mantle of light flashes embroidery of honor and majesty
for its insignia?
What do I say when He comes, walking on the wind,
in His perfect knowledge, to balance the clouds
that they might swirl around me like a cloak
for warmth, and to quiet my part of the earth?
I am speechless.
So He speaks.
"Lift, the cloak," He says, "and regard its lining."
"Though light as silk, and white upon your shoulders,
though scented with the spice that is every kind of life
though rustling, quiet as a fountain sealed, when you move under it, still
it is woven of heavy thread, and silent grief, and ancient cost."
So, I lifted the hem from my breast.
So I regarded the lining, as He said.
And in wonder I noted,
that though the surface gleamed and glittered fresh like snow,
and shone like a pearl of fine quality, still
its lining was drab, like ditch water.
And I sought to know why my new cloak should so abhor me where it hugged my flesh.
He said, "If you have courage, I will show you. But it is a great mystery,
one of the greatest draped over that creation called mankind."
"Lift and look again," He said.
Chorus:
Job 38:12
Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; [and] caused the dayspring to know his place;
Job 38:13
That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
Job 38:14
It is turned as clay [to] the seal; and they stand as a garment.
Job 38:15
And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken.
What can I say of the One who reaches
and grasps the curtain of heaven to pull its light from the rod where it hangs
to wrap it about Him like a garment;
whose mantle of light flashes embroidery of honor and majesty
for its insignia?
What do I say when He comes, walking on the wind,
in His perfect knowledge, to balance the clouds
that they might swirl around me like a cloak
for warmth, and to quiet my part of the earth?
I am speechless.
So He speaks.
"Lift, the cloak," He says, "and regard its lining."
"Though light as silk, and white upon your shoulders,
though scented with the spice that is every kind of life
though rustling, quiet as a fountain sealed, when you move under it, still
it is woven of heavy thread, and silent grief, and ancient cost."
So, I lifted the hem from my breast.
So I regarded the lining, as He said.
And in wonder I noted,
that though the surface gleamed and glittered fresh like snow,
and shone like a pearl of fine quality, still
its lining was drab, like ditch water.
And I sought to know why my new cloak should so abhor me where it hugged my flesh.
He said, "If you have courage, I will show you. But it is a great mystery,
one of the greatest draped over that creation called mankind."
"Lift and look again," He said.
Chorus:
Job 38:12
Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; [and] caused the dayspring to know his place;
Job 38:13
That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
Job 38:14
It is turned as clay [to] the seal; and they stand as a garment.
Job 38:15
And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken.
Christ in a Stranger's Guise
I met a stranger yest'rene--
I put food in the eating place
Drink in the drinking place
Music in the listening place--
And in the name of the Triune
He blessed myself and my house,
My cattle and my loved ones.
And the lark sang in his song--
Often, often, often goes
The Christ in the stranger's guise.
(Alfred Burt Carol)
Several times following His resurrection, Christ appears to His disciples. Sometimes they recognize Him; sometimes they don't. Sometimes they think Him a ghost. His answer when they don't recognize Him is to break bread in their presence. His answer when they think Him a disembodied spirit is to eat broiled fish and honeycomb in their presence.
How do we do the work of God, ask the people in the days before He dies. The work of God, Jesus says, is to believe.
I think I may be coming to a place where I can understand how you see a fathomless good in what you feel called to believe, my husband. I understand more about the differences (and finally, the similarities) between this and what I feel called to believe. May God continue to help my unbelief.
I was told to look for Christ. You were told to look for that stranger's guise. Now we must believe for these to be somehow merged in our call to put "food and drink and music" in the place they belong before a stranger who bears a blessing. (smile)
I put food in the eating place
Drink in the drinking place
Music in the listening place--
And in the name of the Triune
He blessed myself and my house,
My cattle and my loved ones.
And the lark sang in his song--
Often, often, often goes
The Christ in the stranger's guise.
(Alfred Burt Carol)
Several times following His resurrection, Christ appears to His disciples. Sometimes they recognize Him; sometimes they don't. Sometimes they think Him a ghost. His answer when they don't recognize Him is to break bread in their presence. His answer when they think Him a disembodied spirit is to eat broiled fish and honeycomb in their presence.
How do we do the work of God, ask the people in the days before He dies. The work of God, Jesus says, is to believe.
I think I may be coming to a place where I can understand how you see a fathomless good in what you feel called to believe, my husband. I understand more about the differences (and finally, the similarities) between this and what I feel called to believe. May God continue to help my unbelief.
I was told to look for Christ. You were told to look for that stranger's guise. Now we must believe for these to be somehow merged in our call to put "food and drink and music" in the place they belong before a stranger who bears a blessing. (smile)
Thursday, July 12, 2007
On Being a Measuring Rod, and the Aftermath
...as hopelessness still strives to stake its claim.
My Lord, You prayed this for me, and I do believe it. " 'Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world...
...And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.' " John 17:24-26.
Funny, how easily these words of Your prayer roll off the reciter's tongue, that is until they are crushed and mixed under the pestle of Your sermon on the Mount--and its requirements for selflessness--in the realities of daily of life. Your particular glory brings pain in its revelation, and the love of Your Father is a love of pain and sacrifice. If this oneness You ask for us to have is not seen through a veil of pain, I question whether it has really been perceived at all.
And what more might we know of this One who loves from before the foundations of the earth--what is His nature beyond its love for us? Can we survive reaching out to touch that expanse? For He asks this of man:
"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements?...
...Who laid its cornerstone,
When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
"Or who shut in the sea with doors, (you dreamed of being assigned this job, my husband)
When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
When I made the clouds its garment,
And thick darkness its swaddling band; (and I have dreamed both of these.)
When I fixed My limit for it,
And set bars and doors;
When I said,
This far you may come, but no farther,
And here your proud waves must stop!"
Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
And caused the dawn to know its place,
That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,
And the wicked be shaken out of it?" Job 38:4, 7-1
What have I to say about being used to fix a limit? To be the tool by which You cause the dawn to know its place? Do I have the strength for such a call? This is the sifting of my soul.
"Why?" Few people dispute the power of this word to stand alone, even though it always requires a triggering event, and a recipient. Still we put it out there alone. We think that if we have the answer, we can endure. But I submit that knowing the answer can sometimes be even more devastating. It is said that when Christ was in His Gethsemane, an angel came to minister to Him. But after these ministrations, He was in even deeper anguish. I believe He got His why answered.
And this text from Job is partial answer for me too, I know, God. I understand.
Man is a precious tool in Your hand, a tool for refining, a tool for exposing the dross that is wickedness. Man is a precious tool in Your hand for sorting and measuring the length and breadth of the things that claim allegiance to You, but that must have their love's sincerity proven. How far will they go for me? How much will they sacrifice? And iron sharpens iron in the answering of it. For now, the proud see no benefit in allowing God to use them this way. Such a state of events feels degrading. It feels like an act of profound disrespect from God even as He demands respect from us. At such a time, it is easy to ask ourselves, how can God have so little care for me that He would seemingly arrange for my ill-will toward Him as He uses me ruthlessly to measure the self-sacrifice hopefully latent in another, and in so doing destroy my comfortable self-deception that I matter to this pressed-down brother that I love; that He would then tell me to forgive that one who hurts me, because He forgave me; forgive even now, while the hurt is still raw. How do I find the courage to seek out and then thank Him for the benefits of this moment, even as I recognize His ill-using of me in this breaking of my heart? Is this the cross I carry to follow my Jesus? It is too hard, God! Who could be so gracious? Maybe I could be so strong in a moment of crisis, as in feeling the call to step out and take a bullet for someone. But to "die daily" and maintain it like a chronic condition of life in a "vast array" of circumstances? I say again, who can be so gracious?
Yesterday and the day before, my eldest son and I took a road trip. The purpose of the trip in part was to present to the appropriate legal bodies and offices the evidence needed to reveal a clerical error on his driving record that resulted in a wrongfully suspended license. Five hours of driving we spent on a wild goose chase to take said record to a government office that proved to be the wrong office, all because we believed, once again, that a government official knew what she was talking about, knew what she was doing, as she attempted to interpret what we should do with the judge's ruling to vacate the ticket that suspended his license, what we should do in order to cleanse his record of wrongful points. Wasn't it a scribe, a clerk, a record-keeper for the government that caused our problem in the first place? Why should we expect competency now, oh foolish hopeful ones that we are. Now, it turns out we needed to go to another office, in Indianapolis, IN. We got back in the car. So, after driving the hours required to get to Springfield, IL, we turned around and headed back the way we came. (We rejected the recommendation of that clerk in the IL Sec. of State's office to "make the trip worthwhile" by making a visit the Lincoln Museum while we were in town anyway. It almost felt like a slap in the face, although she didn't mean it that way.)
I looked at the sky as we drove through those flat, unending cornfields while my son slept beside me. That sky was hung with clouds that looked unfinished. In fact, if that sky were a painted back-drop on some movie studio set, an observer would say, "What was the point of starting to paint those clouds if you weren't going to finish them? You can't use them like that. They just look slopped on there!" But there they were. Real clouds in a real sky. Why? Why is truth so often stranger than fiction? Why do our efforts to hang a measure of substance above our heads often seem futile, like visions unreal and yet pervasive?
And I am not the only one feeling the pointlessness of striving, striving to make things right, striving to be honorable under the sun. My husband endures this hardship, too. God, now I'm not just talking about you, I am praying to You. Give us the strength to persevere. Give us the heart to love unconditionally, immeasurably, no matter what hangs over us. If ones around us are being tested and falter and can not love us Your way, then gird us to love enough for all. And, we acknowledge that only You can enable us to fulfill Your command to love those who would make themselves our enemies--in this case, those who would under-realize and therefore under-prioritize their power over our lives. You know, God, that in three days time we will most likely lose our car and thus our credit rating and therefore our last hope of turning this option to buy into a real mortgage so that we can really own this home we felt like You called us to buy. How are we to make sense of this situation? Did You put us in this house only so that You could measure the world around us as it responds to our attempts to occupy and keep it? How are we to feel about the fact that You have left us with no safety net, and all so that You can assess whether our desperation will be recognized by others, hopefully eliciting a response from those You are measuring? How do we feel about them and You, as we watch while You put before them choices that empower them to make or break our lives on this plane, that this is a power You have granted them over us, and we can do nothing but pray and love and believe. And if that "enemy" is not a stranger but someone more like a brother, then the anguish felt as these higher spiritual realities play themselves out, well it is all the deeper. How easy to look at this sky You have hung so wide and unavoidably over us and call out to it, "Your substance looks fake! Why are you up there?!?"
Choices under such a sky are at a premium. The sky of course has its own reasons for being the way it is, reasons that we can't know deeply, ourselves being earth bound. The only real choice that can be made in such circumstances--and I mentioned this the other day--is the choice of how to pray. And indeed this prayer has been made: that no matter what the personal cost to us, may the skies all around us thrive and become beautiful again, and this not just because of their place over us, but even in the lofty parts unseen. In fact, the answer to that prayer was given even before it was prayed, even before the return to home was an accomplished fact--the home that even yet may prove so temporary. For as my son and I drove home last night, and when we were almost home, the most brilliant and beautiful sunset shone down upon us. It was so beautiful that my son called his girlfriend to recommend she go outside and take pictures of the ripples of gold and peach and maroon swelling across its blue dunes.
Still that answer in the sunset--is it not just something fanciful for the moment? Who (but me) claims that all will be well based on such a "sign" as this? And is it not a sign for the sky itself? What is that to me, for our own plight doesn't change. We still need the answer to the question: where do we turn to beg for help as justice proves itself over and over to be locked down tight? Where do we turn? To You, God? But were You not the one who arranged for these various measures to be taken in the first place, measures that exposed us to so many possible harms, measures that set us up for potential ruin on almost every front? Dare we trust that we matter more to You than we do to this cloud that surrounds us? Dare we believe You will help us to be content to let go of even more of what is temporal, eating the invisible food, sleeping in the invisible bowers?
You give and take away. So it is said. But again, why? If You only give in order to take away, what does that say about the meaning of higher love? And if a heart is mature enough to cooperate with such a love, even clinging to hope and faith when the love is driven sacrificially to the point of love-blindness, will You even then make a perceptible picture of the puzzle pieces You've scattered? For this, I pray, O God, my Redeemer.
My Lord, You prayed this for me, and I do believe it. " 'Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world...
...And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.' " John 17:24-26.
Funny, how easily these words of Your prayer roll off the reciter's tongue, that is until they are crushed and mixed under the pestle of Your sermon on the Mount--and its requirements for selflessness--in the realities of daily of life. Your particular glory brings pain in its revelation, and the love of Your Father is a love of pain and sacrifice. If this oneness You ask for us to have is not seen through a veil of pain, I question whether it has really been perceived at all.
And what more might we know of this One who loves from before the foundations of the earth--what is His nature beyond its love for us? Can we survive reaching out to touch that expanse? For He asks this of man:
"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements?...
...Who laid its cornerstone,
When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
"Or who shut in the sea with doors, (you dreamed of being assigned this job, my husband)
When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
When I made the clouds its garment,
And thick darkness its swaddling band; (and I have dreamed both of these.)
When I fixed My limit for it,
And set bars and doors;
When I said,
This far you may come, but no farther,
And here your proud waves must stop!"
Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
And caused the dawn to know its place,
That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,
And the wicked be shaken out of it?" Job 38:4, 7-1
What have I to say about being used to fix a limit? To be the tool by which You cause the dawn to know its place? Do I have the strength for such a call? This is the sifting of my soul.
"Why?" Few people dispute the power of this word to stand alone, even though it always requires a triggering event, and a recipient. Still we put it out there alone. We think that if we have the answer, we can endure. But I submit that knowing the answer can sometimes be even more devastating. It is said that when Christ was in His Gethsemane, an angel came to minister to Him. But after these ministrations, He was in even deeper anguish. I believe He got His why answered.
And this text from Job is partial answer for me too, I know, God. I understand.
Man is a precious tool in Your hand, a tool for refining, a tool for exposing the dross that is wickedness. Man is a precious tool in Your hand for sorting and measuring the length and breadth of the things that claim allegiance to You, but that must have their love's sincerity proven. How far will they go for me? How much will they sacrifice? And iron sharpens iron in the answering of it. For now, the proud see no benefit in allowing God to use them this way. Such a state of events feels degrading. It feels like an act of profound disrespect from God even as He demands respect from us. At such a time, it is easy to ask ourselves, how can God have so little care for me that He would seemingly arrange for my ill-will toward Him as He uses me ruthlessly to measure the self-sacrifice hopefully latent in another, and in so doing destroy my comfortable self-deception that I matter to this pressed-down brother that I love; that He would then tell me to forgive that one who hurts me, because He forgave me; forgive even now, while the hurt is still raw. How do I find the courage to seek out and then thank Him for the benefits of this moment, even as I recognize His ill-using of me in this breaking of my heart? Is this the cross I carry to follow my Jesus? It is too hard, God! Who could be so gracious? Maybe I could be so strong in a moment of crisis, as in feeling the call to step out and take a bullet for someone. But to "die daily" and maintain it like a chronic condition of life in a "vast array" of circumstances? I say again, who can be so gracious?
Yesterday and the day before, my eldest son and I took a road trip. The purpose of the trip in part was to present to the appropriate legal bodies and offices the evidence needed to reveal a clerical error on his driving record that resulted in a wrongfully suspended license. Five hours of driving we spent on a wild goose chase to take said record to a government office that proved to be the wrong office, all because we believed, once again, that a government official knew what she was talking about, knew what she was doing, as she attempted to interpret what we should do with the judge's ruling to vacate the ticket that suspended his license, what we should do in order to cleanse his record of wrongful points. Wasn't it a scribe, a clerk, a record-keeper for the government that caused our problem in the first place? Why should we expect competency now, oh foolish hopeful ones that we are. Now, it turns out we needed to go to another office, in Indianapolis, IN. We got back in the car. So, after driving the hours required to get to Springfield, IL, we turned around and headed back the way we came. (We rejected the recommendation of that clerk in the IL Sec. of State's office to "make the trip worthwhile" by making a visit the Lincoln Museum while we were in town anyway. It almost felt like a slap in the face, although she didn't mean it that way.)
I looked at the sky as we drove through those flat, unending cornfields while my son slept beside me. That sky was hung with clouds that looked unfinished. In fact, if that sky were a painted back-drop on some movie studio set, an observer would say, "What was the point of starting to paint those clouds if you weren't going to finish them? You can't use them like that. They just look slopped on there!" But there they were. Real clouds in a real sky. Why? Why is truth so often stranger than fiction? Why do our efforts to hang a measure of substance above our heads often seem futile, like visions unreal and yet pervasive?
And I am not the only one feeling the pointlessness of striving, striving to make things right, striving to be honorable under the sun. My husband endures this hardship, too. God, now I'm not just talking about you, I am praying to You. Give us the strength to persevere. Give us the heart to love unconditionally, immeasurably, no matter what hangs over us. If ones around us are being tested and falter and can not love us Your way, then gird us to love enough for all. And, we acknowledge that only You can enable us to fulfill Your command to love those who would make themselves our enemies--in this case, those who would under-realize and therefore under-prioritize their power over our lives. You know, God, that in three days time we will most likely lose our car and thus our credit rating and therefore our last hope of turning this option to buy into a real mortgage so that we can really own this home we felt like You called us to buy. How are we to make sense of this situation? Did You put us in this house only so that You could measure the world around us as it responds to our attempts to occupy and keep it? How are we to feel about the fact that You have left us with no safety net, and all so that You can assess whether our desperation will be recognized by others, hopefully eliciting a response from those You are measuring? How do we feel about them and You, as we watch while You put before them choices that empower them to make or break our lives on this plane, that this is a power You have granted them over us, and we can do nothing but pray and love and believe. And if that "enemy" is not a stranger but someone more like a brother, then the anguish felt as these higher spiritual realities play themselves out, well it is all the deeper. How easy to look at this sky You have hung so wide and unavoidably over us and call out to it, "Your substance looks fake! Why are you up there?!?"
Choices under such a sky are at a premium. The sky of course has its own reasons for being the way it is, reasons that we can't know deeply, ourselves being earth bound. The only real choice that can be made in such circumstances--and I mentioned this the other day--is the choice of how to pray. And indeed this prayer has been made: that no matter what the personal cost to us, may the skies all around us thrive and become beautiful again, and this not just because of their place over us, but even in the lofty parts unseen. In fact, the answer to that prayer was given even before it was prayed, even before the return to home was an accomplished fact--the home that even yet may prove so temporary. For as my son and I drove home last night, and when we were almost home, the most brilliant and beautiful sunset shone down upon us. It was so beautiful that my son called his girlfriend to recommend she go outside and take pictures of the ripples of gold and peach and maroon swelling across its blue dunes.
Still that answer in the sunset--is it not just something fanciful for the moment? Who (but me) claims that all will be well based on such a "sign" as this? And is it not a sign for the sky itself? What is that to me, for our own plight doesn't change. We still need the answer to the question: where do we turn to beg for help as justice proves itself over and over to be locked down tight? Where do we turn? To You, God? But were You not the one who arranged for these various measures to be taken in the first place, measures that exposed us to so many possible harms, measures that set us up for potential ruin on almost every front? Dare we trust that we matter more to You than we do to this cloud that surrounds us? Dare we believe You will help us to be content to let go of even more of what is temporal, eating the invisible food, sleeping in the invisible bowers?
You give and take away. So it is said. But again, why? If You only give in order to take away, what does that say about the meaning of higher love? And if a heart is mature enough to cooperate with such a love, even clinging to hope and faith when the love is driven sacrificially to the point of love-blindness, will You even then make a perceptible picture of the puzzle pieces You've scattered? For this, I pray, O God, my Redeemer.
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