What do you call worship?

I had a dream in which God requested something of me, but in the strange way that is now so common between us; another one of those moments when God seems to chuckle and say, "Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. You'll see."

I had a dream, and in it, I was given an assignment by God. He asked me to visit a series of churches, specifically to check out the foam level. I began to visit churches randomly, and indeed they all had mounds of foam, like suds frothing up on their floors. I studied the status of that foam at church after church, quite diligently I did my job. And it didn't seem odd that there should be foam, nor that I should give it such careful attention. In time, I felt ready to report back to God. So I returned to Him and made my report: the foam was still there, but it was dissipating, breaking down. And that was the end of the dream.

I've had enough of these dreams to have learned two things about my reception of them: I must proceed with patience, but likewise with attention. Like a pot moved to a back burner to simmer while other things might happened on the front burner, so this dream was that back burner's fare that was nonetheless still on the menu.

So I was hardly surprised when some time later, in the course of my regular Bible reading, I came across this passage. There was once a time when such a correlation left me breathless while cold chills ran the length of my spine. Now I simply smile a secret-well-shared sort of smile. Does that mean You are growing our relationship to new levels of familiarity? In any case, here is the reference:

Jud 1:10 Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals–these are the very things that destroy them.

Jud 1:11 Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam's error; they have been destroyed in Korah's rebellion.

Jud 1:12 These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm–shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted–twice dead.

Jud 1:13 They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

There was my foam. Shame, unrecognized and ineffective in changing those causing it.

I went deeper into a study on these ones so graphically defined as dangerous and fruitless for any genuinely good result. The book of Jude is a small book; an interesting one to consider. For instance, it rests some of its arguments on texts that historic Jews considered common knowledge (like the texts that documented the dispute between Michael and the Devil over Moses' body and all the prophecies of Enoch) but are not a part of the holy canon. Now, 1700 years after the Nicaean Council's historic meeting about the unification of the Christian faith, these texts are virtually unknown to Christians, even by title, and certainly are more unfamiliar in content than they were to the original readers of these letters to the churches. That is one interesting point about the book of Jude--how it reminds us what is no longer common knowledge. Another is its brevity, and in that sense, its purity of intent. It addresses one need, fields one warning, fleshes out one danger: beware the false teacher/leader. People of the true faith are instructed on how to move forward in their walk with God despite these false ones who shamelessly stain the fabric of the corporate faith.

I understood the dream's call, then and was sobered by it. But, implementing it was hardly feasible. Both my husband and I had worship, service and leadership commitments within our local church. How were we to make this assessment happen? And, even before we could go to work on making such a survey doable, the family was struck with mono, and no one went to church for a couple of months, or went much of anywhere for that matter except the doctor's office! Life circumstances extricated us from most obligations, one by one, but that is already documented here.

When we recovered and returned to church, we were completely free of those obligations as we'd been out of the loop for a while. It was time to pick up the reigns again if we were going to do so, but even as we "visited" again our church home, we felt a change within us. Neither of us felt particularly led to resume our former work in the church. What's more, we felt led to go out and visit other churches. Maybe it was time for a change, we thought. Funny how just a few months in the wilderness of illness made me forget the dream and its defining Scripture.

But as we began visiting other churches, each time I felt a question, a test if you will, pop into my mind. Watch for this, I'd hear in my mind's ear. Look for this, I'd feel told to watch with my mind's eye. And as for what my heart might perceive, this was all the more mysterious and off the beaten path of past experiences with "church shopping." For instance, at one church, I was listening to a sermon on the topic of being willing to embrace relationship with God outside the realm of His provision for our creature comforts. As I diligently took my notes on the back of my bulletin in that space labeled: Sermon Notes, an idea popped into my mind--Jesus addressed this topic when He spoke of how foxes have dens, but the Son of Man has no place to rest His head. Jesus should be one of the points of evidence confirming the validity of this aspect of the life of faith. But points one, two and three went by without Jesus making an appearance in the sermon. I thought the sermon might fail to present its most conclusive evidence proving its assertion when in a last point--a fourth point (who preaches a four-point sermon!?!)--the pastor at last brought Jesus on the scene. The image of the dissipating foam suddenly flashed to mind. We were living the drama of the dream, indeed had walked through Acts I and II before we even knew we were on stage. I believe those moments of human realization of divine intervention are surely a delight to God. I've felt His glee when He knows we've discovered His amazing plans presented mid-stream such that we are shielded from taking undue credit for their wisdom--because the awareness arrived both late and effortlessly full blown.

So we stepped all the more alertly into this church hunt, realizing it had a larger context than simply one family finding a new church wherein to worship. I believe we all--as God's creation--have opportunities to live in a larger context than the details of our singular time-locked lives. We are living poetry, and a blessed few even know it.

But now the children grow weary. They (and we) would like to settle somewhere. We long for a place to call home in the worship sense. Still, as an encouragement, the Spirit reminds us kindly that our work matters. Last night, we had deep-spirit friends over for dinner. A sudden shower drove that summer-rain scent through the window, wafting over the fantastic aroma of my husband's handiwork: a barbecued tenderloin that all agreed was some of the best barbecue they'd ever tasted. Even as the rain fell softly outside like a gentle cocoon, we sat in the warm glow of the well-lit dining room. There my friend commented on a day last week when clouds all day seemed to promise rain, yet in the end gave none.

This morning, I decided to re-visit my Commission, and there I saw a reminder that the Spirit is still with us, even through the weariness of our human frailty, and even through a common little dinner shared with friends, an event that hardly classifies as worship in the grand scheme of worship services. But I saw again the verse that claimed false teachers are like rainless clouds, and I remembered how my spirit-sister reminded me last night, without meaning to be profound in the least, and in such being profound all the more, that rainless clouds have made an appearance recently, but now were but a thing of passing memory.

After the rainless clouds have their day, a good meal will be shared, warm company enjoyed, even hearty and passionate differences of opinion bandied about in loving fun, all as the clouds keep their promises of gentle rain. I can face the Sabbath in peace a while longer, God; and as is so often the case, (I quote my husband here)I can persevere and endure almost anything as long as I know what is ahead of me. Even better, when the knowing fortells something good.

Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord. Psalms 107:43

Pentecost Dreams

This morning, in that netherworld between sleeping and full awakening, I had one of those near-dreams wash refreshing over my spirit. I don't have them often, so they are always a pleasure to receive. In this one, I sat on the couch where I commonly sit and gazed at a grouping of candles, along with a vase, on the coffee table in front of me. The thing that refreshed my heart at the appearance of this scene before me was that all these elements were caught up in a gleam that sprang from some light source shining over my shoulder. This gleaming vase, alongside the softness of the candlelight, made me catch my spiritual breath at its loveliness. But one little candle caught my attention. It, too, had its way of gleaming, but its sparkle was due to its encasement in a cellophane wrapper. It was a short pillar nestled in front of other, taller pillars that burned serenely behind it, but it was of the same nature as them. It simply needed one more action taken to prepare it to join the light. I reached out and took it out of its wrapper so that it, too, could be used. And somehow I knew that little candle was me.

When I rose from my bed with this dream still on my mind, I took fresh coffee and my prayer journal out on the front porch to enjoy a golden dawn as I meditated upon Your interactions with me. Yesterday, I swept that porch--clearing it of the late winter/early spring cobwebs and aborted seed pods and dead leaves. I brought out the tall ferns that were not faring so well inside the house--the cats want to play in them. And I brought out the wicker chair that migrates seasonally from our foyer to the front porch. Yesterday, I made an inviting place just outside my front door, and today I took my first morning of meditation there. A "welcome" flag covered with primitive-art sunflowers flapped lightly in the breeze, and a dawning sun, as yet hidden by the garage, nevertheless showed itself in the sheen it cast across the tops of the dewy, cobwebbed bushes. I was reminded that all my sweeping would not ultimately alter the fact that spiders will come and go, but I was alright with that.

And the soft wind whispered a new expectation into my prayer time. Pentecost.

I've been called by the Spirit to expect a Baptism, a personal encounter with the Cross and Resurrection of my Lord Jesus Christ, a Circumcision from my own human belief in my personal potency. And each of these expectations was made manifest in my life, most of them with great strain in the birthing of them. This time I believe it may be different--the associated strain may come later. This time as I hear something about this next wayside stop on life's journey I hear whispers of a Pentecost, and there are noteworthy differences in such a call from these previous advents, if you will. It strikes me as interesting, to look back over the last few years as each of these landmark moments became a part of my being. At first, these foreshadowing nudges, enigmatic as the course of the wind and easily misunderstood if not received in faith--they prompted confusion and strangeness that was very nearly unwelcome as I had not walked with them in my bosom until they found their opportunities for fruition. But as I receive them with some small measure of experience now, that strangeness has evaporated into a more confident expectancy. They foster excitement as I can now anticipate Your doing a great work upon me because of what You have previously done.

If this is indeed a Pentecost in the truest sense of the word, I am excited; for this is the first such pronouncement over me that reaches beyond the blessing of personal benefit, reaches into a new domain--one where You bless others through me.

Yes, itt is fitting that I stepped outside my front door to hear such a message this morning. And my response prayer: May it be on earth as it is in heaven, may it be evident in the flesh as it is in the prayers of the Spirit and the Son...

my favorite dream in the minds of the mystics...

March 24 and 25, 2006, I wrote the following entries about my "favorite" dream:

my favorite dream...
...begins dismally. I'm either climbing up through a false ceiling in a dark, cramped, rodent-infested closet or I am ascending a gloomy staircase into something like a turret, with tiny windows along the way giving a view that triggers vertigo. Chipped paint and cobwebs show that this route has not been recently taken, let alone maintained. In that respect, it is much like the condition of the closet. Both variations of the dream's introduction have me going through a tiny trap-door opening at the top of the closet/turret. I climb into what I presume will be an even grimmer attic. Every time, to my surprise, this "attic" is ridiculously more spacious than the underlying structure warrants. Also, it is lavish and beautifully prepared for occupancy: heavy and rich wood doors and floors, huge vaulting ceilings, Persian rugs and elegant furnishings. A strange but somehow natural light suffuses through the closed, frothy curtains covering rank after rank of tall windows. As I explore, I find that each room is more breath-taking than the last. I feel like a child who stumbled onto a fairy castle, a castle kept long, but spotlessly ready, waiting for its inhabitants. I am thrilled to have "discovered" the place, thrilled to have it all to myself.In times past, I had this dream frequently...at least 3-4 times a year. After each occurrence, I'd feel light-hearted and unusually joyful the whole next day. One time about a year ago, I had this same dream, but this time other people found their way into the attic behind me. My initial reaction was disappointment. Having these people come to me and want me to help them find their own "places" in the castle took away the magic and made my own place there that of a servant. It was the last time I had the dream.In time, I came to realize the dreams were a question: would I take the beautiful spiritual world I have indeed been given and share it with others? Apparently, my subconscious initially said, "no." Since then, my conscious mind committed my will to the challenge of making myself available no matter what my subconscious desires might selfishly be and no matter what the personal sacrifice of intimacy and freedom. Since then, God has orchestrated a series of unusual events, books, people--to bombard me with opportunity to strengthen this "will to serve" that I've committed into His hands. I've prayed to have the dream again, in the hopes of being a better "hostess" to weary climbers. I miss the dream enough now that I'd be happy to share it, if it means I, too, get a part of it again. Oh, to have it just one more time...but even that is a sign that I haven't quite "got there" yet. I'll probably have it again, the very day I forget to want it...Isn't it strange for a dream to be that powerful over my waking life?

and the next day I wrote:

...today I discovered a verse in the words of the ancient prophet Zechariah that matches my dream...at least the component of the tiny passage leading to a palace so large that it can not be of the same "reality" as the closet/stairway, the impossibility of the largeness and beauty of the one place sitting above the small and grimness of the other:"Rejoice, daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh; he is just and having salvation." The connection doesn't appear until you look into the Hebrew word origins for the King James here. The word translated in this verse as salvation is also applied in other references to convey the idea "broad, ample, spacious and opulent." Wow!


Now, 3 years and a bit later, I'm reading a Larry Crabb book entitles Becoming a True Spiritual Community and find he uses the following to describe the "other place to be" that is found in the musings of the likes of Augustine and Teresa of Avila. He describes a state of being equivalent to choosing between two rooms, one being the self-actualizing, self-made room below, and the other the "Christ in you" room that Paul describes in scripture. One, the room fashioned for us by Spirit of God and the other, the room designed by the flesh to "preserve and enhance one's own well-being."

Crabb goes into a rather thorough survey of these two rooms, and I find myself seeing definition to the "secret, hidden apartment" that has eluded my dreams for so long now...For the record, here are some of his distinctions between life in the two domains (rooms) as well as observations on how to secure the "upper" one:

These are the furnishings of the Lower Room: (1) We long for good relationships; (2) we look after our own needs; (3) the world both frustrates and satisfies us, sometimes one more than the other; we learn what we like about the world and go after it; and (4) we are aware of a moral code that tells us what we should and should not do in our pursuit of happiness.

This is life in the first room. God isn't there-at least, He isn't recognized or taken into account. But that's where most of us live.

There is a second room, another place, another way to live. In every human heart there is a sense of something more...
...In people not yet connected to Christ, the better room is there but it's dark. (I am speaking of the eternal soul in every person.) The electricity has not yet been hooked up. And there are no furnishings...But when the Spirit resurrects the soul and infuses it with new life, the room sparkles with light...
...People long for relationship. In the Upper Room, it already exists. No one 'demands' relationship in this room. They already have it, and they know that one day they will fully and forever enjoy its pleasures. And people in the Upper Room aren't obsessed with figuring life out. They prefer to live life rather than analyze it. They have no sense that something fragile within them needs protection and no compelling urge to find themselves. They have already been found. With the pantry full, their strongest desire is to set another place at the table and invite someone else in to enjoy the feast.

Crabb notes the point in scripture where Jesus designates the room in which the Passover meal was to be taken, He directs His disciples to seek a man carrying a jar of water. (Luke 22:10-12) What Crabb says next has never occurred to me before--that this man would stand out for one primary reason: he was doing "women's work" in carrying a jar. He was not bound by the pride and authority of his position as a man in his society. In the culture of Jesus' day, such a man would be unique in all the ways that signal an Upper Room host. And, I rejoiced again for catching one of those glimmers of perfection that flash all over the Gospels, but that we're so often too preoccupied to notice.

So many things to "catch up" on in this blog, God. I love my time musing here with You. But this is a good start. Life changes loom large in the days ahead for me, but great is the reminder of the assurances You give that these changes will sprout from seeds You planted, planted even three seasons ago in soil that was busy with other crops, but whose germinating is nevertheless a sure thing.

My one prayer for today is this: thank You for taking me exploring again, exploring in the Upper Room. Thanks You that its shadows are taking substance. Thanks You for bringing again Your words:
Rejoice, daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh. He is just and having salvation!

My Mother's Poem

Not long ago, we began going through old memorabilia, and I found an old journal of mine--one so old that it had a demin cover and gnomes sat ruminating on every page. A friend of mine gave it to me when I was 15, and I periodically wrote in it through my freshman year in college. It was as much a part of vague memory as any other thing neglected for 25 years. Then, suddenly it is in my hands, solid and available for review. Strange, how lately I keep coming across both items and people (a la Facebook) from days long gone. But one unexpected and soul-stirring renewal wasn't due to Facebook. It couldn't be because Facebook only brings the living back across our paths. This was a "visit" from someone who died 13 years ago. This renewed contact was through the journal, through a note stuck inadvertently inside its back cover. It was a poem written on a piece of clean, uncreased cardstock--stationary engraved simply with the name: Patricia Reeves. Patricia Reeves was...is...my mother. She wrote this poem and apparently gave it to me at a time of life when it was relatively meaningless to me, so much so that I didn't even commit its existence to memory. Now, as I look at it again with today's eyes, it becomes something invaluable.

Borne along in no-man's land,
She gave her name in answer to "I am"
Oblivious of her own needs,
She echoes others latent and dormant cries
For freedom from mediocrity...
Then echoes this claim for herself...
Thus she became enigmatic,
And beckoned others to follow her
To their goals...
But the victory was short lived.
For in their victory, it was she they embraced
And in winning...
She lost.
And she stood near those who would speak for her,
Laugh for her, sob for her...
Until each one...disappeared.

The words, scribed carefully and cleanly across the creamy page. I wish I had more to work with in understanding them. Was it me she was seeing, the me of today, of tomorrow? Like in so much prophetic poetry, who can tell whether the story has a happy ending? It is a subjective thing.

In Saving Private Ryan, Ryan was asked to live well, to do so as an act of service for the sacrificial deaths offered for his rescue. How strange, though, when the commission for a future well-lived, commissioned by those now beyond the grave, comes personally and not just through a fable, a war story. Help me, God, to become the best of what my mother saw in me...

Blessings and Cursings for the Scapegoat and His Mother

It is tax time again, and the battle rages once more between my ex and me over things financial. Funny how when we lived under the "law" of custody requirements in our divorce agreement we got along alright, but now that we are two years into our son's being an "adult" but not yet financially independent, suddenly a war rages where there was no war for a decade before. Now the struggle flares again and again: Who pays what for college? Who gets to claim him on taxes?

I could limp through a one-sided story, justifying why we think we've been in the right all the way through, but M.'s biological father could do likewise, and probably does with great rage. Instead, I stand here looking at the gates of Your throne room after a long sleepless night knowing strange prayers shroud Your pavilion--prayers filled with blessing and cursing over my name. Some are the prayers of people who are finding me again after many years of silence, people from long-ago and who are forgiving me for my childish pride in the days before You really began to work on me, these prayers float alongside prayers of people from long ago whose curses have only grown to rankle more vigorously, seeking to tap You in Your role as avenger against me. (And I remember reading in a Psalm about how You put down the avenger, and I wondered what that meant that You might choose not to avenge. I begin to understand.)

I wonder, do the angels stand by and debate and consider: just what action do we take in honor of Your name regarding the things that have to do with this woman? So many blessings, so many cursings and in the middle of it all a son who has indeed been the stronghold I felt called to bless him to be in that dream long ago; but now not only is he a stronghold, he is also a scapegoat as his father's curse toward me lands squarely on the head of our son instead. That same son goes willingly and of his own design into a time of wilderness wandering regarding his relationship with that father. All ties are cut between them for now. College support is suddenly left completely to us on our side of the child's "family" equation. For years, the balancing of that equation has challenged the boy, molded him, ultimately worked for his benefit in many ways. But never has the rift run so deep. What comes next? What does it all represent of Your heart, God? What is the bright hope and the future You have planned for my son and his father? I know it is there waiting to be uncovered.

You look at me as the clamour of blessings and cursings make the very air both sparkle and twitch. You look at me, and so do the angels. "What would be your prayer to throw into the mix?" You ask.

"I don't think it prudent to throw my own righteousness into this melee. If my 'circumcision' these last weeks has taught me anything, I have learned that I can not stand on my own achievements nor my own wisdom. In the height of my potency, I am cut down. In the fullness of good-will, hatred blossoms. Well-tended grape vines produce sour grapes nonetheless. I only dare hide in Your Son's skirts when He longs to be as a mother over Jerusalem."

The Great Physician nods and adds, "That is your prayer for yourself then, but all these prayers are from others cast up here in regarding you. If you were to make a responding prayer to them, what would it be?"

This is what has kept my sleep restless this night. Funny how once you come to believe that your prayers are deeply powerful and (though sometimes slow in the manifestation) profoundly effective you become more careful and sober in what you ask, seeking to pray the very heart of God into being rather than praying according to your own fancy. For me to hear the question "What would you pray?" is the equivalent of hearing: "What would I pray if I were praying through your voice?" So my prayer becomes more of a measure of my knowledge of Your heart and less a measure of my hope for some specific outcome in some specific situation. In time, my prayer was formulated.

"Whether they be lifting blessings or cursings on my name, my hope and prayer is that in the end of their season of seeking Your intervention in things of me--in the end I pray they live abundantly in a better knowledge of the heights and depths and breadth of Your love as their Lord and Savior. I pray that they might be ever nearer to seeing this world as but a shadow of the great hope that is eternity spent with Thee. If they bless me, may the blessings return double upon their heads, but if they curse me, well...may they learn to be sustained by Your love and learn the blessings of communing with You in suffering if they suffer because of me. I leave it to You to determine what to do with these cursings, which ones to use to shape me more into the image of Your Son and which ones are simply darts that should spatter against the shield You've set around me. Such knowledge is higher than I.

"And above all and over all, may my Lord and Savior be somehow glorified in every one of those prayers by the time You are finished answering them. That is how I would respond to the prayers flung to heaven with my name stamped somewhere in them."

How I Say Thanks...

My Lord and Savior gave me a beautiful bouquet of cherry blossoms for my birthday. My heart is full with the riches of the gift, and I want to give a thank you in return, so when I found a thread on my forum dedicated to posting pictures of roses that we might all lift to You, I went shopping for the perfect one to express my heart. What would I offer to You as a response in kind to your generous and magnificent gift of love, O Lord?

Many are the ways this particular picture of a rose strikes me as "perfect" for what I see between Thee and me. May You be blessed by my love even as I am blessed by Yours!

Paying It Forward

The other day, I "miraculously" came across some old writing of mine, a novel and some articles I wrote 18-20 years ago. I'd been looking for it all for a couple of years now, but hadn't found it and had actually given up the search. Then one night, to my husband's chagrin, the children went down to his "den" in the basement and started dragging out boxes of stuff, tossing old toys, decorations, dried out wreathes, lonely socks partner-less since the 80's--tossing around the likes of these until they uncovered a pouch that had the binder of my writing in it. Now I'd prayed before I gave up the search for that stuff that if God ever wanted me to do anything with that writing, he'd have to bring it back to me. I had it in my mind that if I'm to move into a more sedentary career, then maybe I could rework the novel I wrote in my early 20's and actually seek to get it published. But I didn't find my writing, and I gave up the idea until now suddenly, there in the middle of the room, was the pouch with the binder of my writing in it. Even as my husband lectured the boys about not touching things that weren't theirs, I fought the urge to kiss them for bringing the binder back to me for it was a sign from God.



But then I began to read what I wrote, and saw what awful pompous drivel it really was and I was appalled. In those days, I had just barely extricated myself from a deep affiliation with a very proud and self-righteous religious organization, and the after-shocks were still all over my writing. Now I am painstakingly going through that book, because the premise isn't so bad. Still, a premise alone does not make a book good. Like in great works of music, too, a great theme in theory can nonetheless be killed by a bad performance. A beautiful landscape ruined by a poor brushstroke...I could go on ad infinitum. In essence, my writing style killed this premise.

On a personal note, it is difficult to revisit one's past this way. It is difficult seeing who I really was without doing the revisionist work that my present self would like to espouse regarding my past wisdom and grace as I reflect on that former self. The bottom line is, I really despise who I was then, how haughty and self-serving. I was blind to my own faults and surprised when others saw things to avoid in me. Now, I agree with those who distanced themselves from me and in fact, wonder how anyone could have chosen to give that Me the time of day--that's how little I see to recommend my former self. So I am learning, through this reading, to accept and forgive the full measure of who I was, unadulterated by the softening of time and distance along life's thread. But that is only a side-eddy to what is on my heart to blog.



What I'm really writing about is surely nothing new to journalling. I write about the loss of my best friend. It is an old story; she went into what I consider a cult some 25 years ago. But she was dear to me, and I felt somewhat responsible for not being able to "save" her from that group. Even to the present, that ache still bubbles to the surface from time to time.



The reason the subject rises again now is two-fold. On the one hand is the novel. I had crammed a copy of a letter she wrote me into the back of that binder that held my novel, along with a letter I wrote back to her. Our friendship was a close enough one that I can still close my eyes and picture her handwriting, so when I thumbed through it and saw her script, my heart skipped a beat. Here was the last interchange between us documented as one more thing for me to read in that packet of old writings. I didn't have the original letter I sent that caused the breach between us but I did have her return letter and my final one back to her thereafter.In the initial letter, I told her basically that the group she was joining would not, in my estimation, secure her eternal home; I told her their worship and teaching practices caused deep unrest about them in my soul. This letter was missing. What I did have was the letter she sent back in response and the final one I sent back to her...and now I wonder if she ever even read the last letter, or if she did, she surely read it while being supervised that she might see the "devil spirits" were speaking through me in it. For these last several years, I'd wondered whether my own religious posturing drove the last nail home in the coffin of our friendship, but as I read again the words and tone in the letters I began to be a little less hard on myself. Even as I saw my own pomposity in that other context, I saw loving concern in this letter. How ironic that the place where I presumed I'd failed by way of pride was the one area I "got it right" and the area where I felt more certain of my platform was where I really lifted my skirts and showed my &$#%@.



Then, just today I came across yet another reference to this group that "absorbed" my friend. One of the Christian forums I visit posted the following link. It was considered either amusing or frightening by pretty much everyone who watched the link, but it made me sad. I know the Stepford-Christian smiles I see on those singers faces well. I saw the same smiles on the faces of the people who were in the ministry that almost sucked me down the vortex of love-bombing, money-making, cultic Christianity.



http://www.vimeo.com/1768758?pg=embed&sec=1768758



So after seeing this video, I googled the Way International again. Here I found more concrete evidence of what was just a vague feeling of "wrongness" I felt in the days of our breach, the days when life as a thing shared by me and my friend ended abruptly. As I read about this organization, I become more understanding of why she has never responded to my overtures to renew a friendship. While on the one hand, many find the video link "laughable" and I certainly understand the sentiment in that the thread showing the link on the forum was named: "yet another reason we deserve the mockery we receive" still, I am struck by sobering grief as I read articles that tell me things like these:



Anyone who closely views the lives of Way members is amazed and shocked by how every aspect of their followers’ lives is controlled. Leadership tells followers whom to date, whom to marry (and not marry), when to separate or divorce, how to spend their time and money, when to sell their house, where to live, when to change jobs, how to discipline their children, the list goes on. In recent years, leaders have told Way members to vacate certain towns and move close to leaders (sometimes hundreds of miles away, as when Way members in Saint Louis were all told to move to Columbia, Mo., in 1998) to be under their “protection.”
Leaders control their followers mainly through fear. Leadership convinces followers that if they do not obey on every point, the followers will:
1) be “confronted,” which amounts to severe and sustained verbal attack and abuse;
2) terrible things will happen to them, such as accidents, illness or death;
3) Way leaders will convince all other Way followers to “mark and avoid” them — that is, to avoid all contacts with them, even if they are spouses or immediate family. Because children are especially vulnerable, non-Way parents are concerned that their children will be dominated and controlled by uncaring Way leadership (which will be reinforced by the parent who remains in The Way), and have little or no personal freedom.
This problem is even worse when the woman is the ex-Way parent. Way members are taught that wives must obey their husbands in all things, and many husbands use this as a reason to severely subjugate them (this autocratic and pejorative attitude intensifies when the woman leaves The Way). This is partly due to The Way’s teaching that the very first sin on Earth was Eve’s lesbian relationship with the devil.
For these reasons, many believe that children are in a psychologically and emotionally unsound environment when they are in the custody of a parent devoted to The Way. Furthermore, children are at an increasing degree of risk the more they are exposed to The Way through parents who are Way members. Therefore, in order to protect children and maintain family relationships, it is very important to consider involvement with The Way when making child custody and visitation arrangements.

Oh, F., how I miss you and long for the joys that were ours in the days of our youth. So many happy memories we shared, so many dreams, back when life was but candy still brightly spinning itself to a satin gleam in a sunny candy shop window.

What now for you, my friend? When you are sick, does your Lord bring you flowers as mine does me? (How could I keep from being discouraged if You held me to blame for every problem and pain I endure, O Lord?)

Are you sitting somewhere tonight feeling alone in your "loving twig group" because you can't be real with your questions to the people in your world? (How could I have ever known what it is to be breathless at the loveliness of You if You were never allowed creative-license in the deepest parts of my life, O Lord?)

Oh, F., are you feeling trapped? Are you staying in something so wrong with full knowledge of its fallacies all so that you might protect your children somehow? How much has this insanity shackled you? (How could I have endured ever becoming Your companion in suffering, O Savior, if I so willingly diminished Your perfection under a mantle of rhetoric as these people are deceived into doing?)

O, God of heaven, You who have become more precious to me with every passing year, You who have shown Your arm strong to save for me until I tremble at the experience of it in my spirit. I am enraged for my friend's sake. She has been fed a lie well-crafted to seduce into her deepest past and to entrap her heart where its deepest aches can be made to burn.

Someone surely once prayed these things for me, now I pay it forward: You, O Lord who is unafraid to risk to the last farthing for the sake of redeeming the lost, send the same aid to my friend that you sent to me some time ago. In the name of my Father, Son and Holy Ghost and in Your honor...Amen

Prayer and Prophetic Dreaming...Images Synthesizing

One place in the NT, this word "dung" shows up. Paul uses it in a way the last two blog entries show I myself have been exploring: the idea of one's "show" of circumcision being a thing to now with open eyes, set aside if it "competes" with the glory of walking in the righteousness gained solely through faith in Christ.

This word dung can also means dregs and is often paired with shuddering. This description brings yet another dream back to mind, in which I was given a chalise to drink that at first was not so bad, but was eventually so full of fine metallic (silver?) grit that I could barely swallow what was left as the dregs in the cup, and I did indeed shudder with the last drink. I dreamed this two years ago, but only now do I surely feel like I drink the dregs of my own self-made cup of purity and works-driven worth. As I look to the dreams about "dung" in this context of their being things I've "counted" as valuable but that are not, lead me on to see what is to follow them, O God, even if it is again years in the making.

Here is the scripture text that leads my meditation:


Phl 3:1
Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed [is] not grievous, but for you [it is] safe.
Phl 3:2
Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.
Phl 3:3
For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
Phl 3:4
Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:
Phl 3:5
Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, [of] the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
Phl 3:6
Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
Phl 3:7
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Phl 3:8
Yea doubtless, and I count all things [but] loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them [but] dung, that I may win Christ,
Phl 3:9
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
Phl 3:10
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
Phl 3:11
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Phl 3:12
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Phl 3:13
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
Phl 3:14
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Phl 3:15
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Phl 3:16
Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.
Phl 3:17
Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.
Phl 3:18
(For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, [that they are] the enemies of the cross of Christ:
Phl 3:19
Whose end [is] destruction, whose God [is their] belly, and [whose] glory [is] in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
Phl 3:20
For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
Phl 3:21
Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

Confessions over an Anchor

Here you go again, God, using an image thread to speak to me and call me to a strange pairing of conviction and promise. Conviction is the anchor, circumcision is the promise. The circumcision came mysteriously in advance, and required days of expectancy. The anchor came of its own volition, or by grace my eyes were too blind to anticipate until it arrived. Yet, it too came for a purpose. Help me understand both and live them well.



Lately, I've been broken down to "a shell of my former self." Mono and all the other things whispering in the wings that could be mono's associates have weakened me to a level I'd never conceived possible. I've felt pained before, troubled, battered on every side, but I realize now that I've never before felt really truly "weak." Never "weak" like you were, my Lord, when someone else had to come alongside and carry your cross. But I have a new level of perception now. And it comes not with fear, but with amazement. I tried to go to work Friday just for a half day and realized that I had no confidence that my arms would remain on the steering wheel of the car, they were that weak. Stunned by such a state of weakness, I returned home while I could still drive. What was this strange new state of being? It was utterly unfamiliar to me.

I had previously determined that the next day--Saturday--I would go to music contest and simply sit at a table to be available for my students if a problem arose. Always before determining something in my will was sufficient to make me able to drive myself to overcome any obstacle, particularly those related to my own physical abilities and capacities. And, if such an event of "pressing on" should nearly break me, then I would still find some way to "make good" for the sake of those depending on me, then I'd establish a recovery spell where only those nearest me would see me crawl off and complain and grumble at myself for being so weak as those oblivious ones went on their merry way. But my slinking off to recover became harder and harder to do, and more bitter and more pathetic. Finally, as I lay on the couch Friday, I came to the realization that I'd turned a corner in all this, entering an the era when my own determination simply might not be sufficient at all. I prayed for the grace (rather than praying for the strength) to go to contest for my students sake. I did receive that grace, but with a stark reminder that my "value" was again not locked up in these false perceptions I want to carry about my reason for being there. I knew this "message" came for me because the one "problem" that arose, I was not able to fix. It was beyond my enfeebled state to figure out what was wrong with one young man's saxophone, and because the contest offered no emergency repair station--something I'd always presumed would exist at Indiana contest sites even as it had at Illinois ones from my past contest experiences--the boy could not play. His ensemble could only play at 2/3's capacity for the judge's evaluation (You would have had a gold medal with all parts there, she said) but no medal of honor was available to them, only the assurance that it "would have been" if things were different. And it was I that should have made "things different" but I couldn't find the problem with his horn. I had no idea what was making it inoperative today, especially as the day before it had played fine. Probably today it plays fine. Or, tomorrow my sub will see whatever it was I missed yesterday, but both come too late. Cruel, it seemed. Was I wrong to even be there, I asked myself? It surely happened for a reason, said the young man, refusing to have a despairing attitude. He was more concerned at how much he might have disappointed the others in his ensemble than he was concerned for himself. I had no answers to give him. What's more, these two weeks (or is it three now?) that I've been gone took a toll on the most ambitious of my young students. I let them down when they were in the very trenches of preparing themselves for this great battle waged for the proving that personal endeavor leads to personal achievement. Ironic point of abandonment I inflicted on them there, but still rises the question: Why? I went yesterday knowing in some measure I was only there to serve as a stint for the very disappointment I also in part caused. It is a heaviness.

Oswald Chambers in one of the devotionals I read recently poses the question: "Am I prepared to let my obedience to God cost other people something?" That is the crux of it really. I'm fine with my obedience to You costing me almost anything, but I don't want to bring others into the matter. That is where the anchor comes in. Yesterday I was reading Lucado's In the Grip of Grace as I sat waiting while my students came and went for their playing times. Max uses the analogy of a sailor coming into a storm and deciding to set the anchor, but this inept sailor sets the anchor first at the bow, then at the stern. Even a near-clueless passenger knows enough to take the anchor away from the sailor and throw it over the side, exclaiming, "you can't just anchor to yourself!"

Is this what I'm doing, God? Max says "When the storm blows, the legalist anchors on his own works. He will save himself." But the thing forgotten in this moment in the storm that could destroy is this: salvation is God's business.

What's more, just this morning, the anchor returned to visit again through another of Your ministers, God. I was too tired to go to church today, so I watched Charles Stanley on tv, and he too spoke of an anchor. He held a Bible in one hand, laid the other hand across its open pages and said, "This is your anchor." Heavy heart indeed. Am I throwing Your word all over myself and my works, and forgetting to anchor them back on You instead of on me? Am I making myself the measure of their benefits? Am I becoming too self-important, too personally significant? Set me free from such a shame as that, God! Help me fling the anchor of Your Word back into You. The boat is indeed attached to the anchor, (I have that at least going for me)but this boat that I am can not contain that Word when it, as anchor, must do the very work it is designed to do. Help me let You go in that respect, but keep me attached by that strong cord!

And what is the promise that brings me through such moments of feeling set back at square one in my spiritual development (you think you're wise? you're only wise in the ways you're supposed to be, and that by My grace, You remind me.) What gives me the hope to believe good things will be borne even of my being forced to prove myself such a disappointment to many, even though they graciously do not point the finger? It is the circumcision.

Some days ago, months actually, I found that whispering voice in my heart came and spoke to me again. It told me once before that I was to be baptized into my calling. Strange, wonderful, mysterious, spiritual, confusing baptism that it was, but in the end clear and wonderfully wrought with all Your purpose such that I did receive it much like a mother endures the process of birthing a child for the joy of parenthood--even as Paul spoke of his relationship with churches in the epistles--such was my experience of the ultimate joy of knowing that baptism and coming to learn who You said I would be as a result of the message You locked in that event for me.

Here later, I heard the same voice that promised the baptism come to me with promise of a circumcision. I have walked further into this strange country with You now, O Lord, and I understood more what to expect. I knew enough both to see fear and confidence in Thee as heavier weights on the scales. So I read about circumcision with that circumspect heart You tell Your people to carry through the days of Sabbath, the time of worship and waiting. But it is come now, isn't it? Being incapacitated as I am, and then cutting the huge gash in my finger, feeling the full pain of the stitches as the numbing agent refused to do its work, looking at my hand lying there on the doctor's table in a congealing pool of blood. I received my slash in a different place: the index finger of my left hand, but I received it while cutting bread. You gave me a dream once about slicing bread...a deep dream. I sliced bread and You said as I sliced, "This is My Body, broken for you," and when I had fully sliced that bread, power shot up my arm so strong it woke me and left my arm tingling. And I am called to remember as I slice bread in the physical world now and break my own body in the doing.

Yesterday as I sat there "present" for my students, what would seem a virtually pointless activity, I read another passage in the Lucado book, and it addressed the meaning of this idea of circumcision, from God's perspective in the days before man took it and turned it into a self-appointed badge of God's favoritism. When it was God's call on Abraham, it was not so mean a thing:
"Circumcision symbolized the nearness God desires with his people. God put the knife to our self-sufficiency." (If that is the definition of circumcision, then I am certainly enduring it now.) "He wants to be a part of our identity, our intimacy and even our potency." (My new understanding of weakness comes back to mind as I read that quote.) "Circumcision proclaimed that there is no part of our life too private or too personal for God." Lucado says Jews in St. Paul's day were supposed to see circumcision as a sign of submission, but they had transformed it to a sign of superiority. A person circumcised in the heart by God's Spirit rather than according to some written law "gets praise from God rather than from people." (Romans 2:28-29) Though they do not have good cause to praise me, people are nevertheless helping me, offering to bring me food, clean my house, do my laundry. What a wonder You work in the hearts of people, God! Help me keep the purity of this circumcision as a submission and not a superiority ever before me; it is what Your Spirit deserves as that Spirit shows the heart of Your Sone sealed in the people You send to help me.

And lastly, Lucado says circumcision is a reassurance that all was already made right between Himself and the one circumcised. "Abraham was circumcised to show that he was right with God through faith before he was circumcised. Its purpose was to show what God had already done."

Thank You, that You have taught me to see the hope and the promise even though it is woven in with the things that still need to change within me. Help me to learn to let go of this wretched tendency to measure my value by my good works; rather may I receive a call to good works because I receive the word of how You value me before they are yet done.

Prayer and Prophetic Dreaming...the coats dream finds its scriptural text

I wrote about the dream of moving coats. I also wrote about God shining a lamp on the number 19 for me lately. Some ongoing reflections on these follows.



A new look at references to cloaks and what it might have meant when I dreamed I was given a rack of coatss that should not receive the "wisdom" of the fountain that God made to spray off me, so I removed the cloak rack from the room where I worked and put it in another room, a room that had a window view of the room where I was, but also had a door closed between the two. I put the coat rack in that room with a young man who has made an appearance in one other dream of mine, (and that dream suddenly likewise is finding a scriptural context.) That man is young in this dream of cloaks...a student in a rehearsal hall, which was the "type" of schoolroom where he sat when I moved the coats in with him. After moving the coats into the room with that young man, I sat down next to the man who used to be my principal and he leaned over and kissed me in full view of that young man, a view made possible through that interior window. The point of the kiss, aside from the Proverbs 24 reference ("Every man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer.") was that this young man should observe this kiss--I think maybe for the reason of this verse. All this is review of things I've written in this blog before, mostly in the entry called She Counts.

But one new Biblical reference caught my eye the other day for what these "coats" might represent. It uses old language for such outerwear: cloaks.

In John 15, Jesus says to expect persecution and not to be surprised by it. "All these things they will do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent Me," says Jesus. Even the NKJ drops the cloak language that follows in the next verse. It says: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin." But recently, I saw this verse in the Old King James, where it says: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin." Funny how often You use imagery that goes back to the root of Your words instead of embracing the "improvements" that have been made. When You're wanting to feed me meat instead of milk, anyway, then You seem to want to use Your original imagery.

Anyway, You conclude that passage by saying "But this cometh to pass that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, 'They hated me without a cause.' " I interpret this about losing a "cloak" as it being a cloak with which to hide or disguise sin, to shield against its exposure. Are these the sort of cloaks that I'm to put out of the range of the wisdom that is coming from You through me involuntarily on my part--as in the dream I can't stop the spray so the only other option is to move the cloaks? Show me then, God, how to accomplish this if it's time is near. Show how and when to sit down after I move them. (I'm trying to sit down temporarily even now, but am finding it difficult as my primary sub bailed on me last minute and left me putting out a fire to get her replaced, for today at least. What strikes me now--even as I write this--is that my partner, D., in my dream, the one who helps me move those cloaks; even now is reliably subbing for a portion of my work, even today taking up the slack for the sub who bailed, so I guess she is indeed helping me put the cloaks away from me.)

But this brings me to reflections on the other dream of this young man who was in the "rehearsal room" in this dream. I'm reminded of the one other dream I had about him. This dream also happened almost a year ago. In that dream, I was walking in a valley that felt like a plateau hugged it on one side, encircling to a mountain that rose on the other side. I walked in that valley with God, whom I referred to as the Great Physician particularly. He had a white beard. We walked and talked, assessing this very bug-eyed child (now a young man with authority over people) was doing in his work well or not. God seemed to want to know my opinion. My assessment of him was that he had thought himself more ready to lead than he actually was. In this one respect he was anti-christ: he thought he could do God's work as if he were God's equal, but when the work became too complex, he found he was not up to dealing with chaos like God could do, it was not so simple as it appeared to do when God was doing the work. He had no idea how difficult it could be to negotiate the lives of so many humans. Even as we spoke on this--God and I, that is--many people milled around us, seemingly aimless in their wanderings, yet very purposeful each in his own endeavors. Suddenly, I glanced up to the plateau above our heads and saw the very young man I spoke of looking down at us over the edge of the bluff. But as I saw him, an earthquake struck the valley. All the people suddenly started to run for the opposite side of the valley where a great mountain pass let them out of the valley. But even as they all began to run, and me with them, the young man slipped from where he'd been observing us over the edge of the bluff. He began sliding down a dry rocky gully down into the valley. I stayed behind to break his fall and to catch him at the bottom. We both began to run for the pass that marked the exit from the valley, but we were now far behind the crowd of escapees, and still the earthquake shook, making an avalanche of rock fall into the pass. In the end, the pass was completely blocked, with only the young man and me in the valley. And the world had gone pitch black. There was absolutely no light. Likewise, all life was gone. Where before green grass had grown in the valley, even under the shadowed sky of the valley's earlier life, here and now the ground was bare of all grass and even soil. It was stone with a gritty layer of sand over the top. I sat there, running my hand along that ground. The young man was utterly silent, but I knew he was still there, now in despair. I began to pray to the God who was on the other side of the wall--it was the finish of why I stayed behind to catch him in the first place. It reminded me of verses You've highlighted for me before as life verses: "Let grace be shown to the wicked, but he still will not learn righteousness." He did not pray to the God who closed the valley, but I would. That was the end of that dream. It was disturbing, to say the least, there in its ending.

Before I launch into understanding this dream, I should mention that lately, my dreams have been strangely about cleaning up both human and animal waste and about assessing whether the water for cleansing was even clean water, or needed to be. This series of dreams has been very strange to me. But one thing jumped out at me regarding their timing when I found myself reading in Jeremiah 19 (there's that "pervasive" #19 again) about the prophetic message Jeremiah was told to give, and particularly where to give it. In that chapter, God sends Jeremiah to the east gate, which was to the people of Israel known as the Potsherd Gate or the Dung Gate, the one near the city dump. This gate was in the Valley of the Son of Hinnon, which is by the entry of the Dung Gate. Because of my recent onslaught of "dung" dreams of my own, I did a little research into this valley of this Son of Hinnon, and found its landscape had uncanny similarity to the dream's landscape. Jeremiah was told to give a chilling prophecy to the people in this valley: "Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle." My Bible's side notes say Jeremiah spoke over the people a "fate" of "mutual self-destruction" that would leave the place desolate, and held in derision by many. Pairing this with Jesus' words about no longer having a "cloak" for sin because ignorance was not an excuse, He had spoken, even as Jeremiah had likewise. I see parallels in these two things God has put together on my plate.
As to the valley itself, here is what I've learned about it's landscape. The name Son of Hinnom means son of lamentation. The place was a deep narrow ravine with steep rocky sides--just like in my dream! It separated Mt. Zion to the north from a hill of "evil counsel" and the sloping rocky plateau of the "Plain or Rephaim" to the South--also just like the landscape of the dream. The "leader" in the dream looked down on God and me from that plateau on the side of "evil counsel". From there, he watched me talk with the Great Physician, from there he tumbled into the valley where also was located Topheth, and we both ran for cover to the escape route beneath Mt. Zion/through Mt. Zion.
Topheth is another interesting component of this valley--being the "place of fire" in the southeast end of the valley. Its name more literally means "that which is spit upon," or the most base and despised of mortals. It was in a place well-known for its human sacrifices to Moloch--which would be a God seen as a consuming and destroying but also purifying fire, and so a god needing to be appeased by the Israelites, Solomon himself creating worship sites for this god on the Mount of Olives until Josiah interrupted the rituals. It was theses ritual sacrifices of burning ones own offspring that were particularly abominable to God. I wonder who are the "children" we've been burning for the sake of appeasing God by rites of purification, so we destroy our own.

But God told Jeremiah to say of that valley: it will stop being called the valley of Tophet (that which is spit upon) or Hinnom (lamentation) and become the valley of slaughter. (Jer. 19:6) They would be broken like a potter's vessel is broken. Indeed, in my dream, I saw such horror in that valley, although many escaped. By vs. 14, Jeremiah has been told to move from the valley to the courts of the house of the Lord where he is to continue prophesying that calamity came because the people had "stiffened their necks that they might not hear My words."
Unfortunately, Pashur--the priest--had Jeremiah beaten and put in the stocks for making such unpleasant prophesy over that valley and the city of Jerusalem and the people of Judah.

More and more I find prophets are considered to be quite inconvenient, to say the least, in the eyes of many spiritual leaders. No wonder the office was sent happily into oblivion by many church leaders once they found an excuse for getting rid of such a troublesome office. That excuse was supposedly the evidence of the finished Bible wherein it represented the coming of "that which is perfect" and thereby abolishing such gifts as prophecy and tongues. My question to them would be how their argument holds water, for don't the Psalms themselves say the law was also already perfect? Yet Christ came and established the New Covenant and sent the Comforter with His gifts, even though the complete and perfect law was already in man's hands. The prophets were given to man even though the perfect law already was in his keeping. I don't believe the verse about "that which is perfect" was about scriptural text. But I conceed: how easily we are deceived!
All I know to do is to agree in prayer with the great palmist in Psalm 19 when he prays:

Psa 19:7
The law of the LORD [is] perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD [is] sure, making wise the simple.
Psa 19:8
The statutes of the LORD [are] right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD [is] pure, enlightening the eyes.
Psa 19:9
The fear of the LORD [is] clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD [are] true [and] righteous altogether.
Psa 19:10
More to be desired [are they] than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Psa 19:11
Moreover by them is thy servant warned: [and] in keeping of them [there is] great reward.
Psa 19:12
Who can understand [his] errors? cleanse thou me from secret [faults].
Psa 19:13
Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous [sins]; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
Psa 19:14
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

Does God Give Birthday Presents?

I believe He did to me. He gave me a bouquet of branches laden with cherry blossoms, and a bowl full of cherries flavored with almond oil. Here is how He did it:

Being sick, I am revisiting things like this blog and the Eldredge forum, etc. a little more than normal life allows. I hadn't been to the forum for around 6 months, but went back when one of the members sent me a happy birthday email. There, I found this lovely picture of cherry blossoms posted and I picked it up to use as my desktop background, I found it to be so lovely and refreshing.

The next morning, my husband came in saying he had a weird dream in which people were using cherry soap, but using it wrong so that it did no good. We mused a bit over what that could mean. Later, he went out to buy my birthday cake. When he came home and set the cake on the counter, I finally picked up on the redundancy--the chocolate cake was covered in white icing that was decorated with pink cherry blossoms, with sunny yellow centers and colorful edible spangles sprinkled all around. But he didn't know I'd posted these same blossoms on my computer, nor did he realize that they were cherry blossoms at all. The point was obviously being made by You, and You alone, through people who have the spiritual sensitivity to allow You to guide them.

I went to my computer and began to explore just what You might be saying with the cherry blossom bouquet. Just what "knees would bow and tongues confess" Your message by submitting to Your sovereignty in choosing this image as gift for me? It was quite a cornucopia. Chinese art and medicinal lore as well as Japanese, old time needlework sampler patterns, even hip and trendy tattoo symbolise, all bowed to Your sovereignty over the moment in time that is my birthday.

One of the main things You touched upon was my fragile health at the moment. The mono I'm battling at the moment could trigger a number of serious complications given my predisposition to auto-immune disorders. I could easily go into other rheumatic conditions. So even though the first thing I found when I googled "cherry blossom" was its recognition as a sign of spiritual beauty in China--for which I thank You that You gave me that first, it is nevertheless in Japan, seen as a symbol of the frailty and fragility of life, teaching the person--through the meaning of the blossom's short season--not to get too attached to a particular outcome nor clutch the beauty of this state of being too tightly, this short-lived flower must give way for the fruit to come, and serves as reminder that we, too, are but mortal in this body of flesh. The Christian could follow up that Buddhist philosophy with a look at the cherry to come--the best part! Getting back to the Chinese view of the blossom I found the idea that it represents feminine beauty and sexuality and often carries the idea of feminine power. It is a symbol of love, feminine beauty and strength. But again, in Japanese art the delicate flower is often paired with the weaponry and armor of the Samurai warrior. It seems incongruous, but the Japanese see the pairing sensible as both the cherry blossom and the warrior may be short lived, but glorious in their day, especially if the warrior dies in service to his lord. I thought of Your death in order to fulfill the will of Your Father, and saw You inserting Yourself in the way You were giving me the world here! You seemed to say "Artwork commemorates unions like yours and Mine down through the ages, whether it realizes it fully or not."

What else? Chinese medicinal folklore advises using cherries to treat heart, spleen and stomach issues, as well as "rheumatism". What are You saying with this gift and the uncannily fitting use of it to treat the very symptoms I have? "I will heal what ails you."

Continuing with the cherry itself, one of the links I found posed the question: what is the symbolism of the cherry fruit in tattoo art. One responder said it stood for herpes. I laughed at that one. My husband is prone to the cold sores caused by the herpes simplex virus, and he had one right at the onset of the mono (he has it, too). We read that having the herpes simplex virus kick up a cold sore in the early stages of mono is common...so even the cherry tattoos have their place in the grand scheme of this...what are You saying? "My gifts that surround my creation of you are for your good, but will nevertheless overflow and be part of the reality of others."

In fact, that I received the blossom, but my love received the fruit (in his dream) was an even more fitting gift, for the cherry fruit symbolically is said to represent the "sweetness of character derived from good works." It is often referred to as the "fruit of Paradise" in reference to the destination of those who perform the good deeds of a strong character. This is my husband's story well told. Over the years I've watched his character mature and ripen to be something beautiful to behold. It is called a symbol of self-discovery and self-sacrifice, and I've seen him walk these roles these last years as well. It is an honor to know him in these ways, and a pleasure to have our Lord's confirmation that He sees us as a unit and so blessed in this life. It is also a sign You know my husband well. He has always loved Bing cherries with a passion. I have a happy memory of him sitting on the back steps, throwing a toy for the dog to chase and eating Bing cherries by the handfull on gorgeous summer evenings. What are You saying to my husband with the cherries and his dream? "I'll give you the desires of your heart, and I have confidence you'll know what to do with those desires, more confidence than you have even in yourself, because I know who I made you to be."

I sighed contentedly after that study, and went to the freezer. I needed to do my part to show I would receive such a gift of the Spirit, so I pulled out a jar of those frozen cherries and almond oil, a Danish recipe I found in a canning book last summer. I thawed those cherries for the eating, and I watched with joy as my husband walked toward me in the glow of the candles on that cherry blossom cake. I received it like it was the first real birthday I'd ever had. Even the lacing of almond flavoring poured over those cherries last summer (long before these days could be foreseen) had its own precious meaning, and I'm reminded how You don't ever waste anything. Genesis calls the almond, "among the best of fruits" and Aaron's staff was almond wood, and its budding was a sign of Your call on his life before the people of Israel when they had doubts about him. What's more, the almond branch is often a sign of Your birth through the Virgin Mary in Renaissance art, a sign of her purity. What are You saying with the touch of almond flavoring? "Come the rest of the way into this Mandorla with Me." I'm speechless to respond for a while.

Thank You for the gift. It was all the things a perfect gift is supposed to be, and more than I could ever have known to ask!"

What's in a Number?

Reflecting back on some past posts I think I could come across as one of those people who are currently getting lost in the significance of particular numbers in scripture, even taken outside the influence of the prompts of promise given by the Spirit. But I think this morning I disproved that, at least for myself.



I do pay attention to numbers, and God does lead me with the way they appear in my life. For instance, I taught 7 7th graders 7th period last year and took that set of 3 7's as a pointer of import, especially so when an 8th player, a 6th grader and my own son, often came in for rehearsals because he was our only trumpet--7 being a number of perfection and 8 a number of regeneration, renewal and new beginnings...these said things to me about that group and my work with them, and those things proved to be true. Likewise, this year, my junior high group started as 13 members and after Christmas went to 12 members, and this, too, says something to me. But I am not a slave of the numbers; rather I see the numbers as servant to God, I believe firmly He manipulates them and not the opposite. My interactions with the numbers this morning was a good case in point.





We are out of school on a snow day today, not that it mattered so much for me as I'm out on an extended leave due to health issues. But it makes a difference for the children, and for my own morning as I had time to leisurely watch the news and read my Bible without morning "prep work" getting in the way. One thing I noticed as unusual was the fact that everywhere on the weather map read the same temperature: 19 degrees. I've never seen that happen before...always there is a degree or two of variance, but not so today as snow is falling, snow on snow...to quote an old Christmas carol. So I googled the meaning of 19 in the Bible and elsewhere and found interesting information.



On the secular or extra-Christian side--I found such things as claims that the number 19 supports the Quran's predictions that the theory of evolution would rise up in the 19th century. I found that among tarot cards, 19 represents the sun card, where two children in a walled garden play a musical instruments together under the sun in perpetual bliss and harmony. I saw atomic number 19, a light metallic element that "oxidizes rapidly in air and reacts violently with water."





But looking to scripture, numerologists talk of 19 as a combination of 10 and 9 noting their meanings which are divine order and judgment. A deeper search into these numbers showed all sorts of lists of things that "prove" the given interpretation of these numbers in scripture, things that could make your head spin after an initial sense of mild interest. But one thing turned me away from these lists--as I chased rabbits through that website. I came to a list of 12 judges given to "prove" the numbers 8 and 13, by claiming that every righteous line God recognizes with their having names that "add up" to 8 while the unrighteous lines add up to 13. Many lists or lineages are offered, but one gave me pause: this list of 12 judges and their relationships with both 8 and 13 as they were raised up to save Israel in a time of apostasy. My problem was that this list of judges struck me as odd--because Deborah was notably absent. I re-read the list and realized that Barak, the warrior she called to action, was listed in her stead--presumably to make the numbers work, proving that the list of judges names "added up" to 3848, which is to say 8 x 13 x 37. But scripture plainly says "Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time." I guess the numbers didn't "work" with her name, or else her being female was the problem...either way, a manipulation of the truth of the list was made to "prove" the validity of the numerology, an adjustment to any utter accuracy made for the sake of what was apparently perceived as a greater good. Or else, the words of the verses themselves are wrong, but ironically, to say that would topple this numerology concept in its entirety like some great house of cards.



On a personal note, that I'd recognize such a manipulation is a very good thing, as I have been prone in the past to such a "sin" myself--but now I can see it for what it is when it is put before me: it is in its barest form a statement that God's work/word needs human interpretation, human improvement in a way, a restatement in a way that "fits" our needs better. Such is a prevailing attitude I find right now in many fronts and ask that God reveal if it be any influence in me, that secret sin that the Psalmist begs God to reveal that it might be rectified. I think of how deceptive this practice can be, because it parades as an angel of light, like is found in the changing of the lyrics of great historic hymns: changing "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me" to ..."that saved a soul like me" as I found it sung in a church recently. Frankly, that which was changed so as to not offend me was the very thing that did offend me.



So I put aside my google run with a sigh and went to my regular Bible reading for the day, feeling a little sheepish for how easily the distraction of the weather had pulled me off my daily reading. My mind returned to the things that plague me before God now, as I find it wise to allow the concerns of my heart regarding life in this world to be bathed in the Word I read. So my mind laid my concerns in one tray of the balance and I looked for what You'd lay in the other: what do You want for me work wise? Is my failing health a sign I am to make a career move? Will you open doors for me to do something else? Part of me wants to go back to finish this year and part of me doesn't, but I lean toward wanting to return--especially for my children's sake, who would like to finish the year as students at the school where I teach. (My youngest even prayed to go back to school yesterday as he's recovering from his own bout with mono.)

All these questions swirl up as fears every time I get my eyes off You, but this time, I find it is easier to return to my remembrances of unfailing leadership and provision for me, I find my peace again even before I collapse into fears of impending days spent comfortless. It is I hope one of the testimonies that I walk a more mature walk with You as I approach days of change again after this long season of sameness. So, as I read and came across this verse in Psalm 94 I felt a glow of commonality between the heart of King David and my own heart, and I felt You confirm my feeling that if I were to look over my shoulder, I'd see the road stretch out a long way behind me:



In the multitude of my anxious thoughts, within me Thy comforts delight my soul.


And to bring it full circle, guess which verse number classifies those words...

You can tune a piano but...

...you can't tuna fish. This music and fish metaphor comes to mind as I mull over another pairing of music and fish that was brought to my attention yesterday.

One of my flute students is moving on to study with the recommended instructor for the high school (elite music program there) she'll be attending. Her mom is also my son's piano teacher and our younger sons play baseball together. They have been good friends of ours these last few years; enough so that their daughter I teach, J., feels somewhat guilty for leaving me and going to a more accomplished instructor. How do I tell her not to feel bad about the change? For her right now the music hall of the future is still a bare stage. She doesn't know much yet about the parade of personalities she'll meet as she begins to "swim" in that world.

Very general, one-lesson reflections she and her mother made of the man offered the following information:
he's arrogant
he's arrogant because he has so much weighty stuff on his resume--a music ed from Berkley after having been trained by musicians from Julliard followed by a lifetime of performance work
his weighty resume is the result of a high level of skills--with technical mastery of clarinet, saxophone and flute on his slate.

I was told that he had her play very little at her first lesson, but he did talk a lot. He talked of how he teaches flute from the same perspective that prompts this metaphor: give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he'll fish for a lifetime. As best I understood it, this was his reasoning for why he extracts technical instruction from actual "music" and teaches physical skills isolated unto themselves. I may be misinterpreting his priorities in pedagogy or they may only be getting to hear the rationale behind the first stage of his instruction, but my reflections on that approach throw me back to my own days of being "taught" to play the flute.

When I was J.'s same age, my junior high band director referred me on to a "higher level" instructor, too. Another girl, A., (who was a year older than me in the same school system) had been referred to higher level instruction the prior year, so I expected to be sent to the same teacher that was teaching her, but Mr. C. referred me to a different teacher. Why? I wondered. Why send me to B., of whom I've never heard and who lives farther away? Why not send me to E. who had already impressed me simply because I could hear how A. played. Why?

Mr. C.'s answer was given with a rather strange look in his eyes: because A. plays only from her body, while you play from your soul. He considered that to be answer enough. It took a long time for it to be answer enough, but eventually his wisdom shone sun-bright because I did study with B. She taught me whatever degree of musical facility I had in the context of experiencing the heart of some of the greatest historical works available for my instrument. Mr. C was right, if I hadn't had the music itself as the underlying driving force, I'd not have cared two cents about the development of my physical skills. Those skills had to become "necessary" to me because I needed them to perform the music, because doing the piece "justice" deserved it. I had to have that context of application for the effort required to be worthwhile to me.

So if I were to give any parting words to my young student, just in case they apply--because I believe she, too, may be a player from the soul--the words would be a follow-up to her new teacher's metaphor: If the fish are your skills, then don't forget to consider why you're going after those fish in the first place. Are you learning fly-casting and deep sea fishing because you want something exotic to mount on the living room wall for all to see? Or, do you simply love the taste of fish, and you don't really care who knows or sees what you catch, as long as you get to eat it. I believe it goes a little deeper than simply learning fishing skills. Mr. C. may have left performing (fishing) behind years before he taught me, but I'm incredibly grateful for the wisdom of old music teachers like him. They're people often hidden and hard to find, more so even now than when I was a kid. If you find such a teacher count him or her as a gift from God, because what that teacher wants for you, the performer, is that you learn to make the music alive for its own sake, and not for yours. They know that you as a performer can take great joy in a technically perfect performance, but they also know that you're greatest joy comes not from a perfect technical performance alone. You're greatest joy as a performer comes from seeing tears in the eyes of a listener. Only then have you presented the soul of a piece of music with purity, and nothing matches the magic of such a moment for a performer, or for a listener! And that is where the wisdom for the moment stops being about J.'s flute instruction and starts being about my own relationship with God and the purpose for Man's use of the Law, so I'll conclude and go off to study these things further on my own.

My final word is this: I believe these rare ones in the world of pedagogy would tell you their favorite fishing work transforms this "fish" metaphor from being one about feeding yourself to one on a much higher plane. They'd tell you they fish to throw the loveliest ones back. They'd say they don't fish because they need a reminder of their skills, nor do they need accolades from others who see the rare breeds they've caught, and fasting doesn't scare them if they catch a really beautiful one. They throw out a line because they love the sea, and the fish, in part, make the sea what it is.

So just remember, J., that every type of fisherman has his place. The important thing is discovering which type you are going to be and staying true to that. Mr. C. always said to our band, "The piece isn't ready until you give me goosebumps when you play it." If he didn't get the goosebumps, we didn't perform it. With him, it was always about the music. If the music is "larger" than you, J., you'll never be able to settle for anything less than what it demands. It wants more than glibness, and it deserves it.
Blessings, Child!

On Happily Being a Small Oyster

The Walrus and the Carpentera poem by Lewis Carroll

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might;
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright—
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done—
"It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky;
No birds were flying overhead—
There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand.
"If this were only cleared away,
"They said, "it would be grand!"

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!
"The Walrus did beseech."
A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach;
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.

"The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said;
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head—
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat;
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat—
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more—
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low;
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
And cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings."

"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.

"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said,
"Is what we chiefly need;
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed—
Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed."

"But not on us!" the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
"After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said,
"Do you admire the view?"

"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"Cut us another slice.
I wish you were not quite so deaf—
I've had to ask you twice!"

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"

"I weep for you," the Walrus said;
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?"
But answer came there none—
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.