Trusting Soul

My fantastic friend Ruth has loaned me yet another fine book (she's the one who loaned my the Anne Lamott book). This one is by an Iowan named Brian Andreas. The book is Trusting Soul and is filled with drawings and poetry. I want to share a few of my favorites.


Listening for the Future

I'm on my way to the
future, she said & I
said, But you're just
sitting there listening
& she smiled & said,
It's harder than you'd
think with all the noise
everyone else is making


Before Dawn

I've always liked
the time before
dawn because there's
no one around to
remind me who I'm
supposed to be so it's
easier to remember
who I am.


Magic

this is a magical beast
that holds the secret of
lights & shadow in a
safe place in her heart
& when it has been too
long grey, she starts to
dance & laugh & cry & sing
& the sunlight fills her
up & spills in wild abandon
back into the world again


Soccer

What are the rules?
I said & he said you
run & you run & you
run until you fall
over. There's a couple
others in there for
variety, he added, but
that's the main one.

I think that I would rename this last one Life. At least that is the way I've lived it... up till now.

If you want more info their web address is www.storypeople.com

Family

Monday evening was the Spiritual Direction summer potluck. We met to reconnect, review Ester de Waal's book "Pause at the Threshold", seek God together, be alone together. For me it was a family reunion. One that I wanted to go to. One that I was glad I had gone to.

Right now relations with my biological family are... (hmm, can't think of just the right word). Disconnected. Painful. Messed up. Unhealthy. Broken. Not there.

You see, I've been reading this subversive book by Cloud and Townsend called "Boundaries". I asked my family to have direct relationship with me, instead of "kind of" having relationship with me by finding out about me from another family member. I asked them not to talk about me with each other. These are not the only treasonous things I have done but these are the ones that have of late sealed my exclusion. They believe my requests to be unthinkable, unloving, un-Christ-like, selfish and hurtful. I believe my request to be reasonable, healthy, personally needed. We're at a bit of an impasse. They are hurting. So am I. Right now it is hard to see how this will get better.

So Monday's family reunion was a gift. I am not alone. I am provided for. I have family that loves and accepts me. I have family that allows me to take my own journey - wherever that may lead me. We together and alone seek God and celebrate that pursuit. Our time together was beautiful.

There was one sad note - two of my brothers were missing. Jeff O. and Dave S. - we missed you, you are a part of us.

Brain Freeze

Sometimes we use the phrase "brain freeze" to refer to the sharp headache we get when we eat our ice cream too quickly. For me it has a second meaning.

You see, these Minnesota winters are so long and cold that I believe that small parts of my brain actually freeze over. One frozen part of my brain is the part that should remember what a sunburn feels like and how to actually avoid that feeling. But, alas, the injury is part of the cure. All that sweet hotness has scorched my fair skin but has also melted my frozen brain.

Here's to ice cream, popsicles, swimming pools, hot sun, and cool breezes. Oh yes, and a big spray can of Solarcaine. Happy summer to you!

New friends

An ache of homesickness came over me, for our old life before Sam's
blood got funky, for the sweet functional surface of that life, for the stuff
and routine that hold me together, or at least that I believe hold me together.
That's the place I like to think of as reality. Maybe it's full of lusts and
hormones and yearnings for more, more, more, and maybe it is all about clutching
and holding and tightness, but I just love it to pieces and it was where I
wanted to be.

From Anne Lamott's book Traveling Mercies

They are the songs of a people who were moving away from a known situation
into the unknown, and they were often angry with a God who removed all those
certainties, who instead seemed to be leading them along an apparently
precarious path. They did not sit down for long beside gently flowing
streams or
linger in lush meadows. When we pray the psalms as they did, we,
too, are
compelled to stay "at the raw edge," in the words of Walter
Brueggemann.
There comes a time when the things that were undoubtedly good
and right in
the past must be left behind, for these is always the danger
that they might
hinder us from moving forward and connecting with the
one necessary thing,
Christ himself.
Insecurity makes certitude
attractive, and it is in times like these that I
want to harness God to my
preferred scheme of things, for it is risky to be so
vulnerable.

From Esther de Waal's book To Pause at the Threshold.

Esther and Anne are my new best friends. Esther lives on the border land between England and Wales - I'm moving there next week. (not really). Anne is naughty and funny and honest in all the best ways. Funny how God provides people and encouragement at just the right time, and these people don't always show up in the flesh. Some day I will meet these women - that will be sweet!

Junior

We got to have an ultrasound for baby today. How wonderful. Pete was there and so where Livy and Gunnar. We had it done at the Northside Life Center in Minneapolis, the clinic that I have just now begun to go to for prenatal care. It was sort of like ultrasound lite. The technician is just learning the ropes and they don't get real technical - sort of just for funsies. And it was fun. It's nice to see that the baby has arms, legs, hands, feet, a little heart that beats, ... all the necessary equipment for life. It was punching around, moving those little tiny arms and legs. We got to bring some strange non-baby looking photos home. We were sooooo hoping to find out the sex but junior wouldn't cooperate, plus junior's a bit young for the exam anyway. We found out that according to the baby's size I'm probably almost 17 weeks instead of almost 18 weeks - I had guessed that was the case. So now we can expect to meet junior close to Thanksgiving Day.
I did find out that we will get the real ultrasound down at Fairview Riverside around 20 weeks. Hurrah! We would still love to find out the sex of the baby!

Baby Talk

I promised to blind you with baby blather. I have not delivered! (tee hee) Let me rectify my gross negligence.

Seriously now. I am full of ambivalence about this baby experience. I have already had two babies yet as I look at a pregnant woman I am disconnected with her experience. Sometimes I see a pregnant woman and think, "Dang! She looks so uncomfortable!" Other times seeing a pregnant woman stirs up desire to experience that new life growing in me again. But now I am pregnant and I realize that I have forgotten so much.

1. My whole body is changing, not just my belly. (I could go into great detail here but will spare you that.)
2. I live with the wonder of new life growing in me - a real person being created in me - and the real possibility that this life won't make it - that this life might (and will, at some point) die. I am now bound to this life. I watch with amazement and fear. Who will this unique new person be? Will there be ten little fingers and ten little toes? Will the brain work well? Will I recognize the finger prints of God?
3. Maternity clothes stink. They are big and small in all the wrong places. Maternity bodies change weekly, so even if you manage to find a pair of pants that fit well, by next Thursday they won't. I think that maternity style should consist of large, hawaiian print moo-moos. At this moment I am wearing an old pair of shorts I use when I'm painting. It was all I could find that wasn't in the laundry, wasn't pajamas, wasn't too hot, and fit. Aaaarrrrgggh!
4. When Gunnar was born Olivia was nearly two. We loved her so much and couldn't imagine loving another little person as much as we loved her. But then Gunnar showed up and we did love him. It wasn't one bit hard. Olivia used to stand at my knees crying whenever I nursed Gunnar. It was difficult for her to understand what this new person was doing in her place, with her mommy. This time Olivia and Gunnar are aware and excited. They are constantly coming up with the most endearing and surprising thoughts about the baby. It's wonderful to share this experience with them. And yet... I find that I am grieving the loss of the four of us. Sometimes this new life is like a foreign invader, wrecking our nice little family, home and life. This summer is for me a celebration of the four of us - enjoying what we can do together and what we mean to each other. Sometimes I feel so sad about this change. But I'm guessing that once jr. shows up it won't be long before we won't be able to imagine life without him/her.

Thanks for listening. Your comments and experiences are welcome.

Order up!

We have only three bedrooms. Pete and I share one (can you believe it?). That left one for each of our two little people. But now number 3 is on the way. Hmmm. What shall we do? Well in the old days people actually put more than one child in each bedroom - "What!? Is that legal?" I shared a room with my sister for most of my growing up years but it seemed absolutely wierd to bunk my two kids together. Olivia is seven (just) and Gunnar is five, not of the same gender. Even wierder. But it seemed the logical solution because Gunnar's room (downstairs) is much larger than Olivia's, whereas Olivia's smaller room is right next to our bedroom - convenient for those night-time feedings. We asked Olivia if she wanted to wait until the end of the summer to make the move but she said she wanted to do it now.

Wow. That was a lot of preamble. All of that to say that after the bunk bed was purchased, shelves made and painted and all of the toys sorted through and pared down, today, finally, the move is official. Whew! We finally have our family room back! Hurrah!

Not only that but I actually cleaned the downstairs bathroom! Plus, I'm part way into the upstairs bathroom with full commitment to finish once this blog is done. I had almost forgotten what a white toilet looked like (did that scare you?).

Order is once again returning to the Carlson household - at least in the cleanliness category.

Green

Drink it in. Soak it up. I can't get enough. It's so good. Very, very good.

We went camping this weekend - all four and a half of us. We love to go to Ann Lake Campground up by Big Lake - Zimmerman. It's a state forest campground and it is rather primitive and woodsy and wonderful. I don't need running water (there's a pump) and I don't want a shower house, nor a pool (there's a tiny beach complete with many weeds and sand burrs). I don't even want a playground or fishing pier . To have these amenities you usually have to put up with crowds and noise and close quarters. I'm looking for nature and quiet and birds I've never seen before (we saw 2 different types). We went on hikes and the kids went "swimming" - which consisted of running in and out of the water. Mostly we just slowed down and spent a lot of time together. It rained Saturday morning and our tent didn't leak one bit - a great improvement over last years model. Pete took the kids fishing on Saturday afternoon while I enjoyed a fantastic nap! We love to cook on when we camp. Only lunches are prepackaged. For breakfast we cook up pancakes or french toast, bacon or sausage, and eggs. For supper we had steaks on the fire, mashed potatoes and green beans. It's fun and challenging to cook out there in the woods. Pete and I enjoy our little routine - why is it that doing the dishes is fun in the woods but hated in our house? Ah, who cares! Let's go camping!

Yesterday the weather was perfect and I worked in the garden the entire day. My aching muscles are the proof. After a long time of feeling pregnant sick it felt so good to work hard.

The chartreuse green of the new leaves and the wonderful smell of earth and new growth bring me alive. Thank you God for the gift of spring.

scrap quilting

I love scrap quilts. God seems to piece together little scraps from here and there to create something bigger. A la this blog.

Chris Fossum has written a book with a subtitle something like this: "What if God designed your marriage to make you holy instead of happy." I'm intrigued! I get hung up on the word "holy". Too many old church connotations. So for my purposes today for the word holy I want to think of it in terms of wholeness, restoration, or becoming fully human, fully Christ-like. So with that in mind, what if everything in my life is God designed to bring about my growth, my restoration instead of just pleasing me or blessing me? So much to think about. So many places to apply this. This is patch #1.

For patch #2 I'm thinking about something pastor dave johnson said yesterday. We are currently talking about the gifts of the Spirit. One category of gifts is the office gifts. This gift is a person. A person given by God to the church for the purpose of equipping the saints for service. The authority the person holds is given by God, not self claimed authority nor given by position or other men. I kept thinking of Jesus while he was talking about this gift/office. Jesus was given to us by God. His authority was from God. And he came to lead and to serve and to show us how to live.

Patch #3 is really just a new patch made by combining patch #1 and #2. What if this pregnancy and this new baby aren't (just) for my blessing, for my happiness? What if this is all designed to make me whole? What if this sickness, this enlarging, this birthing are given to draw me into deeper dependence? What if that sweet new baby and those harsh, draining first few months aren't opposed to one another? What if both of them are given for my restoration? What if the baby isn't given to me, but instead I am given as a gift to the baby? Am I given the authority, the office of parenthood by God for the purpose of equipping these small saints for service, for life with God. Maybe I'm given to lead, to serve and to show them how to live.

Pete, my man, gleaned this quote from Jim Wallace of Sojourners off of a radio broadcast not long ago. "Your vocation is where your gift meets the crushing needs of the world." (Every time I read this I feel the need to pause for a minute of silence.) Sometimes as I look at the crushing needs of the world I want to throw my hands up in despair and say, "It's just too big! What can I do that would even matter?" But the other side of this coin is so hopeful. I don't have to do it all. We are the body. We, each of us, have a gift to give. I can give my gift.

Right now my world in a lot of ways is rather small. I'm a stay at home mom taking care of this home and these little people. But any of you who have cared for brand new people or little people know that their needs at times become crushing. I am in need of the Spirit's gifting. I think God might think this office is really important. I am so grateful that my God is lavish in his gift giving.

Unpopular Opinion

During worship today I communed with God. We sang about nature and his majesty. He named the stars. My heart laughed that this immense creator lives within me! I imagined the two of us looking up at the stars. I was asking him, "What's that one's name?" He was telling me the answers. We're that close.

Then we sang: one thing I ask and I would seek to see your beauty - to find you in the place your glory dwells. I thought of this new one growing in me. This new person is being created to be the dwelling place of pure glory, majestic might, creative love, all things good. Right now as I breathe and move this little life is being formed to hold the One who forms him or her. How can the created contain the creator? This is too wonderful to comprehend - yet it is so.

I am learning more and more of how precious I am to him. He came to earth to buy me back. I gave all he could give to buy me back. He let them tear his skin and his heart. He let them ridicule and degrade him. He did this for me, for us, because we are his bride.

Back at our beginning God breathed his life into the dust and created adam - dust man. We have always been God-breathed, image bearers, friends of the almighty, children for God. God created many animals but we were not animals. We are something else altogether.

I agree with John Eldrige. He says that we aren't afraid of our darkness but rather we are afraid of our glory. We have had many charismatic speakers at our church. I wouldn't say that Ken Fong was the most charismatic of speakers but he received one of the most charismatic responses from the congregation that I have ever seen. And what was his message? We are all Rats! He said that we all try to walk around in our squirrel suits pretending to be cute and non-rodent-like when really we have all sinned and are all really rats. It's an old hook. I grew up with this particular lie and I know of it's insidiousness. What's really so sad is that in all my years of rat living my love for others never grew. I saw myself as a rat, for sure. And yes, I classified my type of ratness as better than other's nastier ratness. But the answer wasn't to see my ratness as filthy and nasty as their ratness. I did try that. It doesn't work.

I have invited Christ into my posturing and into my lack of love for others. My core problem was my own lack of self love. I didn't love myself because I didn't feel loved by God. I thought that God saw me as a huge disappointment - not too different than a rat! I came across the verse in Ephesians that talks about being rooted and established in love. I've been asking for that. God, grow my roots deep in your soil of love. Establish me strong and secure in love. This slow process has an outflowing of awareness both of his loving posture toward me and of his loving posture toward others. I really highly doubt that the Father would have sent the son to die for rats - that's preposterous! He sent his son to die for the image bearers of God. Yes, we were dead in our sins but we were never rats. The verse that Fong used referred to our righteousness being as filthy rags. Notice that the verse doesn't say we are as filthy rags - it's our righteousness that's worthless, not us. God values us greatly!

Is it easier to believe that we are all rats or that we are all full of His Glory? When we see someone degraded by drugs, sex, money or power it is awfully difficult to see their glory, to see His glory in them. But I don't have to go to the obviously degraded places see the unlovely. I can look around my church or neighborhood and have a hard time seeing lovely, loveable, valuable beings. My abililty to hate and despise floors me. But God is changing me. As I have begun to accept his love for me I have begun to see others with that same love. I used to look my church and see brokenness. Lately I've begun to see dearly loved ones. Many, many dwelling places of God.

"Who of you knows that they are a rat?" Not me Mr. Fong, not me. I occasionally exhibit ratlike behavior but my heart is good. I have been made new. I am the dwelling place of the Almighty. God doesn't dwell in rats!

compost

Spring is here. The garden is coming alive. I love to go out and see what made it through another cruel winter. I love planning on what to add this year and how to fill in the spots where plants didn't make it.
This is also the time of year that I place the empty ice cream pail on the kitchen counter and we begin to collect things for the compost pile. I love collecting compost. I love seeing the pail fill up with egg shells and tea bags, orange peels and apple cores, wilted lettuce or a remembered-too-late plum. I love thinking about all the vitamins and minerals I am adding back into my garden.
I think that all Pete thinks about is how gross it all looks and how much he dislikes the fruit flies we have to battle all summer.
I'm not actually all that good at producing really good compost. I can add all of the ingredients but I usually don't turn it and water it often enough. That's kind of a big job that's usually moldy, slimy or smelly and often involves scraped knuckles. I always laugh when I see advertisements for composters that turn out stuff that looks like actual soil - yeah right! My dream is to have one of those double barrel composters that you turn with a crank. It would be so nice to have two stages of composted material and the ease of turning the whole mess with a handle.
This summer the handle I will be turning will be attached to the end of a shovel. So why do I bother? It is so gratifying to see grass clippings, fallen leaves and kitchen scraps turn into something else. Something dark and lumpy with hunks of eggshell still clearly recognizable - but still something new and good.

Tonight

Lately I am reduced.
Tonight I found community in blog land.

Thank you God. Thank you so much.

Gotta love Henri

"We fail to see the place of suffering in the broader scheme of things. We fail to see that suffering is an inevitable dimension of life. Because we have lost perspective, we fail to see that unless one is willing to accept suffering properly, he or she is really refusing to continue in the quest for maturity. To refuse suffering is to refuse personal growth." -Henri J. M. Nouwen

to be willing to accept suffering properly... just how does one do that? What does that mean? I mean, really, what does that mean?

I'm miserable. This really sucks. I want to get up and fold laundry or vacuum or get something done. Damn, this is so hard. I know well how to suffer poorly, but I don't know what it means to suffer properly.

I feel like I'm eroding. My topsoil is washing away.

Death

We're so afraid of death. And it comes in so many shapes and sizes.

I talked with my dad today. He's dying. Three and a half years ago he was diagnosed with MSA (Multiple Systems Atrophy). It means that multiple systems in his brain are shrinking. His particular MSA looks like Parkinson's disease - he shakes and shuffles and has trouble swallowing, etc. My dad is being stripped of his dignity - he feels humiliated. He also feels ignored. That's because we've been ignoring him. I rarely call. I rarely see him. He only lives 25 minutes from my place but being with him is difficult. All the rules have changed. He usually tries to make light of all that's going on - in hopes of covering over his embarrassment. But today I called. And I asked the hard questions, like, "How are you doing emotionally?" It wasn't long before my dad was sobbing into the phone. And then I was. He talked about the embarrassment, the fatigue, the night terrors. He told me that mom is reading to him each night out of a book about the new heaven and the new earth, but we very carefully danced around the word death. I talked with him about how hard it was to be with him and how I wasn't sure how to treat him or what to say. He said, "Sometimes I just need someone to cry with."

So we cried. Together.

Everyone in the family tries so hard to avoid this pain, this death. Pretend. Cover over. We start fights with each other to distract us from this present dark place.

Lead us on, Lead us on,
Into the darkest places, lead us on.

Spirit come, Spirit come,
Into our darkest places, lead us on.

Dad said I could call him any time I want to cry. I'm hoping to do that again soon.

nausea ad nauseum

With my first two pregnancies I fought my "morning" sickness. Despair reigned. Food and sleep were my comforters. I lived somewhere out in the future.

Did you know that time does not go any faster even if you wish really hard that it would?

So with this pregnancy I really wanted to invite God to be with me. I wanted to apply new ways of "being" with myself and others to this new circumstance. To surrender. My friend Jan had mentioned something about some nuns who were letting their illnesses be practice for death. I desire that. Life in death, death in life - weird.

As I press in I hear God say, "Be present to this moment." Simple. Hard. Very, very hard. My old habits of lashing about, fighting, choosing desparation in hopes of getting out of this great discomfort die hard.

please pass the blog jam

"Would you like some toast with that?"

There is something newly present to me. It's in my face, taking up all of the available thought space. And I'm not sharing it with you. I've been wanting to keep it private - not expose my secret obsession.

But that gives me a new problem. Not sharing this large life thing has made me pull back from sharing much of anything. Sometimes I like to convince myself that I am made up of little compartments. The evidence shows that I am really much more like a body of water, a bowl of dough (hey, don't take that too far!), a human person -- something integrated, interconnected. This secret part affects my other parts - a little yeast and all.

So here it is. I'm pregnant. Surprise! (It certainly was for us!) Get ready for blog after blog of pregnancy related blather. Hopefully this will clear up this bad case of blog jam. We be jammin', we be jammin', hey hey!

Of course this makes me wonder about you. and me. in the larger community. I'm wondering about fear of exposing our secret obsessions and how that affects us, affects our willingness to "enter in". Of course we don't have to tell everyone everything but sometimes we become frightened hedgehogs, turning in upon ourselves, hiding. What are we afraid of? What has our experience of community been? My friend Jan described community as "solid". Solid?!? Wow! Her perspective gives me hope. Could a community actually be a place that could help me to stay open to God in places of pain, discomfort, uncertainty? I kept my secret not because I was afraid to share my joy but because I am afraid to share my pain. My experience is that people get weird about other's pain. So to alleviate my own community fears I want to say this: I invite you to be with me - I neither want nor need you to fix this experience for me - which is sure to be filled with both joy and pain. (I still welcome your comments!)

blog log-jam

I need to blog more often. Not because I should but because the longer I wait the more blog ideas get mixed up in tangled nests in my head. Aaaarrrgghh! Maybe I'll post twice today.

This particular blog has been stewing since Sunday. It got tangled with a Psalm yesterday - let's start there and work backwards.

Psalm 8 A David Psalm
God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.

Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs that drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble.

I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?

Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods, bright with Eden's dawn light. You put us in charge of your handcrafted world, repeated to us your Genesis-charge, made us lords of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild, birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean deeps.

God, brilliant Lord, your name echoes around the world.

O.K. so I added the italics- but that's the question that's been resounding within since Sunday. Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?
And now here is part of the text from Sunday's service:

And they sang a new song:
Worthy! Take the scroll, open its seal.
Slain! Paying in blood, you bought men and women,
Bought them back from all over the earth,
Bought them back for God.
Then you made them a Kingdom,
Priests for our God,
Priest-kings to rule over the earth.
Revelation 5: 8-10

There we were on Sunday, coming freshly out of our remembrance of his death, his suffering, his sacrifice, now celebrating his resurrection, his victory, his worthiness! And my heart broke (or did it take flight) that he did all that for US?! What does he see in us?! What unwarranted love! I've been reveling in my boughtness, caughtness, my loved-for-no-good-reason status.

The slain Lamb is worthy!
Take the power, the wealth, the wisdom, the strength!
Take the honor, the glory, the blessing!

Lenten Freedom

So I fasted from sugar for lent. This is the first time I've fasted from anything during lent. So I wondered what it would... unearth? At first all I noticed was how much I missed sugar, how excutiating it was to smell chocolate or fresh-baked rolls. I decided to place scripture in sugar's old spot - get a belly full of God.

As the days rolled on the sugar tension eased and some questions started to rise up. What was is like for Jesus to enter into this wilderness experience? Was fasting something he'd practiced? Did he intend to fast from food or was he simply dependent on what the Father was providing and food currently wasn't provided?

I also noticed that fasting from sugar for the sake of knowing Christ was far different that fasting from sugar for the sake of my pants size. My motivation and my internal dialogue was different.

As Easter began to draw near I noticed a sense of freedom. Pete and I have been considering some food changes in our household - this time for the sake of our brains. These changes include cutting out sugar and simple carbs. As I began this fast I couldn't wait to get back to eating sugar. Now I find that sugar's hold on me has greatly decreased. Before this lenten experience considering food changes would have been quite difficult. I did partake in sugar on Sunday but it didn't thrill me. What thrilled me was knowing that my Hope is alive.

So I'm wondering... what else? Sugar was a god in my life. There are others. "Wow, I couldn't really imagine living without that." What things do I think that about? Maybe there's freedom beyond those as well. You think?

Restoration

Restoration
comes
to
those
long
devastated.

Judy Hougen spoke those words yesterday during her sermon. They rang within me. I repeated them over and over hoping to remember them, hoping to impress them on my heart, hoping for hope.

I am waking up. I am beginning to see new things. I am being called out of passivity and death into life. I am being transformed. I am finding out who He is and who I am. But there is so much new-ness. As the wind of God blows in my life I am experiencing the waves of resistance. Today I feel like the boat is swamped and we might be going down.

I've been waking each morning with the sense of being overwhelmed, behind, "under it". Today it was there again but I invited God into all of these places. I even invited him into the ways I have been escaping and trying to soothe these aches. I'm not sure what will happen from here. Perhaps today will be a day of tears.

This coming alive is painful.

Culture Culture

The tools of our trade aren't for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity. 2 Cor 10:4

The Corinthians brought their massively corrupt culture into their church. Our culture is also massively corrupt. Hmmm....

I'm guessing that there are ways we are doing the same. I'm personally feeling called to humility. Less to a "storm the gates" posture and more toward a quiet, listening, dependent posture. Not in passivity but with intention.

Lavish Love

God-
I am amazed at you! You bring such joy! what a journey of discovery - I'm finding you to be real, present, flowing, a river of gifts and love. I want to dive in and splash and drink and laugh and enjoy.

I used to think you were stingy. Now I see your lavish ways. You love lavishly. You give gifts lavishly.

I feel something rising... I've been holding myself back. I'm not sure but I think that I've been waiting for meanness or coldness to be revealed... just when I trusted.

But you love me. You are intimately involved in my training, my up-bringing. I'm reeling from the sweetness of your instruction. My heart is bursting with joy!

I Cor chapter 4 brought on this prayer. Here I will include verses 7-8 (message translation).

For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn't everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what's the point of all this comparing and competing? You already have all you need. You already have more access to God than you can handle. Without bringing either Apollos or me into it, you're sitting on top of the world -- at least God's world -- and we're right there, sitting alongside you!

Sweet Desire

These faint wavering far-travell'd gleams
Coming from your country, fill me with care. That scent,
That sweet stabbing, as at the song of thrush,
That leap of the heart--too like thy seem
To another air; unlike as well
So that I am dazed with doubt. As a dungeoned man
Who has heard the hinge on the hook turning
Often. Always that opened door
Let new tormentors in. If now at last
It open again, but outward, offering free way,
(His kind one come, with comfort) he
Yet shrinks, in his straw, struggling backward,
From his dear, from his door, into the dark'st corner,
Furthest from freedom. So, fearing, I
Taste not but with trembling. I was tricked before.
All the heraldry of heaven, holy monsters,
With hazardous and dim half-likeness taunt
Long-haunted men. The like is not the same.
Always evil was an ape. I know.
Who passes to paradise, within that pure border
Finds there, refashioned, all that he fled from here.
And yet...
But what's the use? For yield I must,
Though long delayed, at last must dare
To give over, to be eased of my iron casing,
Molten at thy melody, as men of snow
In solar smile. Slow-paced I come,
Yielding by inches. And yet, oh Lord, and yet,
--Oh Lord, let not likeness fool me again.

Sweet Desire by C. S. Lewis

Many Thanks

Dearest Catherine Duncan,
I squandered my chance to thank you in person. Regretting that.

You came two nights ago and shared your heart with us, your very self. You spoke with us as a friend, with down-to-earth-i-ness. I've been captured with the beauty of the spirit that was behind all you shared. What humility, patience, gentleness God has grown in you -- what Christ-likeness! You see Christ in the face of those you serve and I saw Christ in the face of you. The life you engage in draws me and terrifies me. You've put feet on your trust of God.

Thank you, thank you for all you shared.

(Jan, would you please email this to Catherine? I would be much obliged.)

Wrapped in red... and white

I've been missing from blogland for a while. I feel like I've been missing from much of life lately. You see, we've been painting... and painting... and painting some more. We decided to re-do our family room. When we started in there was all of this energy and excitement. The paint is called cherry cobbler. cute. The first coat looked like hot pink lipstick. Yikes! But after THREE more coats it finally looks like the blood color we were after. We finished that a week ago. Then we started painting the trim on doors (4) and windows (2) white. There's also a large bookshelf and three other just made shelves that all need to be painted - white. We're only about half way done with this white stuff.

Pete seems to enjoy teasing about my propensity to UNDERestimate the time it takes to complete a task. I kinda thought we could dig in and complete the task in a week. But here we are going into week 3. Oh well. I guess we're in this for the long haul.

This is strangely familiar. So much of life feels exciting and amazing at the beginning but then comes the realization that much more time and energy will be required.

Here's the prayer that's been with me on my painting journey.
I pause, Father, to commune with you. Help me to be still and know that you are God. Ease awhile any tense muscles or strained nerves or wrought-up emotions. Let me be relaxed in body and calm in spirit so that I may be more responsive to your presence. I pause, Father to commune with you... Amen. Roy E. Dickerson in Daily Prayer Companion

So I invite you, God, into our creative expression, into our aching muscles, into our long process. Be in every brush-stroke.

jigsaw puzzler

I've shared with some friends this idea that my life is a jigsaw puzzle and that God recently banged his fist down on my card table upsetting all my pieces.

I've been working so hard at putting it all back together again. As the pieces begin to click into place I realize, to my horror, that it's not the same puzzle, the picture's different and I've lost the box lid. Damn, now what?

To make matters worse, I've begun to realize that this change has affected the old ways I used to connect to others - they don't fit either. Again, now what?

me thinks it's time to trust another maybe?