Seeing Between the Blinks of the Eye

My father once said that the seeing of God is not like the seeing of man. Man sees only between the blinks of his eyes. He does not know what the world is like during the blinks. He sees the world in pieces, in fragments. But the Master of the Universe sees the world whole, unbroken. That world is good. Our seeing is broken, Asher Lev. Can we make it like the seeing of God? Is that possible?

Chiam Potok - The Gift of Asher Lev

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  1 Cor. 13:12 ESV

There is a piece of artwork displayed in the art gallery of my mind. Regretfully, I do not have the skill with either camera or paint to take it from my mind and reproduce it for you out in the open. I will try to sketch it roughly with words.

It is a picture of a mosaic constructed from mirrored fragments. The bright mirrored pieces are separated by dark opaque spaces. Reflected in the mirrors is a face, fractured and distorted by the dark cracks between the mirrors.

That is life for a human in this age. This world is broken. All we see is reflected in that broken mirror, fractured by the cracks.

Sometimes even the light reflected in the mosaic is indistinct in my vision. All I can see is the negative space, the darkness in between. I see broken relationships, sealed with anger. I see broken bodies, wracked with pain. I see souls imprisoned, sentenced to the solitary confinement of loneliness. I see hate and even worse, apathy. I see cruelty. I see evil, though I can only bear to see it for a second before I close my mind to its horror. There is One does not close his eyes to these things, not even to blink.

Sometimes I focus on the reflected light. A fragment of a small child's unselfconscious delight in his mommy, a shard of shared laughter, a chunk of pure intimacy. There is One who sees all this, and all else. He sees without the dark cracks, without distortion because he is the Word "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."   (Rev.1:8, ESV)

It is possible, at least partially possible, to see through someone else's eyes. It happens most notably with old people, husbands and wives who love each other well over two lifetimes. As the end of their time together draws to a close, sometimes they glimpse the world as the other sees it, before a dark crack of noise, or hunger, or pain breaks the view. We can see clearly, for a moment, if we see through the eyes of the Alpha and Omega. If we get quiet, and spend a lot of time in His presence, we sometimes glimpse the world as He sees it.

He not only sees fully, He knows fully. He gazes in person, at the explosion of a supernova, as bright as a billion suns. With his naked eye he sees the empty space between the nucleus of an atom and its electrons orbiting. He sees, unblinking, what is. He knows without glancing away what was. He gazes unaided at the brilliant light that is to come. He sees you fully, too. He knows intimately every atom of your being, the light, the dark.

Someday we will see like that.

Someday, we will see fully. Someday we will know fully even as we have been fully known.

Seeing: the Lens

"It's not about where you are, but how you see."
-Nature Photographer Marc Adamus


All of life is about how you see.
Each of us needs a lens to see properly.
The lens of the Father's love,
Christ's sacrifice,
the Spirit's care.

Without the lens it doesn't matter where we are. We are lost.

With the lens, it doesn't matter where we are. We are in His hand.

Northern Lights

 

Those joys were so small that they passed unnoticed, like gold in sand, and at bad moments she could see nothing but the pain, nothing but sand; but there were good moments too when she saw nothing but the joy, nothing but gold.

Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina


Last night brilliant splashes of green and red waved gently in the black night sky like curtains in a breeze. They say the northern lights were visible all the way down into the southern United States. I find this ironic since I am visiting Anchorage Alaska where people see the Aurora Borealis frequently. I missed it. I am choosing to believe the show was hidden by cloud cover here, because I would rather not believe that I missed seeing something spectacular only because I was snuggled deep under the covers.

Life is like that. I am often oblivious to cosmic dances of joy. Oblivious because I can't see past my local clouds. I miss them because my eyes are shut or because I don't want to leave the comfort of my warm blankets.

Beautiful realities fill the sky whether my eyes are open to them or not.

A man who moved here a couple of years ago told us about an experience on a boardwalk near town that winds through reedy marshes near Cook Inlet. He was there, walking his dogs, and came across an energized knot of people peering through cameras with giant lenses attached. "What are you seeing?" Ian asked. "Birds! Don't you see them? There, and there, and there!" He didn't see. Veteran bird watchers did.

When the blind man cried out to Jesus, Jesus stopped. He asked "What do you want me to do for you?" (Mark 10:46 - 52)

He cried out, and I cry out too, "Rabbi, I want to see!"

Seeing

I've been thinking about seeing. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But--and this is the point--who gets excited by a mere penny? ...It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with you poverty brought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.

--Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

About a month ago my youngest daughter and I drove through Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho to her college in Washington. Along the way we enjoyed beautiful landscapes, rich conversation, and laughter. We didn't see a single antelope. A few days after I helped her get settled in her dorm room, my husband flew up to Spokane and drove back home with me.

Along the way he spotted antelope everywhere, hundreds of them grazing in fields, standing in groups or alone, silhouetted against the blue sky. How could so many antelope magically materialize where just days before there had been none? The problem was not with the antelope, but with my ability to see them. Clearly, I wasn't really looking. There was nothing wrong with my eyes, only with the way I used them. I needed my husband to say, "There! Down in the valley, don't you see them?"  And then I did.

Life is like that. We must learn to see. We must help each other see. God strews our way with hidden gifts, but finding them is up to us.

A New Favorite Funny Sign

If you need to exit your vehicle for any reason, photo stop, pit stop...

Please leave your vehicle only when it is driving full speed up this narrow road.
Open your car door, take a flying leap away from the vehicle, roll to prevent injuries.
Road crews will not be responsible for helping you catch back up to your vehicle, or for the damage that will occur when it crashes into the rock wall at the other end of this bridge.

Chrysalis

I have been thinking much lately about the cycles of life. I always love the spring and summers seasons of my soul when things are growing, blooming, flourishing in my life. I react in fear at the other, equally necessary, seasons in life, times of pain and disappointment when autumn comes and the days grow chilly and what was once green and alive in my soul begins to droop and die or gets frozen overnight. The following poem is a result of my musing on this topic. I doubt it will make much sense unless you can take a minute to sip it slowly like a hot drink on a chilly morning.

When the caterpillar is fully grown, it makes a button of silk which it uses to fasten its body to a leaf or twig. Then the caterpillar's skin comes off for the final time. Under this old skin is a hard skin called a Chrysalis aka "Nympha" like other types of pupae, the chrysalis stage in most butterflies is one in which there is little movement...Within the chrysalis, growth and differentiation occur. (from Wikipedia "Chrysalis")

I

Embracing rush
incoming tide,
each swell higher than its brother
erases scars in sand.

The waxing joy-filled moon
pregnant with possibility
incubating light
round with hope

Spring Equinox
buds heavy
perfumed with life.

Always, then.
the Unseen waves a wand
waxing becomes waning
Moon flees.
waves retreat,
beach lies bruised,
stripped and naked

Nothing lives
unless it dies.

II

A larva,
weary of crawling
weary of nice-ness
weary of her own soft skin

She clings to the twig, 
scratches
writhes
confused
An insect
imprisoned in spider's silk?

Poisoned,
paralyzed,
waiting to be devoured?

Her hard dead shell,
exposed,
upside down
hanging tentative,
still.

But

Resurrection only gestates
in the tomb

silent differentiation hidden. 

Until a new born Nymph,
emerges
in wonder
stretching,
drying newborn wings.

A Prayer...

I find myself returning repeatedly to Celtic Daily Prayer a prayerbook and devotional rich with the words and wisdom of ancient saints. Today I share a prayer from that book attributed to William Barclay.

We hold before God:
  those for whom life is very difficult;
  those who have difficult decisions to make, and
  who honestly do not know 
  what is the right thing to do.


We hold before God:
  those who have difficult tasks to do and to face, 
  and who fear they may fail in them;
  those who have difficult temptations to face, 
  and who know only too well that
  they may fall to them, 
  if they try to meet them alone.

We hold before God: 
   those who know that they can be their own worst enemies.


We hold before God:
  those who have difficult people to work with;
  those who have to suffer unjust treatment, 
  unfair criticism, unappreciated work.


We hold before God:
  those who are sad because someone they love has 
  died;
  and any who are disappointed in something for 
  which they hoped very much.

If you find yourself in any of these difficult places today, friend, I hold you before God.

Of Flow, and Ebb, and Terror

Last time I shared some excerpts from a favorite essay by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Today I share a few 0f her thoughts from the same essay in Gift From the Sea on the subject of relationships.

 So beautiful is the still hour of the sea's withdrawal, as beautiful as the sea's return when encroaching waves pound up the beach, pressing to reach those dark rumpled chains of seaweed which mark the last high tide.

We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanence, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.

These words humble and instruct me as I continue to foolishly attempt to resist the ebb and flow of my relationships, to keep the tide high upon the shore. I need to learn from Anne as my young adult children scatter around the world flying farther from me both physically and emotionally. I need to learn the art of living in the present with my dear husband, and with my step children whose emotional tides run very high and low. I need to learn to trust in the early morning when my terror that the tide will never return masks the truth like a fog upon the water.

"The Breathtaking Empty Space of An Open Door"

Yesterday I reread a short essay by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, from her wonderful book Gift from the Sea. It has spoken to me many times before, but each time I read it the words seem fresh, as if I am reading them for the first time. I am sharing parts of it with you today and next week. I hope you enjoy them too.
Beth

Is it not possible that middle age can be looked upon as a period of second flowering, second growth, even a kind of second adolescence? It is true that society in general does not help one accept this interpretation of the second half of life. And therefore this period of expanding is often tragically misunderstood...The signs that presage growth are so similar, it seems to me, to those in early adolescence: discontent, restlessness, doubt, despair, longing. But now these are interpreted falsely as signs of decay. In youth one does not as often misinterpret the signs: one accepts them, quite rightly, as growing pains. One takes them seriously, listens to the, follows where they lead. One is afraid. Naturally. Who is not afraid of pure space - the breathtaking empty space of an open door? ...

But in middle age, because of the false assumption that it is a period of decline, one interprets these life-signs, paradoxically, as signs of approaching death. Instead of facing them, one runs away, Anything, rather than face them. Anything rather than stand still and learn from them. One tries to cure the signs of growth: to exorcise them, as if they were devils, when really they might be angels of annunciation.

Angels of annunciation of what? Of a new stage in living when...one might be free for growth of mind, heart, talent; free at last for spiritual growth...

Eavesdropping on My Funeral

Thanks for your patience while I was away. It is good to be back. I won't be back to my normal rhythm of life until September though, so please be patient and check back if I don't post weekly. Thanks!

The classic Tom Sawyer is one of my favorite books. In one section Tom and his friends have been off playing pirate while the whole town searched for them. When the good people of the town became convinced that the boys had drowned in the Mississippi they planned a funeral. The boys hid in the gallery and listened with glee as the preacher "drew such pictures of the graces, the winning ways, and the rare promise of the lost lads..."

I sometimes wonder what my own funeral will be like. I think it might be fun to listen, like Tom, Jim, and Huck to the things people say about me. What will they say? What will stand out about me and the way I am choosing to live when I am gone? 

Hopefully, like the good townspeople mourning Tom and company, people won't be harshly honest in their appraisal of my life. I am a small person leading a small life. On the other hand, God won't alter his appraisal of the way I spent the time he gave me on earth just because that life is over. If pleasing God requires doing great deeds my life will never measure up.  Am I spending my life the way I should?

Lynn, a new friend of mine reflected on her blog (http://lynnetangible.blogspot.com/) about Jesus' answer to the question "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" She said that his answer is surprising because it is not about doing anything. He said, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." (John 6:28-29)

My friend asks, "Does God long for us to believe--we who are already believers?  I think he does.  When our prayers don't get answered the way we like (could we possibly be praying the wrong kinds of prayers?), when dreams shatter and the unthinkable happens, do we "believe in him whom he has sent"?

If I get to hide in the gallery of heaven and listen as friends and family talk about me after my life is over, maybe the best thing they could possibly say about me would be simply "she believed".

Apologies

I am not sure that apologies make riveting blog reading, but I feel compelled to write an apology to you anyway.

First, an apology for this apology. Generally, when a person feels compelled to explain their actions and attach them to an apology, it isn't a real apology. Maybe I am making excuses here instead of apologizing. Either way here is the reason I haven't posted regularly during the past few weeks.


In the past several weeks I have celebrated my oldest daughter's college graduation in California, and then immediately after our return, my younger daughter's high school senior awards events. At that same time, I was helping her prepare for a missions trip to Guatemala. She was in Guatemala when her grandmother and sister flew in for her high school graduation, and another close relative (she is technically my half-sister since she is my dad's adopted daughter, but she feels more like a niece since she is the same age as my youngest child, but all that is too complicated to explain here so don't even try to understand. The point is, we had more big celebrations going on.) Cassie almost missed her own big day since her flight home from Guatemala the day before graduation was cancelled due to all the severe storms in the mid-west. She made it home just in time to catch a few hours sleep and a shower before graduation. Her teacher and the rest of the group weren't so lucky. They "slept" in the Dallas airport that night and slid into their seats at graduation just after the graduates entered!


Then there was the double graduation party, and 5 trips to the airport that week, and my nephew's wedding in Estes Park...

In the early morning 36 hours after the wedding, my mother-in-law was found with no pulse. We spent a few hours saying goodbye to her in the hospital, and this week has been full of the sad business of grief.  So, though I'm making excuses, I haven't been able to post regularly to this blog. Please forgive me. I will be away on vacation for the next couple of weeks.


Look for me to return to posting at least regularly after June 27. Thanks for your patience.


Beth

Scriptures for Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

I sat in the intensive care unit by the side of my mother-in-law a few days ago as a ventilator breathed for her. I was grateful for a precious last few moments with her before we had to say goodbye on this earth a few hours later. In the relative calm of early morning I read some Bible passages to her, and to myself. I would like to share three of them.
 
The spirit of the words I believe Jesus was whispering in Marlene's ear as he took her hand and led her into his presence:

Isaiah 43:1-5,10-11
Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior...
Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored and I love you...Fear not, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east and from the west I will gather you...'
You are my witnesses' declared the Lord, ' and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he...I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.


These words reflect the way I believe Marlene's spirit responded back to him as he carried her into Life:

Psalm 73:23-26,28
Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart forever...
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all your works.


Words for those of us who grieve:

Psalm 69:3,13-14,16-18, 29, 32-33
I am weary with my crying out;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God...

O, Lord, At an acceptable time, O God,
In the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in you saving faithfulness.
Deliver me sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters...
Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good;
according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.
Hide not your face from your servant; for I am in distress;
make haste to answer me.
Draw near to my soul...

But I am afflicted and in pain..
I will praise the name of God with a song;
I will magnify him with thanksgiving...
you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
For the Lord hears the needy.

If you too are in a season of grief, I pray that these words from the God who loves you will comfort your heart as they have mine.
Beth

Ramblings from the ICU

I write this as I sit in a recliner, not sleeping at 1 am, by the bedside of my mother-in-law in the ICU at Skyridge Medical Center. 

A few days ago she was present at my youngest daughter's high school graduation and the next day at our graduation party, smiling, enjoying. Less than 24 hours ago my father-in-law found her unresponsive and not breathing when he tried to wake her. She had not been well. She had a cold. She was diagnosed with an Alzheimer's like dementia a couple of years ago. Still, none of us expected to be sitting by her side in the hospital so soon. She lays in a coma, a machine breathing for her. Her body twitching constantly, almost violently.

It seems ironic that she spent 40 years tenderly caring as a nurse, and now she is helpless to do anything for herself.

I grieve for my dear father-in-law who has walked tenderly by her side for 55 years. His heart is so visibly breaking as he grapples with the reality that he must soon kiss her goodbye for the last time.  He has spent his days this past couple of years doing more and more of the most mundane tasks for her. Still, he aches for more time with the wife he loves. He chokes up and his eyes fill with tears when he explains that he had planned to help her wash her hair first thing yesterday morning.

I grieve for my husband who loves his mother so deeply and so well. I grieve for her grandchildren.

Tonight I have the privilege of being alone with her as the rest of the family hopefully gets some sleep. She is the third person I have sat beside through one of their last nights on earth. All three have loved the Lord, all three had bodies that didn't quite want to let go of this world, all three had children and grandchildren who were not quite ready to say goodbye.

I am not quite ready to say goodbye. I only really knew her for a few months before insidious disease imprisoned her in her own body. I feel cheated out of the friendship I sense we would have shared.

I don't quite know what to do with this close up view of death. I can see that death itself is an enemy, not the original plan, even though it ushers us into the presence of the lord. I can see that the truth in Paul's words "to live is Christ, and to die is gain" becomes easier to embrace when we have walked the long desert roads of life on this planet for many years. I can see that someday, some day soon in the accounting of eternity, I will be the one saying goodbye to my earthly life and loved ones. With that realization a desire to walk the days I have been given holding tightly to my lord wells up in me.

Thanks for taking time for my middle of the night ramblings.

Beth

P.S. She departed to be with the Lord  about 12 hours after I wrote this post. Now we grieve our loss and celebrate her entrance into heaven.

Passionate Folly

I am reading the popular book, Eat, Pray, Love.  Right now I am with Elizabeth Gilbert meditating with her guru and Richard from Texas in an Ashram at an undisclosed site in India. I was drawn reading this because there are times when I would love to run away from home and travel around the world for a year. The book is subtitled "One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia". The author characterized her own quest as "spiritual investigation".  Elizabeth began her quest by spending four months in Italy, eating. I must admit that I am ever so slightly jealous. I can definitely picture myself devoting a full third of a year to eating Italian food. In Italy.

The problem is that Elizabeth Gilbert is on the wrong quest. 

The book made me sad. Not sad is in sorry for myself because I am not reading it over a cafe table in Venice, but sad for Elizabeth. Spiritual investigation is a noble pursuit, but I think she got on the wrong train. As I read, I wanted to gently tap Elizabeth on the shoulder, and tell her I think she missed the one thing that ultimately matters. I can't judge her, all of us, every human being ever, has made the same mistake.

Like kids on an Easter egg hunt we continually overlook the prize that is hidden in plain sight, and hunt where it can't be found.

John Piper, in a personal communication quoted in Larry Crabb's manual to his School of Spiritual Direction, called this syndrome the "treasonous pursuit of satisfaction from the wrong source".  All of us turn to something and demand that it satisfy, or at least numb, our thirsts. We want husbands who faithfully adore us, adventure, financial stability, good health, good looks, gelato, ... Don't get me wrong, these are all good things, but they make poor gods.

The old fashioned, out-of-style, modernly offensive word used to refer to the search for satisfaction in all of the wrong places is sin.  The prophet Jeremiah speaks for God in Jeremiah 2:13 "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water."

So, I must ask: where have I, in my thirst, strolled past the fountain of living waters in order to drink from a broken cistern that can hold no water? Have I searched for everything when I should have been searching for one thing, or more precisely one relationship instead?

A Friend to Friend Note to You

First, I would like to apologize for the significant gap since my last real post. I attended a week long conference on spiritual direction with author Larry Crabb and then flew to California for my daughter's college graduation.

The conference was rich. There were just thirty-one students gathered with Larry Crabb, his wife Rachel, and two spiritual directors at beautiful Glen Eyrie near Colorado Springs.  Dr. Crabb did not distance himself from those of us attending the conference, though he certainly could have blown us away with his impressive credentials, intelligence, and his superior spiritual maturity. Instead, he approached us openly and humbly, a man sharing the things he has learned and where he is currently on his journey. It was a rare opportunity for me to sit in the presence of greatness, to listen, learn, be challenged, and soak in wisdom from my remarkable fellow attendees.

We spent the entire week having "conversations that matter" and being challenged with the ways we obscure the truth and put things that should come second in first place, (more on that in a later blog).  I have so much to chew on from what I learned. I was convicted and challenged.

I thought I would blog during the free time that week, but I found myself so deluged by thoughts, and weary from the intensity, that I simply could not do it.  

Now I find myself wishing that I could sink into a comfy chair across from you with my hands wrapped around a comforting cuppa something delicious, and have a conversation that matters with you. I would like to hear where you are in your journey, share where I am, and see if we can encourage each other to focus on what really matters in the midst of it all, loving God with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strength.

Is it possible to have a "conversation that matters" over a blog? Speaking too much and listening too little kills any good conversation, and that is the nature of this mostly one way form of communication, but I would like to try anyway. In the next days (weeks? months?) I would like to talk about where I am, what I am learning, and where I am stumbling and falling. Maybe there will be something in it that will resonate with you and encourage you on in your own journey.  I would love to have a two way conversation with you, so please comment back if you have thoughts to add, or would like to challenge me to see something that I seem to be blind to. Maybe together we can become "those who see".

Beth

I will be away from this Blog for one more week. See you next week! Beth

Life is Like a Bowl of Zwieback

Until 2 years ago I thought that zwieback (I pronounced it zoo-E-back)was the hard dry toast you purchase at the grocery story in baby blue packages with a smiling little cherub on the cover. I remember giving it to my babies when they were teething, and acting very unlike smiling little cherubs. It was the consistency of a two by four so that the little angels happily could chew on it for hours, never breaking off a single chunk large enough to choke on, before it turned to mush.

In the intervening years I went through a divorce and spent years alone. When my second husband and I married a couple of years ago, rescuing each other from loneliness, celibacy, and single parenthood, I learned some important things. The rock hard stuff in the store is not real zwieback, and it is pronounced swee-baac.

Real zwieback is a tradition dating back so many generations that no one remembers when it started. Fresh baked zwieback is the lightest, softest, sweetest dinner roll ever.

Some brilliant cook invented Zwieback long before I was born and bread machines were invented. My mother-in-law, Marlene, is famous for making the best zwieback on three continents. She is suffering from Alzheimer's, so a few months ago she and my father-in-law invited me to her house to make zwieback with her so that she could pass on treasured generational zwieback secrets. I knew I was in trouble the minute she began warming the utensils we were to use. Making zwieback like hers is a science, requiring precision.  I am a terrible scientist.

This Easter I am making zwieback alone for the first time. Slightly intimidated by Marlene's reputation, I glanced at the recipe, and googled "scald milk". The Cooking-for-Modern-Clueless-Idiots website said that scalding milk began back when milk came from cows instead of from grocery stores. Heating the milk to near boiling killed dangerous bacteria and the enzymes that kept dough from thickening. The website said that scalding is unnecessary now in the days of pasteurization.  Scalding already pasteurized milk is probably a step we take just because it has always been done this way. It is like the story my mother tells. A woman learned from her mother that she should trim the ends off a roast before putting it in the oven. After years of doing this, she asked why this step was necessary. Mother didn't know, so she asked her grandmother. The sage old woman answered. "I always did that because the roast wouldn't fit in my pan!" I scalded the milk anyway, just in case.

I finished the delicate zwieback-made-with-scalded-milk dough mixing it gently in a warm bowl. Getting the right consistency required using more than 16 cups of flour even though the recipe calls for only 4 - 8 cups. It was written down by a person determined to make sure that no one attempting to follow it could possibly succeed.

I gently tucked the finished dough into a pre-warmed bowl, covered it with a fresh towel, and left it to rise in peace and quiet. It grew large, light, and baby soft. The recipe said to let the dough rise to twice its original size then "punch it down".  I obeyed. Laying aside all the earlier gentleness I used the cooking skills I acquired in kickboxing class throwing undercuts and right hooks at my beloved dough. After knocking all the air out of it, I walked away. The ball of dough recovered from its shock, and gradually struggled back up to its former fluffy glory, only to be punched down again. Three times. I felt for the poor dough. I related to it. It couldn't see my perspective or know that the times of being uncovered and punched down are as crucial for preparing it for its delicious destiny as the times of warmth and comfort.

As the scent of baking zwieback fills my kitchen, I realize that God is like an old-style cook. Sometimes He puts us in warm sunny windows to grow in quiet comfort. Sometimes he lets life knock all the air out of us, then seems to walk away. He does it repeatedly, and He does it because he loves us. There is a delicious destiny ahead for us.


That's it. Gotta go take soft golden brown zwieback from the oven.


Beth


This post can also be seen on my other blog, doorinthewilderness.blogspot.com.

The Birds of the Heavens

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
   the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
   and the son of man that you care for him?
 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
   and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
   and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
   whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
 O LORD, our Lord,
   how majestic is your name in all the earth! Psalm 8:3-9, ESV

I love seeing God's fingerprints on creation. For the last week or so I have been fascinated by this live feed from a camera mounted near an eagles nest. You can watch the pair of bald eagles working together to feed, and protect their three chicks.

http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=http://raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/decorah_eagle_xcel.html&medium=3064708Decorah Eagle Nest Cam

Who Am I?

I am fascinated by personality tests. When an unfamiliar test, instrument, or inventory comes along, I eagerly fill in all the bubbles, calculate the results, study the explanation, and share my new insights with everyone unlucky enough to be nearby. Some of my family members don't share my interest in these tests. They tire of my talking about them. They just don't see the appeal.

So why do I find these things so interesting? I guess I long to know who I am, to know my name. For some reason I don't clearly understand, I am still not sure I know who I am, not completely.

Names have meaning. They define us. In the Bible a person who encounters God in a powerful way is sometimes given a new name, a new identity. The book of Revelation says that in the end, each of us will be given a new name. 

Sometimes in the course of walking through this world, we are burdened with wrong names. Robbed of our true identities and saddled with false identities that enslave us.

Recently an old injury, one that came from being maliciously misnamed began paining me again. I think Satan does that, uses wounding words and circumstances to repeatedly misname us. He reinforces the false message until we believe it. We think we have no choice but to sigh heavily and slog through life being who we are told to be, like a person wearing ill fitting clothes that chaff and rub. 

In the past few weeks this concept of receiving a true name from God has come up in a variety of unrelated ways, in conversations with friends, in a book I am reading, in an email...God is creating in me a desire to strip off and discard the false names I've been unwittingly wearing around for far too long. I am hungry for a new name, a name that fits, and calls me forward into the next era of my life. I can't wait to find out what it is. Like Jacob who wrestled with God and refused to let go until he was blessed with a new name, I plan to hang on and wrestle until I know my name.

A Couple of Thoughts to Ponder...

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet As quoted in To Be Told, Workbook by Dan B. Allender and Lisa K. Fann

So I went down to the potter's house and there he was working at his wheel...Then the work of the Lord came to me...Behold like clay in the potter's hand so are you in my hand. 

Jeremiah 18:3,6 ESV

Thirsty?

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Jeremiah 2:13

As a child, my dad lived in poverty during the worst environmental disaster yet known in the United States. They lived in a farming community during a severe drought and famine in Oklahoma. The family's water supply ran off the roof of their shack during rare rain showers and was stored in a cistern. When they needed a drink, they would take a dipper, scoop up water from the bottom of the cistern, and pull it out.  Often a snake or a frog would hitch a ride out of the cistern along with the warm, sediment filled water. 

They drank from that cistern because there was no choice. It was the only source of water.  

Imagine yourself standing thirsty in that barren landscape. You are standing in the searing sun leaning over the cistern, with your hand on the dipper. Now imagine that behind you is a fountain overflowing with refrigerated, purified, spring water sparkling in the sun. Do you still want a gritty, froggy cistern drink?  

The scene changes.
Now you are Eve loitering in the garden of Eden.

The crafty serpent diverts your attention away from the vast array of pleasant delights available to you. You could take pleasant stroll through the orchard with peach juice dripping down your chin. But, you don't. You walk over to the one tree God has denied you, and sit down its shade, convinced that God is not totally good because he is keeping something from you. You no longer remember the delightful walks with God and Adam in the cool of the day. You no longer remember all the other good gifts that fill your days. You obsess over the thing God has not given you. You don't even need to taste the forbidden fruit to be lost.  The moment you accept the idea that there is something better than being with God, you are dead meat. (I am indebted to Mimi Wilson and Shelly Cook Volkhardt's book Trusting in His Goodness for starting this train of thought.)

We walk past sparkling fountains to drink from filthy cisterns all the time. We constantly look for the "good" thing that will quench our thirst. We sit down under the forbidden tree and dwell on finding Mr. Right, or fixing Mr. Wrong, having the money to visit that beach, or replace that broken old thing, finding the cure and being healthy again, or finding the magic pill that will force the kid to make good choices. The thing we want may be genuinely good, it probably is. But that is not the point. All that crafty serpent has to do is consciously, or preferably unconsciously, convince us that God is not totally good because he is withholding something we need. As soon as we focus on what we do not have instead of on the simple fact that "Jesus loves me, this I know", we are lost.

This is where I think Satan's craftiness reaches a masterful level. He twists the message of Christianity, convincing us that religion is a way of getting that forbidden fruit. The lie is preached in pulpets, written in books, and assumed to be from God. Here is the way it goes: 

• Jesus is your ticket to Heaven.
• Once you accept Jesus, the Bible gives you a set of principles to live by.
• Live by those principles. 
• Pray hard, live right, and God will eventually bless you, make your life work, and (hopefully) give you that good thing you thirst for.

Sound familiar? It does to me too. Like any good lie, there are bits of truth in it. . There is a part of me that really wishes that familiar message was the whole truth. But that is not God's way, that is the cistern, not the fountain.  I am not saying that we shouldn't pray and ask God to meet our needs. Of course we should. But if we put our emphasis on keeping the code so that God will give us the good thing we want, we have believed a lie.

Jesus's death and resurrection offers us much more than just a ticket to heaven when we die. Through him God invites us to once again walk with him in the cool of the day.  That is the true refreshment our thirsty souls long for. When he denies us access to something we deeply, even legitimately desire, it is in part because he is helping us release our grip on the handle of the cistern-dipper and waiting for us to turn our attention to Him, the fountain of living waters.

When Disaster Strikes

Like people all over the world I have been riveted by the images of the triple disaster in Japan. "Unreal", "Unbelievable" the TV new anchors say. That is exactly right. My mind is accustomed to Hollywood action films playing on that same television. Pretend disasters created with miniature models and pyrotechnics fill the screen. Within a couple of hours credits roll. I am assured that no animals were harmed, and it is all over.

As I watch the force of the tsunami wave wiping out whole towns with unfathomable force and speed, houses and cars bouncing around like toys succumbing to playful destruction wreaked by a toddler in a sandbox, I can't quite believe this is real. Reality is too awful for me to grasp. The horror that those are real houses, real cars, real people's lives is to much for me to completely grasp.  Today the further devastation of nuclear radiation in the air from exploding nuclear power plants is added to the suffering of people who in a single Job moment have already lost everything.

The inevitable question comes. How could a good God allow this?
I don't know.
I can only hold onto the verse that has been repeating itself in my head for days. "Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God." Isaiah 50:10, ESV

The next verse contains a stern warning. "Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you shall have from my hand; you shall lie down in torment." Isaiah 50:11, ESV

In the darkest dark times, when we don't understand God or life, we really only have one small choice. That one choice makes all the difference in the rest of our story though. Are we going to sit in the dark holding onto the good hand of our God waiting for dawn, or are we going to stomp away in our anger, fear, and confusion, and light our own torches.

When people become lost in the wilderness their natural instincts are usually dead wrong. If they continue to stumble around they reduce their chances of survival. Most move further and further from the trail, sometimes splitting up away from each other, making rescue less likely. They often fall into further harm, even death. Survival experts say people should instead make the difficult choice to stay where they are and wait for help.

It is the same when we become lost any other kind of wilderness. We have to choose whether to try to grope our way out of the darkness alone, or stay put and trust God even though we are confused and frightened. No matter how much sense going it alone it seems to make at the time, we won't get far by ourselves.

Worshipping Success

In an earlier blog I talked about the great sacrifices German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer made to try to stop the great evil of the Nazis. I wondered whether Bonhoeffer was discouraged when every effort failed. His participation in a plot to assassinate Hitler was rewarded with prison and eventual execution. Evil continued to run free.

I am reading an excellent new biography of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas. Indirectly, he answers my question. He says that Bonhoeffer was fascinated by the way people worship success. The book quotes Bonhoeffer in his book Ethics,

In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger and is at best the object of pity. The world will allow itself to be subdued only by success. It is not ideas or opinions which decide, but deeds. Success alone justifies wrongs done...

I find those words convicting and oddly comforting at the same time. I forget that I serve a savior who was crucified before he was resurrected, and calls me to be crucified with him. I am not sure that God cares as much as I do whether I succeed or fail. I think He cares only that through success or failure I love him with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength.

If you want to read more, here are the links to those earlier blogs:
http://doorinthewilderness.blogspot.com/2011/02/accepting-hardship-as-pathway-to-peace.html
http://doorinthewilderness.blogspot.com/2011/02/accepting-hardship-as-pathway-to-peace_10.html

Blessings,
Beth

The Good Thing About Being Mediocre

The other day I was a part of a discussion about becoming an excellent writer. It has been said that a writer does not truly find his voice until he writes a million words. One guy decided to calculate it out. A person who wants to find his voice, only the first step in becoming a great writer, would have to write 1000 words a day for nearly three years. If he takes weekends off, he wouldn't arrive for nearly four years. Another guy taking part in the discussion said that he heard about a study that said the people who truly succeed are the ones who have the highest capacity to withstand their own mediocrity. Everyone else gives up too soon.

I think the same principal applies to all greatness, not skill as a writer. Growth takes effort and time. If I want to grow, become a great person, or a great lover of God or a great lover of other people, I have to slog through a lot of mediocrity, and probably some abject failure along the way.

As I reflected on these ideas I decided not to be discouraged by them. In fact, I think I like them. It takes a lot of practice and perseverance to become great, achieve mastery. On the way to that mastery there is a lot a well intentioned mediocrity. If I find myself to be mediocre I should not conclude that I will never succeed and give up. Instead I will shrug my shoulders, accept this as my current place on the journey, and soldier on toward excellence. 

Did you Hear About Super Gran?

I want to be like Ann Timson when I grow up.

71 year old Ann Timson, aka "Super Gran" has fiery red hair and a firm determination to defend the defenseless.

Dressed in a red coat and wearing support bandages on her legs, Ann was ready for her dance class later in the day. At the top of the hill she saw what she thought was a group of thugs beating up a boy.

Though she is 71 years old, suffers from arthritis, and has to use a wheelchair at times Ann sprinted to the rescue.

Ann humbly disagrees. "The legs would have collapsed on a run, so I wouldn't say it was a run. It was an amble."

When Ann arrived at the top of the hill she realized that the men she saw from a distance were thieves,  using axes and hammers to break into a jewelry store in broad daylight.

All superheroes have hidden superpowers. Ann's is her courage. Armed only with a lightweight bag holding her purse and a newspaper, this frail little grandma attacked the whole group of six thieves.  Some of the thieves tried to flee, but with Super Gran still attacking, they lost their balance on the get-away scooter, and were arrested.

Like any good hero, Ann denies that she did anything special.

In her Today show interview Super Gran admitted that this is not her first attempt to fight crime. She also organized a group to fight the crime happening in her neighborhood.

Though it might be reasonably argued that the wisest course of action would have been to use a cell phone to call the police, I admire Ann's spunk and the selfless way she risked her life to try to save someone she thought was being hurt.

The world would be a better place if there were more superheroes like Ann walking our streets.

Ann's heroism was caught on video. You've got to watch this!

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/i-m-not-super-gran-says-purse-wielding-woman/6ayrrcn?q=super+gran&FORM=VIRE8

Chai and Stories

I am still thinking about stories. Today I am thinking about small stories, the mundane stories we tell each other about the events of the day.

On the open shelf in my kitchen stands a dark wooden mortar and pestle from Mozambique. Simple, elegant grooves are carved into the sides of the mortar and the handle of the pestle. The ones in the handle of the pestle massage my hand as I grind spices. My daughter bought it on a trip she took with a group from church during high school. We use it to grind spices for homemade chai. On Saturdays we crush cardamom and toss it into water along with the tea we bought in Manipur, India. Aroma fills the house. We add milk. The chai watches for me to grow impatient, waits for my attention to wander, and the moment my back is turned, seizes the opportunity to climb out of the confines of the pot. It boils over, hissing and sputtering and burning onto the stovetop, every time. It is tradition.

I strain the chai, then we sit around the table sipping it. The perfect mug must do more than hold a steaming cup of comfort, it must frame the drink, the way a perfect picture frame enhances and sets off the artwork it holds. We each drink from a mug carefully chosen to bridge the gap between our current mood and the warm comfort of the chai. We tell stories of the week past and the week to come. 


Those quiet moments of connection are so important. Now that I am middle aged, able to both look back on a few decades, and look forward with the hope that I still have a few decades to spend on this planet, I am even more thankful for the tradition of sharing our stories with each other. I have heard that many families have given up sitting together and sharing the mundane stories of their days. I feel sorry for them.

Stories

We love stories as long as they happen to someone else. Stories don’t give answers, but they do offer perspective. They provide a window through which we can look for patterns of life. Peering through the window then leads to more compelling stories and finally deeper wisdom. Wisdom isn’t a formula or conclusion but a way of being in the world that leads to a more truthful and more beautiful good. Stories lure us because we sense this good hidden within them.-Dan Allender

Stories are part of my DNA.

I remember curling up on my mama's lap while she skillfully lifted the stories of Jimmy Skunk and Sammy the Jay from the pages of a book and gave them to my sister and me like a bedtime kiss.

I remember sitting around the dinner table, while my daddy, a natural storyteller, leaned back in his chair and told us about something that happened that day, or in the unimaginably distant past, when he was a child.

I remember the silly, incoherent stories about Banjo the dragon I spun with my own children when they were small.

I remember being a small girl, so absorbed in the world of a good book that it was more real to me than my own life. 

Stories are still as essential to me as food and shelter. Friday night, every Friday night, is pizza-movie night at our house. It is an important part of my week. When I travel, I carry a tiny hairbrush, an itty bitty tube of toothpaste, and at least 4 books.

Why do I love stories so much? Maybe it is because I find a sliver of myself in every character. Maybe it is because God is the ultimate storyteller. The whole world and all of history are parts of His epic tale. Maybe they lead me to things that are true.

I hope you get to enjoy a good story this week.
Beth

Miracles

Do we need miracles or do we need only to perceive that every ordinary thing around us is already miraculous?
Elizabeth Rooney

I am learning to open my eyes to the miracles in each day. Little things like the fact that I am sipping tea from India out of a cup from Vietnam, while I sit in Colorado and chat with my son in England!

It is -12 degrees outside my door today, but I sit in perfect comfort due to the dual miracles of insulation and a furnace.

My heart keeps beating, my lungs keep filling with air, every cell in my body keeps doing its job, all while I sit here "doing nothing".

I sleep soundly each night and awake in peace each morning knowing that no matter what the day holds "The good hand of my God is upon me" ( Nehemiah 2:8)

What miracles are all around you today?

Quality Seed

 I decided to play with simple poetry this week.

What is sown is perishable;
what is raised is imperishable.
It is sown in dishonor;
it is raised in glory.
It is sown in weakness;
it is raised a spiritual body. I Cor. 15:42

Soul winter.
seed laid to rest
below, alone
lifeless
cold, gritty dark
imprisoned? embraced.
promise
hope hidden
embryo sheltered
sun and rain
and resurrection
inevitable

unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone John 12:24

The Soul of a Poet

James Dickey said that a poet is “someone who notices and is enormously taken by things that somebody else would walk by.”

In her book, The Art of the Soul, Joy Sawyer expands this idea.

“A main component of a poet’s work is to highlight a common, ordinary detail so that we might see it through new eyes, hear it through new ears. Thus, the poet’s senses are at work at all times, absorbing shades of periwinkle, nuances of marble shine, fragrances of juniper and jasmine, tender glances across a living room.”

To me, a good friendship is poetry. Friends listen to each other and to God.  Each finds herself “enormously taken by things that somebody else would walk by” and helps her friend see circumstances through new eyes and hear them through new ears.

God created me with the soul of a poet.  I believe that this is a sliver of His image in me. Ephesians 2 says that we are God’s “workmanship”. The word can be translated “poetry”. It goes on to say that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand. We are God’s poetry, and we are sent into the world as apprentice poets!

I want to live my life like a poem God is writing. In turn, I want to be a part of the process as God creates beautiful poetry in the lives of the people around me.

On Silence

If I could prescribe just one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence. For even if the word of God were proclaimed in the modern world no one would hear it; there is too much noise. Therefore, create silence. - Kierkegaard

This is what I crave today. Silence. I crave exterior silence around me. I want the noise and demands and chaos to stop and let me go. More than that, I crave interior silence; for the static in my head to cease and be still so that I can hear the voice of the Word of God.

Jesus, you are the one who calmed the storm. You said "'Peace! Be still!'  And the wind ceased and there was a great calm."(Mark 4:39, ESV)  Speak calm into the rough seas of my heart so that I can be filled with you instead.

A Glimpse of the Sacred

The reverent among us possess excellent vision. They have trained themselves to see God's Spirit and his handiwork. They know the sacred when they see it, and the sacred is that in which God is found. With a finely tuned lens, there is much to see. Typically, we connect the sacred with holiness, righteousness, purity--and these are good associations--but we shouldn't miss other aspects of the sacred: God's love, light, meaning and goodness, the genius of human genomes, the beauty of an owl's whispering flight, the privilege of practicing mercy. Noticing God is noticing all of God that we can see, especially his holiness. (Greg Spencer, Westmont College Magazine, Fall 2010, p 14-15)

 I came across these words this morning. I needed them. Somehow, like misplacing my spiritual glasses, in the midst of life's bustle my vision gets blurry. God's spirit and his handiwork get fuzzy. Sometimes I overlook the sacred altogether, even if it is close by.

Mr. Spencer's words reminded me of the experience my husband and I had a few days ago shortly before dawn. We were in the bedroom of our suburban home when we heard the unmistakable hoot of an owl, very close. We tried to be silent as we moved our heavy wooden window shades to look for him. We finally spotted him, sitting at the peak of our neighbor's roof, a majestic outline against the pre-dawn sky. We whispered excitedly to each other, in awe. The huge bird sat motionless except for turning his head and making that unmistakable deep call. After a minute or two he disappeared silently into the black. We grinned at each other in the semi-darkness. Both of us delighted with the unexpected moment of awe, a glimpse of the sacred.