Christmas Favorites

Another No Particular Order series, but how can I resist?

Christmas lights
Wrapped packages
Midnight on Christmas Eve
Christmas magic
Cinnamon
O Holy Night
What Child is this?
My daughter playing Carol of the Bells on the piano
Snow
Feeding the birds
Ornaments
Jingle bells
Gingerbread men
The Magi
Our Christmas tree
Laughter
Little girls in Christmas dresses
Baking
Secrets
Gatherings
Hope
Red
Poinsettias
Christmas stories (esp. The Miracle of Jonathan Toomey and The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie DePaolo)
The Little Drummer Boy
Creativity
Twelve Days of Christmas packages
Crèches and Nativities
Candles
Stillness
Reconciliation
Christmas magic
Sausage balls
Last minute rush
Very little sleep
Home
The people we love
Immanuel—God with us.

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

For weeks I have been thinking about Jesus' words: Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God. I have contemplated and pondered what Jesus meant--not what the commentaries or bible study authors suggest, but what did Jesus mean?

This past week God gave me a glimpse of the reality of Jesus' words.

A couple of friends and I were having a conversation with a precious woman. It was one of those random, out-of-the blue conversations.

Unplanned. Unrehearsed.

At least by us.

I can see this woman's face clearly. Gently rounded. Lovely skin. Wounded eyes.

The woundedness in her eyes broke my heart.

In the course of the conversation we started talking about church--church in general. Then we discussed the church my friends and I are a part of. We wanted her to join us and we told her. We did so because we have found healing and love there. And this woman needs both.

She looked at us and took a deep breath. The breath was so deep her chest visibly rose. Then she spoke.

"I am not sure if I can say this without crying." She whispered. She was right. The tears pooled in her eyes. She took another deep breath. I took one with her. "I am not sure If I can live up to it."

In that moment I understood religion had required too much of her. The weight of its expectations had been too great a burden.

My heart broke.

The three of us were stunned.

What a beautiful, real admission.

Simultaneously we said, "Neither can we. No one can. That's why we have grace. Jesus' grace fills the gap."

She was stunned.

The conversation started and ended in less than thirty minutes.

It was a pinhead space of time, yet a thousand angels were dancing.

A lucid, luminous moment illuminating the sweet grace of God.

If Jesus had been talking to this woman he would have told her she was not far from the Kingdom of God. It was very near her; in fact, in her statement it actually arrived and could belong to her.

Being poor in spirit means we acknowledge that we fall short. We agree there is a lack we cannot satisfy.

Religion tells us just how far we fall short and just how much we lack.

Sadly, religion also stops there--leaving the burden pressed and biting into our shoulders--with little or no hope.

On the front doors of the church we go to there is a statement: Real Hope for Real People.

Jesus offers real hope.

Jesus said when we acknowledge the poverty of our spirit then we are blessed.

When we look at the reality of our true poverty, then ours is the kingdom of God.

And we have hope.

I want this dear woman to know the richness and lavishness of God's grace. I want her to experience him filling in the gap. I want her to feel her spirit expand with the hope He offers. I want to see the woundedness in her eyes heal.

Blessed are the poor in spirit...

Refrigerator Wisdom

The side of our fridge looks like a small dictionary exploded. We have magnetic sets of words for refrigerator poetry and such. This morning I was standing at the sink and started reading the combinations these little strips of paper and magnet made.

I am not sure of who has contributed, but I was caught by the random phrases displayed on the black metal surface. I wrote down the ones that triggered reactions and responses in my soul.

Enjoy possibilities.

Express your person.

The sunshine smile

Free of never

Our present life is from within.

Opening the truth with help

I forgive you.

Allow yourself room for laughter.

Hold her crazy, tender heart.

Every strong spirit celebrates opportunities.

Choose faith.

God’s dreams create attention.


Amazing isn’t it?

Wisdom is revealed in the oddest and most obscure places.


Enjoy possibilities. Enjoy, not endure. Enjoy, not lament. Embrace what could be.

Express your person. Make a statement; speak who you are. Let the real you manifest.

The sunshine smile. Exude energy. Brighten someone’s day. It is truly amazing what a smile can and will do—especially if the smile reaches all the way to your eyes.

Free of never. The chains of never are strong. I could never go there…I could never do that. Oh, to be free of that limitation.

Our present life is within. The true life, the essential life, is rooted in Who is in you. It is also learning to live in the NOW.

Opening the truth with help. Imagine a present at Christmas and it is so big you need help to get it open.

I forgive you. Three of the most powerful words in the human vocabulary.

Allow yourself room for laughter. Give yourself permission to laugh. Make space in your life to entertain laughter (or for laughter to entertain you).


Hold her crazy, tender heart (or his). Holding something implies it is in your care, under your protection. Recognize the wild craziness embedded in someone’s heart—encourage it. And remember the flesh of someone’s heart is tender—be gentle.

Every strong spirit celebrates opportunities. Celebrates, not tolerates. Strong spirits do not approach opportunities with caution. They enter into them and have a party.

Choose faith. An action of the will. A decision to choose to believe even when you can’t see the whole picture. Choose to believe in the substance of those things hoped for…

God’s dreams create attention. When God dreams, he dreams big. He dreams that his people would be conformed to the image of his Son. And that God, His Son and us would be one—abiding in unity. And this unity would bring reconciliation to the world.

A set of refrigerator magnetic words.

This might be a good investment.

Smiling in the Mirror

Steve and I have this wonderful early morning breakfast routine. We wake up smiling. I know—cheesy. I can hear our pastor and my daughters right now, but it is true. We fix our yogurt and oatmeal concoctions and then sit in our room and read something together while we eat. Right now we are half-way through Donald Miller’s book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

I am amazed.

I am amazed because I didn’t always wake up smiling and didn’t eat breakfast. I read, but most of the time it was for escape certainly not for transformation. For years I often woke in dread, in apathy or in resentment. I knew I was going to have to face another day by putting on another mask. I didn’t want to look in the mirror and face who I was, who I had been, and who I was becoming. I didn’t like her.

As Donald Miller says, I was living a bad story.

God knew I was living a bad story. I certainly wasn’t living the story he had written for me. Somewhere along the way I decided I would be the novelist of my own life. Needless to say, the story I wrote would never be considered for a Pulitzer or a Newbury—more than likely I would have found my story bound in a cheap trade paperback on the red dot clearance table at Barnes & Noble.

In the fall of 2005 I had a wake-up call. I was on a trip to The Cove with one of the dearest women in my life. She had booked our trip eighteen months in advance—a year and a half of waiting and planning and anticipating. It was well worth the effort, but not in the ways I most expected.

God had placed mirrors everywhere. Every corner I turned and every hallway I ducked into there were reflecting glasses. I took a long, long look in the mirror that weekend. I faced myself. I actually made eye contact. To say I was startled would be an understatement.

That weekend God told me he wanted the pen to my story back. He held out his great merciful hand and waited patiently while I sat there fiddling with it…doodling, scribbling, erasing. Reluctantly, I finally passed it to him—keeping a grip even while I tried to place it in his fingers. Giving the pen to him meant giving him back the artistic license in my life (his in the first place). This meant giving him back the control of my story. I was living such a bad story I am not sure why I was so reluctant. Now, I understand it was because it was a story I was familiar with.

I was miserably comfortable.

Sadly, I hit the snooze button several times after that wake-up call. Groggy, disoriented and anxious, I kept thinking my life would get better. Surely if I tried really hard the miserable feelings would slowly dissipate. They did not. Actually they got worse.

I didn’t know how to wake up. I didn’t know how to move my lethargic mental, emotional and spiritual muscles to action.

Later, I would read William Young’s The Shack and he would call this The Great Sadness. Immediately I knew what Young was describing.

Then an event happened that caused the miserable comfortableness to explode. It was an expected and yet an unexpected event. I certainly wasn’t comfortable anymore, but I wasn’t miserable either. What a paradox.

Pain woke me. The struggle pierced the lethargy. My life began to tingle like your leg after you have sat in one position far too long. I had been asleep and circulation was returning to pinched limbs. This sensation can be annoying and even painful. You shake, rub and massage your limb hoping to increase the blood circulation.

Feeling somewhat like Rip Van Winkle, I realized I had missed so much of life while I was asleep.

I was awake.

God had punctured my Great Sadness.

The stagnation of my storyline was interrupted.

I understood I needed to move.

I began to walk. Three miles a day five and six times a week. I walked hard. Pushing myself. Commanding one foot in front of another.

Slowly the pain turned to a dull ache. Manageable. No longer incapacitating. Strangely I began to understand I could deal with real, direct pain easier than with miserable comfortableness.

There would be other major events.

My walking was interrupted by two fluke accidents which resulted in three broken bones.

I took inventory of my emotional health. I was anemic and malnourished.

More than once I questioned and reevaluated my faith. I sifted and sorted through the frailties and contradictions (and there were many) of the most essential part of who I am.

Reluctantly I tried to look at the relationships in my life. Many were good, strong and solid, but some were truly unhealthy: smothering, neglectful, apathetic.

My 42nd birthday was a turning point in my story. Almost two years since the wake-up call at The Cove—when I couldn’t even look in the mirror.

I have written about this in earlier entries of my blog…my daughters created a very special birthday for me that year. They were all involved in the planning, and my second daughter carried out the plans. At the end of that day I gazed in the mirror and looked the woman I saw directly in the eye. I said something to her.

“I like you. I am being challenged by the direction you are taking. I am enjoying what you are doing. I am interested in who you are. You still have work to do. You have rough edges and gravelly inner terrain, but you are making progress.”

What a strange thing to talk to myself. I carried on a conversation with a woman named Tamera. I was attempting to encourage her as if she were someone else. I was seeing myself from the outside.

I was reading the text of my own story and was intrigued.

Since that day I haven’t had to do much writing.

I gave my pen back to the Author and Finisher of my faith.

He writes a better story.

I know I am in the middle of the rising action. Lately, I have seen so much of the greater story unfold. I have been able to see transitions and connections. Sometimes the enormity and intricacy of his plot is overwhelming. In a beautiful, powerful way I am beginning to understand my story is only a brief paragraph in the greater story. I have no idea where this story is going, but He has promised me he will complete the good work He started.

He began a good story in me.

Now, because I am assured of this truth—

I wake smiling and can look in the mirror.

Ripening and Fermenting

I sit at the kitchen window and stare outside at the visible square of yard and watch the rain fall. It is slanted, pushing toward the east. I can’t hear it—though I did this morning. In the early hours of darkness I heard it beating on our roof and it lulled me into sleeping too long. I know the rain is permeating the ground—saturating it. Chill and cold have arrived and with it scents have sharpened and the air has tightened.

I just moved from the kitchen to my room. The rain is still dancing on the roof, the air is chilled (only in relevancy—the temperature would be too warm for summer), and my dogs are all piled around my feet. Their snuffling, shifting, and snoring do not annoy me, but comforts me instead.

There’s a muted hammering in my breast today. I woke with urgency, a welling-up of phrases and snippets of language—of unfettered prayers beating their subtle rhythm in my spirit.

I hear Him whispering—faint and muted—like listening to the leaves fall. You expect to hear the sound as they collide with the grass and the earth, but our hearing is not quite refined enough to detect it.

I know he is speaking to me. Beckoning me closer and nearer and deeper. He isn’t playing games. He isn’t whispering so I might miss something. If he shouted his voice would just become a part of the noise in my life.

He has laid his hand on me.

I breathe deeply, trying to fill my lungs to the very bottom. I hope this physical action will open me—increase my spiritual lung capacity. I encountered the spiritual concept of ripening in a book I am reading.

Most likely I wouldn’t have considered this word or process, but we grew tomatoes this summer. Four varieties at the end of our front porch. One vine grew to be ten feet tall. I was delighted because I could pick the tomatoes straight from the vine and eat them like apples. I had a favorite—this variety looked like a mutant with bubbles and bulges. And when they grew too large their skins would split and the red flesh would be exposed. They tasted like summer.

My spirit has been ripening all through this summer season. My thin red skin is stretching and I am about to burst—and my red flesh will be revealed.

I am an old wineskin.

My God has new wine for me.

He will cause me to be a new wineskin. Soft and supple. Elasticity will provide a give in the seams.

I am fermenting.

Ripening.

Being aged.

The urgency I woke with this morning is the swelling and frothing of this new wine stretching my seams.

Come quickly, oh my God!
Come and make me new so that not one drop of wine will be spilled and wasted.
Come quickly.
Come and hold me so that when my skin splits not one seed will be lost.

He has laid his hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, to lofty for me to attain. Psalm 139:5b-6

A Better Story

I was talking with my oldest daughter recently, she recommended Donald Miller’s new book: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I put my name on the list at the local library and waited.

We met her at a coffee shop one day last week and she pulled the book out of her over-sized bag and began to read out loud. I love to hear her read. She has beautiful inflection and lovely nuances in her voice—she is interpreting as she reads. Her face is animated and alive. I would have been interested simply because of her reading.

She flipped through the chapters and found snippets and one-liners with very little pause or rest—saying nothing besides Miller’s words from the page. And she would wait until we had soaked the words into our skin.

She talked about how the author wanted to live a better story, and how in turn that made her want to live a better story (you can read hers at www.ancientstillness.blogspot.com).

To live a better story--this line caught my attention.

I want to live a better story.

I got the book and my husband and I decided to read it out loud together. This morning we read the second chapter and laughed so hard we almost spewed our breakfast drinks through our nostrils (I know—graphic, but you have to understand how incredibly funny Miller is.)

As we were reading I remembered the first day my daughter talked to me about this book. She talked about living a better story. We were on the phone and I scrambled to write the phrase down on the first piece of paper that was handy.

It became a prayer.

A one sentence prayer that I have been praying ever since.

My sweet God is answering my prayers.

Yesterday, we got to be a part of the greater story—the big story. For a brief moment we got to witness how our stories wove and interwove with others and created a whole. The entire morning was in slow time. Lines in our worship seemed to be punctuated by the myriad of voices and highlighted on the screens in case we had missed them.

Lord, I want to love you from the inside out…consume me from the inside out….

Dave taught the word with a rawness and an urgency that was tangible. I was caught in the story of Gideon.

Notice that?

Caught in the story.

It is the stories that grab us. The stories hold us. The stories teach us. Jesus knew this and so he told the story of the woman with the lost coin, the prodigal son, the workers in the vineyard, and the rich man and Lazarus.

He told stories because they snag us even when we don’t want them to.

Stories linger. Stories stir.

Dave told the story of Gideon. The story is rife with this man’s excuses for not being the right man for God’s job. It is the story of his fleeces to test the calling of God. And so we were caught in the story.

I want to live a better story.

When the service was over there were some decisions to be made concerning the vision and future of the Body of Christ at our church. For a few minutes that small store-front sanctuary was filled with a tension. Not a negative one. But one that is like the underside of a sewing machine stitch. At times and in certain situations you need tension to hold things together.

Again, it was as if we were in slow time. Not slow motion, but slow time. Words were highlighted. Emotions were bared. Vision was illuminated.

I was a part of a better story. Part of something bigger and greater than myself.

Then we gathered as a body to pray for a young man who will be going into the military service in a couple of weeks.

We'll simply call him Christian.

Green. Intelligent. Guarded.

Searching.

Afraid.

The series of events that led Christian to this particular body is amazing and crazy. His story was/is so intertwined with ours.

He sat on a stool at the front. The first circle to gather around him was full of pillars--men past their primes. Yet there was was so much strength and power in that circle. Their gnarled and veined hands cupped the young man’s shoulders.

The second circle consisted of others who had invested in Christian's life. People who had prayed for him before. Those arms reached through the first circle and put their hands on him too.

We prayed.

And we became a part of the bigger story. Not just Christian's story or our story, but THE STORY.

And like Gideon and Jacob we built an altar so this young man would remember. Every prayer spoken, uttered, or breathed placed a stone in its construction.

This will be a place he can return to and remember.

This is the place Christian can go back to in his mind when life around him is frightening and lonely, and he will remember that God will never leave him or forsake him. This altar, built with weeping and soul cries, will remind him that he is loved. It will remind him that he is a part of a bigger story.

I want to live a better story.

I want my life to be filled with making altars so others can be reminded of the overwhelming, deep, powerful, gripping love of God!

Peter talked about it. He said we were living stones.

I want to live a better story.

Don’t you?

No Longer Rejected

John 4:4-42

I am not sure how I got to the place I was. Do you know what I mean? One day you just wake up and suddenly start asking questions. Why am I here?

One morning I woke up and looked over at the man beside me…and five other faces emerged from his. How did I get to be a woman with five husbands in her history, and what in the world made me wake up beside this one that wasn’t even a husband?

Some of the reasons I can point to and say this is why. I can connect the dots and make the connections—direct cause and effect. Others I have to follow a meandering trail and still can’t quite understand.

I made some poor choices. I don’t blame others for them. They are mine—my burdens. Some things, however, were decided for me.

I am a woman; I had very few options. Very few. Women are not the most valuable commodity where I am from. Ha, it would seem that we rank just a little above the properties or the livestock a man owns. There are times I think the men would rather have the deed or the bull. How often I have been ignored by a husband in public—more than ignored—not even seen.

I wish I could tell you about my life in a manner that would make sense—or at least in a way that would help you not to scorn me, not to whisper about me while you are standing a few feet away. People didn’t know the whole truth, and because they didn’t know all the details they began to fill in their own. Rumors and conjecture and fabrications were mixed with what little they did know.

Honestly, I started questioning what was the truth was and what was a lie.

You hear something so much you start to believe it.

I am not sure I can untangle all the webs.

I do know I felt like a worn out garment with holes that could no longer be mended. Rips and tears that couldn’t be stitched back together to create some kind of whole. And I was worn out from trying. Weary from the attempt to make things right. I think that is why I woke up next to a man who wasn’t my husband. I have had five—and not one of them lasted.

Not one.

I have been rejected—often tossed aside like a water jar with too big or too many cracks to be useful anymore.

I worshipped God, but so often I felt like I was worshipping someone I did not know. Women had to remain standing far back—barred from participating fully in the worship of God. And even more so for a woman of ill-repute. I wasn’t quite sure if it was my reputation that barred me or if God was pushing me aside.

But there was some part of my heart that just wouldn’t let go. I had heard since I was a little girl that God would send the Messiah, the anointed one, a prophet greater than Moses. I had dreams of this Messiah—perhaps they were just the flighty dreams of a silly, romantic girl. I just knew the Messiah would come and explain everything to us.

He would explain the ways of God and why the Jews despised us. I just knew the Messiah would come and tell us everything. And even as I grew to be a woman, deep in my heart I held tightly to this hope. At times it was very dim. We were a despised race, considered unclean—perhaps because the color of our skin was a shade or hue different from our neighbors, the Jews. Perhaps it was because of our worship site on Mount Gerazim. I am not sure…I just know that the tensions were so great between us that the Jews considered us pagan and wouldn’t even share a cup or water skin with us. They avoided our region as if we were quarantined for leprosy.

I had heard talk that the Jews expected the Messiah too. At least we had that in common. We both wanted a savior to come and save us from the tyranny of our enemies.

So, I kept that hope tucked away like a chrysalis in my heart. Held it close and every once in a while I would look toward Mount Gerazim and whisper a prayer to God to please send the Messiah. I am not sure what this meant for me personally—there was just something inside that made me know that if the Messiah came life would be different.

There was also a deep fear in me. What if we Samaritans were wrong? What if we had been worshipping amiss? What if the temple in Jerusalem was the true place of worship? What if our arrogance and sin had caused us to miss this great salvation? The thought that plagued me even more was what if the reality of my life caused me to be shunned by the Messiah. How in the world could he look at a woman like me and welcome her or even use her in his kingdom?

So, I whispered my prayers—half in hope that they would be heard and answered and half in hope that they would not. I am just not sure I could have dealt with another rejection.

You know about that day. You have heard the talk. You have read the story.

I want you to know I went to the well that day a broken woman, but I left whole.

Ouch

Steve and I were given gifts of unconditional generosity this week. Two of our dearest friends gave us gifts that were needed and much appreciated. Gifts given with unconditional generosity require no repayment or compensation.

Our friends gave in this spirit. They simply wanted to bless us.

Given my wiring, I began to think about how to give something back to them. How could I repay them for their generosity? I was feeling guilty. I was feeling as if I owed them something.

Awkward.

They certainly hadn’t alluded, hinted or suggested this feeling to me. Quite the contrary, I was called to the mat because our friend caught me in this train of thought. He looked me in the eye and said, “Stop it!”

How do you repay generosity? Especially the unconditional kind?

That’s the point—you don’t.

But isn’t that what we do? We try to repay so that we aren’t in debt.

How hard is it to simply say thank you? How hard is it to simply acknowledge that they met a need? How hard is it to simply show how much their kindness was appreciated?

Our friends don't want to be repaid; they just want us to continue to live life with them, continue to walk with them and continue to love them (and we do).

We behave in the same manner with God’s grace—his unconditional generosity. We try to be “good” and repay him. We don’t want to be in God’s debt. We don’t want owe him.

He doesn’t want us to repay him; he wants us to live life with him, to walk with him and to love him.

The second significant lesson this week pinched me too. Our minister paraphrased a quote, “you know how you feel about being a servant when you get treated like one.” That phrase caught my attention and I mulled and gnawed on it.

Then this week I was treated like a servant. Inwardly I didn’t respond very well. I bristled. I balked. I could feel my ire shoot up the back of my neck. I kept doing the task and then, poised in mid-action, I remembered our minister’s quote.

I did not have a servant’s attitude in that moment.

I did not have the mind of Christ.

Confound it. Dagnabit.

Both lessons had to do with pride.

Mine.

Ouch.

A Man in His Element

What an incredible Labor Day weekend! We spent three days at my father and step-mother’s farm along with a great many cousins, aunts and friends.

It is a beautiful place—rolling hills, green pastures and vast sky. The farm is quiet and easy.

The front porch greets you. The cushions on the rocking chairs are well-worn, and there are extra lawn chairs in the garage. In the early mornings, steam rises from the many unmatched coffee cups. The odor of manure, hay, must and dirt tingle in your nostrils; you inhale other scents too—the sweat of horses, saddle leather, clean air and hot sunshine. The pastures bustle with machinery: tractors, hay mowers and ATVs. The barn is filled with the workings of horses: saddles, bridles, reins, but mostly the farm is alive with people.

I am drawn to this little farm. I love it most because of my family; the people who gather there create a wild and friendly clamor.

We arrived on Friday to hard, loving hugs. The rest of the evening was filled with eating, learning, riding and laughing. We stayed up late—my daughters slept in the loft of the barn with the horses, in all their smelly glory, below them. My cousin decided it would be fun to scare these girls in their lofty habitat and donned a hideous rubber mask. He tried to move stealthily through the yard to the barn, but was ambushed by all the younger kids.

Later we went to bed and my father and step-mother were talking with all the family still congregated on the front porch. Suddenly there was silence. All you could hear was the whir of the ceiling fan and the faint chirp of the crickets and insects. Steve laughed and said, “The king and queen must have gone to bed.”

We witnessed this truth all weekend. My father and step-mother’s presence permeated every place on the farm. Steve and I discussed and contemplated this truth. What do you do to become so respected and so loved and so honored?

Several situations occurred during the weekend that fleshed out the characteristics that make my dad and his wife the king and queen.

Hard work

Dependable consistency

Blunt honesty

Unpretentious realness

Strong love.

On Saturday morning Johnny shoed the horses. He wore smooth leather leggings with pockets for the tools of his trade; his voice was low, but firm. The clang of the hammer on the anvil and the shoes pierced the din. Bo, my father’s oldest horse, stood placidly allowing the farrier to clip and file his worn hooves. Dad held his lead rope and rubbed his forehead while Johnny worked. Johnny and my dad worked easily together; there was an element of trust and respect between them.

Near the barn, on its side, was the enormous tin can—the roaster that held the spit. You could hear the grating noise of the shovel against the charcoal in the roaster (this year goat was on the spit). Fathers’ voices shouted out giving instruction or correction to all the rambunctious little boys. You could hear the pop of the tabs when someone opened a can to quench their thirst. And above it all was laughter. Lots and lots of laughter.

Everyone was working on a task—doing something to be ready for the crowd due to arrive later in the day; the pace was easy and slow, not lazy. No, there was way too much work for there to be laziness. Everyone (especially my dad and step-mother) worked hard right up until it was time to eat.

I was in the kitchen and Dad came in shaking his head, “Those boys are lost; I have to go help.” I was confused at first. The little boys were lost? My heart jerked; seventy acres was a lot of ground to cover. Then I realized Dad was referring to my cousins—boys in their forties. The goats were not rotating on the spit correctly. Thirty minutes later, Dad had the spit turning.

The little boys were riding horses in the round pen. Being little boys they were showing off and attempting to do far more than they were capable of (sounds like the big boys too). They were giving many jumbled signals to their mounts, Mandy and Bo. The poor horses were getting quite confused. At one point the horses stood in the pen and would not move. Dad grabbed the horses’ halters so he could talk to the boys—explaining riding rules once again. Then Dad spoke to the horses and swatted them on their flanks to move them along. The boys, however, were too antsy and excited to do what they had just been told.

Dad tolerated this for only a little while. Then he spoke, “You’re done. Time to get off. Bring them in.” The boys looked at him and for a split second they considered arguing. They quickly changed their minds; my father’s tone brooked no argument.

I was near the round pen watching my daughters learn to ride when another problem happened.

My younger brother pulled up on an ATV and informed Dad that there was a situation in the lower field.

The boys (the forty year old ones) were in the bottom field raking and bailing hay, and something had happened to the tracker and the bailer. Dad assessed the situation in the round pen and said, “I have to go see what is going on.” He hopped on an ATV and rode to the lower field. Later he returned; the situation was under control.

On our last night on the farm we watched the most incredible fireworks display. Then a corn-hole tournament commenced with lots of raucous laughter, gibing and bragging. My dad was sitting on a picnic table bench watching everyone. My step-mother came to him and sat in his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his chin in her shoulder. This man with his rough,calloused hands and often silent demeanor was so gentle and affectionate towards her. Romantic in the truest sense of the word. There was a visible intimacy born of shared experiences and life done together—side by side for over thirty years.

Obviously I watched my Dad a great deal this past weekend—he is attuned to a rhythm and cadence of a life that is almost disappearing. He isn’t quite a cowboy even though he wears a hat to keep the sun off his tender ears, he isn’t quite a farmer because he doesn’t have a yearly crop to sell at market, he isn’t quite a lawman (like Wyatt Earp—his favorite), but his word is law.

My dad would be the very first to tell you he is not perfect.

He is, however, a man in his element.

Comfortable in his skin.

At home in himself.

At peace with who he is.

Spoil It You Will

Steve, my husband, has been reading The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. (I think he feels a bit coerced into doing so because of Abby and me.) And knowing that he is reading words I have read many, many times causes me to remember a scene from Taran Wanderer.

Taran has been traveling—journeying to find himself. To see who he is. He knows not his parentage, his lineage or his heritage.

During his journey, he was trained by the artisans and craftsmen of the Free Commots. He learned to forge steel with a blacksmith, learned to weave cloth with a weaver and he learned to throw pottery with a clay shaper. He mastered all of the skills except the potter’s wheel. And this is the one skill he longed to master more than all the others, but alas, it was not meant to be.

Taran was disheartened.

Broken.

There are times I feel like Taran. I see something I want to do or be more than anything. I work and strive and lament because it just doesn’t seem to flesh out as I think it should.

What a quandary: wanting to be able to do something so well (teaching, writing, studying, loving, mothering, friending, creating), wanting to be able to use a tool so efficiently and precisely and artistically; yet, what I have longed to do doesn’t seem to have the effect I desire. Sadly I become hesitant and unsure of myself—filled with doubt and anxiety concerning my skill and gifts. I find myself so concerned and afraid that I will spoil the endeavor that sometimes I don’t do anything at all.

Annlaw Clayshaper addresses this very issue with Taran. He encouraged Taran to finish shaping the half-formed clay vessel on the wheel. Annlaw tells him to sit down and shape the clay for himself, but Taran protests and says he will spoil Annlaw’s creation.

The potter laughs and says, “Spoil it you will, surely. I’ll toss it back into the kneading trough, mix it with the other clay, and sooner or later it will serve again. It will not be lost. Indeed, nothing ever is, but comes back in one shape or another.”

This is the whispering I am hearing from the Spirit these days; I keep getting the Holy Spirit nudge (as our pastor describes it). And I find myself hesitating—protesting that I am going to spoil it.

And my Potter, mine, chuckles at me too.

“Ah, Tamera, spoil it you will. Surely. But I will toss it back into the kneading trough, mix it with the other clay, and sooner or later it will serve again. It will not be lost. Indeed, nothing ever is…because I work all things to the good of those who love me and are called according to my purpose. I can and will redeem what you spoil and what the locusts have eaten.”

Spoil it I will.

But just because I might spoil it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.

I experience spiritual amnesia often. I forget that every time I listen and heed the Spirit’s nudge, every time I attempt something that requires faith, my “skill and craftsmanship” are increased—even if it is a poorly shaped clay vessel that must be tossed back into the clay trough; nothing has been wasted. I will have learned what not to do. I will have felt the clay in my hands. I will have invested time and effort.

The hesitation comes because the Spirit asks me to do something and I am very afraid I will spoil it; but it also comes because I am afraid my efforts will be compared to someone else’s and will be found lacking.
Ha, spoil it I will.

Lacking? Most likely.

Once I understand this, once I accept this—then, ah then, I can get over myself.

Spoiling doesn't negate the usability. Even if my efforts have to be thrown back into the kneading trough they can still be used. They will come back in one form or another—they will not be lost.

My efforts will be redeemed and used because I hand them over and say, “This is all I have. This is all my skill, this is all my ability, and this is all I have.”

Then my Potter will smile and chuckle and throw the clay back on the wheel.

No Particular Order II

A couple of years ago I followed the leading of my oldest daughter and published a list of things I wanted to do or accomplish. I have reread my list several times lately. Pondering, wondering and wandering. I am re-listing.

Here is the new list in No Particular Order.

Continue to hold hands
Sleep on a beach
Be a tool of healing
Continue to laugh—deeper and deeper
Run on the Cliffs of Mohr
Continue to speak my second language fluently
Walk three miles a day again
Ride a horse with confidence
Pray at the Wailing Wall
Hold and kiss my grandchildren (someday)
Tell the truth
Pray unceasingly
Spend the night in a castle
Publish a book—a good book
Be real
Create more art
Be transparent
Love my husband—more
Pick strawberries
Touch someone
Go on a pilgrimage with a few
Walk a prayer labyrinth
Practice righteousness
Stay in a lighthouse
See the Pacific Ocean
Take risks
Spend a whole day in utter silence
Cry at my daughters’ weddings
Study more
Make a difference
Avoid staleness and stagnancy
Love my neighbor
Sleep in a tent
Teach, teach, teach
Live life with my dearest friends
Be more consistent
Walk on the edge
Guard the shepherd’s back