A Life of Privilege

He didn’t set out to be the focus of all this attention. Neither did his wife and children. He went to Iran to help launch an orphanage for young unwanted girls, to show them that they are valued, that they are loved. To comfort them.

But he believes God is more than a set of rules that no one can keep. He believes in a Creator God who loved us beyond our imagining, humbled himself, and with the gift of his life set us free from sin, and broken rules, and death. For that belief, Saeed Abedini was arrested, tortured, imprisoned and left to die.

His wife and children are not so much younger than me and mine. They live here, in my town, and they are friends of friends. It’s become personal. My prayers for them turn into tearful pleas. I talk about them, keep up to date, sign petitions. And last week, to raise awareness, like so many of us I changed my Facebook profile picture to his portrait.

It was the least I could do and I was happy to do it. I hope it made a difference. I hope one more person noticed and added their voice to the cry for his release. But the next day, I changed it back to a picture of myself. Not because I stopped caring, but because I couldn’t live with the disconnect between my life and his. His face—my silly posts about my dog, or my kids, or the new brand of coffee I was drinking. I’ve been thinking about that—that disconnect—ever since.

All that I have is a gift from God, and I am so grateful. Still, I have this in the back of my mind, always, like it is in yours: I have so much compared to most of the people in the world. We do what we can to help, and we struggle to make ends meet daily. But I know, we all know, we live a life of privilege. Why me? Why them? Why him?

And then I see this, the banner Saeed posted above his bed in his prison cell:

So which of us is living the life of privilege?  There is what God gives, there is what He withholds, and there is what He takes away. If it draws us closer in, to Him and to each other, it is a gift. We stand before His throne together. The questions die on our lips. Overcome by His lavish love for us, we praise Him.

By Grace We Are Saved

“You must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that he Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” ~ Acts 20:35

“Love… does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not remember a wrong suffered.” ~ I Corinthians 13:5

“Our problem is that we remember the things we should forget, and we forget the things we should remember.”

It will arrive in the mail, in magazine articles and news shows, from pulpits and politicians, from friends and family: advice on how to make this holiday season meaningful, joyful...gracious.

photo by Melissa Rose

I’m all for the big gestures and the small kindnesses, the traditional and the not being limited by tradition. The extravagant gifts, the donating and volunteering, the special church services, the cookies for neighbors, the extra tip for the paper boy – all good and worthy things. 

But bear with me for a minute, because I’ve been thinking about grace lately – the kind that God shows us – absolutely free and unwarranted mercy. It engenders in us an immense amount of gratitude, or it should. But God showed us grace while we were still his enemies with the full knowledge that we would never return the favor. We could never do for him what he did for us.

Jesus made this clear, though: God uses his children to continue his grace project here on earth. Like I said, I’m all for the big gestures, the traditional gifts. But God stuff tends to be paradoxical – the kind of thing that doesn’t immediately make intuitive sense to us.

His yoke is easy; his burden is light

He is the beginning and the end…at the same time

He is the God who wills, fully and completely, and he who lets our choices matter

The God who cannot abide sin and who took all my sin on himself to save me

The God who tells me that if I lose all for him, I will have everything I need; that in order to live, I must die

So far above me, I can’t even imagine where he is, and he is near, in my heart

So I’ve been thinking that grace – God grace – is paradoxical, too. I think grace is small and all encompassing, it’s simple and difficult and mercy in disguise.

The holidays are upon us. We will have guests and be guests. I’ve surveyed friends and relatives about past holiday experiences and thought about my own, and I’m thinking these are the perfect conditions for the creation of grace. So this year…

Smile and kiss your husband on the cheek in gratitude when he returns with the tub of margarine for your holiday baking instead of the organic butter you sent him out for.

Without missing a beat, and without one scowl or harsh word, hand your kids the broom and some everyday plates to replace the good china they just broke while setting the table.

Ignore the fact that your in-law, trying to help out with breakfast, is scraping a fork across your best non-stick skillet.

Surreptitiously push to the back of the cupboard that perfect wine or champagne you spent a bunch of money on, because of the guest you just found out is struggling with addiction.

Smile with joy and say a heart-felt, “Thank you!”…no matter the gift.

Welcome the bedraggled extra people that arrive with your nieces and nephews, unannounced, as if they are your old, dear friends.

Be fine with two gargantuan Golden Retrievers (“Is it okay if I bring a small pet?” he asked.)

Don’t complain about the rock hard, or abysmally saggy, mattress your host gave you to sleep on…even a little bit…even with the tiniest of groans in the morning…even to your spouse.

Concentrate on your hipster relative's conversation, suit coat, goatee, anything but the fedora that he insists on wearing during his entire visit, even at the dinner table.

Remember to remove your hat when you walk into your grandmother's house.

Relax and just go with the uncle who has to control everything: meal times, conversation, the remote, the Xbox.

Despite your gourmet leanings, make the same Thanksgiving meal your mother made, including the canned sweet potatoes with mini-marshmallows on top or that weird creamed pea thing—because that’s the meal that feels like home to everyone.

Even though you love that creamed pea thing, try the new dish your sister generously provided this year.

Smile fondly at the granddaughter who stares at her smart phone all through dinner.

Have a heart for your older relatives, and turn off your phone for the fifteen minutes it takes to eat the turkey or open the presents.

Now that your granddaughter has turned off her phone, ask her what she's been up to...and don't scoff or smirk...no matter WHAT she says.

Let your whiskery old Aunt, who sees you only rarely, hug you and kiss you and just laugh when she starts to talk about all the embarrassing things you did as a child.

Swallow your pride and go home for Christmas, or at least call. Just because your family doesn’t accept everything about you or love everything you’ve ever done, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to love you and it certainly doesn’t mean they are not worthy of your love and unconditional forgiveness.

Invite the child, relative, or friend who had a falling out with the family or the one that always cancels at the last minute and don’t be disillusioned when they cancel again. Based on past experience, they might have good reason. Determine to invite them next year, and the year after that, and every year until you finally get the chance to welcome and accept them with open arms, like God welcomed us.

Insert your own holiday experiences of control, irritation and offense here. Bunch up your hands like you have those experiences in your fists. Now let them go.

Be revolutionary – defy the lie that silently forgiving an offense or shrugging off an irritation is somehow wrong, or unhealthy, or not "keeping it real." Do all these things, not out of a fear of conflict, or a sense of martyrdom, or for some future reward in the hereafter, but because grace is what God gives us, so that’s what we give to each other.

Finally, realize that the odds are you will rarely, if ever, be given the same mercy, love, or benefit of the doubt that you are about to give others. Because grace is mercy freely given.

I can’t guarantee it will all go well or feel good. But you know all those barriers we tend to build, brick by small brick, between us? The barriers that interfere with our experience of God and our love of each other? They just might fade away in an atmosphere of peace, love and joy that will be like waking to a clear day. Your guests' relief and peace most likely won't be attributed to you and with good reason—are you starting to realize that if grace happens in your home this holiday season, it won’t be you that was responsible for it?

Just like real love, real mercy, real hospitality—real grace is beyond our human abilities. For us, Jesus would say, it’s impossible. But with God, all things are possible.

So here’s my holiday prayer and fervent wish for all of us: Have some love-filled, mercy-filled, grace-filled, GOD-FILLED, very merry days!

(P.S. If you’re reading this and thinking, “I can’t do this because God’s never been a part of my holiday tradition,” I have good news! He wants to be, just ask him. It’s as easy as this, “Creator God, please show me you this holiday season.”)

Turn Here

“Turn here, Mom!”

I barely heard Jake over the running list shouting in my head:

Get home, eat lunch.

Finish up history and Bible lessons with Jake.

Walk the dogs.

Throw in a load of laundry and do the dishes.

Maybe have time to write.

Take Joe to cross country practice.

Hit the grocery store.

Make dinner.

Pay the bills.

And on.

And on...

“Mom, please,” my son, who’s done a lot more exploring of our relatively new neighborhood than I have, seemed very insistent. “Turn here,” he said again. “I want to show you something beautiful.”

I slammed on the brakes, made a sharp turn, and snapped, “Okay. What?”

Jake waived his hand to take in the scene all around us. “Look.”

The street I normally use to get home takes me through a typical new suburban neighborhood scene. These communities were carved out of flat, desert pastures and Idaho potato fields. The trees and plants in our area are all new and small. Mostly what you see is sky. But Jake’s route took us through an older part of the neighborhood, with mature trees lining the streets and walkways. We were driving under a stained-glass canopy of sun-washed reds, oranges, and autumn golds. It took my breath away. It made me smile. I exhaled and my shoulders relaxed. 

We turned the corner and Jake said, “Look at those bushes, right there. You should see them after it rains. Mom, they sparkle.”

This was my thirteen-year-old son, and lately it had seemed the most important thing to him was which aliens he was going to kill in his favorite video game. I’d been worrying about him just a bit. I’d been praying for him. I breathed another sigh of relief. He’s a typical kid, but he also belongs to God. In that moment I knew God was opening his eyes to His creation, and Jake was “seeing the beauty of His Lord by it.”

I’ve been thinking about other times in my life when God’s said something similar to me, like when I started to get the idea I should marry a guy I’d met only a few months before. “This guy, Lord?” I’d said. “I mean, he’s cute and smart, and yeah, there’s definitely an attraction there. But he was a confirmed atheist just a few months ago. He’s barely gotten to know you. His only mode of transportation is a motorcycle, his preferred clothing is mostly leather, and that earring hanging from his ear may have a cross on it, but still…and I’m really not interested in marriage right now. You know all the plans you and I have for me…”

Turn here. I want to show you something beautiful. So I did, and it was.

Or the time I started to get the feeling I should leave a successful career in Christian non-profit development and fundraising to homeschool my children. “Really? I was never one of those kid-crazy girls. There’s a reason I didn’t get a teaching degree like everyone else in my family. What if we end up hating each other? And I’m really making a difference here – look. Look at all the good things I’m doing for you.”

Turn here. I want to show you something beautiful. So I did, and it was.

I know there have been times when I was so set on my own course, I didn’t listen to that voice. Nothing catastrophic happened. No lightning from heaven. Some good things were even accomplished. Looking back, there is a difference between the eternally significant things I get to be a part of when I follow God’s leading, though, and the finite things I accomplish when I don’t. God’s work lasts. Mine crumbles, gets blown away, like autumn leaves in the wind.

So this is my reminder, God’s reminder, to me and to you. Let’s look up today, and look around. Let’s think hard about the courses we’ve charted for ourselves, and let's listen for that voice. We might hear it...Turn here. I want to show you something beautiful. Here's hoping.

Make Room for the Love

"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give and you will receive." ~ Luke 6:36-38

There aren't a lot of interpretive challenges with Luke 6:36-38. It's very straight forward. Do not judge. Do not condemn.

Which, on the face of it, seems a little odd. Jesus had just finished doing what appears to be a whole lot of judging and condemning the religious rulers of the time. They had apparently turned their professions, the law, and their wealth into idols. They said they were all about loving and obeying God, but for Jesus there was ample evidence to the contrary.

What was the evidence of their hypocrisy? The Bible said it often, "But Jesus knew their hearts," or "But Jesus knew what they were thinking." And that's my, "Ah ha!" moment.

I don't know anyone's heart. I don't know what they're thinking. I can guess based on what they say or what they do, but I can't really know. And I never know the rest of their stories.

We don't get to judge like God does, we don't get to condemn like Him. Yet, that's where, in our brokenness, we tend to rush.

Fight that desire. Lay it at God's feet and leave it there. Because here's the most shocking, the most revolutionary thing about what Jesus says in Luke 6: "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." ...as your Father is merciful. God is perfectly just, always fair, but the Bible makes it clear He overflows with mercy. In Micah, I read that God delights in mercy. In Psalms, I read that mercy is "over all His works."

Wow! Look at that, right there, in Luke 6:36. What does God give us the ability to do like He does? Show mercy, give and forgive - love.

Let go of the judgement, the condemnation. Make room for the love. That's all.

Not So Strange

I watch CBS Sunday Morning religiously. I know. I'm probably the only person on the planet under sixty that watches this show, but what can I say? I attend my church at night, so CBS Sunday Morning is a restful way to enjoy my first cup of coffee and ease into the week. They do stories and commentary I don't see anywhere else and I like the fact that the host isn't hyper. Yeah, it's "easy like Sunday morning."

Anyway, this morning my favorite story was this one  http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50152746n , about New York photographer Richard Rinaldi whose Touching Strangers portrait series "brings unlikely intimacy to photographs. For each shot, Rinaldi grabs strangers off the street and poses them like adoring family."

At first, people are hesitant. As one participant put it, "It was sort of awkward, and then...sort of not." After working with Rinaldi and the other people he's chosen to photograph together - after putting their hand in someone else's, or an arm over a stranger's shoulders, after looking deeply into their eyes and smiling, Rinaldi's subjects seem to become, well, intimate.

As a young teacher said about the much older, retired fashion designer he worked with, "I felt like I cared for her." An ethereal-looking young white woman says about her experience of being photographed with an even younger, very serious-looking black male college student, "It was nice to feel that comfort."

I watched Rinaldi pick strangers off the street, bring them together and ask them to experience caring about each other with no expectations other than a chance to show the rest of the world what that looks like--and well, you know me by now. I couldn't help but think about God, and how He calls those of us that claim to believe and trust in Him to operate in the world.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Rom 12:18

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Rom 12:10

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. Rom 15: 1-2

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." John 15:12

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Eph 4:32

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Col 3:12-14

"Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." John 13:35

In a world where, God knows, the rule is cynicism, meanness, vengeful hate, and divisiveness, He calls us to do just the opposite. And just so we make no mistake about it, God says that we can't claim to love Him and then not love our neighbor. We can't claim to love him and then look the other way when we see someone in need, and it doesn't really matter what that need is--it might be food, solace, or the gospel. Like Rinaldi, God pulls strangers from the crowd, brings them to us, and asks us to take their hands, look into their eyes, and become part of their world, to comfort and to care.

Steve Hartman, the reporter of Rinaldi's story, sums it up. "He shows us humanity as it could be...as most of us wish it would be."

The world wants the kind of relationship and intimacy that God has to offer. If we are His children, we will give the world a picture of what that looks like. If you've never tried it, trust me, at first it will feel sort of awkward...and then, sort of not.

Desert Flowers

Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. 
His going forth is as certain as the dawn; 
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth. ~Hosea 6:3



Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. ~ John 14:23

I grew up on The Wet Side of the Cascade Mountains, and even though I've lived on The Dry Side for going on two decades, I still forget sometimes how much my plants need water. I was reminded of this recently, when the day got away from me and I was too tired by the time I sat down that night to go outside and fill up the watering pot.

"Oh, I'll water in the morning," I thought. But then, morning came and once again the day flew by. That evening, I arrived at my front porch expecting the overflowing baskets of color I've become accustomed to. Instead, crunchy, liquid-starved leaves and shriveled flowers were the reward for my neglect.

I couldn't help but think about the times when I feel spiritually dry. Of course, it's the same situation. I've gotten too busy, forsaken my first love--Christ and fellowship with God-- and I start to shrivel. The irony is that when I find myself in a spiritual desert of my own making, my first reaction is to do more, become busier, fill my life with work and people and things. Self-medicate.

I read this today: "The thing we must understand is that God did not choose us to 'use' us...the Bible makes it clear that God created us because He longs to have fellowship with us. What does God desire? He wants you. All of you." (Joanna Weaver)

I've had a spiritual issue, one that fell into the area of dissatisfaction, for months now. While I was aware of it on some level, it wasn't occupying my mind. I wasn't feeling bad about it, praying about it, or particularly concerned about it. I wasn't really thinking of it as a problem.

Last week, while I was driving around thinking about a million other things, God pulled this issue out of my heart and showed me what I'd been living with. Bam! I was immediately convicted. There I was, clutching my steering wheel, huge tears of remorse and relief rolling off my chin and plopping into my lap. My heart was pierced. The life that I have is a gift from God, and I was acting like I'd just as soon throw it back into His lap. I needed to repent immediately, and I did. Then, there was that wonderful feeling of forgiveness and love. That's how God works most of the time--not in the fire or the whirlwind--but that still, small, gentle voice. When it's His conviction, His voice, repentance comes easy and forgiveness tastes sweet.

What I had been doing in the days leading up to that moment was spending time, and not just a little, reading the Bible, meditating on scripture, and praying, by myself and with others. Because of the time I was spending in fellowship with God and other believers, I was carrying around with me a deep awareness of His presence, in me and around me. I believe that's why I heard that gentle voice, leading me from the slavery of dissatisfaction to the joy of thankfulness, that day behind the wheel of my car.

Am I being too hard on myself..."pierced to the heart" because I was feeling a little dissatisfied? No. Beyond the negative stuff that a lack of contentment does to our hearts and spirits, it also affects the world around us in ripples that never end. Take a simple example:

Say "Mary" focuses her feelings of discontent on the old antique desk her grandmother left her. It's too small, not really suited to her purposes, scratched and battered and really, antiques are out of fashion--vintage reproductions are the thing. So, Mary decides to hop on the "vintage" bandwagon and buy herself a new desk. Whether she's buying at Walmart, Restoration Hardware, or ordering custom, that vintage hardwood (or even semi-hardwood) reproduction doesn't just appear. The wood has to come from somewhere. Very likely, it will come from a rain forest in a country like Peru, since Brazil's hardwoods have already been stripped beyond what their stretch of the Amazon can bear. But even in Peru, there isn't enough hardwood to meet the demand, so black market loggers will convince a tribe on a reserve to permit them to log the trees on and around their land. The loggers will inevitably over-harvest, and there goes one more watershed and one more tribe's source of fresh drinking water.

"Oh, c'mon," you say. "These things are complicated--the global politics, human greed--I can't be expected to lay awake at night worrying about stuff like this." And you're right, you don't have to toss and turn, tortured by the U.S.'s voracious absorption of the world's resources--that's what I'm saying.

Here's how it works: God's people walk in fellowship with Him. This produces, among other things, contentment of the kind that roots out desire for anything other than what God provides. This means less demand for precious world resources. Which means less trees cut down in the world's rain forests. Which means less watersheds destroyed. Which means healthier men, women and children in poor countries like Peru. Back home, Mary's contentment means less bitterness, fewer short tempers and kinder acts to her children, her husband...her neighbor.  For Mary and those around her, it means a life of peace and generosity..."on earth, as it is in heaven."

Am I oversimplifying global environmental politics and human relationships? Maybe. But I know this: for followers of Christ, it really is that simple. Can our own personal relationship and fellowship with the Creator God of the universe make that kind of difference in the world? Yes, it can. Because "with man, it's impossible. But with God, all things are possible."

God doesn't call us to save the world. He doesn't even call us to save ourselves. He just call us to abide in Him, and when we do, he's promised He will change us and through us, change the world.

What does God desire? Fellowship with us, and there is no substitute for fellowship with Him. We can't expect to hear His voice if we're not listening for it. This isn't a law or a rule. This truth isn't there to make you feel guilty when you don't do it. It just is what it is. Our Savior is humble and gentle. His yoke is easy. His burden is light. God doesn't force us to have a relationship with Him. But He loves it when we come to Him and when we do, we feel His pleasure. Like my parched plants, the living water flows over us and in us. We drink it in, it gives us life, and overflows to the lives around us.

I thought my flowers were dead that day. But they weren't. They just needed water--and don't we all?

Pride and the Fruit of the Vine

It seems very clear to me that Jesus and the New Testament authors thought there were two important things people needed to understand:

1.      Salvation and life come through faith in the atoning death, and resurrection, of Jesus Christ.

2.      Because of their faith, believers should operate differently than non-believers. James calls this difference “works.” Jesus and Paul often referred to the results of faith in the life of a believer as “fruit.” All of them believed our “fruit” or “works” should, among other things, attract people to the gospel.

But what is this fruit, these works, they’re all talking about? What does it look like, in our real lives here on the ground? I was reading in the book of John recently, and these words of Jesus struck me as being a particularly good picture of this process:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. John 15:1-4

People can disagree about the definition of biblical “works” or “fruit.” Jesus’ words in John 15 and elsewhere lead me to believe it’s something different than we often suggest, but we experience it all the time. Try to hold those verses of John 15 in your head while I tell you a story…

There was an elder named “Tom,” who pulled “Sue,” a friend of mine, aside one day after a Sunday service. He wanted Sue to have a word with a teenaged girl about what she’d been wearing to church. Sue wasn’t surprised the issue had come up—the girl tended to arrive at Sunday services in clothing that would raise eyebrows on the Hollywood strip, let alone in this small, conservative, Evangelical congregation. Tom said the way the girl dressed was offending other women in the church and bothering the men.

So far, we can chalk up Tom’s reaction to ordinary human nature. People are commonly disturbed by appearances or actions of others outside their cultural norms, especially those of different generations. Because the Bible emphasizes modesty and humility, this can be a special source of contention among Christians when it’s coupled with legalism, and has caused a world of hurt in more than one church congregation. But our story continues…

Sue could sympathize with Tom and the other elders. At the same time, Sue was certain that it had taken a huge amount of courage for this girl to walk through those church doors, and she’d done so, all by herself, because she was thirsty for the Word of God and communion with other believers. Sue believed, at this delicate stage of the girl’s relationship with the congregation, if anyone mentioned her appearance she would feel embarrassed and judged and never darken the doors of the church again. Sue explained all this to Tom. She suggested for now, the elders avert their eyes if they had to, but somehow find a way to offer the girl grace and ignore her outward appearance. 

As she was speaking, Sue was counting the ways this conversation with Tom could go bad. In other churches at other times, she had experienced all of the following possible reactions that Tom might have:

1.      Tom might become defensive and say he was insulted that Sue thought she knew how to handle this situation better than him, and she was wrong to question his authority.

2.      Tom might start quoting scripture at Sue about how women should dress in the church and imply that Sue just wasn’t intelligent enough to understand the Bible like he did.

3.      Tom might claim that he was an elder in the church and older than Sue so she should just do what he told her, or he would find a more mature woman who could handle it.

4.      Tom might employ the nuclear option, which happens far too often in church congregations, and suggest that if Sue didn’t understand how important this issue was maybe both she and the girl would be more comfortable worshiping elsewhere.

There was another important thing that Sue knew—she knew Tom. Tom was definitely a product of Evangelical church culture. Truth be told, Sue was skeptical about the Evangelical church, this conversation being one of the reasons. But not Tom. Tom had come to know Jesus in church and he loved being involved in church culture, for many reasons. In fact, around town, one of his nicknames was “Tom the Baptist.”

But while people used Tom’s nickname in a tongue-in-cheek way, most of the time he was referred to with great affection. Tom was extremely grateful to God for the grace he had received, and because of that, he tended to be gracious. He was known for his hospitality and his willingness to help people in need. In fact, many people in town would have been astounded at all the needs that Tom met—because he didn’t make a big deal out of it. If he saw a need, he didn’t form a committee or start a Facebook campaign. He just met the need, as best he could, with the resources God had given him.

At the same time, Tom was a man, with a healthy male ego and some very definite ideas about biblical roles for women. So Sue really had no idea how Tom would react to what she was saying—she imagined many different outcomes, but not the one that actually happened.

Tom had approached Sue and described his discomfort with this girl and his perception of her lack of modesty. Sue had watched him go from disturbed, to self-righteous, to outrage. Now, as Sue explained her thinking, she watched the emotional battle raging inside him as it passed across his face. His outrage gave way first to defensiveness, then incredulousness, and finally, what Sue could only describe as bemusement. She finished speaking. There was silence for a moment. Then Tom grinned, said simply, “You’re right,” and walked away.

While Sue knew that Tom and the other elders had to battle against their gut reaction to the girl’s appearance in successive Sundays, that was the last time she ever heard any of them mention another congregant’s appearance. The girl, who is now a woman, is still attending the church. Whether or not she’s dressing more in keeping with the elders’ idea of appropriateness, Sue couldn’t tell me. It seems to have become a non-issue for everyone involved. In addition, the whole experience, and especially Tom’s reaction, gave Sue hope—hope in the value of a church community, and hope in the way God’s love can change a heart.

Fruit—the results of faith—not really the good or bad things we do or the opinions we hold, but a testimony to the truth of who we believe we are before God, and before our fellow believers. It has a ripple effect on the people around us that can’t be measured, and of which we are often unaware.

Do we respond to God and to others with pride or humility? This question is central to our lives as believers. James tells us that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. God so resists pride, it is often put into the same category as idolatry in the Bible—so much so that at times, the Bible makes pride and idolatry synonymous. I heard someone suggest recently that the sin of pride could be found at the root of every other sin.

When God says, through other people, circumstance, or the Bible, “this attitude, or opinion, or belief, or thing—that you hold so dear—it’s not of Me, you must give it up,” what do we say?

We can shake our fists at the CEO we’ve made God into. We can look at Him and defiantly demand our bonus pay. “Not this time. You owe me this for all I’ve done for you. I deserve this.”

Or we can fall to our knees at the foot of the cross in humility and thankfulness—changed, pruned clean, and ready to love.

The latter, I believe, is proof of faith—it is John 15—it is the Christian life.

Guilt and Wonder Woman

"I feel guilty a lot. I compare myself with the 

women who are home with their kids. I think I'm a little intimidated. 

Every woman feels guilty about the choices that they make." ~ Sheryl Sandberg

I just decided that my most recent haircut has a definite Mrs. Brady vibe going on, which I kind of like—there was a time I wanted to be Mrs. Brady when I grew up. This made me think about other women I admired when I was a kid. I was a girl, so of course, I went through my ballerina stage—didn’t last long. Both Wonder Woman and the Bionic Woman were heroes of mine—all the athletics I did as a kid were just me working out my Wonder Woman and Bionic Woman fantasies. On top of that, Wonder Woman wore glasses and she was still gorgeous, which made me feel better about my four-eyed status. 

But my all-time favorite television heroine has got to be…Della Street, Perry Mason’s secretary. Beautiful, smart, witty, kind, just the right amount of friendly and flirty, and indispensable. Of course, she and Perry were always on the right side of the good and evil divide. 

Pondering my Della girl-crush, I realized something—I love being “the person behind the person.” I know, not very modern to admit in this age of “leaning in.” Still, I’ve been the janitor and I’ve been the boss, and of all the jobs I’ve had up and down the corporate ladder in between, Executive Assistant has been my favorite—and I’m good at it. This led to a particularly embarrassing moment at a going away party when my soon-to-be-former boss, with tears in her eyes, told everyone that I was the absolute best thing that had ever happened to her…while her husband stood there, mouth agape.

It’s not that I want to avoid responsibility. Anyone who’s been or had a good executive assistant understands that the assistant is the one that makes it all work—even if no one else is aware of it (and they shouldn’t be, if the assistant is good at what he does.)

It’s like that scene in The American President, where Michael Douglas, as President Shepherd, is grumpily harranguing his ever-loyal Chief of Staff, A.J., played by Martin Sheen:

President Shepherd: Is the view pretty good from the cheap seats, A.J.?

A.J.:  I beg your pardon?

President Shepherd: Because it occurs to me that in twenty-five years I've never seen YOUR name on a ballot. Now why is that? Why are you always one step behind ME?

A.J. Because if I wasn't, you'd be the most popular history teacher at the University of Wisconsin!

But back to not feeling guilty about where we are in life, which is really what I’m getting at, in my meandering way. Women should be the CEO, and men, too, but only those who are called to it. Whether you believe in some cosmic idea of the universe or you fall more on the side of divine authorship like myself, the truth is we all have our own unique gifts and calling. Life is about figuring out what those gifts are and using them to the best of our abilities. But, and this is important, no one else can tell you what your place is, and how we use our abilities and gifts may not fit anyone else’s idea of success—and that’s okay.

I admit, my ideas about this sort of thing are heavily influenced by the Bible. You can find the basis for it in Romans 12:

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them…

In the body of Christ, it’s good to be a mouth. It’s just as good to be an ear or a toe. Not because they are all equal, but because it’s good to be what you were created to be. What’s important is that you’re part of “the body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

The Apostle Paul talks a lot about the mysteries of the gospel that have been revealed to us. The contentment and peace that comes to individuals in a Christian community walking in step with Christ is mysterious. The world alternates between encouraging us to do anything to come out on top, or trying to make everyone equal, and both ways end up in tyranny. God does community, and we end with each of us fulfilling our unique calling, together we love and change the world, and ultimately there is great freedom and joy. God’s way is always better, but as the state of the world attests, it can’t be done apart from Christ.

I believe God has called me to write, but that’s not all. The kids are growing up and there’s additional work to be done out there. I’ve been praying about where He’s calling me next. I wonder what I’d look like in a Della Street haircut.

Sowing Seeds

Last weekend my men got the tanks in for our latest experiment in urban gardening - our stock tank garden (we couldn't resist the photo op before we filled them with dirt). It reminded me of this essay I wrote a few years back. The boys are older now - a huge help in the garden - and will be doing more manly things this summer than I mention here. But mostly, this essay still resonates. So, back by popular demand (mine!) and "updated for today's English" it's...the spring garden post.

The latest is something called Urban Farming. When we heard that phrase the other night, Sean started to snicker and said, “Grandma Vivian’s plot of land on the farm in Kansas was over an acre, planted to the gills, and she called it ‘a garden’.”

I suppose it’s easier to see the difference between a farm and a garden when you have a real working farm around you as far as the eye can see. Someone once said, “Unemployment is capitalism’s way of getting you to plant a garden.”[i] So I can see, considering the soaring rate of unemployment in our cities, why folks might turn to their shovels. Taking time away from the madding crowd, digging one’s hands into the dirt, using muscles you haven’t used before, I can tell you from experience, this is very therapeutic.

I guess the idea of a garden was just too tame for some goal oriented go-getters. No simple “plot of ground where plants are cultivated” would do. No, they would turn their city bound pieces of land into Farms. A “tract of land cultivated for the purpose of agricultural production” sounds so much more professional, ultra-productive–it’s something you could put on a resume!

But wait, there’s more. It’s not just a farm–it’s the Urban Farming Movement. Urban Farming is “the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around (peri-urban), a village, town or city.” That’s management level stuff, complete with jargon and everything.

So now Aunt Phyllis will be happy to learn that when she drops off that box of zucchini and tomatoes in the church kitchen next fall, she’s not just demonstrating God’s beneficence through a sweet act of kindness. No, she is an URBAN AGRICULTURALIST!! (Can Urban Home Farming federal subsidies be far behind?)

You will be glad to know there is a web-site where you can sign up to join their movement. You can friend them on Facebook, and sign up for their Twitter feed. One wonders when we will have time to water and weed.

How about this? How about just digging up a little patch of lawn in your yard, or filling up a container, and calling your children to come see—not to weed, but to plant. Because, as someone else once said, “Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden.”[ii] Then, send them off to play, or to read, or to swim, or to ride their bikes this summer, and sit for a while. Think about how, in the cool and quiet of evening when the last rays of sun slide behind western hills, you will weed, water, and nurture those little shoots when they appear. No maximizing production. No distribution mechanisms.

In my garden this summer, I will “visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation.”[iii] When the first shoots push out of the ground, I will call the children to smile and exult in great expectation and hope for a bountiful harvest. Because it is “one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.”[iv]

Over the years, I've spent a lot of time in “urban environments,” and I understand the desire to turn a vacant, garbage-strewn lot into a paradise. But why isn’t that enough for us? Watching the way beauty and life can spring from ugliness and death on this planet should leave us awe-struck and speechless. I admire anything that gives children in the inner-city something hopeful and happy to do in between dodging bullets and turning down illegal drugs on their way home from school. To have healthy, well-fed children is a good goal. 

But I’m puzzled by our grinding ambition to make ourselves seem more important to the process than we actually are.

Despite what I do in my garden, some things will flourish, some things will die, and there will be many surprises–both the disappointing and the joyful–along the way. Because “there is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class…”[v]

You see, it isn’t about Production and Distribution. It’s about miracles, and perseverance, character, hope, and joy. In the end, yes, there will be food to share. In the end, we will have more than any of us can eat. Not because we toiled and labored and incited movement.

But simply because The Creator is really good at what He does. “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;/ And though the last lights off the black West went/ Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—/ Because the Holy Ghost over the bent/ World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”[vi]

Happy spring and happy gardening!

---

[i] Orson Scott Card

[ii] Robert Brault

[iii] Nathaniel Hawthorne

[iv] Nathaniel Hawthorne

[v] Alfred Austin

[vi] Gerard Manley Hopkins

Come To The Water

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

On a beautiful June afternoon about ten years ago, I was on my way to a vacation at the Oregon Coast with my Mom, Dad, and my two sons who were under the age of five. Nearly there, we came to a stop behind a line of cars at a construction zone on a narrow, undivided two-lane highway that has a notorious reputation among Oregonians, and for good reason. It was one of the first highways in Oregon to be labeled as a traffic safety corridor in the 1990s. Locals call it Blood Alley.

The construction zone was on the other side of a hidden rise, an optical illusion that made it difficult to see that there was a line of cars stopped ahead until we were almost upon them. Dad had to apply the brakes firmly in order to stop in time, and my next thought was, boy, I hope the person behind us stops, too.

I looked in the rear-view mirror, and saw another car come over the rise. In the few seconds before that Dodge Dakota plowed into and over Mom and Dad’s Camry at 55 MPH, all I had time to say was, “Oh, no.” When it was all over, what should have been a fatal accident for everyone in our car, actually claimed only one life, my Mom’s, who was sitting in the seat where I had been sitting thirty minutes before the accident.

We’d switched places, because I was getting car sick.

Everyone experiences grief in their own way, and it is never easy to lose a loved one, no matter the circumstances. In addition, most people experience some sort of survivor’s guilt. I experienced the triple threat of loss, trauma, and guilt. But I had two little children (one of whom had been seriously injured), a husband, a life and a strong faith that I hadn’t lost my mother – I knew exactly where she was, and I would see her again.

Life just goes on – even when it feels like it shouldn’t, and so did I. After the rest of us recovered and were released from the hospital, I cried really hard for a few days, and then attempted to go back to my life. I wasn’t naïve enough to think I would ever be the same girl I was before the accident. But I really didn’t have the time or energy to ponder what moving on would mean or how to do it.

When the horror of that accident would come back on me, or I would hear those what-if whispers, or my hands became so sweaty when I was driving that the steering wheel became slick, or I would be knocked breathless by the searing pain of missing my mother, or paralyzed by the logical-seeming fear that my children at any moment could be taken from me – I would just add something else into my busy life. Thus began years of attempting to bury my feelings under a mountain of activity – another Bible study or book group in my home, another community event or organization, another friend or relative in need, another house project, another writing project. That worked for a while.

A few years ago, I achieved critical mass, and it all imploded. I started having full-blown anxiety attacks (driving on a snowy, fog-covered highway one morning was the trigger) and they threatened to incapacitate me.

Chemical substances have never been my friend. You know the “one person in a million” they list on prescription medications who will have a serious adverse reaction? Drug companies could just post a picture of me on their labels – I am that person and have been my whole life. The extremely mild medications my physician prescribed to calm my nerves and slow my rapidly beating heart were no different. Within weeks I had plummeted from a functioning adult, to someone who was breaking down, to someone who was making preparations to have myself committed.

I have always been an optimist, in an almost insufferable, Pollyanna kind of way. So clinical depression was incomprehensible to me. Couldn’t people just decide to be happy? That’s what I did.

The six weeks of my “episode”, before we realized that I just needed to stop taking the medication, gave me a lot of empathy for people suffering with mental illnesses. I was astounded at the dark place I was transported to, simply because of a little imbalance in my brain chemistry. There is that feeling, that whisper you hear during hard times—If God really cared about you, if He was really there, He wouldn’t make you experience this. In that dark place, that whisper is all you can hear, or at least, it’s the loudest voice.

I have extremely supportive and wise friends and family. And all that I had learned of God in the light brought me through the darkness. But if you know someone experiencing that kind of darkness, pray for them now. Call them, and remind them that even though they can’t feel it, God is right there with them, and you are there for them, too. Invite them over to lay on your couch, or sit in your rocking chair, or lie in your bed, or sit on your porch swing – just so they don’t have to be alone. There are a thousand reasons why God wants us to live in community, and this is one of them. Believe me, it helps. Whatever may happen to that friend or relative in the future, know that simply by being with them, in that moment, you helped.

My brief foray into clinical depression hardly makes me an expert, and my point here is not to talk about mental illness, but what I started learning during that period of my life. It’s a concept I’ve been grasping at, like something slightly out of reach. I could have explained it intellectually, from a theological perspective, years ago. Recently, it actually hit my heart.

Like most teenagers growing up in evangelical Christian circles in the 70s, I learned the song, The Woman at the Well. The chorus goes like this:

Fill my cup, Lord, I lift it up, Lord.

Come and quench this thirsting of my soul;

Bread of heaven, feed me ‘til I want no more,

Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole.

On a scale that goes from epic hymns to the most insipid “praise” songs you’ve ever heard, The Woman at the Well would probably fall somewhere in the middle. But my sister could play it on the piano when we were teenagers, and I used to sit next to her on the bench and we would sing it together. I have a soft spot in my heart for this song, and the chorus is catchy. I don’t really remember the other verses, which I think have something to do with not being “worldly”. But I find myself singing the chorus occasionally in the shower. I was doing this a few weeks ago, and suddenly a lot that I had been thinking and reading came together like pieces in a puzzle.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Bereft of any chemical assistance to mask my anxiety and grief issues, I had no alternative but to make some drastic life changes. I stripped my life of everything non-essential to my core roles of wife and mother in order to lessen my stress, I changed my diet, and I learned how to deep breathe through an anxiety attack. I tried counseling, but during our sessions I learned more about my therapist than he did about me (I think I really helped him!). Like I said, I have some extremely wise friends and family members who were instrumental in setting me on a healing path. But then, my husband and I took a transfer to a new city where we knew no one.

In his wisdom and mercy, God left me no option but Himself, the greatest mental health professional to walk the earth. A partial transcript of our sessions might look something like this:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, with prayer, supplication, and thankfulness, let your request be made known to God.

Easier said than done, Lord. Don’t be anxious? Seriously? I don’t think this is your garden variety kind of worry. It doesn’t seem to be a mind over matter kind of deal.

WITH PRAYER AND SUPPLICATION, let your requests be made known to God. You have not because you ask not.

Okay, then. I want to feel better. I don’t want to feel like I’m having a heart attack every time I get into a stressful situation. I want my hands to stop sweating and shaking when I’m in a crowd or I meet someone new. I want to quit having flashbacks and creepy dreams and an ability to sleep all the way through the night would be awesome! And while you’re at it, if you could end pain, poverty, and world hunger, that would make me, and a lot of other people, feel a lot less stressed, thanks.

Why?

I… Huh?

Why? You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives.

Huh.

Think about that for a while, and also, in this world you will have trouble but take heart, I have overcome the world.

…Still thinking?

Well, I was feeling a little better and then I got side-tracked…but now I’m feeling kind of shaky again…sorry, yes, still thinking.

I’ll be here.

Lord?

I’m here.

Okay, I think I see. My prayers have been all about what I wanted and not what you wanted. I’m wondering, what do you want for me?

I want to ease your restless soul and soothe your troubled heart. I want your life to have hope and purpose. I want you to trust me. I want you to be free from anxiety. In fact, I want you to be free from all the snares that entangle you so that you can join me in overcoming the sin in the world with love and righteousness.

Me, too! I want those things.

We want the same things.

Yes!

How does it make you feel?

Like my heart is full and overflowing.

You don’t feel anxious right now, do you? You couldn’t if you tried.

Wow, you’re right. This is awesome!

Think about that for a while.

So, while I was thinking about that, I was also doing research on the effects of trauma and the causes of anxiety, because I’m a cover-all-my-bases kind of girl. I learned a lot about brain chemistry, enzymes, hormones, receptors, stress, vitamins and minerals and blood sugar and all kinds of things that doctors know exist and that they think affect brain chemistry and how we feel. However, no one really understands how it all works together and why it sometimes goes awry.

I found one article particularly compelling. It was a study on populations of people who have been through traumatic experiences. The researchers were trying to determine why some people come through trauma and recover fairly quickly, while others have their lives wiped out by exactly the same traumatic circumstances.

I didn’t keep this article – so I can’t give you an annotated description of the research. What I’ll describe here is what struck me and stuck with me, and it’s possible I’m combining ideas from more than one source. The researchers postulated that we’re all born with something they called a “well of resilience” somewhere inside us. If we have some good experiences when we’re young, a supportive family, a few successes to bolster confidence, a period of relative stress-free living, then that well gets filled up. When we encounter trauma, we dip from that well to recover.  But it takes a long time for the well to fill back up, so people who encounter one trauma after another, eventually end up with an empty well of resilience. The researchers also theorized as to the reason so many people are currently suffering from anxiety and depression in cushy first-world societies. It’s possible that the stress of modern-day life leaves our wells of resilience dry, as if they have a small but persistent leak.

…Still thinking?

I thought maybe if I just rested and kind of, you know, withdrew from life, my well of resilience might fill back up.

“Well of resilience”?

Um, yes?

If you thirst, Lisa, you can come to the water and be filled.

Really? Because, I’m still having all the same issues and it’s bothering me more and more. I’m not feeling very resilient. I would like to feel the way I felt last time we talked, my heart full and overflowing. That was good—

Why?

I… Huh?

Why is it bothering you? You remember my friend, Martha? She used to be bothered by so many things. And sweet Mary, there was a time she was wiped out by grief and disappointment.

Disappointment? I never thought about that…what was she disappointed in?

Me. They both were.

That must have hurt.

It does. Every time.

It does…? Lord, I’m not…disappointed… Oh.

They didn’t realize what they were doing, either.

I’m sorry.

Already forgiven.

Thanks. Still, Mary and Martha? They’re my favorite people in the Bible, except for you. I love them.

Me, too. We love the same things.

I’m having that heart overflowing thing again.

I know. Think about that for a while.

So I thought about it. I realized that when I pray, for myself and for others, I often ask that God would take away the bad things in life. God knows that’s me crying out, “Abba” and He hears. He catches every tear. Those are the cries of a child seeking comfort from her parent, and that’s right and good. Still, as I pray for a pain free, trouble free life, I know I’m not being realistic. If freedom from trouble in this world was what God promises us, Jesus and the apostles would have had very different lives, and deaths. Millions of people wouldn’t be suffering, hungry, tortured or persecuted.

In this world, you will have trouble… that’s the truth of it. It’s not like Jesus lied to us. It’s not like he promised us a rose garden.

And yet…

There’s Mary, Martha and Lazarus, experiencing resurrection, not in the next life, but in this one.

There’s Stephen, being stoned to death, and praising God, thrilled that he gets to see Jesus.

There are the Apostles and there’s Jesus, on the one hand telling his friends they’ll suffer what He suffered, and on the other hand implying that no one can hurt them. Later there they are, suffering, imprisoned, tortured and persecuted – and they’re able to sing their way through it and “count it all joy.”

And there’s the woman at the well.

If you really knew who it was you were talking to, you would have asked me, and I would give you living water. People who drink other water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Take heart, I have overcome the world.

We may not get freedom from trouble in this life, from pain, loss, persecution, sleepless nights, bad dreams and bad choices.

We get something better—the Word, living and active.

Lord?

I’m here.

I know.

Fill my cup, Lord. I lift it up Lord.

Come and quench this thirsting of my soul.

Bread of heaven, feed me ‘till I want no more.

Fill my cup. Fill it up, and make me whole.

I have this recurring dream. I’m on vacation, trying to get to the resort where I have a reservation. My mom’s already there. But things keep getting in my way, and I never make it to the resort before I wake up.

That dream used to drive me crazy.