Thursday, October 30, 2014

And I made another little blue X on the back of my hands, lest I forget


Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all who dwell in the world stand in awe of Him. Psalm 33:8
There is this video that I used to show in science class: Powers of Ten. And in some ways, it is my favorite video in all of the world, because it brings awe to my rather jaded weary soul.We can't have too much awe.

You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 
If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

Stand back and you will be amazed.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

My thoughts are not your thoughts; my ways are not your ways

Let us give thanks to the LORD for His mercy and the wonders He does for His children. For He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. Psalm 107:8-9
And as the deer longs for water brooks, so my soul thirsts for You oh LORD. My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God. Psalm 42:1-2

And my tummy is quite full, thank you, with oatmeal and raspberries and freshly ground Starbucks Breakfast Blend as I sit here with Pippen snuggled at my feet.

And I think of other wonders and good things from His hand, particularly as I sift through today’s Facebook photos…watching Marco wander the streets and byways of London as he translates for a group of Franciscan monks on an evangelistic journey. Who would have thought? And Matteo singing happy songs with his dad, recovering from a horrific car accident. And Andrea and Charly splashing along the seashore of Rhode Island. Good things.

And life is hard, and I have an ever-growing list of beloved people who I am carrying to the LORD God Almighty and in the midst of not understanding the mystery of prayer but knowing that He commands us to pray, I lift them up. And wait for His mercy and wonders.

You alone are my strength, my shield
To you alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship you.
And as one who has sung those Scripture choruses with one or two guitars and a clump of fairly sincere teenagers over and over, the words are certainly engraved deeply in my heart. And yesterday, I marked a small blue X on the back of each of my hands, as I headed back into Tucson after lots of full tummy. This blue X is a reminder of yielding my Spirit, to stand back so that He can work mightily, and that all might be amazed.

And in this yielding, I will find peace.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Well, that and the curious fact that he goes to Moldova in his search for happiness


Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your Name give glory; because of your love and because of your faithfulness. Psalm 115:1

St. Francis is the mirror of Christ rather as the moon is the mirror of the sun. The moon is much smaller than the sun, but it is also much nearer to us; and being less vivid it is more visible. –G. K. Chesterton

It is really quite humbling to be given four days of quiet. And I thought about that adjective for a long time. Which one would best qualify sitting in front of a wood stove with a second cup of coffee and nothing on the schedule besides wandering under the last of the fall leaves in Golden, Colorado.

Twenty-four hours is indeed a gift, freely offered day after day by the LORD God Almighty. And how often is it squandered, gobbled up by fretting and distractedness and not even lifting my eyes up off of the sidewalk.

But the whole point of a friar was that he did not know where he would get his supper. There was always a possibility that he might get no supper. There was an element of what would be called romance, as of the gipsy or adventurer. But there was also an element of potential tragedy, as of the tramp or the casual labourer. So the Cardinals of the thirteenth century were filled with compassion, seeing a few men entering of their own free will that estate to which the poor of the twentieth century are daily driven by cold coercion and moved on by the police. Cardinal San Paolo seems to have argued more or less in this manner: it may be a hard life, but after all it is the life apparently described as ideal in the Gospel; make what compromises you think wise or humane about that ideal; but do not commit yourselves to saying that men shall not fulfill that ideal if they can.
And the difference between a friar and an ordinary man was really that a friar was freer than an ordinary man.
That is but a distant adumbration of the reason why the Franciscan, ragged, penniless, homeless and apparently hopeless, did indeed come forth singing such songs as might come from the stars of morning, and shouting, a son of God.
This sense of the great gratitude and the sublime dependence was not a phrase or even a sentiment it is the whole point that this was the very rock of reality. It was not a fancy but a fact; rather it is true that beside it all facts are fancies.
Rossetti makes the remark somewhere, bitterly but with great truth, that the worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank. The converse of this proposition is also true; and it is certain that this gratitude produced, in such men as we are here considering, the most purely joyful moments that have been known to man. The great painter boasted that he mixed all his colours with brains, and the great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks. All goods look better when they look like gifts. - G. K. Chesteron

And the thing about being at my sister’s home in that every wall is lined with books, books from all over the world and from all of the times. And I can sort of restlessly sift through dozens of them before settling down on the worn leather couch with a cup of peach tea.

And last night I finally pulled The Geography of Bliss by a longtime foreign correspondent for NPR who is searching the world for the happiness. And he does so with wit, self-depreciating humor and an apparently bottomless expense account, which stands in stark contrast to the barefoot friar.

And I am ashamed to admit that what caught my eye as I scanned yet another back cover was my identity with the author who declared As a child my favorite Winnie-the-Pooh character was Eeyore, and who spent his life notebook in hand, tape recorder slung over his shoulder, roaming the world telling the stories of gloomy, unhappy people. Which is a mind boggle from the eyes of whom Chesterton calls the one happy poet among all the unhappy poets of the world. He was a poet whose whole life was a poem. But at some gut level space Weiner gets it, and begins his journey with the conviction that One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.

And may I join my brother Francis who did not want to see the wood for the trees. He wanted to see each tree as a separate and almost a sacred thing, being a child of God and therefore a brother or sister of man.

As I begin my journey of this twenty-four hour gift, today, may His name be glorified. Because of His great love and faithfulness.

Monday, October 27, 2014

The dry crunchy leaves underfoot are a promise of spring

Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD. Psalm 31:24

You strengthen me more and more; you enfold and comfort me. Psalm 71:21



Bless our God, you peoples; make the voice of his praise to be heard; Who holds our souls in life, and will not allow our feet to slip. For you, O God, have proved us; you have tried us just as silver is tried; we went through fire and water; but you brought us out into a place of refreshment. Psalm 66:7-12



Well, there is no place of refreshment and enfolding like that of my sister Jenny and Tim’s home in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. And yesterday Jenny and I raked up 18 bags of red, gold, orange and brown leaves while Tim roofed for a friend, and then we settled down to grilled pork chops with creamy fennel sauce, roasted carrots right out of the garden and perfect crust apple pie with organic vanilla ice cream. Layered into that day somehow I graded, well, really wrote all over  a bunch of Odyssey compare/contrast essays and curled up with lots of cups of coffee, I read my friend Dana Mahan’s 400-page memoir of growing up in a trailer park, Poor, White and Trashy, the story speaking for a people without a voice, from those endless trailer parks which line south, west, central Tucson, the story of a young man seeking himself in a hard world, the story of the power of faithful men walking alongside. And, and the story of a redemptive, pursuing God. 



No wonder Jesus told so many stories. It’s all about our story. His story.



Refreshing and enfolding was His Word as well, handled so gently yet honestly by Jay, the pastor at Mile High Vineyard. And Jay has a pretty tough teaching schedule each weekend, six times, but it’s because he handles it easily, like Legolas and his bow, an arrow shot strong and accurately into the heart.



This thing called the Church is intended to show what people can be like, if God has His way. In Acts 2/4, it describes the body who enjoyed the favor of all the people, and the LORD was adding daily to their numbers.  It was attractive and terrifying, but not boring. The story of the people of God is a story of a people has been set free by the power of God, that none of us is better than the other because of our own merit.  We don’t stand in judgment of others, but welcome others with humility and mercy.  All are one because of what Christ has done. I put my weakness in front of people; it is only through Christ that I have hope.  What if the people of God were known for being humble. What if we just yielded, and that became our story?



It’s all about our story. His story.



Which reminds me about another story I read yesterday, told by my brother Tom, who also handles words with a piercing deftness. A story about his sixteen-year-old son and a conversation.



“I don’t know if I really love God, Dad.” The statement fell flat in his bedroom. Sixteen years of careful (and conservative) Christian education, replete with twelve years of ABeka-anchored elementary homeschooling, obligatory Sunday school attendance, and fairly consistent daily mealtime devotions slowly drained from the room. He continued, “I mean, how can you truly love someone that you never have really met—someone who has never made it beyond something-that-you-study or read stories about?” I resisted the slight father-vertigo feeling to engage him in the memory of the “day he invited Jesus into his heart,” and let his statement stand.



And Tom laid this conversation before God, I have this retreat, a sanctuary to which I retire (daily) where I read Scripture, pray, and write (to God), but it’s also a place I go when I need a to do a bit of complaining, wondering, meditative wrangling, even emotional and spiritual wound-licking, a place that has changed locationally throughout the years. Back when I was a tougher dude, it was mostly outside in our back woods or up-and-down our street. The car headlights of my early-morning-commuter neighbors would often pick me out as I tramped along Coventry Drive during snow, wind, or whatever freezing-pelt a New Hampshire early morning could produce. Now, I’m much more mature, uh—contemplative, I guess—so a cushy chair by the woodstove usually will suffice. It’s a place I’ve often told God to meet me. I fancy, like Moses’ Tent of Meeting, or the Hebrew tabernacle of old, that it has switched around from place to place through my forty years or so of spiritual/theological wilderness wandering.



Early the next morning, I entered my sanctuary and put Evan’s question out there. “So how does my son get to know you? Where are you, God, in the midst of his 21st century millennialistic, postmodern-restructuralist mindset? How will Evan ever come to know You? He’s sixteen, and hasn’t seen or heard anything from You. It’s all been about what he’s been told. What in his life shows that You care—or much more, desire some love relationship with him? What in his life even proves that You exist?”



 “You.”



It’s the word that my hand kinda-sorta automatically wrote in my spiral notebook.

           

And then I thought back over the (especially last few) years regarding my own doctrinal strayings, my rejections of denominationalisms, my private failures and half-lived determinations. Through all the chaos of unwillingness to have God as “He has always been,” I could see very easily in my metaphysic efforts that all-important thread to be alive, challenged, fully invested as one who pursues The Voice.



I looked outside the window to where the flaming foliage began to coalesce into predawn light. Trees, woods, a half-light, that has seen me these many years, pursuing my life within so that I might live and love a significant life without. The memories, the notebooks, the margins of my Bible littered with decades-long annotations—struggles and triumphs.



And then, with Evan: the living-room talks, the backpacking, the Santa excitements, the fort building, the costume closets, the silly songs, the wood cutting, the sledding and snowshoeing, the thousands of photographs, the laughter, the determined resolve, the arguing and wrangling, the shouted anger against fraternal betrayal, hours of family videos that show a life filled of a dad loving his “rollicking rooster of a boy.”

           

 “He knows you, Tom,” I wrote.

 “You have become Me because I have tabernacled with you.”

 “You, most-beloved son, have become Evan’s Emmanuel.”

           

 “Dad, how can I love someone I’ve never met?”



The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.…and now this mystery of Christ dwells within you….

           

And so the design, the blueprint, of Who It Is I Am Becoming, slowly merged from the basement darkness into the early morning light, casting familiar features from around the room. I looked again to what I had written in my spiral: “You, most-beloved son, have become Evan’s Emmanuel.”

           

 “You can know God, Evan, because you know me”: It’s what I wish I had said.



It’s all about our story. His story.



And one very awe-some aspect of Dana’s story is that it is interwoven with faces and street corners and conversations that I was present for, yet unaware that at this moment the mystery of Christ in us was showing another sixteen-year-old boy what Jesus looked like. Jesus-in-Jason meeting Dana every Tuesday night for dinner and talking for five years, for instance. Or my brother Scott with a rough voice and tough hands, tough like the work of a handyman with a good reputation. Up on a ladder, replacing some shingles. Down in the basement, fixing some pipes. Overalls and gloves, a cap turned around on his head and a bandana dangling from his back pocket. Or Old Man Caywood, with his flowing white hair and his courteous manner, Ringing his bell, wearing the cap of a conductor, and stopping the trolley car to let people either on or off as the need arose.

And somehow my Vineyard Community, the place I have called home for thirty-five years was Emmanuel for Dana, complete with its bumps and holes and fissures. Every one of them, from the youngest to the oldest, the poorest to the richest I had met, in one way or another, while a member of the Vineyard.

My church, and more than my church. A cradle, a temple, a home. How could I ever recount, which words would I employ to explain, describe all that place had managed to accomplish in me, from the first day I stepped through its doors, until the last day when I walked back out?



And it is all about our story. His story.



And at the end of Jay’s sermon, he wound up with the three words that started this little journey of mine three months ago: Humbly, with integrity and with courage.  You bring the whole of who you are to God, and live with integrity, with no hidden shadow. Take ownership of what is true. We are to live with courage and make a difference in the world.



May my life speak humility, integrity and courage. Then I too will be part of the redemptive story of what God is doing in this world. And afterwards I went up for prayer. And a friend of Nicole’s from long ago Chicago Hyde Park Vineyard, placed her hands upon me and prayed for peace.



And I give you peace, not as the world gives. My burden is light and my yoke easy. Do you believe this?



And it is all about our story. His story.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

profundity from my baby brother... about knowing God




So my sixteen year-old son, Evan, and I had a conversation a while ago about “his relationship with God” and what such a statement might mean. For those of you who don’t know Evan, he’s a great kid—you’d really like him.  Since Evan is a student at the diminutive public school at which I teach, most of my colleagues have told me more than a couple “Evan stories” that recount his in-classroom, larger-than-typical discussion responses and involvement in whatever is going on in class. Evan is clever, witty, and usually wanting to know how he can engage and apply. A broad path of personality that runs smack down the middle of his persona-mapping is the tendency to tell you exactly what he thinks. This is refreshing in some situations, but as you can imagine can also be a personality point that results in many moments of unseasoned comments which produce wringing of parental hands and patriarchal wailing and gnashing of teeth. Especially if Evan knows you well, rest assured that you will get exactly what he means.
            “I don’t know if I really love God, Dad.” The statement fell flat in his bedroom. Sixteen years of careful (and conservative) Christian education, replete with twelve years of ABeka-anchored elementary homeschooling, obligatory Sunday school attendance, and fairly consistent daily mealtime devotions slowly drained from the room. He continued, “I mean, how can you truly love someone that you never have really met—someone who has never made it beyond something-that-you-study or read stories about?” I resisted the slight father-vertigo feeling to engage him in the memory of the “day he invited Jesus into his heart,” and let his statement stand.
            I even conceded his question with a paternally-thoughtful nod, a murmured, “Hm. I see” or something, and we followed an unmemorable decline into some other course of discussion. The dwindling conversation wasn’t because I was scared of talking honestly with my kid; I have (mostly) enjoyed the candor with which my kids and I can step into the untouchable topics that make some parents queasy.
            No, the blank wall that Evan’s admission created was a wall that I have sensed many times before in my own heart. I think it’s because so much of my own spiritual journey has been rather textbooked, Sunday-schooled, evangelicalized, that my relationship with God is mostly made up of what I believe about God. If you’re really talking about relationship, such a realization is really a big problem. So much of what I see about the “spirituality” of my own life and the lives of most of my close friends, is really only about precept and concept. Sure, there’s a personalized twist to some of my more sophisticated religious meanderings and discussions with companions, but at the end of the day, God often remains a biblical abstract, relegated to a deity defined by old Semetic oral traditions that generally contradict a lot of increasingly-impalatable, 1st-century Pauline ecclesiastic admonitions.  Lots of the praise songs in church insist that God is “my all in all,” or that “He means everything to me.” Those are pretty big claims. In many ways, Evan’s complaint that it’s hard to love a Someone-Intangible is my own, and is only a small step away from refusing to believe in a Someone-Imaginary. It takes somebody with my son’s relational verve to just out-and-out state the fact.
            I have this retreat, a sanctuary to which I retire (daily) where I read Scripture, pray, and write (to God), but it’s also a place I go when I need a to do a bit of complaining, wondering, meditative wrangling, even emotional and spiritual wound-licking,  a place that has changed locationally throughout the years. Back when I was a tougher dude, it was mostly outside in our back woods or up-and-down our street. The car headlights of my early-morning-commuter neighbors would often pick me out as I tramped along Coventry Drive during snow, wind, or whatever freezing-pelt a New Hampshire early morning could produce. Now, I’m much more mature, uh—contemplative, I guess—so a cushy chair by the woodstove usually will suffice. It’s a place I’ve often told God to meet me. I fancy, like Moses’ Tent of Meeting, or the Hebrew tabernacle of old, that it has switched around from place to place through my forty years or so of spiritual/theological wilderness wandering.
            Early the next morning, I entered my sanctuary and put Evan’s question out there. “So how does my son get to know you? Where are you, God, in the midst of his 21st century millennialistic, postmodern-restructuralist mindset? How will Evan ever come to know You? He’s sixteen, and hasn’t seen or heard anything from You. It’s all been about what he’s been told. What in his life shows that You care—or much more, desire some love relationship with him? What in his life even proves that You exist?”

            “You.”

            It’s the word that my hand kinda-sorta automatically wrote in my spiral notebook.
           
            And then I thought back over the (especially last few) years regarding my own doctrinal strayings, my rejections of denominationalisms, my private failures and half-lived determinations. Through all the chaos of unwillingness to have God as “He has always been,” I could see very easily in my metaphysic efforts that all-important thread to be alive, challenged, fully invested as one who pursues The Voice.
            I looked outside the window to where the flaming foliage began to coalesce into predawn light. Trees, woods, a half-light, that has seen me these many years, pursuing my life within so that I might live and love a significant life without. The memories, the notebooks, the margins of my Bible littered with decades-long annotations—struggles and triumphs.
            And then, with Evan: the living-room talks, the backpacking, the Santa excitements, the fort building, the costume closets, the silly songs, the wood cutting, the sledding and snowshoeing, the thousands of photographs, the laughter, the determined resolve, the arguing and wrangling, the shouted anger against fraternal betrayal, hours of family videos that show a life filled of a dad loving his “rollicking rooster of a boy.”
           
            “He knows you, Tom,” I wrote.
            “You have become Me because I have tabernacled with you.”
            You, most-beloved son, have become Evan’s Emmanuel.”
           
            --“Dad, how can I love someone I’ve never met?”

            The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
            …and now this mystery of Christ dwells within you….
           
            And so the design, the blueprint, of Who It Is I Am Becoming, slowly merged from the basement darkness into the early morning light, casting familiar features from around the room. I looked again to what I had written in my spiral: You, most-beloved son, have become Evan’s Emmanuel.”
           
            “You can know God, Evan, because you know me”: It’s what I wish I had said.

           

The sweetness is a beam from the glory.




Ascribe to the LORD, you families of the peoples; ascribe to the LORD honor and power.  Psalm 96:7

Great are the deeds of the LORD! They are studied by all who delight in them. His work is full of majesty and splendor, and His righteousness endures forever. He makes His marvelous works to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and full of compassion. Psalm 111:2-3

My eucharisto this morning was full of grandpas jiggling the little babies pressed up to their chest, and little girls with braids playing tag in the grass and mariachi musicians passing on the joy of their music to the next generation with shiny slicked-back hair and tamales and horchata and bumping to an old student with curly hair going in every direction helping his girlfriend sell little bags of lettuce from the school garden. And the night was clear and the air was full of laughter and violins and soaring voices.

Let them see You in me.

And afterwards we tucked into the Denny’s on the other side of the freeway, the Denny’s that has been there in all of its glorious bottomless cup of coffee and lots of ice cream on the pies and I really don’t think much has changed in fifty years except for a few light bulbs.

And what lets them see You in me and us and the bigger Us? And when do we blend into the scenery, indistinguishable?  How do we hold His honor and power in the forefront of our mind and hearts, undistracted? Many is that which does so easily entangles and dims His light in our lives.

And somehow when I got home and tucked up on the red floral couch, Lewis’s Letters to Malcolm answered this unfinished discussion. Somehow pleasures are shafts of the glory as it strikes our sensibility. They [are] not the hope of glory, they are an exposition of the glory itself. That which is manifest.When the wind roars I don’t just hear the roar; I “hear the wind.” This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasure for evermore. One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.

I don’t always achieve it. One obstacle is inattention. Another is the wrong kind of attention. One could, if one practiced, hear simply a roar and not the roaring-of-the-wind. One could concentrate on the pleasure as an event…and ignore the smell of Deity that hangs about it. A third obstacle is greed. Instead of saying “This also is Thou,” one may say the fatal word Encore.

And really this is the same beginning of our unfinished list. Inattention. The wrong kind of attention. And greed. These are what keep us from declaring the hope which sets us apart, the hope the world might see in me, see in us, see in Us, the Church. Christ manifest here on earth. Joy is the serious business of heaven.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

He gives me living water, I will thirst no more.


He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Psalm 95:7
Hear my prayer, O God; do not hide Yourself from my petition. Listen to me and answer me. Psalm 55:1-2
O God, you know my foolishness, and my faults are not hidden from you. Answer me, O LORD, for Your love is kind; in Your great compassion, turn to me. Psalm 69:6
So I started a fast yesterday for this very reason, the my foolishness and the our foolishness of we His sheep. To lay my self and to lay our selves before Him and humbly seek His face.
And it is great comfort to know that He answers not because of our good deeds or obedience or anything about our deservedness other than we are His sheep, and He is kind and compassionate.
And last night when the darkness piled in I pictured being guided through green pastures and by still waters with my Shepherd, and I shall not want. He restores my soul. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For He is with me. He anointeth my head with oil. My cup runneth over. His rod and His staff, they comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in His house forever.
And in that I can rest. Be still, then, and know that I am God.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.


Tuesday, October 21, 2014

For there is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset.



Send out Your light and Your truth, that they might guide me. Psalm 43:3

Be my God of joy and gladness. Be my God of righteousness and justice. Be my God of love and truth. 

I will walk in the presence of the LORD in the land of the living.

What I desire: The gift of courage, faith, and hope to fully choose the path God desires, to make the decision God wants and then to implement it with all my strength and constancy I can.

There is nothing freer than a heart that sees only the life of God in the most deadly perils and troubles. –de Caussade, The Joy of Full Surrender

So sometimes I wake up at night so full of dark thoughts that I can barely breathe. So I read. I have to say Wuthering Heights has not been a good choice; it is certainly not a lighthearted chunk of unread bucket list classic lit. I longed to throw it across the room, but me being me, I just set in neatly and firmly on the dresser. Nevermore.

And I turned to another classic: G. K. Chesterton’s St. Francis. And rather than reading about a morose young man tangled up and tied down in bitterness and accusations, I read of a man who even among the saints he has the air of a sort of eccentric, if one may use the word of one whose eccentricity consisted in always turning towards the centre.
It is commonly in a somewhat cynical sense that men have said, " Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.” It was in a wholly happy and enthusiastic sense that St. Francis said, " Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy everything."
He was obedient but not dependent. And he was as free as the wind, he was almost wildly free, in his relation to that world around him. The world around him was, as has been noted, a network of feudal and family and other forms of dependence. The whole idea of St. Francis was that the Little Brothers should be like little fishes who could go freely in and out of that net. They could do so precisely because they were small fishes and in that sense even slippery fishes. There was nothing that the world could hold them by; for the world catches us mostly by the fringes of our garments, the futile externals of our lives.
A man had to be thin to pass always through the bars and out of the cage; he had to travel light in order to ride so fast and so far.
Yesterday I casually asked one of my students, a senior, what her plans were for college. One little gift she has is that her father is a professor at the university, so she can go to any school in the Western Consortium for basically free. And she answered that all she ever wanted to do with her life, since our Mexicali trip last spring, was to give God’s love to little street children. Did I think she needed to go to college to do that? And as we talked about gap years abroad, and professional skills to hone, and which country would she like me to hook her up with, all I could really think about is how she fairly trembled with joy. Her face glowed. Her voice shook. Her eyes sparkled.
Be my God of joy and gladness.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

May alll the saints adore Thee





You are God: we praise You;
You are the Lord: we acclaim You;
You are the Eternal Father:
All creation worships You.
To You all angels, all the powers of heaven,
Cherubim and Seraphim, sing in endless praise:
            Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
            Heaven and earth are full of Your glory.
The glorious company of apostles praises You.
The noble fellowship of prophets praises You.
The white-robed army of martyrs praises You.
Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims You;
            Father of Majesty unbounded,
            Your True and Only Son, worthy of all worship,
And the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide,


Saturday, October 18, 2014

Shredding my nice tidy two-column lists


Bless our God, who holds our souls in life, and will not allow our feet to slip. Psalm 66:8

I call with my whole heart; answer me, O LORD, that I may keep Your statues. Psalm 119:145

I am bound by the vow I made to you, O God; I will present to You thank-offerings. For You have rescued my soul from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living. Psalm 56:11-12

The LORD has pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who wait for His gracious favor. Psalm 147:12

And you, little child, have come from on high to visit us, to give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow dark as death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1:78-79

What I desire: I desire to do Your will O Lord, I desire to always do Your will, and I desire to do all of Your will. And when I do not desire this, give me the grace to do so.

Ignatius’ Principle 23: My only desire and my one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening life in me.

…the free choice to give up the self produces, as it were, the free self, the authentic person. But it is a choice that must constantly be remade in every subsequent choice…this perpetual re-choosing of Christ is the great paradox and challenge the Christian faith. –Inchausti, Subversive Orthodoxy

Choices. Decisions. Love. Obedience. Faithfulness. Consequences.

In their original context, the Ignatian Exercises were given to those who had to make an election, most often for those who were deciding whether they would pursue the life in the Jesuit society. The Spiritual Exercises were designed to bring the retreatant to a place of mature discernment so that the best decision was made.

One idea is that there are times of Boundaries or seasons of transition, when one phase of life is coming to an end and another is beginning. Often, what lies ahead is not clearly seen. The Boundary time of life is always a time of discernment and decision-making.

Ignatius wants all of our choices to be made in light of the strong desire to always move farther along the road toward my chief end of loving God and serving His purposes in the world, for the praise of His greater glory.

Our natural human inclination, when it comes to choices is–what is in it for me? What do I get out of this? We make our lists of pros and cons and tally up the columns to see where we can get the best deal. Ignatius wants to counter that with his First Principle and Foundation and help me come to the place of indifference where you choose whatever is most conducive to the purposes and plans of God, and in this way I move toward my chief end. If that chief end means I must decrease so another can increase, then that is the way it is and will be. Ignatius wants me to have the Lord’s Prayer as my heartbeat, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

There are times when we make certain core choices which turn us away from certain pathways and set us on other pathways. Some of these choices are “defining moment” choices. Still, once made, they must be remade, rechosen in subsequent choices. If we neglect to continue making daily “rechoosings” then our earlier defining choice diminishes. There are vital spiritual choices each person makes that must be remembered, celebrated and reaffirmed on a regular basis. In this way, we move into the maturity and fullness of the first choice.

Imagine having a conversation with Christ as He looks into your eyes and says, “What you prefer is not my will for you. Instead, my will for you is that you pursue the direction that you are least interested in.” As you are imagining this conversation, what do you feel as Christ says this to you? What do you say as you look back at Christ? -Rice

Here I am, I have come…I desire to do Your will, O my God; your law is written in my heart.

Prayer: Holy Father, creator and sustaining wisdom of all that is, both in heaven and on earth, take from me those thoughts, actions and objects that are hurtful. Give me instead those things that are profitable for me an all who seek rightly to praise you. I ask this grace in the company of all believers and through the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, who is, with You and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

Friday, October 17, 2014

With a great splash, dive headlong into the mountain lake.


To You I lift up my eyes until You show me mercy.
 I will put my trust in Your mercy; my heart is joyful because of Your saving help.

How precious is Your steadfast love, O God!
All people may take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever;
I will exult and rejoice in Your steadfast love.

You are my God, and I will thank You; You are my God, and I will exalt You.
Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, His mercy endures forever.

During my planning period yesterday afternoon I was on speed dial. In preparation for a jam-packed weekend full of good and hard things, I was slamming through the to do list with a determined intensity. Two students peered into the classroom window and then bounced through the door. “Mrs. Voelkel, we just love you. You are our favorite teacher ever.” I paused, stopped short, as I pulled myself back into focus. And then I smiled. “Hey, have you ever heard of a 1000 gifts list? Here, look at mine.” And I showed them, how quite a long while back, they had made it onto my list, “527. For Susi and Ravelle and their big bright smiles of encouragement.” And they teared up with happiness, gave me a big hug, and laughed out the door.

And at the end of 1000 Gifts, Ann Voskamp winds up for the grand finale.

With every grace, He sings, ”You are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.”

I was afraid?

Could I just have a few good verses, Lord–something to hang on to? Just a few to calm the jittery nerves, for that, oh, stomach lurching up into throat, that crazed, bloodshot panic that wants to scream, “What in the world was I thinking?”

I was afraid?

I would have let fears that He wasn’t close, wasn’t passionately caring, wasn’t tenderdly tending, keep me from seeing this sunrise bleeding love up over all the world? It’s a new voice, this endless stream of grace, one I never get over. This love song He is singing, it is the antitheisis of life’s theme song, that refrain o frejection I know so well. That mental soundtrack of condemnation and criticism that I’ve let run on continuous replay, lyrics I learned from the grade three boys huddled on the ice, exploding laughter when my skates slide east, west and I fell south, from the trendy city girl moved to the country who snickered at my thrift store shirts, from the critical eye of every evaluator, judge, assessment, grade. That heavy beat of failure, a pounding bass of disappointment, it has pulsed through my days and I’ve mouthed the words, singing it to myself, memorizing the ugly lines by heart.

Giving thanks awakens me to a God giving Himself, the naked, unashamed passion, God giving Himself to me–for me–a surrender of love.

Everywhere I go, I’m accompanied by this Voice whispering to me new words, new love–urging me, Respond, Respond.

Anne knelt in the ancient nave of Notre Dame in Paris and thought about the lives, whole generations, were laid down to build the grand edifice, to find the way in. And the pilgrimage of the ancients thought the steps to the God-consummation were three: purgation, illumination, union.

Purgation is when one prays for divine assistance to purge the soul of self-will. With each gift I had accepted and given thanks for, I let go of my own will and accepted His. But my purgation, this releasing of sin and self, wasn’t an act of will or effort, but the at of Christ and His grace all-sufficient. Overwhelming grace drew me to the Christ full of glory that I might empty of the self.

Illumination, the seeker sees. A realization that belief is, in essence, a way of the eyes. The one thousand presents wake me to the presence of God–but more so, living eucharisteo, living in thanks, had done the far harder work of keeping me awake to Him.

Union, the medieval Christians thought, was the final and culminating step into the hungry pursuit of the full life, the mystical oneness achieved by only the most devout. And while the first moment of repentance, becoming one with Christ in His death burial, and rising from the dead is the first step of the Christ journey, attending to grace upon grace ushers in an every deepening union, one we experience on the skin and in the vein, feel in the deep pit of the being, an ever-fuller realization of the Christ communion.

And when I pulled myself out of Hillenbrand pool this morning, this same bright red sunrise bleeding love over all the world greeted me. With a promise of red-sky-take-warning rain, sometime, in the hot dry land that makes Jincheng lean up against the car window with a weary sigh. It is much easier to remember the mercy drops round us falling when I am outside under His skies.

 
 Photo by Carlos Arzate this morning, no filter.

Which is why Heather and Grandma Coverdale and Everette went up to Sabino Canyon yesterday, even though somehow Heather didn’t get her heart’s desire of a farm with goats for her little girl, Everette can still plunge fearlessly into the mountain stream, wallowing in His abundant graces. Like Heather before her, tossing rocks at the frogs in the cattle pond behind the ranch house. And me, catching lizards on the rocks poking out of Mill Creek stream in the San Bernardino mountains. The joyous festive fullness of splashing in His provision.

And last night I was reading Nicole’s little book of great women mystics, and the author has to keep reminding the reader that ample documentation verifies the truth of her stories. Of Blessed Martha Baouardy,, for instance. She was beloved for her joy, simplicity, and affectionateness (Is that really a word?) As a Carmelite, she insisted on doing the most menial of chores, but she would be found in the laundry rapt in a trance and singing spiritual songs. What was most delight was the way she would levitate, flying in the air to the top of the trees, balancing on thin branches as if she were a bird. –De Sola Chervin

Ah, perhaps the Martha in me may experience this same joy, festivity…fullness.

He is calling me graft on, become one with the True Vine, the vine the biblical symbol of joy festivity…fullness. He’s calling to come and celebrate being made one, and in Him, by Him, to bear the fruit of the full life round .-Voskamp

 Just as I am, I come, Lord Jesus, I come.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever;
I will exult and rejoice in Your steadfast love.