Saturday, November 25, 2017

When sorrows like sea billows roll.


Wake us to Your presence LORD, that we might not waste our times of trials.

It is in the quiet crucible of your personal private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God’s greatest gifts are given.

You have dealt well with Your servant,
O Lord, according to Your promise. Psalm 119:65

But Martha was distracted with much serving. But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary; Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10

To sit at His feet.


What would You teach us today in our trials, Lord? Make us receptive. Help us see Your victory and compassion rather than look for easy answers to our troubles. So make us expectant, Lord, and patient. Amen.

Presence.

As I typed out the next round of 1000 Gifts this morning, I thanked God for each of the trials and sorrows. In each long pause He whispered back to me His victory and His compassion.

Thank You for not giving us easy answers.

But in the crashing waves, may I lift up my eyes unto You, may my soul rise up to meet You, and place my hand into Your nail-pierced hand.

And to the Father, who spared not even His Son that I might truly know Him and be in Him. And He in me.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. James 1:23-25

Ah, and for me, the doing is sitting at His feet. All day long. Not forgetting. Not popping up and wiping the counter and stacking away the clean dishes. Anxious and troubled about many things in the past, many things in future.

Presence.

And the wind ceased. 



Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Yes, My Lord.


Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Ephesians 6:13

I stared at the blank space opening up into the TUSD website: Create a new password.

And I paused.

Joann led this week’s Sunday School through a consideration of how one actually lives in the Word. And really, it’s a little odd the things that saints through the ages have found helpful. One example that she shared is how at first she thought it was a little odd that I would choose a Chorus of the Day to echo throughout my brain during the cracks of silence up and down Speedway and waiting at traffic lights.  I then shared the odd discipline of a coworker at the ranch in Mexico: every morning he would rise up and motion his way through putting on the full armor of God, so that he would be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. And we all read through Ephesians 6 to remind ourselves of the tools at our disposal. The same tools that saints through the ages have wielded. My dad had his kids memorize 26 Bible verses written on 3x5 cards, each one starting with a different letter of the alphabet. And he would keep the stack on the kitchen table, and time and time again we would run through them. And when I had “Zeal for Your house has consumed me, And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me,” hidden in my heart that I might not sin against Thee, we started all over with a brand new set: And be sure your sins will find you out; Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another; Casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you. And a rather tattered Tau cross hangs from basically a shoelace around my neck in this world of professional dress. And the sign of the cross comes quickly to my fingertips now, asking for the wisdom of the Father, the heart of the Son, and the strength and power of the Holy Spirit. Again and again. Because so easily I gambol off into my own lost lamb ways moment after moment, distracted by the least green snacky snack of grass or a colorful flitting butterfly or most frequently of all, a buzzing gnat swarm of discouraging thoughts.

The Monday night ladies are reading The Attentive Life, and the author shared his experiences living in a monastery with the brothers who prayed the hours, starting at three in the morning. And even though we were a room of ever-so-weary working women, something tugged at our soul-strings, this church bell call of further in and farther up. And we could all set our assorted technology to ring out the hours, as a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And my homework is to investigate nearby silent retreats for us to step into, oddly enough in this rush rush world, for we don’t want to run this race in vain.

Thus I created a new password: CauseMe2, which in the world of The District means I will have to type it dozens, and maybe more dozens of times, a day.

CauseMe2 hear thy lovingkindness in the morning, for in Thee do I trust.
CauseMe2 know the way where in I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto Thee.

My background noise from yesterday.


Odd, but, so be it.

Friday, November 3, 2017

Really, everything has changed.

Even as the sun
Arises, stars piece the dark
And sing of His love.

This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5

Where charity and love are, God is there.
Love of Christ has gathered us into one.
Let us rejoice in Him and be glad.
Let us fear, and let us love the living God.
And from a sincere heart let us love as one.

Our visible, created universe is not simply an object created by a wholly other God in order to manifest God’s love, but the created universe is that love itself—the very heart of God, fully expressive in the dimension of time and form. -Cynthia Bourgeault

The name in German for mercy was Barmherzigkeit—“warmheartedness.” Mercy is the holy element, the root energy out of which all else in the visible universe is made. The Mercy is “holy substantiality”—the innermost essence of being itself. It is that “river of God,” running like the sap through the tree of life. - Jacob Boehme (1575-1624)

So I did the brisk morning walk thing this morning down and back to Tucson’s river… as the Catalinas were just catching the rays of the new day’s sun. The full moon had already crossed the night sky and sunk behind the western hills, but the starlight gleamed, casting the now ancient waves of love.

He is light, and in Him there is no darkness.

My brother Tom just had a cataract cut off of his left eye. And only as he can, he articulates the power and beauty of sight:
Tracy and I walked down the dirt road, stars breaking out overhead; oncoming headlights approached.
 I closed my right eye and looked: Crisp, clear lights pierced silhouetted trees and highlighter grass stems along the roadside. 
I closed my left eye and looked with only the right: A milky-white refulgence diffused my field of vision. I hesitated in my step, afraid to step into the car’s path.
                 
                  this morning, looking into the mirror…
Wrinkles around my eyes; some sag along my mouth; swaths of missed, unshaven chin; sparsely-covered scalp, dotted with sunspots and freckles. Some rogue nose hairs clambered out from my left nostril.

I guess there’s a lot to consider from a single-eye cataract surgery. It’s the same swap as flat-earth to round-earth, geo-centric to helio-centric, Newtonian physics to Einsteinian relativity.

Really, nothing has changed.
Really, everything has changed.

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing Him directly just as He knows us! -1 Corinthians 13:12

Who knew that the number one surgery in the United States was cutting out cataracts? Cataracts develop slowly, but eventually they interfere with our vision– not seeing people’s expressions clearly, making it difficult to read, to notice nature, making it even dangerous to make judgment calls.

Every year about three million people have their clouded lens that lie behind the iris and pupil removed and replaced.

Such is the state of man, clouded vision.

Mom said that after her surgery, “leaves on trees appeared as individual leaves not just a green clump.”

Jenny said that she was “totally mesmerized by the shadows underneath pieces of gravel for a long time.”

But, she added, “But it’s also true, it changes only my perceiving of things.”

Dear LORD God, wield Your truth. Slice away all that keeps me from truly seeing. Replace my cloudy lens with Your light.

May I truly see Your creation, and thus Your love.


For You are love.