Seasons of drought.

Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens,
    You who have done great things. Who is like You? Psalm 71:19

Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it. Isaiah 42:5

For in Him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17:28

Prayer is the light of the spirit, and the spirit, raised up to heaven by prayer, clings to God with the utmost tenderness. It is the longing for God, love too deep for words, a gift not given by humans, but by God’s grace. –John Chrysostom, 347-407

The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it. -Henri Nouwen

Creator God, You taught us to pray. Now help us pray for our daily bread while laboring with love for those who hunger. We confess that we often feel weary, incapable, and uncertain of how to live in this world. Help us to find rest in your presence and comfort in knowing that you are active in all living things. Show us how to hallow Your name while striving for justice in our relationships and in society. May our whole lives become a prayer, ever to Your glory. Amen.

More and more, my prayers have become silence, resting in His presence without words, opening up my soul to be filled with His Spirit.

I am also ever-more-aware of the unity of His Spirit, connecting so many beings, much like the deep creosote roots which stretch across the Sonoran desert, bringing refreshment to a dry, thirsty land. His word echoes again and again each new morning, across the years and across the seas, He is one, and He is in us and we in Him. 

The creosote breathes in the morning, opening up its stomata while the air is cool and relatively humid; this is when it undergoes photosynthesis, changing light energy into matter.

The creosote provides a place of shelter for a wide range of community of algae, fungi and bacteria. It is from a combination of this and dust that has settled on its branches between storms that allows creosote bush to pick up nine times as much phosphorus and sixteen times as much nitrogen than is in regular rainwater. Community makes it stronger.

May I, like my beloved creosote, be a sweet fragrance in this weary world today, hallowed be His name.

No longer a slave to fear.

He heals the brokenhearted
    and binds up their wounds. –Psalm 147:3

For you have been a stronghold to the poor,
    a stronghold to the needy in his distress,
    a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat. Isaiah 25:4

This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, in its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the common good. For nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for His neighbors. –John Chrysostom

And really the most caringest and kindliest person I know is my sister Jenny.

I know I have told this story before, a piercing childhood memory that still makes my eyes sting because it is such a clear picture of unexpected and undeserved kindness.

Fallsvale Community School was a marvel in sitting-on-the-teacher’s-lap time to read, and a marvel of hands-on, project-based learning as we smashed open acorns and leached them for tannins and ground them on rocks and then patted them into little cakes to roast over open coals next to our fort in the woods the exact dimensions of the Mayflower. And in our tiny community, we children knew the insides of the neighbors’ refrigerators as well as our own.

Yet part of me never really recovered from my bestest friend Stephen Cowen getting struck and killed by lightening when I was in first grade. And now there were only three children in my grade, and sometimes those other boys could be pretty mean to dorky Chrissy-Pissy-in-her-Pants. And on the long walk up the curvy mountain road to home, they would throw rocks at my feet to make me dance. And one lunchtime they pushed me off of the seemingly great big boulder by the side of the school and I scraped my hands sliding down the rough granite, but mostly my little heart was scraped up and I didn’t know what to do so I did something naughty: I kicked a boy’s lunch box across the playground. And he tattled on me, and I couldn’t really explain to the teacher why exactly I had done that naughty thing, so I had to stay after school for half an hour to think about it.

And at the end of my carefully ticked-out thirty minutes I was very, very sad, not at all about my clear transgressions but rather about the vast and never-ending injustices of life. And my memory is that I felt lonelier and more misunderstood than anyone ever in the history of mankind. And I tied my button-up sweater around my waist, grabbed my own lunchbox and pushed open those great big wooden doors which led out to the concrete stairs leading up to the two-room stone schoolhouse.

And seated there on those steps, in the fading sunlight, with her arms wrapped around her knees, was my little sister Jenny waiting for me. Waiting to walk with me that long lonely mile to home.

And wow, her tenderheartedness has only deepened over the years, as I follow her around her beautiful city of Denver, beautiful, yet quite chilly city of Denver. Sort of like this beautiful yet chilly world in which we live.

I watch her purposely engage with the thin man with the wrinkled pants by the side of the dog path while I realize that he will probably be spending tomorrow, Christmas, alone. And she moves beyond chit-chat with the girl ringing up produce at Sprouts long enough to bring a smile of gratitude to her weary eyes. And man oh man, how the two neighbor ladies’ eyes lit up too when they found out who I was, and again and again they marveled, yes, even prattled, over the intentionality of Jenny and Tim among these yellow mid-century brick houses.

And truly this is how Jesus walked these same long, dusty roads of life. That led to the lifting up of the cross and smashing of sin’s power. And even while He hung, spat upon and bleeding, His eyes were on the other, not only His mother of course, not only upon those quite guilty thieves hanging beside Him, but also upon the spitters themselves, who knew not what they did.

Who know not what they do.

LORD please make me ever aware of Your Spirit, moment by moment wisdom, quicken my spirit to immediate, full-of-faith obedience. 

My Saturday prayer yet again this grey-skied morning, and forevermore.

To be a true imitator of Christ.

Christine, little Christ.

Amen.

A longing too deep for words.

You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. You enfold and comfort me again. Psalm 71:20-21

Prayer is the light of the spirit, and the spirit, raised up to heaven by prayer, clings to God with utmost tenderness. Like a child crying tearfully for its mother, it craves the milk that God provides. I speak of prayer, not words. It is the longing for God, love too deep for words, a gift not given by humans, but by God’s grace. –John Chrysostom (c. 347-407)

Simone loves her daddy. It was a long, long walk up the beautiful mountain yesterday. And Simone was with her daddy, pretty much insisting on walking the entire way herself, holding her daddy’s hand, proud and happy. When things get rough in life, daddy is where she goes.

Simone loves her sister. She stares at Everette with her big brown eyes full of absolute adoration. And whatever Everette does: take a flying leap into the Fat Boy, canter like a beautiful horse, or pluck handfuls of grapes, Simone toddles right behind, eyes fixed on her muggawugga big sis.

Simone loves animals, all animals. Sort of. She reaches out both hands and wiggles her fingers to horses and dogs and kittens and rabbits and donkeys and anything with four legs. But should the animal respond to the beckon and move forward with curiosity, Simone flees, clutching herself behind the nearest knees in terror. 

And actually Simone loves Mimi. Sometimes all of the essentials have been met, but she just can’t drift off because life is a little too fun. So Mimi will scoop her up and walk her around and around until she snuggles into sleep. Yesterday she came all the way down the mountain zipped inside Mimi’s black Mexico Outreach jacket, clutching the two strings around Mimi’s neck.

But then there is Momma.

And sometimes no one, nothing else will do.

Momma who wraps the long grey fabric around and around, binding Simone right up against her beating heart bosom. And Heather says that the wrap helps regain some of the intimacy of carrying a child within her womb, when every tumble and turn was felt as one.

Too deep for words, this longing, this oneness.

The most wonderful thing is unity with Jesus and with the Father. In Him we shall partake in God if we firmly resist and flee all the arrogant attacks of the prince of this world. Unity of prayer, unity of supplication, unity of mind, unity of expectancy in love and in blameless joy. –Ignatius of  Loyola

Sometimes I let down my guard, my shield of faith, and the flaming darts pierce my spirit and thoughts. And I believe the lie that I am alone. And I ache in a way too deep for words. And nothing the world has to offer in its beauty and bounty and warm laughter can fill the gaping emptiness.

O Lord, let my soul rise up to meet You,

As the day rises to meet the sun.

Your grace enfolds me and comforts me.

Again.

If the salt has lost its savor it is good for nothing.

 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my meditation be pleasing to him,
    for I rejoice in the Lord.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord!  Psalm 104: 33-35

Our spirit should be quick to reach out toward God, not only when it is engaged in meditation; at other times also, when it is carrying out its duties, caring for the needy, performing works of charity, or giving generously in the service of others. Our spirit should long for God and call Him to mind, so that these works may be seasoned with the salt of God’s love, and so make a palatable offering to the Lord of the universe. -John Chrysostom

Lord, we know that You will come again in glory to raise the living and the dead. Resurrect us now from the death of comfort, complacency, sloth, and shallowness that we might witness to Your love in life and death. Amen

I stood in the dusty alley and watched the little Rabbit roll out of sight. The little Rabbit holding 39 Vikingish post-apocalyptic outfits: armor, swords, boots, masks, helmets, capes, elastic-waisted britches, sequined and beaded gowns, all sorts of craziness crafted from thrift store bargains and the imagination of Miss Nicole.

I turned, and then scraped up and shoveled up and folded fairly tidily the heaps of leftovers and first unloaded the fifth and last bin of Nicole’s worldly possessions and the three Calvary Missionary Press tables at 220 South Country Club, then dropped off big boxes and a big black garbage bag at Arizona Baptist Family Services on my way to the family homestead on the eastside, where the Coverdales and countless guests have been based for nearly forty-five years. I wandered through the bare-walled and neatly vacuumed shell. Voices–lots of laughter, quiet rustling pages, and of course crackling fireplace sparks echoed back and forth. Smiling refugee men loaded up the floral couches, the cardboard boxes of mismatched glasses and cups and lots of framed pictures of Jesus into a great big truck and we filled it all the way up and they promised to come back for the pieces left sitting in the curving driveway, including mom’s desk. I remember how all we kids squeezed up close to the big picture window and watched with excitement when an equally big truck rolled into view, parked in the driveway and unloaded the gleaming gold gilt edged, leather inset desk into our waiting living room so many years ago.

I hugged my mama goodbye. As I was driving away, I passed a childhood neighbor friend walking rather wearily down the street. Obviously wearily. Tucson is breaking all-time temperatures this week, and I am drinking down seven and eight liters of chilled water and still thirsty. I pulled over, “Tony Redhouse?” His whole face lit up. “Those were the days, weren’t they? The band, the carpooling, neighbor stuff! And now no band, no job, nothing. What’s new with you?

What is new with me, the woman who is scrapping every last bit of the past into neatly labeled storage bins?

The beat goes on. Pack up a truckload of stuff and haul it over to the storage shed… stacking it all the way up to top of the tin roof after first finding a replacement seat for the bicycle that didn’t do so well in the rain. Wipe off the backyard furniture, scraping off some of the spilled paint with my fingernail, and take them and the fancy spices and sauces and over to a friend’s. No one really wants the adorable tiny cactus gardens though. Sift through the papers and pictures and tax returns and slide them into my school bag with a box of colored pencils and the Romeo and Juliet video. Make an appointment to get the Tacoma’s 3,000 mile tune-up. Wen Xie is moving in a week and maybe she will take the couch and two chairs.

I was talking to a swim buddy as we kicked back and forth in the pool today. She is packing up too, after her husband passed away after twenty years of debilitating illness. Twenty years of he couldn’t even leave the house debilitating. And all we have ever done is chit-chat about back spasms, her killer breaststroke and that she is a real estate agent. Who knew?

Every day I pass the same long white-bearded guy with a small sign on the corner of Sixth and Speedway. Every day.

Every evening I pass the same three lumps of blankets spread out on the sidewalk downtown right under the gaze of Pancho Villa. Lumps of blankets with real live people under them. Twice a week a guy passes out breakfast and reads the Bible in a loud voice.

Dear LORD, as I rock through these endless to-do lists, check check, may my spirit look to You, that these works may be seasoned with the salt of God’s love, and so make a palatable offering to the Lord of the universe.

Because in the long run, and actually, as I am very very very very aware, in the short run too, none of this really matters except Your weary children.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul.

And all that is within me.

Bless His holy name.