And then there was light.

March 28, 2017

Then, speaking to all, He said, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross everyday and follow me.’ Luke 9:23

O LORD, I cry to You for help; in the morning my prayer comes before You. Psalm 88:14

Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. John 6:68

Welp. Yesterday was a stinking awful day.

But really, His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. Really.

And every day I can sort of glower at that ol’ cross, waiting to be taken up. The same way that us swimmers hesitate every morning before we plunge into Hillenbrand pool.

But what are the options?

To whom shall I go?

This morning I stepped outside and breathed in deeply. It rained last night, just as the rumbling mountains had promised. I stood under the damp jasmine blossoms dripping sweet fragrance and stared at the sky and her twinkling hosts. And breathed in deeply. 

Your mercies are new, new every morning. Your mercies are new, new every morning.

You spoke into darkness, and then there was light.

Your mercies are new, new every morning. Your mercies are new, new every morning.

It doesn’t mean that today will be simple.

I still have to face the consequences of leaving a girl in the open-doored classroom yesterday to finish up her raw egg parachute while I watched Scene I from Romeo and Juliet, and she decided to use the scissors on her wrist rather than for cutting plastic bags.

Somehow I am going to have to find time to write sub lessons so I can judge the Southern Arizona Science and Engineering Fair.

And all of those argumentative essays and character analyses and lab journals to grade and post. On to genetics and the Bill of Rights.

And upheaval smolders all around. Mt. Etna has been making the news of late, and I so remember her sooty darkness that sifted down from the sky that prevented me from even seeing the hand in front of my face.

In my darkest hour

In humiliation

I will wait for You

I am not forsaken

Oh, I lose my life,

Oh, my breath be taken

I will wait for You

I am not forsaken

One thing I desire

To see You in Your beauty

You are my beauty

Yeah, You are my only. –Audrey Assad

To whom else shall I go?

March 29, 2017

The Refrain

I was pressed so hard that I almost fell, but the LORD came to my help.

Return, O my soul, to your rest;
    for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

Thank you Lord for the lovingkindness poured down overflowing all day around my head.

You are good. You are so good. You are so good to me.

Rumination—or mulling over worries—is the biggest predictor of depression and anxiety, according to a large-scale British study published in 2013.

Then, speaking to all, He said, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross everyday and follow Me.’ Luke 9:23

Today if you shall hear His voice, harden not your heart.

Gary quoted from Psychology Today during his Easter sermon. Because all of the children remain in the service on Easter Sunday, the pastor has made it a tradition to keep all of the kids, well, all of us, on task with a word search of his sermon words. Each of us hung onto every word, knowing that a bag of chocolate eggs was waiting for whoever circled the correct words.

And it was just a tiny jump in organizational logic from how the encounter with the risen Lord changed the followers’ despair to awe, overjoyful awe to the magazine he thumbed through as he prepared his sermon at Starbucks.

“Awe is the opposite of rumination,” says Leahy. “It clears away inner turmoil with a wave of outer immensity.” Whether it’s a sunset with colors more vivid than you’ve ever seen or a rapidly expanding sense of love felt when staring into another’s eyes, “being in awe is losing yourself in something or someone else. The anxious person’s sense that ‘it’s all about me; I must control my situation’ disappears.” 

The pièce de résistance was the final experiment, where subjects were taken to the tallest hardwood grove in North America. They were asked to look up at the eucalyptus trees, some exceeding 200 feet, for one minute. The control group set their sights on a plain, tall building for the same amount of time. Sure enough, the tree-gazers felt more awe and were happier precisely because of what they felt. They also acted more generously in a lab test and reported feeling less entitled than the building-gawkers. 

As Leahy sees it, though, cognitive behavioral therapy is about, yes, examining your thoughts, but also learning to take them less seriously, to look at how they might be inaccurate or silly or useless, to stop taking what happens around you so personally, to realize it’s not all about you. 

And we wound up by the shore of the lake, with Jesus roasting fish on the beach and his conversation about agape and phileo love with Peter, the friend who had denied Him. And years later Peter wrote about this awe-inspired love, a love not about me, but about the other, loving the most unlikely him or her because of resurrection awe, loving one another earnestly from a pure heart, with no hypocrisy.

And a couple of times last night, ruminations woke me up. And I had to squelch those heading-back- into-the-routines–of-life thoughts, my own worrisome, dark thoughts. Those thoughts that often have a misleading sense of “realness” or “correctness” according to Leahy. 

And last night Daniel sitting in front of all of his textbooks at the dining room table made us smile a little, as he talked about picking up our burdens once again. Although I am sure that he wasn’t quoting from Little Women: "Oh, dear, how hard it does seem to take up our packs and go on," sighed Meg the morning after the party, for now the holidays were over, the week of merrymaking did not fit her for going on easily with the task she never liked."

And every day I am to renounce Self and pick up my cross and follow Him. But let me remember the truth: it was for the joy set before Him that He picked up that cross. The crux is joy.

The billowing sunrises greeted me once again as I pulled myself out of the pool and headed into the everyday. Awe. It’s not about me.

May my heart not be hardened.

Lessons from a Refugee Camp

Then, speaking to all, he said, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross everyday and follow me.  Luke 9:23

The span of our life is seventy years, perhaps in strength even eighty; yet the sum of them is but labor and sorrow, for they pass away quickly and we are gone. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Psalm 90:10,12

Given the right perspective, once again "wisdom", all that we renounce, our self, is really not that big stinking much, just a few dried weeds blowing in the wind.  It should really make things a lot easier.  The daily walk bit.  Really do I want to be part of a big plan or caught up in something that gets blown away or burned up or whatever. 

I really am blessed, because when I was young and pattern-forming, I got to live in a refugee camp for two years.  It was so much a place for developing a proper perspective.  When you ain’t got nothing, stuff really doesn’t matter.  The platitude that people matter is the in and out reality.  Food is something to fill the belly.  Clothes, such that they are, cover our nakedness. Furniture is to set our bowl on. 

And suddenly little things like parts of speech and punctuation matters.  Because a comma doesn’t come after “himself,” the implication is that the renouncing oneself is not a one time deal, but tied up very much with the adverb “everyday.”  Every day I need to renounce myself and every day I need to take up my cross. No comma.  It is part of the same decision, the same choice, the same action.  Which is good.  Because then I don’t have to worry about the “What ifs.” 

That was another refugee camp lesson.  Things were really, really hard.  But over and over, step by step, I just kept saying to myself, “Can I survive for five more minutes?  Sure, you can do anything for five more minutes.”  So I lived five minutes at a time, lugging that cross, and it was ok.  And God proved Himself faithful and good, five minutes at a time. 

It’s not my life.  So I don’t have to worry about what lies around the corner.  It is His life, I have renounced it, so it is His business to take care of it.  I just have to worry about the next five minutes, which is plenty enough to keep me busy. 

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

Man’s wants remain unsatisfied till death.

Then, when his soul is naked, is he one

With the man in the wind, and the west moon,

With the harmonious thunder of the sun.

                                                               -Dylan Thomas