The sense of the whole.

Satisfy us by Your loving-kindness in the morning; so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. Psalm 90:14

Friday night I picked up Ali at the airport. And as the car hit the groove of the familiar stops and turns, a wealth of memories tumbled open. So many trips back and forth to Tucson International Airport. So many smiles and hugs and stories.

And so many years ago we gathered at the bottom of the escalator holding a “Welcome to America” sign. And Ali and I sat up until two in the morning, remembering some, but certainly not all of the twisting turning moments that opened up onto unexpected vistas.

Tuesday he takes his citizenship test, and maybe the judge will swear him in right then and there.

But that was just the trickle before the thundering cataract. Last night I went to the wedding of one of my kiddos. And it was a small gathering of mostly family. And the gang of boys now men who first formed in middle school and have hung in there for some ten plus years. And me.

One by one each one of them made their way to where I was sitting and we remembered. The pebbles tossed into their lives from which ripples still spread. Who could ever guess that making a recalcitrant reader sit in the principal’s office that afternoon and read his assignment during recess would be credited with forming a lifelong love affair with books? Or me forcing writes and rewrites proved I believed in a very unhappy seventh grader? Or the Mexicali adventures. Crazy stories certainly not stacked on any of my brain’s memory shelves.

And the whole evening was a celebration of this very loving kindness of our Father. His overflowing goodness coursing even through the driest, most prickly desert passages of life.

And oh, my heart is glad. He is faithful and good.

That was yesterday’s sermon as well. That no matter our bleak immediate circumstances, our joy is founded on His faithfulness and His goodness.

And He never fails.

May I be satisfied, up and overflowing in the morning, so I shall be glad and rejoice the whole day through.  

Although not one of us has any idea of what lies beyond the curve.

In a few minutes I will be interviewing for a summer position in Erbil, Iraq, to teach Instruction to English teachers. Who knows?

Last night I swung by Home Depot during what turned out to be closing hours, but the parking lot guard ran in and grabbed a handful of paint stirrer sticks for my kiddos’ swords in the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet. Who knows?

My momma’s little cough has somehow turned into six days of pneumonia at Tucson Medical Center and maybe they will at last release her to go home today. Who knows?

He does.

For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

Is death the passage from the successive to the simultaneous–that is, from time to eternity? Shall we then understand, in its unity, the poem or mysterious episode of our existence, which till then we have spelled out phrase by phrase? Is death like the arrival of a traveller at the top of a great mountain, whence he sees spread out before him the whole configuration of the country, of which till then he had had but passing glimpses? To be able to overlook one’s own history, to divine it meaning in the general concert and in the divine plan, would be the beginning of eternal felicity. Till then we had sacrificed ourselves to the universal order, but then we should understand and appreciate the beauty of that order. We had toiled and labored under the conductor of the orchestra; and we should find ourselves become surprised and delighter hearers. We had seen nothing but our own little path in the mist; and suddenly a marvelous panorama and boundless distances would open before our dazzled eyes. Why not? –Henri-Frédéric Amiel

And Yellow decided to risk for a butterfly.

Satisfy us by Your lovingkindness in the morning; so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. Psalm 90:14

And this morning is still. Two candles are lit. The gas heater flickers silently. Everette is still. Still nestled in the big Nicole Indonesian comforter after her Thursday night sleepover.

And my heart is still. At rest. For the moment full up in His lovingkindness.

For the moment my eyes are fixed on Him and His faithful goodness.

But we are frail. This morning’s refrain echoes it over and over again, Remember, LORD, how frail You have made all flesh.

One of last night’s bedtime stories choices, after E. picked Tolstoy’s Papa Panav and The Wheels on the Bus yet one more time, was this year’s Cameron’s Christmas gift, Hope for the Flowers.

And it is the perfect bedtime story, as it traces the brokenness of all of our own attempts to satisfy the nameless longing in our hearts. And it is only through the total release of dying to all that I am, letting go of everything, wrapped up in the chrysalis of His redemption and His alone, that I will emerge beautiful in the truth of belovedness.

Truth to set the stage for dreams.

And Wednesday night’s AME bible study, in the small trailer down the street, finished up Philippians, savoring the very words the eight-year-old me claimed as her life verses, the very week that man first walked on the moon, a long time ago. Don't worry about anything; instead pray about everything, and don’t forget to thank Him for His answers. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. The Big Fat Green Puffy Living Bible.

Rejoice. I say it again, rejoice.

Selah.

And Paul uses the word joy about a jillion times.

Satisfy us by your lovingkindness in the morning; so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. Psalm 90:14

Lovingkindness can look like sweet rolls beat together at four in the morning. I woke up with a start, remembering that I had made a promise to one of my kiddos. And now they are baking, pretty much looking just perfect and gooey beyond belief. And I pounded out the speed swim set this morning with the kid from Mexico City, and we rocked the interval. Man, even dragging the recycle and garbage bins out in time this morning before the big truck rumbles down the street is a pretty rejoicing moment.

But joy is bigger than these bits of manna, even if they are from the hand of God.

So Monday’s afterschool Writer’s Circle got way angsty.  And our guest speaker who has published over forty young teen novels really had no clue of what fourteen-year-olds are all about. She was almost in tears after the last aspiring author gathered up her notebook and walked out the door. “My childhood wasn’t anything like this. I mean, I was kind of shy and quiet. But these kids… wonder if I say something wrong and they go out and commit suicide? I don’t know if I can do this.”

And yesterday two of the authors asked me about why the conversation got so bad, so dark, so quickly. And we talked about light shining in the darkness and noticing beauty and standing courageous against the shadows. As they wrapped their gift around my wrist… twisted threads whose renaissance colors meant wisdom, kindness and love.

And the girl who always squeezes my elbow just like Everette when she talks to me, asked me yesterday what was the all-out craziest thing I had done for my kiddos as a teacher. And I remembered the time that I hefted two students over the back wall of the school so my dad, who “just happened” to be driving by could pop them into his car and drive them home even though my mom was having a big dinner party and because I didn’t want to tell any fibs to inquisitive authorities, I slid into the gym where the girls basketball team was practicing, and sat on the floor beside the folded-up bleachers. And when one of the basketball players asked me what I was doing there, sitting on the floor, I asked her if she would let me duck into the back seat of her car and drive me home so the policeman outside wouldn’t see me. And her eyes got real big, but she said yes, and that was pretty all-out crazy. But the basketball player’s mother called me that evening and thanked me for showing her daughter what it meant to stand up against injustice.

And yesterday in social studies we learned that standing up sometimes means sitting down. The kids are doing powerpoints about lights shining in the darkness against injustice, and the sitting down of Rosa Parks set off a revolution in a country jam-packed full of injustice. As part of our Civil Rights unit we are reading To Kill a Mockingbird and thinking about Atticus Finch and what it means to make hard stands for justice, even when you know you are going to lose. Tom Robinson was never going to be declared innocent by an all-white jury when it was his black word against a white man’s word. And why was the jury all white? Because only registered voters were on juries, and people had to pass a literacy test before they registered, unless, of course, their Pre-Civil-War grandpa before them was a registered voter. And I am pretty much betting that not so many voters, or let’s say it, president-elects, could pass this test even today.

And they are taking notes on character traits, and moments of consequence, and impact. And their reflection is going to be about what they personally are going to do about the brokenness we see all around us. Just before we head off to the science lab and do our Happy Happy Polar (and nonpolar) Lab with shaving cream and bright food coloring that has sparkles in it.

And last night the folks at AME were reading Philippians together, which is all about having joy in the rough spots. How to have joy in spite of difficulties, how to have joy in spite of people, and how to have joy without things. And what it looks like to have the mind of Christ, in humility, consider others more significant that yourself.

One of the ladies said that when she took her black first grade grandson to school that day, another first grader came up to him, white, and said, "My dad said that now Trump is president, you people aren't going get all of your special privileges anymore." First grade. 

Count It All Joy is my latest password for all of those random accounts that have to be updated so many times it makes my head tired. Because real joy means that my mind, may it be His mind, is fixed on what is true, what is just, what is honorable.  

And not on the darkness.

O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst bid Thy disciples to shine as lights in a dark world, in shame and contrition of heart do I acknowledge before Thee the many faults and weaknesses of which we are guilty who in this generation represent Thy Church before the world; and especially do I acknowledge my own part in the same. Forgive me, I beseech Thee, the feebleness of my witness, the smallness of my charity, and the slackness of my zeal. Make me to be a more worthy follower of Him who cared for the poor and the oppressed, and who could never see disease without seeking to heal it or any kind of human need without turning aside to help.

Let Thy power, O Christ, be in us all, to share the world’s suffering and redress its wrongs. Amen –John Baillie

Warm and clean is pretty good this early in the morning.

Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. Psalm 90:14

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Colossians 3:1–2

Sitting here in McDonald’s. McDonald’s desperately trying to be ironic and cool. But really, it is McDonald’s. But I am content, watching each of the folks slipping in to get something warm for the belly.  Folks from the backroads of life, making it through another day. Probably this isn’t anyone’s first choice, but it is enough. The happiest folks here are this sweet couple who might have slept in the alley behind the dumpster last night. Just saying. A few dried weeds still cling to her blue sweatshirt as she gently leads her crippled friend to the booth behind me.

Enough. Give us this day our daily bread. Last night I curled off to sleep with yet another chapter of Through Middle Eastern Eyes, and was reminded once again of what is true. A small coffee and a sausage biscuit, $2.14. Enough.

May I be satisfied with your loving-kindness and rejoice all the days of my life.