Pause and think of that.

May God be gracious to us and bless us
    and make His face to shine upon us, Selah

that Your way may be known on earth,
    Your saving power among all nations.
Let the peoples praise You, O God;
    let all the peoples praise You!

Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
    for You judge the peoples with equity
    and guide the nations upon earth. Selah

So last night we talked about Practicing the Presence of God and what it would be like to live in that sweet spot: I abandon myself in His hands, that He may do what He pleases with me. This King, full of mercy and goodness, very far from chastising me, embraces me with love, makes me eat at His table, serves me with His own hands, gives me the key of His treasures; He converses and delights Himself with me incessantly, in a thousand and a thousand ways, and treats me in all respects as His favorite.

And we talked about the renunciation of Brother Lawrence, for the love of Him, everything that was not He; I began to live as if there was none but He and I in the world.

 But in this psalm it seems that this delight of Brother Lawrence, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with GOD, is not so much for our joy, but rather that His way might be known in all the earth, and His name be praised among all the peoples.

 So we wondered if is it wrong to keep our soul focused wholly on Him? Does this lead to selfish isolation? Is this a retreat from our calling to be His reconciliation in an aching world?

 But the truth be told, as Kathy articulated with such clarity, is that what pulls us (me) out of His presence is my inclination to think of myself as god, the one who controls and (micro)manages all around me. Poorly.

 And one of my Two Truths and a Lie is that we have favorites. I know that a huge anxiety filled me as Heather’s birth neared. How could I possibly love another as much as Little Nicole? I fretted. But the moment the midwife slid that waxy wetness onto my bosom I knew, each child is my favorite. And my heart leapt with delight when that little pink light blinked on in Navojoa, Mexico and Pastor Enrique sang a song of welcome to Andreita.  

And if I, in all of my bad thinking and brokenness, can have three favorites, He is all of His splendid grandeur can hold each of the peoples of the world on His bosom, on His mother’s breast.

It is thus I consider myself from time to time in His holy presence; to whom I find myself often attached with greater sweetness and delight than that of an infant at the mother's breast: so that if I dare use the expression, I should choose to call this state the bosom of GOD, for the inexpressible sweetness which I taste and experience there.

And perhaps that is why David calmed and quieted his soul like a weaned child. This is enough. And let Jesus take care of the rest. Remember He is the vine and I am the branches. It is the act of abiding that produces much fruit.

Apart from Me, you can do nothing.

Rest.

They are precious in His sight.

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:15

Last night was a celebration of motherhood, tossing nets out to pull in all sorts to gather under the twinkly lights with shared stories, songs by Frank Ross, rhubarb pie and ice cream and lots of bottles of red wine and blue-bottled water. And we tried to pull off Two Truths and a Lie about motherhood, and it didn’t turn out exactly right, but it was still good. And Brandon and I entertained ourselves by talking bike talk and looking over saddlebags and I found the international electrical plug for him. But most of all, we all got to watch a napless and very weary Everette nestle into Heather and be comforted while the songs of the morning still echoed in our collective hearts.

Because the Vineyard service rested on Psalm 131

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
    my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
    too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
    like a weaned child with its mother;
    like a weaned child is my soul within me.

And Chris pointed out that bookended with this All-Powerful God we have an Incarnate God Who Draws Near.

Trust means that you give it up. Hand them over. Let them go. Let them go today. Let them go tomorrow. Let them go on Wednesday.

And tonight the Monday Night Ladies are reading more of Brother Lawrence, grappling with what does it mean to “live in the presence of God.” And we are going to talk about when Brother Lawrence quotes a friend who says that “God’s got an endless bank account of grace, and we settle for pocket-change...” What do you think his friend meant by that statement? And the next question on our discussion list is what would it mean to “open our eyes to God’s grace”?

And for some reason, but of course, God is weaving together this day for me, His weaned child, Andres from El Camino on the other side of the world sent me a Facebook link this morning, a piercing version of “Open the Eyes of my Heart, Lord,” sung by a blind autistic boy. And I wept. And may that be the thread that holds this day in His hand.

To see You high and lifted up

Shining in the light of Your glory

Pour out Your power and love

As we sing holy, holy, holy.

And last night I retold the story of that day. And how my pain was so overwhelming I couldn’t even remember the words, “Holy, holy, holy.” But God heard me anyways. And I knelt down on the cobblestones again and again and looked others in the eyes and said, “God wants to show you His power and love by healing you in the name of Jesus Christ.”

And maybe, just maybe, that is His message to me this morning, the beginning of a new week. Nine more days in my vocational version of Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World.

I want to show you My power and love by healing you in the name of Jesus Christ.

Holy, holy, holy.

And yesterday I read to Cameron out of my new favorite book, Mary by Sholem Asch, the Polish Jew. These are the peoples of the world,” the strange woman said, “and this is the cry of their yearning for the salvation you bear in their behalf. For by the fruit of your womb shall they be united in one kindred before God.

As we, all of us, sing, Holy, holy, holy.

There are no ordinary people.

But I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help. I will sing to the LORD, for he has dealt with me richly; I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High. Psalm 13:5-6

So last night I kept falling off of my veritable propping-up throne of pillows, so I didn’t sleep so well. This little busted rib thing just isn’t going away. So I read from a couple of my favorite perspective guys, C. S. Lewis and Brother Lawrence.

From his deathbed he wrote: GOD knows best what is needful for us, and all that He does is for our good. If we knew how much He loves us, we should be always ready to receive equally and with indifference from His hand the sweet and the bitter; all would please that came from Him. The sorest afflictions never appear intolerable, but when we see them in the wrong light. When we see them in the hand of GOD, who dispenses them: when we know that it is our loving FATHER, our sufferings will lose their bitterness, and become even matter of consolation.

Let all our employment be to know GOD: the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him. And as knowledge is commonly the measure of love, the deeper and more extensive our knowledge shall be, the greater will be our love: and if our love of GOD were great we should love Him equally in pains and pleasures.

And perspective is a mighty thing.

Birthdays are all about perspective, today, so many years ago, I walked into the San José de Ocoa Sanatorium a very bewildered but oddly enough not terrified but very about-to-have-a-baby-girl. I was in a muddled fog of people-do-this-all-the-time-so-I-can-too and the peace of God’s kind mercy.

And the memories abound. The nurse snatching the only fan off of the hospital director’s desk to give it to me, the visitor from America. The hours stretching into more hours in the stained wall room with my momma and Alan as we tried to explain to the equally bewildered nursing aides that they weren’t doing things correctly according to the book that we kept showing them, even though they were all fascinated by the pictures. And the final flurry of confused excitement as they wheeled me into the delivery room with an IV and three doctors and a bunch of nurses and the final burst open door of everyone in the hospital and the cat and maybe a chicken or two who wanted to join in the fun of welcoming Little Nicole into the world.

And she was La Princesa and everywhere I went, crowds pressed in closely behind, in this little mountain village. And we were accepted because she was beloved but who would have ever guessed where that bro ken asphalt road would have led?

And certainly we never could have imagined the up and down path as she flies through life on a bicycle that that is traced on her Facebook page nor the dozens and probably even hundreds of birthday greetings today like May you keep dancing and spreading happiness around the sun, because well, who could have guessed about Facebook?

And I reread Mary Anne’s sermon from Sunday last night as well, about Paul’s prayer in Ephesians, For this reason, I ask God to give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation so as to understand these blessings and know God better.

(I pray that you) May have POWER

To GRASP (to understand, to comprehend) the amazing dimensions of God’s love:

How wide  (Includes all peoples and beings in heaven and on earth)

How long  (from this day through all eternity)

How high  (Beyond the immensity of the Universe)

And how deep is the Love of Christ  (Deeper than all of our human sin, need,

guilt, failure, emptiness, loneliness) 

And may I not only rest today in this great love, but rejoice, to drink from Lewis’s fountain of joy.

Because last night C. S. Lewis smiled as he invited me to join him: Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point.

And Mary Anne smiles as well: We pray to the Father of all, who loves us

We ask that He strengthen us in the inner man by His Spirit

So that Jesus will make His home in more and more areas of our lives. And will feed us and fill us with His love, so we can give it to one another and to the world around us.

And Nicole, dear beloved Nicole, Nicolasa Calabasa, smiles just before she heads off down the road to love her jungle of aching middle school wildebeests, smiles and posts a reminder from the great prophet who saw things that none of us will ever understand, Albert Einstein: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Now to Him, who is ABLE

To DO immeasurably more than ALL we ask or imagine,

            According to His POWER that IS at work within us,

 (Will we ask and let His power work within us?)

To Him be glory in the church

And in Christ Jesus

Throughout all generations

            Forever and ever

                        AMEN

Thick black smoke now pours out of my sort of brand-new pencil sharpener.

O God, be not far from me; come quickly to help me, O my God. Psalm 71:12

Fourth Conversation: He told me, that one hearty renunciation of everything which we are sensible does not lead to GOD; rather that we might accustom ourselves to a continual conversation with Him, with freedom and in simplicity. That we need only to recognize GOD intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment, that we may beg His assistance for knowing His will in things doubtful, and for rightly performing those which we plainly see He requires of us, offering them to Him before we do them, and giving Him thanks when we have done.

That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of GOD, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed. That we should not wonder if, in the beginning, we often failed in our endeavors, but that at last we should gain a habit, which will naturally produce its acts in us, without our care, and to our exceeding great delight. Practicing the Presence of God

Ah, developing habits. I dug up yet another old lesson plan, the one about developing a healthy habit in twenty-one days, and am walking the kiddos through the scientific method: Is this true?  And there is no sense of delusional grandeur. On yesterday’s baseline data study, most of the checkmarks fell solidly into the Very Low or Low category.

But this project brings back so many fond memories, so many beloved bright-eyed souls, walking through growth and not-so-much growth with transparency and wonder. So we will see where it leads.

Factoid: My students just went through five more subs when I took off for the cracked rib thing. Not a single one of these hardy adult-types decided a second day with this yowling cat liveliness was worth double pay. So every dawn Subfinder had to wheedle in a new unsuspecting instructor for my stacks of theoretically clever but quite unused lesson plans.

Alas.

I too when stripped of my delusional grandeur, have so much room for growth.

May I, by seeking His assistance when in doubt and acting when His way is clear, do the little things for the love of God without a care, but to my exceeding great delight. 

In freedom and simplicity.

Today. And tomorrow. And maybe even for twenty-one days.

'Tink ob yer marcies, chillen! ‘Tink ob yer marcies!’’ added Jo.

LORD, who may dwell in your tabernacle? who may abide upon your holy hill? Whoever leads a blameless life and does what is right, who speaks the truth from his heart. There is no guile upon his tongue; he does no evil to his friend; he does not heap contempt upon his neighbor. Psalm 15

“Abide in me as I abide in you.” In these few words Jesus reveals the secret of the abundant life He is bringing into the world. This is the secret not only to our own fulfillment, but also to our fruitfulness, our ability to bring others in to share in the Divine Life. -Br. David Vryhof

Third Conversation with Brother Lawrence: He told me, that the foundation of the spiritual life in him is to have no other care, but faithfully to reject every other thought, that he might perform all his actions for the love of GOD.

That he had so often experienced the ready succors of Divine Grace upon all occasions, that from the same experience, when he had business to do, he did not think of it beforehand; but when it was time to do it, he found in GOD, as in a clear mirror, all that was fit for him to do. That of late he had acted thus, without anticipating care; but before the experience above mentioned, he had used it in his affairs.

That there needed neither art nor science for going to GOD, but only a heart resolutely determined to apply itself to nothing but Him, or for His sake, and to love Him only.

First of all, there is that business of living a blameless life as pretty much having control of one’s tongue… And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. Dear LORD, may it be.

I confess to being a grumbler.

And Strong’s Concordance lays it out clearly: A muttering, murmuring, low and suppressed discourse, the expression of secret and sullen discontent, murmuring, complaint.

And I sort of feel like the beginning of Little Women, where Meg bemoans packing up the burdens after a week of merrymaking. But good old Lawrence reminds me that the joy is in the journey, the step by step living in the love of God, Who pours down Divine Grace upon all occasions.

Abide.

I am to rest in Him.

And rather than a litany of grumbling and complaining, let my heart be filled with gratitude,

So while I think of it,

let me paint a thank-you on my palm

for this God, this laughter of the morning,

lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,

dies young. –Anne Sexton

and

Be at rest, my soul,
O blessed secret of the true life that glorifies the Lord:
Not always does the busiest soul best serve him, but he that rests upon his faithful word.
Be at rest, let not your heart be rippled,
For tiny wavelets mar the image fair,
Which the still pool reflects of heaven's glory-and this the image he would have you bear.
Be at rest, my soul, for rest is service,
To the still heart God does his secrets tell...
For God is rest, and where he dwells is stillness,
And they who dwell in Him, His rest will share.
And what will meet the deep unrest around you,
But the calm peace of God that filled his breast?
For still a living Voice calls to the weary,
From Him who said, "come unto me and rest."

Be at rest, oh my soul.