And I just happen to be reading another book about the burning of Paris, All the Light We Cannot See.

November 13, 2015

Hallelujah! Give thanks to the LORD for He is good, for His mercy endures for ever. Psalm 106:1

I woke up in a Slough yet again this morning. So I read Chapter 4 of 1000 Gifts and added to my eucharisteo list after that. Then clicked to the fixed prayers list and gave thanks for each and every one. And His Spirit reminded me of His goodness. May I see His mercy for ever.

To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you; let me not be humiliated, nor let my enemies triumph over me. Let none who look to you be put to shame. Psalm 25:1-2

And people are not my enemies. The Accuser and his lies and his cohorts are the enemy. May they not triumph over me.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12

November 14, 2015

Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Psalm 85:10

Jesus taught us, saying: “Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap; because the standard you use will be the standard used for you.” Luke 6:36-38

And when it is very dark, light shines ever so clearly. And as bombs explode and lives are razed and goodwill is smashed to the ground and trampled, what is true and from the heart of our Father who is compassionate rises up, is lifted up, in a flame of hope and restoration.

And every day each of us light bearers heads out into a world darkened by lies and brokenness and pain and loss and anger and fear. Let us not hide it under a bushel basket. Let me not crouch under a bushel basket that blocks my vision from anything but me and mine, just keeping my head low and looking down and kind of cramped and pretty grumpy.

A bushel basket, no.

Rather let me fix my eyes on Him, who sent not His only beloved Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him, might be saved. And to follow His gaze outward to the harvest, stretching out to every horizon, to the people who are harassed and helpless.

Matthew 9 is full of Pharisees, Accusing and judging and questioning and name-calling and labeling.

And He? Jesus answered their questions with word and deed. He went through all the towns and villages, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, He had compassion on them.

And each dusk I return bone-ground weary. Outwardly bedraggled and inwardly squeezed and twisted like an old cleaning rag. It is getting darker earlier now. And I have to turn on my blinking red and white lights to ride home.  And I have to watch out for distracted drivers and deep fissures in the asphalt. But at least the breeze and arching sky sort of brushes off some of the soul dust from the day.

And if He, innocent and only good, pleads for mercy for the stone-throwers, who am I to do less?

And so once again in the morning, while it is still dark, I seek sustenance. Today’s manna. What is it?

Give me today my daily bread. Mercy anew. And perhaps part of the Cry of the Church, “Lord have mercy on us” is a plea for His mercy on us, His mercy to pour down over my soul like a healing balm.

New every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness, O God.

The days are beginning to blur into a smear of color, cowbells, and baguettes

“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as  l I have kept  m my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” John 11:8-13

Real prayer brings us closer to our fellow human beings. Prayer is the first and indispensable discipline of compassion. In the intimacy of prayer, God is revealed to us as the One who loves all the members of the human family just as personally and uniquely as God loves me. Therefore, a growing intimacy with God deepens our sense of responsibility for others. It evokes in us an always increasing desire to bring the whole world with all its suffering and pains around the divine fire in our heart and to share the revitalizing heat with all who want to come. Henri Nouwen, Compassion

And I prayed with Leo before we left in the morning. That he might know this divine love of God. Leo, the nineteen-year-old from Milan with dreads who trims tall trees, but is really a wanderer. But he rescued this dog who was being abused and it is really hard being a pilgrim with a dog because it's hard to find places to stay and now his dog has a hurt leg and he is not sure what he is going to do, but he is going to hang out at the church and see what happens. And Nolina, the Buddhist philosophy major kept hugging me because of the light in my eyes, and she saw it when I was scrubbing clothes on the pila and knew she had to talk to me, so we talked long into the night, and she hugged me again as I left, and we will see each other again.

And we rocked 100 kilometers yesterday, up and down. Even including another tire fixing by Brandon. And we ate breakfast after riding two hours at a place I ate dinner last year, and of course the tiny woman with the big hug remembered me, because, well, not so many tall American women ride through. And last year she took very tender care of me because I had a rough ride and flipped over a guard rail and had a couple of flats and I was a bloody mess. Maybe she remembered that too.

And the boys split off just before Ribadeo, to try a couple of days on El Camino Primitivo, and we walked our bikes across the long, long bridge and are staying in an odd little hotel next to the church and we are the only people here, but we ate a pilgrim's dinner across the street with a statistics professor from Madison who is walking the Camino with his son who just graduated with his degree in aerospace engineering. And we talked long into the night. About miracles because tomorrow we are staying with Andres and Mercedes his wife, and their little boy in Mondonedo. And higher physics is opening the door to the unknown. And if one single miracle steps through even once, it breaks the materialistic paradigm. And they hugged us huge when they left, and I imagine I will see them again.

And in the middle of the conversation, Tracy smiled broadly at a sweet lady walking with an elderly gentleman, and the lady rushed over and started talking about how she was from Cuba and her father should have left her the family store but he didn't but abandoned his bed-ridden wife who needed to be bathed and turned and then the lady's husband died when he was forty-nine and left her with five children and now they all live here in Spain and she provides for them by caring for this old man and now she has to leave and give him his medications, but by the way her spine really hurts. So I prayed for her, and she hugged me even though she didn't come up to my waist.

And just as Tracy and I were ready to leave, two kids from Moscow sat next to us. And they are also biking the Camino. And she works for Microsoft running their online teaching English program and is a yoga instructor. And we talked about tomorrow because Andres was texting me, and I prayed that each of us would see His great power and love in these last three days of Camino. And their faces glowed with desire. And the guy reminded me of Igor in all of the best ways with inflections and word choices and shrugs, and we will see each other again and probably ride the same train to Lisbon on the twenty-seventh.

And the thing is, everyone of these people kept talking about the light in my eyes.  And I pray that it is the divine fire in my heart and that I will clearly share the revitalizing heat with all who want to come.

O Holy Spirit, as the sun is full of light, the ocean full of water, Heaven full of glory, so may my heart be full of thee.

Call to Worship Your name, O Lord, endures forever, Your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages. For the Lord will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants. Psalm 135:13-14

Confession Lord, You come to us, but we do not recognize You; You call, but we do not follow; You command, but we do not obey, You bless us, but we do not thank you. Please forgive and help us. Lord, You accept us, but we do not accept others; You forgive us, but we do not forgive those who wrong us; You love us, but we do not love our neighbors. Please forgive and help us. Lord, You showed us how to carry out Your mission, but we still insist on our own; You identified with the poor and needy, but we seek our own wants and desires; You suffered and died for all, but we turn to our own comfort. In the midst of our lack of faith, You are always faithful! Please forgive and help us, You are the faithful one! Amen.

Contemplation But Jesus offers us another way, a humble way that waits patiently – despite the suffering – for the Spirit of God to direct our steps. He reveals to us what it means to embrace our humanity without short cuts. 


Well, I have no shadow of doubt that this leap down the road was on the Spirit’s prodding. And, yeah, my shining light is still just brief scratched-matchstick bursts that quickly flame out, but, well, it is light nevertheless.

And there are joyous glowsticks of light waving across campus from Cate and Nicole’s rooms. And there are springs of His joy in each of our footsteps, albeit a little less springy by the end of the day.

Yesterday I had a conversation with ol’ Xavier, the dread-locked kid who is just returning from out-of-school suspension and who did not seem to have learned even one iota of classroom decorum from his vacation from school. And he sure gets well, pissed, if I mispronounce his name as Javier because he “ain’t no Mexican,” and if I call him “Sir,” well, that pisses him off too, but it was still a good chat. I told him that I had a weird little story to tell him. Weird spelled W-E-I-R-D, since no one knows how to spell “weird scientist hair.”

And I told him about the first time I saw him outside of his locker when I was visiting that first time. And he corrected me and said, “Miss, we don’t have lockers; I was standing at the drinking fountain.” And he had asked if I was the new science teacher, and I had said yes, and he had said, “Miss, we are going to have a great time.”

I told Xavier that when I met him, I thought to myself, “That is exactly the student I want to teach,” and that he was the reason I was teaching at his school and I knew that we were going to have a great time.

Xavier agreed that it was a weird story.

And yesterday Nicole and Cate sent out an offer to all of the school leadership. They said that wanted to start a Leadership class the last period of the day. And that they would take everyone’s “Leader for Bad,” and work on learning how to be “Leaders for Good.” Whenever my dad dropped us kids off at school, he always told us to be Leaders for Good, and not Leaders for Bad.

And on the Monday after spring break, they will have the boys/girls separated and do some community building, Tuesday the school has asked Nicole to lead a schoolwide Rachel's Challenge, and then they will talk about what project they want to do together that would focus on respect, team-building, collaboration and making a positive impact on the school... Rather than being a "Resource" class, we would call it our "Leadership Class: Becoming a Resource to ourselves and others."

Each week we would focus on going "In" --- some reflection, awareness, developing personal resources --- as well as "out" -- becoming sensitive and aware of needs around us and learning to collaborate to become the change we want to see.

If there are any "misdirected" leaders, misfits, kids who might need some more vision or help with their issues, please feel free to hand-select them and send them our way to sixth period.  We want to maintain the fairly intimate class size that we currently have, but really use that time to serve the kids (and especially at the end of the day when they are wound-up emotionally anyways.) 

 I imagine a few teachers will be happy to send some “misdirected” leaders over to their sixth period class.

And yeah, I am pretty proud-happy with my compadres. And one of the Leadership Team at the school always tells me that we were sent by God to her school to change the school culture.

All I know is that we were sent by God.

And today’s Lent Contemplation was about Jesus’ time in the desert. And again and again, Satan whispered, “Now,” and again and again, Jesus was willing to remain under and wait on His Father and not take any shortcuts.

And LORD God, today may I recognize You again and again. Standing by the drinking fountain, for instance, ready to have a great time.

Because You will have compassion on Your servants, and Your name is to be glorified throughout all ages.

And man, Nicole fairly floats out of the house with all of her jingle jangle costume clothes, she is so full of His joy.

He gives me living water, I will thirst no more.

He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Psalm 95:7

Hear my prayer, O God; do not hide Yourself from my petition. Listen to me and answer me. Psalm 55:1-2

O God, you know my foolishness, and my faults are not hidden from you. Answer me, O LORD, for Your love is kind; in Your great compassion, turn to me. Psalm 69:6

So I started a fast yesterday for this very reason, the my foolishness and the our foolishness of we His sheep. To lay my self and to lay our selves before Him and humbly seek His face.

And it is great comfort to know that He answers not because of our good deeds or obedience or anything about our deservedness other than we are His sheep, and He is kind and compassionate.

And last night when the darkness piled in I pictured being guided through green pastures and by still waters with my Shepherd, and I shall not want. He restores my soul. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For He is with me. He anointeth my head with oil. My cup runneth over. His rod and His staff, they comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in His house forever.

And in that I can rest. Be still, then, and know that I am God.

Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Resting in the quiet of the Benedictine nuns' song

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14

By the tender mercies of our God who from on high will bring the rising sun to visit us, to give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1:78-79

Compassionate tenderness is the heart of our Abba, and thus is our heart, as His children. This is the mark of the life filled by the Spirit, The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.

Brennon Manning: Scripture points to an intimate connection between compassion and forgiveness. According to Jesus, a distinctive sign of Abba’s child in his willingness to forgive our enemies. Love your enemies and do good…and you will be sons of the Most High for He Himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. In the Lord’s Prayer we acknowledge the primary characteristic of Abba’s children when we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Jesus presents His Abba as a model for our forgiveness: the king in Matthew 18 who forgiven a fantastic sum, an unpayable debt, the God who forgives without limit, the meaning of seventy times seven.

…The demands of forgiveness are so daunting that they seem humanly impossible. The exigencies of forgiveness are simply beyond the capacity of ungraced human will. Only reckless confidence in a Source great than ourselves can empower us to forgive the wounds inflicted by others. In boundary moments such as these there is only one place to go–Calvary.

…Stay there for a long time and watch as Abba’s Only-Begotten dies utterly alone in bloody disgrace. Watch as He breathes forgiveness on His torturers at the moment of their greatest cruelty and mercilessness. On that lonely hill outside the city wall of old Jerusalem you will experience the healing power of the dying Lord.

Ah, a long time.

On that Sunday not so long ago, July 15, in fact, the birthday of that nice man who threw away his crutches. On that Sunday, after I made my weary painful ride up the cobblestoned street to the humble parish church, I knelt in the back pew and considered the bloody Only-Begotten in utter aloneness. Gripped by his grace, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

None of us know what we do. We stumble through this world with smeary lenses of self-interest and shallow busyness and intentional distractedness to protect us from the other. Understanding triggers the compassion that makes forgiveness possible.

May we peek over the thick adobe walls piled high to protect us from knowing and being known in all of our brokenness and truly see. Not simply the other, the beloved child of God peeking out from his respective wall, but the One who so tenderly and so unconditionally loves us. Loves me.

Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion and tenderness on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget.

The crucified Christ is not only a heroic example to the church; He is the power and wisdom of God, a living force in His present risenness, transforming our lives and enabling us to extend the hand of reconciliation to our enemies.

And today Lord, may I toss aside my smeared glasses, tossed aside like those now unnecessary crutches which only impede and slow down my bounding into kneeling down gratitude, and see. Seventy times seven.

And she was the only one who ever called me "Christine," printed neatly across the top of my paper

Enséñanos a contar de tal modo nuestros días,
que traigamos al corazón sabiduría. Salmo 90,12

So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Psalm 90:12

So today Andres sent me an article that he read that kind of sums up his new life gifted to him by a loving God on his birthday. And the leg that is steadily healing is not the big thing in his life. The big thing is the wisdom that came from repentance, from receiving a new mind, or wisdom.

And the story is about a man who died early… leaving a wife and two children and the remnants of the business that eventually killed him from stress. His brain exploded. And this dead man, much like the rich man in the story of Jesus, longed to tell the truth to his family and friends: Only three of these will remain hope, faith and love. And the greatest of these is love.

And sometimes, like way too often, I succumb to the melodious middle tones of NPR in the background, and the black and white crinkle of the newspaper that Jack leaves on the dining room table each morning because we now share a subscription, and the clever little posts on Facebook by friends and almost-friends alike, and I start to think that all of this is important. And falling apart and worthy of anger, fear and despair.

But that is a lie, created by the Evil One to give himself more honor than he is due, and produced and broadcast by those hoping to make a filthy lucre or two off my angst.

And the One saw all of history laid out from end to end from the very first word to the very last wiping every tear from their eyes, when the former things will have passes away, still had time to pause and look up in that sycamore tree and go to Lazarus’ house for tea. And He had time to gather the little children about Him for such are the kingdom of God. He even took naps while the winds and waves crashed. 

Wisdom.

And yesterday I could have rushed to a side table and written my 1000 word reflection on the day’s large group meeting, the small group meeting and the 591 classroom discussion, but I didn’t.

I hitched myself up on a tall stool next to four of the high school students. And we talked about fear and writing and what books they were reading this summer and isn’t it crazy to think that is some very big ways these three weeks could change the rest of our lives. And they asked if I was going on the Mall Crawl Tour in the hot Tucson sun and I said, “Yep,” and they were glad.

And yesterday somehow an old devotional from last year was at the top of my page… and it reminded me about my first and second and third grade teacher Mrs. Hahn with the golden hair twisted up into a bun who read Call of the Wild with me, just the two of us, and I never have forgotten it.

And dear LORD, Let Your lovingkindness be my comfort, as You have promised to your servant. Let Your compassion come to me, that I may live, for Your law is my delight.

That I may truly live.

Stomping on plastic bags so they don't blow away

Indeed, if you call out for insight

    and cry aloud for understanding,

and if you look for it as for silver

    and search for it as for hidden treasure,

then you will understand the fear of the Lord

    and find the knowledge of God.

For the Lord gives wisdom;

    from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.  Proverbs 2:3-6

So one thing about being married to a worship leader is that some weekends I get to go to church a couple of times. And just like reading a book twice through, there is lots more time to consider what is happening...to listen to the stories, to pray for the body, to watch the Compassion film twice and remember those joyous mornings of delivering sponsor letters to families and drinking just-roasted coffee made in a sock with lots of sugar and sharpening crayons with a machete and of course...to delight in the throbs of the deep bass and the waves of glorious harmonies, again and again. It's a beautiful thing, this very flawed but in process community which is a source of comfort, strength and most of all big picture perspective as I told an about-to-be-married couple last night over dinner. 

We're Your church

We're Your steeple

And You have made 

Your home with people 

It totally worked out today. I knew from last night that Dave from 4Tucson was going to share his vision for the Christian community to bring about transformation for the prosperity of the entire city. So I did my get-ready-for-el-Camino walk Mike-Birrer-style, picking up trash and walking through the University neighborhood alleys connecting Broadway and Speedway, watching and noticing, searching for hidden treasure. And I saw more clever gates and front doors than one could imagine. And polished wood floors gleaming behind billowing transparent white curtains. And many more beer-sticky front porches heaped with busted sofas. Busted sofas was a pretty consistent theme. And flowers in creative potting. And tucked up against the wall of where the Upper Room used to meet and sing and dance before God a very neat and tidy guy who looked like a grad student was ordering his recyclable Trader Joe bags as he straightened himself up from a most likely uncomfortable night on the sun-cracked asphalt. The dumpster next to him rumbled with an enterprising older man sifting for aluminum cans, and just down the block a cheery Food Conspiracy employee smiled, "Beautiful day for a walk, eh?" Indeed. 

The beginnings of a community garden. Lots more beer cans and half-empty energy drink jugs and half-finished assignments on Supreme Court cases behind the Tucson High Stadium. And more miniature bottles of whiskey and gin than one really likes to find. Back at the Vineyard Chris the pastor is sweeping the sidewalk again. Lex is raking under the olive trees. 

Young and old will turn to Jesus

Swing open you heavenly gates

Let the streets resound with singing

Songs that bring you joy 

Dancers who dance upon injustice

Dear Lord, may they must know we are Christians by our love.

Let the kingdom come.

And Dave’s sermon was John 17, the prayer of Jesus for His friends; this is what was on the heart of Jesus talking to His Father, now that He was staring at the Cross, and the time, the time for which He had come was staring back at Him.

Dave pointed out that Jesus also said what He was NOT praying for. He was NOT praying for the world, the so-loved-the-world world, but for these twelve, that they may be one, even as We are one. The most important thing for Him was that the Church be unified. Even as We, the multifaceted yet connected Trinity are One.

We are not the body without one another. Since we are connected to the same head, we are part of the same body. Jesus did not ask that The Father take His friends out of the world, but this unity is to flow out into the world. The prayer of Jesus was for complete unity, so that the world will know His Father’s love for the-God-so-loved-the-world world, that He sent His only begotten Son. 

We're Your church

We're Your steeple

And You have made 

Your home with people 

And God is at work here in the city of Tucson through His Church. As He is at work across the globe. And may we continue to call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and let us look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, that we may find the fear of the LORD and know His heart.