You might want to sing it note for note.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters from Prison

Yours are the heavens; the earth also is yours; you laid the foundations of the world and all that is in it. Psalm 89:11

So really I am sitting on the steps of a back porch in Carmel-by-the-Sea watching extra big and bright stars fade into smeary golden lavender sunrise. Bink bink bink. One at a time they, albeit an incongruous oxymoron, click off silently. And God shook me awake while it was still dark because He wanted to talk to me.

And yesterday after Manuel fiddled with the google.maps he plugged his phone into the speaker system of Uncle Ted’s now low rider crushed velvet and bedangled Cadillac and out poured Bob Marley and Every Little Thing Going to Be Alright as we swung into the Highway 101 merge lane.

And I have been thinking a lot Uncle Ted this morning. The Manuel and Christy road trip is going to take us through Death Valley and somehow its harshly contrasting beauty spoke to the soul of Ted. I am not sure of the veracity of remembered details but the family oral tradition has him making an annual pilgrimage of sorts to the god of irony in a three-piece suit and perhaps a swirled martini.

And really life is a Death Valley pilgrimage for each of us, and I will fear no evil. Because the heavens are Yours. And the earth. And all that is within. For Thou art with me.

And You prepare a table for me, and fill the hungry with good things. And we talked about pilgrimages last night over yet another filled with good things moment of scallopine sprinkled with gremolata and a dusting of freshly ground Parmesan around the table of Michael and Eva.

And I guess at lunch yesterday too, with the artists Anthony and Beryl that we met in Lugo, nestled in their San Francisco rooftop vegetable garden taken over by a voracious passion fruit vine and the glorious spread of lox and bagels and goat cheese and reddest and sweetest fresh-picked tomatoes ever. And their journey to notice beauty and somehow capture it on canvas stacks in vivid color.

And I thought about Marco yesterday as Manuel and jolted up and down the hills by cable car after we visited the de Young modern art museum and swooped up into the elevator of the tower so we could say we had seen all of San Francisco. And how I can really see California beach towns now because Marco took time to notice the beauty through a camera lens so many years ago. Otherwise it is so easy to pass the door stoop sitters by.

And while it was still dark Michael talked to me about life over cappuccino just before he headed off to the hospital this morning. About beauty and peace in the midst of a hard world. And he told me to go outside and watch the stars, so I did.

Just before I left home I was reading Bonhoeffer’s last reflection on life, Ethics. And for him the ideas of ethics is an ironic oxymoron of sorts as well. For him, Ethics is all about man’s attempts to be god, to slice and dice good and evil. For a philosopher kind of guy, at the end of it all, he was not so much about flights of ideas.

Rather Bonheoffer calls us to action. To do the will of God. Just do it.

Do and dare what is right, not swayed by the whim of the moment. Bravely take hold of the real, not dallying now with what might be. Not in the flight of ideas but only in action is freedom. Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of living. God’s command is enough and your faith in him to sustain you. Then at last freedom will welcome your spirit amid great rejoicing.

And Ethics is a book pasted together from the bits and pieces left behind, hidden in shoeboxes, after the Gestapo arrested him but they could not imprison his spirit. Or silence his pen.

And our Monday night book club finished up Life Together. We talked a lot about confession because that is not so much a part of the basic evangelical practice these days. We are a lot more about covering up with pointing fingers. One of my kiddos reminded me last week, “Remember, Miss, when you point, three fingers are pointing back to you.”

 Life Together is one of confession. And forgiveness. And in Letters from Prison Bonheoffer had these words of truth: In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts.

And my prayer for this odd little trip to fetch the car to Tucson was this: Open, Lord, my eyes that I may see. Open, Lord, my ears that I may hear. Open, Lord, my heart and my mind that I may understand. So shall I turn to you and be healed.

The will of God is even more piercingly clear than the fog drifting away from the horizon in front of me.

Again and again because I am such an eyes-on-the-waves instead of Him who walks on the waves storm-tossed follower: Insist not. Blame not. Judge not.

See. Hear. Understand.

Only in action is freedom.

And you will be healed.

And yep that dorky-little-eight-year-old me claimed for her life verse, Rejoice always, I say it again rejoice.

Be happy.

Bind them continually upon your heart

One of the things that the Lord hates, indeed, of the seven that are an abomination to Him; A proud look, the spirit that makes one overestimate himself and underestimate others. Proverbs 5:16-17

There’s a lot of stuff in Proverbs that no matter how slowly I read through it, the Holy Spirit doesn’t stick out the proverbial foot and ask me to pause and consider. Really, this is the section with the cautions to the sluggard who will not arise from his bed.  And the pain of debt. And the wayward woman with her mincing footsteps.

Yet.

I confess.

I confess to this abomination, this that God hates.

How quickly I leap into judgment. Glance. Snap. Click. Popping people into their place.

And those quiet moments. Whether it is leaning up against the boulders at the Mt. Lemmon cabin watching the sunrise dribble down among the pine trees while fifteen science students sort of sleep, like little sardines laid out on the living room floor or hunched in the bus seats for fear of bears, mountain lions, and well, yes, caterpillars. Or wandering through the creosote plants across Country Club past the seven-car garages. Or standing in line yet again at Fry’s grocery store.

These quiet moments will be filled.

And I can choose what it will be. Underestimating my neighbor, not giving enough weight or consideration to my neighbor’s struggle through the mire of life. Not noticing the weariness and trembling fingers, but rather noticing eggs being packed into the bottom of the grocery bag. 

And I can look at the iPhones tucked into the waistbands of short shorts and one-sip-then-tossed water bottles scattered across the mountainside. Or I can remember the teenage angst of belonging, haunted by the dread of inadequacy. Still shared by grownups. Each of us.

Or I can choose to open up my own dark corners. He is standing at the door knocking. 

Come in gentle Savior. Come in. Please linger and help me sort through my own self, my own willful and contrary heart, one that manufactures wicked thoughts and plans, and that sows discord among the brethren. 

And I am not sure what He will say to me as I make this summer’s pilgrimage following the paths of Paul and Francis and James. But I am very sure that He has laid it out from the beginning of time. May I be listening.

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is discord, harmony;

Where there is error, truth;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

And Wikipedia says that this prayer is widely but erroneously credited to St. Francis, but it matters not. Like so many before me, and around me, and those who will follow, It is the cry of my heart. The cry of my heart to follow You.

Go ahead and turn on the light

Examine me, O Lord, and test me; try my reins and my heart. Psalm 26:2

Nicole just returned from her grand finale with Rachel’s Challenge- they were dined, gifted and...evaluated, they got to go over tapes of their lectures with an instructor.  As a teacher, I know the scariest and most humbling thing ever to be videotaped and then watch it.  It’s all there, the incomplete sentences, the clapping of hands, the marching back and forth, the ineffective classroom management, documented and in full color.  I can still exactly picture the last tape I saw of myself... with piles of bones in the middle of each lab table and I was leaping about garnering enthusiasm for Scientific Illustration and really seeing.  But it’s also the most effective means of growth.  Suddenly it’s not about what we imagine we are doing or hoping we are saying, but what is real. And that is the foundation for all growth.  Truth.  

I am quite sure that I blow right past the discipline of confession- beyond just the general hurriedness of my life, I am not much of one for any mirror, especially that of my soul.  A quick glance, or the occasional sharp Holy Spirit stab, and that is it.  And it’s really not if I am brave enough to unbare the hidden parts to the keen eye of Him, but am I humble enough?  Am I willing to stop pretending and let him rip out all of the Christyness and leave Himself in her stead?  

“Give me all of you. I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want you, all of you.  I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to kill it.  No half measures will do. I don’t want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them all over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self---in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your heart.” C. S. Lewis

Yes.  One doesn’t really want to settle for playing Christianity, going through the motions, trying to do everything right, sort of, most of the time.  One wants to be.  Thus the discipline.  Pause and let His loving eyes probe deep within.  There are no secrets from Him, only from myself.  Thus, it is time to drop the robe of social niceties and allow Him free rein to do as He will, the Master Craftsman creating in His own image.  

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me, and know my anxieties;

And see if there is any wicked way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.