Or maybe just slinging that book bag over my shoulder.

Come now and look upon the works of the LORD, what awesome things He has done on earth. Psalm 46:9

And over and over again, Ann Voskamp talks about eucharisteo before the miracle. And today for some reason folks were looking at a post written long ago from an ocean of pain… a song of praise was in my heart, however, sort of. Mostly I am trying to make it up the next hill with just a trace of praise under my breath.

Holy, holy, holy.

And the next day we rolled our bicycles into Mondoñedo over the muscle-jouncing cobbled stones and saw the mighty power and love of God take hold and heal mightily and angels bumbled out of the side roads and comforted me and Nicole shared a vision of a light tower and crashing waves that pierced the souls of all who were present.

And this is not a make-believe fairy tale we are spinning.

That is the point of all of these monuments, the Joshua stones set by the river. Remember when we saw and held and tasted His goodness? 1000 gifts upon 1000 gifts. And if He showed Himself as powerful love yesterday, as He pressed our daily bread into our outstretched hand, will He not show Himself yet again?

Today my predawn gratitude was for the grace of the glowing eastern horizon, new every morning, His faithfulness.

And the Monday night ladies all told stories as we sat by a crackling fire and sipped our tea. Stories of pain and brokenness and even hopelessness.

What to think when staring circumstance straight into its blood-shot eyes?

We were all gripped last night by the image of when we look back, we see God’s back. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will. Then he will remove His hand. Then we will look.

Then we will look back and see His back.

But belief is not simply mental assent. Even the demons believe. Belief is a verb, something that you do. It is not something conjured up through sheer willpower. Rather is it hiding spies under a pile of straw. Taking that step into that raging river. Leaping off of that storm-tossed boat. Picking up the bed and walking. Obedience.

Faith without works is dead.

And the first act of faith is to give thanks, sight unseen.

Out loud, with words.

How do you count on life when the hopes don’t add up?

The hopes don’t have to add up. The blessings do.

Jesus replied this is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent (that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger) John 6:29 AMP

Voskamp continues: That is my daily work, the work God asks of me? To trust. The work I shirk. To trust in the Son, to trust in the wisdom of this moment, to trust in now. And trust is that: work. The work of trusting love. Intentional and focused.

Eucharisteo always precedes the miracle, child.

Beloved child.

897. Thank you for my little Mac Air that got thrown onto a cement floor yesterday and didn't even flinch. Well, it reminded me that it has been 72 days since it has been backed up.

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful, for I have taken refuge in you; in the shadow of your wings will I take refuge until this time of trouble has gone by. I will call upon the Most High God, the God who maintains my cause. He will send from heaven and save me; he will confound those who trample upon me; God will send forth his love and his faithfulness. Psalm 57:1-3

And He took bread and gave thanks for it, and broke it, and gave it to them. Luke 22:19

And all day long, Dear Lord God, may this be true for me. May I give thanks for the bread, Your gifts to me in abundance, and break it into bite-sized chunks, and give it to them, that clump of confused, distracted, discouraged, whispering doubtfulness to whom I am trying to explain what is important and true.

Dear Lord God.

Eucharisteo.

Giving thanks.

And may I be like Your Son, who made careful preparations. Then spoke with calm grace with full awareness of the suffering that awaited Him. Grace to those who would shortly betray Him and deny Him and run away from Him. And knelt down, a towel slung around his hips, and washed away the grime.

And after He offered them His body and blood, His all, they fussed and squabbled, totally off-task, about future seating arrangements. And it was okay. He prayed for them. Again and again, seeking strength from His Father. Nevertheless, not my will, but Yours, be done.

So yesterday was rough.

So I have totally rewritten today’s lesson plans.

And prayed through the list of names.

Giving thanks for each one.

And for this opportunity to serve the least of these, once again, in His name.

Eucharisteo.

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams.

You strengthen me more and more; You enfold and comfort me. Psalm 71:21

Bless our God, you peoples; make the voice of His praise to be heard; Who holds our souls in life, and will not allow our feet to slip. For you, O God, have proved us; you have tried us just as silver is tried. You brought us into the snare; you laid heavy burdens upon our backs. You let enemies ride over our heads; we went through fire and water; but You brought us out into a place of refreshment. Psalm 66:7-12

Last night we talked about how true heart-rending grief somehow drives us into His comforting embrace. And how those Israelites ate What is it? for forty long years. Ann Voskamp calls it eating the mystery.

And the headlines this morning shout the aches “of a broken and battered planet.” In one Afghan city, 12 schoolgirls were crushed to death in a stampede as they tried to evacuate their school.  The escalation in fighting in Syria, along with Russian airstrikes, spurs a huge escalation of civilian flight, just as EU vows tighter border controls in effort to stem flow of migrants. And winter has hit, and temperatures are plummeting. And I had been wondering what role the many prayers offered up had in the no lives lost during Patricia, history’s biggest hurricane. But what about this, God? What about twelve poll workers being ambushed and killed in Colombia yesterday? You, Lord God, who enemies ride over our heads?

Yesterday afternoon during parent conferences I served up Kleenex and a close-by trashcan along with the report cards and teacher comments. Life is hard. Beyond the middle school run-of-the-mill won’t do dishes and only wants to play computer games. Today one kid’s dad is getting out after five years in prison. And the kid is acting up and shrugging a lot. And I am pretty impressed that the uncle and aunt came along to the meeting along with the mother. And there’s the dad who is working both a day job and a night job to put food on the table. So it is really important that his daughter does well in school so that she will have more choices beyond should I take a quick nap on the couch or in the chair. And the hairdresser with pink hair who sobbed and sobbed and I had no words, so we prayed together for wisdom and grace.

Why would Adam and Eve ever want to eat of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?  Why did we want more than the goodness of the garden?

Ann calls it the serpent’s hissing lie, the repeating refrain of his campaign through the ages: Doubting God’s goodness, distrusting His intent, discontented with what He’s given, we desire. . . I have desired. . . more.

And somehow full moons remind me of the peoples. All the peoples of the world. And of course we peoples all look up at waxing moons and waning moons and new moons as well, except when we don’t because we are tucked in besides our electronics or our sight is blinded by the overhead neon and blinking lights, or I just wanted to curl into bed and try to pull the pillow over my head and sleep it away. But I don’t think we pause so much and marvel at ghostly galleon thin slices. But I am pretty sure that there is a mysterious catch in every peoples breath when we peoples glance up at the full glowing moon whispering, “Consider.”

And there was a full moon when we stepped outside last night into the soft autumn air. After we had gone around the circled couches and lifted up our many prayers for sisters and children and jobs and grandchildren again and again to a good God. And it was waiting for me as well as I crunched across the driveway gravel on my way to the pool this morning.  Thinking about the psalmist who accuses God of bringing us into the snares and laying heavy burdens upon our shoulders and James who speaks of every good and perfect gift from the Father of Lights.

And because I have already read and reread 1000 Gifts, I know the punch line. And I have it dangling around my neck, a gift from my beloved sister: eucharisteo. A place of refreshment.

The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning “grace.” Jesus took the bread, knowing its full implication and weight and whiplash pain and yet saw it as grace and gave thanks. Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning “joy.” Joy. Ah. . . yes. I might be needing me some of that.

Bless our God, you peoples; make the voice of His praise to be heard;

Who holds our souls in life, and will not allow our feet to slip.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul.

Out of the dark, tender life unfurls

My God whose ways and thoughts are higher than my ways and thoughts.

Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say? Luke 6:46

What I desire: To live before God with true freedom.

Ignatius understands “indifference” to be the condition of balance, equilibrium, equipoise, unbiased, unprejudiced, and without partiality. He doesn’t us to simply leave something behind, but find something–the person of Jesus Christ. Indifference means we are so consumed by love of Christ (which is actually Christ’s love for us) that we are free of all else.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face.

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.

One of the biggest things, or perhaps The Thing of the past two months, has been this peeling off of the Eustace dragon-hide layers. With the hope that it will leave me very tender to those still stirrings in my heart that I have come to recognize as His voice.

And in this time of deafening silence, my very ears are ringing with the quiet, may I be deaf to The Other Voices and mute to my desires and only looking full in His wonderful face.

Yes, and emptiness itself can birth the fullness of grace because in the emptiness we have the opportunity to turn to God, the only begetter of grace, and there find all the fullness of joy.

Yes, Father, You long to transfigure all,n o matter how long it takes. You long to transfigure all.

Because eucharisteo is how Jesus, at the Last Supper, showed us how to transfigure all things–take the pain that is given, give thanks for it, and transform it into a joy that fulfills all emptiness.  -Voskamp

Watching the baggage of life spin around and around

Rejoice always, I say it again rejoice…in everything, by prayers and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. If you do this you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. Philippians 4

Meditate: God, who is the Giver of all good gifts to me and the world…

Ungratefulness– all humanity’s dissatisfaction with the good gifts of God–this is the fall.

What I desire: To live joyfully and faithfully, receiving and using all of God’s good gifts so that I may attain the goal God desires me to reach: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

Charis. Grace.

Eucharisteo. Thanksgiving.

Chara. Joy.

A triplet of stars, a constellation in the black. A threefold cord that might hold a life?  One Thousand Gifts, Voskamp

I fretted as I waited for through yet one more delay from American Airlines, standing in front of the frozen luggage carousal in Tucson International Airport. What did it matter? Why did I fret?

Hurry always empties a soul.

For all our frenzied running seemingly toward something, could it be that we are in fact fleeing–desperate to escape pain that pursues?

Whatever the pace, time will keep it and there’s no outrunning it, only speeding it up and pounding the fee harder; the minutes pound faster too. Race for more and you’ll snag on time and leak empty. The longer I keep running, the longer the gash, and I drain, bleed away.

Hurry always empties a soul.

Time. Time to breathe deep and time to see real and time to laugh long, time to give You glory and rest deep and sing joy.

Wherever you are, be all there is only possible in the posture of eucharisteo. I want to slow down and taste life, give thanks, and see God.

And I am back. There and back again. And what did faithful Sam Gamgee learn on his great adventure to the Crack of Doom and back again?

I have left the land of seething volcanoes and fog settled down low and gladiola-scented paths and black beans and fried plantains and papaya juice, back to the land of big skies and empty spaces and the heat trickling down my neck.

And even in the pain, the shredding pain present, the remembered pain past, the pain distant wars and rumors of wars broadcast through the mounted television overhead, and the pain so close standing next to me in the somber-eyes hidden under the NRA cap clamping down thick fuzzy hair, I can receive joy.

When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows.

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

God is not in need of magnifying by us so small, but the reverse. It’s our lives that are little and we have falsely inflated self, and in thanks we decrease and the world returns right. I say thanks and I swell with Him, and I swell the world and He sirs me, joy all about.

To name His gifts is to move into His presence and listen to His love unending and know the grace uncontainable.

And there is a reason why just before I bustled off to my gift of Europe, and I had to change all of my internet passwords in one flurried moment because of some new vicious bug created by Russian mafiosos or Chinese technocrats that was out to steal everything of value, I chose variations of a theme: Philippians 4. So that I would meditate and be reminded of Paul’s words, written from a prison cell.

Because really, really, all that I have of value comes from His hand.

Rejoice, I say it again rejoice.