El trigo de lost campos hacia el oeste espera en voluntaria entrega.

Jesus said: “Now the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. In all truth I tell you, unless a wheat grain falls on earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.” John 12:23–24

So I gave away my copy of Voskamp’s The Broken Way as a Christmas present and book club is meeting tonight and the library has a huge back-upped waiting list so yesterday afternoon I hung out in the backyard hammock reading Quebrantamiento.

It goes a lot better if I read it out loud, and sometimes I have to read the burnished truths a couple of times to let it sink in.

El trigo de lost campos hacia el oeste espera en voluntaria entrega.

Y yo simplemente trator de respirar. Permitirte ser amada implica una terrible vulnerabilidad y entrega. Permitiirte ser amada es tu propia forma de entrega. Permitirte ser amada te entrega a la misericordia do otro y te quedas simplemente con la confianza de que seguira amandote, de que to querran de la manera que quierres que te quieran, que no romperan el corazón que has entregada. –Ann Voskamp

And in this time of winter waiting for this death of brokenheartedness, I cling with aching fingers to the dirt’s edge of how it’s always been. There is a comfort, a small palm-held security in my hard protective cáscara. A comfort so small that I used to weep myself to sleep each night.

“Let go and enter My embrace,” He gently calls me.

And yesterday I entered His embrace again and again. Uncomplicated and joyous with fixed eyes on Jesus even though life’s storms rage on. Yesterday I knelt down on the red velveteen cushions at Prince Chapel and joined their Christian discipleship. And up until this moment the verbiage in the bulletin was a little off-putting for someone who first invited Jesus into her five-year-old heart echoing the little italicized prayer at the end of the Little Visits with God storybook. And I have been baptized twice already.

The invitation reads: Person(s) wishing to join Prince Chapel AME Church, Please, come forward at this time and receive Jesus the Christ.

But after Pastor Edwin R. Donaldson Jr. and Reverend George Priest laid hands on me and prayed not only for blessing but for a shield of protection around me, one by one, Jesus the Christ filed by and embraced me, buried me into His sweet arms and whispered, “Welcome.”

“Let go and enter My embrace,” He gently calls me.

I’ll take it. I’ll take His words like a daring covenant, not knowing yet what’s to come: there is no growth without change, no change without surrender, no surrender without wound—no abundance without breaking. Wounds are what break open the soul to plant the seeds of a deeper growth. – Ann Voskamp

Keep my heart unshaken, clear, and steady.

Search for the LORD and His strength; continually seek His face. Psalm 105:4

Show Your goodness, O LORD, to those who are good and to those who are true of heart. Psalm 125:4

So last night Nicole and I pushed the couches together and piled into the heaps of pillows for yet another round of Moana while Heather and Dustin went off to celebrate her birthday. Since the beginning of human history we have told myths, stories of overcoming to fill the next generation with perspective and courage. And Everette has heard this particular story multitude times for this very reason, that her heart and mind with be filled with perspective and courage. Stories have a way of capturing and holding truth much more effectively than smoothly polished platitudes. Somehow the golden thread is woven so tightly through the character and conflict and resolution that we cannot disentangle it.

And as I did my flip turns this morning and counted my laps, the images sifted into my daily gathered manna.

Moana kept her calling, who she was meant to be, front and center. Again and again she brushed off the dust, or rather pushed her soaking wet hair back out of her eyes, and started off afresh, wayfinding.

Moana did not dwell on the words or actions of others, even though they stood against her or abandoned or betrayed her, she held no grudge.

Moana dealt with the present challenge, without regrets for the past or fear for the future, she cast herself into the battle.  

And man oh man, what a beautiful glorious sparkling lush world surrounded her in spite of the pain and brokenness and spreading darkness.

Life is indeed beautiful.

And in the end, the heart is restored.

I am called to join Him in the act of restoration. This is who I am meant to be.

Nothing else matters.

Keep my heart unshaken, clear, and steady. Amen.

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. In his sight the wicked is rejected, but he honors those who fear the LORD. He has sworn to do no wrong and does not take back his word. He does not give his money in hope of gain, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. Whoever does these things shall never be overthrown. Psalm 15

Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who cares for us: Preserve me from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from me the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Dear Father in heaven, grant that we may share in the community of your Holy Spirit. In community with You our earthly troubles fall away and we remain in Your peace in spite of all our failures and shortcomings, in spite of all the toil we must gladly take upon ourselves. Keep my heart unshaken, clear, and steady. Amen.

Otto and Everette stared helplessly at the 500 pieces spread out on the small table.

Behold, God is my helper; it is the Lord who sustains my life. Psalm 54:4

To those who know a little of Christian history probably the most moving of all the reflections it brings is not the thought of the great events and the well-remembered saints, but of those innumerable millions of entirely obscure faithful men and women, every one with his or her own individual hopes and fears and joys and sorrows and loves–and sins and temptations and prayers–once every whit as vivid and alive as mine are now. They have left no slightest trace in the world, not even a name, but have passed to God utterly forgotten by men. Yet each of them once believed and prayed as I believe and pray, and found it hard and grew slack and sinned and repented and fell again. Each of them worshipped at the Eucharist, and found their thoughts wandering and tried again, and felt heavy and unresponsive and yet knew–just as really and authentically as I do these things. There is a little ill-spelled ill-carved rustic epitaph of the fourth century from Asia Minor: –“Here sleeps the blessed Chione, who has found Jerusalem, for she prayed much.’ Not another world is known of Chione, some peasant woman who lived in the vanished world of Christian Anatolia. But how lovely if all that should survive after sixteen centuries were that one had prayed much, so that the neighbours who saw all one’s life were sure one must have found Jerusalem! What did the Sunday Eucharist in her village church every week for a lifetime mean to the blessed Chione–and to the millions like her then, and every year since? The sheer stupendous quantity of the love of God which this every repeated action has drawn from the obscure Christian multitudes through the centuries is in itself an overwhelming thought. –Gregory Dix

The passage to Puerto Peñasco is pretty dang bleak. There simply is not so much very picturesque about the tattered plywood and tarpaper shacks and rusty rebar poking out of haphazard stacks of cement blocks. The relentless wind pummels bedraggled creosote and swirls dust into every possible crevice. Unfinished shuttered and abandoned buildings speak of broken dreams on each street corner.

And yet. Small clumps of school children clad in plaid skirts and buttoned sweaters clamber over the barbed wire to take a shortcut home. A woman with two children clinging to her knees offers up three kinds of tamales to those who pause at the blinking red stoplight. An ancient abuelo hunches over a whittling project on a front porch of sorts just down the block.

The horizon is scratched out with bold black jagged lines dividing heaven and earth. Tucked behind myriad steepled chapels of Seventh Day Adventists and Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints and Baptists and St. Michael’s Parish little white crosses gather together to point upward, humble reminders of the obscure yet beloved lives of mankind.

Somehow it is heartening to have an Anglican monk articulate the grand act of worship that overwhelms me on the road…the sheer stupendous quantity of the love of God. And I don’t understand how all the pieces fit together, the shattered pieces of puzzle that at first and second glance appear to have been tossed up by a giant angry or indifferent hand and which is worse?

This morning Richard Rohr reminds me that to choose the path of allowing and trusting, to choose to believe in an Ultimate Love is not the path of fatalism, but leading with a yes. When you can lead with yes and allow yourself to see God in all moments, you’ll recognize that nothing is ever wasted. Trinity is in the business of generating life and light from all situations, even the bad and sinful ones.

And what is true is that I know He has broken through the harsh dividing line, with arms lifted up.  There are too many tales, actual breathe in, breathe out stories, many of which occurred on these very same dusty roads, of Him reaching in to the moment. Reaching in with sometimes a simple bag of potato chips or a double cab pickup truck running on empty all night long.

Let me kneel down once again in remembering. As oft’ as I eat this bread and drink this cup, proclaiming this Ultimate Love until His final act of restoration, the triumphant thunk of the last puzzle piece sliding into place, the beauteous glory of creation whole once again.

It is good.

And yesterday one of my kiddos said I was so full of joy because I followed Jesus.

Let us give thanks to the LORD for His mercy and the wonders He does for His children. For He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. based on Psalm 107:8–9

And sometimes the good things is eleven hours of sleep. And a cup of candlelit coffee. And some tamales from Hermosillo and carrot sticks packed away for lunch.

Let us give thanks to the LORD.