It is often dark at the foot of the lighthouse.

El, God, the Lord speaks,
and summons the earth to come from the east and west.

From Zion, the most beautiful of all places,
God comes in splendor.
Our God approaches and is not silent;
consuming fire goes ahead of him
and all around Him a storm rages.
He summons the heavens above,
as well as the earth, so that He might judge His people. Psalm 50:1-4

Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature,
O Thou of God and man the Son,
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy and crown.

Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of spring;
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
Who makes the woeful heart to sing.

Fair is the sunshine,
Fairer still the moonlight,
And all the twinkling starry host;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels Heav’n can boast.

All fairest beauty, heavenly and earthly,
Wondrously, Jesus, is found in Thee;
None can be nearer, fairer or dearer,
Than Thou, my Savior, art to me.

Beautiful Savior! Lord of all the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
Now and forever more be Thine. –German Jesuits,1677

We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. I John 5:19-20

Lord, help us become so familiar with Your word and with Your presence that thoughts of You consume our waking moments and holy fear of You brings us to worship. Then even our smallest actions will speak of You. Amen.

 

Yesterday afternoon the Monday night ladies gathered together to watch Scorsese’s

 Silence. Roger Ebert writes, “You want to act, or you want the movie to act, to stop the suffering, but the suffering continues until finally it doesn't. We're watching men of God being tested. Try as they might, they cannot entirely wrap their minds around the purpose of the test, and when they do grapple with it, they worry that they've arrived at the wrong conclusion. They worry that they’ve missed the point; that they're not faithful enough or smart enough to understand why this horror exists, or must exist.”

 And certainly there are no easy answers. But what struck me again and again was the gentle humility and sweet love of the Christ-followers who were consumed by thoughts of Him, and although there were many things that they did not understand, each day they were willing to pick up their daily crosses and follow Him.

One of the characters, Kichirjiro, fails the test in fear again and again, and each time he asks for and receives forgiveness.

And my heart filled with longing to be walk in this gentle humility and brokenness, willing to rest only in the belief that I am Your child and that I may know You who is true and that I am in Him who is true, the Lord Jesus Christ, and may that be enough.

And sometimes it sounds as if He is silent as we walk through the valleys of the shadow of death. But He promises that He is not silent, that He has spoken and declared what is true. And the still soft voice whispered to Rodriguez that He had been with him each step of the way.

And surely we cannot understand the horror that lies around us, whether in South Sudan and Somalia or Egypt or Syria, or in the very trailer parks from which my kiddos walk each day. And the Evil One is doing his best to wreck brokenness onto this fairest creation. But Matteo shared a video of how the Swedes responded in humility and brokenness, in the beauty of love and hope, when evil smashes through.

May even my smallest actions speak of You.

May it be so, Fairest Lord Jesus.

 

 

 

Two copper coins.

Where charity and love are, God is there.

Christ's love has gathered us into one.

The people of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey. Exodus 16:31

By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?  Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:16-18

 

God is sufficient.

 

Enough.

 

And in Sunday School as we walked through the very beloved and very familiar twenty-third Psalm, we paused big time on the “I shall not want.”

 

Does it mean I shall choose not to want anything outside of what He provides? Are we to reject our desires?

 

Or does it mean that each and every morning I chose to assert that He is trustworthy, no matter how my life may appear at the moment? Then I ponder how that might be true, noticing His trustworthiness, the evidence of His potent lovingkindness.

 

Jesus marveled at the widow’s bold assertation of God’s trustworthiness when she placed her two small copper coins, all she depended upon, into the treasury box.

 

Let us ask God to make us true in our love, to make us sacrificial beings, for it seems to me that sacrifice is only love put into action. - Elizabeth of the Trinity

 

God of love, forgive us when we make a mockery of love by only speaking of love. Burden us with your embodied love so that our first response may be to love with our hands and feet. May our love take on the flesh You so humbly bore. Amen.

 

Loving God, You are a trustworthy provider and protector. Even when our eyes are not on You, Your eyes are always on us. You know us inside and out. Teach us to trust You more and more, and bring us back to You when we lose our way; in Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

And the folks at AME always pause, take a deep breath, and sing Amen very clearly and together as one.

Dear Father, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him. Truly He is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; He is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge. Psalm 62:5-8

It wasn’t just the church that was absent when I was molested behind the bushes by a homeless man after Sunday night service at the age of 6.

It wasn’t just the church that let me down when my former wife had a miscarriage and my marriage finally fell apart.

It wasn’t the church that failed to show up when my father died at 56.

The church wasn’t absent when I wrestled with soul crushing clinical depression for about 6 months.

I’m not saying the church is perfect or that I’ve never been hurt my Christians. I have. However, my problem is not with the church, it’s with God. I buried God a week after I buried my father. I didn’t leave the church until well after that. I still go from time to time and miss the sense of community it offered. I haven’t been able to find it elsewhere since.

I just wanted God to be the person I told others he was. Personal. Intimate. Available.

He’s been completely silent now for exactly 20 years. Whether it truly is or not, it has felt like divine absence, even abandonment. As an adopted child, that’s an especially hard feeling to deal with. So, I choose to believe otherwise. I choose to believe that it’s not personal, that he’s not personal. I choose to believe that his silence and distance are just part of his nature and that’s okay. I choose to believe that the wounds I’ve taken are not the fault of a distant God who is able to fix things but doesn’t out of lack of care. I’ve chosen to believe that he just was never there to begin with, or if he was, not close or present enough to really intervene.

The church is fine.

It just hurts to hear and sing about their God.

So, I slip out the back door usually half way through the service.

Life outside of the faith has been far less painful than in.

I found far more peace outside the sanctuary.

So a few years ago I met this guy at the Starbucks at Country Club and Speedway. I think both of us were grading high school essays or something like that. We found out we knew a bunch of the same people; I mean, Tucson is a small town really. I have no idea why we became Facebook “friends,” but we did, and I have been following his classroom tales and relationship angst ever since.

And I don’t really understand the crazy community of Facebook and the crazy spectrum of humanity that weaves itself together and speaks to me through these invisible strands.  But I do know that it keeps my heart tender to that beyond me, to the aches and concerns and celebrations and confusion of all peoples throughout the world, from Istanbul, Turkey to the San José de Ocoa, Republica Dominicana, from Nashville, Tennessee to Naples, Italy.

And today I will carry this friend in my thoughts and prayers as I stumble through the day, through the twirling DNA onto a glass rod, through the two musical recitals, through writing an argumentative essay about a kid who wanted to freely express himself by wearing a band t-shirt to school and through picking up Thao for family dinner. Dear Father in heaven.

Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him.

Why and how… those are the questions that I make my kiddos go back and answer when they scribble careless answers onto their college-lined papers. You made a claim, now give me the evidence.   I say this again and again all day long.

Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him.

And for me, the evidence lies all around me. Evil is easy to explain. Things fall apart. But why does that little kid smile as he picks himself up out of the dirt and brushes off the prickers? Or what about the guy with the violin standing next to the underpass with his sleeping dog, his knapsack and his upside down hat to welcome a few quarters?  What about me, as I pull myself out of Hillenbrand Pool yet another morning to marvel at the golden glints smoking off the once-again-ablaze Catalinas, and I breathe in deeply and am grateful for another day?

Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for this day and for all the loving kindness You pour out on us. Bless us in whatever we are allowed to do in Your service, that it may always be done in love to all people. May Your will be done throughout the world, so that at last all confusion may come to an end, Satan’s work may be destroyed, and Your children may shout for joy that your will is being done on earth as in heaven. Amen.

And oh yes, I read the Sunday paper in my hammock during just a lightest drizzle of rain.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
    You hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
    in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me;
    because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
    my flesh also dwells secure. Psalm 16:5-9

Maybe I have a crazy low bar, but there are many things detailing my pleasant places, including teaching adult Sunday School and ushering yesterday and how I love the folks at AME, walking the Cyclovia trail afterwards with all of the pedaling laughing celebrating cyclists of Tucson, painting Heather and Dustin’s front and back porches yesterday afternoon with Dre and Adam and Nicole, listening to Simon and Garfunkel and eating the best carne asada tacos ever afterwards, and not least of all, having put together some rocking great lesson plans for teaching Genetics this week, and today we are going to gargle with salt water and spit into a cup and spool our DNA strands onto a glass rod (and Stand and Deliver our Romeo and Juliet lines and write an argumentative essay about whether student Don has the right to wear his band T-shirt to school citing the Bill of Rights and assorted court cases).  

My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices : my body also shall rest in hope.

And none of us have the tiniest clue about what lies ahead.

But He who is unbound by time holds us in His loving hands.

Therefore,

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever He may send you;

May He guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm;

May He bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders He has shown;

May He bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders He has shown.