Reflections and Explorations

This past month has been a month of transitions.  My oldest child started college, the next youngest is now in grade 12 and preparing for post-secondary applications, and my youngest has started high school (and has brought a smile to all of our faces as we watch him open up and engage with new energy and enthusiasm).  It has also been a time of transitioning with jobs and personal relationships, ministry and extended family.  The season has begun to transition as well – summer to autumn, shorter days, cooler nights and the leaves changing colour (my favourite time of the year). 

Transitions. 

They are a part of life.  Sometimes they can be fairly easy, natural and beautiful.  Other times they can be harder and more disruptive…painful even.  Much of it depends on how readily we embrace the coming changes that transitions lead us into.  As I said to one of my children, transitions can be like swimming in a cold lake – some like to dive right in and get over the initial shock as quickly as possible. Some like to ease in, and though it takes longer to fully immerse, it seems easier to handle.  In the end, both are swimming and that was the goal.  Sometimes we will find ourselves doing both in separate situations – easing into one thing while diving into another.

Some of it depends on the people around us.  What can make it harder is when someone else decides for you what you should do and then expects you to do it.  They might throw you in thinking you should be able to handle it, or come splashing all around you, or insist that you take it slow when you know you need to just take the plunge.  There always seems to be some that think they know what’s best for you, what you can and cannot do, who you are and who you are not, and what you can contribute and what you can’t. They are often only considering one part of you (for good or for bad), not seeing the whole of you. 

The ones that you can count on are the ones still with you on the other side, cheering you on, regardless of what you do or don’t do, and regardless of what it means for them.  There are enough people like that who we can turn to if we are willing to see them though it seems they are fewer in number than the others.  Yet, even just one person can be all we need in the moment.  Each of us in our family has been faced with these challenges and opportunities and both kinds of people over the past month and each of us has needed to respond in our own way, while staying mindful of one another, and staying open to the unexpected knowing that God will often surprise us.

It can be messy and unclear at times.  Actually, it’s often messy and unclear.  But there are some things that are pretty certain.  It is these that we move toward.  The things that are clear are the things God has given us to direct our pathway, align our hearts, and encourage us that He is indeed present and active, attending to the details, seeing the whole of who we are, not letting good or bad distort his vision.  The certainties might be minimal at times, but they are all we need to keep moving.   They are never completely absent; we can always name them specifically if we truly look for them.  Generalities mean nothing and are to be ignored. 

I wrote again in my journal today, that the very breath I breathe is a certain witness that God is present, a reminder that He is the one bringing and sustaining life, actively perpetuating grace breath after breath.  We like to quietly tell each other in our family…”breathe”.  It’s become our way of helping each other to remember God is in our midst bringing us from one thing to the next and He has it all figured out.  Move with what is certain.  Leave the uncertainties with Him.

If we find ourselves perpetually in transition, it may be that God is solidifying within us the certainty of Him; He is the only constant that we really need.  Most people around us won’t agree.  They look for us to figure out our place, settle in and fulfill our purpose.  Sounds good on paper but often we discover we have merely fallen into a rut, no longer open to new things or new activity, and trying to lock in the people around us for our own affirmation that we got it right.  Transitions reveal them as much as they do us.  If they stick with us, we celebrate.  If they move away from us, we pray.  God listens and answers.

Transitions…ultimately they are not as much about doing new things as they are about peeling back the layers of who we are and showing what we really believe about God and others and ourselves.

I read…a lot, though perhaps not as much as some.  Much of what I read weaves into my daily discourse, so often at “just the right time.”  My one brother would be horrified to know that when I read I underline, write in the margins and occasionally mark a page for quick return at a later date by bending over the top corner.  To me, this is sacred behaviour with a book; for him it is sacrilegious. 

Once done at least a section of a book, I will go back and read again the words that I underlined.  The words that are still compelling – making me stop and think, feeling them land solidly within me – are copied into my journal for a deeper weaving into my thinking, my activities, my relationships and my ongoing conversation with God.

Over the past couple of months I have repeatedly returned to the words of Walter Wangerin and Miroslav Volf, feeling my soul etched and challenged; encouraged and at times admonished; always ultimately renewed in awareness of the gift of my dependence upon God.  I am filled with gratitude for his grace without which I would be miserable and most incapable of anything more than solitary and isolated existence.

What follows are some of those words that have been included in my journal, remembered again and again as I discover they have continuing and varied applications at this time:

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From Wangerin, Ragman and Other Cries of Faith:

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Or what, for heaven’s sake, is the incarnation, if it doesn’t announce God’s personal immersion in the events – the bloody events, the insignificant and humbly common events, the physical and social and painful and peaceful and daily and epochal events of the lives of people?  In their experience! (75)

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Don’t you know that every private choice which you make for yourself is not private at all…There are no private choices…All selfish action damages those in love with you! (97)

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Love may begin a marriage; but love does not make a marriage…Marriage is the arena in which love comes, acts, goes, and comes again.  Marriage is the house to hold your unpredictable hearts…You do not love in order to have a marriage.  You have a marriage in order, sometimes, to love. (121)

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Silence is the saw-toothed tool of the devil.  It’s also excellent for self-righteous fighting, because it permits the other to imagine the myriad of sins he must have committed to cause such…He stews in his own juice, as it were.  It’s the microwave strategem of attack. (125)

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Learn, all ye who suffer fallings-out with one another and ye whose inclination is to lick your wounds in cold proud isolation!  God doth constantly prepare the way for reconciliation, even by his gimmickry, if only pride don’t blind you to the opportunity. (127)

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The power to build up other human beings, or else to tear them down, no matter how menial the circumstance nor how quick the meeting – that is the power possessed by each member of the Body of Christ, and a mighty power indeed. (128)

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Every time you meet another human being you have the opportunity.  It’s a chance at holiness…you will either build him up, or you will tear him down.  Either you will acknowledge that he is, or you will make him sorry that he is – sorry, at least, that he is there, in front of you.  You will create or you will destroy.  And the things you dignify or deny are God’s own property.  They are made, each one of them, in his own image…Turn your face truly to the human before you and let her, for one pure moment, shine. (129)

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From Volf, The End of Memory:  Remembering Rightly in a Violent World

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What does “remembering rightly” actually involve?…It cannot refer just to what is right for the wronged person as an individual.  It must mean also what is right for those who have wronged that individual and for the larger community. (11)

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What does it take to remember for good, to remember in salutory rather than destructive ways?  How can we help memory become a bridge between adversaries instead of a deep and dark ravine that separates them?  How can former enemies remember together so as to reconcile, and how can they reconcile so as to remember together? (35)

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If I claim to possess the truth, I will be unlikely even to entertain the possibility that others may be right, or at least partly right, and I wrong, or at least partly wrong; unlikely to enter imaginatively into the world of others so as to appreciate the force of their account of what happened; unlikely to take the road of inverted perspective so as to examine from their vantage point my memories as well as their own…Claims to possess the uncontestable truth aren’t always wrong, but they are always dangerous – especially dangerous when a person’s claim to possess the truth matters more to her than the truth itself…Seekers of truth, as distinct from alleged possessors of truth, will employ “double vision” – they will give others the benefit of the doubt, they will inhabit imaginatively the world of others, and they will endeavor to view events in question from the perspective of others, not just their own. (57)

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The future belongs to those who give themselves in love, not to those who nail others to a cross. (83)

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‘I have done that,’ says my memory.  ‘I cannot have done that, says my pride.’   …Eventually – memory yields. (Quoting Nietzsche, 159)

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Final mutual embrace…For forgiveness may well leave the forgiven one humiliated on account of having been forgiven and therefore also repelled from the forgiver; and it may leave the forgiver proud on account of having forgiven and therefore disdainful of the forgiven one.  If nothing more than forgiveness happened each party could still go her own way, the one denigrated and repulsed and the other proud and contemptuous.  // So even after the question of “right and wrong” has been settled by the judgment of grace, it is still necessary to move through the door of mutual embrace to enter the world of perfect love. (180-181)

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It is no random coincidence that the themes have been primarily about relationships and reconciliation.  God knows my passion for the ministry of reconciliation – he is the one that seared it into my soul long before I even knew the words and he is the one persistently teaching me right now about what it really means beyond captivating words on a page.

It is no coincidence either, that my wake is marked by many failings to live in the posture of reconciliation in my relationships – it is the pain of our failure that fans the flame of our passion.  It is the pain of our failure that can leave us open to learning to love as Christ loves.

Indeed, all of this serves to deepen my understanding of what Paul meant when he wrote to the Romans, “For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (5:10)

The call of the gospel is the call to be reconciled to our enemies in mutual embrace and willing fellowship, actively seeking one another out for the perfecting of love so that we might experience “life to the full”, in the here and now and through time to eternity. 

Anything short of this is a counterfeit of love that isolates us into “(un)holy huddles,” darkens our spirits, inflames our deceptions and pride, quenches our communion with God, empowers our self-righteous measuring and excluding of others, and finally, hinders those who are searching for a God who will truly love “even them”.

I have just come out of roughly 48 hours of hibernation during which I reviewed my journals from April of last year up to the present.  This stretch covers the time leading up to and including a year of learning to love beyond ways I had known before by God’s invitation.  The following is today’s journal entry summarizing that journey:

“As I quietly sit and reflect, I realize I have come to know the love of God more deeply, intimately, persistently, graciously and personally than I have ever known.  It has been experienced in the darkest moments of inner turmoil, absolute failure, ongoing confusion, futile effort and deep loss.  It has been experienced in my hardest of heart moments, in the shattering, in the picking up of the pieces; in the softest moments of confession, praise and devotion.  It has been love at its best.

Where do I go from here?  While I don’t have a specific sense of the picture, I know that I am called to protect that love for me by upholding my dignity, being watchful, being present…Defending the worth of my soul by controlling my own drawbridge, listening only to specifics not generalities, tilting my energies and focus toward my strengths, calling things as they are, and seeking out those who will engage with me in the process, with honesty and with care.

I am also called to offer that love…to not keep it to myself.  There are at least two aspects to this.  The first covers things like:  not offering human sacrifices (see below); being straight up, no “back-dooring”; and remembering rightly.  The second covers things like:  moving toward others to offer a taste of life; including those who harm me; staying open and vulnerable; offering reckless grace, generosity, audacious welcome, forgiveness, asham and shalom; and always listening – to God and to others.

In all of this to:  choose life, only that and always, and at whatever risk; give up seeking solid ground; stay away from gluten, pop and chocolate; give myself permission to fail and land in the embrace of God; know that I am at war and that my greatest place of vulnerability is in my mind; and finally, to continue moving deeper into the love of God, knowing that I will never reach its end.”

re:  human sacrifice – in reference to Hosea 13:2 in which God lodges one of many complaints against his people.  As I reflected on this, I wrote in my journal:  maybe we don’t take a literal knife to people’s throats, but we slay people all the time with our words, our dismissal of them, or our isolation of them.

A year ago I took a step back in response to a call from God to take a year to learn from him how to love in ways beyond what I had known up to that point.  I likened it to taking the fences off my playground.  The first weeks included an acute sense of vulnerability and yet also enticing challenge as God paraded before me familiar but now refreshed themes, people and circumstances. 

As I sit here today, poised to begin a solid review of this past year, Eugene Peterson’s words have been freshly recalled with agreement:  “love is who we are, love is what we want, love is what we want to practice, but it is in loving and being loved that we accumulate the most failures…We realize that we are hopelessly inadequate in love.”

He continues, “[Love] It begins as theological language.  It is a language used in a listening, attentive relationship with God in all the revealed operations of the Trinity and a way of being in a listening, attentive, affectionate relationship with another person just as she or he is before us.”

I don’t even know where to begin…I wrote in my journal this morning, “I still feel the losses I have suffered” which includes feeling the losses I have caused others to suffer.  I realize “how often we have missed the opportunity to learn and experience the deeper grace of redemption and reconciliation that is found only in shared humility and compassion and I wonder, is it even possible amongst people to share these things…or, do we, will we, continue to deceive ourselves in the ways of the world..thinking we are loving another even as we measure, judge, separate and avoid”, in accordance with standards we put in place not so that we can reach into another’s world but so that we can protect and feed our own world in the way we want it to be.

That is so much easier than coming together weeping, grieving, naming and repenting of what we do to each other.  We can pray all we want for loving relationships, but if we look for that only in our successes and the ease of being with another, we have not experienced love but only an engineered affirmation of our own way of looking at and being in the world. 

Love is only fully known and offered in the face of what is unworthy of such response.  It is in the moving toward, embracing, forgiving, restoring and staying with another in the midst of their failure and the shaking up of our self-crafted existences, that we experience and give witness to love, not as a benefactor to a beneficiary but as equal perpetrators.  Therein lies true humility and compassion. 

I have spent more than a year caught between two people like a deer caught in the headlights.  Everything I could have protested about, one or the other exposed also in me, leaving me without recourse and with nothing to do but repent before God…and so I grew increasingly silent while at the same time searching for opportunity to experience redemptive grace…hoping to be found an equal. 

I have no illusions…if anyone wants to build a case against me they will find no lack of evidence to draw from.  I am also painfully aware of how good I am at building a case against others and how difficult it is to let that ability die and be replaced by the blessing and welcoming of others, not just when they cross my path, but also when I  intentionally invite them into my space, regardless of the personal cost to me…trusting God to make it up to me, even as his word says he will. 

As human beings we have an addictive propensity to tear others down, to go after their failure, long before we will allow the discomfort or deep offense we experience with them reveal our own hearts and failures, challenge the ways we have structured our lives, and move us to humbly and compassionately appeal to God on their behalf, knowing they merely give us a visual of ourselves as we continue with them.

For me, this is bigger than just my own experience of relationships.  The very strength and truth of the gospel rests on this.  The whole point of being a Christ-follower is bound up in this.  It doesn’t matter what else we do…what ministry we have…what achievements we accomplish…what sacrifices we make.  Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  The only thing that will persuade the world that the gospel is THE GOOD NEWS is that Christ’s followers love one another.

This love is not the love the world has to offer – the one that measures another and decides if he or she has a place in our life, and on what terms.  This is to love up close, just as she or he is before us, at the other’s feet perpetually, open to what God has for us through that person that we could never have anticipated.  I sit wondering today if it is even possible to be in relationship according to these parameters.  I think it is.  But is it probable?  I don’t know. 

The possibility is rooted in God’s love shed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.  The probability is rooted in our will to truly and completely abandon ourselves to that love especially in the presence of another who seems so adept at times at wounding us and/or revealing the intricate ways we construct our lives to protect ourselves which inevitably leads to our own wounding  of others.  It is no small thing to learn to celebrate and embrace another in the midst of such realities. Sigh…

I don’t know what else to say.

I was meandering around an antique shop the other day, looking for an old washstand and basin that I could clean up and have as a part of a footwashing space.  Instead I came home with a big old and beautiful oxen yoke (note that beautiful may very well be in the eye of the beholder). 

If you had been with me you might of thought I was a little “off” – I was mesmerized by it, and within me heavy doors were being blown off my soul as Jesus’ words drowned out everything else:  “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Life was stirred up in me and there was no shutting it down in that moment. 

It has been awhile since I have felt that insistent coursing so deep within me.  In fact, as I reflect on that, I realize I only ever feel it to that depth when I’m working with something in my hands – whether cleaning and sanding a stick I have picked up off a forest trail, turning it into more than a stick; or cleaning an old carpenter’s plane and crafting words to tell a story to go with it.  Taking something ordinary and turning it into something meaningful, merging it with a redemptive “story” and then sharing that with others — that taps into streams of life within me in ways that nothing else can. 

Now I had something that was in a way cleaning me…crafting a story within me…bringing meaning and releasing me, for a few moments at least, from a heavy and hard yoke that has chafed at my soul.  A couple of weeks ago I read Nouwen’s, The Inner Voice of Love.  I have been reeling ever since as I have had to face, as he calls it, “the basement of my soul”.  I have been overwhelmed at times by the agony of a parallel journey he courageously shares about…pulling back from as much and as many as I can, any confidence I had for relationship shattered, feeling that I have no where to turn, thankful at least for that “inner voice” without which I would be completely desolate, and for the presence of mind to choose each day to do one of the things I love to do.  That’s how I ended up in an antique shop.

In the moment that my eyes landed on it, and later as I sat quietly in a sanctuary, alone …caressing this yoke, God drew me near to experience some powerfully intimate and private moments with him.  My senses were engaged through touch, and sight, and even sound as a few bars of a song quietly rose up within me.  Most importantly, he engaged my embattled soul, bringing relief and peace…an inner hiding place where I could truly rest and from which I could move toward the task that was before me…to present a seminar at that church.  Until then, I had no idea of just how much I needed these moments with him.  And I was filled with gratitude at how willing God was to meet my need at the right time and in a uniquely personal and compassionate way. 

Now I am brought back to other words from Nouwen’s book, “Don’t forget the hands that are holding you.”  Yes.  Today as I sat in the silence, the battle within once again fierce and unrelenting, wearing me down, I heard, “I’m holding onto you.  Welcome the silence…you need my grip not my words today…”  How can words explain how deep peace and deep agony can both be present at the same time in the same heart…and how returning to that oxen yoke provides the centering and stability I need right now to remember a love so great, a love that understands, a love so beyond me yet so present, teaching me how to wear his yoke.

I love music – almost all genres (not big on rap or indie, or most opera)…picture puzzles…meandering through antique shops and used book stores…building sand castles…horseback riding…drinking wine by the fire…reading…writing…going fast in a motorboat.

I love restoring and giving new meaning to what others see only as old or common and meaningless…badminton… gardening…sitting in the sun soaking up its warmth…watching the waves of a lake…hiking…hearing the sounds of different birds…watching the movements of wildlife…silence.

I love rowing…working hard, feeling every muscle engaged…hitting golf balls at the driving range… learning…goofing off…trail riding or running…watching kids play baseball…beautiful sunsets…deer in the wild…sitting only in the light of the moon…having the curtains and window open so I can see the stars and hear the night sounds while falling asleep.

I love a challenge. I love live theatre (except for Shakespeare – sorry folks) and art museums and being spontaneous – just taking off for the day to go wherever I end up and exploring what’s there because I can.  I love riding my bike along lake or ocean trails.  I love street festivals and open markets.  I love chocolate covered cherries and potato chips and olives.

I love solitude, and making unusual recipes.   I love to hear people’s stories of their life – their adventures and passions and lessons learned, longings filled, and simple pleasures enjoyed.  I love trying to tap into who they are through the things that I give them – carefully selected just for them.

I love praying with people – watching their eyes light up in encouragement and belief that they matter, especially to God.  I love to teach the bible.  I love to advocate for justice.  I love to give generously so that others are free to do what they love to do in ministry and mission.  I love to create ways for people to discover or hold onto their dignity.

I love history. I love life.  I love God.  I love helping others make things happen.  I love networking and getting for people what they can’t find – like Klinger in M.A.S.H.  I love getting people connected to other people. 

I love hugging people – not for myself – for them – when they really need a hug.  I love to hug them for as long as they need me to hug them.  I love to pray for people, especially when God prompts me concerning people I don’t even know, especially in the middle of  the night. 

I love the scents and aromas of creation and candles and good food and wine and anointing oil. 

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting contemplating these things.  I heard God say, “Shell, go play…go do what you love to do.  Don’t explain it, try to justify it, try to make sense of it or defend it…just do it.  Don’t respond to others’ criticisms, objections, dismissals or expectations.  Just do it.  Enjoy.  Express the life in you that cannot run out…can only overflow continuously if you will shake off the restraints.”

Mmmm…

Sometimes the simplest truths are the hardest to learn.  They do not land in us as a new skill acquired but by the reorienting of heart, mind, and soul…often it seems, with only great labour and at irrevocable cost. 

To try and recount the paths I have walked in these last few weeks on the matter of love would be too much…too many different circumstances and threads of thought and voices God has used, even the silent ones.   And He is far from done.  However, I think I finally believe and embrace, using the adapted words of Eugene Peterson from his book Practice Resurrection (I cannot remember his exact wording), that only those who have come to the place of realizing they cannot love, have a chance at offering love to others.

My own words come back to haunt me…ministry is the overflow of Christ in you.  I write this, I teach it, I say it to others.  Only now am I really beginning to grasp what I have to this point seen as through a dirty window, though it has been right in front of me, and on my tongue.  The only real ministry is Christ’s love poured out through me in the overflow. 

As I think about loving generously, I realize that such loving is not about abundance for others but submission to others.  It is not about all that I have to give, but what do people need and what can they receive.  It calls for me to bring an attentive love to them – a love that is more about knowing than being known; a love that is about discerning who they really are, how they have been shaped and formed by God through design and life experiences and receiving such as my invitation to learn to love in new ways.  It is about confronting the illusions I create in place of the real person, so often done so that they fit my life script neatly instead of letting their presence challenge that script and perhaps even force me to rewrite it.

I read John the apostle’s words the other day, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

For me, that means laying down the narrative of my life that explains all that has shaped me, that I have carefully crafted in order to make sense of who I am and what I have experienced, especially in times of wounding (by me or against me), and making room for God to tell his story through me.  I have to let go of that default story that I fall back on everytime I feel a need to protect myself, justify myself, explain myself, uphold my dignity.  Too often it gets in the way of seeing things differently, trying life differently, engaging in relationship with healthy boundaries that are designed, not to keep me safe, but to free me to generously welcome and nurture others. 

Such laying down requires trusting in the generous love of God in Christ, that He will meet my need, soothe my pain, make up for my losses, and give me reason to celebrate – all of which will inevitably come as I live out His love for the other’s sake and not my own.

I sat in church today and witnessed three sisters getting baptized…young daughters of a friend who died from cancer 16 months ago.  As I listened to each one share a bit of their journey and what had brought them to this day, I felt the tears rise.  Memories from when their mom and I were just a little bit older than these girls, rushed in and grew the wonder of God’s grace anew in me.  He was far from our radar screens then…if you had asked either of us if we could have envisioned this day I suspect we would have thought you were off your rocker, though we might have been intrigued.  We were living broken, lonely lives in tough circumstances, trying to find meaning in many of the foolish ways teenagers in similar circumstances do.

As the years went by, our paths would cross and diverge many times, and each time of crossing would bear witness that God was at work, knitting our lives together in ways we could never have imagined.  We witnessed each other coming to faith, held a significant voice in each other’s early journey, and even kept in touch when we diverged for a time in how we expressed that faith. 

We weren’t really “close” as some people like to measure relationships. After high school we didn’t hang out on a regular basis and we each went through some seasons of trial and celebration without the other.  We weren’t each other’s confidante yet we never hid anything from each other.  Neither of us was the first person the other called when something exciting or tragic happened, but we did at some point connect and share some of the more critical and special elements of our lives. 

The door was always open and the phone was always answered and we always picked up where we had left off, sharing and laughing and enjoying one another, sometimes challenging one another, sometimes talking in quieter tones as we remembered mutual friends who had met death way too soon. 

Perhaps one of the gifts of our friendship was never having to explain ourselves to each other because we both knew where the other had come from and some of the struggles that each still faced because of that.  And that was okay.

In the final years of my friend’s life, our paths not only crossed but aligned as we attended the same church and I had opportunity to journey with her and her family as one of the pastors at the church.  Even when I moved on from that role, we would still connect in the church foyer or on her back patio and catch up with each other, sharing where we were at and where our kids were at in their faith journey. 

Just a few days before she died, I visited my friend in the hospice and we had some quiet moments alone.  It really wasn’t until then that I realized how much I loved her and had the courage to say so, and how much I had appreciated the gift of her in my life.  It wasn’t until then that I realized how deeply God had blessed each of us, and taught each of us grace…bringing us the meaning that we had been so hungry for way back when.  As we said our goodbyes, and I assured her that I would join many others and continue to be there for her kids, and we finally let the tears we had so often held back through the years, softly land…I don’t think either of us envisioned the tremendous grace that would be at work to bring her daughters to today’s display of faith…in fact, she was deeply concerned that her dying would wound too deeply and become a hindrance to their still tender faith.

And so, as I listened to each of her daughters share their own personal perspective on the influence of their mom, and the impact of her death, and their desire to follow the One who was making it possible for them to walk with increasing strength in grace and to find meaning, I was thankful that in one sense things had come full circle.  What we had longed for but could not name as teenagers was today being named without hesitation by her girls.  As I talked with my friend’s mom and sister afterward, they agreed with me that such was the case.

I have struggled with my friend’s death – struggled with feeling so strongly about it…with feeling the grief so deeply.  There are so many that were much closer to her than I was.  So many times I have tried to dismiss it thinking I was making more of it than I should.  Those thoughts were revived again today as I came home and felt the loss of my friend mixed with the joy of seeing her daughters continue to grab onto life.

Then I came across something that challenged…in fact, exploded… the myth of friendships and relationships that measures loss by the degree of “closeness”.  

“Relationships needn’t be painted as “close” or “not-close,” but rather as meaningful.” 

The author was talking about how the impact of a loss is rooted not just in whether someone was in your inner circle or not, but also by their overall role in your life – how your lives had been weaved together over the course of time.  This helped her to reconcile the deep sense of loss she felt when the doorman at her building took ill and was in the hospital dying.  He had been a daily constant for years, greeting her as she left in the morning, and welcoming her home at the end of the day.  He faithfully took note of when she was coming home late on Tuesdays after her chemotherapy treatment.  She realized her grief was tied to the the fact that their relationship had been intensely meaningful even if hardly “close”.

These were much needed words of consolation.  I find it incredibly hard to be “close” to anyone though I feel deeply and can be wounded to tears  by the suffering or death of even a complete stranger.  In fact, relationships scare me, mostly because I have little confidence that I can sustain them in healthy ways.  I don’t have to look far or hard to find evidence of my inability.  But “meaningful” I can understand.  Relationships can be meaningful no matter where on the continuum of “closeness” they land. 

This measure of meaningfulness doesn’t negate my longing that I could be someone that could both offer and receive “closeness” much more than I do.  But it soothes the grief of not being able to do so (at least not yet) by reminding me my life does indeed matter and brings meaning, in different measures and ways, to other people’s lives.

A few weeks back I sat on my prayer mat and God and I met together, and He listened to me as I poured through the list of things on my mind and heart.  Some fairly significant and even tragic events had gone on around me, touching my life in varying degrees and with varying senses of challenge, loss and hope.

When I was done and sat quietly, taking in the soft light and captivating aroma of candles, listening for God’s response I was taken aback by what He brought to the table through the words and the tears that rose rapidly within me and finally were voiced in a flood, “I miss my dad – he would have known what to say at a time like this.”  I cried for a long time, and remembered a man that in so many ways had seemed bent on destroying the very thing he so desperately wanted to express.  And I laughed as I remembered how good he was in a weird kind of way, at pulling me back from some of my more ensnaring emotions, whether by lecturing me ad nauseum, or by getting me so angry with him that I became laser focused on better things almost to spite him; definitely in spite of him.  And I remembered our final conversation – words of tenderness and care…words that restored the multitude of years the locust had eaten in a way that can only be attributed to the wonderful mystery of God’s ways…words of life and encouragement. 

And I realized that I longed for those words from him in that moment.  And I agreed with God that my dad really did know me rather well, better than anyone, better than I had ever realized while he was living.

Together God and I grieved the things that never were, and the things that were but now were gone.  And together God and I celebrated that my dad was with Him now, and peace settled over my soul.  I was thankful that in the midst of everything else going on at the time, God didn’t let this personal continued journey of healing get lost or diverted, minimized or dismissed in the face of the more immediate.

And then I realized, it was exactly two years to the day when my dad had died.  Beneath all the earlier stirring in my heart was a deeper need that only God was attentive to and He brought me into a space where I could see it and He could meet it.

For me, this was yet another defining moment that I still reflect upon though many days have passed since then.  That night remains evidence why we must pursue a listening life.  There is a Father who loves us and meets us in places that aren’t even on our radar screen…if we let Him.  There is a Father who knows us far better than even the best human dad in the whole world. 

Cami Sigler noted in an article she wrote that the opposite of an audire life (Latin for listening) is literally, an absurd life.  I have come to appreciate her words more and more.  It does indeed seem absurd to not listen and keep myself from such a Father’s love and attentiveness.

This was driven home to me again this past week.

I had spent the weekend leading university students and their leaders through a weekend Sabbath – a time to learn to listen to God and get to know Him as a loving Father; a time to listen to themselves and discover some of the places they needed to open up to His love; a time to learn to listen to and simply enjoy one another recognizing that it is in community that we come to know some of the deeper truths that God longs for us to know.

I had the opportunity to take some of my own time to consider these very things myself, and I too was refreshed in the certainty of who God is, who I am, and that I belong to Him and that I belong amongst those He calls His own.  We all went home tired but having experienced something amazing!

Then it came – an email that left me deeply disappointed and with a whole new set of questions for God.  I had been turned down for something that I had only pursued because I had listened to God.  I had embraced the wisdom and prayers of my community in the process…I had loosened my grip on many things, open to whatever God wanted, in fact seeing for the first time ever, an opportunity that seemed to speak to the whole of my life.  And now it was gone.

I felt lost – my biggest questions…”What was that all about?”  and “What am I supposed to do now?”

And in the face of the temptation to be taken down by this “no”, I resisted and chose to focus on the “yes-es” that God speaks into my life.  And I particularly drew on the weekend He and I had just had together.

In the days since, God has positioned me to listen to others who have found themselves in the same place, asking the same questions in the face of yet another what seems like “absurd” no. 

And as I listened to each person’s story my own thoughts on this became more clear; peace regarding my own circumstance quickly landed and grew within me, until it was voiced through me yesterday in one of those conversations. “We are called to a listening life regardless of the outcomes.  The question is not “why God?” but rather, “did I listen to God?” 

If I can answer “yes”, then I have done my part and the rest is up to Him. 

Mmmm…

So God and I exchanged “yes-es” this week.  I have no regrets…and the “what now” question doesn’t seem too relevant. 

What would be absurd is to stop listening just because things keep turning out differently than I or others in their circumstances, anticipated. 

I know this Father’s love.  I don’t understand His ways, but I know His voice and I know that He knows me best.  I know that He listens to me.  I trust Him.  I will keep listening to Him.

I look at my notebook and see the list of all the things I have still to do this week, and posting a new blog entry isn’t on the list.  Which is partly why I’m doing this.  Writing for me is a rest from the “to do” list that I actually find rather rejuvenating and refocusing. 

There were lots of times over the past couple of months when I was going to post a new thought…even had a few different titles floating in my mind.  And now today, as I try to put words together I realize that what has been circulating like live energy within me are many different thoughts and ponderings and events and ideas…

So, I thought I would just put some of them out there…kind of like little proverbs, each containing their own nugget of treasure not necessarily related to the other…pieces from my journal and reading and things that I have heard lately.  They are in fact, related in that they represent the many different ways I hear and process things as I make decisions, reflect on life, and seek God…the only one who can untangle everything in me and somehow make it useful and fruitful 🙂

So, here it goes…

“Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom.” (Psalm 51:6)

Sometimes there are storms and the wind is fierce, and the waves insistent and they can overtake you and seek to devour you – to wash you up.  But to those who stand in them and are not overtaken – they are merely washed, and strengthened and made all the more certain of whose they are. (journal entry)

Where is my joy in all of this?  It is the undercurrent sustaining me – I cannot explain it.  It is the life that courses in me…it is in the peace that holds the tumult…my joy is Him, before whom all is laid bare…all that I am; all that is within me – before Him. (journal entry)

I had lunch with someone today who unknowingly but completely challenged me…who reminded me that I haven’t arrived without making me feel small; that I don’t know everything and that I can get sloppy when I am not around those who keep me sharp, yet I don’t feel judged or shamed in any way; who exposed in me a hunger that I had tried to tucked away, not knowing what to do with its constant gnawing that is never filled. (journal entry)

Seeking your consolation in the face of unfulfilled desire…seeking your completeness in the face of what is so incomplete in me. (journal entry)

Perhaps some of what the world calls mental illness is simply a mind that will no longer be prisoner to the world. (journal entry)

He will hold you steady; He will keep you true. (journal entry)

I grasp at nothing but act with purpose. (journal entry)

Targeted optimism – you can’t twist every moment to reconstitute it so that it strengthens you…some moments are simply emotionally draining… (Buckingham, 2009)

Don’t let the biggest obstacle of all be your own self-denial. (Buckingham, 2009)

Be open to the hardest times.  They can reveal precisely where you have the greatest strength. (Buckingham, 2009)

Don’t try to put in what God left out.  Try to draw out what God left in.  That’s hard enough. (Buckingham, 2009)

Instead of saying “I love you, God” try saying, “I love you too, God”. (Moore, 2010)

Not everything is clear to me, but the things that matter are. (journal entry)

You will see others through the overflow of your own inner darkness or light. (journal entry)

(Heard in prayer) Rather than thinking of your  life in terms of a trajectory – a linear line, as in “what’s next,” think about what speaks most completely to the story of God in the whole of your life, and do that. 

 The apostle Paul “forgot” certain things – the things that would hold him back.  But he didn’t forget his experiences and training and orientations, all which now shaped and spoke into his priorities, passion and purpose. (journal entry)

In giving Him the time…in responding to His nudging of my heart, I was brought into what He knew I needed…the layers peeled back until what was hidden but not inactive could come to the fore…I cannot describe what I have experienced other than to say that as I sit here in the quiet, I know I have been “known” and the fruit is peace. (journal entry)

And most recently…

“Do the things that I live for align with the things I would die for?” (West, 2010)

In close:

I am in the midst of much uncertainty but I think I have finally learned to focus only on the things that are clear and leave the rest with God.  Many of the above thoughts continue to swirl within me, challenging me and inviting me to reflect, evaluate and respond with a greater desire to pursue the things that matter.  And those things aren’t all the same as they were just a few months ago.

This too, all speaks to love – the love that I was invited to learn more about this year.  A Father’s love that is incomprehensible yet totally available.  A gutsy, passionate, gritty, dangerous, tender love that won’t let things stay as they are…won’t let me stay where I am…won’t let me drift into stagnant waters…won’t always tell me where we’re going but also won’t send me off to figure it all out on my own.

Some look at my life and wonder if I will ever get it together…if I will ever land and stick with something for more than a season.  I guess it depends on how they measure that…if they are talking about tasks, roles, jobs, etc…probably not.  But if they are talking about sticking with God no matter what…doing whatever it is He asks me to do…for however long he asks me to do it…I think I might have a chance.

Peace and joy to you.