We were riding our bikes down miles of country road, beneath a sky that never ends and a sun that turned my shoulders the color of summer. That’s when I remembered the things that matter most.
~~~
With Jennifer today…
Religious Journey (Thus Far)
May 28, 2012 By
Long ago, I was a personal trainer. One of my clients was a Catholic Priest. He was patient with me. I was intolerant. He talked of icons and creeds and I closed my mind.
~~~
Years ago, in New York City, I stopped to use the restroom at a gas station on a road with six lanes and potholes and restaurants with foods from Africa and Asia. The gas station was the old fashioned kind, with a garage where vehicles had been raised on lifts to have their oil or spark plugs or tires replaced.
I scurried past the man sitting behind bullet-proof glass and made my way to the restroom, where I hovered to do what I’d come there for. I washed my hands and let them drip dry because there was no paper towel and I tried not to touch the doorknob too firmly so the germs would just stay put, and not go home with me.
When I stepped into the hallway, my eyes glimpsed something behind the cracked door to the gas station’s storage closet, so I peeked through the opening. A man in gas station coveralls had spread out a beautifully woven cloth on top of a large piece of cardboard. He laid that mat in the direction of Mecca, on the filth of the gas station’s storage room, removed his shoes, knelt on the handcrafted holy mat and lowered his head to the floor.
~~~
Two weeks ago, I pulled the car into a rest stop somewhere on The Ohio Turnpike. I needed water, and my traveling companions needed to stretch their legs. I parked in one of the parking spaces marked with diagonal yellow lines, along with the rest of the road weary travelers who hoped to find a spark of energy from a cup of coffee, a stroll in the sun, or a bag of fries from the fast food vendor inside.
Just a few cars away, behind his white Toyota parked diagonally, a man spread out a beautiful woven rug, removed his shoes, turned to face Mecca, and lowered his forehead to the ground in prayer. Cars slowed and drivers gawked and the man sat back on his heels with his eyes closed and his palms pressed together at his chest in prayer position.
I stared at him. I stared at the drivers who slowed to stare at the man praying, and the man praying lowered his forehead to the rug without ever opening his eyes.
~~~
Yesterday, H recited the Apostle’s Creed and I asked him to say it again. Out loud. He recites the prayer three times a day as part of The Daily Office. I haven’t memorized it, and I don’t say it. But I believe it.
“Why don’t Baptists do creeds?” I ask him.
“I guess it’s because all those many years ago, Baptists were so upset with the Catholics that they just threw everything away,” he said.
“Say it again,” I say.
“What?” he asks. “The Creed? I just said it.”
“I know. But I like to hear your voice say the words.”
“I believe in God, the Father Almighty,” he begins, and I love the way he says almighty as if it’s three separate words: All. Might. Tee. I lean back in my chair and listen. And I am sure that I believe it, too.
~~~
In the morning, while spiders weave mirrored glass from one tree limb to another, and the sun peeks through to shine a spotlight, I recite the Lord’s Prayer while my body moves through all the yoga poses of sun salutation. It’s amazing how it fits so well.
I lift my face from the ground and I am saying “…for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever (and I can’t help it – I add “and ever”)” and my hands reach toward the treetops before I press my palms together in front of my chest in prayer position.
My mind skips back to Ash Wednesday and I can hear the minister telling me, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The palms of my hands are muddy from holding downward facing dog in the grass.
~~~
If I get back from the wilderness in time, I’ll be linking with Michelle…
…and with Laura.
Sunday
May 26, 2012 By
Welcome to Sunday. Join us! Please, use this as a space to let the Word speak, and let’s keep our own words small today. Link up with a photo and just a few, brief words of inspiration. Then, grab the (new!) Sunday button from the link at the top of the page to post at your place. If it fits into your day, take a minute or two to visit the others who’ve linked up here. Grace and peace to you…
Marriage Counseling
May 25, 2012 By
H and I are camping for the Memorial Day weekend. If all goes well, and I don’t break under the pressure, I will leave my laptop and my cell phone at home. I emailed contact info to family members in case of emergency. REAL emergency. My goal is to give my husband my undivided attention this weekend. Lately, it’s been way too divided.
(Whatever you’re thinking, you’re probably on the right track.)
I am taking a book with me, though. A real book. Not one I downloaded on my Kindle. A book with pages that I can turn down or underline or highlight or draw diagrams in. Just in case.
What are you doing/reading/leaving?
My Delivery Guy’s Prayer
May 24, 2012 By
Someone should give my delivery guy some type of award. I am quite sure when that guy sees my address on his route and a box from DaySpring in the back of his truck, he must send up a few heartfelt prayers to God. He probably says something like this:
Join me over at (in)courage for the rest of the fun. I’m hanging out at the (in)spired deals page where DaySpring is giving you a chance to win gifts! For free! See you over there…
(Photo courtesy of DaySpring)
Parenting Without A Road Map
May 23, 2012 By
I just said goodbye to my son. I hugged him tight – all 23 years of him – and told him he is my favorite son. I always tell him that. He hugged me back. He hardly ever does that.
I told him I loved him so much I didn’t even have words for it – “And I have a lot of words,” I told him. “Mmm-hmm,” he said.
These days, I have to reach up to rest my chin on his shoulder and the scruff of his five o’clock shadow is rough next to my face. Where has the time gone?
I reach my right hand up and place it on the crown of his head. I squeeze my eyes shut and stop myself from saying something that will ruin the moment, and I realize it’s not so hard anymore to know exactly what that might be. Instead, I say it to myself and hope that God can hear me. “Bless him, please,” I say inside of me.
I say it three times, and the third time I realize I am squeezing the crown of his head and I wonder if he’s noticed. I’m the one who breaks away, trying to beat him to it.
The other day I asked my dad, “When you were raising us, did you have any idea what you were doing?” He looked past me to some place on the horizon, or some place long ago and shook his head. “No,” he said.
I used to lay out my prayers for my children in front of God the way my dad used to spread out the map on the hood of our light blue Pontiac Tempest. I used a yellow highlighter to show God the path I wanted him to make my children take. I’d stand there at the crossroads, my bossy words blowing air through a whistle that hung from my lips, squeaking and squawking and waving a bright red stop sign, as if I were the one in charge. God was patient with me, but my plans were not his plans, and I was never the one in charge.
These days, I try my best to do the one thing I know I am good at. I am good at loving my son. That is all I know how to do. I am good at loving him so much that the words run out and I stand there and whisper blessings over him, on the inside of me.
~~~
With Jennifer Lee, my friend and The High Calling colleague...
It Can’t Just Be About The Blog Post
May 21, 2012 By
Yesterday’s sermon had me squirming in the pew, so I drove out to the local vineyard after church. (It’s not what you think.) I didn’t even change my clothes. I just grabbed my camera, my phone, my laptop, my bible, my pen, my purse, my keys, and my bottled water and jumped in the car.
I was missing the point.
Yesterday’s sermon was about abiding in Jesus, and H talked about the part in the bible where Jesus says he’s the vine and we are the branches. Then, H walked us through the part in the bible where Jesus says that if I haven’t been abiding in Him, it doesn’t matter if I do good things and stay out of trouble and tell people how much God loves them. Without Jesus at the root of it all, I’m just blowing hot air and it is all pointless. Whatever I do that doesn’t have its root in Jesus? Well, it may look good, and sound pretty, and make people feel special, but it will have no lasting impact. And what good is temporary?
When I got home from church, after hearing that message, I needed a word picture. I needed to know what it looks like to abide in Jesus, because I don’t want to do temporary. That’s when I remembered the vineyard, packed up all my technology, and started driving. Clearly, I reasoned, God wanted me to abide at the vineyard and He would meet me there and share deep insights with me and I should record them right away to report back to you on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. Immediately.
At the vineyard, I got the wifi password from the guy at the front desk, opened my laptop, and readied my iPhone for photos that I could instantly share in my Twitter stream so that you wouldn’t miss out on anything. But there was no connection. No matter how I tried, I could not get connected to the internet, and my iPhone refused to take any photos. In retrospect, I am quite sure God must have been shaking His holy head.
So, there I sat. Totally disconnected. And that, I think, was the point.
Sitting there at the vineyard, I leaned back in the white plastic chair and gazed up at the sky. Slowly, I packed up all my technology and put it back in the trunk of my car. Then, with my camera in one hand, and the hem of my maxi dress in the other hand, I wandered the pathways that wound through rows upon rows of grapevines.
I leaned in between the leaves and stared at the small, pink grapes forming on fragile stems. Sunlight warmed my shoulders and my sandals pressed down the soil. I got up close and saw the vine is rugged and strong. The gnarled and twisted vine made me cry and I took a step back, even though I wanted to reach out and touch it. I could see small branches being grafted in and trained to stay close to the vine. And I kept asking, “What are you saying, God? What’s next?”
I noticed tendrils that reached for the sun – away from the vine. They were beautiful. And fruitless.
I know what God says about being fruitless and I gazed at one of those beautiful, wayward tendrils and said, “I wonder what’s going to happen to you?” The answer was at my feet where dry, brown, fruitless tendrils lay that had been cut from the vine. Dead.
Seeing those dead, wayward branches on the ground at my feet while birds sang concertos and the breeze ran its fingers through my hair and the sun beamed brightly overhead in a spectacular sky? It was heavy. “What are you saying, God? What’s next?” I asked.
“Stay close.”
If God speaks in words, I think it’s a whisper. It’s not that booming voice Charlton Heston heard.
It was the whisper that got through to me. It was that whisper that made me realize there probably isn’t anything more important than staying close to God. Not my family. Not my paycheck. Not my health. Not even this blog post. Not any blog post.
When I go off searching for God just so that I’ll have something to write about here, I think I must be a bit like that wayward tendril that looks really good with its green leaf against the turquoise of a Nebraska sky on a Sunday afternoon. It might be beautiful, but it’s fruitless.
I don’t want fruitless.
God, I don’t want fruitless.
You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. ~John 15:16 (MSG)
~~~
With Michelle…
and Laura…
Sunday
May 19, 2012 By
“‘What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this. When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I’ll be there.’” Matthew 18:19-21 (MSG)
~~~
Welcome to Sunday. Join us! Please, use this as a space to let the Word speak, and let’s keep our own words small today. Link up with a photo and just a few, brief words of inspiration. Then, grab the (new!) Sunday button from the link at the top of the page to post at your place. If it fits into your day, take a minute or two to visit the others who’ve linked up here. Grace and peace to you…
To Celebrate The Moments
May 18, 2012 By
The President of the University kept telling us the same thing through the entire weekend. At the Awards Dinner and the Baccalaureate Service and the Commencement ceremony. He kept saying, “Celebrate!” As if he knew we could let the celebration slip right by us.
I guess he’s been a University President long enough to know the craziness of graduation weekend. He knows we’re all exhausted from the traveling and moving and sleeping on hotel beds and eating restaurant food and sitting in traffic and trying to get everywhere on time. He knows we have family dynamics and we have debt and we have children who are leaving us despite the fact that we’re the ones who will get in the car at the end of it all and drive away.
I think I finally heard him when he said it the third time: Celebrate. You know those movie scenes where the character stands still, but all around her the world keeps moving? Yeah, it was like that.
Yesterday, I stood on the sidewalk and talked with my neighbor about the tree she’d had cut down while we were away. We stood in the shade of the tree that remained and a monarch butterfly flew low and easy overhead. We could see the sun shining through its filmy orange and black wings. We both stood silently, my neighbor and I, and watched the butterfly glide against a backdrop of turquoise sky.
Last weekend, when I finally heard the president giving me permission to let the world keep spinning while I stood in one spot and soaked it all in, it was just like watching that butterfly with my neighbor.
Most of the time, I hold too tightly to frenzy and the next thing on my schedule. I need to be reminded that the bible doesn’t say, “Blessed are the frenzied, or the overbooked, or the fastest, or the busiest, or the one who finishes first.”
Sometimes I get the American message confused with God’s message. I need someone who’s walked this road before to gently and persistently and kindly remind me to go ahead, look up, and celebrate.
You too?
Full
May 14, 2012 By
By the time you read this, we’ll be on the road – headed back to Nebraska from Pennsylvania. We had a blast, and we are filled with family and fellowship and pride and love and joy. We’re exhausted, and happy, and excited, and giddy, and tired, and all of the other words I can’t grab hold of right now because my heart and mind are so full. But I’m sure thirty hours on the road will settle me down just a bit.
We’d love it if you’d pray for us as we travel. And for our daughter, who moved into an apartment with two other women, and who begins her full-time-with-benefits job tomorrow. Thanks so much for all the ways you cheer us on. Thanks to God for always watching over each of us.
How about you? Do you have good news to share? Do you need someone to pray with you as you face a long stretch of highway yourself? Let us know about it in the comments today. And let’s rally around each other, and talk to God about each other. Let’s cheer each other on today, and fill each other up so full with grace that it spills over into all the places where we find ourselves today, making the world a better place with every step we take.
