Just...

We are slowly and oh-so-quietly turning toward the new year.

I hope that you are finding peace and joy and hope in warm and silent moments. I hope that you've known love and that you've dreamed sweet dreams. I hope your heart is full and that your memories brim bright with goodness.

I  pray you know - no matter what- that God loves you just as you are...just because you are...

Waiting For Christmas

 

This year the wait for Christmas felt like velvet. 

It was thick and soft and rich and heavy and I found myself all wrapped up in it. 

I hope I never come undone.

Hearing God

It's hard to hear the voice of God.

A neon sign would be nice. Just a quick flash to warn me when my life's about to change.

When my children passed from childhood into adolescence, I'd have appreciated a bit of warning to tell me how our relationship would change. Or maybe - as I was rushing around making sure the movers had my coffee table situated just so and the cable connected to the televisions in all of the right rooms - maybe the sound of a bullhorn? Just a short blast to tell me that my world was about to come undone.

There have been times in the past when God has "spoken" to me, and I knew that it was God. 

Years ago, when H and I were the young parents of a little infant boy, we lived in North Carolina, miles away from his parents in Michigan. Somehow, H decided we should go home for Christmas that year. I just couldn't see how to make it work. I was sure that we wouldn't have enough money for the long drive there and back again. I was - as the Bible puts it - fretting. I worried and wrestled and got all worked up, but H really wanted to go home.

I remember I went to our bedroom and closed the door behind me. Out of sheer desperation I picked up my Bible and it fell open to these words: “Go in peace. Your journey has the LORD’s approval.”, Judges 18:6 (NIV). 

No kidding.

 

It's not always like that. Truthfully, it is hardly ever like that. Not for me. I can count the experiences I've had like that on less than one hand. Oh, I know there are people who hear from God all of the time, but that is not my story. I'm usually the one asking God what would be so bad about sending me a message in a bottle?

I'm jealous of Elijah, the prophet who stood at the mouth of a cave and heard the quiet voice of God. Or Moses, who climbed to the summit of Mount Sinai where he and God spoke face-to-face like neighbors.

Lauren Winner quotes a rabbi who teaches that God is always talking. Rabbi KiTov says that God had been talking long before he and Moses sat there face-to-face, and God is still speaking today.

"...what God did at Sinai was not speak something new, but silence all the background noise that usually covers up his divine voice...He is talking still, if we could figure out how to tune out the buzz and hum of everything else and listen."

The worry-wort in me reads that and starts to get a bit anxious and wonder how I'll ever be able to silence all of the background noise so that I can hear Him. But I read it again and see that maybe this - the silencing of the background noise - this is what God does.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not letting myself off the hook. I'm sure that I get in the way with all of my buzzing and humming. But, when we're all out of answers and our hearts beat soft in silence, I think God jumps at the chance to get a message through.

Quote: Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life, by Lauren F. Winner.
Photos taken on the grounds of The Arch in St. Louis.

Sunday

...let Heaven rejoice, let Earth be jubilant,
      and pass the word among the nations, "God reigns!" 

~I Chronicles 16:31, The Message

Cristo Rey

At Cristo Rey, the priest says mass in Spanish. He wears a white robe with a blue and and white cape that floats behind him as he makes his way down the aisle to the altar. At the very front - almost at the peak of the cathedral ceiling - Jesus stands with His arms outstretched. Jesus wears a regal robe and I think there is a crown and his face is almost tender in a kingly sort of way. He's mounted to a cross and there's no way that I could reach Him, even if I tried.

Worshipers dip their fingertips in holy water at the door and take their place on prayer benches in the pews as incense fills my nostrils in the silence. It fills this temple - the incense and the silence and all of it feels holy.

I watch as one man kneels and crosses his lips. His forehead. His heart. He presses his hands together - elbows on the pew in front of him - and bows to rest his forehead on his fingertips. I smile because I think that maybe one day I will recognize his face when we're in heaven.

I hum because I know the tune and only the English words. "Oh come, let us adore Him." And when the song is done, I quietly slip out through the back door because I really just came here to see the nativity.

So I make my way to where the room is dark and there are maybe thirty people talking in hushed tones as they stand before the scene.

It's like a diorama at the Museum of Natural History, with running water and fish swimming in the miniature pond and smoke puffing out of a tiny chimney. And Mary and Joseph and shepherds and angels and wise men and sheep and donkeys.

It's not until I start to pull my coat back over my shoulders on my way to the exit door that I see Jesus on the table. He lays there in a separate nativity scene that's set up by the door. No red velvet rope to separate Him from the masses.

No boundaries
No separation.
No signs that read, "Please don't touch."
Jesus is right there on the table. Within arms' reach.

The children cannot keep their eyes off of Him.

I watch as one by one, they're drawn to Jesus on the table.  They stand so that their bellies touch the table's edge. They lean in until they're face-to-face and nose-to-nose with Jesus as He lays there on that table. They get as close as they can get without actually climbing up on that table and laying right down next to Jesus.

Incense lingers in my hair and I remember that we'd sung, "Oh come let us adore Him." 

One little girl with painted fingernails leans her elbows on the table and strokes His tiny arms. She counts each tiny porcelain toe and places her open palm upon the belly of the baby Jesus.

There is not one word of protest.

Outside, the sky is thinking it might snow and twinkling lights shimmer warmly in the dark. I turn the car heat up to "HI" and point myself toward home. In my heart my open palm rests on the belly of that baby and I see the face of that one man praying and I can still hear music so I hum into the air - "Oh come, let us adore Him."

More Love

 
We moved around a lot when I was young, but by the time that I was three years old, we’d settled into a little yellow cape cod on a suburban cul-de-sac in New Jersey. My dad commuted over the bridge into the city each day for work. My mom taught piano lessons in our living room and worked herself into the plow position with her girlfriends on the Oriental rug.

In the summer my sister and I climbed trees, rode our bikes, and ran through the sprinklers in the front yard. In the fall I walked to school, on a trail that someone had named the Pony Path. But as soon as the temperature dipped just a bit, my thoughts turned directly to Christmas.

Christmas meant Virginia. And grandparents. And more love than one child could ever hold onto.

You can read the rest of this story today, over at (in)courage. Join me there and share your own memories with us.

Unto Us

Headache stores. That's what my husband calls them. He remembers going with his mother to department stores when he was little. They'd stay so long - hours, he says - while his mother tried on clothes and shoes and sprayed perfume. Her son wound up with a headache. 

So he'd climb inside the clothing racks and pull his feet up underneath him on the rail suspended above the floor. He'd be in his own little world.

On one of those occasions, he thinks he must have gotten lost for just a moment or two. He doesn't remember the details. He doesn't remember feeling lost and he doesn't remember being found. He remembers what his mother told him about being lost.

"If you ever get lost, just stay right there," his mother told him. "Don't move. I'll come to you. I will find you."

I asked my husband to tell me the story again tonight. I love that story. For me, the heart of Christmas is wrapped up in those words his mother shared with him.

I was lost, and God came to me.

It's a big idea - God coming to us. Why would someone of such great importance fit us into His schedule? Find a way to come to us? And take such great pains to be close to us that He would shed divinity to wrap Himself in skin and bones and then move right into our neighborhood?

God came to us for the same reasons my husband's mother found him in the headache store. My husband is her child. She loved him - still loves him - and couldn't imagine life without him.

Tonight, when my husband shared that story with me, he added something that he hadn't said before. He said, "A child can get lost in those big clothing racks." God knows that about us. We can get lost in this big world. And sometimes, trying to find our way can make our head ache.


God can't imagine life without us - without you. So God said, "Stay right there. Don't move. I'll come to you."

And He did.

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 

~Luke 2:11, NIV

Sunday

 

"Prepare for God's arrival!
Make the road straight and smooth,
   a highway fit for our God.
Fill in the valleys,
   level off the hills,
Smooth out the ruts,
   clear out the rocks.
Then God's bright glory will shine
   and everyone will see it.
   Yes. Just as God has said." 

~Isaiah 40:3-4, The Message

Must Be Butter

I was in a quandary.  So I asked for help. I reached out to my fellow bloggers and editors at The High Calling and left this message of distress: 

Forgive this off-the-wall request, but is there a tiny chance that anyone was able to get a copy of the Laity Lodge recipe for those graham cracker buttery sugary almond-y delicious confections that we all enjoyed in September? And if perchance you have it, would you share it here?

Everybody and their mother is having a cookie party this year, and I have worn the chocolate chips to death. I (along with everybody and their mother) would be so grateful if I had a new "cookie" to share this year.

What to my wondering eyes should appear? You guessed it! The recipe! I whipped up those bad boys in 15 minutes - I kid you not! And they were the hit - the hit I tell you! - of the office holiday party.



Well, the High Calling bloggers got all worked up and before I knew it, these delicious cookies were being made in a farmhouse kitchen in Iowa, a cozy kitchen in West Virginia, and a kitchen in a home whose bedroom is under construction, tucked in the hills of the state of Virginia.

After all of my talk this week about what I learned while at Laity Lodge, it's only fitting to end the week with a treat from that very same place. You can enjoy these cookies in just about fifteen minutes - I kid you not!

Click over here to get the recipe (and a way better selection of pictures).

The recipe calls for butter. And then, in parentheses it says, "must be butter." That's my favorite part! 

This recipe is taking off, friends! Click over to Ann's Food on Fridays to read even more!

If Writing Is Your Calling - Part Two

 
The idea of "call" can seem so big. It's a word that belongs to people like Moses and Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Theresa. They're the ones who are called. People like that. And if I'm really called (by God?) into a life of writing , wouldn't that be reflected in - oh, I don't know - more followers, or comments, or contracts, or cash?

Parker J. Palmer writes this about calling:

Our deepest calling is to grow into our authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks - we will also find our path of authentic service to the world. True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as "the place where your deepest gladness meets the world's deep need."

So maybe therein lies the key. Finding the road that leads each of us closer toward who we were meant to be in the first place. Only you know which road that is for you.

But here's the thing about that road: once you've struck out on the pathway, content to follow wherever that road leads, you realize it's a gift.
All of it.
The fact that you found that road.
The fact that the road even exists.
The fact that the twists and turns and potholes along the way make you stronger as you go.
The fact that you keep finding a way to put one foot in front of the other as you make your way along the road.

All of it is a gift.

And if it is a gift, then credit belongs to the Gift Giver, and thoughts of followers, or comments, or contracts - even thoughts of cash - diminish. Because here you stand, holding this remarkable gift.

So. Here's the perfect place to share with you the final two of four points that we were given as we sat for two afternoons in late September, in the womb of that room at Laity Lodge:

3.  Be humble. Who can take credit for a gift they've been given? Let's say your spouse or a dear friend has gone out of their way to give you the most perfect gift that fits like a glove. You treasure it, and when you wear it people often remark about its beauty or its flair or the way it makes them smile. You respond by saying, "Thank you so much. Mary (or Jim or Susan or Bill) gave this to me." And so, this gift - this call - to write, deserves to be credited back to the Gift Giver, the One who knows exactly what fits us best.
4.  Pay attention to the craft - view the nuts and bolts as sacred. Grammar, spelling, syntax, sentence structure. All of it matters. It's the way we honor the gift and the One who gives it. It's the same as hanging up a special outfit instead of casting it aside on the floor at the end of the day. Or, shining up a piece of jewelry before closing the clasp around a wrist. Maybe it means more journal writing and fewer blog posts. Maybe it means more reading. More praying. More breathing. Maybe it means taking a writing class, or a workshop. It's the nuts and bolts that make a thing work and hold itself together.

Oh. And one last thing. Maybe writing isn't your calling. Or maybe it's not your only calling. But something is. Whatever it is - art, justice, science, cooking, healing, etc. -  it is a gift, and the four points we learned in The Writing Life apply there, too. Your gift - your call - fits you perfectly.

[The definition of calling] starts with the self and moves toward the needs of the world: it beings, wisely, where vocation begins - not in what the world needs (which is everything), but in the nature of the human self, in what brings the self joy, the deep joy of knowing that we are here on earth to be the gifts that God created.

Quotes from "Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation" by Parker J. Palmer.

Photos: The Frio River at Laity Lodge.
To read the first two points, click here.
You might like to read more about the craft. If so, click here for a list of ten books about writing.

If Writing Is Your Calling - Part One

For two afternoons in late September, I joined a group above the Frio River, in a room that hung on the rim of a canyon. This small group of writers had gathered where books lined the shelves and everything spiritual seemed so much easier to identify. We were published and not, novices and veterans, who gathered to explore The Writing Life.

Only you know if writing is your calling. You’re the only who knows if your breath grows short just at the thought of not being able to work yourself out on a page or computer monitor. Only you know if problems unravel themselves as the ink spills itself on the page; or if the tap-tap-tap of a keyboard is the rhythm you beat out to find yourself. To find truth. Maybe even to find God.

And if this sounds like you, chances are you still don’t really know for sure. Is a thing a calling just because it calls to you, you wonder? Shouldn’t there be some sort of sign or bush that burns to tell you that it’s true? And though you may not know for sure, you do know it pursues you and you jot down notes while sitting at the stoplight watching pedestrians scurry and swagger and shuffle across between the two white lines.

So just in case it’s you - in case it really is your calling - you try to wrap your head around the big idea of that. You sit in groups of those who write and you share words and thoughts and hang on every moment as you wait for just a flicker of the flame of confirmation. I sat in a room above the Frio as the leaders of our workshop offered bits of wisdom for those of us who write. If you’re one of those for whom The Writing Life calls out – whether it is simply calling, or if it is your calling – you might like to know a bit of richness that was dropped into my lap over those two afternoons in late September.

I’ll share two today (these two first - I think - to fortify the place from which the soul responds in words) and two later this week. They seem simple and, like true treasures, they are easy to pass over as insignificant or perhaps they’re too easily taken for granted. But it is in the practice that their value is unfolded.

1. Read your Bible. It fills you up. Read it as a writer. Soak up the choices of words. Underline and highlight the phrases that jump out at you – and they will. Circle the parts that make you question or wonder out loud what it all really means. Question and wonder. Read what you can when you can. Something mystical happens with these sacred words and they settle themselves into your heart and somehow they show up on your page or your screen or in the midst of your conversations with friends over coffee.
2. Go to church. I know. Church is filled with people and all of their baggage, and the choir that always sings off-key, or the preacher who preaches too long, or the seemingly constant requests for money, or the greeter who always invades your personal space. But Church is about God, and not about us. It’s where we recognize that everything we have comes from God – even this bent we have toward putting the pen to the page. And church is where we join with others to say “thank you” for words and for story and for life.

How about you? What do you think it means to be called to something? What is it that calls to you?



With deep gratitude to Kathleen Niendorff and Alice Lawhead, who led our workshop on The Writing Life over two September afternoons in a room on the rim of the canyon.

Photos: A glimpse into the workshop. The couch where I sat suspended over the water. The writers, sharing words and thoughts and hearts during a break.

Sunday

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children.

~Romans 8:15,16 The Message

Deeper Still

Last weekend - thanks to the folks at DaySpring and (in)courage - I was in Birmingham, Alabama attending the Deeper Still Conference, along with 13,900 other women. The lineup of speakers read like a Who's Who of spiritual giants: Kay Arthur, Beth Moore, and Priscilla Shirer. Between the three of them, they have taught generations of women (and many men) how to live this life of faith. My seat was just off the main floor. I could see Kay Arthur's eyelashes, and this is the one and only picture that I took. I know, right?

But it's all good because my experience there could never truly be captured in photos. Mine was a heart experience.

Man! Where do I begin? I read One In A Million a few months ago, and that book was written just for me. I know Priscilla Shirer meant for millions of people to read it, but I'm the one in a million for whom that book was truly written. So...on Saturday morning as I walked across the arena to my seat, God fixed it that I walked right across Priscilla's path, got to hug her and tell her in her ear just how grateful I am that she wrote that book! I had simply wanted to be able to tell her thank her in person and I got to do it. I settled into my front-row-off-the-main-floor-seat and I thought that was it. I was good to go. Mission accomplished.

Boy, was I wrong!

Oh! My! Goodness! Priscilla Shirer was the speaker of the morning and her message was the very reason I got up out of my bed in Lincoln, Nebraska at 3:30 on Friday morning to catch my flight to Birmingham. In the days leading up to this trip, I'd had a growing understanding that God had something to tell me there in Alabama. And just in case I missed it (because I do tend to miss it), God had my friend turn to me at the end of Priscilla's message as I stood there all undone and say, "THAT's the reason you came here!"

I'm still unpacking it all, and I'll share more with you along the way. But what I'm wondering today is this: When's the last time you found yourself in exactly the right place at exactly the right time?

Advent::Peace

Slowing. Life is making room for quiet. Fewer words. Less noise.

Anticipation fills and spills and splashes up against the glow of candles on the mantle; 

light reflected in the glass. 

Light unwrapping details.

Wrapped in breathless mystery this holiness slips softly in. 

My heart keeps looking up in eager, ardent expectation.

Do you sense it, too? How are you finding peace this Christmas?

Sunday

He gives power to the faint,
   and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
   and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
   they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
   they shall walk and not faint.
~Isaiah 40:29-31 (ESV)

Dressing Sexy For Church

 
I passed myself on the street last Sunday.

Standing on the sidewalk, waiting to cross the street and slip into the church that beckoned from the other side. Slender legs wrapped in fishnets, feet adorned in patent-leather stilettos. A pencil skirt that hovered dangerously close to the hem of a coat that fell just below you know where. Fedora hat with its old-fashioned and peculiar charm suggesting a touch of obstinance, the way it sat cocked off to the side. 

I remembered when I’d pinned my hopes on an old cliché that still suggests that after bars and frat parties and speed dates and blind dates, one of the best places to find a man might be in an aisle seat on the center pew on a blustery Sunday morning.