bleep

"What was it I was thinking about? There was this thought, there was this thing I was thinking."

Yes, I just said those very words out loud to myself. There really was something last week that I was wanting to blog about. Can't for the life of me remember what.

This post is just my way of saying that, yes, it's been a long, long time. This post is that solitary "bleep" on the heart monitor in a dramatic TV scene. I'm still alive. I'm still here.

Closing the Gap

I am officially a Bad Blogger. I haven't posted in almost two months. Bad! And as one who has learned by experience that interpersonal reconciliation is best achieved by plain repentance without an attempt to explain oneself, I won't tell you all my good excuses. I won't tell you, for instance, how insanely busy I've been, or the emphasis I'm trying to put on real life community, or the fact that my creative energies have been sapped by invested in work-related blogging. I won't tell you any of those things, because I hate it when people get defensive and try to justify themselves. It's not only godless, it's annoying.

I was reading an old journal this morning (Why? Because I have four whole days before I leave the country with a team I'm leading, so I was looking for something to stave off the boredom) and was startled by this prayer I'd written: "God, I want to close the gap between me and You."

Me? Close that infinite gap between a holy God and a depraved sinner? What was I thinking?

Granted, it was nearly ten years ago, and I suppose I ought to cut myself some slack for that lousy theology. What shocks me is not that I thought that way or lived that way -- I know that was the case, and I thank God every time I think about how He's rescued me from the dark weariness of striving to make Him like me. What shocks me is that I wrote that down and didn't even recognize that it was the opposite of the Gospel -- a Gospel I thought I'd embraced but clearly didn't understand.

All that to say, it challenges me -- first, to examine my own heart, and second, to examine what I teach, whether by word or by example, to make sure that any challenge to righteous living or obedience or godly standards is never presented without the why (because of love and for His glory) and the how (by His grace). Otherwise I'm just adding to a load that was never intended to be borne the way we tend to bear it because it was already carried with the cross and when He said "It is finished!" it really was.

Poem In My Pocket

It's Poem In Your Pocket Day -- apparently the 8th annual, but last year was my first. No time to scribble one down today so it's in snapshots on my phone, which is in my pocket, and I guess that's the next best thing. And here 'tis:

The Invitation
George Herbert

Come ye hither all, whose taste
                             Is your waste;
Save your cost, and mend your fare.
God is here prepar’d and drest,
                             And the feast,
God, in whom all dainties are.

Come ye hither all, whom wine
                             Doth define,
Naming you not to your good:
Weep what ye have drunk amisse,
                             And drink this,
Which before ye drink is bloud.

Come ye hither all, whom pain
                             Doth arraigne,
Bringing all your sinnes to sight:
Taste and fear not: God is here
                             In this cheer,
And on sinne doth cast the fright.

Come ye hither all, whom joy
                             Doth destroy,
While ye graze without your bounds:
Here is joy that drowneth quite
                             Your delight,
As a floud the lower grounds.

Come ye hither all, whose love
                             Is your dove,
And exalts you to the skie:
Here is love, which having breath
                             Ev’n in death,
After death can never die.

Lord I have invited all,
                             And I shall
Still invite, still call to thee:
For it seems but just and right
                             In my sight,
Where is all, there all should be

I'm not all about transubstantiation, by the way -- or alternative spelling, for that matter -- but I am all about God being all, for all. Thanks, George.

Happiness is...

...a pocketful of almonds.

Happiness is...

...hammocking in the park on a Sunday afternoon.

Especially when it follows some good Food-n-Fellowship (including an Easter egg hunt in which I decided to make a tradition of hunting violets instead).

Speaking of violets, the day after bemoaning their absence I found one! I was dashing back and forth cleaning up our community lunch so could only pause to cry "There you are!", snatch her up, and slip her into my Bible for safekeeping (as it happens, right next to God saying, "Open wide your mouth and I will fill it").

And here are Violets #2, 3, 4, & 5...


...and #s 6-15...


...and Karina sniffing #16.

Resurrection

I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of a mourning dove outside my open window and the news that my friends in Sudan were safe.

This morning, celebrating the Resurrection was all the more meaningful after the darkness of that good Friday. As I listened to the familiar story of the prodigal, I wanted to raise my hands and say "That's me!" I was dead, but I'm alive again; I was lost, but now I'm found.

Then this afternoon: more bad news, as a dear friend who's become my little sister shared the troubling report of her fiance's health concerns. For some reason I thought that after Friday there would be no more blood tests or frightening unknowns, no more wars or rumors of wars.

He's alive, and because of him so are we, but this world isn't our home; it's groaning for redemption. I won't bother trying to explain what I mean, since we sang about it this morning:

Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me,
I cannot proclaim it well.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Then clothed in blood-washed linen,
How I'll sing Thy sovereign grace!
- Robert Robinson, "Come Thou Fount"

He's risen indeed. Come, Lord Jesus!

It was a good Friday.

A friend of mine left Friday morning to attend a funeral in his hometown.

Over lunch, a friend of mine shared the struggle of realizing that her father is dying.

In the afternoon, I grieved with another friend over the loss of a dear, close relative.

Then I discovered that a good friend was being held at gunpoint in Sudan. She is one of my heroes for pursuing a childhood dream of starting a medical clinic near the Darfur region. A group of militants took over their compound and held the workers and patients hostage. As I prayed for their deliverance, I remembered her telling me years ago that she would consider it a privilege to lose her life while serving in Africa.

That evening as a group of us enjoyed the spring weather, coffee, and conversation on a café patio, someone mentioned that a man she'd known for years had recently commit suicide.

In the parking lot as we were leaving, someone else got a phone call. Her "Oh no!" was alarming, but before we could find out what had happened a woman pulled up. She asked us for directions and lisped out her story through a broken jaw: she was in an abusive relationship, she told us, and was on her way to meet the creep so the police could catch him. She was bruised and nervous, but what struck me most was the pink baby carrier buckled into the backseat.

When she left, we learned the source of my friend's "Oh no": her sister's friend, a single mother of four, had lost her little boy. He'd been abducted, horribly molested, and killed.

By now the day had gotten a bit surreal. What's more, I kept checking for updates but still had no news from Sudan.

That morning I'd led a worship service focused on the weight and wonder of the cross. One of the aspects we meditated on was how Jesus was falsely accused at his trial and did not defend himself; we, on the other hand, are truly guilty but try to justify our crime. And he took the punishment while we go free.

As Friday progressed another friend of mine kept those of us in his social network updated on the events of that day in history. "By now he had been betrayed and humanity was putting God on trial. It was a good Friday," he tweeted. He continued throughout the day as Jesus was questioned and the crowds chose a criminal over him. And then: "Now the entire weight of wrath fell on him. Not some or part, but all. God was killing his Son. But it was a good Friday."

We are badly, badly broken. We're so unworthy of the cross -- but oh, how we need it.

On the Brain, Part II

The other theme in my mobile photo library.

More daffydills

When the carpet cleaners parked me in I made lemonade, so to speak, by taking a walk to the park. I asked this little tuft of grass to let me make a ring out of it, and to prove its undying devotion it complied, the whiff of wild onion upon being twisted and torn its olfactory equivalent to "Oh, happy dagger!"

A meeting in the basement? On a day like today?

I started blogging after I discovered the first violet this time last year and, as usual, couldn't keep quiet about it. For years that first blossom has become synonymous to me of our hope and God's faithfulness.

Last year the first violet caught me completely by surprise. This year my blogiversary came and went, followed by the first day of spring, and I've been keeping my eyes peeled. This has resulted in some clumsy walks and a discovery of quite a bit of dog poop in my neighborhood, but my hope remains deferred. No purple head peeks out by the sidewalk, the tree root, the bush.

Still, my hope is in Him and He's faithful, whether or not those sweet little reminders appear. Silly of me to look for the sign instead of the source.

Anyway, spring seems to have arrived without the violets.

On the Brain

Browsing my iPhone photos the other day, I detected a theme.

Mmm, authentic enchiladas.
Sure was nice having the Delgado family in town.

The only thing better than a café miel at Quills...

...is a café miel at Quills with Kristen.
(She's looking a tad grainy here -- no fault of her own.)



After living in My Own Place for six months, I finally bought a kitchen table and decided the inaugural meal warranted commemorating. In case you're wondering, that's a mug of homemade baked beans, and the jar of milk is the closest to farm fresh I can get.

This meal made me think of Gramma, for no other reason than that I sprinkled my eggs with herbes de provence gleaned from her kitchen cabinet after she passed away last summer. It occurred to me as I enjoyed my little supper that Gramma would have been an avid Craigslister had she known how to use a computer, and she would have been proud of me for talking the previous owner of my "new" table into selling it for $40 instead of $50.



Java doesn't brew my favorite coffee in town, but they do serve it in my favorite misshapen turquoise mug.



This is peanut butter and jelly. Literally.
It made for a good midnight supper after a long day of work.

Rainy Sunday afternoons are for coffee, cookies, and parables.

And also red shoes.



"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."
- T.S. Eliot

First Day of Spring

"Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection,
not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time."
- Martin Luther

"Daffodils were sunbeams in a previous life
and will be lemon cupcakes in the next."
- me

bee tee double you

Happy blogiversary to me!

That Darn Thing with Feathers

"Hope is the thing with feathers," chirped Emily Dickinson, "that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all."

There are days, good days, sunshiney spring-is-here-at-last days, when I sing hope's praises alongside Emily, as well I should.

There are days, grey days, drizzley winter-may-stay-forever days, when I want to strangle the thing with feathers to silence its incessant song.

You irritate me, little bird. You tantalize me with your promises and frighten me with your risk. You're unabashed, Emily says, by the sorest of storms or the chilliest of lands, but I'm not interested in storms or chill; I'd rather stick cynical thumbs in my ears than be lured out to sea by your sweet song. Emily insists you've never asked a crumb of her. From me you demand my final meal. You're not safe, you unassuming feathered thing, and if I sing along, I may be disappointed.

But sing I must, like it or not, because I've read the Book and I know the outcome and I see that I am called to join the chorus because I'm loved by a God who doesn't just offer a hopeful option or wistful thinking or blind optimism but is Hope, my only hope. To run from hope is to hope in myself, and that's a chilling thought if ever there was one.

He does promise, after all, that those who hope in him are never disappointed, and of course it's true --how could he ever disappoint? It's the "in him" that makes the difference, since he's the one, the only one, who never fails.

That's the pitch I'll tune my heart to.

Sooner than hoped.

But definitely not daffodils.

Happiness is...

...an open sunroof.

Prrrr

Winter may remain for a time, but rejoicing comes in the spring.

Daffodils are not far off.

Hangin' Out in the Kitchen

Snow Day, Part 2

Some offices have coffee breaks involving burnt Folgers and styrofoam. Around here we build snow creatures inspired by Dr. Seuss and sip lattes. Don't you wish you had my job?

Oh, and we definitely have the best snowman around. Those kids down the street didn't stand a chance.

Snow Day

It's the kind of snow that comes down in thick, wet flakes, sticking to my hair and my nose and my tongue (which, of course, is hanging out to catch it). It's sticking to the trees, too, transforming suburbia into fairyland. The boys across the street are building barricades and itching for a fight. The neighbor kids have the first big snowball ready for their snowman. I have firewood on hand and everything I need for a batch of homemade hot cocoa.

I love today.

Waking up to fresh-fallen snow holds the same wonder it always did, even though I'm a grown-up now and can't stay home and don't even own a sled. Suddenly the world is clean, and even the drab parking lot behind my cheap apartment brims with potential and magic. I know I'm far from the first to make this observation, but when I look out my window at the white-draped world I can't help but be reminded of how God blankets my dinginess with His purity. That's cause for a wonder that only grows, and with it gratitude and delight and awe.

"Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered." - Psalm 32:1

Some days grace is brown and hot and liquid.

I drink deeply.

Success of the Day: Homemade Yogurt

When Life Hands You a Snowstorm, Make Snow Cream