Bringing Faith to Life
Archive for April, 2014
By Our Wounds, We are Healed
210 years
You don’t start out the best at anything. The only way to get better is to work at it. Things take practice and patience, trial and error, falling down and getting up. Three years ago this April, I fell and could not get back up. I needed help, which included a repair to the hamstring tendon which had become detached from its site of origin. Sewing and bit of skeletal carpentry would be necessary. (I also began blogging then. You can find that story here at On the Way to Well.)
Today, the attachment is good as new, but not the hamstring. Oh, it works pretty well. I can run and jump and play without concern. Just every now and then, when I get in just the wrong position, it panics and balls itself up. This is inconvenient and can be a bit embarrassing because there is no inciting event. Nothing startles or irritates. I am just sitting or getting up or kneeling and bingo. Hello says the hamstring and I am at its mercy.
This wouldn’t have surprised anyone back in the days when I hobbled around in a brace. They expected my gimpiness and disability. But now that I am healed, I should be good as new. Well, I am new, but I need to qualify that good. I am the product of repair. I bear the scars, inside and out, of all that life has hurled at me. And that is good. In fact, today I would say that is very, very good.
But oh my, the list. When I go to see a new doctor he wants to know my “history.” Not just of this ailment, but of all the things that have ailed me. What hurts, what has malfunctioned, what’s been repaired, modified, extracted. All that’s ever gone wrong I’m supposed to write on those few puny lines. Oh, if he only knew. Then he would know me.
So, in these days after Easter, I am sitting vicariously with those cowering 11 disciples in the Upper Room. Had I been fortunate enough to be among them in those days, I surely would have been around that table, worrying, lamenting, fearing the worst, right along with them. And suddenly Jesus is among them. They weren’t expecting that, clearly weren’t expecting him. In fact at first they didn’t recognize him. Here’s how John recounts it:
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ~ John 20:19-22
Once he showed them his hands and side, they “saw” him. I had always thought that Doubting Thomas was the only slow one, but apparently not. They didn’t know it was Jesus, it seems, until He showed them his wounds.
And so I think of my “wounds.” After I die, this is how people will be able to positively identify me. Regardless of the lifeless state of my physical body, people will know me by the dental work I have had done, the thumb tendon I had replaced, the bunionectomy that realigned my right big toe, the scar over my right eye where that girl headed me in the head playing soccer in college, the C-section lines where emerged two of my children, and yes, the stitch marks where they sewed back my damaged hamstring tendon. They will know me by the marks on my hands and feet, the scar on my forehead and the gashes in my butt and belly. They will know me by my wounds, that have been healed. The evidence remains.
How compassionate of the Living Christ to show this to those cowards in the Upper Room. See these? Now you go and live life, battle scars and all. That’s how they’ll know you have lived, just as it is how you know that I live.
When we bolt the doors against fear, we don’t keep hurt out, we lock ourselves in. Thank goodness God broke in to show us the Way out!
What they need, not what we have, is what is needed
010 years
Give us a few links and we’ll complete the chain. Sketch a few shapes and we’ll fill in the picture. Hum a few bars and we’ll finish the song. Humans are designed to add the details so the story comes clearer. Even if it’s not the real story. Even if it’s not the right song or the intended picture. Our minds like wholeness and are so dissatisfied with the unfinished, we finish it.
The funny thing is, completion is so satisfying it will seem right even if it’s wrong. In fact, when we are shown the “real” facts of the case or the actual story line, we are surprised. Come on, I know he said that! We may even insist on reading the original work or listening to the recording to convince ourselves we are in error.
I find this fascinating, even as I find myself completely guilty. I complete the story with my version all the time. Jump to conclusions. Suppose the ending. Presume I know what that person is thinking or what he’s been planning or what motivates him. But I don’t. What I “know” is actually a creation. My mind has been filling in the blanks based on my information, my experiences, my know-how, my culture, my upbringing, my…everything. I make no apologies: this is how I am made. And so are we all. Created to complete the story. Our story.
This does get kind of comical when you’re a by-stander to a conversation where one person is trying to solve another person’s problem based on their own symptoms, their own treatment and their own outcome. We seek to be empathetic and we are trying hard to help or solve or correct, but we have filled in our own details and these may be very different from the facts of the case.
It is why testifying as a witness is such a tricky business. We believe what we’re saying but it just may not be true. It’s why speaking up without authority or diving in without full understanding is not fruitful and can be damaging. We are experts in our own lives and may be experts in our own fields, but this doesn’t mean we hold the solution to the problem.
I am reminded of this as today is World Malaria Day. A child dies of this preventable disease every 60 seconds, many thousands of them in Africa where our church has a hospital seeking to address this problem. That’s pretty much all I know. I do not know these children or their mothers. I don’t know what their homes look like, or even if they have homes. What I know is my own life, which is malaria free. So, what is the problem?
The problem is that a child dies every 60 seconds. Period. Just imagine what it must be like to hold a child who is dying from malaria. Who is suffering from attacks lasing 6-10 hours of chills and shaking followed by high fever, headaches and muscle pain. Imagine having no resources to comfort the child and no hope of curing them.
I can only imagine that dimly. I am very far away. But today I am trying to learn more about it so I can imagine it better. Because I suffer from a disease called nearsightedness. It can be treated with corrective lenses. These will help me see what is real and lend clarity to what might be done., including what I might do.
Nearsightedness, after all, is treatable. Shortsightedness is terminal. That cannot be how this story is meant to end.
I go to prepare a place for you
110 years
Until that which we write, we think, we pray, comes to life, we are noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. This is the pre-Easter world, the pre-Easter us.
- Messy.
- Analytical.
- Critical.
- Judging.
- Halting.
- Hesitant.
- Conspiring.
- Underhanded.
- Plotting.
- Deceiving.
Oh, the list. Thank God, the baby Jesus was born into a smelly stable. At least He knew what He was getting himself into, or at least He recognized the stench when he got here.
But the Easter life is meant to have a different fragrance. Gone is the stench of death. Up rises the sweet smell of life. It doesn’t febreeze the smell to muffle it or fool our noses by covering it, it actually replaces it by rebirthing it. It is a coming alive “in me.” It’s an inhabitation, not just a living with, or walking beside. It’s not even a co-habitation. Life has sprung from that which was clearly dying, what others have seen and testified to as completely dead. The mortician has actually signed off on it.
That, of course, is impossible. So, are we foolish to believe it?
Yet, each day I have words, thoughts, prayers in me that are meant to be acted upon. Ideas designed to take root. Connections clearly intended to be made. And when I am true to these, they take on a life of their own. This is not my doing. Others tell me this. Am I foolish to believe this? believe them? That something could be incarnated in me? A life that is not mine and yet it is?
Impossible. Yet, I hear (and so I write): Make a place for me, just as I have gone to make a place for you. What if the place Jesus said he was “going to make for me” was actually in me?
Is there a place “in me” that would welcome my Lord? Have I prepared the guest room? Made the beds, changed the sheets, tidied up the newspapers? Have I scrubbed the floors, painted the shutters, patched the wall paper, vacuumed the… Heck, I’d better get busy. Maybe a decorator.
No, redecoration would be fruitless and a waste of time, energy and resources. Christ doesn’t come with the white glove test to see if I pass muster. He’s not that kind of commander. He comes to set up a base of operations. He seeks outposts where his commands are followed without hesitation or pause. Not because we fear His power or rank but because we defer to it. Our compliance is a place of usefulness, of actualization.
This is a real place in Easter people. Where the Kingdom has come, the knock answered, the door opened, and new life has been welcomed and told to make itself at home. Oh, what a hum and whir I hear from that place.
What is written there is life-giving.
What is thought there is laid in place.
What is prayed there is and was and ever will be.
But what is imagined there…Oh, the plans he has for us; to prosper us and give us a future. Where better to do all of this than within us? Am I foolish to believe that the place He left to prepare was that very place?
Striving for second place
210 years
We are good at preparing people to lead, but how good are we at preparing people to follow?
On the day after Easter, this seems a reasonable question. Because, let’s face it, if Jesus is for real, none of is gonna be the leader when this is all over with.
But it sets me thinking about me, my community, my nation, my world. We place a huge burden on our leaders, but refuse to follow – unless they are doing what we want, in the way we want, by the means we have approved. Frankly, we like to lead ourselves. We do not like to follow. How does one even be a good follower? No one has ever taught me this. In fact, I have been warned against it. Be a winner; don’t settle for second best! That’s the first loser.
And so I wonder if we have gotten it all wrong. As we send our children onto the field of play, shouting as they score, celebrating when they win, rewarding them for defeating the other team, are we failing to fully prepare them?
If they do lose we encourage them to try harder. If they win or if they show promise – which of course we all see in our children – we want them to try out for the ‘select’ squad, to distinguish themselves in some manner so they will be first on the list. First to be chosen. First in line. But how many can be first? Would we do better to prepare them to take their place in line? Any place. Behind the person in front of them. Perhaps the most important thing of all is the line itself.
Instead, we have kids shoving their way. Hey, I was there. I want to stand next to him or her. Get out of my way. And our punishment when they act this way? We send them to the back of the line, because that is the worst place to be. The place of dishonor and shame.
Yet, that is the place of those who aren’t so physically capable, aren’t so quick with their minds, aren’t so socially adept. We have a place for those people, back there, where we don’t have to see you or hear from you or make way for you. You hold the rest of us back. Get out of the way. We’re coming through; we’re leaders. You follow us.
Jesus said this to Peter when he refused to let Jesus wash his feet. “Get behind me Satan!” When all Peter was doing was trying to be first in line. To follow most closely. Jesus was teaching Peter how to follow. To leave some room for other people. A bit of space for latecomers – the deaf, the blind, the sick and the lame. All those who didn’t have the privilege Peter did to hear Jesus first hand, or were out of earshot because they had been shoved aside.
Were Jesus to stand physically before me today, I fear He would say the same to me. “Get behind me Satan!” And elaborate with a loud voice, “Leave some room for others. Learn how to follow me. Start with that problem you have about being first. I am first.” And then to the crowd gathered, “The rest of you are second, every last one of you. Stop fighting for your place in line!”
Falling in line, wherever there was space or wherever someone was kind enough to let me in, would be fine. No jostling. No shoving. No hard feelings. And if all the spaces were taken it would be fine to take my place at the end of the line. Oh, what a trip that is, walking past all those people, curved in and around, wound through, up and over. All of humanity would be there, waiting patiently to be next.
But what to do about that guy who wants to cut? No sense pushing and shoving him because you’ll both end up at the back of the line. Why not let ’em in. Might be fun to see the look on his face when he makes his way to the front and sees who the Leader really is. And THAT thought just sent me to the back of the line.
Love doesn’t leave
010 years
“I’m not leaving his side.” This is the expression of love. A love so deep that it proclaims, nothing is separating us. I am staying right here… in case he needs something, in case he hurts, to prevent him from getting lost or wandering away, so he won’t be confused or lonely. This is the language of love and devotion.
How must it have felt to Jesus to leave those he loved so dearly? Those who had loved him and been his closest companions. Those whom he had ministered to, taught, mentored, loved. These with whom he had laughed and cried, eaten, slept, prayed, walked, and sat in silence. These with whom he shared his final hours around a table where bread and wine became body and blood. What must it have been like to know that your leaving will cause overwhelming grief, mourning, pain and sorrow? To anticipate this pain and yet, agree to go?
Perhaps this pain was even greater than that inflicted by those who derided, flogged and crucified him. Perhaps this was why he asked this cup be taken, why his prayer evoked drops of blood. He longed to stay with those he loved. What reason could there possibly be to separate a love like that?
Only one: to prepare a place for us, all who love him, so we can be where He is. The only thing greater than a love like that is a Love Like That.
I sit mesmerized by our choir singing powerfully of the lamb of God slain. Crucified, dead and buried. We emerge in the silence of the dark night. As I sit in my car waiting for traffic to clear so I can make my way home, I wonder at what I’ve seen and heard. A dinner with friends so closely followed by denial and death. This speaks so loudly of the way of this world. Why do I force myself to sit before the sights and sounds of Good Friday? I know this story; it slays me.
The parking lot begins to clear and I power up my car to make my exit. I have inadvertently left the radio on and its lyrics shock the silence. “God’s not dead he’s surely alive,” croon the Newsboys. I smile to myself, then sing along. “He’s living on the inside, roaring like a lion…” I even turn up the volume a bit as I pull past the few remaining cars, motioning one woman driving a mini-van into the line ahead of me.
I wonder if she or the parking attendant in reflective orange who is directing traffic with orange-glo sticks can hear me and the Newsboys. Can they see me smiling and singing along? Probably wondering about me.
The way I see it, why wait? The weight of three days has already been lifted. God’s not dead; he’s surely alive.
The road less traveled
0I stand at a crossroads, two ways before me. One paved and well lit, the other hard pan, worn through newly greening grass. Which way do I go?
A Robert Frost poem beckons dimly from an English class long past. Something about two paths and a choice to be made. One worn and one less so? The brave choose the one less traveled, it seems to say. They venture into uncharted territory and pave their own way.
Clearly, the folks in charge of these paths want me to choose the paved path. It is straight and firm so I won’t lose my footing. It is lit so I can walk it any time of the day or night and not lose my way. But is it the well worn path? Robert Frost seems to ask me. I can’t tell because its surface doesn’t show the wear and tear of footsteps along it. At least not today.
Clearly, someone wants me to go this way. But I’m glad for the other path; it actually leads in the direction I want to go. Those willing to take the chance of stepping off the paved path have given me permission to go this way. I’m grateful to them because when I was this age – college age as I am on a college campus today – I didn’t feel that freedom. I was all about seeking the right way, the paved way, the lit path.
Now, I am here with my own daughter, and she is readying to choose her own path. She doesn’t even hesitate at this intersection. Well, of course, take the dirt path; it’s more direct. Yet, she looks around. Is anyone actually walking across the grass? Am I singling myself out here? Will someone catch me and caution me about treading on the grass? What are the rules here?
Ah, the rules. We don’t like them, but it’s so important we know them. Not so we can break them, as some creative writing teachers will tell you, but because they are there for a reason. And reasons we need to know, so we can decide for ourselves whether the reasoning is sound and deserves our attention and respect. This is the way of youth. This, quite frankly, is the way of today.
Shortcuts are convenient and treading new paths is bold. But often the path laid before us is meant to take us past things we need to see (and perhaps deny or adopt) before we go on our way. The hard thing is, we don’t know which is which when we stand before both. As Sir Robert did not when he stood before his decision. But if he was to move on, he had to choose. To say no to one when he stepped onto the other.
And that, ironically, is the apparent lesson of this poem, as I read it again after all these years. It is not ‘the road less taken’; it is The Road Not Taken. It does not glorify the spirit of individualism that strikes out on its own. It laments the path we always intended to come back to but never do. Even if life does bring us back to the same crossroads, the choice is not the same because we are not the same. We’ve been changed by the choosing.
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me,” Jesus prayed on the Mount of Olives, the eve of what would be His crucifixion. Jesus had come to a decision point. “Yet not my will but yours be done,” Jesus concluded. Surely, no one with the power to choose otherwise would choose the way of the cross, yet He did.
Could it be that He took the road not meant to be taken in order to pave and bring light to our choice?
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sigh
Robert Frost
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Vocation, not vacation
0I’ve noticed that the world doesn’t take this week off. I mean, if you don’t pick up and travel to some location far away, life finds you. And it finds you doing what you do the other 51 weeks of the year. I’m not sure we know how to do rest anymore.
I was so looking forward to it – a week of Sundays with no demands. None of the regularly scheduled items. No deadlines. No meetings. No classes. No obligatory anything. All was left open. But that’s not enough. Because things wander in, and before you know it you’re more full with things to be done than you were when your appointment book reigned supreme. Unless we “take our rest,” we are restless, and the world’s ways have a very quick solution to that problem.
This week, known as Holy Week to those in the Christian faith, is the holiest week of the year. We are meant to set it aside, the culmination of a season of Lent which has prepared us for just this time. The week following Palm Sunday: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. What a package deal: 3 for the price of One, all on sale this week at a church near you!
That sounds just plain exhausting. Better to go on vacation to take our mind off it all. But this year, we haven’t. I’m here and I must decide what this week will be for me. For my faith. For my Lord. For my family, friends, community and world. Because that is why I am here.
What do I suffer so that someone else might be healed? It’s a simple question, with no simple answer. We all have to answer it for ourselves. The key for me is trusting that there is an answer. There is an intention behind what I’m meant to do, and it’s bigger – so much bigger – than me.
A friend just posted this on Facebook: 
A week of palindromes. The dates this week will be the same read backwards and forwards. Were you to list these numbers, there would be no way of telling whether your started at the beginning or the end. The last would be first and the first would be last, and we couldn’t tell which was which. Cool, huh?
Funny that this is true of Holy week. The week where the greatest reversal of all time is celebrated. The week that death itself was defeated and life eternal took its place. Impossible to grasp, really. Yet, what I keep finding (and hearing from others when they find) is that when God’s solution in a circumstance or a question or a hardship or a decision is made plain, it makes perfect sense. “Of course. I should have seen that all along!” It’s so simple.
So, I sit with my week that isn’t quite what I had planned, and the things set before me. Kids who are hurt, injured, recovering and the parents and coaches who long for them to be well. I see the hardship that desperately needs healing, and I am in awe that He would entrust these to me. But God, this week? It was supposed to be our quiet week, our Sabbath time, our rest. We were going to get to those old projects, really wrap up the manuscript, tidy up those articles I have been meaning to submit, and clean out those closets. It’s spring after all!!
Wait. There’s no quiet there. The spring break holiday is no respecter of pain and suffering; they get no vacation, no break, no respite until healing comes. Health care workers are on the job, even on holidays, even on weekends, even on Easter. Perhaps this week, above all weeks, is meant to be dedicated to making all things well.
Jesus didn’t take a week off. Especially not this one. How simple.
When life throws you change-ups
210 years
Routine, are you friend or foe?
How I do love to know what to do and when to do it. That feeling of confidence when, like clockwork, this ticks so that tocks. The alarm goes off at 5:45. The morning coffee. The paper. The blog post. The conference call. The lunch hour. The 5:00 rush hour (okay that’s getting earlier). The dinner, the news, the emails, the…regularity. The familiar is so comfortable, so reassuring, so bland.
I like it. I thrive in bland. It works. I know what to expect, so I do it. And so, rolled back and forth on the waves of life, I am cradled in calm. I drift off; my senses dulled by the back and forth. Forth and back. Over and under. Round and round. What a friend we have in rhythm.
Is it really friend? What if it’s wrong, or ineffective, or dulling, or blinding, or unhealthy? Would we know? It’s so familiar, so calming, so regular, and feels so right. We may not even notice that it’s rolling us away from where we want to go or getting us stuck in a muddy rut we ourselves have made.
Not unless we change things up. And change is hard because disrupting motion, slowing momentum, or slamming on the breaks take a lot of force. Especially when new direction is still pretty hazy. Familiarity has built momentum, and we’ve got a track record after all. Could what we have been doing for so long really be wrong? Is changing it worth all the effort its gonna take to stop and re-start?
This is what I’m wondering when the visiting coach comes to the field and says to me, “Watch this; they’re gonna hate me.” Then he steps onto the field and says, “Now we play only with the left foot.”
Only with the left? Hmm. This is going to be interesting. These girls are strong players. They’ve played many seasons and have a lot of natural ability. But there are no natural left footers out there. What will they do now?
I watch the game change. The pace does not slow, but the players step up. Knowing they may not play it with their right foot, their body reacts differently, automatically. They turn the other way, open up the other direction, run at a new angle. The game has become new simply by changing up the rules. Not only did their body adapt to a new challenge but their mind got into the act as well. A new stimulus invited new thinking. That felt good, and they saw themselves newly capable. Instead of hating it, they liked it.
What if disruption of routine is necessary to use all our tools? What if changing it up is part of the plan?
Yes, as babes, patterns were what we needed for understanding and differentiating ourselves from the rest of the world. Perhaps as we grow older, dynamism and disruption is necessary. Jarring our patterns is what’s needed to head us aright.
Then Mrs. Reed, my piano teacher was absolutely spot-on when she tut-tutted about that passage I kept playing with improper rhythm over and over again. “Play it all wrong” she told me, “The worse, the better. ” Sure enough, the disruption was just what I needed to get it right.
Could it be that our insistence on doing it our way is exactly what we don’t need? That the minor correction requires complete disruption. Can we trust that if we shake things up they’ll land just as they should?
In Sync
210 years
Imagine walking into a room full of people, totally unannounced, and having one remark, “Ah, it’s amazing what prayer can do!” And they meant you. They didn’t know you were coming. Had no idea to expect you. They weren’t looking for someone to save or rescue them; they were just fine before you came. Yet, when you walked in, you were the answer to prayer. God had sent you, and you didn’t even know it.
Does God have that power? Does He manipulate our days and our ways so that, when a call goes up or when a whisper bears your name, He plants the notion in you to do just that? I mean, does God mess with my mind without my permission?
That doesn’t sound like God to me. He seems more like the type that would come have a chat. You know, put an arm around my shoulder and say, “So, I have some things I need doing and I’d really like you to consider the job.” And then I would hem and haw and say, “Whoa, those are really big things” or “Um, I really don’t have those skills”… “Or are you out of your mind? I can’t do that!” and I would be looking at my Lord, expecting Him to recant or come to His senses. But He’d just smile and wait for me to come to mine.
Could this chat have been going on inside me before this prayer gathering? Could the suggestion have been made and the reasoning taken place that I needed to go gather a few more copies of the Lenten devotional books at the church? Why not do it at 1:00 when I knew this group usually gathered? Totally logical and very efficient. I could just poke my head in and say hello. No big deal. Until I saw the empty seat in the circle, the candle at the center and the smile that welcomed me. Then, what I thought was my idea became God’s idea. We synced up right there on the spot.
How does that happen? That “syncing” – such a fun word to describe the aligning of two things in a way that we can’t see and really can’t explain.
Could it all have been rehearsed and set perfectly in place by a force we don’t understand except maybe in our imagining? We’re in sync because we are the answer to the prayer of the other and they, the answer to ours. And not just one to one. But all of our stories meant to connect and build, one on the other. Just imagine the fabrication of that story. Pretty hard to believe, but maybe, if there was a frequency to which we are all being synced.
That would mean that when, totally by coincidence, someone seeks me out to assist their loved one who needs healing and strengthening and confidence, it’s not coincidence at all. I have been placed there.
What an incredible privilege. What a responsibility! To prepare myself – to take hold of the gifts I have and the skills and knowledge available – for that singular meeting. To be the answer to their prayer, and in a way I can only imagine, they to mine. On purpose.