True Story

More than one, but less than a dozen, people have asked me to do something different with my blog. Or start a new one. But maintaining two seems like an awful lot of work. So for the simple acedia of it all, I will just mix it up. Make a salad of posts, as it were.

And as an inauguration of this split-purpose writing exercise, I offer this:

If you read the book of Matthew from the beginning, you read early on (4:23) that Jesus went teaching and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. I wondered what it would be like to hear one of those sermons....yeah, I'm that dull. Because, clearly, the sermon on the mount is that same sermon He taught and proclaimed everywhere. And it is such a light-endowing, amplification of God's heart toward His people message. Quite deeper and harder than what the old testament prophets would have said.

And Jesus wraps it up with a perfectly stunning application. 'If you hear these words and do them, you are like the man who built his house on the rock and no amount of rivers or flooding can knock you down.'

Building your 'house' on the sand of ignoring God's ways, or of making yourself king is easy house building. Choose your house design, move a little sand out of the way and 'presto' the house is built. And just like you wanted it made.

Building your 'house' on the rock, is difficult house building. You have to adapt yourself to the rock. You have to let the shape of the rock affect your shape. It is a lifetime of having God's word and ways change you. But the secure and sure foundation, which is Christ Himself!, keeps you from crumbling in the inevitable floods and storms. God knows that our sturdiest position is allowing ourselves to be conformed to Himself. And He also knows well what a weak foundation our own desires and changing wants are.

The following quotation is a direct steal from T Prinzi's blog from the Rabbit Room. It lit up the insides of my brain when I read it and can't seem to stop meditating on it:

We intersect with other's unfinished stories every day, and this should
cause us to be filled with grace toward one another. I think we’re
often like the taunting fairies in George MacDonald's
Phantastes: “Look at him! Look at him! He has begun a story without a
beginning, and it will never have any end! He! he! he! Look at him!”

It’s easy to forget that each of us is stumbling through an unknown land
with hardly the faintest clue what direction we’re heading in, and
it’s easy to taunt each other instead of encourage one another.

Which gives me a clue to a question I have been asking myself. When Jesus tells us to 'not judge' in Matthew 7, He follows that instruction with 'don't cast pearls before swine or give what is holy to dogs'. My question has been, what is judging then? Sounds like judging to me, to call someone a swine or a dog.

But there seems to be an enormous difference between discernment and being judgmental. So the George MacDonald thought above is pointing me toward this thought: I am discerning when I notice that someone is being foolish or simple or scornful or teachable. I am judging when I imagine for a second, and communicate it to any other, that I am never vulnerable in that same way. That it would be unlike me and impossible for me to commit that same sin.

Because I am an unfinished story. I have no certainty what the rest of my life will be like. And in great humility and compassion for the struggles of others, I need to consider that my life is in great peril of stumbling, too. Indeed, I have had overwhelming seasons of stumbling already.

Back From India

I'm not exactly sure why but it takes me a little while to reconnect with my life after I have been gone to India. There are a few reasons that might be true: jet lag seriously messes with my brain. or. It is such a completely altered life for me that I get disoriented trying to rejoin my original me. or. Savoring what I saw and tasted and learned and loved is sweet and I like to savor it long. Maybe all this and more.

Anyway, I love this picture because it reminds me of a hilarious and glorious hour where these accomplished dancers pulled me into their circle and would not let me leave. Twice, I breathlessly stepped out of their midst and they hauled me back in, pulling on my sari. One of the women would slap my arms or back to make sure I watched her and did this thing correctly. I think I finally learned the steps, but I'm not a good judge of that!

As I look at the pictures of India that are on my computer I feel happiness and gratitude that I was allowed to be there again.

A Concert

The other day a number of us gathered at a coffee shop, Indigo Bridges, for a concert. If I hadn't had been there for something else, I would have scouted out the back half of the shop which was rows and rows of books. And the coffee was good! (you don't hear me say that just anywhere)

But there were several musicians singing and playing their original music. It was a lovely night. What makes this post-worthy is that Dear Herman was there. It is remarkable to me what music can do. Words that swirl and pool and pile up in the head can become thoughts. If a creative person lets them become pointed and honed, then those words can be transfered into ideas. Ideas in song that are then caught by other brains. I may not have the entire song memorized but words stand out. Those words swirl and pool in my head to formulate other ideas.

And to be frank, I was just plain dazzled by my daughters' ability to bless and strengthen and inspire a roomful of people. Truly God lets us hear His thoughts about us through their music.

rising waters

Dale and I and some good friends were able to spend last weekend at the Drake's cabin in Long Pine. Those of you who have been there can understand how cool that was. How relaxing and restful and wonderful it was. The only way it could have been improved would have been if the Drakes had been there. And all of our kids and granddaughters. And a long list of our friends and all of the family members that could make it out....

Anyway. Another way it could have been improved would have been if the rain could have stopped! I had this morbid interest in how many steps were being covered with the rising creek. Up to the fourth step! Yikes! Water lapping over the railroad ties.

By Sunday morning we were listening to the radio that kept announcing more roads closed between us and Norfolk. So Dale and the guests took off early Sunday. I stayed on because  of a book I wanted to work on.  So I toughed it out until Tuesday afternoon. I would love to tell you a dramatic tale of rescue and bravery and singlehandedly saving the cabin.

But what I DID do was clean and vacuum and pack the car. Lock the cabin. Wave goodbye. And then spend the next four+ hours avoiding closed roads and overflowing lakes and rivers to arrive finally in Norfolk. All for the compelling reason of having been in the same clothes since Friday since it was too cold for any other of the clothes I had packed. Seriously.

But I did finish my story. It even has a title.

First and Second Samuel

A couple of times a year God allows me to wend my way through the two Samuels in the Bible. I am always eager to dwell and meditate there. Why this narrative moves me so much is still kind of a mystery to me. But moves me it does. And gives me lots to ponder.

Like God's kindness in keeping David from shedding Israelite blood....its sort of a theme. Saul's, Nabal and his servants', a whole army's worth when he was hiding from Saul with a Philistine king. He even grieved when his old mentor, General Abner was killed by a revengeful Joab.

God does the same thing for me! It's like He puts His hand over my mouth and says, 'you sure you want to say that?' which gives me time to reconsider. Or to interrupt my vain thoughts with, 'there is a better way to think'. What a savior we have!

So like God.

Parental Caveat....this is not a nice post.

Last Friday I was up at the hospital interpreting and flipping through a Time magazine. An article there described the ramped up hunt for girls to supply the expected need in brothels in South Africa during the World Cup. Really? As in NO. And OH NO. It blighted my morning. Later, when I walked toward my car I saw that I had gotten two texts. One from my son, Jay who asked me to see a photo of two boys picking through trash in a dump in Bangalore. He knew we had visited there a while back. The other text was from a friend who had just watched a women be honored for her effort in exposing the horrors of the sex trade.

It is difficult to reconcile the safe, clean, friendly way I live in Norfolk to the realities of the rest of the planet. Girls sold to pay a debt. Children foraging for food in a dump. It seems monstrous. It is monstrous. And then God let me hear Him. It sounded something like this:

The long term way for children to be permanently rescued from brothels and hunger is to shift the thinking of their villages and their society. If they can be seen as valuable people who have a right to be equipped to provide for their own needs, then they will not be neglected or sold. 6 years ago a small group of us built a school. This building now educates over 500 children who would have been sold, and who have certainly known hunger. Somehow God allowed us to be invited into the shifting of a entire village.

God is letting us be the point of the spear that is a weapon He is using to undo the dark deeds of child trafficking. Going to India this summer is necessary if we are going to be witnesses of transformation. And speaking of a Good King to these amazing students is a source of Joy!