The Hard Words (Like Water on Stone)

I'm preaching on a difficult passage of scripture this Sunday, one I would not have chosen.  This rough poem arrived mid-week as I found myself wrestling the text.  Frustrated, I stopped to reflect on what I was doing and found myself invited to let the word do its work in me.  Sometimes we have to trust that the hard things also might bear fruit if we are willing to be present and vulnerable with them.  * I have to give credit to the show 30 Rock for the term 'mind vice.'

When the passage assigned
is hard and sharp, 
solid, like stone,
I try to crack it with
my mind vice.  Stuck,
I also apply the pressure 
of commentaries - three - 
each striking from different 
angles.  And when the passage
fails to yield (does it ever yield
under such force?) I turn it daily,
in my head, like a rubix cube. I hunt,
like the woman who's lost a coin, for 
a key to unlock the good news hidden
within.  

(Too often, I am merely looking
for comfortable news, rather than good.)

When I wear myself out, when the words
wear me down, I decide at last to let it be.  
I am the one who yields, who accepts, that I 
have been given these words, not others.
Then the passage works on me, like water
on stone until I am cracked open and somewhere 
in the cool, dark, earthen heart of me the gospel 
seed is planted and takes root.

To Know Your Own Heart #SmallWonder LinkUp

My church’s interim pastor, Jay McDermond, spoke on the life of Peter last Sunday, spending much of his time focusing on Peter’s less admirable qualities. (I believe the words “bone head” may have been employed.)  By human standards, Peter probably wasn’t the best candidate for Jesus to build his church on, but Jesus called him anyway.  

  

After highlighting Peter’s commitment and betrayal, our pastor focused on the conversation between Jesus and Peter found in John 21.  Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?”  Peter responds each time, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.”  According to Pastor Jay, the nuance of the conversation is a bit clearer in the Greek where two different words for ‘love’ are used. 

Jesus: Peter, do you ‘agape me?’

Peter: Yes Lord, ‘phileo se.’

Jesus is talking about one kind of love, Peter is talking about another.  Jesus uses the Greek word “agape” referring to divine love.  “Peter,” Jesus is asking, “do you love me like God loves you?” 

Peter responds with ‘phileo se,’ “I love you like a brother, Jesus.” 

This exact exchange is then repeated with Jesus again asking whether Peter loves him with divine love and Peter responding, “I love you like a brother.”  The third time, though, Jesus changes his wording to match Peter’s ability.

“Peter,” he finally says in verse 17, “do you love me like a brother?” 

“Yes,” Peter says again, “I love you like a brother.” 

Jesus responds to Peter’s humanity by lowering the bar.  It’s as though Jesus sees Peter’s true condition and decides, “Yeah, I can work with that.”  This is good news – the same grace extended to Peter extends to all of us.    

It’s also important to note a change in Peter.  By the time we get to this final conversation near the end of the book of John, Peter, for once, doesn’t try to pretend he’s capable of more than he knows to be true.  Maybe he learned that lesson during the long, dark night of his betrayal.  When Peter heard Jesus’ prediction of suffering and death, Peter promised to be faithful to the bitter end.  Jesus, never the fool, told him, “Before the rooster crows three times, Peter, you will betray me.”  In other words, Jesus says, “Peter, you don’t even know your own heart.”

For Peter, the realization of his own capacity for betrayal (ie. his capacity for sin) was devastating.  When the rooster crowed for the third time, Peter ran out and “wept bitterly.”  That night in the courtyard and later through the still, silent night of fishing without success, Peter came face to face with his own humanity.  It’s not that he lost his tendency to bluster and bluff, but that he became painfully aware of it.  By the time he talks with Jesus again, Peter is certain of who he is – fully human, flawed, and yet willing to love the best he can. 

If I were Peter standing on the shoreline held in place by Jesus’ direct line of questioning, I can’t help but think I would’ve been tempted to claim I’m capable of more than I am.  This seems to be the sin I’m most prone to commit over and over again.

But Peter discovered a bedrock truth about himself, about his limitations and abilities and that discovery gives him solid footing in the face of Jesus’ questioning.  The good news is that Jesus doesn’t reject Peter for his limitations, in fact, I wonder if it wasn’t Peter’s certainty about his own limits that helped Jesus decide he was the right person for the job. 

*   *   *

Author, Shawn Smucker and I are offering a one-day retreat this coming October 15 in Carlisle, PA.  Titled, Writing As Witness, we will explore the ways writing can position us to witness the presence of God in our own lives and in the world.  Visit link to learn more.  

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  Thanks for being part of our community!  

The Healing at the Pool of Bethesda

John 5:1-9

How long must you wait

by the water’s edge

for the angel to dip

her fickle toe and

stir the surface

of the world?

And what if

even after

days, months

of waiting,

watching,

you sense

the air’s movement,

see the water shimmer

with circle after concentric

circle and yet,

are unable

to enter in?

To be near

the miracle is not

enough.  Second

place will earn you

no reward. 

What then?

Nothing can move

you save for the one

question most difficult,

“What do you want?”

The answer 

to that question

turns you away 

from waiting

and the still, 

smooth surface

of the water.  

The answer

to that question 

bids you,

“Pick up your mat 

and walk.”

Growing Season (#SmallWonder Link-up)

(The field of soybeans coming in across the street from our house.)

Late, I arrived at a recent Pastoral Development Day on the tail-end of opening worship.  I slipped quietly into a single stuffed chair down low in the back of the room, curling my legs and feet up tight beneath me.  I was never once late when I returned to work five weeks after my daughter, my oldest, was born.  Waking at 4:30 in the morning I nursed, then showered and drove the hour to work with her in the car seat, then nursed again in a bathroom before joining the rest of the staff with my infant in tow at 8:00.  That was nine years ago and I was not late once the whole summer that I worked with her at my side. 

This Thursday, though, was her field day at school and just as the bus pulled up we realized her lunch – the packed one she needed – was sitting still inside on the kitchen counter.  “Go,” I said, “I’ll bring it to school.”

After the babysitter came early so I could be on time, I gathered my things and hers and made the out-of-the-way trip to her school.  I got there just as the buses were loading and watched her walk out with her class. 

I was late that morning and frazzled, but happy too.  As I described it later to a friend, “My daughter forgot her lunch and I had to drop it off at school,” then, pumping my fist in the air I added, “Mommy, for the WIN!”

When the singing ended a friend of mine invited me to take his seat closer to the middle of the room – he would stand.  I gathered my things and moved for a few minutes, but eventually I turned and whispered, “I need to sit in the back to unwind.”  Then I got up and returned again to my single chair way down low in the back of the room. 

It’s been a year or two since I attended a Pastoral Development day put on by my local denominational conference and even longer since I resigned my pastoral position.  In the past I’ve felt the need and desire – the pressure – to mingle and fit in at these gatherings, to be both visible and vocal.  But this past Thursday I listened to my own heart, which was jangled and tired from rushing out the door and performing the emergency lunch delivery.  I needed to sit in the back and unwind and so I did. 

Seated in the back I watched several pastors working on their phones during the presentation or getting up and leaving the room to field phone calls.  This was one of the hardest things for me to give up when I left the pastorate – the feeling of importance.  It used to be routine for me to receive upwards of twenty emails a day and now I’m lucky to receive three or so a week other than twitter updates and notifications from my kids’ schools. 

Watching them I heard my spirit say, “I’m so grateful to be unimportant.”  It was such an unexpected thought that I wrote it down.  Having struggled so much with feeling unimportant,  I never expected to find myself grateful for it.  I thought immediately of John the Baptist’s words, “He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30)” and understood them in a new light. 

The initial presenter shared his story of incredible success followed by a stripping of all he valued as God called him back to his “first love,” back to the relationship at the heart of all things.  Much of what he said resonated with me – the invitation to love, the unknowingness of God’s leading – and the fact that he spoke from a time and place in his story that is as yet unresolved were all encouraging. 

I could have told his story, as it is also my own, except for the great success part.  God has kept me from that – a fact over which I am often frustrated, bordering on bitter.  It’s one thing to have great success and be called away from it – it is another altogether to never have arrived.  And yet, listening, I felt my spirit say, “God loves me very much.”  This also, I wrote down. 

In that moment the love of God sank down from head to heart, from abstract idea to incarnate reality as I pondered my life and the word-made-flesh love of God within it.  Who knew that the sorrow of my own professional stuck-ness could also hold within it a revelation of such joy – “God loves me very much.”

This all took place on Thursday and, halfway through Friday I pulled a muscle in my back while trying to maneuver a free coffee table into the back of the van.  I knew it was bad, but I’d promised my son I would attend his field day so, without resting, I made lunch and showered up before carting myself and the twins over to the park. 

By the time we got home I was in excruciating pain, the likes of which I haven’t known in a long time.  I could barely get myself onto the floor and sitting filled my core with sharp spasms.  With the pain came fear – laying on the floor, helpless, reminded me of last summer’s panic attacks and the tension caused anxiety to rise within me until I felt close to drowning. 

I loaded up on pain medicine, ice and restricted myself to the floor.  Relaxing, I felt a sense of peace and gratitude wash over me.  My back still hurt, as it does also today, but in the midst of the pain I knew also that it will get better.  The reality of the pain was inescapable, yet I now know that the reality of change is also inescapable.  Nothing in life is stagnant, no one fear or hurt has the power to cancel out the possibility of change and healing in the future. 

//

I took joy in meeting my daughter's needs where once I felt such great pressure to conform her needs to my own.

I tended to my own need to unwind in a spacious place rather than seeking to fit in with the expectations of others.

I felt gratitude in my un-importance where once I envied the importance of others.

I felt the love of God in what has not been given me, rather than resentment.

I felt pain, but also knew peace at the possibility of its passing. 

//

I read a children’s book by Ruth Krauss not long ago called “The Growing Story.” In it, a young boy puts away his winter clothes only to find that by next season they are too small.  Trying on the now-too-little clothes he exclaims in wonder, “I’m growing too!”

This is the wonder I want to share with you this week – the grace that time passes and we change.  Time away from my ministry context formed these changes in me and in returning I am able to see them and celebrate.  Like the little boy, this post is my own shout of wonder, “I’m growing too!” and I am so very grateful.

There is one last thing I wrote down on Thursday, which is this - “It is all gift.” 

May you be blessed, friends, with grace and wonder in each and every one of your growing seasons.   

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are. 

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.      

To Experience Resurrection (A Poem)

You have to return to the tomb

to experience resurrection. 

Return to the place where once

you knew without doubt

all hope was gone, the last

dying gasp of breath expelled.

Then silence, stillness

and the great tearing open

of sky and earth. 

The first sign of spring

is the revelation of all

that’s died.  Snow’s clean

slate hides decay,

but when the sun’s warmth rises

its first disclosure is the depth

of loss – the grass,

brown and trampled, barren

broken limbs scattered, earth

exposed and the empty stretch

of field filled with brown stalks

of decomposition.

This is the time of waiting,

the time in which we grow

weary and lose heart. 

You have to watch the barren

earth, pull back brown leaves,

lean close scanning the hidden

places.  You have to stand beside

the stone, Martha would tell us,

your trembling hand pressed against       

its cold, hard surface.  You have to enter

the dark cave, Peter whispers, not knowing

what you’ll find. 

You have to sit through the long,

dark night to see the first light of morning,        

to feel the sharp intake of breath

as the sky’s closed eye, cold and gray

cracks open slowly, then with growing

determination.  This is what you must do

to experience resurrection. 

This post is linked with the High Calling.

A Thanksgiving Confession (Old Lady Feet, Boots and Self-Pity)

I’m here to make a confession.  Are you ready?  Here goes . . .

I’ve become a little obsessed with the tall leather boots everyone seems to be wearing these days.  Boots paired with skinny jeans, boots paired with dresses, brown boots, black boots, gray.  

It seems to me to be the uniform of our time – tall boots and skinny jeans and, here precisely is the problem – I don’t own either.  

Boots have been in for awhile now and, to be honest, I thought it wouldn’t last.  And skinny jeans, really?  Still?  

But I digress.  

I want a pair of rich leather brown boots – tall, but not too tall, flat heeled, perfection in a shoe – and I want them now.  I wanted them last year and the year before and also probably the year before that.  I ordered a pair once, used, but ended up reselling them because they didn’t fit well enough considering the price I paid.  

I can’t afford to keep a pair of boots that don’t fit.  

I can’t afford a pair of boots, period.  Not the ones like I want at least.  

And this has become for me a source of great self-pity.  That’s right, poor me, I don’t have nice leather boots.  And, as self-pity is likely to do, the absence of boots in my life has become an obsession of sorts – I no longer see people, I see the boots they’re wearing, I see the boots I lack. 

//  

Here’s something else you should know - ever since carrying two giant babies in my womb for nearly nine months straight, my feet are not the same.  Those of you who’ve not yet given birth may want to cover your ears now, but yes, it’s true, pregnancy can change your feet.  

I now have what I refer to as Old Lady Feet or O.L.Fs for short.  O.L.Fs can’t run around barefoot, can’t wear dollar-store flip-flops or ballet flats.  I am a woman now who needs sturdy, solid shoes, serious shoes.  

For the last three summers I’ve worn my trusty Chaco sandals – the ones I bought off of gear trade in the months before the twins arrived.  In them, my feet are happy, comfortable, youthful (almost).  

But in the winter I suffered.  

A mother of four is on her feet constantly, if only to avoid the groping, grabbing arms of the little people who swarm at her feet.  All day long, up and down stairs, carrying people, carrying laundry, buying groceries, I wore shoes that lacked support.  I ached, I hobbled and limped, compensating for my poor unsupported arches by walking on the outer edges of my feet.  

I tried Clarks.  I tried Keens.  I even tried what can only be referred to as “Old Lady Shoes.” I bought and sold shoes on e-bay like a Wall Street day trader, but my feet constantly hurt.  

In the privacy of my own home I took to wearing Birkenstock sandals with thick wool socks because it was the only way I could find relief – I was desperate, people!  

Last spring, though, as I considered pulling out the stops and buying a pair of closed-toed Birkenstocks that I couldn’t afford, I came across a pair of leather, closed-toed Chacos for sale on e-bay.  

Be still my beating heart.  

I bought them, I loved them and love them still.  This year when the weather turned and it was time to pack up the sandals, I had a pair of comfortable shoes just waiting for me and my thick woolen socks.  

What I’m trying to say, is that I should be thankful, grateful for what I have which is a great deal better than what I’ve had in the past.  

Yet, the issue of the boots remains and rather than grateful I’m, quite honestly, often filled with pity for my poor O.L.Fs, for my lack of fashionability, for myself not having what my half-blinded eyes are telling me everyone else around me has.  

// 

Self-pity narrows the gaze, like blinders on a horse it limits our sight to the things we believe we need but do not have.  More often than not, it turns a want into an obsession, blinding us to the things we do have, to the possibilities that abound all around us.  

Self-pity takes me to old familiar places and wallowing there I find lies rising up around me like ghosts from my childhood and the words they whisper are hauntingly familiar.  

“You don’t have what you want?  You must not be good enough.  You’ll never fit in.  Everyone knows you have the wrong shoes.  What’s wrong with you??”  

Suddenly all of life is reduced to that which I do not have.  

I’m no longer able to see or appreciate the beautiful home I live in, my sweet children, the warmth of the woodstove, the love of my husband who could care less what I wear and, quite honestly, likes me best undressed.  

Self-pity tells me, in short, that life and wants and needs are a formula:  

If you want X, get money, buy X and you will Be Happy.  

This week it occurred to me that I accept that formula even though I don’t have money and won’t be buying “X” any time soon, because such a formula places me in a position of power and control.  Self-pity says, “Yes, you need what you think you need and it’s up to you to get it, but you’re not able to, you poor, poor thing.  There must be something wrong with you.”  

Self-pity revolves around self. 

//  

I tell myself sometimes that if I could only get that pair of boots all of life would come together neatly just like I want it to.  I could finally wear that cute corduroy skirt I found at Community Aide, I could venture into the realm of skinny jeans (although my instinct warns me that would be a move I’d regret – giving birth changes more than just your feet).  I would fit in, I would be happy, I would be wearing the uniform of my generation.  

It’s possible that all of those things are true.  Possible, but not likely.  

In the meantime, I have my Chacos, I have a cute pair of rain boots.  

I have feet, I have legs, I have a wooden floor to stand on and the privilege of walking in grass and snow or sitting inside with the bottoms of my feet melting against the wood stove whenever I want.  

I have so much.  

So much.  

And I’m not willing to let self-pity steal that from me anymore. 

// 

I’m not just talking about boots, of course.  I’m talking about life and focus and where we choose to place our energy, the way we allow our human desires to lead us into places that are narrow or wide.  The desire for boots isn’t the only area in which I’ve allowed self-pity to blossom, but it’s the easiest one to write about for now, the easiest to joke about.  

This is not a story about boots.  

It’s a story about desire, about longing, and about where we chose to let our eyes rest, where we place our focus and the things or people or positions we set our heart on attaining.  

Maybe I’ll get a pair of boots for Christmas.  Maybe they’ll go out of fashion.  

In the meantime, though, I don’t want to let self-pity rob me of all the things I do have.  I want to pray for a wider vision, for a more open heart.  I want to confess and repent.  I want to see more than what I lack and I want to trust in the one who is the giver of all good things – the giver of Chacos and Birkenstocks, of flip-flops, ballet-flats and yes, tall leather boots.  

Maybe you do too?  

Maybe the next time you find self-pity taking root like a weed, you’ll think of this story, you’ll remember that the choice is yours to make – between life and death, between self-pity for all that is not and gratitude for all that is. 

Three Days (a poem)

(I recently spent six days inpatient in a local Behavioral Health unit due to the onset of severe and debilitating panic attacks.  I continue to work now, on the other side of that darkness, to process the experience, to understand its place in my story.  To read more you may want to check out these other posts, Homesick and Brown Paper Bag (Unpacking my Recent Hospital Stay.)

Three Days
 

The papers I signed in the ER

committed me to seventy-two hours

in-patient in the psychiatric unit.  Three

days is the initial standard of care

approved by insurance companies everywhere

before reassessments are made to extend

or end a stay. 

Three days also, I read, is what it would take

to sign myself out, even though it was a self-committal.

This gave me pause; I thought I could leave

when I wanted to, three days is a long time

to wait for freedom when you feel you are ready.

Now, on the other side of those locked doors

I cannot help but think of the symbolism of that number –

three days – the biblical symbol for the fullness of earthly

time. 

Three days Jonah spent in the belly of the whale,

before he was vomited onto the shore of his calling. 

Three days walking into Nineveh, speaking the words

he feared would cost his life, the message he didn’t

want to give. 

Three days blind it took for Saul of Tarsus to learn

to see again, to be reborn, renamed as Paul;

three days to shed the old life like an empty skin

before he could open his eyes and face the light again.

For three days also, Jesus was in the tomb before the

grave clothes fell off.  The stone scraped against stone

and he emerged transformed but the same, more himself

now that the old ways of death and decay were sloughed off

like so much dead skin.

I was in the hospital for six days, twice as long as I’d hoped

while my family waited and worried at home.

Lazarus also was an exception to the rule, for four days

he laid in dark cave of his own grave,

that extra day signifying that he was beyond repair.

“He stinketh,” his sister said, but hearing his name,

he walked out rank and disheveled, but Alive.   

Six days I waited while the old

skin, the old life cracked and peeled back a little,

six days before I too was vomited out those doors

to face again the blinding light,

the One who calls my name. 

Call it what you will – resurrection, transformation, conversion –

the tilting of a life from darkness to light takes its own sweet time.

Now I tell myself when darkness descends, give it time,

three days or more in the belly, the grave, the old decaying skin,

maybe even four or six, but as you wait, remember the light

that put you there, the voice that calls your name (even in the dark),

the feeling of that sandy shore beneath you when you emerge again,

reborn.