When Enough Is Perfect

Two days and I'm not done.

I've expected this, coming home so close to Christmas.  As much as got done last August, and as much as I've simplified things, by now it just seems like there's not enough time for everything on my list.

I confess I woke up a little grumpy.

This year it's been harder than normal to push back the frenzy and give priority to the soul.  When I get Christmas 'right' all that frenzy stuff is done by December 1st and I have 25 days to observe my own kind of Advent, in reflection and prayer and receiving and giving love and grace.  It's what has marked the Christmas season for me for these past number of empty-nesting years, and I've grown to deeply, eagerly anticipate it.

But my meditations this year have been quite different.  The whole season has been quite different.  It started for me half a world away.  I decorated two trees, the first one while smacking at mosquitoes, the second one while stoking the fire.  I've sung carols in two languages.  I've had noodles for Christmas dinner; the turkey is yet to come.  I roasted sticky rice in bamboo, not chestnuts, on an open fire.  I've stuffed 26 plus 8 stockings.  Rudolph has delighted my little girl May sitting under the dining shelter, and my big boy Harvest while driving in the van.

Two major Christmas productions have energized the season for me.  One took place in a Buddhist village with 400 people eating noodles and singing carols and receiving gifts of love from their Christian friends who want to make sure they know about Jesus.  The other, about to happen, will likely see the same amount of people, engaging in an 8 year run of one of Highview's best offerings of the arts, and for the same reason.  Because we want to make sure people know about Jesus.

Simply, Jesus.

To defy my grumpy spirit, I deliberately choose Steve Bell's Descent to slide into the CD player as I drive to the pool this morning.  It's one of those 'oh yeah' kind of songs that has a way of clearing out the self-noise so I can see His face again.  I've mentioned this song before, probably, but it bears repeating, which I did in the van in the dark with an almost-full, very large moon hanging low and beautiful in the still-night sky, as if pulling the van along, as if pulling my soul along.

And just like that, it was all good.

It's so good that I got to spend part of Christmas with a family I normally miss (and to be honest still am missing) painfully this time of year.  So good that I got to come home to a family that has loved me anyways through a lot of anyways kinds of times.  So good that I am here to worship together with a beloved community who somehow lets me serve alongside them in the wild adventure that Christmas launched in the first place.

Thai has a two word phrase "paw di".  It can mean 'perfect', as in 'exactly the way it should be'.  It can also mean, quite ironically to my perfectionist mind, 'enough', as in 'I don't need anything more.'

And I think this will be a 'paw di' kind of Christmas.  And in two days we will mark again the total abandonment of divinity for the humility of humanity.  The Christ Child Who was and is perfect.

Who was and is so very enough.



**"Descent" link takes you to a reading of the original poem by Malcolm Guite.  Can't find a way to actually post the song, sorry
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A Week Between Two Worlds

Friday.

In a 'life is regular' reality, Fridays already have a heightened sense to them.  End of the work week, beginning of the weekend sort of deal.

But in this space between for me, this particular Friday strikes me as unique.  Poetic even.

A week ago I brought my body home.
A week later now my soul, wisps of it anyways, lingers there.
I don't rush it.  Souls are not things to be hurried anyways.  And what happened for me in Thailand from September up until now is too much of a cherished thing to shake it off (as if I could) and jump recklessly into all that requires muster of me now that I'm back.

'Chaah chaah'.    Slowly, slowly.  It's even said slow and a little breathy, to remind me that hurry is ruthless and sneaky and unnecessary much of the time.

Felt it just a little this week.  Despite all my best attempts not to let Christmas be reduced to a list of things that need to be accomplished by the 25th, I let that very thought slip into my mind.  The pressure mounted just a little when I looked at all the gifts (oh the blessings) and realized they still needed to be wrapped (for some reason not my favourite Christmas activity).  Normally by now this would be finished, but this year the timing of my return has left it to the last.  Looking at the calendar I realized how few opportunities there would be to get that done.  And the jet lag, while so much less than other times, does still want its due. 

Sigh.

One week back from three months away.
One week until Christmas morning.
A leaving behind.
A welcoming.
Aching for beloveds.
Rejoicing in beloveds.

And God all inside of it,
Incarnate in not just this Friday-day,
but in the movement of my soul between two worlds.

So I stay here, suspended,
and let that be okay.
More, I let it be Wonderful
Worshipful
Christmas-ful.

Wondering....
What was it like for God
to do this 'between two worlds' thing?

And I ponder on that slowly.

Jai Yen Yen

It happened during an English lesson, as these things so often do. 

In preparation for the evening's ESL time with the kids, I was going over with Suradet the list of rhyming words I wanted to introduce.  We came to the 'ill' column.  Fill, will, mill, swill, trill...  Quite randomly, I had put 'chill' and 'pill' one right after the other, and it reminded me of a somewhat sarcastic way of telling someone to relax.  Without thinking, I taught it to Suradet.

"Take a chill pill."

Two things made this fun.  One was the fact that Thai's are ever so polite, so even to hear Suradet say these words seemed so out of character as to be quite amusing to me.  I reminded them that this was 'mai gringjai', not polite, and was to be saved for family or other relationships where a good joke would be appreciated. 

The second fun thing is how Thai's have a hard time pronouncing the 'l' sound at the end of a word.  It more often comes out sounding more like an ee-o kind of sound.  So what Suradet was really saying was 'Take a chee-o pee-o."  We had some good fun as he repeated it in order to learn it.   And of course, we had to rehearse some of the Thai sounds that I still can't quite get my mouth around either, just because.

And it turned out to be more fun later.  Because several times during my stay following that impromptu lesson, Suradet found occasions to use it with me.  I know.  Shocking to think that there ever would be a situation where I might be coming across as in a hurry, or otherwise wound up at all.  But boldly, brazenly, and quite delightfully showing a greater comfort and familiarity with me, he would look for times when my type-A self would sneak out around the edges of my attempts to be Thai, and tell me, "Ahjahn Ruth.  Take a chee-o pee-o."  Got to be something of an endearing inside joke.

Somewhere along the way I learned the Thai equivalent.  "Jai yen yen."  Oh so much more polite and delicate.  It means, as best I can interpret it, "heart just right", or "settled heart".  To say it to someone is to wish them that sense of inner harmony.

In these first days back I am quite happily amazed at how 'jai yen yen' my heart has been.  I was expecting that being away for three months would render me awkward and disoriented upon my return, but such has not been the case.  Perhaps it's because the weather is relatively mild for December, or because there have been some lovely welcoming surprises, or because I'm so well prayed for right now it's not funny.  Whatever the reason, I have returned so far to what I might say is the smoothest transition home from any time I've been away in Thailand.  Even the trip home itself didn't seem so bad.

Except.

I'm ruined now of course.  There's an aspect where my heart can't ever really be 'yen yen' ever again.  Because now, no matter where I am on the planet, I am painfully aware of the absence of someone I with I could be with.  When I'm there I miss my beloveds here, and when I here I miss my beloveds there.  That's achey, and that's the truth.

Except.

I feel so wholly loved, that even in the painful missing of beloveds, there is a bigger sense that all is right with my heart.  Because to know this much love is truly a gift and I am astonished that this gift is mine so lavishly.  And it fills my heart with so much yen it's not funny.

Christmas is soon and somehow this comforts me.  Mom's Home for Christmas.  So am I.   And life's not simple and there's lots of hard work to do come the New Year, and several factors are unknown.  But 'jai yen yen'.  It is well with my soul. 

Last Things

That beautiful, painful last day.  Highview to Thailand.

Gangrene Joy

Linking life and pain at Hot Springs Church.  Highview to Thailand

Awkward

Ten days left leaves an awkward space.  Highview to Thailand.