What Child Is This?

I thought I would be more frantic by now.

Christmas all by itself does that.  This final week can easily fill up with last minute stressors that crowd out my calm and peck at my peaceful intentions.  But everything's coming together so well that, right at this moment at least, happy anticipation prevails over fussing.

Packing for Thailand all by itself does that.  I leave for a month away not two days after Christmas, something I've never done before, even in all the times before there's been for this trip.  But the planning and packing are pacing themselves quite cooperatively, and right at this moment at least, eager expectation prevails over the finicky.  

It's not that everything's perfect this Christmas, or that there won't be hard things to do when I get to Thailand, far from it.  People I love are missing.  Grief is the uninvited guest at the table.  Others are in the midst of sufferings and treatments and all manner of demands this far-from-heaven reality these past twelve months have been all too kind to remind me of.

Upon arrival in Chiang Mai I will, in a matter of days, travel the difficult road up to the mountains to speak at a new year's festival event in a remote Karen village.  The combination of jet lag, the grueling trip, the 'different' accommodations, and the ministry responsibility will be physically and emotionally demanding.  Then upon returning to Hot Springs, there will be a family of 26 kids, their parents and other caregivers, and a whole community of faith who are still reeling from last September's shocking, gruesome loss.  As am I.  Being there in the midst of that, I will feel it more than I do here, which is already an always-every-day-thing for me, still. 

And yet, even with all that being true, right now, right now I am calm, focused.

It's a focus this past year's struggles have strengthened for me; a focus of determined joy and reckless hope.  It's a calm based not on any confidence I may or may not have in myself, but in the One who has been Fully Present with me every step, every breath.  The One who's fought for me all year long.  The One who now shelters my Christmas.  The One who goes before me on that treacherous mountain road.

How else can I explain it?  I should not be this okay right now.

Tomorrow I will preach a final Christmas sermon about a Messiah who is powerfully sovereign AND mercifully sympathetic.  Abundant gratitude for this truth, and the chance again to direct my praise toward Him together with my incredible family of faith.

Tomorrow Ken and I will sit around a table with our kids and their kids and marvel at how these could have in any way been entrusted to us, and be over the top grateful for them in every possible way.  And the table is already set, and the gifts are already under the tree, and the love is waiting in all the details, waiting for us to just be with each other.

And on Tuesday I will get on a plane and go do this again with another family.

And I ponder the question in an old Christmas carol....What Child is this? 

What kind of Messiah  would lavish me with all of this? 

A Messiah I would follow anywhere.

Unexpected Reflections

I have captured an accidental reflection, and it's inspiring something wild out of me today.

See, words are reluctant things sometimes. Not every day words; I find myself with plenty of those. 

But these words here, the reflective words, the words reserved for plumbing the deeper places of the soul and daring to put them 'out there' like we do these days, on blogs and such...  Words for trying to figure things out.  Those words have been skittish this fall.  So, I have respected their reluctance.

Since posting last (August 15)  the year has stayed true to its apparent determination to press me to the max in almost every way imaginable.  Stress unyielding.  Random, relentless, and sometimes horrific events, and not any of it the result of logical consequences or decisions made on my own part or on the part of others also affected.  Deep, unspeakable losses.   The 'here and now' of life has dished out some pretty wretched stuff.  On many days the phrase 'there are no words' was exactly true.  So I refrained from writing them.

But on Sunday, pre-service, as I received the morning's gift of worship as our band rehearsed, I accidentally snapped a picture of self-reflection that, by this afternoon, when I looked again at the picture, seemed to ask to be expressed.  Because without realizing it, there I was, framed in one of the silver bulbs that hangs on the tree in our auditorium.

And what I want to say about it is this.  You have to really look for it.

There's much about Christmas that's obvious.  You can tell it's Christmas by the way things look and sound and feel and smell.  And I enjoy all of this, for sure.  My home is decked out.  My office is decked out.  The music, the music is so lovely and life-giving.  Missed all this anticipation of Christmas last year when I was away in a culture that does not celebrate Christmas.

But it's not the deeper picture of myself this year.  Upon more subtle reflection, I find myself more fiercely and determinedly joyful.  Not just glad for Christmas, but gladder for Jesus than I've ever been before.  Not just celebrating Christmas, but living it out in the real and anguishing places where hope and peace are so desperately needed, and Christ's coming is so vividly, wildly relieving!  

Oh for joy!  Christ has come!  Deeper ways of knowing this gospel proclamation are swinging me in ecstatic circles of absolute certainty that I would die without this.  God has shown up in ways that take my breath away, and give me strength and courage and fist-clenching resolve to be about His mission, now more than ever.

I am weary from this year, yes.  But upon closer inspection, I find my soul feisty for joy, and receiving it, dancing in it, declaring it loudly, despite the attempts of the past several months to crush it out of me.  But they didn't.  Because....Jesus.  Because....Immanuel.  Because.....Love.

Because this year, this whole beautifully terrible year, represents exactly, exactly why He came.

Gifts of August

 Halfway through and I'm realizing again the gifts this month of August offers me.  Suspended between my July time of cottage restoration and the arrival of full-on September, August is in so many ways a buffer time.  I get home and I'm back to 'work' but it's still summer and there's this slower vibe.

What a gift.

Seems a perfect time for some important rituals and rhythms, right here, poised in between things like this.

Purging

I find myself inclined to purge during August.  This year, especially so.  Been going through closets and drawers and collections of things, weeding out the unused, damaged, or extra.  It's a wonderfully emancipating sort of thing.  De-clogs the physical space, freeing the house and my mind of all that tempts me to hoard.  Having too much stuff; what's with that?  As I empty and sort and toss, I find myself again surprised at how much I have in my life that I really have little use for; how much there is that just takes up space, serving no purpose.  And how much I am longing these days to simplify, minimize, focus.

The physical clearing spills over to my soul, I find.  I am wondering why I carry these resentments still, hidden in the back corners, taking up space I could better use for love.  Or these worries, which practically multiply themselves when they're not pulled out of forgotten places and tossed away as useless.  Which they are.

August provides me the time for purging.  A good gift.

Pacing

Calendars are a big deal for me in August.  Both at work and at home, it's a time for mapping things out in preparation for life to resume more robustly come September.  But in anticipating and even embracing the abundance of my life - wouldn't trade it for anything - there is, in August, that opportunity to remember some of the ways the calendar last year got to looking like some of my closets; too full to properly breathe.

These quieter days of August coax me toward a wiser way of being in the coming season.

Assigning Mondays as 'introvert indulgence' days, where I actually don't run errands or do anything at all that would take me away from the house.  As much as possible, at least.  Not to be rigid, but just to be mindful of the depth of my need for solitude, and to stop minimizing it, or apologizing for it, but to love myself in it, enough to respect this true part of me.

And in a similar vein, clearing off one week per month as a 'no meeting week', allowing me the time and space to think and read and envision and plan and feed my soul.  Realizing how much this is needed to balance the energies and keep me level enough to authentically love those I'm called to serve.

Pacing, yes, is such a gift.

Peace-making

This year I find myself making peace with what unfolded all last season.  Such a time of change, most of it unexpected, and a lot of it not what I would have chosen.  So I am reveling in August's opportunities to connect the two, last season and this coming one, and to let what happened be of God and all good, even in the parts I still don't understand.  I make peace with myself as I forgive myself for my failings, learning from them, let them become the strengths of what's coming.

This year, more than ever, I find I am accepting myself more thoroughly, allowing for both the strengths and weaknesses of my soul to be used by a God who overcomes it all.

And this too is a great gift.

 So August, thank you.  These still summer days out on the patio or beside the pond are rich and wonderful and life-giving, preparing me for when we're back and full out pursuing the abundance of life God delivers as we serve Him.   

Summer - Part One

                                               

We are leaving the dock at the marina, boat loaded with five weeks of expectation.  I should be more excited.  Instead I am so exhausted that later I will not be able to recall the time of day, the weather, or even very much of this first ride at all.  Except this is the first boat ride, and so, aware of it or not, the healing begins.

The Georgian Bay air is blowing away all the work, all the worries, the rest of the world.  Just for now.  Just for here.  All I can hear is the roar of the motor.  All I can feel is the wind in my hair, the air on my face washing away the urgent tyrannies.  All I know is that there’s water and rock and trees and sky, and that it’s time.  I breathe.

I sleep.  For days and days I sleep.  And make chipmunk friends, one of whom seems to have lost most of the fur on his back.  He’s a mess.  Like me.  I call him Scruffy.  He’s bold and saucy, so I can’t tell if he looks so rough because life’s been rough or because he made it so by being too crazy.  Like me.  I’m just not sure.  But I’m hoping that my being here will help sort all that out for us.  Quite the pair, we are. 

I sit.  Sometimes that’s it.  Just sitting.  Drinking tea from a mug that reflects the iconic bending of the trees in this place, by the shape-forming winds that prevail.  Drinking tea and not planning anything, or thinking any thoughts beyond being curious as to the significance of four loons swimming around in a tight circle making their loon noises in the middle of the morning like they are doing right now.  

   

Or chatting briefly with Scout, my faithful seagull guardian, about what’s up around the bay.  Or receiving a morning greeting from the jenny wren who is building a nest in the birdhouse above the deck.  And my small animal friend amusements bring a certain simple, cottage joy, and I feel myself coming back like a slow fade from black and white to colour. 

I am smiling now, about seven days in.  For no particular reasons, just randomly throughout the day. 

And sleeping less.  Which allows for a few de-wintering activities, mostly involving the back bedroom where, in just a few days, sun kissed children will be sleeping.  And as I liberate the plasticated mattresses, dig out some quilts and make some beds, I notice that someone is singing, and that it’s me.  Old Sunday School choruses I don’t think I’ve sung in forever, but which easily flow up from those deep brain places to remind me of how wonderful Jesus is, and that my Mom would sing these too. 

Which leads to enough time, finally, to bring some closure to the long distance grieving that so unfortunately marked my last years with her, and in the end, was how it was; me so far away when she left.  And letting go of things not being what you wanted them to be for someone so important is an awful letting go.  But it happens now in better ways, here down on the dock where nothing else competes for the energy required by it.  And I sing the Mom songs about Jesus, and imagine her humming them with me as we prepare for the children together.

And now the children are here!   And glorious, noisier days ensue in which canoe rides sandwich picnics, where Gramma watches and is ambushed by overwhelming wonder that these three playing on the rocks and in the water have, in some mysterious way, been gifted to my heart.  Swimming confidences grow and amazing adventures happen along the shoreline.  Forts are built and marshmallows roasted and little unsuspecting fish and frogs become our ‘pet for the day’. 

And together we weather a ripping storm, huddled together on Gramma’s bed as the wind tears away the dock and drives the water in right through the seams in the wall.  This same storm, not so very far away, will snatch away the entire roof of a cottage, not so very far away, or did I mention that?  So we huddle, and murmur reassuring things to one another as the lights go out.  We do this well, this family.  Weather storms.  And it’s not lost on me, as we sense the lessening of the wind, and climb down from Gramma's bed and survey the damage, that our very being together for this has been forged for us in another storm, and hard won by deep forgiveness and beyond-ourselves grace. 

Grace becomes the theme of Summer Part One.  My extreme weariness upon arrival feels to me a failure of my commitment to living balanced and whole.  It’s not, I know, the demands of the season just past being what they were.  But I feel it differently.  So hearing, as I do, the whispers of God in this place these weeks, it’s all about forgiving and grace and healing, all over again in the places of my soul that are still proud and self-promoting and self-sufficient. 

Grace upon grace is poured down on me, and it happens in every moment that I fully engage with my awakening self, and unfold that self to God.  In the simplicity of hanging wash out to dry on a day so hot and breezy it takes no time at all.  In the easy, unhurried waking from a nap, doors and windows wide open to cover me with fresh everything as I slept, and now making no demands that I get out of bed.  In the random, ‘unrelated’ books, I’ve brought to read.  In the reading over of last year’s journal.  In these precious and all too few days alone with Ken, being beaten in Scrabble over and over again.  In the way the bear runs so very quickly away from the noise of the bear horn (it works!).  In the sunrises and sunsets.  In the canoe and kayak.  In the stilling of my skittered self among the lilies there. 

Quiet, still and breath-snatchingly beautiful, this healing and forgiveness and grace is laid down upon my demanding-season, self-ravaged soul.

I am undone.  Again.  I am here beside the waters.  My soul is being restored, morning by morning, moment by moment, year by year.

 

And now, in what seems to have transpired in mere days, not weeks, it is time to load the boat back up again and head into the marina for the drive home. 

Am I ready?  As I fold up the cottage linens, and pack away my clothes and books, and leftover food, I find myself unreasonably unwilling to leave, greedy for more.  This is always the case because, come on, who would leave without a very good reason?  But perhaps more so this summer, for all the reasons listed above, I am already homesick for this place before I even finish the last clean sweep of the cottage.

Scruffy has been healing.  More fur has grown on his back.  He seems somewhat less frantic, although not yet mellow enough for me to get a picture, not since the peanuts ran out and he only comes by now for a quick check in.  But he looks better.  Not a perfect coat of fur just yet, but there’s improvement.  Like me.

And it’s time.  There’s been water and rock and trees and sky.  Summer Part One.

And lucky me!  Summer is not over.  Now I get to do Summer Part Two.  A different kind of being summer, back home in the city, where there are people I love and a pond by the church and a patio in my backyard.  And good work to do.   

Yes, good work.  

Such a gift, that.

The Untanglings

Sometimes its only when it's done that I am in awe of it. 

Like this past season. 

Here now again at the cottage, my pausing place where I can stop and breathe and muse, I look back on a year that was quite extraordinary in its demands. This even in the high demand reality that is my chosen life and vocation. This past season.....a LOT went down. 

Spent three months in Thailand, the scope of which in itself was beyond expectations. Got to visit the mountains and stand where I could almost touch the sky. My Thai family is not skimpy in expressing love, and the richness of that time will forever haunt me in ways beautiful and true. 

But while I was there Mom finished her time with us. And I was not able to get home for her leaving. After that, when I did get home, it seemed there was a rolling out of a succession of urgent matters that required the best of my game, an over and above state that just would not quit.  To even give a skimmed over list would risk sounding self absorbed, so I'll leave it alone. But at the very end of it there was the loss of a dear friend and realizing again the occupational hazard of being given the honour of doing funerals for people you love. 

So now, sitting in the healing silence of the sunset at the cottage, and with the space to try to sort it all out, a prevailing wonder has been how any of us survived and how so much actually got done!   Because in the midst of it all there were weddings with wonderful stories, and new members with energizing enthusiasm, and baptisms and babies and breakthroughs for people on impossible journeys. And over it all, a profound sense of God's power and presence and participation. 

Last night dwelling quietly in the final hush of the setting sun I listed all these grateful things. And in that vulnerable soul-posture, I was reminded of a moment and a song that captured something deep in me one night in Chiang Mai last November. 

We were at a Christian concert event and a popular female Thai singer named Rose Sunthip did a stunning voice and guitar-only rendition of Josh Grobin's "You Raise Me Up".  You can look it up on YouTube to catch the actual performance. 

It took my breath away then. It held me together in weeping moments this winter. It explains things and reframes things now. 

"You raise me up so I can stand on mountains" now has a depth - or height - of meaning not available to my soul this time last year.  Perhaps it was the experience of actually standing on a mountain. Or the just as real sense of being carried on the shoulders of God, and having it provide more than all I've needed to be more than I could be.  

And this not just for me personally. For Highview too, for aĺl of us.

That's the only explanation. 

Nothing else makes sense.

How else did we thrive like we did?

There's a settling of my mind in this testimony.

The beginnings, 

I think, 

of untangling the intensity 

and embracing the learnings 

and letting Him lead forward 

from here. 

Sent from my Samsung device

Dance of Healing

Dancing brilliance, a sunset claims another evening sky as trophy.  

As if to say God's faithfulness reigned this day too.

And all the healing silence makes the music for the dancing. 

And the wind gives way to a calmer heart, waiting to be held, and held it is. 

And stilled. 

And heard. 

And stirred. 

And healed. 

Between last time here and this,  so much of making crazy, so much of life and living,  so much. 

But now. 

The dance and the dancing. 

Sent from my Samsung device

The Sad Things

Life is an odd balance for me these days it seems.

On one side of the scale there is the weighty gratitude of joy for oh so many wonders! 

• For three months in Thailand and all that such a sabbatical so lavishly afforded me.
• For the simple freedom of being able to drive myself around in my world again.
• For the honest, persistent way Highview is being 'the church' right now, both within our own community, and also out in the community that surrounds us.
• For the gift of being allowed to serve with these astonishing people called Highview, in a role that I never set out to 'attain' but which will likely always be one of the biggest surprises of my life.
• For the gift of being allowed to have a 'job' that reflects my life's passions.
• For new things on the horizon that hold promise and excitement and challenge; truly a gift for anyone fast approaching 60.

And these and more are strong and true and big and happy.  And they are the stuff that makes for good postings, and the substance upon which to focus and ponder in the waking moments of each day.  Mostly, I'd rather talk about these things, press into these things, dwell on these things.  And I do.

But there's another side of the scale; the weighty ponderings of sorrow for oh so many woes!

Because life is also hard.  Mine is at least.  And it's hard right now largely because right now it's hard for others I love.  And perhaps there's an added weight to this other side of the scale because of the privy I have into the deeper corners of people's lives sometimes.  Some of the hard stuff is more or less out there, and we're sharing it together, walking it together in community.  But some of it is private, and rightly so.

And it turns out that right now it seems I know a lot of sad stuff.  And a lot of it is the kind of stuff that pushes you to the very edge of yourself, the kind of life experiences that force you to find out what you're made of.  Crazy-making kinds of things.  Heart-smashing kinds of things.
"Jep jai", in Thai.  Painful heart.  More than any soul left alone could bear, actually.

I think this is why I have felt a strong pull to be at home today.  I have errands to run, and I did get at some earlier this morning.  But just now, when I went to get back into the car to finish my list, I was held back, quite strongly.  The sense of it made me sit in the van for as much as five minutes, just listening to what my soul needed for the afternoon.  And in the end, I don't think it was to be out running around.  I needed to stay at home and pay attention to the sad things.

This may or may not involve weeping.  It may or may not involve a nap.  As I write, the afternoon is yet unfolding, so I'm not quite sure still what I am to do with this sadness. So far, it has involved putting on a fire to ward off the last of winter's stubborn struggle for dominance; a metaphor no doubt for the light and warmth of honest faith to balance out the sad coldness.   It has involved quiet, which has become the needed space to lay the sadness out so it can get some air and not become foul and moldy in my soul.

That's the odd part.  Because I feel the sad and I feel the happy pretty much about the same right now. There's a back and forth to this; a both/and, not either/or.   Both real.  Both strong.  Both true.

And on either side of the scale His presence is palpable.
That's the thing.   
With me.
There is no loneliness in this sadness, or in this joy.
Not at all.

Three Months and Two Weeks

Just three more days for this visit.

After staying at Hot Springs for three months of concentrated study last fall, these two weeks have seemed like nothing more than a whispered thought.  Just a whisper of the language.  Just a whisper of the culture.  Just a quick touch of souls my own misses so painfully every day at home.

So I'm doing my best to be fully present.  Everything's precious.  Take nothing for granted.  These moments will pass and these whispers will be the stuff that lives are made of.

And I am so grateful to be here again.

Coming home last December was lovely.  I found the transition time to be exceptionally smooth, coming into Christmas and having the luxury to unpack not just my suitcases, but my experience in Thailand over a slower four week re-entry.  But then January 11 threw me a curve ball and I spent the next eight weeks trying to get my head around a completely NOT normal "normal" that wouldn't settle into something efficient and calm, no matter how hard I pushed and wrestled and yelled at it to do so.

I arrived at Toronto Pearson on March 9 in terrible shape.  Excited to be going back to Thailand, but physically, mentally and emotionally spent from eight weeks of frustration.

It was good for me to be required to just sit down for two long flights.  In my exhaustion, with the hum of the engines relentless in the background, I sat whimpering before God and just asked Him, "Okay, so now what?"  And in the way we sometimes hear these things, I heard Him respond, "Ruth Anne, just let Me fill you."

I probably slept more on the way over than I have in any other trip to Thailand.  I sat in the filling of my Saviour, His grace and patience and mercy and love washing over my weariness every mile of the way.  By the time I arrived in Chiang Mai, I was remarkably better rested than when I left Canada.

And then...seeing their faces....that first glimpse at the airport.  And then the first car ride in where we try to say so many things, and realizing that my Thai wasn't quite as rusty as I had feared.  And sharing in the jokes and stories and memories.  And feeling filled to over flowing just being with them again, just in those first hours.

And these weeks, these two short whispering weeks, where so much has happened that it will take more than one sit down at the computer, more than one open heart time with God to figure it out.  And it's been so demanding in some surprising, even shocking ways.  But even in the demandingness, He's been right there, filling me up.  And it feels so good to be in His presence like this.  Here.

And there.

When I get back I'm thinking it will be like 'Returning Home from Three Months In Thailand Part 2", only I guess it's Three Months and Two Weeks.  Like another reboot of the re-entry.  And I get a do over.

Here's the thing.

I am inadequate in every way my life requires anything from me.  In and of myself I don't have what it takes.  Not to do ministry here.  Not to do ministry at home.  The demands are too great.  The wisdom too essential.  The composure and strength and patience and calm and nurturing and teaching and guiding and tenacity and clear-headedness that's required for this is all way over my head.  Way over.  If the two months without a license taught me anything about myself is that I don't have what it takes to do my life.  Not just me.

I need to be filled up with a Presence bigger than myself.  I need the loving gifts and guidance of the communities within which He's placed me.  I need a lot.  I am needy.

And all that I need I receive as I give way to the giving of it, and let this whisper of a two week stay be the answer to why those last two months at home were so stupidly hard to do.

Reboot.  I get another chance.  Another kick at not kicking at life quite so much.   And how wonderful that I am allowed to come back to this place to figure this out.

For three months and two weeks.

For now at least.

Of Walks in the Sunshine, Ice Caps and Having a Pristine Heart

I am reveling today.

They say a storm is coming later this week, so I think it wise to get myself outside.  My license reinstatement is still in process, so it's a walk I have in mind.  I hike myself and my rolling backpack down to Tim Hortons, Steve Bell accompanying me through the music files I have but barely use on my phone.

When I get there I sit in the sunshine and work on my Thai.  And yes, I have a 'cheating ice cap'.  They're supposed to be my Saturday treat, but my confession is that in these days of non-driving frustration I've had more than a fair share of 'cheating ice caps.'  Never mind.  It's wonderful, and so is the winter sun coming in the window.

I stay here, enjoying all the combined life of that, for two hours.   The movement of my body through the fresh air.  The reviving of my soul as the music feeds me.  The energy of the sunshine.  The joyful surprise of all I still know in Thai, discovering that I can read phrases I couldn't recognize before.

A day off with two indulgent hours to work on just - one - thing! 

The 'mindfulness' of it that eludes me in these days of oh so many details to negotiate, is amazing!  Feels so good not to be thwarted by immobility, or to be an inconvenience to anyone, or to be coordinating a ride, or to be filling out medical forms, or to be hurrying to be ready for my driver.....for two whole hours!

I revel.

Walking back I am conscious of my heartbeat, strong and steady.  Last week my cardiac test results were 'pristine'.  That's the word the doctor used.  Both tests, the two that are essential to have done in order to satisfy the medical review board at the Ministry of Transport, came back showing that my heart is strong, perfect even, medically speaking.

I ponder this designation of 'pristine'.

Health wise, it's a great thing to know, and later (much later I'm guessing) I will likely count this as one of the 'gifts' of having had my license suspended.  To know this, especially as I continue to travel back and forth across the globe, is a helpful thing.

Theologically, I also know this to be a great gift.  The most amazing gift ever, actually.  Something that enhances my Lenten meditations.  That Christ's sacrifice for me washes me.  That my standing before a holy God is made right because of Jesus' exchange.  That my heart, once 'crimson' is now considered 'white as snow', 'pristine'  (Isaiah 1:18).

Practically speaking, however, in real time?  The truth is that my heart has been considerably less than 'pristine' as I've kicked against this deprivation of freedom and independence.  I've allowed the anger and frustration of it to make me impatient and irritable.  My compassion has run on low, and my lack of control over this one aspect of my life causes me to grasp for more control elsewhere.  I'm not loving well, I'm not leading well.  Not like I want to be, anyways.

And some days, it seems I've completely forgotten Who I belong to, and Who it is Who gets to call the shots.  And it's not me.  Clearly.  Or I'd have my license back by now.

So today with a forgiven heart, I revel and remember.

I turn up into my driveway realizing I've just had a holy, re-framing, soul-stilling, 'pristine' string of moments.

And it does my heart good.

Fresh Snow

Snowy Sunrise

 There's something even quieter about an early morning graced with fresh snow.   It's as if new mercies fell from heaven last night, all white and unmarked and untroubled.

I am home again this morning, an unusual string of two days in a row, planned on purpose following a somewhat frenzied week.  More than a week, actually.  The whole month has had several layers of unexpected and expected urgencies demanding the best I can bring in a full-out kind of way. 

Actually, it's been like that ever since I got home. 

I guess we could call it cross-culture shock, at least a little of it is.  The pace of life in Thailand, where a tropical environment coupled with the sense of abundance-of-time that centuries of a belief in reincarnation produces, is undoubtedly and considerably slower than in Canada.  At least in the more rural parts of Thailand, like where Hot Springs is.  As wired-for-efficiency as I am, I was able to relax into that and let things unfold in a far less organized but Thai-beautiful way for three whole months.  I learned as much about myself in that, as about the culture and people with whom I am falling more and more deeply in love.

Morning mist on the mountains, Hot Springs.

But the bigger difference between there and here, I think, lies in what I feel I'm responsible for, in charge of.  There, I was the boss of my self only, and my school work, and how I engaged with the ministry at Hot Springs under Suradet's direction.  For three months the bigger-picture outcomes were not directly connected to my efforts.  That was a welcome gift.  Especially given the weight of all those extra layers of urgencies I've come home to, both at the church and in my extended family, the outcomes of which have been completely connected to how I respond to them.

And then, just when it seemed I would need all the resources of my life to be available to me in strong and rallying kinds of ways, something as fundamental as driving got taken out of the mix.   I cannot even begin to describe the inefficiency and wasted time, the extra effort and communication and coordination all of this has brought.  I say this with HUGE gratitude for all those who have so surprisingly-to-me been willing to take time out of their day, sometimes at no small cost to their own schedules and convenience, just to get me where I need to go.  My drivers are my heroes right now, and I couldn't be doing my regular life, PLUS all the added medical appointments without them. 

But the layer of 'more' this has added to my already 'more than enough' readjustment period these first months back borders on unbelievable.

So, yesterday and today, I am hiding from it for a little bit.  Two days. 

And there's fresh snow, and a fire on and a cup of tea beside me.  I'm ignoring emails, screening calls, refusing to look at this week's list.  And with some Thai-style time to just sit here, I am more aware of a Holy Presence sitting here with me.

I find the longings of my heart have a better chance of catching my attention so we can listen to them together, unhurriedly, compassionately.  I find the contemplations of my mind have more space to stretch and arrange themselves into something more orderly and useful, and He points these things out to me.  I find the deepest desires of my soul are given a canvass on which to paint vivid pictures of joy and hope and excitement, and He's excited with me about all that's coming.  And as I engage spiritually this way, I am mindful again that I am created for good things, beautiful things.

Tomorrow I will again take up the challenges and head into the week and my life with all I can offer.  I will take my responsibilities seriously.  That's just what we do, right?  And the challenges ahead have so much potential to bring out the best in the church I love so well.  We have so much to be eager about, excited about.  And I love that I get to do what I do. 

But what a wonderful thing to know that all the outcomes are ultimately God's deal.  What an important reminder of how badly I need new mercies every morning.  What a gift to receive grace for my glaring inefficiencies.  What a sweet gift to sit awhile by the fire on a morning with fresh snow. 

A morning that's even quieter because of time, and Presence, and mercy, and grace.

The Perils of Passing Out in Public

On Monday I fainted.

This wasn't something I could have arranged to do in private, no.  I had to go pass out in front of the sweet people who run the nail shop I go to.  Yes, I was getting my nails done.  Never mind that it wasn't for some dramatic, heroic even reason.  Just sitting there, being pampered, I swooned.

Felt it coming on gradually, more like a bit of a sweat at first, and then kind of woozy, hard to concentrate on the small talk.  And the last thing I remember was saying, "I think I should tell you that I'm not feeling so good."

When I came to moments later, my sweaty head was being cradled and my damp neck and shoulders were being rubbed, and an excited voice was on the phone calling an ambulance.  With considerable effort I pulled myself out of the fog, lifted my head and asked if I could talk to the dispatcher directly.

No need for the ambulance, I politely informed her.  I was fine now.  Just going to get my nails finished and then go home and rest a bit.  But the ambulance was already there, and the nice lady on the phone suggested ever so carefully that maybe I should just let them check me over.

Looking back now, that's when I should have even more politely said no.  But I didn't.  And the paramedics, also very soothing and reassuring, convinced me to just let them hook me up to the heart monitor and take some vitals, just to see what was going on.  And after that, they ever so soothingly and reassuringly somehow convinced me - who was feeling completely fine by then, have I mentioned this? - to actually get on the stretcher and let them take me to the hospital.

After that, there was no turning back.  Long story short I spent the remainder of the day in emergency, feeling completely fine, hooked up to monitors and being poked for blood.  I even peed in a cup.  And all this time I was FEELING PERFECTLY FINE!

Everything came back normal.  Normal.  See?  I'm fine.  But protocol, both medical and legal, now required that the Ministry of Transport be given notice and - take a breath because this is about to get ugly - I now can't drive until I am medically clear to do so!

Whaaaaaaaaat?!!!!!!!

Outside I remained calm.  After all, I was fine.  But inside the little freak who sits at the console in my brain was pushing all the buttons, sounding all the alarms, cranking down on all the levers, yanking all the chains.  Now people, now we have an emergency!

No driving?  You've got to be kidding me!  You don't know my life!  I drive to places at 5 a.m.  I do this by myself because no one else ever wants to go with me where I'm going at 5 a.m.  My routines, my job, my life is dependent on driving.   I love my van.

This isn't going to be okay.

Especially since I'm perfectly fine, if I haven't mentioned that!

The nurse practitioner was kind, professional and quite insistent.  We don't know why you passed out.  Until we know that everything's clear, that this was a one time benign incident, it's not responsible to drive.  It's not safe.

Yeah, I know.  I'm not driving.  I get that.   And I won't.  But.  Really?

So it's been an interesting week already.  Especially since I am determined that this won't involve Ken.  He's got enough driving to do as it is with a lot of other people.  I'm supposed to be the one supporting that aspect of his ministry by running errands and such.  And at the very least, taking care of my own transportation.  So, no.  Not Ken.

There's a plan.  Of course there's a plan.  And I have it all charted out with dates and where I need to get to and who's available in a minimally-inconvenienced way.  I'm not swimming until this is cleared up.  I've cancelled and rearranged appointments.  I'm hitching rides and taking taxis when absolutely necessary.

But I don't like it.

Except.

That van I love?  That license I have?  That independence that I cherish so much.  It's not actually mine.  Oh yeah.

A long time ago, a really long time ago, I started that totally sold out to God thing.  It's a thing that doesn't happen all at once from the beginning.  It's more of a thing that happens daily, experience by experience, opportunity by opportunity.  That thing when you just sit there with your hands open and upward and tell Jesus "Here.  This is all of me.  I'm Yours."

So the van, the license, the independence, I don't own it.  I remember this, and it stops the little freak in my head cold.  Because for some reason I can't fathom,  (and a reason that seems utterly unnecessary to me by the way, because I'm fine!) right now, for at least the next six weeks, God has called those things in and asked me to do without.

And I guess, if I really mean it when I pray those prayers and sing those songs, of surrender and humility and release, then actually, I need to be fine with that.

So my life tip is, don't faint in public.  It just gets really complicated.

And, if you don't mean it, don't tell God He can have all of you.  And if you do mean it, then be fine with whatever happens.

And really, I know this, this is not so many other things it could be, that God sometimes does ask His children to do.  This no-driving assignment, so much less than the cancer-assignment, or the loss-of-spouse assignment, or any number of assignments that are out there.

So, actually, truly....I'm fine.

The Echo

The Happy Farmer

It's the name of a piano piece you played for me on the old upright in the living room, when I was young enough to still know that running around in joyful circles was an amazing way to spend an hour after supper. And I remember being in awe of your magic on the keys as you played.  But then again, you were the 'magic one' who made everything happen, those early, early years.

The Poky Little Puppy

It's the name of a children's story you read to me over and over, your soft voice so familiar, and your face as you read it.  Sometimes I would lose track of the story just for the sake of watching your face, and trying to remember the first time I saw it.  And when I realized that I had never known a moment of my life when I didn't know you, I would marvel in that, contemplating childlike abstractions of the cosmos and how life works.

The Accident

It's how you always referred to the traumatic brain injury you sustained as an almost 13 year old, that last defining day of your grade seven year.  That day dramatically redirected the trajectory of your life in ways only God could redeem.  And He did.   Impossible to speculate, I know.  But if the stories of your personality and capability transformation as a direct result of 'the accident' are true, which I expect they are given it was your own mother who told me, then it's not hard to suggest that had you not been injured, you would have been a very different person in your teen and young adult years.  Those are the years we make significant, life-shaping decisions.  Those are the years you realized you were not able to fulfill your dream for overseas missions.  Those are the years you met Dad.  Those are the years to began your family, me being your first go at mothering.

The Release

That's what I call what happened for you very early in the pre-winter morning of November 19, 2015.  When all that God had asked you to do was done.  When this part, the fleeting part, of your life was over, and you were released into the eternal part; the part where things are as God always intended for His people.  No more pain.  No more confusion.  No more angst.  No more tears.
You were getting restless.  You were talking more and more about 'the release', hoping it wouldn't be too much longer.  And, Mom, I am so glad you got to go home.

The Echo

Sometimes these days, if I'm sitting quietly, I think I can hear The Happy Farmer being played, somewhere off in the distance.  It's as if there is a room in Heaven with an old upright piano.  And you've sat down at the keyboard, and are playing it for me still, inviting me to set aside the grieving, and the other heavy things we carry in this fleeting part of life, and to just run in joyful circles for a little bit.

Because now you know.  Now you can see.  And it's all okay.

Time and Not Time

What day is it?

It's normal over the holidays, but this year it seems exaggerated somehow.  

When normal rhythms are disrupted a day can lose it's 'feel', as is in it doesn't 'feel' like Friday when I get to wake up slow, and settle myself into the family room with a fire on and a cup of tea.  Doesn't feel like Saturday either because Ken is home and not out for his breakfast with 'the guys'.  Doesn't feel like Monday either, because I haven't just had Sunday, and Sunday, normally speaking, is basically the pivot point in every week for me.  I really notice Sundays.

Doesn't feel like the end of Christmas.  Didn't I just put up the decorations?  Didn't I just get out the Christmas CDs?  All the Christmas that happens before Christmas didn't happen for me this year.  Not complaining, not at all.  LOVED where I was instead.  It's just now adding to that sense that time didn't happen in a normal kind of way.

This particular doesn't-feel-like-Friday-or-Saturday-or-Monday-or-the-end-of-Christmas also happens to be the first day of a brand new year.  So there's another question.  What year is it?  And of course I know it's 2016, but somehow it feels like 2015 left in a great big rush, especially the last three months of it, and I'm not sure if I'm quite ready to let it do that.

Haven't fully processed all that happened since September while I was in Thailand.  Don't want to lose the core life lessons any more than I do the newly acquired vocabulary and language skills.

And just now, when I was mapping out the month ahead I did not write down my regular visits to Mom, including the three hour (one way) drive to Peterborough.  This reminds me of two more time related weirdnesses.  One is the delay for me in marking her passing and how even though she left November 19th, only now do I register how my life is different.  The other is accepting the good gift of the redeemed time each month, and considering how to spend it well.

So things linger from last year. 

Not that 2016 isn't welcome.   I LOVE New Years every time.  It is for me another brand new mercy just waiting to reveal itself.  But that it's here so soon?  When did that happen?

And in this not-sure-what-it-feels-like time zone I find myself drawn to the One who lives outside of time anyways.  Like an anchor.  Like a cosmic reference point.

"From everlasting to everlasting, you are God", Moses declares in Psalm 90:2.  And with 40 endless years of desert-wandering leadership as his context, he certainly would understand this time-outside-of-time feeling.  The entire psalm is full of time references, all anchoring back to the God who led him and their people all the way home.  Eventually.

"Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom", he pleads (v 12).  A proper understanding of our mortality is his backdrop, one that helps us arrange and rearrange priorities, set up calendars and goals and life maps and quiet spaces, all so we can exist within this strange element we refer to as Time, but to which God does not answer.

The gentle snowing happening in this right now moment as I write reminds me of another time reference,  Winter.  It's winter now.  And soon enough I will step with eager anticipation into the regular rhythms of my life and the remarkable, humbling thing I get to do with it.  And winter will give way to spring which will give way to fall which will give way to another Christmastime.  In all of that there are challenges ahead, for sure, all of which seem to set themselves up in what was formerly known as 2015, but which I welcome into 2016 with confidence.

Because of the blessing.  Moses' blessing.  And it seems so fitting to begin with this.

May the favour of the LORD our God rest upon us;

establish the work of our hands for us --

yes, establish the work of our hands.

Psalm 90:17

May the work of your hands bring you joy and satisfaction throughout all the moments of this year.
And may they be established, grounded, anchored by the One who is waiting there for you,
Outside of time, but totally ready to engage with you within each day.

Blessings and joy for 2016 everyone.