Beautiful, Dangerous Prayers

"Search me, God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting."

Psalm 139:23-24

We're at that stage of preparing our house for showings. We've already had the Stager go through to help us see our home with a 'buyer's eye.' She worked with us to make a list of everything that might be done to bring the place up to snuff.

No dates are set quite yet, and that's okay. Because while we feel the Stager's list was quite doable, and we're fairly on track, it was a long list and, well, we've needed the time.

I'll admit it's hard on the psyche when you work hard to clear out a lot of unnecessary things and start to feel good about the extra space, and then you start on some of the projects, like painting, that just disrupt it all with a big fat mess.

It occurs me to me, as I step carefully over paint cans and drop sheets, that the pursuit of a maturing faith can be the same.

Just like the gracious and professional Stager could see things we were blind to simply because we'd become accustomed to it, my soul needs a similar kind of deeper scrutiny. And if I want to keep moving forward in this journey towards Christ-likeness, I need to do far more than make things look pretty.

In fact, I have to have the courage to pray the more dangerous prayers. And then I have to be ready to do the work, despite the mess that ensues.

I don't have to go very far into things to find what needs my attention. Let's just do a simple listing of the 'fruit of the Spirit', that list of virtues Paul lays out as evidence of a maturing faith in Galatians 5:22-23.

Love, joy, peace, patience -- oops, we have to stop there.

Recently when I invited the Spirit to 'search me,' this thing about patience came up. Uh oh. I had thought of myself as a patient person. But then I began to notice how I responded when technology didn't work the way I expected it to. Or when all the wires on my desk would get so tangled. Or actually when anything that I think is going to require a matter of seconds, ends up slowing me down in a complicated, annoying kind of way.

Like I said. Uh oh.

That's just one example, just one paint can I have had to step over a few times of late.

A brief balancer caveat is needed here, because some of us more introspective types can overdo this for sure. No need to sit in self-analysis paralysis desperately searching for something wretched inside of us. God is faithful. If we are praying the dangerous prayers, He will bring something to our attention when we are ready and if it's the right time.

But in the right state of expectancy, a beautiful, dangerous prayer can be offered. In fact, it's necessary. That is, if we are intent on working with the Spirit in this process of spiritual formation.

And of course, the results can be so beautiful.
Like a fresh coat of paint....once all the furniture is put back in place.

Back to the move. Folks are asking so I'll just restate that we are NOT moving out of KW. The plan is to build a smaller dwelling that will be on shared property with our son David. This has been in the works for two years already, but is only requiring the concrete (pun intended) steps now.

More on that later. since I'm sure there are oh so many things to write about as we go through this stage of life transition.

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone.
Take care for the big swing in the weather.
Personally, I'm enjoying the fact that usually on Wednesdays I'm out and about going all sorts of places.
But today....I get to stay in.
Maybe I'll even get to painting the trim.

Can You Push This Button With Your Right Hand? OR How Busy is Too Busy?

 

One of the highlights of our service at Highview on Sunday was "Miss Rachel" leading our kids in that classic bit of crazy called "Hello...My Name is Joe and I Work in a Button Factory."

If you know it, the sing-song rhythm and the incremental frenzy is probably right now ear-worming through your head. For those who don't, basically it's a story song where Joe's boss comes along and gives him just one more thing to do each day, until it's actually impossible to keep up.

A repeated question from the boss is, "Are you busy?"

That word "busy" is often part of my conversations, both with folks asking the question, or, as often is the case, providing me with their assessment of my life by adding that little qualifier at the beginning, "too."

This is understandable, and by now I try to take it in stride. My God-given temperament, energies, and calling combine to keep me either robustly-occupied, or resting from being robustly-occupied on any given day. I honestly can't remember the last time I was bored. Oh, unless you count the teacher's strike in my last year of high school.

To bring this back to Joe's predicament, however, we should make sure that this isn't about who's busier than whom, how much or how little we get done in a day, or even about how well we may or may not be keeping up with all the demands of 'the boss.'

That was not the point of Pastor Erin's sermon, or why we were all joining the children in the cool calisthenics.

"[Christ] is before all things,
and in him all things hold together."
Colossians 1:17

The point was, you or I don't actually have to try to keep it together, no matter what the demands of our life right now.

That's Jesus' job.

Often we think otherwise. In fact, I have had to learn the hard way that the voice of 'the boss' in my own head was actually NOT Jesus. It was instead the voice of my own distorted perfectionism and workaholism. A voice that was fear-driven, not Spirit-led.

Jesus, on the other hand, was trying to get me to rest.
Because He's very competent as His job.
And He loves me.
Unlike Joe's boss, He never intends for us to get into that state where we're frantically flailing around.

Of course, we don't even have to have a lot of things on a list in order to find ourselves in that state. All it takes is for us to mistake ourselves for the one who should be in control of it all.

We're not. He is.

So whatever is on our lists for this Tuesday,
especially if it entails things that seem like they're spinning
in any direction that feels out of control,
I wish us all a button-free day,
to take our hands of that which we're not in charge of anyway,
and let God be God.

HIGHVIEW PEEPS
Our online Small Group is still wide open.
Thursday, February 29 from 10:00 to 11:15 a.m.
Digging a little deeper into Colossians 1:15-20.

PM me for the Zoom link.
We'd love to see you there.

Monday Morning Exhale

You know you've had an abundant weekend when....

You barely had enough time to take any pictures, let alone post anything, let alone stop and reflect on it all.

So here I am sitting in the relative quiet of a brilliant Monday morning, feeling 'spent but well-spent', and taking a pause before I begin the week.

I'll write about this in a little bit, over on the Highview to Haiti blog, and those most involved have heard already, but we were able to exceed our $10,000.00 fundraising goal towards the care of ten vulnerable seniors in Pignon, Haiti.

Just as a recap, these dear ones live at a place called Auberge des Vieillards, under the care of staff and leadership provided by the Pignon Church. Again, more details at the Highview Haiti blog later, but for now, let's just say, I am over the top grateful to be part of something so true. And I couldn't be more in awe of all the volunteers that came together and worked really, really hard to make it happen!!!

Also this weekend, adventurous members of my family returned from a trip to Florida, just in time to celebrate Jayden's birthday. He's seven, if you can believe it! It was great to see them, and to hear the stories, and to eat cake. They had saved up for four years for this. Lots of great memories made for sure.

If I dip back into the latter part of last week,
there was also the Intercultural Leadership Conference at Tyndale on Thursday,
and there the celebration of life for an incredible woman, the mother of a friend, on Friday.

So yes, an abundant past few days.

That brings me more or less to this morning, and the sunshine. It's 'fake spring' I know. We'll get more snow and wintery temperatures yet, I know. But in spite of myself I'm starting to make plans for setting up the patio out back.

But not today.

Today begins a week deliberately planned to recover and catch up and reflect.

One of my favourite texts from the Psalms expresses well how I feel about Monday mornings.

Psalm 5:3
In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice;
in the morning I lay my requests before you
and wait expectantly.

Every morning yes.
But especially Mondays
when the week is barely unfolding itself out before us.

Take a deep breath, my friends.
Feels like there's so much potential for good things ahead.

Behind Me in the Mirror

 

"How do you introduce yourself?"

That's one of the questions on tap for the online Small Group on Colossians I get to facilitate at Highview as we move through Lent together. Starts this Thursday. More on that bit later.

It's a great question and follows a solid sermon on identity by our Pastor Erin last Sunday. "Who Do You Think You Are?" was the prevailing question for the morning.

Identity markers. Ways of thinking about ourselves that may be imposed upon us or we might try to project to others. And I am very aware of both of these in my own psyche.

A defining moment for me in this was when I stepped out of the role of Senior Pastor and embraced full time the ministry to at-risk and orphan children in Northern Thailand with whom Highview had already been partnering for almost ten years.

Despite this being very familiar territory, and totally my choice, it took several months, if not longer, to re-orient myself and figure out exactly how I was going to introduce myself in this new space I was in.

It was unsettling. I floundered for a bit. It was like looking in a mirror and not really being sure who that was.

Such is the power of identity.

I have by now figured out how to introduce myself, and I do it in a way that totally makes sure the main thing stays the main thing. I.e. the main thing is not me.

It's the other One who is standing behind me in the mirror, hands on my shoulders, say, "I got you."

So back to the Small Group. Our focus for the first session will be what it means to identify as 'in Christ.' For followers of Jesus, it's rather important that we get this.

And I'm so looking forward to it!

Thursday mornings from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. online.
February 22 and 29, March 7, 14, 21 and 28.
We'll be following the same theme as the sermon preached at Highview on the Sunday before, throughout our series called "Alive."
All this is based on the book of Colossians and will carry us through to Easter.
No homework. No travel.
Just good conversation meant to encourage each other along in our spiritual journey and formation.

So my Highview Peeps, there's still time and there's still room.
If you want me to send you the Zoom link, private message me.
I'd love to spend the next few Thursdays with you.

Picture is of an old mottled mirror at our cottage, and reminds me of all the ways our perceptions of ourselves can be distorted.

Family Day Amazements

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: 

Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.  

Jane Howard

He sets the lonely in families.

Psalm 68:6

This Family Day weekend thing still feels relatively new to me.

Never mind that it's been happening since 2008 (thank you Dalton McGinty).

Just a little bonus in the middle of winter in that long stretch between Christmas and Easter,, and we'll call it a day to just be family.

And while my own family hasn't ever set up specific traditions to mark this day, I welcome any chance to be reminded of the richness of belonging, and the abundance of grace required to do so.  

For me, the gift of family has held me graciously in the roles of wife, grandmother, and mother predominantly.  And I do know without question, that I am held graciously by so much forgiveness and benefit of the doubt and humility to buffer and buoy the abundance of inadequacies with which I have attempted to fulfill those roles.   To my utter astonishment, they love me anyways.  And I guess that's the best definition of family I can come up with.

In a wider lens, there is family with faith, and family half way around the world, and friends that become family simply because they show up in your life 'closer than a brother' (Proverbs 18:24) and just don't go away no matter how messy it gets.

Sometimes I feel like the richest woman in the world.

And none of it is easy.

And none of it comes cheap.

And no one is painting idyllic pictures of us around a table, believe me.

And when we do smile for the camera, in any of the iterations of family to which I belong, it's real.  There's joy.  But's the joy that comes from a story that also has desperate chapters where we thought for sure we weren't going to make it.  But we did.  We held on.  And today we're loving each other anyways to everyone's great astonishment.

And come to think of it, the more I think of it, the more impossible family seems. 

How unlikely. 

That we would do this with each other, and survive.

Even thrive.

But I think that when any group of people, 

bonded by blood or by choice, 

keeps holding on to each other by grace 

and forgiveness 

and benefit of doubt, 

keeps showing up when it gets ugly, 

and keeps astonishing each other with love, 

that's family.

So be it a clan, a network, a tribe, a church, or whatever you call it where you belong,

Happy Family Day.

May you feel the grace that holds you.

Loving Impossibly

Love is patient, 

love is kind.

It does not envy, 

it does not boast, 

it is not proud.

It does not dishonour others, 

it is not self-seeking,

it is not easily angered, 

it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil 

but rejoices in truth.

It always protect, 

always trusts, 

always hopes, 

always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Going with a classic this morning, to mark 'the' Day.

Except it bears mentioning that, even though these words are widely used at weddings, it wasn't originally set in that context.

Go with me on this, because it helps affirm the 'beyond couples' thing I feel needs emphasizing every Valentine's.  

Paul is writing to the church in Corinth about a number of challenges they were facing as a congregation.  One of them was how snippety and superior some folks were getting based on the gifts and abilities the Spirit had given them to serve one another.  It seems to have turned into a competition of sorts, with egos pressing forward to be stroked.  Power struggles ensued.  A whole lot of insecurities seemed to be in play, with people more concerned about status and credibility and power than anything else.

But hey, Paul says, it's not about that.  Love is the more important thing.  And love is not like that.  Instead, it's like this...

And he describes the love that should be driving everything about how we live, and how we serve one another.

Of course, as beautiful and poetic and, yes, wedding-like this text is, it's also quite the daunting list. It might make us decide it's too unrealistic so we could give ourselves a pass.  Human relationships are complex.  Living in community is just hard.  Love actually hurts sometimes so...

Except, on the other hand, we all know people who do love like this.  We've seen it in friendships and marriages and teams and communities of faith who do indeed seem to have taken Paul seriously, and have let love be the first thing.  Sometimes against impossible circumstances.  

So this Valentine's Day, can I just say something to anyone who is loving impossibly?  All the friends and spouses and congregations who love like this? 

You are truly beautiful and brilliant in ways that show us God. 

Beautiful and brilliant.

Far, far beyond hearts and roses.

May God grant you the grace to keep showing us the way.

Love Like You Won't Get Hurt, But You Will

"God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer,

that your love may abound more and more

in knowledge and depth of insight."

Philippians 1:8-9

Still on this love theme, leading up to Valentine's Day, and likely spilling over for the whole week. Why not?

This morning, as I often do, I am reflecting on the both/and bit when it comes to forging the kind of deep bonds the Bible talks about when it talks about 'one another' kinds of love.

Paul felt it big time. His calling took him to so many places, investing in so many communities of Christ-followers. You'd think he'd sort of harden himself against it all, keep a safer emotional distance. He only got to stay in one place for short periods of time, after all. Better not let people get too close.

But he did. This piece from his letter to the Philippians is but one example of so many expressions of longing for the people he loved but couldn't be with at the moment. Pastor Paul loved deeply, and it often hurt him.

I don't know. I might be inclined to say that missionary pastors have more of an occupational hazard in this than others. But I know for a fact that this isn't true. Simply following Jesus' example of all out love for people who, for various reasons and various ways, will certainly end up causing you pain, is not by any means only the calling of the clergy. I know too many of you who love like Jesus loved and have both the joys and the sorrows to prove it.

Seems there must be a connection between love and courage.

I'm leaving it here for today. I'm tempted to reflect more on the other connection that seems to be presented in these verses -- between love abounding 'more and more' and 'knowledge and insight' -- but that's an entirely different thought. Intriguing though.

If your love is causing sorrow this Valentine's Day, for whatever reason, you're in good company.
Let's walk this together.

Real-Time and Everywhere On Purpose

1 John 4:12

No one has ever seen God;
but if we love one another,
God lives in us,
and His love is made complete in us.

Yup. I'm on a Valentine's theme this week, with Wednesday being February 14 and all the red and pink of it being something I so want to celebrate.

But not just the romance bit.

Romance is great, and I'm so glad for a life-long sweetheart. Our story is a good one, and I hope I am known for repeating it often.

It's just that I am thoroughly convinced that we miss out on the enormous scope of love when we make it about couples only. Are you kidding me? The vastly different loves of my life in the full spectrum of my relational world, bring a depth and breadth and wildness and wonder I can barely articulate.

Hard to describe, probably because, according to John's first letter, there is some manifestation of the image of God made visible in how we love one another. This is a sense of our human connections somehow "making complete" the love of the Divine.

How is this even a thing?

The invisible become visible.
The mysterious mesmerizes.
Like clouds in formation,

and forget-me-nots

sending not-so-secret messages.

Except, unlike these totally-untouched captures that I took with my phone camera, nothing about our love for one another is wispy or accidental. Quite the opposite. I would have to say that all the beautiful richness of my love life has been, in various degrees of intensity, on purpose.

What if, this week, and every week for that matter, we just told the people we love that we love them? What if we did it on purpose-like, in ways they love to hear it? What if we, on purpose, went about creating and bolstering and refining the invisible, eternal love of God, by engaging with each other in visible, tangible ways in real time?

Grateful for a Monday morning full of love.
It's everywhere.

Remembering Joe

One year.

These things feel like forever and yesterday all at the same time.

An astonishing man.
Unfaltering in spirit even as his body unsteadied itself.
As if each loss physically was a gain spiritually,
but only because he fiercely chose to make it so.

How is it that he was the one to crack the jokes, cheer us up, make us laugh?
How is it that he could be so generous with himself even as so much was taken from him?
How is it that even as the disease made its claim, he never let it define him?

If you need to know what tenacity looks like, remember Joe.
If you need to know what forgiveness looks like, remember Joe.
If you need to know what gratitude in the face of adversity looks like, remember Joe.
If you need a good joke to cheer up your heart, remember Joe.

Joe, we miss you so much.
Can't wait to worship with you again one day.
Bet you'll be on the drums.

Tossed Glove Freedom

Here's a story.  I heard it so long ago I can't properly give credit.  If anyone recognizes it and can give me the source, I would totally appreciate that.

The way I remember it goes like this.

===========

A young woman of modest means saved up enough to buy a pair of fine leather gloves.  This was in an era where gloves were very much in vogue, and just the right pair would speak volumes about one's status and position.  

She loved those gloves.  They made her feel well-dressed, like she was finally a 'somebody.'  She'd worked hard and sacrificed for them, earned them honestly.  It felt so good when she could finally go into the store and make the purchase.  Such luxury was not in any way part of her childhood, growing up in 'that' part of town.  At this time in her life, for all these reasons, the gloves were, to be honest, her most precious possession.

An opportunity came to visit a friend in the big city.  She would be gone for a month.  And not only would this be her first trip beyond her own village, but this would be her first experience riding the train.  Not a modern rail line, not back then, but a proper train with a platform and stairs up into the carriage, and windows that opened.  

Unfortunately, on the day of her departure she arrived late to the station.  She stood anxiously in line at the ticket window, and hurriedly took one glove off to reach into her purse for her fare.  Feeling very rushed she did not take the time to put that glove back on her hand while she ran onto the platform and hurried up the stairs just before the train pulled away.

Breathless, she placed her bag in the rack above her and settled herself down into the seat, taking off her scarf and tucking her purse in beside her.  That's when, with a gasp, she realized she only had one glove.  Frantic, she searched her pockets and her purse, but just then glanced up to look out the window.

There on the platform where she'd dropped it lay her beautiful leather glove.  Just one.  In her hand was the match.  

The train was leaving.  There was no going back to fetch it.  

It only took a second, that's all she had.  With determination she slid open the window and tossed the other glove onto the platform.  It landed several feet away, but still within sight of its mate.

An older woman seated across the aisle saw what happened.  "My dear, whatever are you doing throwing your glove out the window like that?"

"Now the gloves are still together," she explained, letting out a slow breath.  "If I'd kept the one and someone found the other, what good would that do either of us?  This way, someone can have a beautiful pair of fine leather gloves."

===============

I think this story has stuck with me because I am pretty sure I would not have been quick enough to think of that myself.  I'm fairly certain, actually, that I would have held on to that one lonely leather glove for a long, long time.  I'd have had a hard time parting with it, as unmatched and impractical as it would now be.

I'm afraid I would probably have kept the focus on what I had lost, rather than what I could give.  I think I would have held on tighter to what I still had, rather than be free to let it go.

There is so much freedom in letting go, though!  So much more freedom in being able to focus on what someone else might need than what I want to hoard.  

We're doing a major purge of the house we've lived in for more than 35 years right now, so this is on my mind a lot.  It's likely what prompted the memory of this story, come to think of it.  These days, I'm evaluating almost everything I own and asking hard questions about what I actually need, what's important to me, and why.

But the story goes a little further, I think.  Like the gloves represented a bit of status for this young woman, it's not just about material things.  In some ways, that's the easy part.

More insidiously, it's also about tossing onto the platform my ego, my pride, my need for approval, my need to be right, if it means someone else can gain in status, receive the attention, hear the affirmation, have the last word.   

A well-honed others-focus, if I can foster that, helps me make decisions about how I will speak and behave within all my relationships, and how quickly, how freely I toss the other glove onto the platform.  

For someone else to have.

Lord, give us the grace to throw away the other glove.

When You Can't Be There But You Are

 A vivid memory from my second trip to Thailand, and my first time actually staying at Hot Springs, happened after all the goodbyes and I was sitting on the plane waiting for take off.  In all the ways something can 'grip your heart', it actually felt like that in my chest.  And all I could think-scream inside my head was, "What have you done!?"  I was about to leave and go very, very far away from people I had hopelessly fallen in love with.

So.  Far.

Half a world away.

It's an occupational hazard, I guess, for those of us who find ourselves between the spaces because of what we've been called to do.  Or, more simply perhaps, it's the reality for lots of families.  You are irrevocably tied to people you love who are very, very far away on the planet, but very, very close to your heart.

I have been oh so blessed to have my own, DNA grandchildren so close.  We live literally 6 minutes and 10 minutes away from each other.  They are over here all the time.  We are over there all the time.

And.

I have other grandchildren, who do not carry any of my DNA but who belong to my heart also.

I'm feeling that distance particularly today because over the weekend Bell graduated from high school.

And I wasn't there.

Bell is Suradet and Yupa's own daughter, sister to Bee who was tragically taken from us at the age of 20 by motorcycle accident.  Bell was two that first visit, when I first played 'round and round the garden' with her.  She happily doesn't remember any time in her life when I wasn't part of it.  

She has grown into a strong young woman, kind and intelligent, and full of the kind of joy that every parent or grandparent wishes for their children.  Because of the unique opportunity God has given her to attend an English-based school in Chiang Mai, she is thoroughly bilingual.  This has led to her serving as my translator starting when she was about 14 or 15 years old.  We have formed a strong bond working and speaking together, and just being together as family.

And I would have loved to have been there in those moments when she marked this important rite of passing.  It's a little achy for me today to see the pictures, as proud as I am.

I'm not meaning to complain, really.  Because the thing that's foremost for me emotionally today is a deep, deep gladness.  This achy thing I've got going this morning is actually evidence of a profound gift.  Love is like that; risky that way.  When you open your arms and your heart and yourself to embrace in ways that matter, it's going to be awkward and sad and even messy sometimes.

And sometimes you can't be where you want to be, but you can be 'there' because of love.

And thank God for all the ways we can oh so more easily connect now than we could back then.  I'm so glad to get the pictures so quickly.  And I told Bell over Facebook how proud I was of her, and how much Pa Ken and I love her and are praying for God's grace over the next steps in her future.

Way to go girl!  

For the abundant riches of my life, I am unspeakably grateful.

A Day for Cake

It was chilly in our family room that day.  That explains the blanket.  The hat and scarf, though, were newly opened Christmas presents, and he agreed to put them on for a picture.  I didn't know then, we never do, that this would be the last picture of Dad and I together.

I might have asked to take off the blanket had I known.  Or maybe it's fine that I didn't.  He looks comfy.  And smiling.  

I don't have pictures of his 83rd birthday less than six weeks later.  Not sure why.  Sometimes in those later years, little gatherings could be very short and sweet, and also awkward for all the reasons life in a wheelchair when you're 83 is awkward, so maybe we didn't get a chance.  And at my ordination a few weeks after that we weren't really doing any specific photos that day.  And I remember we had to get them back to their rooms at Westmount pretty much right after the service.  So no pictures there.  I would have liked that I think.

But overall, this last one is lovely.  

Today is his birthday, so I woke up remembering these things.

And in remembering my Dad I think the best thing is how it was pretty amazing in the end.  How a very complicated relationship ended up being so redemptive, somehow in the midst of the chaos of those last 11 years of care after the stroke.  How we got to say so many good and healing things to each other as we moved through the initial event, then all the therapies and transitions and decisions and such.  So many good conversations later, as things settled into a new normal and I did his nails and cut his hair and sang him songs when he asked me to.  So many important moments in those long and frequent waits in ER that always turned into a hospital stay.  

And such a holy thing, really, in those very last hours, to have him take his last breath with my hand on his chest.

Not every daughter gets this.  I am grateful with not enough words to say it all.

Perhaps we shall have cake today.  Dad did love cake.