Falling Forward

"Restrain your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears.
For your work will be rewarded,
declares the LORD.
They will return from the land of the enemy.
so there is hope for your future,
declares the LORD.
Your children will return to their own land."
Jeremiah 31:16-17

I spent the day with papers all over my desk, binders opened on top of each other, my computer screen layered with windows. It was an ordered chaos of strategic planning and visioneering, as interwoven and interdependent as the papers and binders and windows themselves, each element resting with delicate precision on the life and intentions of the other, in order to manifest in the vibrancy of another ministry season at Highview.

I love this time of year. It's when we get to set it all up, like a giant connection of dominoes, or a childhood game of Mousetrap. This is the careful, thoughtful part, where the ideas and conversations and prayers of last season have morphed into the building blocks of this season, and are now being set up, piece by piece according to the plan, ready for go.

In just a few weeks, some master gong of convention will sound off the beginning of this particular season, and the first domino will nudge, the ball is released, and the rest all falls into line. Fast and furious, it will seem by the end of it, but wild and wonderful and unpredictably predictable while it runs, with constant rapt attention while we watch to see if it all works like we hoped it would.

I love it, because it points us forward. Dominoes only fall one way. Forward. The ball only rolls one way. Forward.

It's a gift, this forward motion. Like gravity. It keeps us where we are supposed to be. Eyes intent on where it's heading.

Although.

It's not quite so clear where it's all going. We can plan it, we can set it up. But there's this randomness to our human experience in this post-fall, pre-heaven interim. There's an unexplainable Wild Holiness that engages dynamically without consulting us. I know. He does. He has.

So.

I am wild with hope this time around. And thoroughly surprised by the joy of it again.

Happy Birthday Mom!

For my Mom, who turns 82 today.

I celebrate you, Mom, for your life and legacy.
For always believing the best of me, and being a strong voice in my childhood for the strength in each of us.
For knowing and using your spiritual gifts of Faith and Giving, even without ever having attended any seminar on the matter.
For delighting the simplest of things and teaching me that there is joy in ever day if you look for it.
For demonstrating tenacity and loyalty in an age of convenience and self-servitude.
For showing me that it is possible to live a life in which there is no bad word for any human being.
For giving generously to global initiatives, long before that was the "new cool" thing to do.
For telling me about Jesus and being there when I gave my heart to Him.

I hope our ride in the country today, the only thing you've asked for your birthday, brings you joy and fills your soul.

I love you Mom.

Ruth Anne

A Severe Mercy

For you O God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our back. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.

Psalm 66:10-12

Hold me together, Yahweh
Let it never be said that I trusted in vain
It's Your reputation that makes me outrageously brave.

Hold out Your mercy to me
Go ahead and correct me for the sake of Your name.
It's not much of a threat but my hoping is keeping me sane,
Again and again.

In Your love remember me.

Steve Bell

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.
Make level paths for your feet,
so that the lame may not be disabled,
but rather healed. Hebrews 12:12-13

Though you were ruined and made desolate
and your land laid waste,
now you will be too small for your people,
and those who devoured you will be far away.
The children born during your bereavement
will yet say in your hearing,
'This place is too small for us;
give us more space to live in.'
Then you will say in your heart,
'Who bore me these?
I was bereaved and barren:
I was exiled and rejected.
Who brought these up?
I was left all alone,
but these -- where have they come form?'

Isaiah 49:19-21

Morning by morning, I wake up to find
The strength and the comfort of God's hand in mine
Season by season I watch Him amazed,
In awe of the mystery of His perfect ways,
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He's always been faithful to me.

Carolyn Ahrens

In repentance and rest is your salvation.
In quietness and trust is your strength.

Isaiah 30:15

Only with You, Abba.
Only You.
Else all is lost.

RAB09

Time Away from Time

It's so easy to fall into a time warp continuum when everything around you reminds you of nothing related to the clock or schedules, but only to the rhythms of the created order and the holy hush that wraps you up in it.

It's all about the light, I think, or the water. Or the light on the water. And being away from everything else for days at a time.

It's all around you but comes inside you somehow, until you are breathing with it. Breathing the wind. Breathing the colours.

There's a timeless patience everywhere. In the rocks. In the way the trees bend their growth with the prevailing push of westerly unseen forces.


It's in the time-doesn't-matter way you wait to be friends with small creatures who can teach you so much if you stop and watch them long enough, coaxing them, patiently. Until they trust you, which feels good in a very simple sort of way.

And it's time to connect with the Timeless One, who for eternity has loved me, as startling as that is, but as clear as it becomes, when you have time.

Time for the Light to shine warm and wonderful on the stilling waters of my soul.

Time for the Pneuma-Wind to breathe fresh into me again. Time to regain some trust in myself, as timid and cowering as I feel.

Time to be sought out and pursued by the Patient One, who waits for me to catch up with Him.

It's not enough, of course. It's never enough time in the place away from time. Three weeks blurs into what feels like a mere few days. And I would never think that it was time to come home again.

Except it is.

Time Now

Time now. I'm going off line for three weeks. I'll be at the cottage, and I am so ready to be at the cottage.

Time now. To just be. To watch. To hear. To revel in my skin for a bit. I'll be at the cottage, and I am so ready to be at the cottage.

Time now. To bake cookies and pick blueberries and swim. To sit still long enough to earn the trust of skittish creatures and let my soul come out of hiding. I'll be at the cottage, and I am so ready to be at the cottage.

Time now. To nurture my most important human connection and give the gift of space to all the rest. To heal a bit. To cry some. To laugh silly and think of nothing too much at all and everything all at once. To let the enormity of my life find its proper perspective in the bigger-ness of God.

Time to be me, in case I forgot how. Time to let my spirit marinate in gentleness. Time to sleep the holy sleep of Sabbath.

And I can do all that. Because I'll be at the cottage.

And I am so, so ready to be at the cottage.

And for all those who have shared something of themselves with me this season, thank you. I needed you. I will need you again as we go around again.

But for now, it's time.

Taking Care of Each Other

I've recently taking up swimming. It's my latest desperate attempt to do something that counts as exercise. Three times a week, for the past, oh two weeks (you've got to start somewhere) I've headed over to the Rec Centre and done the lane swim. 20 laps, I'm told, is close enough to 1 km that I've been using that as my goal.

Feels good.......when I'm done. Actually even during the swim, I find it soothing, calming, centering, over and over again, lifting my arms pulling myself forward through the water. A time to think, uninterrupted. A time to pray.

In the week before Zachary's birth, Kristyn and I were mapping out a few plans for after his arrival. Wait, did I say plans? What am I thinking? You can't plan anything once a newborn is in the house. I guess we were talking more about some priorities, things we were wanting to keep at the top of the list, even once the lovely random newborn chaos began.

At one point in the conversation I had said that I hoped I could still get over to the pool to do my laps. "Because," I said, "I still need to take care of myself."

Abby, who was playing nearby, picked up on that and corrected me.

"We will take care of you, Gramma."

I looked at her and realized how fundamentally right and true and good her statement was. We're a family. Our dynamics may be somewhat unusual but the bottom line is still the bottom line.

We're a family. We take care of each other. The giving and the taking flows back and forth and up and down and in and around in ways that, provided we all know who we are and Who's we are, happens in love and with grace.

And the very cool thing, especially for us right now, is that "family" goes a whole lot further than just those who live under this one roof. A whole lot further. We know it. We feel it. And the giving and taking flows back and forth and up and down and in and around in ways that, providing we all know who we are and Who's we are, happens in love and with grace.

And hopefully I can get in a swim soon.

Newborn Awe

It's all new
All wide-eyed and unbelievable
Everything you see
Everything we see in you and because of you

Welcome, Unexpected Blessing
Grandson undeserved
We receive you with bold love
And kick-butt grace
And we commit you to our Faithful Creator
And ask His favour to continue to do as good as the little we know

And we love you
How could we help it?

RAB09

For Zachary Jan born June 19, 2009 at 1:49 a.m. 8 lbs 7 oz, 22 inches
and entirely captivating.