Something Bigger Than Jayden's Moon

Photo Credit:  Ganapathy Kumar - Unsplash

There's a time of year early in the winter when a moon-walk with a preschooler can happen before bedtime.  If the night is still, and the moon is full, and the Christmas lights are all on in the neighbourhood it can be downright magical.

They are out on a night like this, four year old Jayden and his Mom, walking to see if the baby will fall asleep in the stroller.  But also just because the air is cold and fresh on their faces, and it's been the kind of day where a magical moon-walk helps to set things straight.

Then Jayden notices that the moon is following them.  

Astonishing news!  He informs his mother.  "Mommy, look!  The moon follows us!  It only goes as fast as us and stops whenever we stop!"  He demonstrates, running ahead a bit, face turned up to the moon with the wide-eyed expression of someone making the kind of discovery that just might change life on the planet as we know it.  Mind blown!

Mom explains, even as Jayden continues his demonstration.  "Actually, it only looks that way.  The moon is so far away, but when we walk by the trees and houses we pass them by because they are so much closer.  The moon only looks like it's following us behind them."

But Jayden is not convinced.  Clearly the moon is moving.  He can see it for himself.  He feels compelled to correct his Mom's obviously inaccurate information.  "No.  Mommy.  Look!  It's moving with us."  He runs a little way ahead again, then stops.  "See?"

A short episode of  'ridiculous conversations with a preschooler' ensues, but Jayden won't budge.  His perception is his truth.  Mommy, despite being all grown up and having completed a fair bit of schooling and life that has included at least some basic science, is wrong.  He's not rude about it.  Not annoyed or condescending.  Just very patient as he explains it again and again, offering proof in his repeated demonstrations.  

Not wanting to lose the serenity of the walk, Mom acquiesces enough to say, "Well, Jayden, yes, it sure does look like the moon follows us."  And lets it drop.  One day more abstract thinking will develop and he'll figure that out.  Not tonight.  Tonight he is a confident boy being followed by the moon, and it's magical.

He's only four.  No one wants to steal his wonder.

But then we grow up.  And we eventually come to different understandings.  And we are faced with the reality that sometimes what seems irrefutable is not.  We can be so sure...until we're not.

And I wonder sometimes, if God is not like a Mom out on a walk with her boy under a full moon.  And I wonder if we are not that child, engaging in ridiculous conversations, trying to explain things, or beg for things, or rage about things, with the One who created whatever it is we are so sure of.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways." declares the LORD.  "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."  Isaiah 55:8-9

Our perception becomes our truth.

But.

Maybe the moon is just too far away for us to see things clearly, even on what seems a clear night.

I am necessarily humbled by this.  Especially as one who studies theology, a space where too often we end up explaining things as if we know.  As if.  

I am also needfully comforted by this.  I anticipate that one day my winter night's walk with my Divine Parent will come to an end. 

And I will be taken safely home where all the thinking can be put to bed.

"My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.  But I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned (satisfied) child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. Psalm 131:1

Finished

You said it was done.

It's done.

In all my doing I must remember this.

The Cross remembers this for me.

This horrific redemption,

this despicable forgiveness,

this revolting love

finished all the unfinished business between me and You.

Payment in full.

In all my doing I must remember this.

Not by merit am I made whole.

Not by effort or doctrine or intelligence or righteousness

do I crawl my way to good standing with You.

Not by being 'anything' enough am I found here.

Here in restored intimacy with You.

Here with Your face toward me.

Here with You standing behind me, 

leaning forward to whisper clarity into what lays before me.

Here in a wild dance of worship, all golden.

Here with hands clasped tightly, 

pulling towards, 

foreheads touching

until I feel Your Breath on my face.

I am not 'good enough' for this.

But You are.

The Cross remembers this for me.

You finished the space between us.

And now....

And now my doing is for love, not destination.

Because,

like You said.

It is finished.

 

Words for Winter's Lingering

With a presumption that 'it's probably just me', I've been doing a bit of light research on the effects of this time of year on our general relational health.

Sweet flowers from a friend that included a card with life-giving words.

I'm not talking about mental health, although that definitely factors in.  I'm not talking about physical health, although the winter virus thing certainly factors in.  My focus, my sense of it, is on how this time of year seems to foster no end of minor to significant relational agitation, specifically and simply because of how we are talking to each other.  

It's like we're all just that much more grumpy, and that 'grumpy' mostly comes out of our mouths.

Here I risk minimizing what concerns me, simply by using a word like 'grumpy'.  That seems to imply that a good night's rest or a good meal might solve the problem.  And often that's a good place to start, sure.  If we can do a little self care and come back to the conversation open and generous, sure.

But what if the Seasonal Affective Disorder we're all experiencing by March, is poking holes in our love and decency, exposing some hurts and hostilities that spill out in some truly unhelpful ways of communicating?

It might be one explanation for what's bothering me of late; this seeming increase in sharp words, sarcasm, cynicism, often under the pretense of humour.  Humour that insults, tears down, and is pointedly aimed at an individual.  Bantering that starts out maybe okay, but ends in increasingly embarrassing, personal digs.

Call me sensitive, that's fine.  You wouldn't be the first, and that's why I started this with 'it's probably just me'.  But it's also why I did a bit of light research.

Just Google 'the psychology of sarcasm' and read a few (reliably-sourced, peer-reviewed) articles and see if I'm overstating things.  Look up the affects of different kinds of 'humour' on relationships.  Get a few definitions.  Maybe even ask the people around you how you're coming across.  Ask if they feel safe.

Perhaps you'll still tell me to lighten up.  And if you say so in ways that are safe and healthy for me to hear, I'll take it into consideration.  For sure I will.

And if it is indeed 'just me', then I'll press deeper into my own commitment to watch my words.  Even in the words used in this blog post, or anywhere, I truly hope to convey humility and grace and a desire for peace.  

But I won't always, I know this.  And surely as I post this, if you're interacting with me in some form in the next few days or weeks, you'll see me slip.  I'm earnest but not perfect.  So I'll watch myself, and invite you to watch with me.

Here Paul inspires me:

 "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Colossians 4:6

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."  Ephesians 4:29

And oh, the Bible is full of loving instruction as to how we might love with our words.

Oh friends.  Thank you for all the times you have honoured me with your honesty.  Thank you for all the positive words of love and encouragement and grace you have spoken into my life.  Thank you for allowing me insights into myself with your differing perspectives.  Thank you for helping me to lighten up with I genuinely need to.

May we all walk winter's last weeks with wisdom.

We need each other so much.

Making Deeper Spaces for Love

Above all, love one another deeply, 

because love covers over a multitude of sins. 

1 Peter 4:8

To begin with, this photo is not doctored.

I know there's a lot you can do these days, with the right kind of programs on the right kind of computer, to make something look like whatever you want.  But that's not this.  I don't even know how to do that.

This is just what happened one evening down by the dock when I was in the midst of some earnest prayer asking for direction.  Not kidding.

A heart from heaven.

Love it when that happens.  (Wait for this in a second.)

Mostly though, my spiritual journey is not like that.

Love is not like that.  

Not so obvious and unusual and spread all across the sky and bordering on miraculous, 

like that.

Not mostly anyways.

Mostly, my spiritual journey, particularly into what it means to love like Jesus, has consisted of every day stuff, regular stuff, sometimes tedious stuff.  

Sometimes painful stuff.  

Like really painful stuff.  

And if you want the truth, it's not the wow stuff in the sky, or the little stuff in the grass that actually love-shapes me.                                                                                                                                                                

Don't get me wrong.  I 'love' it when that happens.  (See what I did there?)  Makes for good pictures and interesting Facebook posts.  Often as not it does provide a sweet reminder that God is fully present in the moment, that I am the object of Divine attention.  

Yes, I get that.  

But it's not what carves out the deeper spaces of love in me.  

The deeper spaces of love come from the every day stuff.  The regular stuff.  The stuff that's sometimes tedious and sometimes painful.  Really painful.

Because it's digging deeper, helping me find out what I'm made of what God is making of me.

"Love one another deeply," Peter says.

"Above all," he says.

Because.

Because why?  

Because there's a lot in me (and a lot in others) that wants to squeeze love out.

Sin, Peter calls it, like the good Bible word it is.

I know the word has been given a bad rap by folks throughout the centuries who have wanted to stamp it on a lot of external behaviours that, oh in a decade or so, are all of a sudden not considered so.  Like when my childhood pastor's wife said one Mother's Day message, "I was so glad when God finally said it was okay to wear make up."  Maybe growing up you had a list imposed upon you.  (Maybe, if we're honest, we have our own lists we impose on others, who knows?)

For right here and right now, just staying with Peter here for a moment, I'll just say that sin is clearly not-love.

So anything not done for love, especially not done for the two great loves Jesus talked about, Love God, Love people, (Matthew 22:37-40) - that's sin.  (I may get in trouble here for not hammering down on this more, but for now I'll leave it at that.)

Love.

Love that covers over a multitude of not-loves.

Wow.

So love one another - deeply.

Cover all those not-loves with love.

Deeply.

But do we?

Yes, I know we each have our relational circles.  

The people we are closest to.  

The ones who get most of our love, and rightly so.

But is there space for more love?

Broader love?

Wider circles of love?

Deeper spaces of love?

Or. 

What if we are all filled up with

fear

resentment

opinions

judgements

protectionism

perfectionism

ambition

competition

greed

worry

sexism

racism

oh and let's just ad

me-ism (or its more common name, selfishness)?

(Maybe we could call some of that sin?  You pick which ones.)

What if?

What then?

Where are the deeper spaces left for love then, if we're all jumbled up and filled up with the not-loves?

Love deeply.

I can't seem to get away from this.

It makes me reckless, actually.

To love deeply is to take risks.

Loving people who won't love you back.

Loving people who won't understand.

Loving people who won't recognize it.

Loving people who won't value your love.

Loving people who don't deserve it.

Loving people who barely have any capacity for love themselves,

and it makes them all pinchy.

Love like you won't get hurt, but you do.

To give yourself away....it's not safe.

It's not safe.

But we love.

Deeply.

If we can make room for it.

Spirit of the Living God, the God Who IS Love,

keep carving out the spaces in my heart.

Please come in and carve out the not-loves

so there's room for You and Your LOVE.

And if You want to do one of those things,

where You step in with the clouds or the forgetmenots

I'll love that too.

But please,

don't stop Your real work in me.

Carve away.

I trust You.

 

The Spaces of Enough

Energized, no doubt, by today's sunshine (finally), I found myself waking up with that free-Saturday urge to "get things done."  

More than just the normal Saturday stuff; groceries and sweeping and bathrooms and laundry.  Those are the things that must get done, usually waiting for Saturday, even though, when you work from home they whine at you any time you leave your desk.

No, today the 'get things done' was about the bigger stuff.  The stuff that feels like more of a project, something you wait to do until you have the time and the energy at the same time.  Yeah, I know.  Not that often. 

 
But today there it was.  The sunshine, the time, AND the inclination, all happening first thing.  I enthusiastically jumped on the wave, and today, among other happy bigger tasks, I cleared out my closet.  

The bare floors at the bottom may not seem all that spectacular to you, but for me they represent a serious purge of shoes.  And what you can't see is that a lot of clothes I haven't worn in - I'll admit it - years are also gone.  Value Village has a great pick up spot just for this sort of day.

As I finished off the final tidy up and sweeping, I couldn't help but feel a little wave of freedom.  I mean, look at the space!  A closet is exactly the kind of mostly-hidden place where things pile up and collect.  I don't think I realized how much was in there and how much getting rid of it would make it seem like the whole room is now breathing better. 

Bigger inhales.  Expansive.  

Slower exhales.  Sweet and easy. 

"Enough."

That was the idea that kept coming to my heart this past summer as I sat on the dock or paddled the kayak and listened.  Enough for this season of life.  Enough for who I am and what I bring to my small piece of the planet.  Enough, so my soul can be free of the clutter of all the things I sometimes think I can hide in there.  And it piles up if I'm not careful.

I set for myself the unpacking of "Enough" over a longer course of season.  I brought it into this new year to give myself the time to keep understanding it.   Space enough to breathe into it.

I have so much.  Really.  And I'm getting a clearer picture, I think, as I contemplate all of this, that there will be a lot of letting go, if I'm ever going to get to 'enough.'

It was also just sooooooo good to get outside for a winter walk in the sun today.

All the Words of Becoming: Growing Together Into the New Year

There are no better words to end a year than "Thank you."

And perhaps no better place to be than in a space of gratitude.

For many things.

But in this moment right now with you, at the end of a year that I know has held such a truckload of life for both of us, I want to thank you for the simple gift of reading my words.

I write a lot of them, I am aware.

So are you, if you are one who checks in on this blog or is connected with me on Facebook and takes the time to read to the end of my longish posts.  Thank you for that.   I might carefully call myself a word-crafter and a lexophile.  So, in a Youtube/TikTok/video-streaming, TLDR* world that seems to me increasingly illiterate, anyone who engages with what I'm putting out there (in sentences with all the words actually spelled out) feels like a kindred spirit and a welcome companion in my own spiritual formation journey.  

And to offset my edge of (hopefully uncharacteristic because I find it mostly unkind) sarcasm just now, I should say that I know there's a lot of great information out there, and that people absorb it in different ways, grow in different ways.  And that's really the point.

For me 'all these words' are windows into what it means to be in a 'process of being formed into the likeness of Christ for the sake of others' (Mulholland).  It's a journey via the development of thoughts and ideas, reflections and (for lack of a better term) arguments that help shape, inform, redirect, categorize and bring humility to my own theology and practice of life.  

And putting 'all the words' out on social media seem to me an opportunity to use my voice in ways and about things that matter to me.

So thank you.

You have been an important companion to me as I figure this out.  

And, of course, my hope is that some of these words have been at least a little bit helpful to you as well.  

Maybe, like me, you've needed the reframing and mental postures of positive hope to press against the harsh realities and tedious press of some of 'those days' this year.  I pray you have been enriched, reminded of who you are and Whose you are, and cheered on in your own journey of growth and formation.

We embark together now on a brand new year, my word-faithful friend.  

I want to write more.  I want to read more.

Words that shape my soul.

Hope we can journey together still.

Gratefully,

Ruth Anne

*"Too long, didn't read"

 

The Christmas No One Plans For

We're all watching the weather reports right now.  Significant storm heading our way just in time for Christmas weekend.  Thursday through Sunday. 

Yikes!

They're using the phrases like "flash freeze" and "blizzard".  They are reminding us of how to put together an emergency kit with water and flashlights and food and stuff.

They are asking us to "consider altering plans through the holiday weekend as travel conditions may become dangerous."

Altering plans?!  That's a problem.  I have plans.

Most of us do.  Family meals, Christmas concerts, candlelight services.  Probably all of these involve driving somewhere.  

I find myself checking Environment Canada's website several times throughout the day.  Just to see if there are any updates, any new projections that might see the storm veer away.  

Because....we have plans.

Then again, so many dear people I love well are not having the Christmas they planned for.  And it has nothing to do with the weather.  It has to do with storms that fiercely blasted in at various times through this whole tumultuous year.  Evictions and diagnoses and illness and treatments -- and death.  So many folks having that dreaded "first Christmas since."  Or new stuff just now in December, piling on to all that came before.  

The kind of Christmas you can't really plan for.  Nobody plans for.  Nobody wants.

The irony of it is this.  It's exactly these kinds of Christmases, the ones that feel all awful and chaotic and unplanned for, that best reflect the very first time anything to do with Christmas was ever introduced on the planet.

Having a daughter pregnant before she was properly married was not in the plans for Mary's parents.

Having a fiancee tell him something quite unbelievable was not in the plans for Joseph.

Traveling pregnant was definitely not in Mary's plans (or for any mom-to-be for that matter).

And you can bet no birth plan ever crafted included a cattle shed delivery and a feeding tough bassinet.

So the picture we have in our heads of that perfect, well-planned-out Christmas?  Not in the Bible.  The shimmering gold and lights against the snowy backdrop?  Not in the original screenplay.  The part where everything you want comes true "this Christmas"?  Nope.

Except.  Actually.  That is the plan.  Eventually.

We don't read from Revelation very often at Christmastime.  Maybe we should.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea [often representing turmoil, danger and chaos]

...And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them.  [Immanuel = God with us.] 

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  [God's longing all throughout Scripture is to be WITH us.] 

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain,[sounds like a good Christmas plan to me], for the old order of things has passed away."  He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"  Revelation 19:1-4

With a nod to John Lennon (which is appropriate given our Let It Be Christmas theme at Highview), I might suggest that Christmas is what happens while you're busy making plans.  

And with the threat of everything we've planned being thwarted by a storm, it's clearer that Christmas is actually about hope and tenacity and fierce faith

-- and welcoming God to be with us exactly where we are.  

So hunker down beloveds.  Get ready for the storm coming this weekend.  Plan to give yourself space to heal from the storms of this past year.  Plan to love the people you're with.  Plan some grace where it's badly needed. Stay safe.  Stay quiet if need be.  Make those plans.

And maybe....plan for an encounter with God that has nothing to do with anything pretty and sweet, necessarily. 

Or maybe that will come to you in ways you didn't plan on.  

I hope so.