Coming Home

The bay is quiet now, although the sky's still moody, following a brief but ripping storm that took out the power at 2:31 this afternoon. That's what the stove clock reads right now, even though the sun has begun its late afternoon descent, angling in the front windows, when it gets the chance, through the lingering clouds.

Surprisingly it's still warm.

True summer. That's what we've had this entire last week, as if God was saving the best for last.

Maybe it was this last (for me) blast of perfect cottage weather. Maybe it was the crazy, best in 40 years blueberries. Or the arrival on Monday of a small and charming chipmunk who graced me with her trust and came got her peanuts off my lap by Tuesday.

Maybe it was just some quiet turning of my soul when I wasn't really paying attention.

Whatever it was, whenever it was, I'm ready to come home. Ready.

Not that I want to leave. Please understand. This place is so fresh and quiet and warm and safe and away and abundant and deep and sweet and everything my soul was created to long for, that I never want to leave. Ever. Doesn't matter who or what I have waiting for me that I will thoroughly enjoy when I get back, while I'm here, I am fully here. Fully. I miss the water the most.

But somewhere in the moments of receiving, I received what I needed to remember that no matter where I am, where I actually live is in God. Not just WITH Him but IN Him.

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High....if you make the Most High your dwelling...". Psalm 91:1,10

God is my home, my house. Where I live

And if that's the case, a deep security is mine for the having. Freedom and peace can be mine, even when all chaos is breaking loose around me - arrows by day and pestilence by night, as the psalmist describes.

I knew this already before I got here. But I love that my gentle Father (Prabada, in Thai) took me aside for a while to remind me. And restore me, here by the still waters. But that's another psalm.

This is my 40th year coming to this place. Not a surprise, perhaps, since God often counts in 40s, that this was a year that I needed it this much.

We leave tomorrow after supper, provided the power comes back on. Otherwise we might leave sooner, heeding the call of a nice hot shower.

Sunday at Highview will be sweet.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

The Freedom of God

"There is a great and subtle temptation to suggest to myself or others where God is working and where not, when he is present and when not, but nobody, no Christian, no priest, no mink, has any "special" knowledge about God. God cannot be limited by any human concept or prediction. He is greater than our mind and heart and perfectly free to reveal himself where and when he wants.". Henry Nouwen in The Genesee Diary

----

I have now joined the ranks of those who frequently quote Henry Nouwen :). Part of the required reading for a course I am taking in the fall is his complete and unabridged journal, kept while sequestered away at a Trappist monastery in Kentucky for seven months in 1974. I am finding his reflections and ruminations both quieting and disturbing.

I'm not sure exactly which of those this particular quote does for me.

It is arrogance-shattering (as is most of his experience at the monastery) and therefore shakes me some. I realize just how much I can begin to believe that I understand God well enough to figure out where and when He's working. It's an occupational hazard, perhaps, as it seems important to be able to tell this. How else can I form my strategies, lay out plans, determine the next set of priorities, if not by discerning where God is working and joining Him there? And while, in this particular period of his life, Nouwen espouses a different style of service to God than that to which I am currently called, I don't think he'd suggest abandoning any sense of watchfulness for the movement of the Holy Spirit in the spiritual responsibility of pastoring a church.

Still, I agree. No one can claim that "special" knowlege of God, not even my charismatic friends who call themselves prophets, not even someone who is called pastor by their community. It is wise to step back and remember this. The arrogance of presuming which sermon "worked" and which didn't, what experience of worship is effective and which isn't, what leadership structure or decision-making process is "godly" and which is "of the flesh". God isn't bound by any of it.

He's free, perfectly free to reveal Himself at any time to any person by any means.

That's liberating. Doesn't mean I don't keep watching and asking and seeking out the ways God is touching the lives of the people I love and lead. But it does mean that I keep my mind open to ALL the ways God might be moving and revealing Himself.

-----

Another spectacular sunrise this morning. I love how the lilies open themselves up to the potential of each new day.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

In The Shade

"She who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty." Psalm 91:1

I have chosen Psalm 91 as my next slow meditation.

For the past several months I have done something new (for me) with my first in the morning reflective time. I am writing out Scripture, verse by verse, first in Hebrew, then in Thai, then in English. This, in part, keeps my mind working on both of the "other" languages that I am so love-motivated to learn. But what I am also finding is a certain beauty in how long this takes, each morning in turn, but also how long I end up meditating on just one passage.

There's something calming and centering about taking the time.

The effect has been true since I started this practice in January, but is enhanced of course by the opportunity now to be here, in the safe and healing place that the cottage provides me. In fact, without anything pressing to follow - no meetings or sermon prep or strategy or agendas or difficult conversations or desperate, surprising situations - the slowness factor comes all the more into play. Just. Writing. And. Meditating. Beside still waters. That is all, right now.

I have chosen Psalm 91 because I will need it to bridge me home. Fourteen verses. I have but nine days left.

This morning as I sit here on the deck I am so not ready to entertain the thought. The harshness of the season I have just left behind (a few days ago, it seems, not the three plus weeks it's actually been) will not have been resolved in my absence. The real-time emergencies, the relentless press against values and philosophies and paradigms, the challenges to so much that I realize have becomes sacred cows, the heavy-burdened need for wisdom and discernment for even what I thought was going to be a simple, casual, safe conversation....it will all be there, waiting for me.

The temptation to pre-emptively problem solve and attempt to get a leg up on it all exerts its own kind of pressure. I must stand firm against it, here, now. For I have clearly and ever-so-gently been invited to simply receive the peace of Christ while I'm here, this through the encouragement of my spiritually wise Elders at Highview, and affirmed in my own times of listening since being away.

So Psalm 91 will serve as a reminder and a bridge. A bridge to take me home.

The shadow of the Almighty. The picture here is of protection from the heat of the sun (cf Psalm 121:5). Dwelling. Resting. Receiving.

A brooding sky gives way to sunrise. Seems fitting.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

All Over Again

I'm very aware of the captured moments this year. Having the grandchildren with us, first everyone last weekend and for this week and next, just the two, gives me countless opportunities to marvel.

Time, it seems both stands still and charges by, all in the passing of a moment. How long ago was it that my own two stood in these same shallows, taking wonder at the whole other world of minnows and frogs and snakes? How long ago was there a line full of wet bathing suits, or a huge box of crayons on that same table when the morning gave way to showers?

Kristyn turns 31 today. Yet here she is, represented by her 7 year old future self, swimming for all she's worth out to the shoal. And earlier the son of my son stood in serious concentration, fishing like only an almost three year old can fish. His Dad did the same, and the memories are clear. But that was almost 30 years ago.

No matter. It's possible, I'm finding, to make it stop, just in that moment, simply by noticing. And praying whispers of wonder and gratitude. When I do that, when a smile or a snuggle or the simple act of climbing out of the boat catches my heart, and then when I worship in it and breathe joy into it, revel in it.....then the racing of time complies for that moment, and stops.

Right here. Right now.

Will I live to repeat the cycle again? I don't know. Depends on God's good plans, and if there's anyone willing to carry Great-Gramma up from the boat, I guess.

Happy Birthday, my baby girl. You changed my life forever. Now your children are doing it too, all over again.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

A Lifetime of Firsts

Big day on the fishing front yesterday. Both Abby (7) and Zachary (4) caught their very first fish, and it all happened within minutes of each other, right off our dock!

Squeals of joy as the floppy trophies were unhooked and put in the bucket for prolonged viewing and crowing over pleasure.

These are incredible moments. Marking 'firsts' in the new journeys of still-wonder-filled children.

Yet even as we take the pictures and write the news in the cottage log, I am conscious of a life-joy also worthy of note. It never ends. The firsts of life, all of them, the happy and not so wonderful, all of them are new and bring something of value, something important.

And it never ends. Firsts all the time. All through life. We get to keep doing things for the first time.

Each day, new. Each morning mercy, fresh. Every day another change to experience something for the first time.

I think this may be one of the happiest surprises of my over-fifty reality. And it flops around like a delightful catch on the dock with beautiful grandchildren discovering this sacred happy place for the first time.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

The Healing Silence

Heaven, I am convinced, is THIS quiet.

At least there must be parts of it that are, parts different than the worship party and/or megafeast described in the Revelation.

I'm certain that there are little corners where no human or even angelic-made noise interrupts the silent, wondrous anti-noises of the new earth, restored and perfected to its original intention and thereby inviting the soul to feed on peace.

Otherwise, why would there be all those texts that invite us to be still, and come away? Why would Jesus have been drawn to those solitary places?

If I'm right, I'm touching some of Heaven now.

I am remembering who I am.

Battle fatigue. Makes the contrasts between being in the midst of the deafening, chaotic noise and being silently away from it all somewhat startling. The relentless, randomness that characterized this ministry season just past has left deep wounds of exhaustion, wounds I did not even know I had sustained until I came away to this Heaven-space and, in the silence, began to heal.

Brutal season. One of the most draining and demanding I can remember.

And as the grand finale, I officiated at three funerals within eight days, just before getting here. So I've been thinking about the other-side stuff in the Bible more than usual. And if we understand correctly the parts about being "completed", being the best version of ourselves once we're there, then it makes sense that I might begin to feel the healing of being more me in the silence that is Heaven-on-earth to me.

So this morning I heal in the quiet of the bay, here beside still waters that remind my soul that eventually the chaos will be done, and that I am destined for beautiful things.

Like this.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

A Tribute To Run Home To

Remembering Dale and George and Jon
Surrounding little Aurora with love to take her Home 
Run hard into His arms, precious saints (Psalm 116:15)

Forever Reign
Hillsong

You are good, You are good  
When there's nothing good in me  
You are love, You are love  
On display for all to see  
You are light, You are light  
When the darkness closes in  
You are hope, You are hope  
You have covered all my sin
 
You are peace, You are peace  
When my fear is crippling  
You are true, You are true  
Even in my wandering  
You are joy, You are joy  
You're the reason that I sing  
You are life, You are life, 
In You death has lost its sting
 
Oh, I'm running to Your arms, 
I'm running to Your arms  
The riches of Your love  
Will always be enough  
Nothing compares to Your embrace  
Light of the world forever reign



You are more, You are more  
Than my words will ever say  
You are Lord, You are Lord 
All creation will proclaim  
You are here, You are here 
In Your presence I'm made whole  
You are God, You are God 
Of all else I'm letting go
 
Oh, I'm running to Your arms  
I'm running to Your arms  
The riches of Your love  
Will always be enough  
Nothing compares to Your embrace  
Light of the world forever reign
My heart will sing no other Name  
Jesus, Jesus