Staying Hydrated In The Long Dry Winter Ahead

 "Bai Teo" to the Waterfall

Jeremiah 2:13

My people have committed two sins:

They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,

and have dug their own cisterns, 

broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Hauled out the cool mist humidifier yesterday.  

Seems a little early in the winter for me to be feeling so dry, but I am.  Then again, I remember that for the past several years, I've been in Thailand right about this time of year, at least for November, where there's, shall we say, a tad more humidity.   Not to mention the abundance of waterfalls where you can go for the day - "bia teo" - and just play with reckless abandon in white cascades of delight.

By yesterday then, my Thailand-deprived skin and hair were really getting into that whole Covid-complaining act we're all prone to these days.  All the sanitizer doesn't help, and my one knuckle was even bleeding a little.  Sorry for the TMI, but another good reason to drastically reduce any ventures outside my own home.

Hopefully some serious shea butter therapy, a coconut oil home hair treatment, and the little whirring machine beside my desk will help.  Physically at least.

The threat of being too dry this winter isn't just in the skin and hair care realm however.  There's some very intentional, essentially important nourishing we'll need to be on top of when it comes to our souls as well.  Isolation does more than just dry up our social life.  It can threaten to thwart our spiritual vibrancy in ways even more detrimental to our overall heath.

In His message through the prophet Jeremiah, God identifies two sins of His people.  The first is a forsaking of the kind of worship and connection and obedience that results in the receiving of the abundance and life He longs to pour into us.  A spring of living water, He calls Himself, bringing to mind, by the way, the words of Jesus to the woman he met at the well that day (John 4:1-13) and the wild freshness of the waterfall mentioned above.

The second sin is a corollary to the first.  A replacement.  Instead of drinking from the spring of clean, vibrant, living water, the people have turned to the stagnant, stinking water that collects in the brokenness of human effort to find satisfaction anywhere else but God.

Yuck!  

It's a vivid picture and on purpose.  God is longing to bring them back to vibrancy and life.  

Of course, when we read these words from the prophet, we can see it clearly.  Who would make such a choice?  Just think of where you'd rather wash your clothes, go swimming, rather drink from?  Broken cisterns?  No thank you.

Except I have to admit that in isolation the pull is there.  With no one watching, safe in my own home, who am I and how do I nourish myself?  Junk food?  Too much news?  Too much TV?  Or on the opposite end of the scale.  Too much work?  Too much overcompensating for feeling sidelined?  Too many words?  Too much judgement for anyone doing too much of what I don't approve of?  These can be broken cisterns as well.

And it all leads to dry, cracked and bleeding souls, desperate for something so obviously right there in front of us....God's offer of life and life abundant.

So my dear fellow pandemic peeps, let's not dry out this winter!  Let's drink Him in, in all the ways we can.  Every week, with the online service, we can 'gather' to worship 'together' around our TVs or computers, as if dancing together around a fire hydrant.  Every day we can apply the pure therapy of Scripture, massaging it into the needy places of our minds and hearts.  All the time we can sit in the mist of the prayerful presence of God, breathing life and vibrancy into the very parenchyma of our spirits. 

What I love about this text is all the longing in God's voice.  When I read it, I don't hear a loud boom of accusation.  Rather, when it gets to the part 'they have forsaken Me', I can almost hear His voice breaking.  As if He's watching us dry out before His very eyes, and yet He's right there with exactly everything we need. 

Online Alignment: Ways to Worship From Home

Yesterday was a hard day.

Together, the Elders at Highview made the difficult decision to return to Online Services only, in what we believed to be a loving, Spirit-led response to the current surge in Covid-19 cases in Waterloo Region.  

View Video Message Here

That means starting THIS Sunday we will not be meeting together in our building, but gathering instead around our TV and computer screens.

Everyone agrees this is not the same and not the best.  The physical presence of other worshippers is, at least in part, certainly what God has in mind when He calls His Church to be a community.  And yet, here we are, in a strange time in our lives when staying apart might just be the most loving thing we can do for one another and for our community as a whole.  

We've done this before, and, to be honest, that seems like such a negative at first.  "Not again!" is what my heart wants to whine.  But on second contemplation, maybe what we learned together from the first time can make things better in this next round.

So here are some suggestions to experiment with.  It's not a thorough list by any means.  And I'm actually hoping I'll hear from you (Highviwers and otherwise) about ways you have learned to worship from home.  The more ideas we can share the more connected we can be, and the more our times before God together-while-apart can mean something good.

Here's a start.  I'll divide mine into Before, During and After.

Before

• Choose your viewing time intentionally.  There is some flexibility with online services, in that you can watch it at a time most convenient for you.  AND I might also suggest that we all might have a better sense of connection if we didn't go the convenience route and decided to watch together at 10:30 on Sunday morning.  I won't argue decisively for this right here.  Just sayin' that part of our feelings of disconnect might be routed in the 'whenever' factor.  Not sure.  Be glad to hear from you on this.
• Set yourself up.  Wherever you're watching from, have something to drink ready if you like, get your Bible and notebook ready.  Get comfortable, but not too comfortable, if I might suggest.  Being up and dressed and 'present' just might put us in a better state for engaging in what's about to happen.

During

• Stand up during the music.  It's more what we're used to, and your lungs and diaphragm have more room for singing when you stand.  This can help get the message of the song into deeper emotional places.
• Experiment with different postures for prayer and worship you might not be comfortable to try in a public setting (although this makes me want to write something about that! Maybe later :).  
• Take notes.  Have a notebook or your phone and write down the highlights, even the whole of the outline of the sermon, making sure to include any action steps the Spirit might bring to mind for you.

After

• Pause for a moment to ask God if there was anything specific about the morning that He wants to bring to your attention.  Any song lyric, or point in the teaching or any application point.  And then thank Him for the gift of our church community.
• Call or message someone to say hello, chat about the service, or any of the other kinds of conversations we usually have in the foyer after service.
• Send an email or a message to at least one person who participated in providing the online service.  One aspect of not being 'live' is the disconnect for those serving us to know if any of their efforts had any affect at all.  Be an encouragement.

That's all I'll leave here for now.  I'm actually really curious to hear from you if any of these were helpful, and if you have other ideas to share.

And I want to remind Highviewers that we will be experimenting with a Zoom gathering at 11:45 a.m. - a more normal time for us to be together chatting anyways.  For now I'm calling it Hot Chocolate By The Fire.  So bring something warm in a mug.  Ken and I will put on the fire.  And we'll see what happens.

Sacred Spaces

Not sure when I noticed this about myself, but environments are important to me.  The ambiance of it, I mean.  Works spaces, sleep spaces, eating spaces.  I wish this translated into something of a talent for decorating, but it doesn't.  And it's not exactly what I'm talking about anyways.

It's about -- Well, the spaces that are most important, actually, are the ones that become sacred spaces.

And right now I'm not talking about temples or sanctuaries or church buildings.  I'm talking about the kind of spaces that become something else to us, individually.

I've set up something of a work station for myself down at the church.  During this interim pastor stint, I will leave our Senior Pastor's office alone.  And my own home office, which I LOVE as a workspace, will remain intact.  In both instances, it's about the books mostly.  Can't even think of schlepping my books back down to the other end of town.  And anyways, with Covid in play, I'll be working from home for most of the week.

Even so, it seemed important to me to make this little work station mean something.  

In a fortunate overlapping of time-continuum orbits, Ken's company recently decided to forgo their rented space and have each of the three comrades work from home.  That meant clearing out the office they had, with some furniture left over.  I have 'adopted' a narrow desk with matching hutch, plus a moderately sized bookcase, both of which fit very nicely into the room Highview cleared out for my use.  Add a small tub chair, an office chair and a picture or two, and I have a space that will serve me very well.  Oh, and a vanilla candle of course.

None of this makes it sacred, of course.

For any space to become a sacred space, it's about what happens there.

Before I go too much further, I need to be clear that my understanding of how the Bible describes God is that He is <clearing throat for a big word here> Omnipresent.  He's everywhere.  So, in a sense, every space is sacred space.  Most of life is made up of mundane moments that also capture something holy if we pay attention to the many patient interactions God initiates with us....all the time.  So yes, we also experience the Every-where Presence of God.  Just to state the obvious in case anyone's worried.

Even so.  Sometimes certain private spaces are consecrated.  And then, on purpose or maybe even sort of by accident, the intentional habitual use of a space for spiritual practices, tend to imprint strong and sacred associations. 

We're all spending more time at home these days (said Captain Obvious).  And I'm guessing that for many of us there's a space like that where we live.  A chair by a window.  A spot by a fireplace.  In better weather, out on the porch or somewhere on a back patio.  A place where we go on purpose to meet with God.

And I guess what I'm marveling at in this, is the fact that Creator God, King of the Universe would "humour" us in this.  That the One who exists outside of Time and Space would deem to in some way restrict Himself, if that's even the right way to think about it, into our time and space just so that we could know Him.  That He would "humour" us, honour us, Love us....like this.

A manger.

That was a sacred space once.

Oh the lengths to which He'll go!

I'm grateful that Highview has allowed me this work station, and that I've had the chance to make it a 'warm' ambient place to work from.  I'm grateful for all the ways God moves right in.  Can't wait to see what He's got in mind as we move ahead into these next months.

Waxy Wisdom

Eat honey, my son, for it is good;

honey from the comb is sweet to your taste.

Know also that wisdom is like honey for you;

If you find it, there is a future hope for you,

and your hope will not be cut off.

Proverbs 24:13-14

There's a reason my blog is called "Bread and Honey", but I'll get to that in a minute.

It's the afternoon of a Saturday at Hot Springs when we don't really have anywhere to go.  I'm loving the 'just being at home' vibe of this day, hanging out in the shade of the dining shelter.  The kids are engaged in various kinds of creations with paper, markers and glue, all for me to take back to the Sponsors.  Or some are playing chess.  Or some are chopping up vegetables in preparation for the evening meal.  

From this lovely space I look up to see Suradet and one of the older boys heading up the steep hill in the back, carrying a large white pail and a large curved knife, like a machete.  I'm curious, but am soon pulled back into what's happening at the table by someone asking me how to spell their Sponsor's name.  

They're gone for a while.  Probably more than an hour.  So I've forgotten about them until they're coming back down the hill, smiling with victory, and carrying the pail between them and bringing it to the table.

"Chorp nam-peung, mai?"  Do you like water of the bee?, I am asked.

Inside the pail is a large honeycomb, still attached to a branch, and still occupied by a now misplaced bee or two, as well as some larvae.  Dripping in sweetness, this mess is.  And I watch as the comb is tipped up and gently scraped so the honey drips into a bowl.  Wild, unpasteurized, totally non-processed.  Off the side of a hill in a foresty-jungle in northern Thailand.  This is hands down the most exotic honey I have ever been offered.

Someone runs for the loaf of white bread purchased peculiarly for my consumption during my stay.  I am invited to dip the bread in the honey and eat.

At the end of the Bible in the book of Revelation Jesus instructs the Apostle John to describe the way things will be once God ushers in that magnificent promise of history called the 'eschaton', when everything will be restored to a better-than-perfect state of being.  Part of that description includes a picture of a wedding banquet.  A feast.  I am not sure what that kind of food might taste like, but I'm pretty sure, as I dip my bread into this honey, and welcome it into my mouth, I'm actually tasting Glory.

Warm, pure.  Sweet as if  I've never tasted sweet before.  Smooth like slow jazz.  In my mouth there is joy and wonderment.   This is just before supper, but -- I don't care.  A thought crosses my mind about eating something that slid off something that still has bugs in it but -- I don't care.  Wild mountain honey.  Does it get any better than this?

I will email my husband later.  "Today I ate wild mountain honey!"  To which he will respond, "I'm glad you loved it, but I'm just waiting for my wild mountain Honey to come home."  (Major husband points there.)

Back to the Bread and Honey thing. 

Originally I chose the name for this blog because of my love of fresh (usually whole grain) bread smeared with a scandalous amount of honey AND because both bread and honey are images used frequently in the Bible to illustrate soul-hunger, and soul-satisfaction.

In the Proverb quoted above, the sweetness of honey is compared to how the Teacher wants his son (student) to feel about wisdom.  Pursue it, as if it was up on the hill, and you had to go out and find it, and could bring it home to feast on.   And when you did find some, and when you get to eat some of it, it will bide well for you.  And he talks about a future.  And he talks about hope.

Wisdom.  

Don't we all want that?  Don't we all feel like we're needing so much of that in these days of uncertainty?  So many decisions to make right now, pushing us into a future that we're not all that sure about.  

And here's an irony.  It's times like this that synergize the very kind of wisdom we need and long for.  A very wise man once pointed out to me that so often we all want the wisdom, but we're not so keen on the challenging life situations that actually bring it to us.  Not sure he was thinking of a global pandemic, but it fits.

Some days I'm doing this better than others.  

Some days I'm all over learning from the experience and letting it grow me.

Some days, not so much, truth be told.

Some days, I'm all about resisting the restrictions and feeling the weight of this long duress.

Remembering the honey helps.

In these days when we need hope for better days -- and they will come, don't doubt it for a minute -- how amazing that we get to be part of something this big and this wild, with all this potential to make us wiser for the living out of the rest of our lives.

Hungry now.

The Radiating Huddle

It's cold and that surprises me.

Dealing with the heat has always been a constant distraction every single time I've travelled to Thailand.  But this time it's January and I'm way up in the mountains for a New Year's visit to Suradet's home village.  The demanding drive and mountain air and utter novelty of being here have left me spent but surprisingly content to simply sit and warm myself by the fire.

Every yard has one, and a big black pot of water for tea.  I'm asked if I want some and, not exactly sure what I'll be getting, I say yes anyways.  The young woman who asked me now looks around for a cup.  She can't find a clean one so she simply throws away the leftover tea from the cup of the man who just now left our circle, swirls some hot water around in it, and fills it up to offer to me.  

This keeps happening.  The coming and going of people around our fire, and the sharing of a common cup.  Anyone who strolls past is known, and called by name, and invited to sit for a bit.  And everyone does, at least for a little bit.  I'm told later that there are more visitors tonight than usual.  They've come by to see for themselves that a farang woman has actually come all the way up to their village.  I'm only the second or third white person who's done that in, oh, nobody can remember how long, and the first white woman.

There's casual chit chat, and a unhurried way about it.  A cup is swished out and offered for tea.  And then the visitor says thanks to everyone and moves along.  And somehow, I am welcomed into all of this.  I sit warmed by more than just the fire.  There's a quiet wonder in these moments.  

One visitor is more curious and perhaps a little more bold than the others.  I am asked about Canada.  Is there snow?  Does the government pay for school?  For doctors?  How big is my house?  As I answer these questions the responses indicate a certain amount of awe, or even envy.  The bold one says he wants to come to Canada.

I smile and invite him - the only appropriately polite response to give - but also feel the need to make another comparison.

On my street, I say, there are no campfires.  Mostly people stay in their houses or in their own fenced in yards.  And mostly we don't even know each other, not on our street anyways.  There's a pause. 

And then I am asked: But what about church? 

This is a predominately Christian village.  The church building is a central focus, and there are prayers every morning and every evening.  On Sundays almost everyone shows up for service.  And everyone walks there.  Probably there are about a hundred people in the village.  The village is the church.  So, how can you not know your neighbours?

I try to explain.  There are a lot of churches in my village, I say.  We don't usually go to the church closest to our houses.  We drive there.  From all over.  As I say it and even before it's translated I realize how crazy-foreign it must sound to these community-centric people.  

And yes.  There are audible sounds of polite confusion.  

I have preached likely hundreds of sermons on community.  And suddenly, in this moment, I realize I actually know nothing.  I know nothing of the bonds of common survival; of the interdependence that requires I share and receive in ways utterly reciprocal.  I know nothing of an evening spent wandering the dirt pathways between homes and campfires, with nothing more important to do than spend time huddled around a big black pot of tea meant for sharing.  

Where on earth did any human being ever get the idea that independence was a desired thing?

Fast forward almost four years to when a microscopic menace keeps us separated and un-huddled.  I am decidedly in Canada.  Now, even the once-a-week-drive-to community touch points are strained.  We're in our houses even more.  And no amount of swishing would make it anywhere near safe to share a cup.  We can't even share the air we breathe.

Except maybe now I feel my need more correctly.  The bonds of common survival are strengthening from the stretching stress of separation.  The ways I need you and am needed by you are more clear to me.  And suddenly 'porch picnics' and other physically distanced ways of sitting unhurried together on warmer days are amazing and relished.  And, in anticipation of the colder Canadian weather, that priority of presence over productivity remains, even when we have to do it over the phone or online.  

I'm warmed and this surprises me.

The fire of our fierce determination to be community for one another, in any culture and any crisis, provides a circle in which I can belong.  I need this - I need you so much!

Can we huddle together this winter?  Can we huddle AND radiate that warmth outward at the same time, like a mountain village community, always welcome in each other's space?   Can we draw in and draw strength from one another, even as we keep looking outward for anyone who needs to come close to the fire too.

Can we huddle in a radiating kind of way?

I hope so.  

We'd better.  

We're going to need it.  

Desperately.  

I do.  

Pounded Sticky Rice and Other Surprising Culinary Wonders

 

This purplish blob may not look so appetizing, but right at this moment it's making me so hungry!!! It's pounded mountain sticky rice, served on a banana leaf, and it's amazing! Especially when it's warm and stretchy and rolled in a bit of raw cane sugar.

I was torturing myself by sorting through some of my Thai pictures (an ever-ending filing job truth be told) and I came across this and other foodie shots of some of the more unusual dishes I've actually come to love. I can say without a doubt, in these days of travel bans and closed borders, I am missing Thailand with my whole heart. I guess it's also true that I'm missing Thailand with my whole stomach as well.

Yupa is an amazing cook. Many of the pictures here are dishes from her kitchen. And I am convinced that the very best, very most authentic Thai food comes from her kitchen. Yupa Chaing Mai you have no idea how wide is the scope of all the ways I miss you right now!

On the fork, see that? That's the famous 'dancing shrimp' dish that utterly shocked me at first, but by now has become something of a tradition for every trip. Yes, my friends, these delicacies are still alive when served to you. That's their appeal, apparently. The dish is really spicy so I don't end up eating very much. Just enough to maintain my Thai-foodie status. And I must say that it took me about six or seven trips to work up to this. A LOT of those who have travelled with me have managed on their very first try. Evangeline Wilton Bill aka Céline Marcoux-Hamade, Rebecca Shirer, Sheldon Connor, Esther Weatherall Jonathan Gabber, Emerson Emerson Gabber -- did I miss anyone? -- You have my utmost admiration. And Erin Wildsmith you are also among those who have crunched the bugs. So much missions trip street cred there. (No pictures of that, you're welcome.)

I'm a little off track here. Because what I was really thinking about is how much richer and wondrous and tasty my life is because of this rich and wondrous and delicious connection with my family half a world away.

And it's not just my stomach that's hungry. My heart is in a state of longing that testifies to the painful part of love. Right about now the weather in northern Thailand is just starting to get a little cooler. Rainy season is almost over, and the mornings will soon be fresh. The sleepy kids will file in for morning worship, and after school ....if I was there....we would read together.

Life is rich, and sometimes sad. But often the sadness means something important and wonderful also happened.

Sunday blessings my friends.

The Stuff We're Made Of (A sappy-but-true forty-second anniversary lilt)

 

Oh Love.

I’d do it all again.

Even the hard stuff.

Because of what our life together

has made of us,

what God has wrought from it

and who we’ve become

in the grace of each other.

I'm a me I'd never be

if not for you.

 

And look!

(Some numbers because you love them)

There was just two of us at first.

Now there’s eleven plus one.

Plus thirty give or take.

This I never could have imagined for us!

Who knew this would be the ‘us’ of us

at forty-two.

He knew.

 

Happy, happy us day,

My Love.

My Hero.

My partner in all things.

My God-send, in truth.