Unrushed: The Way A Soul Is Formed

My youngest grandson Jayden has quite a lot to say.

He's already two and a half, so that shouldn't be any surprise.  But the way our summers go, it means I have lots of intensive time with grandkids near the beginning, and then only sporadic, quick hellos over the rest of July and August.  It's not until September routines begin again, including our regular Wednesday nights, that we really get to spend enough time together.  Because of the gap, I notice the growth spurts, especially when they're little.

And Jayden, over the summer, became quite the little communicator.

Two-word phrases, have become longer, more complex sentences.  "Put your keys here Gramma", he tells me, reaching way up and patting a little hand on the surface of the small table inside the door where Mom and Dad leave theirs.  "Come downstairs for the toys," he insists, taking my hand and pulling me along.  Bringing me separated pieces of the Playmobil stables he says, "Fix it, please."  And remembering something that happened yesterday his eyes get wide and serious as he recounts, "A big, black (said with a lot of 'l') spider on the wall!"  When I ask what happened to it, he says enthusiastically, "We slapped it!" (also with a lot of 'l').

Gone are the days where everyone was simply "beeping" (sleeping), or he would ask for "waller" (water), or he would point outside and ask to go "side".  (And to be honest, I miss the 'beeping' thing.)
Now he's a man with a wordy mission and isn't shy (at least with family) to speak his mind.

Within the span of just a few months, all this happened.  And with Jayden, as with the others who are now way too big in my opinion (Abby especially, since she's taller than me at 13), I just want it to slow down!

(Sigh) They grow up so fast.

Did I mention that Abby is taller than me now?

It's not how I feel about every  kind of growth, though.

This at-the-speed-of-light kind of transformation in toddlers is contrasted with another kind of growth that happens for adult me in what seems like excruciatingly small, slow (said with a lot of 'l') increments.  

I'm speaking of my soul.

I'm talking about my spiritual formation.

Why can't things like wisdom, just as one example, take the same kinds of leaps and bounds in a matter of months as Jayden's vocabulary?  Why is it that it seems to take so long to move on from the monosyllabic grunts of common courtesy, as another example, to the free-flowing sentences of fully-formed compassion?  And, irony of irony, why does it take so long to learn the syntax of patience?

And before you gently remind me to be as patient with myself as I expect myself to be with others (good advice, so thank you), let me get to my point; something I've been pondering over and settling into over the past few months as I press onward in this rich and demanding stage of my life.

The forming of a soul cannot be rushed.

Unlike the speedy language neurons in a toddler's malleable brain, connecting experience A with insight B in the spiritual realm often takes its meandering, pensive way through much messy meditation before any progress is evident in the living-out of life.

What this means is that I, and others eager to be all God created them to be, find it to be a slow and plodding thing.  Sometimes I get discouraged.  I certainly have in the past.  High expectations for everything, especially my speed of my spiritual formation.  Hurry up and get wise, you soul you.  Let's get on with the compassion thing.  When will you ever, ever have this patience thing down! 

But these days, in these rich days of my sixties, I think - I hope -  I am more and more inclined just to let it all take it's time.  At least it feels that way to me.  Because that's how the real stuff happens.  That's what gives it substance.  No person possessing wisdom, compassion, patience got that way overnight.  They've lived life.  They've engaged their pain and joy with equal passion.  They've been persistent and intentional about their soul-growth over the long haul.

This weekend Mom and Dad will be away, so I will have Jayden and the big kids too with me at our house.  No doubt I will have a whole list of adorable things they have said and done to keep tucked away in my Gramma's heart, and/or to write down so I won't forget them.   We're building memories.  And I hope they remember these weekends at Gramma and Gradad's.  I hope they remember the trampoline and having little plots of garden to themselves.  I hope they remember trips to the Dollar Store and eating ice cream on the couch while watching movies.  I hope they'll remember all that fun stuff.

But mostly, I hope - and I'm working on it so that -- what they remember is that, for all that, in the end, Gramma had an unrushed soul. 

Probably not what I'm best known for right now. 

But,
sigh,
it's a slow work in progress. 

Rear End Wisdom: A Two-James Story

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; 

then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, 

full of mercy and good fruit, 

impartial and sincere. 

James 3:17

Many things boggle me.

Math for one.  In fact I’m convinced that the part of my brain that does math died in grade four.   No math problem is too easy for me to figure out.  Makes me profoundly grateful for calculators, on line conversion charts, and a husband with an Honours Math degree.

Bridge for another.  I mean the card game.  Never caught on to that, despite my husband’s desperate coaching from across the table, and my in-laws’ dearest hopes that we could make a go of it.  Probably had to do with the math.

And then there’s computers.  How is it that I can be offline, up at the cottage where the connections are terrible even when I’m trying to be online, and yet, while in the midst of writing an important letter that needs to be oh-so-delicately worded, my computer, of its own free will, informs me that it’s shutting down so it can ‘upgrade’?  Who’s doing that?  Where are the upgrades even coming from if I’m offline?   And so, with boggled mind, I am held captive by unseen forces and compelled to rewrite that delicate letter!

One more.  Scheduling.  Particularly at this time of year, September, when everything’s getting back into gear.  You’ve got so many different moving parts, different family members, team members, all spinning around their own calendar orbits, and somehow you’ve got to make it all map out in a doable dance.  There’s quantum physics and there’s scheduling.  Like that.

Yes, these and many things boggle my mind.

But still, somewhere inside of me, I long to be wise.

This makes me very glad that being smart and being wise aren’t the same things. 

Not at all.

I confess to you these personal mind-bogglers at great risk.   Because I know that they make me look stupid and, just like everyone, I don’t really want to look stupid.  I want you to think of me as smart, or at least smart enough.  I know this is true of me because otherwise why would I sometime use big words I know I’ll have to explain, or mention that I’m working on my MDiv even when the conversation does not in any way require it, or talk about all the research I’m doing at the moment on the topic I’ve just worked cleverly into the conversation?  And you can be sure I’ll steer clear of anything in a social setting that requires math!  It’s called ‘image management’ and we do it all the time.  Maybe not about being smart, but about being popular or athletic or accomplished or special in any way that helps us look good in the eyes of whomever we might be with at the time. 

And right now I need to apologize because if ‘image management’ is something you haven’t heard about before and don’t think applies to you, in the next few days you’ll catch yourself doing it.  Sorry about that.  But we all do it.  It’s part of being human and needing to belong.

But it’s not smart.  It’s not even wise.

Purity.  That’s wise.  And loving peace.  That’s wise.  So is being considerate, and being submissive.  Wait.  Being submissive?  Wise?   Apparently so.  Right along with being full of mercy, and full of the demonstration of the good fruit (reminds us of the fruit of the Spirit perhaps – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, that fruit) of a life well lived.   And it’s wise to be impartial.  And it’s wise to be sincere.

At least according to James.  He’s comparing a ‘wisdom’ that’s full of envy and selfish ambition, and dare I say ‘image management’, to the kind of wisdom that comes ‘from heaven’, from God’s heart.

I know a whole lot of people who don’t necessarily have a lot of education, and aren’t particularly athletic, and may or may not have fashion sense.  They might not even be all that articulate come to think of it.  But if James’ list is accurate, they’ve got truck loads of wisdom.

Reminds me of another James. 

He stopped to make sure I was all right after watching me be rear-ended on a divided roadway.  I was fully stopped and the person behind me was distracted and ran into me at full speed of 60 km or more. 

James didn’t need to stop.  It was a divided roadway and he was completely unaffected by the accident.  But he pulled over and approached my car and talked me through that first hour while the police arrived and then my husband.  He was the first to speak to me, telling me he’d had a similar accident himself and instructing me not to move my neck at all until I could be assessed.  He called 911.  He dug out my phone from my purse and helped me dial my husband.  He kept me engaged in light conversation to assess my initial cognitive function and keep me calm. 

He was from Newfoundland, he told me, and a few other introductory facts about himself I don’t remember.  He even mercifully lied to me when I asked him to walk around the van to estimate the damage.  Ultimately the van was totalled, with the sliding side door pushed up far enough to prevent the passenger side front door from opening.  “You’ve got a bit of bumper work” was what he told me. 

And then he disappeared.  Ken arrived, the police had all the information, I was heading to the hospital to be checked out.  I know I said thank you.  But I didn’t have the presence of mind to get his information.   But I kept my neck stable, and later, with the additional help of the emergency doctor and my massage therapist, I made a full recovery from what could have been a significant, life-impacting whiplash. 

What a wise man, that James!  And I’m grateful, and if you’re out there and you recognize yourself, please know that I deeply appreciate your wisdom that day.  In purity you approached with no thought of any benefit to yourself at all.  You kept me calm and peaceful.  You were so considerate, and you completely cooperated with the police when they came, and went over to inquire about the other driver on my behalf when I asked you to.  Your actions were full of mercy and the fruit of a life lived well.  You did not take sides in the cause of the accident, that wasn’t at all in your spirit.  Just there to help me.  And I remember you as being just a kind and sincere man, James.  Thank you so much.

I long to be wise. 

That kind of wise. 

So boggle my mind with quantum physics. 

So be the mysteries of the universe. 

But it’s actually really quite simple to be wise like James. 

Both of them.

Presume to Teach

Here’s that stack-of-books picture that all us preacher/teacher types like to post from time to time.  

I think we think it makes us look smart or important; or at least we hope it is proof of our invisible work and justifies all the time we’ve sequestered ourselves in our offices (or at the cottage).

I’ve just come off a teaching-intensive kind of summer.  Just measuring Sundays alone, of the nine weeks between June 23 and September 1, I’ve been ‘off’ two Sundays only.  Not all of that involved teaching, but the bulk of it did. 

Every sermon is researched and a thesis statement is constructed, delivery is rehearsed, and then there’s the sermon itself.  Many have Power Points or other visual assists to prepare.  While in Thailand the teaching component becomes a daily thing, with curriculum development, learning objectives, lesson plans, and themed teaching manipulatives.  Coming home from Thailand, I’ve hidden myself away at the cottage in unscheduled seclusion to prepare for the next run of sermons, both in Canada and in Thailand, as well as a month of Bible and ESL lessons, again with the kids at Hot Springs in October.

I checked off the last prep task this morning, and had this sobering realization.

 “Whoa!  That’s a LOT of teaching!” 

Last fall when I dug deep into a Directed Reading and Research credit on Cross Cultural Teaching, I felt like, in the Christian Education bibliography, I found again my ‘tribe’.  Seems all my life I’ve been teaching in some capacity or another.   There’s so much passion and joy in this for me.  But also.

Really, who do I think I am?  What a preposterous presumption!  The seriousness of this weighs heavy sometimes, like the load of books I’ll soon be packing to take back to the city with me.   I know I’m not alone in this.  Any teacher with a conscience understands this sense of weighted audacity.

I am reminded of this around a lively lunch table just a few days ago, which included another lady preacher and so the conversation came around to what constitutes ‘strong’ preaching.   I had a few thoughts to add to the mix, but they were tempered by previous conversations I’ve had earlier this year with another vigorous group to which I belong, who in the course of our discussion had laid out a robust rubric for sermons.  In that conversation, which I appreciated very much, I had felt like I didn’t quite measure up. 

Then, of course, when you put yourself out there, you invite ‘feedback’, or ‘constructive criticism’ or whatever it is you might want to call those often off hand comments just after or even just before you get up to preach.   “Thank you for letting me know your thoughts.  I will take that into consideration.”

And I will.  Deeply, in fact.  Because we’re sensitive like that, us preacher/teacher types, sometimes causing us to stack up  pile of books and take a picture to post if we get the chance.

In his cautions about how we can misuse words, teacher/preacher James takes a direct line to speak to the weight of this matter.

“Not many of your should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.  We all stumble in many ways.  Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.”  James 3:1-2

I think James, who by the way had pretty impressive credentials (besides having written one of the books included in our New Testatment!), has nailed it.  Stay humble.  Be ever mindful.  With many words comes the opportunity for many “stumblings” (in other places in his letter, he’ll outright call this sin). 

It’s a brutal task, but necessary, this self-awareness, honest self-critiquing thing.   Sometimes I wonder if the most responsible thing to do about it is just quit.  Which I will do, if the people I’ve put in my life to keep in check and help me decide these matters agree that it’s time. 

But for now I’m simply packing up to go home.  And like so many teachers preparing classrooms right about now, I’ll presume to move forward, presume I might have something to offer, presume that God might be able to take whatever loaves and fishes I’ve been able to pack, and feed the gathered people somehow.

August Awe

A crisp, still air hangs mist over the water as I push the kayak away from the dock.  It’s 11 C this morning and the sun didn’t rise until almost 6:30 a.m., just forty five minutes ago.  All week the absence of other cottagers has deepened the quiet in our little bay.  Along the shoreline the spring blooms have given way to later beauties.   The jenny wren and other first-of-the-season birds have raised their families by now and are already edging themselves southward.  At least that’s what I’m guessing, because they’re not here anymore.  The forest itself looks rested and mature, unlike the bursting energy of early spring when I first made my way around the island.  

And I am here.

And I think, This is incredible.

And I think, This is so weird.

After a lifetime of being expected in the city by August for intensive preparation of the season to come, both as a home schooling Mom and then as the pastor of a local church, this kind of cottage time, the way everything feels here this time of year, is a new and wondrous thing for me.   These days, the kind of fall prep I’m doing does not require that I be sending out schedules and leading meetings and casting vision and cheering on volunteers in anticipation of ‘the first day of school’ or ‘kick off Sunday’.  In fact, right now, the work to which I need to apply myself  is better done in unscheduled seclusion uninterrupted by meetings or emails.

The Shadow

In just five weeks from now I’ll be back on the plane heading for a month of ministry in Thailand representing New Family Foundation and all that entails these new days of life and ministry.   Come September, sure enough, there’ll be meetings and appointments and such.  My calendar is already basically full.  But in these last two weeks of August, so much of the prep work for that work, and for sermons I’m working on for Highview, and for the next course of study for my MDiv, can be done, is probably better done here, away where I can think and write, and fill my soul with kayak therapy and sunshine and lingering blueberries.   It makes perfect sense, and is much smarter work-wise to wait to return to city life after Labour Day.   But.

 It feels new, different, strange.  If I listen more deeply to the self-talk of it, I realize that there is, around the edges, a vague sense of anxiety or guilt, as if I’m neglecting my responsibilities somehow.  That somehow I’m being indulgent or lazy or selfish. 

But this mist of edging-in thoughts is swept away rather suddenly as I press the kayak out from a short narrows called  ‘the Shadow’ into the full sunlight of the wider bay on this cooler, still-summer morning.  

  

The sun hits my face and I welcome it as the warm, quiet-yet-startling voice of God. 

“Ruth Anne.  Be here. 

A gift in the new way of shalom that we’re doing together now.”

And I stop paddling and just float in that for a moment.

Yes. 

A gift. 

And I realize with surprise as I float suspended that I am fulfilled in a way I honestly don’t think I’ve ever known before.  Like, ever.  In my life.  For all the places of goodness and joy in my life up to now, and even contrasted to all the agonies and struggles, this is different.  Deeper.  Forged out of the mix and mire of all that I’ve ever suffered.  Every perseverance.  Every sacrifice.  Every injustice.   Every sadness. 

I am at home in this space.  I belong here right now.  Right here, right now.  In the kayak.  At sunrise.  Out on the water.  At the cottage.  In August.  Being 62.  Being married to Ken for 41 years.  Being Gramma to so many children.  Being exactly me, who I am right now, writing with God these next chapters of my story.

Is it presumptuous of me to think this way?  That these days here at the end of August in some way represent a phase of my life that God is gifting me with?  That somehow there is a reaping now of past labours?

There certainly have been times, in the midst of raising a family and leading a congregation, that I have felt more despair and discouragement than any sense of fulfillment.  I would have identified more with ‘the Servant of the Lord’ described by Isaiah.

“He said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendour.’

But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all.’  Isaiah 49:3-4a

That’s exactly how it can feel to be a small church pastor in a megachurch world.  Or a female pastor in a man’s world.  Or a spiritual leader of any sort in a world hell-bent on self destruction, taking down people you love without discretion.  Or even more honestly, the exhausted mother of toddlers or who seem to have gotten the better of yet another day. My journals have reflected on these and other insanities over the years.

But there’s a tag line to the Servant’s discouragement that hints of a faith that can see beyond to a better day.

“Yet what is due me is in the LORD’s hand, and my reward is with my God.”  Verse 4b.

And then there’s this reflection of David, looking past his current tribulations.

“Though you have made me see troubles many and bitter, you will restore my honour and comfort me once more.”  Psalm 71:21

And I am reminded of the picture of Naomi, after wondering just how much more she could endure to lose, finding herself at the end of the story with a brand new grandson on her lap.  And the women of the village pronounce this baby’s effect over her.  “He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age.”  Ruth 4:15

I do not mean to paint a picture of my life being utterly miserable up to this point out in the kayak on a misty morning in August.  Far from it.  God has brought blessing upon blessing and an abundance of story with chapters of opportunity and depth and love.  I know it.

It’s just that when you look back over a lifetime of ministry and count the overall cost – Well, it’s just a strange and different and deeply contented feeling to be here in this August awe.

As I make my way around the island again, the mist gives way to the rising sun and a new day begins its cycle.  I round the corner on the Freddy Channel to reveal our cottage, perfectly reflected in the still water.   The deck awaits the ritual of setting up the ‘work station’.  Invigorated , I will begin.

One more week of August left. 

Every One of Them

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 from?"

Isaiah 49:19-21

What a mothering God we have.

He gets it.

And while I personally can't go so far as to change the pronoun, it's clear that the Bible has our Creator speaking with a mother's heart in so many instances.  Like here, in this part of Isaiah's prophecy describing God's intentions to restore all things to 'better than before'.  And the imagery used is that of an overflow of family, of children, lots of them, filling up the aching empty spaces, spilling out and over onto the grass outside, asking for more room to grow.

I ask this same question often, when I am at the cottage, or at Hot Springs.  This question on the lips of the metaphoric mom, "Where did all these kids come from?"  I pick up the wet towels after a swim, or I follow them around on the playground at the Dinosaur Park, and I wonder too.  Like Israel, once confused and exiled but looking toward the fullness of a promise, I have aching empty spaces that God has filled in delightful, surprising ways.

I have thirty-six grandchildren, give or take.  That's a lot, and it's abundant and lavish and way, way more than I could have ever imagined for myself.  This is a better story than I would have written for myself, no question.  And I am overwhelmed with wonder and gratitude and overflow of family that spills around to the other side of the world, literally.

 And here's the next level of application that happens for me.  The abundance isn't just in the number of grandchildren I so shamelessly brag about.  It's in the spectular-ness of each one of them, every single one of them.  The intrinsic value, immeasurably precious value of every one of them to my heart. And to make my point, even insufficiently, let me name them all.

Saiy, Somchai, Nuch, Thim, Miki, Entorn, Fruk, Bell, Apple, Porn, Wara, Kratae, Da, Amy, Any, Im, Min, Me-na, Mee-o, Eak, May, Gam, A-tom, Jabez, Praweet, Beeyung, Rompo, Boy, Chun, On-Ooey, and Bee.

And Abby, Zachary, Harvest, Jayden and Evelyn.

And Evelyn.  Did I mention her already?

Her particular value came to be quite weighty for me this past trip to Thailand when we visited the markets.  In anticipating my time there this summer I had already planned out the kinds of things I wanted to get for her.  Sweet Thai baby shoes and a dress in traditional style.  But I didn't, because she's not in need of them where she is now.  In fact I quite expect her yellow dress is made of sunshine itself, by far a better swish of cloth than ever I could purchase at even the most exotic of market stalls.  And selfishly, standing there in the humid air of Chiang Mai, I wanted her not to be where she is, but here with her Mama who aches for her so anguished, and with me, a Gramma who is empty and aching even in the abundance.

I wonder if that's not exactly the picture Isaiah is painting with his prophetic brush.  The here and now contrasted against the one day of God's 'better than before' ultimate promise, but both somehow melted and molded together if time could be removed, as if there could be nothing in between the knowing and the holding of.

This shouts loudly to me of the sanctity of each life.  How else could I be so lavished with grandchildren, yet ache for the one I can't hold?

And Bee.  I would be remiss not to render a moment to say how three years makes no difference whatsoever to the weight of his absence, even as the pain becomes more functional.  Here and now, in contrast to one day.

And that will be the day when we look up and realize that today's abundance of children spilling over onto the grass, is just the tiniest of glimpses of the beauty and bliss of the wild joy being fully present with each and every one of them.

"Come dance with me Gramma!"