Christmas Eve

I sat in the back of the darkened sanctuary- just a little bit late- and tried to quiet my thoughts enough for the Christmas Eve message to be heard. 

Already this felt like a far cry from childhood Christmas programs full of excitement and wonder. I sighed to myself, knowing there was a full 45 minutes ahead.

I slipped off my coat and tried to silence the inevitable rustle. There was no one to ease its progress and it fell, discarded across the back of the folding chair, sliding down until it touched the carpet.

"Long lay the world, in sin and error pining. 'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices."



This, this I could understand. Not magic and wonder, but tired aching and waiting. I sat, the phrase "at just the right time," soothing through my mind. It eased, a quiet balm, as two men in front of me started to wisp light touches over the neck and shoulders of the women sitting next to each of them. They each leaned into the other, enjoying the companionship and familiarity.


I prayed the lights would stay dim as I tried to focus beyond the row ahead. Catching a betraying drop, I breathed out again, remembering why I was there.

Thoughts wandering far from this familiar place, I breathed half-formed kyries through the mental eddies.

I focused again, catching a small New Zealander dressed as a ram for the Christmas story. I laughed, in spite of myself, and found my thoughts lifting.

The mountains of tinsel, glitter, and jolly mythological creatures have never been real. And they don't have to feel like they are.

A lonely, weary night.
Lonely, weary men and women.
All of creation screaming for redemption and rescue.
"At just the right time..."

Grateful for the rescue. Merry Christmas to all.

Perspective is hard to keep. Somehow this helps.

Preaching to oneself

The bustle of the cafe fades into the background as iTunes increases in volume. There are mere minutes before the responsibilities I only half want reclaim my wavering attentions.

"If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy..."

As her contemplative vocals continue, I remind myself with ever-increasing venom that I am royalty. The daughter of The King, and without reason to feel the way I do today, this week.

"Am I lost or just less found?"

And answering to myself, I am not sure.

Now and again like a landscape viewed through the fence posts from a speeding train, I catch glimpses of who I really am. Who He really is. But they are gone again, disappearing as the bustle and the noise and the sheer speed of living drowns out and changes the face of reality.

The posts blur together and become seamless and the "walls become the world all 'round," in bitter parody of Sendak and his book.

"Speak to me in the light of the dawn," breaks out in desperate triumph.


The feelings are as fleeting as the remaining seconds of this too-brief respite.

"Hope is coming for me."

And with that defiant prayer, I try to gather the shreds of what once was perspective and hold them up again to be rewoven.

Ancient kings and turnpikes

Driving away from the larger cities, there's a hazy divide where stations fade and then slam back into full strength when the wind shifts or geography rises and falls. These midlands of Kansas are deceptively flat- there's just enough hill to disrupt the weak signal of an FM radio station.

There's no middle approach for the wind in Kansas. It's either still as doldrums, with all the world hushed in a humid haze, or a muscular wind- beating all before it.
 The wind today was a middleweight champion, catching the thin signal transmitting from somewhere on the backroads.

In trying to tune the radio on this unexpected road trip I caught the half sentence of what sounded like a story involving kings and far-off lands. The wind shifted and it faded in and back again as the story continued.

I was, it seemed,  hearing the story of one of Israel's ancient kings.

As I listened, Hezekiah took the throne and grew up in the way of the Lord.

It was a full 10 minutes before I realized it was being read in the King James Version, and the awareness was as surprising as if I had been listening and understanding the story told in French.
And as the reading continued, I was drawn in.

...Jerusalem was under siege...

...Her enemies were at the gates...

...The messenger came to speak with the emissary of the king...

And the geography interfered, cutting the story out and replacing it with the introduction to Cobain's ode to suicide, complete in all of its grunge-muck pride.

I shouted at the radio, desperate to hear what came next.

With the next stretch of highway came five more minutes of uninterrupted reading. The messenger laid down a challenge to King Hezekiah, the city, and God himself.
The gall of his arrogance rankled still, even in hearing it thousands of years later.
Did he not see? Was he not aware?

And then the emissary stepped up to reply.

I paused- foot lifting from the accelerator- in anticipation of the holy smackdown about to come...
And the station faded out, replaced solidly by Cobain's ongoing anthem.
I shouted again at the radio, testing the knob as I tried to find the station again.
What came next?
How did it end?
I was miles away from being able to pull over, grab the Book I carry and see for myself. In that helplessness, and in the jarring contrast of not being able to see for myself- Cobain blaring on in the background- it was as if I was hearing the Great Story for the first time.

Last night

Apparently it's one one those days.
The days that end with you pacing the sweltering confines of your bedroom, cursing a blue streak as you question the Almighty.
Yes, one of those days.
I told someone tonight that the theme of the week was, "ugh" with undertones of menace and desperation.
It's the kind of day that ends with aching feet as the quasi-rain brings out the pain in the the one bone you managed to break so long ago.
Even the rain seems reluctant to commit fully to the evening. It's bright lightening and sharp crackles of thunder that give way to halfhearted raindrops. The entire thing is sound and fury adding to nothing and signifying even less.
It's the kind of evening that ends with In Christ Alone stuck on repeat, heard through orange earbuds jammed tight into deaf ears.
About the fourth time through the words start to really sink in. And mentally it feels like the equivalent of water soaking into dirt so cracked it looks irreparable.

Heat

There is no stilted sense of holy.
Not today.
No separate, unneeded formalities,
Not stifling sense of "Other."
No, today it is a blanketing quiet.
A still silence in the midst of the shimmering heat,
And the plodding exhausting of the sin-soaked broken.
The Chi-Rho and the Crucifix stand guard over this Outpost, regimental signs.
The marble they hang from is not merely ornamental today, but rather bulwarks;
separating the dirt from the cleaned, the danger from the safety.
The glass shouts, "You are not alone!"
And in the stories it weaves, it offers a binding sense of place, "You are noticed when you go missing," the glass says, "There is One who saves,  One who defends."
And all around is the whispered echo of Time.
Time, saying, you are not alone, you have context and there is one who is Master of all of the chaos out there.
Today, that knowledge is not enough. No, today I am too broken, too tired and dirty, too blinded from the battle and the heat that beats down just past the double doors.
No, today, I need pictures.
Inside this marbled bulwark, it's not even cold. Its relief comes from the contrast with the heat and the smell outside.
And with the quiet- the defense- I find my thoughts wandering to Galilee.

It must have been hot there too.

And for now, with little else to cling to, it is a comfort.

This is a song about being short

"I'm gonna tell you a story
That you've probably heard
And at the risk of being redundant
I'm gonna tell you something
That may not thrill you
But it could not hurt
Well it comes out of the sacred
Writing of the Israelites
It's the story of David
And how he slew Goliath

Well now the king of his country
He didn't trust in him much
And so to David's alarm
He tried to fit him in his armor
But the thing was so heavy
David couldn't stand up
So he left it by the river
Where he gathered five smooth stones
I guess it's safe to say he figured
He wasn't going out alone
He's not alone

What trouble are giants
What's wrong with being small
The bigger they come
You know the harder they fall
When you're fighting for Zion
And you're on the Lord's side
Well I think you're gonna find
They ain't no trouble at all (Trouble at all)
No trouble at all
No trouble at all
No trouble

Now there must have been some laughter
Among the Philistines
At the sight of this scrawny little shepherd
Coming out to meet the record-breaking mammoth of a man
Who was a killing machine
But it didn't shake David
'Cause he was smart enough to know
It's more the size of who you put your faith in
Than the size of your foe

What trouble are giants
What's wrong with being small
The bigger they come
You know the harder they fall
When you're fighting for Zion
And you're on the Lord's side
I think you're gonna find
It ain't no trouble at all

What trouble are giants
What's wrong with being small
The bigger they come
You know the harder they fall
When you're fighting for Zion
And you're on the Lord's side
I think you're gonna find
They ain't no trouble at all

What trouble are giants
What's wrong with being small
The bigger they come
You know the harder they fall
When you're fighting for Zion
And you're on the Lord's side
I think you're gonna find
They ain't no trouble at all

What trouble are giants
What's wrong with being small
The bigger they come
You know the harder they fall
When you're fighting for Zion
And you're on the Lord's side
I think you're gonna find
They ain't no trouble at all
- Rich Mullins

Morning insecurities

It's a serious business, this laying to rest of the dead.

Ideas and patterns- the framework that shaped how we viewed the world, pulling the unspeakable into time.

For better and worse, all have had a hand in creating who I "am."

Whoever that is.

Mind's eye

Oh how my heart dreams when I'm not watching.
Dreams of adventure, meaning and blue skies.
Dreams of things more grand than the mundane.
Of playing the warrior queen,
Oh no, Of more than playing.
Being.
Long hair curling and twisting in the wind, furious action punctuated by
Stillness.
Sword, perhaps, in hand. Capable and ready.
Defending but above all defended.
My heart dreams of small plans accomplished on stormy days.
Dreams where confidence and authority are wielded as
the softest touch; silk-sheathed steel.
Beautiful, dangerous, and heartbreaking dreams,
coalescent landscapes shaded with the textures that come with freedom from the constraints of
possible
practical
available.
I turn, my mind's eye hoping to catching these fantastic grotesques before they disappear...
Oh how my heart dreams when I'm not watching.