Spiritual Life

The Jump

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A thrillingly daring jump from a swing resulted in one of my more embarrassing childhood moments.  The jump culminated in triumph yet my shorts did not accompany me in my victory.  I looked up and saw them hanging from the swing!  Nothing shocks the mind quite like realizing one’s exposed their undergarments.  I clutched my torn shorts around my waist for the mile walk home.

Exposure evokes two responses.  Well, probably not only two but today I’m reminded of just two.  Fear and hope.  Either I know I’m doing wrong and I hide from and fear exposure.  Or, I practice truth and I seek, actually seek, exposure.  “Why, oh why would I want to be exposed?” my soul screams out as visions of annual check ups complete with fluorescent lighting flash through my mind.

But something resonates with John’s words.  For meaning.  I love the word my Bible uses…wrought.   Something beautiful created with skill and diligence and forethought in the depth of a skilled craftsman’s workshop.  Wrought in God.  To see my life’s work emerge from the mist of the everyday as having been wrought in God.

Ok!  Now I actually want to be exposed!  I want the sharp light of God and I want to see how He’s creating something beautiful and with purpose because it sure is hard for me to see sometimes.  Meaning!  My life wrought in Him?  Sounds like something I need to know on those days that feel more like a wet lump of clay spinning on an untended potter’s wheel.

It feels good to be inspired to come before God like this.  To be exposed in my misdeeds feels a little more frightening.  But, a close read makes me think John is talking about God exposing my misdeeds and my deeds–the whole package–when He shines the light on my life.  Somehow, He takes it all and wroughts something with purpose.  I don’t know how but I’m willing to come.

Giving, Receiving, Sharing

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My daughter cried calling me to her bedside.  Pain.  I needed to do something and NOW!  She fully expected me to take it away immediately.  I could not and we both cuddled our broken hearts together.

So many times I hear heartbreaking stories of betrayal, abuse, disappointment and sadness over a cup of coffee and I struggle.  I want to take it—take the pain away—but I can’t.  They can’t give it either.  It’s their pain.

The community of The Giver  has one “Receiver of Memory”.   (see Eliminating Pain, my previous post on The Giver)  The community names the new Receiver of Memory and he goes to his mentor and asks what to call him.  “The Giver,” he answers.  So transpires days of Giving and Receiving memory.  The Giver gives memories and, once he gives them, he loses them.  The Receiver accepts the memories which become increasingly unbearable to hold alone.  Telling of emotion becomes actually feeling emotion.  True relationship between the Giver and the Receiver reveals all others as sorry manufactured counterfeits.  The status quo becomes unsustainable.

I want a Receiver of Memory!  Being free of painful memories would be so nice!  To share that deep pain and…poof… it’s gone!   But pain leads to wisdom.  So wisdom goes with the pain.  Do I want that cost?  To become increasingly foolish as I’m increasingly pain-free?

My daughter’s heart cry that I take her pain is impossible but can I share it?  Bear the weight of it together?  What about the friend in deep pain.  I can’t take it.  Can I share it?  For so long I felt discouraged at my helplessness in the face of deep pain.  I’m beginning to experience the freedom of sharing.

I love the ending of the Giver.  Spoiler Alert!  The Receiver escapes and in the final moments approaches a family by a fireplace.  Music is heard in the distance,the evidence that his old mentor is blasting the status quo and sharing his pain and also his most beloved memory, music.

Descending to Realism

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Idealistic.  13 years ago I puzzled over what our premarital counselor revealed to us.  We idealized marriage and each other.  I vaguely connected that idealism and marriage didn’t mix.  That idealism would be some kind of obstacle to be hurdled in our marriage.  Idealism sounded good though.  The way our counselor approached it started 13 years of occasional yet persistent head scratching.

Pessimistic.  The opposite of idealistic?  Who would get married?  Why would anyone get married if they sincerely had such low hope of success?  I’ve never seriously thought our marriage would end in divorce even on the lowest days.  Is that pride?  To think we’ll escape?  Or is it idealism?

Realistic.  Living in what is.  Recognizing what is true–the true state of myself and my husband.  It’s quite the comedown from idealism but not nearly so depressing as pessimism.  Realism is the path I’m on now.  Who am I…really?  Who is he…really?  Who is God in all of this reality?

Releasing idealism feels like a denial of what God desired in marriage.  But, even that seems to be imprisoned in idealism.  What did God really say about marriage?  Not nearly as much as I’d like Him to say, that’s for sure!  Respect, love, sacrifice, honor, submit, multiply, cherish, nurture, unify.

My most recent ponderings on marriage come from a 30-something single guy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Marriage is a “yes” to God’s earth.  A “yes” to living in the present world God created and the present world that is fallen.  In marriage we worship God in His humanity and His deity.  In marriage we need not hide anything from God.  We steal nothing from “behind His back”.  He is spiritual and physical.

There’s much I’d like to cover.  There’s much my husband would like to cover.  The path for us is choosing to trust God by laying everything before Him together.  It doesn’t always happen.  Reality.

Watching the10K

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Watching the 10,000 meter Olympic race becomes a teachable moment when watched with your mom.  My kids learned this Saturday morning.  After 2 laps they all stirred having decided the Japanese team would win for sure.  Then transpired a long conversation, 20 laps long, of race strategy.   “Don’t be too sure”, I urged.  I threw out definitions of pacing.  The kids stuck around just to prove me wrong.  The Japanese would win.

The Japanese women finished near the back with looks of agony and streaming sweat.  The first place finisher blazed across the finish line with a huge smile having cruised to a strong lead in the last 5 laps.  A 10,000 meter race elicited shouts and exclamations from the kids.

Sticking around gave me 20 laps to verbally ruminate on the spiritual analogies of racing, cheating, finishing, pacing.  That’s what mom’s do, beat a lesson to death, and so I did that because that’s what I’m supposed to do.

Towards the end of the beating I realized I needed to see the 10k for myself.  For my walk with my Lord.  My race.  The reminder to give it my all and plan for a whole lot of laps.  I needed to feed my desire to finish strong and blaze across the line.

Becoming Childlike

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Come to Christ as a child.  Humble yourself like a child.  The kingdom of heaven belongs to those that are like children.  At the behest of a speaker, I’ve pondered the contrast of childish and childlike for almost 2 years now.  I’m pretty sure I recognize childishness.  3 kids roam around my house and occasionally bump into each other “on accident” causing all kinds of clamor.   They seem to do a lot “on accident.”  The kids don’t hold the monopoly on childishness in our home.  But childlike.  I scratch my head.  How do I humble myself to become childlike again?  Was I ever childlike?

Walking into the dark smelly parking garage yesterday I imagined what would need to happen to me to become childlike.  Smoother skin.  Softer hair.  Smaller.  Weaker.  Pailer.   More vulnerable.  Easily awestruck.  Easily hurt.  Naive.  Hopeful.  Dependant.  Secure.  Lacking in tact.  Without guile.  Curious.  Innocent to the ways of the world.  Parts of it sound like a particularly painful spa experience.  The other parts sound…well…impossible.

Stripping away seemed the common theme.  Sloughing off the scars of my sin and others sins against me.  Scraping away things I know that I should not know.  Carving out the abscesses cultivated from unforgiveness.  Releasing the security I make for myself and giving it up in the security of Another.  Wiping the expressions of contempt out of my heart.  Childlike.

Occasionally one of our kids will ask a stumper of a question and then lean across the table and look up at us fully expecting that we know all about jet propulsion and can explain it to him on the spot.  It strikes my heart that I don’t inquire of the Lord the same way.  I don’t tend to ask Him a stumper and then wait around fully expecting Him to know the answer much less give it to me.

Maybe that’s my way to childlike today…to ask God a stumper and look to him wide-eyed with curiosity fully expecting Him to hear, know, and reveal.

Where We Lay Our Heads

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Home.  The longing struck again last week as I lay on my bed staring at our huge wardrobe.  I wondered how we would move it again and I answered simultaneously – the same way we did the last time.  Our 3 year contract ends in 9 months and our landlord will move in and enjoy all the improvements we’ve made.  In 9 months we will be living somewhere else…again.

As much as I like to cling to the mantra that “home is where we lay our heads” my heart often does not subscribe.  Sometimes I am at peace to live on such an impossibly high plain of existence, such rest in the present and hope for the future.  Usually after a hard fought hissy fit, I finally discover…again…that nowhere else satisfies.

On the road to that place I struggle.  I want permanence!  I want to know my head will be inside these 4 walls 5 years from now!  I want to mark the door with the children’s heights because I’ll know we’ll be there until they stop growing!  I want!

I think I want that.  My friends that have “settled down” remind me that they still feel the longings to be overseas.  Moments of clarity and perspective reveal that no one really knows these things.  How many fires, floods, job losses, medical catastrophes, deaths, and divorces do I have to witness to learn?  We make our plans, God guides our steps.  So, my heart will long for home until I’m home?

So, in 9 months we move.  In 8 months we roll up the nicely painted growth chart posters and pack our boxes.  In 6 months we start looking for the impossible (we like to ask for the impossible).  In the meantime I pray, shut my mouth, and set my heart to relish the memories we still have time to make between these 4 walls…and to decide the colors of my next 4 walls.