Spiritual Life

When It Hits Different

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 1 Comment

I sit here reading a great book, The Pastor by Eugene Peterson, thinking about posting an artsy shot on Insta recommending it to all who for some reason follow me. I got to wondering, though, if my younger friends would get this book the way I get it now at a different age and time in my life?

Would this book hit me at 25 like it does at 47? I don’t really know… I strongly suspect not.

I remember reading about a missionary in my early 20’s and felt so much internal conflict. It was the first time I’d walked away from a biography of someone so devoted to the Lord but who left me with some serious problems. I wasn’t sure I liked parts of her very much. In my 20’s I didn’t know what to do with that reality.

How could someone live for God so devotedly and not be completely likable? Well, now I grasp it a little more, ahem, personally.

As time passed and I contemplated that biography, it reflected back my own soul in all its light and shadows. Grace began shining through because I am that person, not totally likable, but completely loved by God…it’s ok to not be perfect. And God is not thwarted.

Another time I took a book on God’s love to read on a summer trip. I can’t remember all the details but it struck me deeply. I passed it on to a college student on the trip and it was meh for them. I wonder if reading it now after being pummeled by life if it would hit differently.

And it’s not just spiritually attuned books. Pride and Prejudice, when you identify with Elizabeth, reads differently than Pride and Prejudice when you identify with the mother in the story. Warnings abound!

So Eugene and I over the years are becoming well acquainted. Personally I’m not a huge fan of The Message translation when I read except that I love the purpose of why it was formed. My affinity for Eugene comes through more in his whole-hearted expression of what it means to walk with Jesus in our time, culture, and place with the people God’s put around us.

He works against my… American-ness I guess. That tendency to be productive or achieving in a way that silences the Spirit. Eugene points it out and beckons me to be with God and with others. To just be the child of God in the time I live. To be cautious of being lured by the business of spirituality, the fallacy of thinking I can fix anyone, the arrogant focus on achievement and accumulation that can run me off the road towards what I truly desire.

I still recommend The Pastor, but if it doesn’t hit you right now and you’re on the young side, put it back on the bookshelf to gather dust.

Then, read it again in 20 years and see if it hits different.

Tis the Season

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Well…not that season anymore but there are other seasons right? This month is birthday season for me. All of my three children celebrate birthdays in February within two weeks of each other. Yeah, it’s weird, but in my defense, one of them came three weeks early. If he’d minded his manners we’d have one March birthday.

I was tempted at the mall, but walked away empty handed….

Celebrating each one in their uniqueness is an exciting challenge, especially as they grow and change. Which birthday cake will they want this year? What constitutes a cool party? Do they even want a party? Is there any way to not eat six different birthday cakes and gain ten pounds in February?

And then I need to be mindful to pace myself a little so I don’t hit the third birthday, which comes a day after the second birthday of the month, mind you, and hit a wall. They can always tell when mom hits a wall.

It’s interesting to me that when we say there’s a season, it often means a holiday season. But it can also mean it’s a season of work, like tax season. Or a season of grief when a loved one dies. Or a season of singleness. Or a season of transition.

Like the seasons we observe through our window, they all look different. Some look dead, like grieving seasons. Some seasons look very alive and active like seasons where labor is increased. Some seasons are just kind of weird, like seasons of transition where it’s hard to tell what’s going on out there.

As I entered my 40’s a few years ago, I contemplated what all would happen in my 40’s. Three kids learning how to drive. Three kids graduating high school. Three kids entering college or post-high school futures. By the end of my 40’s, an empty nest loomed as a potential reality. At least one, maybe two possibly choosing to marry.

So where I entered my 40’s with kids all under my roof, in school, riding shotgun in my van. My 40’s would end with potentially all sleeping and living in other situations.

Sniff, sniff. And…hmmm, interesting.

Right now I’m preparing to celebrate one entering a new decade, one becoming an adult, and one getting a learners permit. I’m right in the middle of the season, a season of transition. A slow, decade long movement towards children becoming adults.

It’s way too exciting at times. Teaching three kids to drive? Fretting through all the high school classes and questions of what is next? Navigating teen dating relationships? Applying for colleges? It’s a wild ride.

As a younger mom, a thought impressed me about seasons of motherhood. Each stage or season felt like a proving ground for the next season. If I embraced learning the lessons of sleepless nights and diaper changes, maybe I’d be better prepared for the temper tantrums of the two and three year old and, later on, the teenager. In the same way, this decade of transition contains lessons, or if you’re a gamer, levels to unlock, that I imagine may come in handy later on.

Who knows what lies ahead. But for now, in this birthday season month, I’m thankful I still get to make cakes and see my kids in person on their birthdays. Such may not always be the case, but for now it is a wonderful reality.

I’ll have to remember that when I’m in the middle of a potential teen boy gel blaster battle party at the park. We’re two weeks away and they’re still deciding if that’s the move this year. In this too, I can be present and thankful.

Puzzling Pieces

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Some people begin puzzles in the middle but that is wrong. True puzzlers know you begin with the edge pieces. My teammate’s 6 year old daughter believes that is baloney and starts with the middle….

Children are so funny.

My husband gave his mom a puzzle last year for her 80th birthday. One thousand pieces, pretty picture, and a good brand of puzzle. What a nice gift, right?

She called a couple months later and expressed her deep frustration with the puzzle. The wording was hard to read and fuzzy. It’s a world map but an old one so many names are different now. She was on the final push to be done and was very ready to finish. When she completed it, she took a photo, printed it and sent it along with the puzzle and a note, “good luck!!!”

The note contained strong tones of sarcasm.

I began the puzzle last Sunday and I empathize with her frustration! Not only is all she said true but more! The map is in two hemispheres so there are quite a few places it says Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic! Not only that but many pieces have fragments of the words “sea” and “ocean” on a nice, light blue background.

It’s a nightmare, really.

But puzzling this week got me thinking about most all conundrums in life and the life lessons it reveals along the way.

Read the following with an understanding that I am feeling a bit, well, funny.

Puzzling Pieces

With box set prominently on the table, the first thing one must do is flip all the pieces over, picture side up of course.

Let me take a moment and add another terrible thing about this puzzle is that the picture on the box is fuzzy! No one side of the box has the puzzle pictured in its entirety or even very clearly!

And isn’t life just like that, we do not know what it will exactly look like but following even a hazy example takes us far further than going it on our own.

The next step is finding all the edge pieces. Contrary to some opinions, this is the correct way to build a puzzle. Finding all the outside pieces is like defining the edges of the problem, figuring out where the boundaries lie. A problem undefined will remain unsolved. A life with no purpose will not be lived to the full.

After finding the edges, stand back and celebrate this wonderful achievement. Perhaps bring a family member or 5 to admire your work. Celebration is crucial in life. Stepping back and seeing all you have accomplished from time to time prevents us from becoming discouraged. It can also set us back on track if our life is stalled out.

Now that the edges are finished and appropriately admired, then move on to a portion that is distinctive. This will aid in finding useful pieces in a pile of 1000 unorganized fragments, much like reaching for easy to agree upon commonalities to a perplexing problem. Maybe this pertains to life direction. If you find that you clearly enjoy math, double down on math, my sister!

But, by all means, don’t start trying to put together the ocean at this point. I tried, and it was hard. Like with any problem, working in the nebulous blue-ish areas too early is only going to increase confusion and make one want to launch all the hard work across the room. It takes faith to know that as you put things together, even the hardest problems may become easier to piece together.

Questions like “who will I marry?” or “how will I face the troubles that life will throw at me?” come together along the way of living the life we have in the present tense. When it’s time to tackle the ocean, we must trust we will have what we need.

Instead of tackling the depths of the ocean prematurely, look for a thread of commonality, like the equator! I pieced the equator together next and spent a happy hour finding barb-wire type lines. My frustration and despair dissipated.

Like any plumb line, or equator, truth grounds us and helps us lay the foundation for further growth.

But then I faced a frustration, I had all these random ocean pieces with fragments of ocean words in the places where oceans would one day be! Alas, the ocean was still a swirling, chaotic mass of intimidation. So, I boldly lifted all the ocean pieces and put them back in gen pop.

Sniff, sniff.

Sometimes, solving a conundrum means you must backtrack, abandoning one effort and knowing you must redo work in the future that ended up failing the first time. Refer to my earlier word about how the depths of the oceans will begin to take care of themselves as we piece other things together.

After abandoning the depths of the ocean, we began working on continents. We! My oldest son now joined my efforts! He is a great puzzler with just the right amount of dedicated focus to really get stuff done. With his help we really got going.

I must mention I also received wonderful help from other members of my family from the beginning, when their help waned, my son was a great boon to my efforts and mood.

Which is another life lesson that can be gained in puzzling, combining forces has many benefits beyond just finishing faster. We enjoyed celebrating each other’s victories and praising the double tap that must accompany a piece well placed. Going through life or solving complex problems is not done best on one’s own, it is too lonely and discouraging.

Though there is pride to be had in completing a difficult puzzle on one’s own all the way to the last double tap, it is far more enjoyable to share in the experience together.

The time is now ticking, the puzzle must be complete by Tuesday at 6pm when my table needs to seat people instead of cardboard. We are close and we will succeed.

Then we will celebrate and feel the satisfaction of our achievement together…the last double tap must always be in the company of ones mates…

…and then we will sweep it all into the box again.

And so it is that life has a strong thread of futility. Why do a puzzle at all? Why live? Why try? If we’re just going to sweep it back into the box?

The thought that comes to mind is that when we puzzle we push the boundaries of our own creation, our identity, all the beautiful that is designed into us…just like when we put ourselves out there to live the life God intended for us.

It’s worth it and not just because of the here and now, but because what we do here echoes in eternity as well.

Who knew that puzzles could illicit such grand, eternal thoughts?!

On the night He was betrayed

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Routine and habit can make me insensitive, lacking in ability to feel or notice. They also make it possible to fill up otherwise wasted moments of my day with meaning and the chance to receive.

  • La Jolla, California July 2023

I don’t know why it stuck out to me so particularly on a Sunday morning a few months ago, “on the night He was betrayed…”, as our church family practiced communion. It is a routine, the first Sunday of the month. A habit, if you believe, you are welcome to participate in this strange, millennia old sacrament begun by Jesus Christ. Your soul can be connected as you physically partake…or it can be disconnected, insensate, dull.

That morning, after decades of ritual and habit, the words hit different, as the youth say these days. On the night He was betrayed. Maybe it is because I am noticing afresh my lack of love at times. Sure I’ve grown over many years in being loved and being a conduit of love. But it is still there, the lack of love.

It is no small comfort that what Jesus’ follower John honed in on as he grew older was love. Love being at the center of all. And not the weak, self-serving, conditional, self-indulgent love of today but the true love of Jesus that sacrifices without thought of what can be paid back or received by Himself.

So maybe that’s why on the night He was betrayed is stuck in my mind and soul these days. Because on the night Jesus gave Himself on our behalf, His whole physical and spiritual self, He was betrayed. Not only that, He knew His followers were going to betray Him. This isn’t an after the fact realization He had–that He would give Himself and then find out His followers failed Him. He knew before and as He sacrificed Himself that it would be a lonely, thankless, necessary, and willing task to give up His life for unworthy people like Peter, John, me…and you.

The whole subject of communion and its meaning is one that fills entire books and shelves and rooms, I’m sure. For me, right now, it is enough to reflect on one aspect of His communion with us, His followers.

That He gave Himself willingly, in love, even as those closest to Him, who saw in person the universe altering gift, betrayed Him.

I often wonder who I would embody in the times Jesus walked the earth. Would I be a moralist Pharisee offended as Jesus blocked my desires to earn my way? Would I be the crowd that was just there for the easy food, after all I love giveaways? Would I be the woman forgiven who walks away completely changed?

It’s worth pondering as I seek to know Jesus and myself more deeply that I may be like Him because the tendency is to think we’d be faithful. We would recognize His deity if He walked the earth in front of us. We would rise above all that moralism and materialism that kept people from Jesus. But would we?

Probably not, because Jesus was betrayed by most everyone on the night He was to give us His greatest gift. How could I think I’d be different?

I would betray, have betrayed, will continue to betray Him in my selfishness and lack of love, but my hope is also in this truth. Because on the night He was betrayed, He still gave Himself.

And the hope is deeper and the love deeper as I realize this truth more deeply.

Beckoning

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The call to shove away the endless to-do list for a few minutes and indulge my writer self has grown over the past few weeks so today I did it. I seized a moment!

Recently I listened to a podcast about what’s saving the podcaster, Emily P. Freeman’s, life. Hmmm.

It got me thinking, what’s saving my life right now? In the day to day sense, what’s bringing me small joys?

So here they are reader, my top 4…

#1: Aveda

Each morning and evening I enjoy the scent, feel, and experience of washing away the grime of the day or night with a new skincare regime. I bought the whole thing a couple weeks ago. It helped that it was on sale and they gave me other free things when I ordered it. I love a deal.

I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much! But each time I breathe in the spa like scents and spray (yes, spray!) my face with the indulgent toner, a little of the drama and struggle of the day passed or the day to come lessens. I’m transported just a little.

And that’s what I love about the small joys in life…they take me out of the mundane, the overwhelming, and engage me in a simple pleasure, a gift from God. Because isn’t that one aspect of our senses? To experience the fullness of God’s creation?

#2: Tennis with my son

Anyone who really knows me knows I am not athletic. I exercise because I want my clothes to fit or fit better. Sweating is not my jam. I’ve never been good at any sport. Wah, wah.

But lately, swinging a racquet with my youngest kid is defying some of my image of myself as a clumsy dweeb. Often I can serve the ball into the right square. So surprising! Sometimes I return a zinger right into the back corner! Nice!

A couple nights ago we weren’t experiencing such moments of transcendence. I was tired, he was off his game and frustrated. He began to hit homeruns on the tennis court…well, off the tennis court to be exact. Not in a happy way. But every one brought this joy to my heart. Look at that ball fly!

So I began to try it out. Wham! And can I tell you, the exhilaration of whacking the snot out of a little yellow ball on a too humid November night in Texas was huge. We spent the last crate of balls hitting as hard and as long as we could and it was….fun.

He loosened up as the pressure of the white lines faded and all Hades broke loose on our court.

#3: Journaling

This is no new habit of mine, journaling. My brother and I talked about it a few weekends ago and I made my wish known that any journals found upon my passing should be burned and not read. Not because there’s anything especially salacious in them, but because any comment made can have no hope of being talked over and resolved if I’m, well, dead.

So if you find any, just burn them, folks.

Ok, now on to why it’s saving my life.

Journaling is my place to spill my unformed thoughts and worries to God. All that stuff that hangs out rent free in my mind, which is pretty active, gets out and on paper. Somehow that act of thinking it, moving my fingers to put it down in time and space, and then closing the book removes some of my mental clutter.

It’s a physical way of laying some burden, distress, or joy down before God in a way that resonates with more than just my headspace.

Is it prayer? Yes, I guess it is. And probably worship too.

And those things save me in the sense that they rescue me from trying to deal with everything myself.

I also love those sweet Moleskine journals, they make journaling better.

#4: Sport Mode

Not sports like tennis but sports like sports car. A few months back we traded in my husband’s very sensible sedan for a used convertible. It’s a lovely shade of blue, it’s a manual shift, and it had half the miles of the sensible sedan so… we made our mid-life dreams come true.

And I like to drive it like it’s a sports car, because it is. I think it gets worse gas mileage than our van the way we drive it but it is mega fun. We made a pact to drive it with the top down as much as humanly possible. So far so good.

It helps that we all enjoy it. Our youngest thinks his hair looks better after riding in the Miata. Our middle kid leans back, closes his eyes and enjoys the sun and wind on his face. And I enjoy getting hugged by the seat when I accelerate which is often and aggressive as long as it is safe.

Don’t worry, we don’t speed as a habit. We just get up to speed in the funnest way possible.

It’s making most every commute fun except the ones where I end up next to a Texas-sized truck muffler.

But, on the whole, net gain and daily joy are our companions when we tool around in our Blue Bullet.

As you’ll notice, not all of these joys are overtly spiritual. Personally that’s where I think I often land in peril in matters of enjoying the gift of the life God gave me. Seeing these small joys leads me into thanks and gratitude for a God who made a beautiful multi-sensory world and delights that we experience our life here in communion with Him. Whereas a narrow view of what counts, or should count, steals a bit of the joy.

I can’t find communion with Him in many things in this world. There is so much that only seeks to divide us from His love and presence. But there’s so much that can beckon us to come to Him, all us who are weary and burdened, and find rest with Him.

So, what are your small joys that beckon you to look up and enjoy God in your everyday?

Scorching Heat

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Days and days with no rain. The grass crunches under our feet and the heat keeps us shut inside until the sun slides towards the horizon. Drought sucks the ponds lower and lower with each passing day as we wait. Wait for rain or cooler temperatures or cloud cover to provide relief from the relentless heat.

And it’s all we can talk about here these days…how hot it is, whether the power grid will break, when it will be over, comparing this summer to the scorcher that was 2011 and sparked unprecedented wild fires.

As much as I don’t want my mood to be governed by the weather, I’m fighting to cultivate contentment in this environment. Not ambivalence or dissociation …but true contentment. The attitude that acknowledges the reality of the struggle while also choosing to receive what I need from God to face it without despair or anxious striving.

The Guadalupe, a serene reminder of cool refreshment.

The physical heat is the most obvious and innocuous part of life to practice cultivating contentment. A baby step, a most basic exercise, in learning to trust God. That is where I find myself learning the lessons afresh. The lesson that ripples out into all the other areas as well.

Can I entrust more than my physical comfort to God? Can I place in His hands the unknown future? The worries that wake me up at night? Will He be enough for my kids in the avenues of life they must trod? What will it take for me to lay down my anxious striving to solve problems on my own, without God?

And the heat continues, reminding me day by day to take this life day by day, entrusting myself and others to God. The crisp, brown grass and scorching seatbelts a tangible clue to my desperate need for the spring of living water.

Today, what is reminding you of your need to rely on God?

Resonance

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My son plays cello. No matter that we owned two violas, he wanted to play cello. Over the summer he took lessons because I wanted him to have something to do while his older siblings scampered around to jobs, hiking trips, and places with friends in cars.

Hearing him practice is a delight.

Once, his teacher moved one lesson online and a weird thing happened. While he was playing a scale, hitting the notes just right, the teacher’s cello all the way across town began picking up the sound waves and resonating a note. Through air, wires, chips, internet lines, then back through chips and wires and air that note traveled and replicate itself in the other cello.

When you think about it, that’s pretty incredible. Sound and music is one of the ways its hard for me to get out from under believing in the existence of God.

That resonance is what got me. One note moved through the air from one object and caused movement in another object.

Today I read about Peter at the last supper and then at that fateful campfire where he denied his friend, his teacher, the One he believed was the savior of his people.

It struck me that Peter didn’t know what was in himself. He was so sure that he would be loyal, that he would never… That all others might but not him.

And then he did the thing.

And Jesus turned and looked directly at Peter in that moment. When Peter met His gaze, he remembered what Jesus said would happen, what Peter so confidently denied could ever happen.

We don’t know anything about that look Jesus gave Peter. In my humanity I see raised eyebrows with I-told-you-so vibes because that’s how it works with me. Those moments when something comes true that I warned a kid about it takes everything in me not to raise my brows and waft off a distinct vibe even while I hold back the actual words.

What’s even more interesting is the interchange a few hours before. Jesus says to Peter three astounding things:

  1. Satan asked to mess with all of the disciples to see what will shake out
  2. I (Jesus) personally prayed for Peter that your faith would not fail
  3. I predict you’ll come back

I mean, tons of questions here for me. Did all the disciples get sifted or just Peter? I assume Jesus said ok? Jesus prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail yet Peter did fail.

And! Jesus seems to know that Peter will fail or why else would Jesus tell Peter that “when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers”?

That kind of blows my circuits when I really think about it. Did one of Jesus’ prayers not get answered with a yes? Of course we know that in the end Peter did betray Jesus but he also turned back and strengthened others.

Did Peter’s response right after this affect what happened? Did Peter’s following confident assertion that he was ready to go with Jesus to prison and death reveal that Peter needed to know more about himself without which he would not be ready to strengthen others?

There’s so much we don’t know but so much to know as well.

For me, I hate that so much of ministering to people involves living out of weakness, failure and suffering. Why does it have to be this way? Why is it that to follow Him, I must see and embrace those aspects of me that feel like nothing but failure?

I believe it relates to resonance. That phenomenon where some chord strikes the chord of another.

Could Peter ever lead the way Jesus displayed to him without a colossal failure followed by repentance and then restoration?

I don’t think so. Peter’s failure led him to an experience of restoration that transformed him into the humble servant Christ taught him to be.

And I don’t believe I or anyone can connect with the soul of another without the experience of being fully known in that moment of failure and then fully accepted and forgiven there too.

Those who are forgiven much love much, right?

And so it is that embracing our weakness is the striking chord that resonates in the souls of others who also seek the truth.

Walking the Blind Side

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I posted this almost seven years ago as we navigated my dad’s terminal brain tumor diagnosis. This week   did not permit much time to write. As I perused past posts, and I contemplated the surprising escalation of conflict in Europe too near where my brother and his family live, I felt it eerily appropriate.

We all walk blind in this world and must always learn to follow.

His plate sat there half full of scrambled eggs as he reached for more. I watched as he spooned some more on the right side. Then he ate the right side leaving a line straight up the middle. Eggs on the left. No eggs on the right. I turned the plate and it was like a magic trick.

The brain is fascinating. When signals don’t come from the eyes, it fills in the blanks, interpreting from what it’s learned. My dad doesn’t realize he can’t see his left side. That means walking into walls and furniture, knocking things over.

Now he often needs help on his blind side to prevent a fall or running into things. It’s a lesson in humility, I’m sure. For me it’s a lesson in service.

I’m constantly watching and adjusting on the blind side, learning his limits, walking the fine line between parent and child. Sometimes I tell him like it is, and he follows. Other times there’s no leading him anywhere, only hanging on for the ride. Like when he wanted to do a pre-op snow angel outside the hospital.

Walking the blind side is a privilege, but he’s a man not used to being guided. He’s led where he doesn’t want to go. Like Peter in the Bible.

When you were young , you would tie your belt and walk wherever you wanted. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you and carry you where you don’t want to go. John 21:18

At this point we’re not tying him up. Its a tempting option when he’s home alone and inclined to test limits that are steadily changing.

He’s not the only blind person. I’m as blind as my dad about what’s next. My mom less so, but this is the first brain tumor in our family. We pray it’s the last.

None of us wants to walk this path. We’re learning and we’re taking faltering steps into unknown territory. I’m growing wary of what I can’t see ahead, like my dad.

Follow Me. That’s the big question, bound on this path, will I follow Jesus? Will I go where I don’t want to go, because that’s where He’s going? What does faith look like on this path?

I will walk the blind side again today and tomorrow and for a long time to come. At least, it will feel long. Doctors say it will not be nearly long enough.

God knows the path. Will I follow?

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Rest: Leaving the Land Alone

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Lately I’ve been contemplating a sabbatical, the strange option in my job to take three months of restorative rest from the day to day responsibilities of caring for souls. In our hurried world, this feels so out of the ordinary and strange that I’m a bit embarrassed its an option.

Who couldn’t use three months to restore their soul in our world these days?

But I have this option and I’m figuring out if I should take it. If I take it, when do I take it? Also I must talk through that time with someone beforehand which is a good idea because taking 3 months away could be difficult. That’s like 3 months of being unmoored from a central part of my every day life…for what purpose?

The last thing I want is heightened anxiety for three months because I can’t figure out how to rest!

I looked back at some key passages today about rest because rest was a big part of what God’s people were to do after they came out of Egypt and oppression. I guess rest wasn’t really a part of their enslavement because it sure was hard for them too.

How fitting that candles, illuminating lights, are part of ushering in Sabbath rest for God’s people…

In fact they never really did rest the way God told them to and God had such a problem with it that he forced them to go on a long trip to a foreign, deserty place to rest for the few decades worth of Saturdays they missed.

But it wasn’t only Saturdays, one day a week, they were to rest. Every seventh year, God’s people were supposed to just… not farm the land. That is stunning. They trusted God to provide a double crop on the 6th year. Then, that seventh year they trusted God to provide enough from what came up on its own to feed them until the next year’s crops came to harvest.

Not surprising that they mostly failed to live that out. It’s pretty radical.

As I think about sabbatical for myself, I anticipate disorientation, doubt, identity crisis, and anxiety. I also expect surprise, identity formation, and trust to build as I notice the budding of new growth from richer soil of belonging to Christ rather than performance for Him.

It seems somewhat wrong to plan a sabbatical or feel that it needs to produce something. Isn’t that antithetical to the true meaning of sabbath rest? To just be?

But I can imagine my B.C. self standing in my fields that I chose not to work looking over at my neighbors fields all neatly furrowed and planted…and feeling mightily tempted to grab my plow.

To rest is so counter-cultural that I need support and encouragement to stand firm in waiting and trusting God to provide. I am most needy for Him to provide my identity apart from my usefulness and productivity in this world. Instead of seeing planning a sabbatical as striving to make rest productive, maybe it is more that I need to cultivate my heart and time for rest, knowing my heart will gaze upon the striving of the world and be tempted to define myself again on my usefulness.

Expecting new growth to happen in the sabbatical waiting is truly different than striving to produce that growth.

As my book mentor Eugene Peterson says,

“Maybe if they [pastors] would all go into the wilderness for three months, not read their emails, announce a moratorium on all conventions and conferences, take a deep, long, prayerful time of doing nothing–maybe some equilibrium might return.” (Letters to a Young Pastor, 140)

By equilibrium, he means a groundedness that is not rushing to fix every crisis while missing the opportunities right before us. To be present in the life and people God has for us in the every day is what Eugene senses that we miss when we do not take sabbath rests.

As I write, I realize I’m sensing the value of the gift of sabbatical rest more and more. Coincidentally, we are approaching 7 years in our current ministry assignment…

What is it about the number seven!?

I’m curious to know from my readers, what struggles do you experience with rest? How does rest provoke your soul?

Past Year’s Reads

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 4 Comments

Reading without caring about time remains at the top of my list of indulgent behaviors. When I can crack a good book and just read late, late into the night I know I’m relaxing.

I’m learning this concept of “Total Work” that we live under especially in the western world. A philosopher named Pieper wrote about how people are transformed into workers and nothing else. As I read about it, I realized how much I live in this reality of feeling like I always need to be productive even in rest. Reading is one activity that combats this tendency for me, especially reading fiction.

Every night I read fiction. There are so many books out there about our world and how to live in it (see that total work thing in play?) but fiction inhabits my nightstand as a means to just enjoy life. Good fiction hopefully!

So, what good books can I recommend these days? Oh so many!

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens:

I ended my year with some Dickens, which I have not read for 20 some years. He’s just a lot, you know? But A Christmas Carol felt like an appropriate way to put my heart into the holidays. It did not disappoint or fail to convict either! If you haven’t read this one, I’m sure you can pick it up for a song at the used bookstore or on Kindle. Set it aside for Christmas 2022.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles:

How do you make a life within the walls of a hotel? Sounds a little too familiar, doesn’t it? The main character is sentenced to live out his days within a luxury hotel. He ends up leading a very full life within those walls, impacting many lives through some tumultuous times in Russian history. A delightful read.

Imperial Woman: The Story of the Last Empress of China by Pearl S. Buck:

This telling of Chinese history from the imagined perspective of the Empress enthralled me. Some of the themes of grievances are still in play today in world events. If you want to understand some of the tension between China and the west now, this is a more engaging method than some others. The loss of position and prominence for this empire and the efforts to regain a footing on the world stage explain so much of what we see in the news today. Maybe it can be seen with a little more empathy after reading this book.

Letters to a Young Pastor by Eugene Peterson and Eric Peterson:

Ok, this one is not fiction. It’s more a memoir but its so good I can’t keep it a secret.

Eric Peterson compiled these letters his dad sent him at his request to learn more about his dad’s interior thoughts on pastoring. Eugene fleshes out so very personally what it means to live out the unique role of shepherding others spiritually in this day and age when so much is so impersonal. Each chapter takes us into Eugene’s mind, heart, and struggles to form out in real time how to live as a “faithful failure.”

Every time I read the sign off at the end of each chapter, I think of my own dad who was also so proud of his kids and so invested in our lives and life work. Sitting with Eugene is a little bit like sitting with dad again.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles:

What can I say? When I read one book by an author and resonate deeply with it, I look for other books they’ve written. My kids gifted me this book for Christmas and I enjoyed it. An almost modern day hero’s journey, the story follows two brothers as they strive to make a life of their own in the world. Who do they need to keep in their lives? What does loyalty look like? It is a worthy read!

Beyond these books, I read quite a bit of suspenseful fiction of the unreliable narrator sort. Trying to figure out what the heck was going on was pretty entertaining for a good chunk of this past year. They are edgier and may keep you up at night but sometimes that’s pretty fun.

Was it good fiction? I’m not sure! The Death of Mrs. Westaway and One by One by Ruth Ware are my top recommendations in that category.

I’m stumbling back into writing on my blog so if you got this far, you get a gold star for plodding through my rusty, low bar attempt to just get words out again. Thank you!

Leave any book recommendations you think I should check out in the comments please.