stuff of earth

Leap Day

2012-02-29T18:30:00.001-06:00

Yes, indeed...an extra February day. :)

This morning, after a series of bizarre dreams, I inexplicably awoke with this song in my head:

For some reason, it made me think that perhaps I needed to celebrate by staying home and playing Candy Land. Alas, I went to work instead. :)

Food for Thought

2012-02-28T18:26:00.003-06:00

A little something to nibble on this fine Tuesday:

"What we love, we shall come to resemble."
~Bernard of Clairvaux

Lord, awaken love for You. For things beautiful and good and lovely. For things that will last.

Yummm...

2012-02-27T18:28:00.001-06:00

It sounded fun to make some homemade pizza--whole wheat (kind of) crust, roasted red pepper-walnut "pesto", broccolini, yellow peppers, parmesan, ricotta.

The earth is full of the Lord's bounty. :)

Images

2012-02-25T07:53:00.000-06:00

This picture, taken of a boy in Kentucky in 1964, is one of the most evocative photographs I have seen in a long time. I feel like a whole lot could be written after just studying it for awhile.

For more information on photographer William Gedney (and more pictures), see more here:

http://theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/william-gedney-an-american-archive-kentucky/

From the Four Winds

2012-02-25T07:38:00.000-06:00

O son of man,

can these dead bones live

when your own body

has waged war

against its every fiery joint--

the phlegmatic

now rheumatic

and those hands

deformed by time?

Your meager food stamps

pay for milk and bread,

but you had to borrow

a ticket for the bus,

climbing up oversized stairs

to sit on a half-infected seat

next to the starving masses

who feed themselves

with the cheap wares

of a world gone mad

with love of its own

next-big-thing.

No family,

no real home

except those senior apartments

next to the barred-window

Family Dollar

and across from buildings

long-condemned

by necessity and by time.

And I,

with nimble bones

and adroit fingers,

sit tapping rhythmically

a long-forgotten tune,

distraction

for the reality

that I have nothing more to give--

nothing

but a pleading prayer

for these dry bones

who long for flesh
and wholeness
and a fate I know not.

Sovereign Lord,

You alone

know;

here in this valley,
smothered by massive mountains,

we long for You
to breathe life

into spirits long-dead
and hearts long-broken

and bodies
crying out
for redemption.

Ashes to ashes,
dust to dust--

a holy sanctuary
till the veil is torn in two

and we see
and taste
and know

again and for the first time.

Yabba-Dabba!

2012-02-24T09:10:00.002-06:00

I came home yesterday and found these...

Someone must have a little sweet tooth. ;)

lent

2012-02-23T20:32:00.002-06:00

You smeared a coal
upon my lips

as the sparks flew upward

and I thanked you
that I was not like other men--

the idolaters
and thieves
stealing bread for their own gain--

for I always serve the poor
and give my tithe
and fast four times a month.

My unclean tongue
tried to wash the darkness
from the lines
upon my lips,

but I found in my reflection
the one I truly revered,

the idol-worshiper myself
fashioning You in my own image.

And then I spent a night
with a thief

who stole the moon
to give me light

and the day's catch
to feed me.

Yet growth is hard--

it is like taking on
new hands and feet,

a new framework,

new eyes to see--

and giving up
the ways I was always right.

Still, here in the dust of these ashes,

I feel the weight of all your glory
and the ways I have marred it.

But even so, it remains--
because You do.

Because Your bread still falls
from heaven

even when I wallow in the mud.

Because Your light still shines
in darkness.

Lord God,
have mercy on me--

a sinner.

Hope

2012-02-23T19:37:00.002-06:00

Signs of life in our yard! :)

Ash-Wednesday

2012-02-23T19:30:00.000-06:00

It's the season of Lent, and I know many people try to abstain from something during these days leading to the celebration of Christ's Resurrection.

Perhaps, in abstaining from other things, I will have more time for writing. These past weeks have accounted for one of the least-prolific seasons of my life, and yet the Lord has been at work to shape and mold me. To show me more of Himself. To remind me that, even in the most unfamiliar of times and moments and experiences, He is present still.

I know it's no longer Wednesday, but I was really struck by these words from TS Eliot:

"Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things...

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still..."

Yes, Lord--teach me to sit still. Teach me not to desire "this man's gift and that man's scope." Teach me not to strive to strive.

In everything, teach me simplicity.

Mine Eyes Have Seen

2012-01-04T06:25:00.001-06:00

It's interesting the things we label as tragedies. Today, as I listened to a woman with cerebral palsy, her speech largely unintelligible and her muscles spastic, I couldn't help but see the constant drool from her bottom lip and think about the Grandpa from The Grapes of Wrath. About how all he wanted was to get to California and squash grapes all over his face and see the juice run down his chin. And how maybe, before that moment she smiled and hugged me, I had never known the reality of joy. The beauty in the stored vintage, trampled down by our feet and running over in our cups. Life in all its glory, the glory of the Lord.

Magnificat

2011-12-09T17:54:00.001-06:00

There
between a life and a death
you found me,

squatted as I was
over the floor of a stable

and pushing with every breath in me.

But you were the breath
hovering over those waters

long before I came to be--

speaking life into existence,
something from nothing,

the same One
who conceived this babe in my womb.

With your cry
my heart leapt,

tears streaming down my face
at the advent of your coming--

a prince of peace,
everlasting father

born of a lowly virgin.

Of me.

In my shame,
as my not-yet-husband

held my hair

and I learned how to breathe
and move
and push

without a midwife to guide me,

you came.

My soul magnifies the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has been mindful of my lowly state--

of the state of a lowly world--

and he has come
to redeem us.

Redemption with blood,
with nails on hard wood,

forsaken but not forgotten.

Hope of the world,
enwrapped in flesh,

you came to bring me out
of bondage.

Blessed is he,
blessed are we,

to know you.

Nicodemus

2011-12-04T12:00:00.001-06:00

I am the man who came to you by night--a memorized Torah here, a ceremonial washing there--and I despised you for showing up so sloppily, wet from your mother's womb. But you told me to do the same, to become like a infant, born of Spirit this time. Born to live, to live forever, to live free from the trappings of a law that brought death. I want life. And yet, being born hurts. O, help me to empty myself, to see everything as loss, and to crawl into that place where I can know rebirth. The place of humility, the place of the cross. The place you were unafraid to dwell.

It's Christmas Time in the City

2011-12-01T21:06:00.003-06:00

This is something I wrote last year, but didn't share until now...a little rough to highlight the topic.

and there were living nearby

gang leaders

keeping watch

over their hookers by night,

shooting up

those last doses of heroin

into their hungry veins--

when a red blinking light

shone around them,

and they were sore afraid.

then the trooper

cuffed their wrists

and led them off

past a white-bearded man

in a jolly red suit

and an oblivious group

of well-dressed suburbanites

singing carols about peace on earth.

but there is no peace

in the hood,

where addiction lingers

and violence thrives

and where gonorrhea spreads

more quickly

than gifts and good cheer.

maybe this broken city of angels

needs a homeless man

to move in

and to take every bullet

upon his own tired flesh--

to die

for the bloods

and the crips

and the schizophrenic man

hearing voices

in the alleyway

and the poor unwed mother

about to sacrifice

the growing child in her womb.

city sidewalks

busy sidewalks

dressed in the blood

of the last hundred years

and the burning tears

of its many lost sons.

tonight

in the city of

a shepherd-king

there is born a savior

who will

give sight to the blind

and strength to the crippled.

and hope

for the hood.

glory to God

in the highest

and on earth

peace--

let us go

and see this thing

which has

been made known

to us.

Please Don't Make Us Sing This Song

2011-11-30T21:50:00.000-06:00

As I think about the season of Advent, about the One who made Himself flesh for us, I think once again of how we live here as exiles in a place far from home. We are, like the people of Psalm 137, called upon to sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land.

And it makes us want to hang our harps on the branches of the willow trees.

Still, there is One who came into the mess in order to bring us out. He is our home, the One we wait for in the darkest night and during what seems like an endless captivity.

This song, I think, captures it well. The video is put to scenes from Hurricane Katrina.

In the darkness of it all, we wait.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

Beginnings

2011-11-21T13:55:00.000-06:00

If we have the strength to breathe
We come forth screaming from the womb,
Coughing up the fluid
That gave us life in one season
But floods us in the next,
Choking out our lungs

Until we cry
For the memory of the place we left behind,
This something-familiar
Though it writhed in a long and rhythmic muscle-twitch
To expel us from its depths.

And so we spend our lives
Both skeptics of our history
And spurners of our birth,

Afraid to tether ourselves
Lest our umbilical cord Be cut once more,

Its surface pulsing
And then oozing

Until the vessels are clamped down
And our blood finds its way to oxygen again.

O Spirit, breathe inside of us
As You hover over Waters still unknown,
This milk-flow
About to flood our mouths
With its life-giving stream--

The places we came from,
The places we're going,

The places You form us
For things planned long ago.

The Boy I'm Marrying In 9 Days

2011-10-05T19:12:00.002-05:00

"I have the world 'versimilitude' stuck in my head."

-Cliff Bragg

Oh boy! :)

anna & simeon

2011-09-14T21:33:00.001-05:00

so maybe
my face

won't grace the cover
of any periodical

of good or ill repute--

and my name
won't be sung
or chanted
or spoken in hallowed halls--

but maybe,

in the far reaches
of some broken person's heart,

the little lines
of my thumbprint

will beat in and out,
lub-dub, lub-dub,

right next to those happier years
before lines of crack cocaine

and the string of those who left
when the rent was overdue
and the bathroom sink was leaky.

but o, my dear and holy Lord,

please make me all-content

to wait for your salvation
till my wrinkled skin sags low

and israel's consolation
comes with His proud parents

into the temple i've made my home.

and open my eyes
to the beautifully ordinary
and ordinarily beautiful

hope

He brings to the world.

for then

i shall depart

in peace,

having seen
and known
and enjoyed

thy salvation.

Obedience

2011-08-09T07:05:00.000-05:00

When my fingers
know better than I
as they hover over
the keyboard, then type
a word that is not
the word I wanted but
a better word—what is that
but an answer, you
caring for details, filling
cracks, your poetry
arc-ing its swift current
through my bones.

~Luci Shaw

I like that.

For God is the creator of everything, including creativity itself. And He breathes life into the most unlikely things, like dry bones or a blank page or the dark and aching void.

He is the author of every true story, the designer of every tree, and the composer of every song.

Voice-Overs

2011-08-07T00:05:00.001-05:00

Somehow Cliff and I started talking about Mel Blanc today, which led us to this video...

Crazy, eh?

Roots

2011-08-06T23:57:00.001-05:00

I remember that day

you promised to plant me

and not uproot me once again,

like a fledgling flower

finding firm footing

after years of harsh rains

had kept her from holding strong.

And then there was that winter

I met my beau

and he walked me to my door

under a bunch of moonlit nights

when the shadow of a beautiful tree

danced so blithely along my wall

that I watched like a woman entranced

and whispered a prayer of thanks

to the One who cast it there.

So maybe,

if dreams are real

and the messages You send

are not just indigestion

or the crazy whims

of insomnia or a mindless flight,

then Cliff and I

will become one

and will be firmly rooted

by streams of living water--

water that pulls us

in the jolting current

of death and sorrow

and sickness and pain--

but water also that gives life.

And maybe,

in the heat of the burning sun,

we will cut a limb from our trunk

to make a little wooden raft

and float like Huck Finn

over the wild and warring waves

futtering ferociously by.

For we have a clever Captain,

and He will get us through.

And I suspect that,

if we do fall in,

we will surrender to the rapids

and find that even they

will lead us safely home.

Morning Glory

2011-08-03T07:29:00.000-05:00

Fresh raspberries make every day better. :)

You Are Mine

2011-08-01T16:52:00.001-05:00

Last week I was reading in Exodus about how, after Pharoah finally let the people of Israel go, God didn't let them go through the land of the Philistines for fear that they would find war there and be discouraged and turn around. Instead, He led them through a desert land.

And sometimes I feel like He leads us through indirect ways, through ways that are long but that teach us that He is the God of fire and cloud, the God who showers down daily bread, and the One in whom we live and move and have our being.

All this has kept this song in my head by Karla Adolphe from Enter the Worship Circle's Chair and Microphone, Volume 3. Enjoy!

maybe i don't have the strength

maybe i don't have the faith
you brought me here in forty years
when i know this trip should take a week

i've shed my tears and shed my blood

been held ransom by the flood

and winter steals my songs away
in all of this i've come undone

when you walk through the water
i will be with you
when you pass through the river
those waves they will not overtake you

when you walk on the fire
those flames they will not touch you
you are mine
you are mine

i've been a child
i've been a slave
and i've grown bitter
and learned to pray

i've packed my bags and started back
the cost is just too high to pay

when you walk through the water
i will be with you
when you pass through the river
the waves they will not overtake you

when you walk on the fire
those flames they will not touch you
you are mine
you are mine.

you are mine.

Isaiah

2011-07-25T21:50:00.002-05:00

O Lord, in the year that King Uzziah died, or maybe in the year I die to myself, please take a live coal from Your fire and touch it to my unclean lips. And right then, humbled and yet made new, send me out into the pain of a deaf, unperceiving world who may never hear what I have to say.

For all creation groans like a woman in labor, the hurt & beauty & wonder of it all. And I guess we may not know what we're looking for until it comes to life within us and shakes us to the core.

Joy

2011-07-21T21:26:00.000-05:00

There are some people for whom we wish a happy ending.

They're the kinds of people who love in the midst of doubt, who praise in the midst of uncertainty, and who know what it means to be broken and poured out and laid bare and healed once again.

And so, when I saw my sister Dana walk down the aisle of a church in a beautiful dress toward her awaiting groom, I rejoiced.

Not that this is by any means an ending; it is, as they say at every graduation ceremony, just the beginning.

I'm thankful for a God of restoration, one who doesn't abandon us in the hard times, but who gives us back even more than the years the locusts have eaten. He is the one who gives us daily bread when we lack the faith to ask for it; who allows us to find in Him the storehouse of all good; and who, even when we fail to recognize it, is always present to hear and answer.

And sometimes even, after many years of wandering in a desert, we hear His voice call clearly and gently to us in a burning-but-not-consumed bush. It is then, in that moment, that our pasts and our futures collide for just one moment, and all those things that we never understood make sense for the first time. Then soon, if we are brave enough to listen, we find ourselves the unlikely heroes in a great and beautiful story of redemption.

So here's to an ending. And a beginning. And to many more beautiful things ahead.

Congratulations, Josh and Dana!

T is for Turkey

2011-07-05T09:18:00.000-05:00

This morning I looked out my kitchen window to see a wild turkey gobbling along in back of my apartment. I guess he just wanted to hang out in the hood....

The Opposite of a Mirage

2011-07-04T21:38:00.001-05:00

My friend Alexis just returned from 6 months working in a mission hospital in Zimbabwe. In the time that she was gone, I re-met, started dating, and became engaged to a really great guy (more to come on this). And so, in order to ease her transition back to the US, the two of us spent the weekend at a beautiful bed and breakfast in the Flint Hills of Kansas.

I must say that my years of living with Alexis were some of the best of my life. But they were also probably some of the hardest--we both lived through sleepless nights, wrestled with the deaths of our patients, reached the end of our own intellects, dealt with heartbreak, and grappled with the big issues of life. In the end, though, we trudged through all of those hard things together. And we even laughed. We traveled to Vancouver and Louisville and Orlando and Oklahoma and Arkansas and Memphis and Nashville and the mountains of Colorado. Each of us learned the intimate details of one another's lives.

In short, we were given the beautiful gift of community.

I realize that, in many ways, that season will come--and, in large part, has already come--to an end. But I am confident that God will give us new seasons, made richer by the ones He has already given. He leads us on to bigger things. To more wonderful things. To things that grow us and challenge us and make us stronger. And so, my prayer is that this amazing, beautiful, courageous, loving, super-smart, articulate, funny friend of mine will herself enter more deeply into the love that our Father has for her.

Today on our trip back home, we came across this sign. I couldn't help but think of this quote from CS Lewis' The Great Divorce, in which two men were discussing the outcome of the followers of Jesus at the end of their earthly experiences:

"‘And the Saved?’
‘Ah, the Saved… what happens to them is best described as the opposite of a mirage. What seemed, when they entered it, to be the vale of misery turns out, when they look back, to have been a well; and where present experience saw only salt deserts, memory truthfully records that the pools were full of water.’”

I entered into residency expecting to find the misery of a desert; what I found were wells full of life. Of living water. And so I thank my Father for the hardness of that season, but also for the wonderful joy I found in its midst. And I thank Alexis for walking through me with it and for creating beauty along the way. I will always be indebted to her.

Lord God, help us to drink deeply all the days of our lives. With cups that run over. You who send goodness and mercy to follow us, anoint our heads with oil. And allow us to dwell in Your house forever.

Amen.

Betrothal

2011-07-03T18:39:00.000-05:00

I give thanks today
for a baby who never took a breath

but who brought you to me,
singing out his swan song
just before his heart stopped beating

in a body that bled like holy wine
from the womb of his mourning mother,

staining your hands and mine--

and thanks

to a God
whose beauty breaks me
and ravages me
and brings me back to life,

cutting me with its jutting surface
so that I can feel
both the joy and the weight
of this body

He has bought

with His own blood.

What is this thing He has given us,
struggling to breathe

as your hand touches mine

and all my nerves fire
with a congealed mess

of fear and desire,

the almost-but-not-yet
of this hope He placed in me

when He first breathed life
into my being?

Maybe it is a word,
struggling numbly to be expressed

and wishing for a voice
to speak it,

or at least the right time
to be made known.

He is the truth
and the hope
and the life

who will breathe for us
when we are empty
and broken
and waiting

for every good thing
to be brought to

symphony

and poetry

and the perfect prose
that only He can write.

So listen with me
as His hand takes the pen

and scratches out our story
for us to read--

the beauty
and tragedy
and life
and wonder

of dead bones coming to life

in a valley of indecision,

on a mountain of hope,

and through an in-between of discovery.

Today's Teacher

2011-05-25T21:27:00.000-05:00

Today I met this 10-year-old boy with lots of congenital anomalies--flattened nose, shortened appendages, scoliosis, etc. His mom was taking a toxic medication while carrying him, not realizing that she was pregnant at the time, and he was born about 8 weeks early, his first weeks being spent in the NICU.

This little boy ministered to me. He spoke excitedly through his nasal deformity and his snaggletooth, telling me how much he loved school and how he couldn't wait to get his shots.

I was humbled.

Because here I am, often wallowing in self-pity, when I have been given so much.

And here this boy, with nearly nothing to his name, had such joy.

I almost cried as I traced out the curvature of his back, wondering what all his little frame had been through in a lifetime--years of unertainty and pain and poverty and the realization of being "different".

But I hope, and I pray, that he will continue to bless many more people in this world, and that--someday--he will be blessed with a new and flawless body in the presence of the One who rescued him from every possible evil.

Thank you, Jesus, for showing yourself in unexpected places.

Promised Land

2011-05-23T20:55:00.004-05:00

I guess you knew all along

that I would lose my temper
with a staff in my hand,

striking it twice
upon a hardened stone

until water gushed out
to seal my fate.

So what did you see in me

when you let that maiden
draw me from the depths of the Nile

and raise me in a palace
of learning
and luxury
and lore
and lust?

And why

did you give me another chance

after I killed a man
and rushed into the wilderness,

blinded and blotted
by a burning bush

that seared my feet
in its holiness?

I told you I couldn't do it

but you asked
what was in my hand--

the hand carrying
my shepherd's staff

and trembling
in your presence.

I knew I was too weak,

but you asked me
to throw it down

upon the ground
that made it a serpent,
slithering
and sliding
and slowly surfacing
its way along the sand.

And so this very thing

became

my strengh

and my weakness,

allowing me
to fool a Pharaoh;

and to walk up to that mountain
where you wrote
on tablets for me;

and to raise my hands
in victory;

and to lead a nation
through the wilderness--

but allowing me also
to regret--

for I couldn't be satisfied.

And I wonder
if I ever believed

that you would feed me
with the finest of wheat

and allow
honey from the rock
to touch my tongue

while I stood here
gorging myself
with cheap imitations

in an attempt to feed
an eternal appetite.

But then

these hungers

are good;

they are little mirages
of a million more miracles

meted out for me

and for you

and for a whole host of people

who walk around
holding

eternal weights
of both glory and shame--

sometimes one,
sometimes another--

and wanting for nothing else
but to come
to the place they've always wanted

but could never quite name.

I'm standing here now
looking over its depths

and wishing--

really wishing--

I had just obeyed.

But I know the story,
and I can hear it still:

One.

Two.

And what is three?

The nails
bored in the flesh
of one

whose death
would make me whole;

the days he spent
dead in the tomb

before he showed himself again.

I see

I hear

your goodness even now--

for you have delivered
a nation

after all these wandering years.

Now please
deliver me.

Spring

2011-05-17T21:00:00.000-05:00

Thank you

for the bitter cold
of winter

and how you were there

when frost formed
on broken branches

and my roots shivered
beneath the hard ground.

Because

after the last bird
flew south
in a gray-colored sky,

you formed me

in the deep

underground

like a seed remembering
the tree from which it fell--

covered in the dirt

of a thousand years
and watered

with the sweat of
a great cloud
of gardeners.

And thank you

for pruning me
when I became unruly,

choked out by the weeds
of envy and self-pity

and the deceitfulness
of wealth.

It was hard to see
those branches fall

from every limb--

dead branches
killing me
beneath their weight,
yet beckoning me
to hold them tightly.

You are

the one I want to rest upon,

the one in whose ground
I sow my seed

and never want to move.

So allow the birds
to find a home within me,

or let some child
climb upon my
weathered trunk,

because I have learned
how to stand;

I have learned
how to hear;

and I have learned
how to love.

Say What?

2011-05-17T18:23:00.001-05:00

Quote of the day:

"Every time I cough, my booty hurt!"

Never a dull moment. :)

Hungry

2011-05-15T16:04:00.000-05:00

We live in a world of insatiability; as soon as we are satisfied with one thing, we find ourselves longing for more. Something better. Something longer-lasting. Something, perhaps, unattainable.

So we eat another helping.

We season our food with just a pinch of extra salt, hoping it will taste more savory this time.

We look to fulfill our longings in material goods, in relationships, in lust, in money, and--perhaps--in self-destruction.

At root, we find, we are fiercely carnal beings.

But those things we desire never truly satisfy us. We live as men and women who have just eaten a Thanksgiving feast and yet wonder if our stomachs could hold just a little more.

I feel as though I've lived all my life longing for something that I have yet to find. Now and then I get hints of it, when the sun hits a newly-fallen snow and makes it sparkle; when a musical chord hums life into my weary bones; when a word properly stated finds its way to me like poetry; or when deep laughter comes to drown out all my insecurities.

Those are short-lived, fading quickly lke the taste of cotton candy in our mouths, and yet--they bring me hope. Hope that my ailing body, my incomplete mind, and my weary soul will someday be replaced by bones and joints that will never wear out, with a mind fit to perceive all the world's mysteries, and with a soul whose greatest joy has been fulfilled.

Meanwhile, we wait.

But the waiting is a deep part along the journey, the place we realize who we are and what battles we are fighting and Who--most of all--is longing to take us home.

Home to the place I've always wanted, but couldn't quite dare to imagine. A place miles deeper than all my longings. And more satisfying than anything I've ever known.

Cut That Jibba-Jabba!

2011-04-26T09:55:00.000-05:00

Wait, so...apparently Mr. T is not only selling oven roasters via infomercial, but he has also traded in his bling for a khaki apron. Plus, he may no longer be using the word "foo" as a consistent part of his vocabulary. Paradigm shift....

The picture says it all, though. That's how I have to feel about that!

Cracked Kettles

2011-04-19T19:27:00.000-05:00

I've never been good
at speaking what's in my soul,

those beautiful words
dangling blithely

between my heart
and my lips,

hanging in a sort of no-man's land

while I long to say something

that will melt the stars.

My voice cracks
and I feel like a child,

wanting to whisper into the wind

and to know that I have been heard
without words--

understood

like the quiet groaning
that a Holy Spirit

translates before Your throne
in ways that I cannot express.

So maybe You,
in the end,

are the only one I can speak to

without a voice at all.

Or maybe,

in a cattle stall
forsaken by the world,

You became a voice

for me,

crying out for Your mother
in a strange, unruly world

and longing
to be back home.

But longing, also,

to take me there with You.

I think I'm ready now;

and I think,
though all the world

still blights and blinds me,

that I still know
the way.

A Wish Coming True

2011-04-17T17:19:00.000-05:00

It's been one of my dreams for awhile now to have and play a hammered dulcimer. So with the suggestion of my sister and the master work of a crafstman/musician friend, I now have my very own instrument in Kansas!

Today I underwent the task of tuning it; things seemed to go okay and, while I'm not anywhere close to playing most of Rich Mullins, I was able to play and sing along with the chords of "Sometimes By Step"--with a few fumbles here and there. ;)

I am blessed.

Resurrection (Psalm 22)

2011-04-17T11:46:00.000-05:00

If you bring dead things
Back to life,

Then restore the hope

That I planted deep into the ground
And watered with my tears

On a day
When I felt as though

You had forsaken me.

I feel like I'm seeing that seed
Springing to life now,

Peeking out above the soil
With leaves that You formed
In the darkest winter

And under the frozen ground

When all I could see
Was death.

But You are the God
Of resurrection;

You are the life
Who helps me overcome
My unbelief.

You have not forgotten me
Nor have you disappointed

The one who trusts in you.

So I trust

And believe

And know that,

Even when my heart was like wax
And melted within me,

I could tell of Your name
And know that You had neither despised
Nor abhorred
My affliction--

And that,

Even in the darkness,
You hid not Your face from me

But heard me
When I cried for help.

So I will tell of Your goodness
To generations yet unborn--

For I was dead,
And now I am alive

Because of Your death

Because of Your life

And because of Your sacrifice.

Lenten Prayer

2011-04-03T09:53:00.000-05:00

You made her
bone of his bone
and flesh of his flesh,

the first woman
famished

for the fresh fruit
of a forbidden tree

in a land of perfection
and plenty.

But long after
she knew Adam

and groaned in pain
to birth a boy
of her own flesh--

after many generations--

You became flesh
for me,

like bread
falling down from heaven
to feed a starving world.

So I eat of your body
and drink of your blood,

the holy wine
that wills me to stand

free from fig-leaf disguise
or the dueling deceit

of a slithery serpent
warring against me.

O give me grace
to fall

on my resurrected Lord,
the God-made-man

whose foolishness
is wiser
than all my wisdom;

whose weakness
is stronger
than all my strength;

and whose Spirit
is worthier
than all my flesh.

Becoming Like Children

2011-03-03T18:38:00.000-06:00

I saw this little boy today who had inflated a blue exam glove into a sort of toy, which I then held before him so that he could use it as a makeshift punching bag--great sound effects included.

He then looked up at me with this little smile and said, "Tienes dulce?" Ah, no...I had no candy for him. But I loved the unashamed joy with which he asked it--no pretense, no beating around the bush, no weak faith. He was convinced I had candy for him, and he wasn't afraid to ask.

So then I came across this quote today and, as you know, I have to get my quota of Rich Mullins quotes in, so...here goes...

"Before we had stifled the cross into a symbol, before we had softened grace into a sentiment, before we had systematized the power and mystery of God's greatest revelation of Himself into a set of dogmas, we were the children that we must become again.

And when we were those wee kids (you remember, don't you?) every stable was sacred because it was in a stable that Christ was born, and every star was an angel of God's presence because He had told Abraham to see in them the number of blessings to come. Every tree had hands to clap and mountains had voices, pebbles could penetrate the helmets on the heads of giants, sins were shameful and love was irrepressible.

And we prayed powerful, profound prayers - prayers so direct and wonderfully indiscreet that we blush now when we remember them - the prayers and the faith that lifted them up to God in those heights where we used to meet Him - heights that we now view drearily and dizzily and doubtfully.

We used to pray: "Into my heart, into my heart, Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come in today, come in to stay, Come into my heart, Lord Jesus..." and we can't grasp it much more now than we could then, only it didn't stop us from praying. When we were little, we gave ourselves over to faith. Now we are big, and too heavy to rise above our own understanding.

When we were kids we sang for the joy of singing, we colored and cut and pasted for the fun of doing it. We ran for the love of running and laughed and got scared and saw the world as a real place full of real dangers and real beauty and real rights and wrongs.

And if the cross is more than a symbol (and it is), and if grace is more than a sentiment (and, thank God, it is), if Jesus Christ is really God's revelation of Himself and not the product of human imagination (and He is), then we will become the children we once were and must become again. Stables will be temples, stars will be guarantees, "the trees of the fields will clap their hands and the mountains and the hills will break forth in singing..." We will pray and run and work and give ourselves over to faith. And God will be our Father and His Kingdom will be our home, for we will be those children we once were, and "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven..."

I want to be a kid again...

Gethsemane

2011-03-02T12:07:00.000-06:00

"Let us look at the deep mysteries that Gethsemane offers.

First, the Father offer His well-beloved the cup of wrath.
Second, the Son, Who is always so obedient, shrinks back and implores that He may not have to drink it.
Third, the Father does not grant the Son His request, but still gives the cup.
And last, the Son yields His will, is content that His will be not done, and goes out to Calvary to drink the cup.

O Gethsemane!
In you I see how my Lord could give me such unlimited assurance of an answer to my prayers. He won it for me by His consent to have His petition unanswered.

This is in harmony with the whole scheme of redemption. Our Lord always wins for us the opposite of what He suffered--

He was bound so that we could go free.

He was made sin so that we could become the righteousness of God.

He died so that we could live.

He bore God's curse so that God's blessing would be ours.

He endured God's not answering His prayer, so that our prayers could find an answer.

He said, "Not as I will" so that He could say to us, "If ye abide in me, ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you."

...Listen to Christ in Gethsemane as He calls, "If ye abide in me, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." Be of one mind nd spirit with Him in His giving up everything to God's will; live like Him in obedience and surrender to the Father. This is abiding in Him--the secret of power in prayer."

~Andrew Murray

Maria, Maria

2011-02-28T15:34:00.001-06:00

This morning one of my regular patients came in for an appointment. Her name is Maria; she's a very cute Hispanic lady in her 70s, and today she was wearing a pink-checked dress topped off with a warm woolen sweater. Yuri, the receptionist, asked what she was being seen for today and she said, "Oh...well, I don't know."

But, let me tell you, she loves coming in. My staff jokes that she and her husband must just come in to see me, with no reason needed.

After we talked a little bit about her leg pain, she told me (in Spanish, of course), "Doctora, yo oro por Usted"--I pray for you. Wow. So often I feel like I'm "helping" my patients, and all the while this simple little lady has been asking God to help me. "How long have you been doing that?" I asked.

"Oh, ever since I first came in to see you."

But then she became more serious and asked if I would pray for her--for the body of hers that is fading like the earthly tent that it is. I'm not the greatest at praying in Spanish, so I grabbed Yuri and she formulated a sweet prayer to our Father in the Heavens (Padre del Cielo) who loves and hears us.

When we opened our eyes, Maria had tears streaming down her face. Yuri hugged her, I got some tissues, and her husband thanked us. She then stood up, put her hands to her walker, and headed out into the wide, wide world.

Jesus is in the unexpected places--in the broken-down ravages of a spent life, in the middle of the deepest poverty, and in the hands of a simple lady who calls out to Him day by day.

I was humbled by that experience. And filled with joy--joy unspeakable, like the kind He came to give us from the very beginning. Joy that survives the fire, that laughs at sorrow, that always hopes. It is the unspeakable gift of a God who infuses every gray stroke with color, and who is the architect and builder of the city where these tents of ours can be packed away in exchange for a home with foundations.

In Memorium

2011-02-06T20:04:00.000-06:00

One of my patients was found dead in his home this week, discovered by a neighbor who must have looked upon his decaying body with the sort of sadness and mourning that accompanied Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus died without a Friend to intervene.

But this man had no family, no one to plead his case. Apparently the coroner contacted a relative in Virginia, but they decided to immediately cremate him without any memorial service. A life consumed by the flames, reduced to ashes in a matter of minutes.

We are all destined to go through fire, the kind that burns everything away and leaves us naked and bare and uncovered. And then all the things we have relied so heavily upon--our eloquence and wisdom and beauty and youth and vision and creativity--will be singed away in a single breath.

I want nothing more in the world than to be undivided. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2 that his preaching was not always persuasive nor wise nor wonderful. But it was breathed upon by the Holy Spirit. In fact, he states that he resolved to know NOTHING other than Christ. What beautiful singleness of purpose, a resolve that seeks neither the biggest program nor the widest following nor the most world-worthy sacrifice. A resolve that seeks Jesus alone, the only One who will be resurrected in our lives when every other part of us has been burned away.

May the Spirit sear your flesh, leaving you with a joy that goes beyond anything the world can understand; may He speak, when you have no voice, with groans that words cannot express.

And one day, when someone finds you reduced to the shell of who you once were, may there still resound a beautiful song that speaks of His love and joy and faithfulness. Things that will last. Things that will never be taken away.

Hovering Over the Deep

2011-01-30T09:14:00.001-06:00

Maybe mercy
is the language of the broken,

the song that swells in the garden
where every sleeping Adam

is being made alive
by a breath now inflating
his nostrils.

It is the hands

feet

limbs

mind

heart

of a God
who made everything good.

And maybe,
when the flesh
of that forbidden fruit
touches our lips--

when its juice
dribbles like a chilling tide
right down the chin--

even then
You have not stopped
breathing,

lungs expanding
and then shrinking back down,

providing food
for the hungry red streams
coursing through
every part of us

to the steady rhythm
pounded out
by a mighty
four-chambered muscle.

So now I find these fig leaves

pulled tight over my flesh,
their tendrils tickling my skin

to remind me
I can still feel

all the hope
and mercy
and beauty

you have instilled
in every nerve
and muscle
and fiber

that You have called mine.

And Yours.

And very good.

Quench

2011-01-23T16:11:00.001-06:00

I am thirsty

and all I want
is to lift this staff
and strike it twice
upon a rock,

waiting
for water
to wind its way
into all the cracked places
of my soul--

this staff,
like the one
I threw to the sand
that day you met me
in a burning bush

and I took off my sandals
because the ground
was hot and holy.

But maybe even
this thing in my hand
can be distorted

if I use it
in ways
you didn't want for me--

when I employ it to quench
the longing in my heart

with things
that won't satisfy

or when I grow so hopeless
that milk and honey
in a promised land
become like fables
or far-off fairy tales

instead of the place
you want to bring me.

Fill me

and use my broken speech
to tumble forth

like water
from a deep well--

pure and beautiful
and clear and holy

and full of grace
to stand.

The Lord's Prayer

2011-01-16T17:07:00.000-06:00

Lord, teach me to pray

Like the daughter You made me
When You took my scars
Upon Your own broken body

Hallowing Your own name
From a criminal's cross
When all I could do was profane it--

And be for me
The ruler of a kingdom
On whose ground I walk

Like the patriarchs--
Carrying tents
Until I should reach a city

With foundations.

Here in the unyielding desert

Be my daily bread,
Like the flesh you poured out
From heaven

To save me

When the wilderness was wide
And my body was empty

And I had no more
Bread for the journey.

Forgive me of all my trespasses
With which I have knowingly

And unknowingly
Violated your covenant.

And lead me not
To places of temptation--

To the bright lights of fame
Or the splendors of fortune
Or the finest face of beauty--

But to a place
Far from evil.

For Yours

Is everything.

You are
And Yours is

The kingdom

And the power

And the glory

Forever.

Amen.

Oranges

2011-01-15T21:34:00.000-06:00

So...I get a little obsessed with citrus in the winter time.......

and he shall be called

2010-12-09T22:26:00.000-06:00

maybe you knew
you were coming to a town
with no room in the inn

and where your best bed
was in the feeding trough
your mom filled with straw

as her almost-husband
shooed away the flies
from the nearby herd.

and maybe,
when this guy named elvis
curled his lip

and sang about your nativity
between a blue christmas
and santa claus lane,

you smiled and remembered
that you came
even for strung-out singers
in hideous white suits--

that you are the God
of the beach boys
and the indigo girls

and the wonderful counselor,
prince of peace,
and everlasting father

of sting
and bob dylan
as they croon about

the angel gabriel
and the virgin mary.

the thing is,
i think maybe that star
would've overjoyed
even bb king--

causing him
to place good ol' lucille
before the manger stall

while singing happy songs
like a school boy
who's just discovered
rock 'n roll.

joni mitchell would've
dropped off her dulcimer
and started skating off on a river
while you made her weak in the knees.

and nat king cole
would've stopped roasting chestnuts
over an open fire
to look at you instead--

kids from 1 to 92
recognizing
the dawn of grace

in an unlikely setting
devoid of producers
or editing ploys.

i want to sing
with stevie wonder
and louis armstrong
and emmylou
around your manger bed tonight,

joining hands
to laud that unlikely revolution
you started at your birth--

for blessed is he who came
in the name of the Lord,
who rode into town on a donkey--

hosanna
in the highest.

to the one
who accepted us
even when we waved
plastic palm branches
on your royal robes.

how beautiful,
how unfailling

is that kind of love--

o come
o come
emmanuel.

be the God with me..

The Way, The Truth, The Life

2010-11-21T10:12:00.001-06:00

Sticks and stones
May break my bones

But words can truly hurt me--

Not with wounds or bruises
Or any marks
Upon already-freckled skin--

But with deep gashes
In a timid soul

And sentences replayed
In my broken mind,

Relegating me
To a withered body
Whose flaws sing out
A song of sadness

Rather than one of beauty.

Maybe honesty
Isn't the best policy--

Honesty,
That truth without grace,
Without love,

Like one who yields
Himself to the flames

Only because
He looks better
In that light.

Help me to speak
Truth

Tempered with wisdom
And cooled with restraint

And the mercy
A Savior showed me

When He hung like a bandit
On planks of wood--

Truth itself
Disgraced by the world
And strung out
For my healing.

Take Your words,
Living poetry
In its fiercest form,

And paste them
Like beautiful garments

Over all my ghastly scars.

A new heart
And a new spirit

And life
Without a thief
To steal my joy--

Life without this tongue
Dripping deadly poison
Like a viper's venom

Going for the kill.

If by words I am justified,
And by them condemned--

Please help me to choose
The better way.

Weird Dreams

2010-11-21T09:43:00.001-06:00

I feel like I have whole-night dream montages most of the time...one dream just sort of fading into another to become a big epic drama.

But the only thing I remember about last night is that I was at this really big music conference, where an unidentified hippie gave me a lute. I was really excited about it, and then realized that the hippie was in fact David (the World Impact cook). It only had two strings, but somehow I picked it up and started playing it like a natural.

And then I realized upon awakening this morning that I had sampled one of David's homemade cinnamon rolls while over at Maren's last night. So I'm wondering if they were laced with something...

distractions

2010-10-24T20:45:00.000-05:00

spinning,

like the world on its axis--

but less orderly
and more haphazard--

my mind is filled with a million questions

and i wonder
(what's the chord to that victory song?)

if this is how martha was--
(did i do the right thing for the kid with that throat abscess?)

how she was worried
(was i unfriendly to that girl?)

and distracted
(what should i wear tomorrow?)

about many things--
(how am i going to pay back those loans?)

when only one thing
(where did i put my keys?)

was needed.

but i kind of like doing
eighteen things at once
and i need help
to fall on my knees--

to listen
to worship
to love
and to be--

and to know that these things
will never
be taken
away.

The Wailin' Jennys

2010-10-24T13:41:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I had the joy of being able to go to a Wailin' Jennys concert. It was amazing--their voices are outstanding, and I love their harmony. Plus they employ instruments such as banjos, ukeleles, and accordions. And during the second half, we were able to sit on the floor in front of the first row--so we had a first-hand viewing and hearing of the goodness. :)

They performed lots of my favorites that night, but they also sang some new songs--plus other people's songs that they were covering. One of my favorite such covers was written by Bruce Cockburn, a Canadian folk singer. Here are the lyrics, along with the Jennys' own rendition:

Goin' Down the Road

In the isle of Cape Breton my father did stay
And his father's father before
Fishing the banks and digging for coal
From the mines that don't give no more ore

And I'm goin' down the road, boys
Seeking what I'm owed, boys
And I know it must get better
If far enough I go

I remember the fishing boats returning so gay
Their nets with the silver cod blessed
But they couldn't compete with the company fleets
Now it's welfare, relief, or go west

So I'm goin' down the road, boys
Seeking what I'm owed, boys
And I know it must get better
If far enough I go

I came to the city with the sun in my eyes
My mouth full of laughter and dreams
But all that I found was concrete and dust
And hard times sold in vending machines

So I'm goin' down the road, boys
Seeking what I'm owed, boys
And I know it must get better
If far enough I go

'Cause I'm goin' down the road, boys
Seeking what I'm owed, boys
And I know it must get better
If far enough I go

The song is actually from a film of the same name, which chronicled the journey of some young men who left Nova Scotia to head to lives of promise and fortune in the city of Ontario. But, life instead proved to be not at all what they had intended. I love that line--"all that I found was concrete and dust, and hard times sold in vending machines."

Sometimes the world feels like that, too. But the good news is that we do seek a land of substance; we seek a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. And He is creating a city for us--one that will outlive and outlast and out-marvel all of our expectations.

But for now, concrete and dust. Hard times. But the hope that all of this will someday be shaped into something beautiful.

Surrender

2010-10-16T21:59:00.002-05:00

Life is about
all those broken dreams
you bury beneath
the battered bricks
of some dark, blind alley

when no one else is looking

so you can play out
the triplet-tune of taps
on the tinny trumpet
in your tired head.
And it's about all those things
that seemed so perfect
until you took them off the shelf
for a little while

and set them down in a fierce forest
to be trampled under
fox-foot and fiercest storm.

I guess I always thought
that all the king's horses
and all his men
would put all the broken pieces
back together

so I could forget about
all these cracks
on the surface of my heart.

But maybe it's time
I turn this sword into a plowshare
and my spears into pruning hooks

and fall

like a seed to the ground--

like that very king's son
coughed up upon the earth
by a clenching contraction
in a young girl's womb--

painful grace
in the costly clothes
of death-bound humanity.

Ashes to ashes,

dust to dust,

let me die to myself

as a reverie sings out
and another seed
finds fertile ground
in the soil of his sacrifice.

And let me love
with the love
of that son

who both crushes me
and puts me back

together
again.

joyful girl

2010-10-16T20:17:00.002-05:00

here i am

singing this verse once again--

the one
i always expected to end
long ago
with a broken harmonic chord
followed by some clever modulation
and a semi-cacophonous chorus
resolving just in time
for the final note.

but maybe repetition is good--
the not-so-subtle reminder
that there is grace
in the broken stage
i've stood upon all my life,

squinting in the dark
to spy out
the half-built frames
of an audience
who never paid to enter.

i can smell
the musty air
of this age-old theatre
tickling my nose hairs
and filling up my lungs

even though it's not the ocean breeze
i always dreamed
it would be.

broken is this world,
fallen down like a wounded child
after a scraped knee

only to find
life
in the salty tears
that wash her sores

and in the way
her body clots the blood--

no more a scarlet fountain,
but so beautiful for that moment
even though it pulsed with pain.

such is the weight
of good and evil,

the lonesome voice that called my name
even when i didn't think
i had one--

and that calls
even now
though my voice cracks
and my knees buckle
and the crowds blur
into a globby sea.

i am yours,
and you paid to listen
to the groaning melodies
of this broken heart

and to give them
a fitting end.

but i am still waiting.

waiting.

and singing.

in sorrow--
but more often--
in joy.

God's Promise

2010-10-10T20:57:00.001-05:00

This evening I arrived home from Arkansas, where some friends and I had traveled to be a part of Ashley and Sean's wedding. Yesterday was gorgeous, and the bride was amazingly beautiful as well. Some of us stayed an extra night and then went camping in the Ozarks this morning. On the way back we saw this ominous-looking cloud....

But then, when I got back to my apartment building, I drove past the clinic and noticed this:

A double rainbow! I remember once during my first or second year of medical school, I was talking to my sister Dana on the phone and just feeling discouraged about my life. Somehow I felt like I had gone into medical school to serve God, but I was instead just learning what innervated the masseter muscle and how many bones were in the left foot. "Sometimes," I said to her, "I just feel like I want to know that I'm in the right place."

Just as I hung up the phone with her, I hopped in the car to go get groceries and saw--a rainbow. It was like God's reminder to me that He was not finished with me.

And so, it seems fitting to see another one now, like this confirmation that the Lord is at work in this new clinic and I just have to stand by and see all the great things He is going to do.

Such a joy to have peace like that. The Lord is good, in hard roads and in smooth ones. And he turns even the darkest clouds into something really beautiful.

A Feast, A Fountain, and a Far-Off Land

2010-10-03T20:39:00.000-05:00

At the end of this
Curious season

I embraced all the things
We saw fall down
Like manna from the sky,

Putting that wafer
On my tongue once more
And feeling it dissolve
In a finite instant,

Gone before I could tell
That it had ever
Really been there.

And I thanked the One
Who bled like a sheep
Sentenced to the slaughter

While we bore nails
Into his tired flesh

And distorted
A beautiful painting
Into something

Broken
Tired
Blemished
Torn

And only a poor print
Of what it once was.

But today
I played that
Regina Spektor song

And wore patterned tights
With my leather boots

And remembered
Who I was

And who you were

And how,

Someday,

Maybe we'll make
Some beautiful music

In the place
Our voices were meant
To be heard--

And how
We've been
Strumming out some tired tunes

All these years

With dissonant chords
And missing strings
And cracked voices

When all we want to do
Is enchant the angels.

I want to sing
Without fear,

To love
Without fear--

To walk through the desert
And know

That water is waiting somewhere.

And that, even now,
I don't have to thirst.

Ezekiel's Dry Bones

2010-09-26T18:24:00.001-05:00

You said
That after many days

I would find that bread
I cast upon these waters

When they crept out
To my shallow shore
And crashed themselves
Upon my dry bank.

It's been a few years

And all I've seen
Are the soggy remnants
Of a duck's last dinner

Coughed up
Upon a murky riverbed
Decorated with
Yesterday's trash
And the broken glass
Of an alcoholic reverie.

So maybe you could give me
Just one thing at a time--

Seed to plant
In the soil of my heart

And grain
To fill this empty stomach,

Water
Pure like a running spring

And oil
To pour upon my head

And dribble down my face

Like the shepherd David
In an unsuspecting pasture

Before he slayed that giant
And played the harp for a king.

Till then I'll keep kneeling
Writing poems in the sand

And singing the only psalm
My voice can sustain--

Something like a hallelujah
Or a half-tuned hymn of praise.

Untitled

2010-09-26T17:49:00.000-05:00

Most of the time
I don't allow myself
To consider what I've lost

Or to remember
How it felt

To see a freckle
Sprout itself
Like a weedy plant
On my pale skin
For the first time--

How it felt

To stand shivering
Under the cool water
Of the sprinkling hose

And feel no earthly shame.

Where is the emotion
I felt in every bone and sinew

When my heart was broken
Like the shattered remains
Of that clay pot

That I'd always wanted
To use for noble things?

And why,

In the middle of the fiery kiln,

Do I feel like I want to crawl out
And crumble
Rather than endure the heat

Of knowing I am here alone?

Flood water upon me
Like tears from your holy eyes,

Putting me back together
With all the king's horses
And all his men--

Cutting your palm
Upon the scratchy surface
Of my rugged edges

And pouring out your blood

Into every corner
Of my calloused heart
To cover and make it clean.

Maybe it feels safer to forget--

But some days

I just want
To remember

The good
The bad
The hard
The beautiful

And everything
In between.

Struggling For Words

2010-09-22T22:12:00.001-05:00

Lots of my patients are Spanish-speaking only. Some days I feel like I'm communicating effortlessly with them; other times I have to get a little more...creative. Like yesterday, for instance, when I really couldn't think of the word for "sweat".

"Uh...perspiración?" I attempted.

Sometimes these random guesses strike gold. This time, nothing.

Come to find out the word is "sudoración", which I discovered today because a dear friend of mine bought a medical Spanish dictionary for me and left it as a surprise at my doorstep. But in the meantime, barring any other great ideas, I started referring to sweating as "when you get hot and water starts coming out of you."

Hey, I was desperate. :)

All these little adventures in communication, though, have made me think about what it means to be understood. To be understood fully, not just in part--like being seen for the first time after years of being perceived only as a dim reflection in a smudgy mirror.

Recently I've been realizing that a big part of the groaning in my heart is simply to be known. But good ol' Freddie Buechner once wrote, "What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else."

It's true. Being known means showing all the gunky stuff in my soul.

And sometimes I'm sad when I remember that, for whatever reason, I can't be truly "known" right now the way Adam knew Eve. That God has chosen to keep me around tending animals in a beautiful garden, coming up with all these fitting names for them--and yet not finding one of them suitable for myself.

I suppose, in the end, no human love could ever fully make me complete. And really, I have so-so-so much that I don't deserve. So maybe I'll just embrace that empty feeling and know that this groaning for intimacy is one that will only be truly satisfied when I see the One who gave it to me in the first place.

But still, sometimes I just can't help but wish for a small taste of what that will be like--of how it will feel to know that my whole soul has been laid bare. And that I am still loved. Loved enough to die for; loved enough to live.

Something that only death can part. Not moving; not the whims of someone else's selfish heart; not a new season or a change of plans.

I guess what I've always really wanted is to be fully me, fully known, fully loved, and fully aware of something even better than all of this. But I'm still just naming another animal, putting it back in its place, and finding that no one else quite speaks my language. It's like I've been put to sleep, but my rib hasn't yet been used to make anything new. Instead, it's just been pulled out--and my side hurts.

But in the meantime, I cry out with all the birds and the sun and the moon and the sea creatures and the great deeps: Hallelujah. For this groaning that won't go away. For loneliness. For little glimpses of intimacy. And for hope. Hope unseen; hope that doesn't make sense; but hope that doesn't disappoint. This is the thing I want to communicate, though I can't quite translate the ache into anything real and my tongue gets tied and everything falls to the ground. But one day, maybe I'll finally find the words to say.

And then I will know, even as I am fully known. Face to face. Soul to soul. Forever.

Keys to the Kingdoms

2010-09-19T20:18:00.000-05:00

This is the boat whose wood
Left splinters in my hands

As I nailed down its boards
And patched each leaky spot
So that it was fit
To walk on the water.

And this is the net whose rope
Calloused every finger

As I wove it together
In perfect patterns
So that it could catch
The fastest of fish.

But I rowed out on the lake
And cast it upon the waters

Only to find nothing at nightfall.

And I headed home
With empty hands
And downcast heart,

Thinking I'd never deny you
But knowing when the rooster crowed
That I was undone.

So breathe life
Into these things I've hewed
And fashioned from hard work

When I've forgotten
That all it takes

Is one word from you

And I will pull from these rivers
More than my nets can hold.

Wash not just my feet,
But my hands and my head as well--

Because I'm tired of tinkering in tiny creeks
When you want to give me the ocean.

Bluegrass Festival!

2010-09-19T13:42:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I drove with my friend Amanda to Winfield, Kansas for the annual Blugrass Festival there. It was really fun! We also met a few other friends down there and saw some good bands, watched part of the flat pickin' and hammered dulcimer contest, ate homemade ice cream, etc. Here are a few pictures...

The main stage--watching the Greencards

Amanda and myself in the stands

One of the stages...the back of a truck bed! :)

Part of the hammered dulcimer contest

Have I mentioned that I want to take up the hammered dulcimer? :)

The First Day

2010-09-13T22:05:00.000-05:00

So I did start my job today--and it was good so far. :) But then I came home and cooked. And then we "decorated" Dennis's office for his last week. I assure you that I at no time in the process had my hand on any toilet paper. All I did was make the sign--really, it's true! :)

Here are some highlights....

The new badge!! But wait...sounds a little too official for me. ;)

Roasted acorn squash...mmmm

Curried Squash Soup

Yummy veggies with homemade peanut sauce

Watermelon!!

Rafael hard at work :)

Jen and Yuri

I made the sign...except for that last exclamation point that Rafael turned into a letter.

The whole gang. :) Notice the little pyramid to the left. Ayayay...he's gonna be "surprised".

After all the excitement, I'm really tired.

The End of an Era

2010-09-12T10:04:00.000-05:00

Well, today's the last day of my 6 weeks of freedom from pagers, from work, from responsibility. It has been such a wonderful season--nothing heroic, nothing all that outstanding--nothing except maybe taking care of myself for the first time in a long time. After all these years of training and waiting to get to the next step, I'm here. Tomorrow I start my new job. These weeks have been some of the best of my life. Maybe more than anything, they've helped me remember who I am. They've helped me to remember that all those dreams I had as a little girl are desires that my Father put in a timid and aching heart.

Up to this point, I'd just been letting the world spin madly on...

Woke up and wished that I was dead

With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
I thought of you and where you'd gone
and let the world spin madly on

Everything that I said I'd do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on

I let the day go by
I always say goodbye
I watch the stars from my window sill
The whole world is moving and I'm standing still

Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
The night is here and the day is gone
And the world spins madly on

I thought of you and where you'd gone
And the world spins madly on.

This song, to me, is about losing myself in all those things that the world spun around me. And how I forgot all the joy planted within me, all the things I said I'd do when I got to some other season. But that season is now. It's the one I've come to after sorrow and fear and pain have tried to rob me of beauty. Because, when all those voices die down, I realize that God is the one who has been speaking all along. That the groaning in my heart is only for Him--for grace--for redemption. I'm so thankful to feel like 'me' again.

Thank you for finding me, Jesus. Tomorrow--and every day thereafter--is for you.

Going Over the Rhine

2010-09-09T10:20:00.000-05:00

Last night I got to see Over the Rhine, one of my favorite bands, with my friend Amanda. The pictures didn't turn out great, but the music was amazing! And we were basically in the front row (sitting on the floor, mind you--but still--amazing).

There are lots of reasons why I love this group. But there's nothing like just listening...so, this is one of the songs from last night. It's really not even my favorite of their songs, but it will maybe give you a little taste of their style.

This song is called "All I Need is Everything". I'll just post the lyrics, because I think they speak for themselves:

Slow down. Hold still.

It's not as if it's a matter of will.
Someone's circling. Someone's moving
A little lower than the angels.
And it's got nothing to do with me.
The wind blows through the trees,
But if I look for it, it won't come.
I tense up. My mind goes numb.
There's nothing harder than learning how to receive.

Calm down. Be still.
We've got plenty of time to kill.
No hand writing on the wall:
Just the voice that's in us all.
And you're whispering to me,
Time to get up off my hands and knees,
'Cause if I beg for it, it won't come.
I find nothing but table crumbs.
My hands are empty, God. I've been naive.

All I need is everything.
Inside, outside, feel new skin.
All I need is everything.
Feel the slip and the grip of grace again.

Slow down. Hold still.
It's not as if it's a matter of will.
Someone's circling. Someone's moving
A little lower than the angels.
This voice calling me to you:
It's just barely coming through.
Still, I clearly hear my name.
I've been fingering the flame
Like tomorrow's martyr.
It gets harder to believe.

All I need is everything.
Inside, outside, feel new skin.
All I need is everything.
Feel the slip and the grip of grace again.

So from now till kingdom come,
Taste the words on the tip of my tongue.
'Cause we can't run truth out of town,
Only force it underground.
The roots grow deeper
In ways we can't conceive.

All I need is everything.
Inside, outside feel new skin.
All I need is everything.
Feel the slip and the grip of grace again.

All I need is all I need.

I want to learn how to receive. New skin. New heart. The thing I can't force underground, because it just grows deeper roots in my soul. That is truth. That is everything.

Treasure

2010-09-08T13:17:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking recently...what if God gave the people closest to me everything they'd ever wanted, but withheld all those things from me, giving me only Himself? Would I grow bitter, or realize that I'd actually been given the best gift of all?

Good ol' A.W. Tozer once said,

"The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever."

What do I treasure more than Christ? Admiration, love, deep friendships, money, respect, success, amazing talent? I could gain the whole world, but what empty things to crave at the expense of my soul.

Maybe I've spent so much time looking for happiness--that "one more thing"--that I've forgotten the One who defines what happiness is.

Remembering

2010-09-06T13:59:00.002-05:00

It's funny how time gives perspective. And how coming out on the other side is like knowing myself again for the first time in years. I remember a girl who invented secret societies and wrote songs at the drop of a hat and had lots of things to say, but didn't always feel like saying it. I remember how she wrote funny little stories and read books with her sisters with their backs on the floor and how it felt when she shelled out a pumpkin for the first time. And I see her there with a mischievous look in her eye, feeling the goopy stuff on her freckled arms and wanting to fling it at her brother across the table.

Now, after all these years of what the world refers to as "higher education", I wonder if maybe my biggest challenge is to preserve the wonder that I had back then.

There's this Polaroid picture my brother took once when I was sitting at the kitchen table wearing a shirt with different-colored stars. I may or may not have been sporting a side ponytail. For some reason I was acting shocked--eyebrows up, mouth open, hand up to my face--and he decided to get out the old camera. I want to remember that picture. I want to remember that I am the same Dee Ann who got distracted from board games by blood pressure cuffs and breathing machines and other eclectic implements. I want to remember what my great-grandma's voice sounded like, and how it smelled in that old apartment in New Castle. I want to remember the way it felt to play Mendelssohn on the piano and how my mom's vegetable soup tasted. I want to remember the shade of purple those mulberries stained my shoes, and the way it sounded when a whiffleball soared past me and whistled.

And maybe, after all, those memories are not something I have to forget. Because they are a part of me--that scar on my chest, that song in my head, that smell transporting me back to the fall of some far-off school year. They are with me when I tell my story, when I see that wrinkle at the corner of my eye and know that I have lived a life more wonderful than anything I could've imagined. Because Someone must be an even bigger dreamer than I am.

Letting Go

2010-09-05T20:06:00.001-05:00

"It's hard to let go anything we love.

We live in a world which teaches us to clutch.

But when we clutch we're left with a fistful of ashes."

-Madeleine L'Engle

I've always been a sentimental fool. And one of the biggest fears in all my life is that I would forget--that I would not remember how it felt to run up and down the drive as a child or to swing from that huge oak tree in the front yard. Or to hold a dusty basketball in my hands, some of the leather bumps worn down from overuse, and to throw it at an old creaky backboard on the gravel lane of an Indiana farm.

I'm pretty sure I cried when we stopped decorating the Christmas tree with the cheap wooden ornaments left over from Mom and Dad's first season together. And it's sad to think that I don't quite remember the chords to that Debussy song or how to do a differential equation or how I learned to sing harmony for the first time. Sometimes I wish I could hide under my sister's tall old bed again and remember what it felt to tell each other secrets from the depths of our hearts.

But I will never be able to relive those moments, and the more I hold onto them, the more tarnished they become. It's hard for me to love without holding tightly. And it's hard for me to live when I'm entangled in the past.

Maybe, though, letting go does not mean forgetting. Maybe it just means putting it on the shelf for awhile, where it might collect a little dust and fade in the sun and grow into something other than what I put down. But it'll be there when I come back to it, when the need to remember grows strong and I want to be sure that my memory is not just an illusion. Maybe remembering, after all, is something I need deep within me--so that I don't grow so old that I lose the eyes of a child. And when I blow the dust off and polish the surface and see my reflection once again, I'll be thankful to have lived those moments and to know that they made me who I am. And that, in the end, they were all just little parts of my story. Parts, but not the whole.

Funny, how it feels so strange to be empty-handed. But I'm tired of clutching. I'm tired of seeing beautiful things turn to ashes in my palms. And I'm learning. Learning to let go. Learning to hope. Learning to be filled.

Summer Nights

2010-09-02T22:42:00.000-05:00

Why is it that I always get so contemplative in the evenings?

Maybe it stems back to all those nights my sisters and I slept in the same room and talked about everything under the sun (or the moon, I guess). And how we would drift off to sleep feeling like the world wasn't so big after all, and maybe we weren't so small, and maybe there were things like music and poetry and happy endings and all the things we were too scared to hope for in the daylight.

I miss feeling that kind of intimacy. I miss feeling like I live in a world of possibility. I miss feeling like love and grace are intertwined, and that giving them means getting them back.

So when I fall asleep tonight alone in my bed, I think maybe I'll cry a few tears in gratitude of those sweet memories. And hope that, maybe someday, I'll feel them once again.

Lost and Found

2010-09-02T15:00:00.000-05:00

I've never been the best at keeping track of things.

Okay, that might be an understatement. Ahem. I lose things really, really, really easily. Or, as I like to say, "misplace" things. There was this one pencil I used in high school and loved, and I think I asked my mom about a thousand times if she'd seen it. Once as a child I left my prized stuffed animal in a hotel room, never to be found again. I've lost a passport, my social security card (did end up finding that one), my wallet, and my mind on several occasions.

One year for Christmas, I got about three of those "clap-to-find-your-keys" devices from friends and family. I'm not sure what kind of message that was trying to send, but--needless to say, I could stand to improve in this area.

Last week I drove to the Memphis International Airport to pick up a friend. I had arrived from Indiana a little earlier than expected, so I parked and went to sit down inside. About 15 or 20 minutes later, I got a call from my friend saying she had just landed. So I stood up (for some reason I was sitting on the floor), gathered my things, and went to meet her. But I noticed that I didn't have my key. I searched my shoulder bag again...phone....wallet...harmonica...dental floss...you know, all the essentials. But no keys.

I ran back to the bathroom I'd stopped in earlier, but again--no keys.

So then I went and met Jenny and said, "Umm...I think we have a problem." Thankfully she loses things quite easily as well, so she was patient with me. We took her things out to my car, which remarkably was unlocked. There we searched around for the missing items--but nothing. I sat in the driver's seat and prayed, "Jesus, please help me find my keys. Thank you."

Then we went back inside. We even searched (half-heartedly) a trash can where I'd thrown some things earlier. Nothing. I saw a woman who looked official and asked if there was a lost and found. She directed us to this white phone, which we picked up and used to talk with an officer. Sure enough, some keys had been turned in. We waited for awhile and then he came out to meet us. "What did your keys look like?" he asked. "Well...they're connected to a brown band...with...sock monkeys on them," I replied. "Yep, those are the ones," he assured me.

And the next thing I knew, I was the proud possessor of these puppies:

I have no idea how I lost them. Apparently they'd been picked up by a Starbucks kiosk, but I don't even remember being anywhere near there.

So there you have it. What was lost had been found. And I rejoiced. Because, for whatever reason, God chose to be gracious to me once again. So we drove off listening to blues music and hungry for barbecue. And thankful we weren't literally walkin' in Memphis.

Contrition

2010-08-25T11:47:00.000-05:00

God, forgive me for trying to write profound things instead of letting silence speak. Or of cheapening your Spirit so much that I feel the need to act in His place.

I want a pure heart.

A Tale of One Record Player

2010-08-19T16:17:00.003-05:00

So...last fall, after my roommate Alexis stepped several times into my cups of water on the floor, I had decided that an end table might be a nice thing to have. And I told her that. Shortly afterward I was out walking around the neighborhood and--lo and behold--one appeared.

I headed closer to get a better look and, wonder of all wonders, it had a top that swiveled open to reveal...a record player! Phone in hand, I called Alexis to deliver the good news: "God has provided!" I said with a smile. She seemed a little skeptical.

But, out of the goodness of her heart, she helped me get it into her car, back to our house, and into the perfect location. Ahhh...I was even able to set my swimming-frog coaster on it to avoid condensation and all that jazz.

I plugged it in and--music! From the radio, though. I then switched over to the record player. The turntable spun, then...quickly gave out. Argh.

Several weeks of residency later, I had the chance to buy some WD-40. I sprayed it generously in any place I thought might help. Sure enough--success!! But then I needed one more thing: a stylus.

Hmm...one little needle was the only thing holding me back from hearing tunes scratching themselves out on vinyl.

Months passed.

And a couple more months.

And just a few weeks ago, after moving into my new place, I asked Maren if she knew of any record stores in town. The stylus buying guides online were just a little too confusing for my small mind. Sure enough, she steered me to a place. I drove past and--apparently they've now taken to repairing flat screen TVs. (Probably a good business move, I guess.)

But then--there across the street I saw it. A record store! And apparently it was new. I went in and the owner, who looked yellowed from nicotine and was wearing a Rod Stewart screen print T-shirt, happily sold me the one remaining item I needed.

So I took it back home, hooked it up, and--voila--the Carpenters!

It's good to be reminded of happiness in the midst of the every day. I think God likes little surprises like that.

*By the way...this puppy has an 8-track player as well. But don't tell my grandma--she might get a little jealous.

Water

2010-08-14T08:41:00.005-05:00

Funny
how tears
blur my eyes

and yet let me see
your face,

the one I've always squinted
to behold
like a poor reflection
in a grimy glass.

And how
you must have been there
all along,

but I was so busy
looking at myself
that I missed
the shadow
that held me

and gave me grace

like oceans
drowning out
all the salty rivers
flowing from my face.

This is the beauty
of all my days,

the hand that caught me
when I first came
screaming
into the world

and couldn't see
that every moment
made for me
would be

like a new birth--

like learning to walk again
without witless words
to tangle me
in their deceptive cords

like hearing a voice
with such clear chords
that my doubts
could not destroy it

like knowing
you have cored
the hardness from my heart
and left flesh in its place.

I'm sorry, God,

for wanting easy things

when this--
this--

is life.

Life without a thief
to steal
and kill
and destroy

the joy that
trickles down my cheeks
and lands on the ground below.

Joy like a fountain

and earth like my heart.

faithful in the ordinary

2010-08-10T10:40:00.005-05:00

Jeremiah 12:5 says,

"If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out,
Then how can you compete with horses?
If you fall down in a land of peace,
How will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?"

But so often I want to run with horses. I want to do some remarkable thing. Instead, God calls me to stay in Kansas to work at a clinic that, truth be told, will not be doing heroic life-saving acts of wonder like all those stories of mystery and intrigue we hear of from around the globe.

But then I remember. I've been to some of those places. I've lived with a poor Spanish-speaking family in Guatemala and delivered lots of babies in Pakistan and seen the ravages of HIV in India. And in all those far-off and enchanting lands, life always comes down to the ordinary. So if we haven't been able to be faithful here, we sure won't be able to be faithful there.

2 Kings 5 tells the story of this guy Naaman who had leprosy. He was a remarkable kind of dude--captain of an army, highly respected, a valiant warrior. But this skin disease was kind of holding him back. In the course of his disease, Naaman hears about this prophet who could heal him. So he packs up ten changes of clothes, a bunch of silver, and large quantities of gold--and off he goes to be healed.

First, though, he goes to the King of Israel. That seems more likely to achieve something, right? Wrong. The king doesn't know what to do, so he tears his clothes.

Then Elisha comes on the scene. Naaman approaches him, flanked by horses and chariots, and I'm sure he must've been thinking, "This Guy? There must be some mistake." And then when Elisha's instructions come--just wash seven times in the Jordan River and you'll be like a new man--Naaman surely felt like this had been a waste of a journey. No incantations? No showy miracles? And besides, the Jordan? There are better rivers than that.

One of his servants, though, comes near and says, "Wait. If this guy had told you to do some great thing, you would've done it, right? So why not just do this?"

Then Naaman plunges himself seven times in the Jordan and his skin becomes like that of a little child.

It's humbling sometimes to follow God. We want to heal someone, He wants us to walk with them in their sickness. We want a breakthrough, He wants to teach us patience. We want worldly recogniton, He gives us a small circle of influence. 'Cause we will never learn to do great things if we haven't ever lived the ordinary.

But maybe, if we're faithful in the small things, He will one day entrust us with a kingdom.

Instead of a Show

2010-08-09T13:23:00.004-05:00

There was this girl I knew in high school who used to semi-surreptitiously flash her report card in front of people in order to receive praise (at least, that's what it seemed like). Somehow it would "happen" to fall into our line of vision in orchestra rehearsal, during passing periods, in the cafeteria, or in any number of other such encounters.

And I never really wanted to pat her on the back because of it. Maybe it was because she was trying too hard; maybe it was because of my own pride; maybe it was because I didn't understand how much it meant to her.

But maybe, it was because it was too "showy".

I wonder if that's how God looks at us sometimes--whether these things we try to do "for Him" are really just a way to look better ourselves. Maybe, when I do things "in His name" in order to bring glory to myself, it is like waving a report card in front of the maker of the universe. Not that impressive.

Amos 5 says,
"You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
You will not live in them;
Though you have planted lush vineyards,
You will not drink their wine...

I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.

Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.

But let justice roll down like a river,
Righteousness like a never-failing stream!"

Wow. I wonder how often I sing or write or even pray for my own glory. I wonder how I have trampled on the poor with my words or thoughts or actions, and how I have neglected the greater calls of just and righteous living.

The fact is, it's not that glorious (or easy) to do things that are hard. To do things that no one will see or for which no one will praise us. It's much easier to sit in a land of comfort and to feed on the fat of other people's labor, all the while celebrating our 'blessings' in a show of wealth.

But maybe I've gotten it wrong this whole time. Maybe, instead of show, God just wants me to give up myself.

I don't always know what that means. But maybe the first step is just taking that report card and tearing it in two. And getting my hands dirty instead. And in caring more about having the poor into my home than in impressing the rich and powerful and influential. The poor may not pay us back. But that's probably the point.

'Cause isn't that, after all, what Jesus did for us?

*Here's a little song rendition of these verses, by Jon Foreman. Kinda ironic, I guess, that a song is involved--but I like it. Oh, and he says it's from Isaiah, but I think he means Amos. I guess all those prophet dudes must've looked alike.

compassion and humility

2010-08-07T12:46:00.005-05:00

I've been thinking recently about compassion. Namely, about how to have it. A few years ago I went on a retreat with Henri Nouwen's book by the same name. In it he says that compassion

"is not a bending towards the underprivileged from a privileged position; it is not a reaching out from on high to those who are less fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to make it in the upward pull.
On the contrary, compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there.”

He goes on to say that to have compassion means 'to suffer with' someone. That Jesus came not to take our pain away, but to share it with us.

So after that retreat, I looked for a way to enter into the poorest and most suffering neighborhoods of Wichita. I teamed up with World Impact and now am about to start working in a clinic right next to where I live. Violence is alive, even in Wichita. I see cop cars parading through and picking up suspicious characters all the time. I hear stories of messed-up lives, of unwanted pregnancies, of mental illness, of abject poverty in the midst of a land of plenty. I have visited a patient twice in jail, listening to her tell the stories of her addictions--addictions to narcotics, addictions to alcohol, addictions to being loved by some worthy man, addictions to the brokenness of her own self-image.

And sometimes this can bring pride. It's good to feel like I'm helping people, even though strongholds are like deeply-rooted stalks that grow in the waters of shallow self-pity. It's rewarding to tell people that I work with the poor, to see their features suddenly soften and to hear them praise me for doing it.

But as long as such is the case, I am not showing compassion after all. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, probably his most famous passage, that we can give EVERYTHING WE POSSESS to the poor but, without love, it is lifeless and means nothing.

So maybe, in order to have compassion, we must also have humility. I just read another one of good 'ol Henri's books and found this:
"In order to be of service to others we have to die to them; that is, we have to give up measuring our meaning and value with the yardstick of others. To die to our neighbors means to stop judging them, stop evaluating them, and thus to become free to be compassionate."

Just think how much better I could serve if I truly loved others better than myself? If I wanted their good above my own and didn't care about impressing the world? Lord, I repent. Which brings me to some song lyrics by Derek Webb. This is my prayer:

I repent, I repent of my pursuit of America's dream
I repent, I repent of living like I deserve anything
Of my house, my fence, my kids, my wife
In our suburb where we're safe and white
I am wrong and of these things I repent

I repent, I repent of parading my high liberty
I repent, I repent of paying for what I get for free
And for the way I believe that I'm living right
By trading sins for others that are easier to hide
I am wrong and of these things I repent

I repent of judging by a law that even I can't keep
Of wearing righteousness like a disguise
To see through the planks in my own eyes

I repent, I repent of trading truth for false liberty
I repent, I repent of confusing peace and idolatry
By caring more of what they think than what I know of what we need
By domesticating you till you look just like me
I am wrong and of these things I repent

May we empty ourselves like Jesus, becoming true servants who are obedient to death--death to our own ambitions, death to the opinions of the world, death to our own self-righteousness. 'Cause then, and not before, we will really be compassionate.

Oh, how high a price.

Extravagant Gifts

2010-08-05T20:44:00.010-05:00

Lest you think I'm suffering too much, I'd like to share some pictures from my latest jaunt to Colorado. My friend Maren, who used to live here, has a friend with a cabin in the mountains--and this friend just 'needed' someone to stay here for 2 weeks while she visited her grandkids in Texas. Hmm. Let's think. Yes--yes, I will. I'll take the hit.

*All pictures are from my phone--excuse their semi-poor quality. :) Here It Is!Here I Am!Maren splitting firewood with the handy-dandy log splitter (it's cold enough to make fires!) :)A River Runs Beside It :)

Breakfast stop on the way to Colorado Springs

And the very large breakfast Naomi and I shared there. :) Garden of the Gods
Reading by the River

Highlights so far include meeting Maren's friends, roasting marshmallows in our very own wood-burning fireplace, long walks/prayer with Naomi, really deep laughter, getting together with a former attending and his family in Dillon for homemade fettucine alfredo, and good books. I've already read Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ by Jeanne Guyon and The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen. Oh, and we made fresh basil last night with pesto from the garden. Yum. The internet may be extremely slow and my phone service may be patchy, but after 3 years of constant calls, I must say I'm enjoying a pagerless existence.

Thank you, Giver of all good things.

Discipline

2010-08-05T18:41:00.004-05:00

I've wanted all my life to grow, and yet the reality of that process is maybe the thing I fear more than anything else. Suddenly the cutting begins. Branches begin to fall off--good branches. Ones that gave me beauty and grew fruit and gave shade to those on the ground below. And I watch in horror as everything I once carried lies dead on the ground beneath me. But then, at the end of the coldest winter season, I can see something new beginning to grow. It is hidden in its bud, and it hurts as it begins to peek out at the sun. But it is the thing I always wanted to see--but couldn't --as the rotting-out limbs I loved so much clung like parasites to my surface.

CS Lewis once said,
"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of--throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. The command 'Be ye perfect' is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into new creatures that can obey that command. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what he said."

I have been bound and broken. My eyes have been bruised and my nose has been bloodied. But I know I am alive. I know that to serve is to suffer. And I know that to endure is to be crowned with a reward that I will never have to give up. Because it will be lasting. And perfect. And what my Father was building all along. But pain was the only way to get there.

Still, sometimes I just wish I could see the blueprints.

On the Last Day of Residency....

2010-07-30T07:27:00.005-05:00

If all these years were an 11-part book series or an 11-season TV drama or an 11-verse song, there would no doubt be resolution. All the loose ends would come together in perfect form; the lost dog would be returned; the heroine would realize that she did, in fact, love that handsome man all along (even though she made his life miserable in season 7); the tension of the second-to-last chord would drown in an achingly beautiful harmony.

But instead, we come to the fulfillment of these long-hoped-for dreams and realize that some things don't have a happily-ever-after ending. We feel deeply the pain of loss and are reminded all too often of our weaknesses. And the things we struggled with in an earier season are not necessarily explainable (or overcome) in this one. In the end, we taste the marrow of all life's goodness and realize that it just leaves us hungry for something more.

Maybe that's because we're never satisfied. Or maybe it's because we want to see the place where love and beauty and joy are formed. But along the way we lose hope that we'll ever see that place, or that there even is a Garden where the sweetest fruit awaits our hungry mouths. So we fill ourselves with the best this life has to offer--relationships and food and money and ambition--only to find ourselves empty in the end.

I believe that someday I will sit at a feast. But it'll be a different kind of meal than I've ever tasted, because it will leave me never hungry again. I believe in a kingdom where the lowly will be exalted, where the poor will be made rich, and where the sick will be made well. And in a King who is coming to rescue me--maybe not today, but at a perfectly-nuanced time.

But until then, I guess I have to live with the truth that I see only a dimly-lit version of this epic script; that the end which seems so fuzzy now is not just a fable; and that the story isn't over yet.

There is, in fact, another volume. Another chord. Another season that will make every other seem anemic and empty.

So here's to the end. And to the beginning. And to all the glimpses of goodness along the way.

Judas Kiss

2010-07-22T11:24:00.002-05:00

You knew one of them
Would betray you,

One who drank
From the same cup
And dipped bread into wine,

Swallowing hard
To choke away
That one sliver of remorse

Left over after
The last supper.

And when he kissed your cheek
To put the final
Seal upon your death,

You must have known
That he loved those
Thirty silver coins
Much more than you.

And you must've wept

Not for yourself,
But for the blindness
Of a broken heart

That pierced your own
With its sharp point.

I wonder if you now
Weep over me

And if you pray for my soul
When an enemy
Asks to sift it as wheat

And whether, in the end,
I have chosen any better

Than to buy a dried-out field
And hurl myself headlong

Into a million worthless intents

Instead of you.

Residency Hymn

2010-07-21T15:58:00.002-05:00

*Taken Straight from Nehemiah 9 (but personalized a little bit)

Even when I made for myself
A calf of molten metal (it's so easy to idolize things)
And said, "This is my God
Who brought me up from Egypt";

And committed great blasphemies,

You, in Your great compassion,
Did not forsake me in the wilderness (call nights);

The pillar of cloud did not leave me by day,
To guide me on my way,
Nor the pillar of fire by night,
To light for me the way in which I was to go.

You gave Your good Spirit to instruct me,
Your manna (the Word) You did not withhold from my mouth,
And you gave me water for my thirst.

Indeed, forty (three) years You provided for me in the wilderness
And I was not in want;
My clothes (scrubs) did not wear out,
Nor did my feet swell.

I captured fortified cities and a fertile land.
I took possession of houses full of every good thing (like the one I'm housesitting now),

Hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive groves,
Fruit trees in abundance (like the pear tree in our yard in WV).

So I ate, was filled and grew fat,
And reveled in Your great goodness.

Yeah. I think I'll just keep reveling for awhile.

last call

2010-07-17T21:07:00.004-05:00

In 144 sleepless nights
I have been stripped of all metaphors
and picked clean of poetry
while standing under
the gaudy glow
of fluorescent light bulbs
that make my skin
look wrinkled and gray.

No, there's no joy
for my soul
in the neighborhood ER
that smells like bacon
at 4AM
when the next ambulance
drops off the latest victim
of an unjust world.

And maybe I, too
would gladly swallow
a bottleful of pills
if I thought they would
land me an adjustable bed
in the nearest ICU
and the chance to show my wounds
to one more team of onlookers.

Or maybe
we all just want
to drift off to sleep
and wake up in the place
where all our broken dreams
are stored in massive piles
along with the missing pieces
we've looked for all our lives.

And maybe,
when I rise with the sun,
I will simply remember
the ring of the spectra-link
and the beep of my pager
and all those awakenings
that happened
when everyone else was sleeping.

Because maybe that's what it means
to be alive.

Salutation

2010-07-13T08:23:00.001-05:00

O generation of the thoroughly smug
and thoroughly uncomfortable,
I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,
I have seen them with untidy families,
I have seen their smiles full of teeth
and heard ungainly laughter.
And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am;
And the fish swim in the lake
and do not even own clothing.

-Ezra Pound

Wild, Wonderful

2010-07-09T09:30:00.003-05:00

My two weeks of tropical medicine training in West Virginia have been really fun! I've learned about exotic diseases, boomslang snakes (I just feel like "boomslang" is a useful word), low-tech procedures, and low-cost treatments. Oh, and about living in community. John and Lisa Birky (plus their son Jude), Alexis Carmer and I have all lived in the same house and have shared meals, sung songs, gone on camping ventures, walked to class, and experienced life together.

I like the hodge-podge-iness that comes from being a vagabond-ish. Yeah, I made up a few words there--deal with it. ;)

Anyway, it's been good for my creative life to have little structure. I'm kind of reminded of doing 'project group' while sitting on bean bag chairs and listening to soothing music in the dark, just like we did at my quirky 'Logos Lab School' back in Indiana growing up.

As Annie Dillard once said...
"“No child on earth was ever meant to be ordinary, and you can see it in them, and they know it, too, but then the times get to them, and they wear out their brains learning what folks expect, and spend their strength trying to rise over those same folks.”

Maybe, after all, I was made to be unusual. To be extraoardinary, if not extraordinarily quirky. And to live the way I was made to be, instead of the way the world expects.

But maybe, too, I can be wide-eyed even in the routine of the every day. GK Chesterton says,
"A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, 'Do it again'; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough... It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again,' to the sun; and every evening, 'Do it again,' to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

May each of us grow young. And may we see the wonder in the ordinary, in the mundane--even in the profoundly sad. For this is the joy and beauty of being forged in the passionate fires of humanity, of being infused with life in our awaiting nostrils, and of knowing we are made to enjoy all this. Even if for a season.

To Feel Alive

2010-07-08T12:29:00.002-05:00

Why did I ever believe
This man-made thing
Could hold you--

This idol built
By my own hands

And flung down before me

Like a gilded god
Before which
My knees bent and bled
Upon the gravelly ground?

I guess I thought
The highest heavens
Were smiling down on this

And turning
Ugly scars
Into something
More like beauty--

Like jagged pieces
Somehow fit
For earth's most broken places.

What vanity
To keep my heart
So pure from all the world

When here I am,

Undone

Before the crowds
Who sing cliches
Of how you
Worked for their own good
And made them rich and happy.

Maybe you will give
A better gift
In all of this,

But maybe you just knew
That these thousands
Of sweet hours--

Hours of truth
And love
And laughter
And growth
And tears
And music
And creation
And loss--

Were the deep emotions
Of humanity
That your heart felt for me

And the things you wrote
Into my life

To flesh out
My weak faith.

After the Offering

2010-07-08T09:42:00.004-05:00

This may be the deepest I've felt anything
As my eyes behold this slayed offering
And turn every way to look for a ram
With this bloody blade in my trembling hand.

This may be the truest of all of my tears
Falling upon my life's fiercest fears
And knowing I have to relinquish my grasp
But fighting so hard to cling to the past.

I thought you said you were always good
But I'm wondering if I misunderstood
'Cause I can't quite see what you have in mind
So I have to believe that I'll know in time.

Bus Fitty Sis

2010-07-02T09:20:00.005-05:00

I'm kind of surprised that, up to this point in time, I haven't mentioned more about one of the times and experiences and things that made me who I am. I'm talkin' about Bus 56.

It was a venerable melting pot of Americana, full of kids from poor and rough backgrounds along with a couple kids whose yuppy-like parents had decided to petition the bus garage director (a guy named Mel) to change the route so that we wouldn't have to cross a railroad track on the way home. Oh, and my siblings and me.

From the hallowed interior of this yellow-framed vehicle, I saw through the half-slat windows a world that I had never known: broken-down homes next to scrap metal factories and shady-looking apartment complexes and mangy-looking dogs and the like.

And the action inside did not disappoint, either. There were vomiting episodes with subsequent sawdust sprinklings; conversations about Kris Kross and their latest song lyrics; recurrent fights; and, to liven things up, occasional dramatic moments involving road blocks.

Allow me to elaborate. One day, while headed home on our prescribed route, we got to a railroad track with its barrier arms down. The bus driver stopped, naturally, thinking that a train must be coming. We waited. And waited. And then waited some more. Nothing came. Finally the bus driver got on the CB with the bus garage in order to ask advice. Apparently they advised us to keep waiting. At this point a girl named Lulu was slightly hysterical and screaming, "I want my mama!" Another kid was running around acting as though he were spraying air freshener. An older girl was singing a limerick from a TV commercial. Havoc, one could say, was breaking loose.

Finally, after several more minutes of sitting around, we watched a small one-car railroad implement cross in front of our line of vision. Shortly afterward, the barriers went up to allow us safe passage.

Anti-climax, I'd call it.

But yes. The drama and the beauty and the poverty and the insanity are what made bus fitty sis such a dear and wonderful part of making me who I am today. It opened my eyes to a world outside my door, a world of both richness and need--a world of unfounded laughter and unprecedented joy.

*At the end of the day, by the way, maybe the railroad petition wasn't so crazy after all.

hollowed-out

2010-06-25T16:03:00.003-05:00

it's all the things
i thought i'd do--

like knit that scarf

or become a world-class
creme brulee concocter

or write another song
before the piano keys.

and it's the many minutes
i spent on the floors
of this happy home,

reading poems
and chasing crickets
and looking at the stars

through the arched windows
covered with ivy

like the garden of eden
must've been

all those years ago.

and i'm thankful for
this season

though i never
quite fixed
that record player

or learned to speak
unblemished arabic

or turned those chipped plates
into something beautiful.

maybe it's okay
to leave some things undone

and know

that everything else
was worth the sacrifice.

Invitation

2010-06-25T13:20:00.003-05:00

You know how
one day

you wake up

from all those years
of toil and training

only to realize
that this

is what you've worked for
all your life?

And how you realize
the way of the

upwardly mobile

isn't one
you could ever justify

in a world of sickness
and suffering
and sorrow?

And how,

after all this time,

you're still
the same old alien

that you were at seventeen?

Maybe this groaning
in the bottom of my heart

has never been an ache
for anything
that rests upon
this crumbling earth,

but rather a longing
for my true country--

the one I hope to find someday,
the one

I do believe

is trendier than the iphone
and happer than a striped sock
and prettier than an oyster's pearl.

So in betrayal and hurt

and even in a thousand days
of the sweetest joy

I am reminded
that I've been invited

home.

Wayfaring Stranger

2010-06-18T22:20:00.004-05:00

Just after
You washed my dusty feet

And the muddied murkiness
Of all my days
Filled the basic basin,

You spoke of a house
You were building
For me--

You, this homeless man
With no pillow
For your head,

Stripped of honor
Even in your own town.

But you said
This place had many rooms--

And one built just for me

Even after
I'd lost all hope
And denied you
Three whole times
Before one dawn.

So teach me
How to take a towel
And wash the feet

Of the poor

And the sick

And the captive

Who walk these roads
Beside me
Day by day.

Then teach me
How to wander
Like the sojourner
You've called me to be--

Like one
Who knows she's never been

Anywhere but far from home.

5-Minute Reflection

2010-06-07T21:51:00.004-05:00

Maybe this
Is how You came today--

In a boy
With bad teeth
Who smelled so foul

That I found myself
Cowering back

Instead of leaning in
To look at his ears.

And when the wax
Felt spongy
On the other side,

Like mush upon
My breakfast spoon,

Maybe You were reminding me

Of the contrasting hardness
Of my calloused heart--

One that longs now
To break

The way Yours aches
For me.

So my hand touched
His filthy shoulder

As my light
Hit the tympanic membrane,

This shiny surface
Caving in
Like the canvas of a drum

To give birth to sound.

Speak, then,
In my silence--

More than banging gong
Or clanging cymbal--

Deeper

Holier

More like love.

Psalm 11

2010-06-06T18:21:00.003-05:00

As I wrestle not
Against flesh and blood,

In the Lord I take refuge;

How can you say to my soul,
'Flee like a bird
To your far-removed mountain?'

For I have been called
To the battle,
To this earth
Where a blind arrow
Could pierce
And break
My heart.

And though the foundations
Of this firmament should fail,

The Lord is in His holy temple.

He is
Enthroned in the heavens

Where I will someday
See His face

And know that He fought
Every war

And every foe--

And that all I had to do
Was be still.

Just and Lasting Change

2010-06-04T20:50:00.002-05:00

Carl Taylor is one of the leading experts in the field of public health (and one of my heroes). Here are two statements that he has made:

"The greatest barrier to community development is the health worker."

"It is doctors who make people feel like they can't care for themselves."

Wow. Sobering statements. Thoughts?

Foxes Have Holes

2010-06-01T18:48:00.003-05:00

I am no stranger to suffering--

I have watched babies die
Before reaching
The arms of their mothers

And have seen a legless boy
Running upon calloused hands
To catch an elusive bus;

I have held a boy of three
While his flimsy ankle joints
Struggled to sustain his steps

And have stood at lonely bedsides
As flies lighted upon
Bodies wasting from disease.

But, to my shame,
I have cried more tears
For my own sorrows

Than for a world
Marching to a lonely death
Before my blurry eyes.

So forgive me
For demanding a season to plant
When I live in a land

Whose very nature
Is to pluck
And uproot--

For thinking that,
Though you had no place
To lay your head,

I could somehow deserve
A pillow
Of the finest fortunes.

Give me grace
To enter the pain
Of my fellow human beings

Who live like motherless wanderers
When you have longed
To gather them under your wings

And to show them
That, after all,
We were made for another world.

Shattered Tablets

2010-05-22T16:46:00.001-05:00

How many idols
Have I formed in my hands

Just after veiling my face
To your glory—

After leaving
Mount Sinai
With stones in both arms
To remind myself
What you desire?

And how many times
Have I held on so tight

To the empty riches
Of this broken life,

Hoarding them

Like forbidden fragments
Of the golden calf

That would spew forth
From this blazing furnace

If I ever gave
Them up to its flames?

Help me to let go
Of every treasure
That will burn
In the light of your radiance

In a land where moths eat
And thieves steal—

Where hope dies
And the richest love

Is broken
And bound by condition—

Because I want no other
No other
Before you.

Broken Kingdom

2010-05-20T18:23:00.002-05:00

Have I wandered all these years
With never-worn-out sandals

Only to forget
That You are the one
Who led me through every desert storm?

And when you sent deliverance
In a string of quirky conquering judges,

Was I so enticed by other lovers
That I cut off all my hair
And forgot that you had been my strength?

Help me not to ask for a king
Just because everyone else
Is ruled by one

Or because I’d rather bow
To a master other than You.

But give me joy
In listening

As a servant

To the only One worth hearing.

The Substance of Hope

2010-04-23T12:37:00.002-05:00

I wrote this several months ago, but I wanted to share it now....

I feel like
You’ve called me to slay
The very gift
I’ve longed for
All my life—

To bind it
Like a blameless lamb
On a bloodied altar,
Bludgeoning its life
With my own trembling hand.

Are you really the one
Who likened my heirs
To countless seashore sand

And the ever-glowing light
Of a spacious and star-pocked sky?

Then why do I dwell
In this thread-bare tent,

Lowering a blade
Upon all my hope
As I cry for mortality
To be swallowed in life?

Be with me here
On this jagged mount,

Watering dried-out seed
With the scarlet sacrifice
Of a righteous ram.

Oh, great Shield
And eternal Reward,

Do you still have power
To bring back the dead?

My faith is a hulled-out shell
Flung deep in the ground,

A faint flicker
Of the light I beheld
When I first heard your voice
And believed.

So sing,
All you heralded heavenly hosts—
The rousing refrain
Of my whispering worship.

I lift up my arms and surrender.

Woe Is Me

2010-03-16T03:26:00.003-05:00

(see Matthew 23, 2 Corinthians 4)

How do I know
I'm not just a white-washed tomb,

A well-kept exterior
Hiding the piles of dried-out bones
Left over after my biting words and ways
Have ravaged my fellow man?

Today I strained a gnat
From the steaming broth I sipped
Into my open grave of a throat--

But then turned to swallow a camel,

Its coarse hairs
Tickling my esophagus
As its raw flesh progressed
Into my already-full stomach.

And I tithed my herbs and spices

While forgetting the call of justice
And the weight of mercy
And the beauty of abiding faithfulness--

Oh, how I wish I had pursued these
Without neglecting the others!

Show me the better way,

The one that frees me to sit at your feet
Instead of scurrying about
In schemes of self-righteous ceremony.

For this world values exaltation,

But you ask me to humble myself
And live as a servant.

So hide life within me
Like illumined joy
Surrounded by a clay exterior;

Strip the paint
On this sordid sepulchre

And burn the bones inside,
Breathing out upon the ashes

To resurrect my life.

Emptying Myself

2010-03-10T04:05:00.000-06:00

You are in the least of these--

In the grubby fingers
That dirty my face
And the poor beggars
Who lie with hands outstretched.

You are the man
Lying bony-framed
On this makeshift hospital bed,
Coughing up your bloodied sputum
For my own lungs to breathe.

Give me hands to feed
And water to quench;

Help me to invite you in
With warmth that clothes you,
Loosing your imprisoned spirit
And touching your filthy wounds--

Because, so often,
I would still rather serve myself.

Doubt

2010-03-10T00:56:00.000-06:00

I believe.

Help me overcome my unbelief--
And the pious statements of sentiment
That set me on unreachable heights.

For in the darkness of doubt,
Stripped naked like the remaining frame
Of a withered and unwanted child,

I need to know someone real
Is willing to carry me home.

Free me from cheap cliches,
From this striving toward worldly approval

And from a watery version
Of the life you poured out for me.

Spill your blood upon me
And make my spirit clean.

I believe.

Unfinished Symphony

2010-03-02T07:04:00.005-06:00

When you sit down
To write the score of my languishing life,
I wonder how many tears and anguished blood-drops--
How many dirt-covered hands and sweaty brows--
You will sift together as through a sieve
To make a silt like that which remained
After every earthly wave had warped me.

And I wonder if all those moments,
Built like brokenly beautiful sandcastles,
Will be chopped away like measureless measures
Under the conductor's unforgiving pen,

Destined to lie on the creaky floor
Of someone else's studio.

Who knows but that the milestones,
Those markers of this new-spun narrative,
Are resplendent only because
They have been birthed from the miry muck
And fashioned from the messy, muddy moments?

O, dear composer of my sounding song,
Sing through every note
Like harmony through deep dissonance.

And show me that these clay-caked chords
Are but the sand-grains between my toes,

The rough and refining fragments
To make this chorus complete.

Believe in Yourself?

2010-02-28T10:12:00.002-06:00

These are some thoughts by good ol' Rich Mullins...

"Who wants to go through a life where you never mess up?...Perfection is boring, folks. Anyone who ever did anything messed up...."

"...We are told to believe in ourselves, and the end result of believing in yourself is that you end up putting a lot of pressure on yourself because you've got to be worthy of that faith. The wonderful moment of freedom is when you can finally say, 'You know what? When I die, I'll rot. When I die, they'll put me in the ground because if they don't I'll stink up the place so bad that people will be repulsed by it, and it will be better to be buried than to stink. Ultimately that's what I amount to.' Thank God that there is a God who is beyond me. Thank God that there is a goodness beyond my goodness. Thank God that there is grace beyond what I am able to extend. Thank God that there is life beyond my life. I believe that I will be resurrected not because I myself will have power to pull myself out of the grave, but because there is a God who loves me and who will raise me up and give me a new body...and man, I've got a great one picked out."

Love (III)

2010-02-14T04:46:00.002-06:00

I've had this George Herbert poem (written in the 1600's) framed and in my bedroom for the last several years. It speaks to me of the incomprehensible and unreachable love of God, who walks with us in our brokenness and--even in our filthiness--calls us to come eat at His table.

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

May His fierce and unending love fill all those empty and bewildered and insecure places of your souls.