Just Pat

"...all language about everything is analogical; we think in a series of metaphors. We can explain nothing in terms of itself, but only in terms of other things." (Dorothy Sayers, Mind of the Maker, 1941)

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Location: West Michigan

Sunday, March 27, 2005


Women at the Tomb

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Goodbye Old Man

(Quotes are from A.W. Tozer, "The Pursuit of God")

The sunrise this morning was gorgeous. I wonder what colors the sky gave to the visitors to Jesus' tomb so long ago. They probably never noticed. But, this morning in West Michigan, the sunrise declares itself the proud eye-witness to Jesus' resurrection. So I wonder.

I'm thinking about Gethsemane this morning. I'm thinking of Jesus' intense wrestling with his call, his ties to to the world, his humanity. Why did he go through the agony of Gethsemane when we all know that he was destined for the cross? What was the point of asking the Father to take his cup of suffering from him? Wasn't the cross his call? The whole reason for him to live and walk among us?

It's a mystery to me, how Jesus, being God, allowed his humanity to touch him so deeply that he wrestled with it. If I were Jesus, I would want to flip on the God switch and detach through the whole thing. You know, let's get on with inevitable; just do it. But, I'm so not Jesus.

I don't know why there was a Gethsemane for Jesus. I can guess, but I have so much to learn about him, and I won't pretend to have him figured out. But, I have learned something from his suffering, for which I'm thankful. A roadmap for me, based on choice, submission, and hope.

I read this from Tozer this morning, about the "old man":

"The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough, old miser within us
will not lie down in obedience to our command. He must be torn out of our
heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a
tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by voilence...we
will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we
are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices
for us - just one and an alternative - but our whole future will be conditioned
by the choice we make."

Perhaps part of the reason Jesus allowed us to see his suffering at Gethsemane was to show us there are no shortcuts, even for him. I find hope for my redemption, and the redemption of the world, in the fact that Jesus wrestled, even though he was without sin, before he willing submitted himself to the Father. My daily choices gain importance in the light of God's call. And, the part of my heart that clings to the world is revealed in this light for the tough old miser it is. The old man can't live in the light of God's presence in my heart; he has to die in the darkness of Gethsemane, and I have to put the knife in my Father's hand. Lord, help me to be faithful to submit to your hand.

Goodbye, old man.

I've said goodbye to that old man many times. He drags his feet, but, in bits and pieces, he goes. And he's still going. Through my choice, to submit to the Father's will, by hope in the resurrection on the other side.

"Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for
Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus
name. Amen."

Good morning, Jesus. Thanks for the sunrise.

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Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Pace

I choose walking for exercise for a lot of reasons. Not that I need a lot of reasons.

I have a hard time exercising at a gym or in my home. I tend to view it as a chore and not a pleasure. I have to have a purpose in what I'm doing other than the obvious benefit of fitness. Lifting a five pound weight over my head 30 times just doesn't give me that purposeful sense. I'll say it: I get bored.

But I love to walk. When I walk, I have the reward of getting to where I'm going. I can feel my heart rate increase, the blood moving through my legs, the tension on my muscles. I breathe fresh, outside air. I am away from phones and people and obligations. I pray, and sense God's presence. I slow down.

I've been walking to work the last two days, and walking to lunch. I've missed it so much. It's been a long, long winter and I'm so ready to reclaim the air outside my house.

Yesterday I took a quiet one mile walk to Blimpies for lunch. As I approached the counter I heard a man talking at a table: "...and I had to look at 46 digital cameras and then blah blah blah then he said blah..." He said it so fast that he reminded me of a Benny Hill skit on fast forward. It surprised me that I noticed, really, because that's the world I live in. But, just taking 20 minutes to walk to the sandwich shop slowed me down enough to hear him differently.

Then, of course, I had the 20 minute walk back to work, so I had plenty of time to pick the event apart. At first, I started feeling guilty for being so busy that I related to fast-forward man. Why can't I just slow down altogether, find a vocation and a life that is slow-paced and more suitable to my introspective self? Am I driven? Am I oblivious?

So I walked again today, and thought about it some more. I eased off on myself a little, and considered the possibility that I'm slow paced and driven. And that the world we live in is both, and everything in between. I pictured a river, with a strong steady current below, and small streams running within it at different paces, all heading to in the same direction, all spilling down to the lowest ground, all at different speeds and with different beauty.

I think I kick myself in the arse too quickly sometimes. Not that I don't need it.

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Saturday, March 19, 2005

Despair Redeemed By Hope

"Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs
mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to
find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency
that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that is without
problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair."
I made it through chapter two this morning, although I will probably linger in it for a week or so.

I am so encouraged by reminders like Merton's that the system we live in is foreign to God's way. We're on a journey through an unseen world that is consumer driven, results oriented, merciless, and vain. The beauty that surrounds us is skewed by the lens of this system, and we're so immersed - I'm so immersed - in the system that we can't see the beauty without a system failure.

Then we're in dangerous territory. Then the earth shifts, and the ground we've been standing on reveals whether it is solid. We experience that loss of footing, and are forced to decide whether to push in toward God as we've never known him, or to watch the god of our false securities whither away, taking our faith with it.

It's a choice. It's a scary choice, made with little data, in the dark. We are faced with our frailty in the midst of the world that demands strength. We look for support in the traditional venues and find in the end that we are truly alone, with only one hope. And we choose Him, or we choose the ignorant security of the dark.

"A life without problems" is the standard of our culture. We all know it isn't attainable, but we strive for it as if we were never going to die. The expectation haunts us, hovers over us, looks over our shoulder like a cruel teacher. We know better, but it creeps into our relationships, our work ethic, and our theology like an adder. We fail or struggle, and that spectre is there. But at that moment, we're on the brink of the realization of God's glory, peeking through the crack in the lie of the unattainable.

Someday I'll be with my Savior in an eternal world where despair and pain are no longer present or needed. I've never heard a preacher say, until this morning, that there is hope in a life that verges on despair. Merton reminds us that pain and despair are redeemed as a lamp to see God through the fog. Death is swallowed up in victory. I like Merton.

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Thursday, March 17, 2005

Love With a Bow On It

I've been reading "No Man Is An Island" by Thomas Merton. I've been in the first chapter for the last month. Every sentence he wrote is a deep well.
In this first chapter, he has a lot to say about love; what it is, what it isn't, how it survives and grows, how it is shackled. Most of it is very familiar to me, but Merton adds clarity and punctuation in all the right places.
I read this line this morning:

The gift of love is the gift of the power and the capacity to love, and,
therefore, to give love with full effect is also to receive it. So, love
can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly when it
is also received.

I've been stumbling over this concept because it doesn't fit well with my theology. I believe strongly that God's love for me is not limited by my lack of reciprocation. He has been gracious and patient with my spiritual retardation, and he has lavished his presence on me in my lucid moments. So, if when we were yet sinners - non-reciprocating, self-focused, with dark hearts - Christ died for us, what does that say about perfect love? Or, loving perfectly? Merton's take on perfect love implies an equity that I will never know with God or with my loved ones.

In order to go on to chapter two, I've decided to add a couple words of my own to Merton's. I will say, "(Love) can only be given perfectly when it is received as it is given back. If I wait for my friends to love me in the way I might think I've loved them in order to call it love, I think I'll live a loveless life, robbed of the gift that is given to me because I don't recognize it. If God were to wait for me to love him the way he has loved me (which my heart longs to do), he would not be the God of the cross. I choose grace and thankfulness. With a great big bow on it.

Also, I will continue to give love whether or not it is reciprocated. It may not be "perfected" by a response, but it's the way of the cross, and well worth the expense of the gift.

Rambling thoughts, I know. But dang it, I've got to get on to chapter two.

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Sunday, March 13, 2005

Just stupid stuff

I laughed hard twice in the last hour.

The first hard laugh: I watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" for the first time. It was taboo when it played at the theater when I was a teen. So, not being a theater-goer movie-watcher type of gal, it took 30 years for me to decide to watch it. The magic happened when I thought it was near the end, and the music played as I stared at a blank screen waiting for the chaos to resume. The phrases of the piece changed just slightly enough to make me think that the next scene was coming. But NOOOOOO...the same introductory measure popped up again and I waited. And I became impatient, but I remembered that I felt that way earlier in the movie and I was rewarded for the pause. Then the music changed a little and I sat on the edge of my seat...then that same annoying intro measure and I waited. And I waited, and then the music changed and then, after five minutes of waiting, it's...it's...the end! The friggin' end! IT WAS GENIUS!!!

Okay, THEN I went to my computer to see if the monk chants were faux latin or the real thing. Yeah, I'm kind of obsessive that way. Anyway, I had no internet connection. So, I did other things for a couple of hours, then I returned to no internet connection, which meant no latin and that just wouldn't do. So, I pulled out my phone book (which I don't do much because I like to look up numbers online) and called SBC Yahoo DSL Help. I got James, who helped me but who helped me like a helper who wants to help but doesn't have a clue how to be helpful. I found myself coaching him to help me. Maybe it's me, but I swear, I don't think I should have had to help him that much. The best part was at the end of the call, where I had finally passed every stage of the cyber gauntlet and had achieved connection once more, and James gave me his send off speech, which went something like, "My name is James, and if you ever need further assistance you may find it by going to help.sbcglobal.net and have a nice night goodby." Okay...if I ever can't use my browser again, I should enter the magic url and I will be miraculously transported to a cyber assistant who will save James and his ilk from the likes of me. I didn't even say goodby. I think he had already hung up.

I never thought lack of satisfaction could be so much fun.

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Monday, March 07, 2005

The Construction Chronicles, Part 11


Another rip-roarin' nail poundin' floor stompin weekend, and I'm sore but happy.

We got the stair treads in, the bathroom subfloor down, more kitchen cabinets painted, and trim up around all the windows.

And there were some lessons learned.

• Always keep bandaids in every room of the house. At all times.
• Make it a point not to try to drive nails through a window pane.
• Don't expect to paint a door from start to finish without a not-so-subtle hint in between to run down the two flights of stairs to fetch coffee. You'll only be disappointed.
• When using self leveling cement, following the instructions is important. Mystical things happen when you don't prime the surface before pouring. Amazing things.
• When you hear the air nailer thump, and there's silence afterward, followed by a muffled "That's good enough...," don't turn to look. No, just keep focused on what you're doing and pretend you're in a different place.
• It's easy to get around in Menard's on a Sunday morning.
• Menard's is understaffed on Sunday mornings.
• Lauan board works just like a sail on a windy day.

I'll let you fill in the blanks. Thanks for sharing this leg of the journey. More to come.

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