Although there are many, many things I would have loved to have written about in the past months, I’ll just have to keep those thoughts to myself at present.  Instead, check out the word art I made at Wordle.net from the text of my blog:

Yeah, I think it’s pretty cool.  I’m a pretty textual person, myself … but visuals are nice every once in a while.

Happy Sunday!

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.  The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.  For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the shadow was only a small and passing thing:  there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.

-The Return of the King

That when I was young, my church used to go “church camping,” which was about as wonderful and magical an experience as a child could have.  But families left and things changed, and then we substituting “church beach picnic” for “church camping,” which was only slightly less wonderful.  And while the adults, on the shore, were busying themselves with barbecues and beach chairs and gossip and just being busy, we got to go play.  Boogie boarding — as amorphous an activity as it sounds — was the activity of choice back then, and we traipsed through the sand and the dried seaweed out to that roaring, murky, bitterly cold Pacific Ocean.

We were in a bay, and it was mostly safe, although we saw the occasional seal out in farther waters.  We fumbled around with our giant foam boards and tried to “hop” onto the crest of a wave and ride it to shore.  I wasn’t very good.  But it was fun enough to float out in the depth just below our toes, rocking softly in the current, sun on our wet skin.

Every once in a while, though, the bigger waves came, and I was neither experienced nor aware enough to see them.  With a little hop, a brief kick of the legs, I’d be on top of a wave that would crash too early, from too great a height.

And, then:  the memory is visceral.  Suddenly, I was sucked below the surface of the water into a different world.  The water was unbearably strong, pulling my legs and arms into a free-falling tumble.  An arm or shoulder would hit the sandy bottom — how did I get to be upside down? — and then the water wrenched me another direction.  I was lost inside the pull of the current.  The noise of the beach, the gulls, the wind was worlds away.  My entire consciousness was tumbling, round and round, amid the harsh ribbons of sand and salt in the water.  Almost instantly, I had to stop resisting.  It was frightening–my mother had warned me repeatedly about the strength of the undertow–but in a way, almost peaceful.  The water would take me where it would, I couldn’t change that.  I had no choice but to yield, to give up control of my limbs and breath and mind, and to let the water drag me over and around, until it finally pulled me, violently, onto the shore.

And when I think about the grace of God, I think it is something like those waves.  There was once a Tuesday night in October when I sat weeping in an armchair, with two women who loved me, feeling truly and utterly forgiven for perhaps the first time ever.  And I remembered then, in that moment, the feeling of being lost to the current, the water flooding above me, an unspeakably powerful, even violent, force.  I could have sworn those waves washed over me still.  An ocean of grace.

Can God be in the violence of the waves?  In the terrifying pull and power of the current?  I think so.  After all:  “Course he isn’t safe.  But he is good.”

Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

-T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

I walked into the sanctuary after 10 minutes of fruitless wandering around the church campus, the buildings and walkways and arrowed signposts all in shadow at this hour.  I hadn’t thought about how dark it would be.  I hadn’t, in fact, seen any sign out front before blindly turning into the lot, trusting a vague recollection that this was the place.  My small Anglican community was merging with a few other church bodies for a joint Ash Wednesday service.  I had been planning on arriving early, to have the time and space to sit in the quiet, alone-but-not-alone as it always is before a service, and pray.

It took only a few seconds, walking into the sanctuary, for my heart to sink, and I realized that I am in the wrong church.  Perhaps my first clue was the giant video camera swinging around the room on a robotic arm, capturing the praise team from all angles for the jumbo-trons above their heads.  I registered next the swirling, neon moving lights, the fog machine, the up-tempo song.  Nothing was right.

Whatever was happening in that room, it jolted my spirit out of that place it had so long been preparing for — the beginning of a holy fast, a time of reflection and prayer and giving and meditation.  What I walked into last night was so not that, so shallow-seeming and antithetical to this beautiful practice of Lent that I have come to observe.  Frustrated and disappointed and angry with myself, I couldn’t help but crying as I ventured back out into the dark parking lot.  I needed this time, this spiritual “space,” and it evaded me.

When I finally got to the right church and the right service … late and miserable and frustrated … it was neither the space nor the experience I had wanted — had, in a way, “intended” it to be.  I couldn’t let go of the other church, of that fruitless time.  I felt the alone-but-not-in-a-good-way-alone.  I thought too long about an Ash Wednesday of a few years past, and a Lenten fast surrounded by friends and fellow pilgrims on this Christian journey, full of shared meaning and experience and sorrow and then, much later, shared joy.

Last night was none of those things.  And this Lenten season will not be, either, and possibly not for many years to come.

There is something in this, in these lamentable human experiences, banal though they are — walking into the wrong church, wishing for the past — that signal to our deep wretchedness and our deep, never-ending need for God.  There have been times when, in class, a student will push too far or do something so maddening that I can literally feel my spirit snap in half with anger.  A reminder that, inside, I am terrible and broken and fallen and rotten to the core.  I need God, friends.  I need God.

I cannot walk this road I am on without him.  I cannot make it through the night or drive to work tomorrow or speak or think or write a word without him.  I cannot be a friend or daughter or sister or cousin or niece or teacher or even “church acquaintance.”  I can do nothing.

Oh, teach me to care and not to care.  Teach me to sit still, even among these rocks.

And let my cry come to Thee.

**Much thanks is due to a particularly well-read friend for posting an excerpt from this poem on Twitter.

… There were also a few glittering, very rare moments
of peace and sweetness, when I felt the goodness and
familiarity of  people who loved me, when God’s voice
sounded tender and fatherly to my ears, when I was able to
release my breath and my fists for just a moment and float.

-Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet

Shauna Niequist writes about learning to swim in her book Bittersweet (you can download a PDF of the chapter “Learning to Swim” here).  And while I wasn’t exactly tracking with her swimming metaphor … I have a very different and much-loved personal metaphor about God and water and waves that I’ll share later … I did particularly love what she had to say about times of change and uncertainty and our response to them.  When I look at the last year and a half of my life — a time in which I’ve been unemployed, partially employed, and more-than-full-time employed, visited half a dozen new countries, lost loved ones, gained friends, moved, moved again, thought about moving a third time, thought about buying a house, refused to think about my career path, found a new church and a newer church — I know exactly what she mean when she writes:

Looking back now I can see that it was more than
anything a failure to believe in the story of who God is and
what he is doing in this world. Instead of living that story —
one of sacrifice and purpose and character —  I began to
live a much smaller story, and that story was only about me.

… even while I read
the mystics and the prophets, even while I prayed fervently,
even while I sat in church and begged for God to direct
my life, those things didn’t have a chance to transform me,
because under those actions and intentions was a rocky layer
of faithlessness, fear, and selfishness.

Yes, I have read the mystics and the prophets in the last year.  Yes, I have prayed fervently and sat in church and begged for God to direct my life, and, yes, during all those times and more, I privately indulged that same old nagging worry in the pit of my heart:  “What if there’s no plan?”  What if there is no grand work set out by God for me to accomplish, no thrilling and redemptive narrative I am supposed to be living and discovering?

I would by lying if I did not say that, even on my best days, I am tempted to thoroughly giving in to that fear — to surrender hopelessly to the idea that God has no plan for me and to slush through my days in oblivion.

But more and more, I think God is leading me elsewhere … to the idea that, maybe, that question “What is God’s plan for me?” is not at all the right question to be asking.  That, maybe, all my selfish impulses about my life and my “talents” (…yes, I am referring to the parable and to the grand tradition of theologically-sketchy-youth-group-talks about it) and my career path and my future are just that … selfish.  And that although I’ve spent the better part of 18 months refusing to listen to God, he is gently trying to lead me to just be here, and to attune more to Him and His story and His great, redemptive, thrilling work.

And that, if I am in a place where I am wholeheartedly and earnestly and honestly seeking God, I will never be in a place that is not His plan for me.

But, back to the floating.  I know what Shauna means about standing to face the waves of change and being dragged under and smashed to bits … because that’s what the last year and a half has been.  But, in the midst of all that, there have been those “few, glittering, very rare moments of peace and sweetness.”  Small reminders of what the shalom of God’s plan is and our hope for it in the future.  Brief tastes of the goodness of God.  Call them signposts, maybe — or an echo.  Something, though, that calls out to where we are, in this fallen world, from that holy and peaceful kingdom.

For these moments — these people, and their lives, and their actions, and a friendly pat on the shoulder, and a kind and true word, the chance to release and to just float — I am deeply grateful.

The Church is the people of God. The Latin word for “church,” ecclesia, comes from the Greek ek, which means “out,” and kaleo, which means “to call.” The Church is the people of God called out of slavery to freedom, sin to salvation, despair to hope, darkness to light, an existence centered on death to an existence focused on life. …

Called out.  If I could step out of my body and for a minute just sit down and speak truth to myself, this is what I would say:

“Heidi, you have been called out.  Called out of everything you hate about the world.  Called out of a society that is unjust and fear-mongering and narrow and shallow and called into a world–a kingdom–so deep and bright and full of color and hope and promise.  You have been called out of that which enslaves and into that which gives life.  You have been called, by name, specifically, personally.  There’s a place there, ready for you–you and you only, a precious and unique creation.  You have been called.

You have been called to embrace joy instead of fear and bitterness.  You have been called to speak truth where others fall silent.  You have been called to bring a hope beyond understanding and a wisdom not of this age.  You have been called to continue becoming where others are trying to be.

You have been called with a voice that rings over hillsides, a roar through the ages.  Listen up.  Pay attention.  Follow.”

But what is it we are called to?  Not to be individual little spiritual superheroes.  Not to always get it right and look perfect and be wise.  But to continue becoming … to fall and get back up and be transparent and learn to love and be loved in spite of ourselves…in spite of each other.  We have been called to live this calling out in a body of people.  A Church.

… When we think of Church we have to think of a body of people, travelling together. We have to envision women, men, and children of all ages, races, and societies supporting one another on their long and often tiresome journeys to their final home.

-Henri Nouwen

there are some people who live in other cultures (and have done so much of their lives) who are simply themselves
wherever they are.

Yes.  Yes.  I can’t really explain it, but I can offer a little memento of the three women with whom I am always, unfailingly, myself.  It was an incredible, centering, joyous experience to spend time with all of them last weekend, over-full of that mysterious and life-giving grace by which I know who I am and where I am and how to be simply myself.

And, in honor of Wheaton’s most ardent feminists, this fantastic Dorothy Sayers quote about Jesus:

“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the cradle and last at the cross.  They had never known a man like this man.  There never has been such another.  A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them.  Never flattered.  Or coaxed.  Or patronized.  Who never made arch jokes about them.  Never treated them as “the women, God help us,” or “the ladies, God bless them.”  Who rebuked without quarrelousness and praised without condescension.  Who took their questions and arguments seriously.  Who never mapped out their sphere for them.  Who never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female.  Who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend.  Who took them as he found them and who was completely un-selfconscious.  There was no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity.  Nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything funny about women’s nature.”

Amen.

our greatest need in life is to be fully seen and fully loved.

Today, you will meet someone who needs to be seen and loved.  So will I. They may be demanding of your time and attention and caring.  They will probably either get on your nerves, or fly completely under your radar … because people, when their needs aren’t meant, compensate somehow.  People develop coping mechanisms; it’s a small expression of our innate survival drive.  They wear their heart on their sleeve, or they learn not to need anything from anyone.

All that to say, today, you will meet someone who needs to be fully seen and fully loved.  Let’s extend grace, peace, and understanding today.  Experiment in seeing and loving without condition.  Let’s try giving more than we think we can, and trusting God to make up the balance.

Let’s humbly and joyfully meet someone’s deepest need today.

But God-in-a-box isn’t limited just to theatrical convention … I’ve been realizing that he shows up in my life regrettably often.  It’s this idea of the “God” who does things, who fixes things, who shows up magically in a self-contained little box whenever I most need him to, and then conveniently goes away.  Many, many times I have fervently prayed to God-in-a-box to resolve a problem or fix a relationship or undo something I’ve messed up.  But do I really want God?  No.  I want what he does.  I want what I want him to do.  I want what I want.

I was convicted recently that I too often praise God for what He does for me rather than who He is … and I too often rely on the crutch of “God-in-a-box” instead of pursuing knowledge of and deeper relationship with the God who called himself only I AM.  Not “I do.”

On the completely flipped side:

Someone prayed in a worship service recently “we are for You,” as in — we are created for God.  Just that … that I am for God.  What I do is for God, can be for God, but I am for God, also.

No verses or quotes to neatly wrap things up, just that thought:  who you are, who God created you to be, is for Him.

Sometimes its good to release that pressure to “do” things for God, and to just be for him … to just be.

As a child, there were three specific desires that I was overwhelmed with. One was the desire to live in a castle. How boring and disappointing would life be if I lived in a plain old stucco-walled North American 3-bedroom like the one I grew up in for the rest of my life! How unfulfilled! What if I never even saw a castle in my lifetime … whatever would I do?

The second was the desire to fly. Peter Pan was my favorite movie, and it seemed grossly unjust that Wendy, Michael and John should have the good fortune to sail off into the sky with Peter Pan when I couldn’t.

And the final deep desire of my heart? It was birthed in an insignificant passage of a Boxcar Children book where Benny studies the skin of a starfish … yep.  It was the desire to look into a microscope. It seemed like the ultimate satisfaction of my ever-curious imagination, to look so closely as to see cells themselves. I must have been very young–before I was cognizant of the myriad biology classes and science fair projects in my future–but I distinctly remember the feeling that if I never got to look at something under a microscope, I would cry.

Desire is a funny thing, isn’t it? It can overtake us in a second, powerful and demanding. Its focus is inexplicable–some people desire things or money or security or status symbols; other desire experiences, like the microscope, or relationships. A reflection of a our character, perhaps, but I agree with CS Lewis that our desire originates somewhere outside of ourselves, also.

There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering if we have ever desired anything else … all your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness.  The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it.

Maybe, the overwhelming desires we experience in this life are just a dim reflection of our soul’s deep spiritual thirst for the unattainable ecstasy of heaven that awaits us.  We know that perfect love and perfect fulfillment is out there, somewhere, and instead we chase those things which seem to us the closest we will ever get to that perfection.  For me:  relationships, people, communities.  At least, once I got over the microscopes.

Before I even got into the first chapter of Piper’s “When I Don’t Desire God:  How to Fight for Joy,” I had to pause at that quote from C.S. Lewis.  Piper talks a lot about how we should be desiring God himself, and enjoying Him and His nature, but my qualms on the topic of desire are somewhat different.  I’m not in the evangelical camp that balks at the idea of desire.  What I want to know is — what do we do with these desires that seem good, that seem to be from God?  Like desires for powerful, nourishing community, or for relationships (a hot topic, at least while I was in college)?  These aren’t desires for wealth or power or things … but they often lay unfulfilled.  What do we do with a deep desire, for something worthy, when it just goes unfulfilled?

I don’t know … but I get some comfort in Lewis’ words.  For nothing that I desire can replace that unattainable ecstasy, that hope of heaven which lies just beyond our grasp.

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.