reflecting

Last night I flew down to Ontario, CA from Seattle for a wedding.  Incredibly tense… even took in a (painful, spine crackling) massage at the airport before boarding.  My thoughts are a lot like my days: bouncing from issue to project to new idea to person to need to book to magazine article to future plans to…  but I closed my eyes and used the time on the ground (including a fuel delay) up until well after we leveled out for a long session of lectio divina meditation -using Psalm 133, one of the few I have memorized.  It was kind of cool that the process and feelings from being on the ground, taking off and flight fed into each stage of the meditation.

Then this morning, I used 20 minutes of the drive from the airport Travelodge to Big Bear Lake for the “Name of Jesus” prayer.

I wish I could tell you that I was refreshed, or gained a deep insight.  Perhaps this–it was hard work slowing the racing thoughts and staying on task, letting myself be in God’s presence.  That suggests something right there.  Pray for me.

I’ve been reflecting on the 116th Psalm.  It’s good for celebrating the generosity of God; it’s also a good reminder during times that I’m feeling neglected or sorry for myself. 

Tonight we gave Trevan his first post-birth bath in the hotel sink. 

 

May not look like it in the photo above, but he actually seemed to like the warm water.  The cold air? …not so much.  As I held him, these words came to mind:  

“What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (Psalms 116:12-13).

Along with Jesus’ statement: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me” (Mark 9:37). 

I can’t repay God for my salvation, or my children, or any other gift.  Anything I might offer to God (i.e. my heart or these extensions of it) are all provided by him.  Trevan Douglas, I hold and welcome you into my life in Christ’s name, and through you I am refilled by Christ’s Holy Spirit.

Easy to say now.  Not so easy last night at 2:23 AM when he was a-yellin’!  (His days and nights are mixed, as often happens in newborns.  We’re working on it.)  Having been on both sides of the hotel wall when babies are hollering, I can assure you that the parents are definately more frustrated, tired, and miserable than their neighbors.  Did you know that peer pressure and judgment can seep — unheard and unseen — right through plaster board?  Forgive me: on occasion I do take comfort from the thought that, “we just need to make it through this night, then our paths will probably never cross again.” 

(The baby is also pretty upset about something or other, but at least s/he gets to express it, while the rest of us pay!  Ah well.)

Dr. Scott Gustafson, told the story in one of my seminary classes (and years later in his book, Biblical Amnesia) about a sleepless night when he almost felt the urge to throw his screaming infant son through the wall.  He suddenly heard, almost audibly, that passage from Mark 9:37 — “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me.”  And he suddenly realized he was no longer holding his screaming son, but the screaming Son of God.  I thank him for that story and insight.  I’ve used it as a dad, and it’s amazing how (most of the time) I am suddenly able to smile and take it in a better spirit and humor.  A hollering child in my house is certainly a greater blessing and gift than no hollering child.

We’ve opened the bottle of “Forgotten Apple Wine” I mentioned in July 9th’s post.  Tonight, I lift my (plastic hotel) glass to you, to Trevan, and to God who has allowed us this time together.  God bless.

Last week, I learned more about the gall bladder than I knew before, just in time to have it removed.  What I knew before: it holds bile, a wretched tasting (how did I know that?) digestive fluid.  Too much bile is/was thought to make a person especially cranky.  I never understood or thought about the connection to “the wormwood and the gall” in scripture (i.e. Jeremiah 9:15) and hymnody (Go to Dark Gethsemane, st. 2).

Now I understand that your liver produces bile.  Most is sent to your small intestine to aid in digestion, but on the way there, some bile takes a side route and collects in the gall bladder.  After you eat a bunch of fatty food, or milk product with high fat content, your liver will produce extra bile, but your gall bladder also squeezes its reserve bile into the small intestine.  Gallstones form from crystallizations in bile that either has too much cholesterol, or not enough bilic acids.  An estimated 20 million Americans have gallstones.

A gall bladder attack can occur from a few reasons.  In my case, a few hours after eating a scrumptious meal that included fried chicken and corn fritters with a wonderful cream sauce, my gall bladder did what it was supposed to and began squeezing its extra bile into the duct leading to my small intestine.  Unfortunately, one of my gall stones decided to hitch a ride, but was too big for the duct, and lodged there for a while causing quite a bit of constant pain just below my rib cage. Anyway, I joined the 500K annual Americans who have their gall bladders removed.  If ye olde medicine is right, I should be a more chipper person from now on, eh?

So, back to the Biblical wormwood (Hebrew: “la’ah’nah,” a poison made from plants) and the gall (usually Hebrew: “rosh,” another poison from plants, perhaps hemlock or poppy).  Both are used figuratively for other bitter or poisonous things or aspects of life.  But how did these plant poisons get associated and translated into “gall”, or bile?  The connection begins in Job 20:15 & 25 where “gall” is translated and used figuratively from the Hebrew “mer’o'raw“, a snake venom, which was thought to come from their bile. 

Then, starting around 300 BC the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, a translation called the Septuagint, or the Roman numeral LXX.  In Hebrew and Greek these words for different poisons and venoms may have been understood more generically and were interchangeable.  The Hebrew vegetative ”rosh” was often translated into to the Greek “chole“, even though it was a venomous “bile” or “gall”.  (”Cholesterol” literally means “solid bile”… appetizing, eh?) 

Psalm 69 is associated with Jesus’ trial and crucifixion, especially when Jesus was offered “sour wine mixed with gall” in Matthew 27:34, see Psalm 69:21.  (Note that this was offered just before he was crucified–perhaps as a numbing agent; Jesus was then offered “sour wine” a little later, v. 49, shortly before he died.)

Finally, connected to all this I’ve been reflecting on Proverbs 14:10, “The heart knows its own bitterness [rosh], and no stranger shares its joy.”  This verse is nestled among praises and blessing for wise actions and curses for foolishness.  It may just mean, “You can’t really know or appreciate what others are feeling or going through.”  A wise person avoids saying, “I know just how you feel.”  For one–without meaning to be–it’s selfish.  It takes the focus off the person who is sad or happy and turns it back to you and your experiences.  It’s better to say, “Tell me more: what’s it like, what are you going through?” and then just listen without racing ahead trying to think of how you will respond or personally connect.  Ask them, “How or do you feel God is involved in this?”  You don’t have to agree or disagree right away.  Jesus, the Son and Image of God, felt abandoned by God …at least once.  Would you correct his feelings?

There is another side to this: a wise person realizes that other people can’t fully understand or appreciate what you are feeling or going through.  Sure, we know that other people can’t read our minds, but we often act like they ought to.  How many times have people unintentionally hurt our feelings or over-looked us.  “He/she/they should’ve known,” we say.  Maybe, maybe not.  With all the zillions of interactions, miscommunications, misinterpretations, etc. flying around in our lives, to expect others to always know precisely how their words and actions or lack of word and action will personally impact you and others is unreasonable.  It allows a kind of bile or bitter “gall” to build up in your life.

So why do we hold others (or ourselves) to these kind of standards?  For the drama?  I think some people actually draw a sense of worth or at least pre-occupation from the drama of being hurt or offended, along with the gossip, coldness or retaliation that often results.  By being angry at someone else, it gives you a sense of power over them.  Maybe there’s a bit of “projection.”  Some people may be avoiding–or experiencing–their own sense of guilt or worthlessness by seeing it, pointing it out and/or punishing the flaws of others.

All this leads to many tendrils of thoughts, ideas and connections regarding our connections to others in the midst of institutions, cyberspace, and relationships in these shifting paradigms.  But instead, let me finish by just praying for the patience and forgiveness that it takes to allow people to be as flawed, absent-minded, and unaware as I often am.  I ask for God to perform a cholectystectomy on my bilious expectations and attitudes so that I can be more of a person of peace.

Are you are reading or have you read Henri Nouwen’s book, Can You Drink the Cup?  I’d appreciate your thoughts, reactions, questions…

“The buildup of a high-pressure layer due to several air currents meeting in a region.” Several? Wow! Board report and monthly article due, design confirmation test and adult ed seminar on values, sermon, stewardship mailing, architectural workshops, special congregational meeting, income-budget concerns, staff evaluations and paperwork, emailing for congregation and clinic, etc. And yet, I can feel that the “high pressure” of this convergence includes something much more amazing, exciting and powerful. A higher ruach, pneuma, spiritus is building. Pray for me, that I can keep from being tempted by the demon of rush and tasks, that I can be sustained in God’s ability and priorities!

The dance between remembering and moving on sometimes feels more like stumbling about, doesn’t it? Isaiah 43:16-19 tells the exiles to remember the past struggles and salvation of God, if only briefly, but only in order to lay it all aside, forget it and imagine and begin to take part in the new thing that God is about to do. I struggle with sometimes wanting to tell people, “I hear you and what you are carrying about; I truly sympathize, it matters to me, and we should deal with it. But don’t you want to rise out of all that, now, and do something constructive, artful, missional?” In pastoral care and even leadership, I struggle with how much time to spend on others’ baggage, and when to say, “Okay, it’s time to rise up, pick up your mat and walk.” That is the idea of constant renewal: the goal of remembering is to be able to move forward. What can keep us from getting stuck?

This morning, I started by watching cartoons with my son. While his mother was teaching a class on Daniel, we played horsey all around the building, played on the swing and slides in the play yard. After that, he went home with Mommy. I met with a few colleagues for lunch, mutual support and idea sharing for upcoming Sunday messages. After that, I started going through my growing box of important stuff to do or file, wrote several important letters, and emails, & answered several phone calls. What a gorgeous day throughout, full of peace even through a few tantrums from one source or another. I realize now that I “checked in” with God this morning, and–although I went on with my day–God never ended the call. God certainly has a lot to say!

I’m in the middle, humbled and awestruck. I was looking at my prayer journal earlier today and noticed a petition I’d made about a month ago, and am amazed at the way God has been moving through people and events, lining things up in ways that are answering that prayer to overfilling. I can’t wait to see and watch others discover what God is doing. In a way, it’s kind of freaky! A friend and I were musing about how it is that you never know how God’s Spirit might be preparing hearts, people and things, even past events, so that prayers, needs and answers suddenly intersect just when (and usually only when) they are needed. Have you had an experience recently that has reawakened, bolstered or upheld your faith or your trust?

Have you ever considered, read or heard the possible implications of what the passage below suggests re: Jesus’ descent?  If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts… 

1 Peter 3:18-20 (NRSV) For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.

In my prayer journal, I collect favorite prayers that I run across.  Here is one that I use frequently here in the Northwest, USA.  It is by Robert Louis Stevenson (after his death, his wife published a number of prayers from his journal)…

“We thank thee, Lord, for the glory of the late days and the excellent face of thy sun!  We thank thee for good news received.  We thank thee for the pleasures we have enjoyed and for those we have been able to confer.  And now, when clouds gather and the rain impends over the forest and our house, permit us not to be cast down; let us not lose the savour of past mercies and past pleasures; but, like the voice of a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memory survive in the hour of darkness.  If there be in front of us any painful duty, strengthen us with the grace of courage; if any act of mercy, teach us tenderness and patience.  Amen.”

 

WHAT IS A FAVORITE PRAYER OF YOURS??

“How good, how delightful it is to live as brothers and sisters all together!”

“What do you want?” and sometimes we answer cynically, “world peace, love and unity.” The cynicism and sarcasm hurts, though; it leaves us feeling smudged. Why? Because, honestly, it is what we long for; it makes us angry that we can’t have it; it makes us guilty that we’re a part of the problem; it makes us sad.

Maybe a part of the sadness is wistfulness? Afterall, we have had tastes of this goodness and delight. They reside in our past and flow together, all lumped together as a warm summer haze called: the good ol’ days. Sad, because they can only be remembered and not relived, like friends that we’ve lost touch with. Good, because they can be remembered and cherished, like friends and memories that can never vanish and will linger like fragreance.

But I also think this cynicism, this longing, this wistfulness and these memories include hope. Sometimes it’s a hope as shadowed as a broken heart that still beats, but other times it is as sure as our next breath. Like faith.

Bring this goodness and this delight, Lord. Be our brother as you were in Jesus so that we can brother and sister each other with delight.

“It is like fine oil on the head, running down the beard, running down Aaron’s beard, onto the collar of his robes.”

I don’t know what oil feels like on the head.  I do know the feeling of lake water dripping on my shoulders while I sun lazily on the shore–hair still damp from a vigorous swim, leaving muscles that feel bunched, alive.  Eyes closed, warmth spreads, cold tickles.

I remember the feel of Mother’s hand gently running through my hair as I relax against her.  Indulgent, safe, embraced.  An electric blanket turned on high after a day playing in the Montanan winter.

And the light feeling of my wife nearby.  Sometimes gentle like a reassuring touch of her finger on my arm.  Other times strong and demanding, or as supportive, as a promise.

Maybe I do know the feeling of fine oil, afterall, as it runs from my head into my beard.  Not thickly pressing, but lightly comforting… like God touching, anointing, tickling, sanctifying.

These touches, caresses, were–and are–my baptism all over again.  They are the assurance of the love and claim of God, and they are everything that set me apart as his child.  These are the assurances and strength–all the assurance and strength I have or need–to point to his love.  Aaron, if this is what your oil felt like, then you and I are brothers.

Help me draw strength, Lord, from such comforitng memories touching flesh, to let my words and actions speak such assurances, comfort and passion to others. 

“It is like the dew of Hermon falling from the heights of Zion; for there the Lord bestows his blessing, everlasting life.”

It is early.  The sun has barely lightened the sky–so that I’m just able to make out the lumpy shapes of sleeping bags in the small claustrophobic tent.  At last: awake.  Motivation shrugs and overcomes the morning chill to struggle out of the bag, put on cold and stiff hiking shoes.  The front flap unzips loudly, and I wish an apology on my sleeping brother, as well as to the still quiet morning.

My hands become wet from the grass’s dew… as I crawl from the cave of my tent into life.  Outside, I can stand up straight and stretch.  I rub my hands together.  The moist chill spreads, then fades. 

I start walking toward the hill that stood above us, unseen, all night.  Sleeping or vigilant?  I don’t know; either would speak of her power and age.  Morning muscles tug timidly first, then stretch with strength… springing over a small ravine like the gap between our sleeping field and this mountain’s wide-stretching belly.

Grasses quickly thin for uneven scrub and brush.  These disperse for craggy and fallen rock.  I am leaning heavily into her now, the mountain.  Rocks scrape loudly.  They slip under my feet–but my step still feels solid sure, as though I already know how each rock would feel and how it might turn and slide just so far, so I push on.

My legs and lungs feel the work of yesterday’s hike and the incline of this slope, but the energy spent is replaced by the strength and draw of determination.  The top of the hill keeps bending and turning from me, but calling and promising: “Come, stand and see.”  I will.

At last, she turns no further.  Before I can mourn the exercise and challenge, creation leaves me suddenly stunned quiet and worshipful.  The top stretches flat with her own grasses and a small patch of forest.

Below me, craggy gray rocks drop swiftly away into the field where the two tents lay, fabrics gently protecting my brothers still sleeping, but unknowingly missing this: beauty.  Behind them, the dark stretch of lake.  Across from me, another mountain, still taller, with snow crowning its heights, already tipped rosy with the first touches from the sun; the sun unseen, but rising on the world somewhere east and behind, while a few low western stars dimly twinkle.

It is as though I can feel, if not see, everything all around me.  Here in this dawn meet a bit of all the creation and universe, people, hearts and souls.  Majesty unreachable, unembraceable, but… touched.  It stands solid, exists, rises and falls with or without me.  And yet it has heard me, lifted me, and held me.  Whispered and promised.  It matters that I am here, have seen its beauty, and have loved.  If it suggests eternity, then I have been touched by eternity.  Its chill and then its warmth spread like the wet dew from grass on hands, rubbed together.

Holy God, majestic like a sleeping or a vigilant mountain, stand before me, frighten me, excite me, challenge me, lift me up, move me.  Then send me back.  Amen.

As I write this, I’m watching my greyhound-husky mix (Katy) sunning herself on our brick patio. She’s got on one of those dog-smiles. Occasionally she follows the flight of a bug; if it flies near enough she may or may not nip at it. Mostly, with squinted eyes she is calmly taking in the backyard. Maybe she’s solving some deep philosophical question, or creating a mental list of the things she needs to do tomorrow, or perhaps praying to God that I open the green-labeled can of food for her tonight instead of the red-labeled one. In some sort of weird–even if unintentional/unconscious way, might she at least be “meditating”? Just being, open, at peace, hopeful, and postive?

People often say they feel “close to God” in nature. Without going all pantheistic, one of my friends mentioned yesterday that it does seem fair to say that the Divine often opens up in various places of beauty–or that we open ourselves to feel or hear Spirit talking to spirit. Call it “wonder” or “worship” or whatever.

When or where or what were you doing the last time you had that sense of God’s Spirit talking, touching or just being alongside yours?

I kind of sense it now, mildly watching my dog. After this, I think I’ll go disturb her private meditation a bit by joining her.

As the parents of a beautiful 17 mos. old adopted son, my wife and I still find this time from Mothers’ through Fathers’ Days rough going…emotionally and spiritually. As we contemplate the hope of expanding our family in the next year or so (via another adoption, which means yet another mortgage/added debt), we find ourselves on another stage of this strange, sometimes surreal, sometimes jealous, sometimes cynical ride.  Read the rest of this entry »

This morning my wife and I get to be “Godparents” for the first time. I wonder why our denomination calls it Baptismal “Sponsors.” That sounds kind of strange given today’s usual use for that word in the commercial sense. To me, “Godparent” seems to acknowledge the ongoing, parenting, and religious aspects. Is there a good reason for “sponsor”?