Girl Talk . . . God Talk

Painting Your Prayers

2011-06-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for inspiration for your prayer life this summer, check out Kyria.com to see one of my latest articles: Paint Your Prayers.

Paint Your Prayers
www.kyria.com
A surprising way to use your imagination to enlarge your faith.

Write-to-Publish Conference Is This Week

2011-06-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

This week Lin Johnson, Jane Rubietta and JoyceK. Ellis are hosting the renown Write-to-Publish conference at Wheaton College. I am excited to be on the faculty again this year. My offerings include a continuing education class (that meets for one hour Wednesday through Saturday) and a Poetry class that meets on Saturday afternoon. There are many other offerings including a cooperate time of worship, panel discussions, editing seminars, etc.

Feel free to check out http://www.writetopublish.com/ for more information.

I hope to see you there!

Also, and as a quick sidenote for budding writers who may be unable to attend the workshop, The Word Girls Writing Studio (my personal mentoring service co-owned and run with writer/editor friend, Cheri Mueller) is offering some specials in light of the conference.

Visit The Word Girls Writing Studio

before June 30, 2011 at

http://www.thewordgirls.com/

and receive 10% off any one service when you mention

WRITE-TO-PUBLISH.

We'll also be updating our blog for writers, http://www.thewordgirls.blogspot.com/ with free editorial advice, quotes from our favorite authors and other tips for your summer writing. So, come visit us there, too. We'd love to have you stop buy our red couch for writing mentoring and inspiration anytime!

Mother's Day Service at NorthBridge Church

2011-04-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for something special to do with your family this Mother's Day, perhaps you'd like to join me at Pastor Mark Albrecht's church, Northbridge, in Antioch, Illinois. Check out this link for more information: www.northbridgechurch.org.

New Spring Retreats for Women

2011-01-21T08:19:00.000-08:00

Greetings, All! Happy New Year to you and yours!

God has sowed his image . . .

He sows the seed of the divine nature . . .

The seed of God in us.

If the seed is a good, wise and industrious cultivator,

it would thrive and grow up into God.

-Meister Eckhart

LOVE

This fall I began the journey that is seminary in Hyde Park, Chicago. The course work, crazy commute and new connections with fellow seminarians has kept me away from the blogosphere. However, I am continuing to minister to women on weekend retreats and at other evening and morning gatherings. Several Directors of Women's Ministry have asked about my current and new offerings for this coming spring.

I am thrilled to list a bevy of new topics below. Because of the Soul Work I am doing in seminary, the offerings are on the deeper side. Their purpose is to help women reach their roots more deeply into the Living Water, to wait in Hope, and to rest in the Peace of God's presence. (I am aware that many seasoned sojourners in faith invite friends who are exploring Christianity for the first time to your gatherings, as well. For these women there will also be something to glean: an Opening, a Welcome, an Invitation to taste and see that the Lord is Good.)

If you are interested in receiving more information (i.e. details about the content and direction of each offering) you may contact me directly. Or, if you need books, brochures or other information please contact Julie MacManus, my Personal Relations Assistant. Contact information is below. Thanks for visiting Girl Talk . . . God Talk!

GIRL TALK . . . GOD TALK RETREATS & CONFERENCES for SPRING 2011

WE WILL REMEMBER: Exploring Early Memories to Reveal & Heal Hearts
In a three day intensive retreat offering, Sally works with women in recalling early childhood memories. In a creative, interactive, story-rich format, Sally will giude women in using these memories as vehicles to reveal deep truths about their souls and lives. In small groups women will share their stories, pray together, and apply truths Sally provides from scripture. These truths will offer healing, life-affirming blessings relating to our: True Names, The Ways We See Others, Place in this World, and Identity in Christ.

GOD'S PEOPLE STILL DREAM: Listening for Wisdom that Comes in the Dark
This two or three day retreat takes a fresh and illuminating look at the dreams of God's people found in the scriptures: Joseph's dreams, the dream leading the Wise Men to Christ, dream material from Genesis, Joseph's dreams, and others. Then, with biblically based tools for interpreting the dreams God is giving women in your group today, we will find wisdom and insight about our own lives and about God.

Other offerings for spring include, but are not limited to:

SOUL SISTERS: The Art of Making Spiritual Friends
FORGIVENESS: A Journey of Letting Go
SOUL STRETCHES: 10 Creative Ways to Live in the Moment
PRAYING YOUR DAY: A Contemporary Look at The Divine Hours
QUIET SOUL: The Beauty Found in Waiting

Blessings on each of you as you minister. May your own Soul Seeds grow into God-likeness. May your roots reach deeper, your branches lengthening and strengthening toward the Light in a kind of human heliotropism as you grow into your True Self.

Wanna Be in the Next Miller & Mueller Book?

2010-05-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

LOVE
Girlfriends! It looks like there is a good chance that Cheri Mueller and I will be writing another book about friendship together. The working title is The Five Women You Can't Live Without. It's based on our Friendship Quiz and the material from our retreats, seminars, and conferences. We're currently writing sample chapters for our agent and a couple select publishers.

We'd love it if you'd pray for God's wisdom and guidance and blessing on this project. Also, we'd be honored if some of you would like to contribute to the book. How can you contribute?

Please take the attached Friendship Quiz, then complete the following:

I could not live with out my ____________ (fill in the blank with one of the following: Social Butterfly, Therapist, Giver, Soul Sister or Playmate) friend. And here's why . . .

If you decide to join us in this writing adventure please e-mail your contribution, pasted in the body of an e-mail, to sallymiller@ameritech.net. Or, feel free to post your entry here. Please include your full name (if you want us to use it, or let us know that you'd like to remain anonymous and we'll make up a name for you), your mailing address and, just for fun, let us know what your Friendship Style is, based on our quiz.

We can't promise you royalties (Lord knows we rarely get these ourselves). But, if the book gets picked up and we use your entry in the final draft, we'll send you a complimentary copy.

Thanks again for your prayers and support. We'll keep you posted; and we can't wait to hear from you!

Waiting on Word,

The Word Girls (Sally Miller & Cheri Mueller)

The Five Friends Quiz
Circle one answer for each question (or two, if you can’t make up your mind). Go with your gut (or imagine what your friends might answer for you)! Don’t over-think. You’ll find instructions for compiling your results at the end of the quiz.

1) Do you tend to be more:
a) spiritual and organic
b) hilarious and thrill seeking
c) loyal and open-hearted
d) inviting and commemorative
e) wise and perceptive

2) A television show you’d most likely watch:
a) Saving Grace
b) The Comedy Channel
c) A Hallmark made-for-TV movie
d) Giada at Home (on the Food Network)
e) Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab

3) At a party, do you....
a) remind the hostess to ‘just breathe’
b) show up in costume
c) help remove a red wine stain from a friend’s white blouce
d) critique the wine/food pairing
e) secretly diagnose everyone’s issues (including your own)

4) Which famous person is most like you?
a) Maya Angelou
b) Ellen
c) Jennifer Aniston
d) Martha Stewart
e) Oprah

5) What might you be overheard saying?
a) “Everything happens for a reason.”
b) “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
c) “You go, Girl!”
d) “Can I borrow your bundt pan?”
e) “Now, the tornado in your dream means . . .”

6) What vacation would you most enjoy?
a) taking respite at a mind/body/spirit spa
b) joining the circus for ten days
c) going to Africa and volunteering at an AIDS clinic
d) inviting your friends to join you for a weekend at a cozy B & B
e) attending a Dream Workshop

7) What your friends might say about you:
a) “Even when everybody is freaking out; she always seems so centered.”
b) “She makes me laugh so hard I pee my pants.”
c) “When I’m bummed out, she brings Ben & Jerry’s and Kleenex (for both
of us).”
d) “She feels like family.”
e) “She knows me better than I know myself.”

8) If you were a best seller, what would your title be?
a) Keeping Faith by Jodi Piccoult
b) Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy
c) Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
d) Real Life Entertaining: Easy Recipes and Unconventional Wisdom by
Jennifer Rubell
e) Woman Power: Transform You Man, Your Marriage, Your Life by
Dr. Laura Schlessinger

9) How you might spend a Saturday afternoon:
a) meditating, doing yoga, or hugging a tree
b) taking a belly dancing class just for kicks
c) volunteering at a homeless shelter
d) reorganizing the living room in perfect Feng Shui
e) writing in your gratitude journal

10) The song title that describes your best quality:
a) Soul by Seal
b) Carnival Ride by Carrie Underwood
c) Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis
d) Home by Daughtry
e) Intuition by Jamie Fox

Finding Friendship Style:
Tally your number of a, b, c, d and e answers in the spaces provided here. Your Friendship Style is based on your two highest scores. Read both descriptions on the Rap Sheet below; you're a combo of the two different types.

a______ b______ c______ d_______ e_______

Five Friendship Styles
A Rap Sheet

(a) The Soul Sister: the one who sees magic in every day life.
You’re spiritually sensitive and in tune with the numinous. Because you live a deeply centered life - rooted in a divine dimension - you encourage your friends to be enlarged on their own faith journeys. You’re always honest and transparent about your life; so women come to you for guidance and words that buoy or shed a lasting perspective on temporary issues. At times you may get sick-and-tired of always being the anchor in your circle of friends. It’s worth it, though, 'cause they don’t know what they’d do without your spirit of strength.

(b) The Playmate: the friend whose entrance makes you feel like the party has just begun.
You have a knack for finding humor in the ordinary. Friends call you when they need a good laugh. You spark up any gathering with your witty comments and prankster personality. Because you can be tender at heart, it may be hard for you to trust others with your deepest feelings. Your sense of adventure inspires people to do things they might not otherwise do. The way you help others play is invaluable. You get it – on a soulful level – that laughter is the best medicine.

(c) The Giver: a woman who wears her heart on her sleeve even though it’s the size of Texas.
You’re a compassionate and generous friend. Others feel comfortable coming to you when they need a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on. Patience and understanding come easily to you. Friends might accuse you of being overly sentimental (even sappy). If you don’t take care of yourself, you might often become depleted from giving so freely of your time and resources. You have an uncanny knack for figuring out hit-the-spot ways to nurture those in need.

(d) The Social Butterfly: the one who finds any excuse to pop a cork (whether it’s a job promotion or Revlon’s release of a new lipstick).
You are creative, fun, and often the planner of parties. You always keep tabs on the goings on in the lives of women closest to you. Everybody feels at home when they’re around you. You know how to celebrate your friends, and enjoy marking meaningful moments like births, deaths, new love interests, job promotions, etc. It can be easy for you to get stuck in high gear, though, unable to find solitude for yourself. Friends appreciate your creativity, and often look to you to coordinate the next meaningful get-together, group vacation or party.

(e) The Therapist: the girlfriend who saves you thousand of dollars in therapy bills.
You’re a wise and perceptive friend, obsessed with finding meaning in life. You have valuable insights that others might miss on their own. People crave your perspective on life and love, and often come to you for advice. Friends may need to remind you of your tendency to over-analyze. Journaling, reading and reflecting help strengthen your abilities of insight and perception. Your friends benefit because you often know them better than they know themselves.

We hope you had a blast taking the quiz; and that you shared it with a friend or two. Thanks again! We'll look forward to hearing from you.

ANNA! Our New CCI Puppy!

2010-03-23T14:28:00.000-07:00

This is Anna, our adorable docile Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) Lump of Love. We're raising this pup for the next year in the hope that she'll qualify to be a working dog for someone with a disability.

Canine Companions for Independence® provides highly-trained assistance dogs for children and adults with disabilities, free of charge. They - and I - believe that the most advanced technology capable of transforming the lives of people with disabilities has a cold nose and a warm heart!

Already, Anna has enriched our lives, challenged us, grown our spirits and home. I'll be journaling our shared journey with her at http://www.raisinglove.blogspot.com/. and I'd love it if you visit us there for frequent updates on Anna's progress and impact on our lives. For now, if you'd like to learn more about CCI, feel free to leave a question for me here or to check out their website at http://www.cci.org/.

And, if you're in the area and in the need of a puppy kiss . . . come on over!

Happy New Year

2010-01-21T14:50:00.000-08:00

LOVE
I'm normally not a big fan of chain e-mails. However, this morning, in my yoga class the instructor read the following mass e-mail titled 2010 Handbook. So much of it resonated with me that I decided to share (part of) it here. Let me know if you like it. Happy New Year!

2010 Handbook

1. Drink plenty of water.

2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.

3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.

4. Make time to pray.

5. Play more games.

6. Read more books than you did in 2009 .

7. Sleep for 7 hours.

8. Spend time w/ people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.

9. Try to make at least three people laugh each day.

10. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

A Link for Come and See & Another Advent Poem

2009-12-07T11:02:00.000-08:00

Advent Greetings!

Thanks to to the women of Blanchard Road Alliance Church in Wheaton, IL for a lovely luncheon. For those of you who couldn't make it, and want to listen to the talk; here's a link for you:

http://www.blanchardalliance.org/uploads/01%2009_1205_SallyMiller.mp3

The talk is also available on FaceBook:

"http://www.facebook.com/l/ed226;www.blanchardalliance.org/uploads/01%2009_1205_SallyMiller.mp3"

Without the glorious music by Rochelle Streeter and team, the delicious food, and the inspiring setting (including a Power Point by Joyce Kerns featuring images of baby Jesus), the magic and celebration of the morning is missing. Still, perhaps (if you have a few minutes to listen), you'll receive word of hope and healing and beauty out of pain during this season of waiting.

While I'm here, I'll offer another advent poem. This one's by my favorite poet, Luci Shaw.

The Overshadow

" . . . the power of the Most High will overshadow you . . . " -Gospel of Luke

When we think of God, and
angels and the Angel,
we suppose ineffable light.

So there is surprise in the air
when we see him bring to Mary,
in her lit room, a gift of darkness.

What is happening under that
huge wing of shade? In that mystery
what in-breaking wildness fills her?

She is astonished and afraid; even in
that secret twilight she bends her head,
hiding her face behind the curtain

Of her hair; she knows that
the rest of her life will mirror
this blaze, this sudden midnight.

Come and See: A Fresh Look into the Manger

2009-11-30T15:44:00.000-08:00

This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Luke 2:12

If you're going to be in the Wheaton, IL area this coming Saturday you may want to stop by Blanchard Road Alliance Church. I'll be speaking there at a Women's Christmas Lunch.

Some information follows:

Women's Christmas Lunch
Saturday, December 5, 2009
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Blanchard Alliance Church
1766 S. Blanchard, Wheaton

For more information, check out the event at the Blanchard Road website: http://www.blanchardalliance.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=15446

Come join me for a relaxed morning of friendship, music of the season and a heart-warming, eye-opening message as we take a Fresh Look into the Manger.

Advent Poems

2009-11-30T13:52:00.001-08:00

LOVE
Advent is one of my favorite times of year. The days get shorter, colder, covered in a secretive darkness and some days, in snow. We learn to live with the Mystery of the moment and the Darkness of the day, hoping and expecting more Mystery and longing for Light to come (knowing that Light will come, has come).

This year, as we wait and hope for Christmas, I'll be posting some of my favorite poems of the season here. Hopefully the words will companion and help you as you wait.

Today's offering is by Judith Bingham. Advent blessings to you and yours! Enjoy!

Epiphany

Deep midwinter, the dark centre of the year,
Wake, O earth, awake
Out on the hills a star appears,
Here lies the way for pilgrim kings,
Three magi on an ancient path,
Black hours begin their journeyings.

Their star has risen in our hearts,
Empty thrones, abandoned fears,
Out on the hills their journey starts,
In dazzling darkness God appears.

The Word Girls Website

2009-07-31T13:44:00.000-07:00

The Word Girls website is up and running! Please come visit us at: http://www.thewordgirls.com/. Thanks!

Introducing The Word Girls Writing Studio

2009-07-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

This summer, my dear friend Cheri Mueller (who happens to be a great writer & editor) and I are launching The Word Girls Writing Studio. Our online Writing Studio is a place where writers at any step on their writing journey - from idea to publication - can come for help, encouragement, advice, mentoring and editing services. In creative, inspired, helpful and professional ways, we invite writers to take a seat on our cyber red couch and get the help and mentoring they need to have success with their writing.

Currently, our Word Girls Blog, http://thewordgirls.blogspot.com/, featuring writing tips, quotes and other writing helps is available. It's our complimentary service for burgeoning writers. Other services that entail brief or lengthy visits to our big red couch include: chapter by chapter editing, help writing queries or book proposals, and mentoring that encourages writers to hone their craft. These offerings can be accessed at our Word Girls Writing Studio website. This site is nearing the end of construction. As soon as it is available, I'll post the address here.

In the meantime, visit the red couch that's our blog. Leave us a comment. Tell us what you're looking for if you're a writer; and pass word of our services on to any aspiring writers you know. Thanks!

love

THE WORD GIRLS: Sally Miller & Cheri Mueller

Sea Glass . . . See Glass, a poem

2009-07-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

See Glass

It begins with

a broken

cast off

Piece of Jagged

love

Broken and Lost

love

Alone in cold tumult

tossed and polished

brandished by weather and time

and crash of wave

love

Sanded with sand

Returning home to

shore like a triumphant,

sopping wet heroine

at journey's end

resting amongst

rocks and gull feathers

fish bones, dried, hollowed

light as air and holey

love

The Little Boy

(like an editor

scouring slush piles

for the next bestseller

or just something good)

tender footed

on precarious rocks, sand,

tangles of seaweed

sees a dulled sparkle of glass

knowing it by patina

love

greedily he collects the smoothed

shard in warm cupped palm:

a treasure

born of loss

and much tumbling

Nest Watcher

2009-06-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

Nest Watcher

I.

Blackbird struts into my yard:
cocky, arrogant, a delinquent breaking curfew,
breaking law, ready to break an egg or mother’s heart
yellow eyes full with nefarious intent
glow against iridescent head feathers

Father robin positions himself
between Blackbird and Mother robin
who sits on throne of daily turned, warm, ready eggs

I (who have watched the nest building,
the laborious laying of four indescribably blue eggs,
the patient vigilant incubation)
am sickened when a gang of hungry
invincible blackbirds joins the first

Running into the yard I clap and shout
and scare off the predators
they take flight, fleeing the scene
in clumsy reverse of choreographed confetti

Inside I worry that I’ll not have the fortitude,
or time, freedom, omnipresence or unthwartable maternal love
to keep vigil over this nest
I worry that the robins cannot go it alone

A cliché in cross stitch, hanging beside my front door
temporarily comforts: God watches over every nest.

II.

Later that week the hatchlings are born
pink fresh like a spring peony,
as delicate and vulnerable
I’m elated, a viable successful midwife to birds
Mother and Father robin appear
anthropomorphically and really proud

The Blackbird returns

Alerted by Mother and Father robins’ squawks,
I catch Blackbird looming large on nest edge
hunched to dine and dash
air breaks with the swoop of black wings
and the nest is full of emptiness

Where are you Nest Watcher?
my soul screams already maddened, jaded, cynical from
middle aged, never-hatched, personal disappointments
and losses illuminated by the sight of soft
grass and hair with not an egg to tuft

III.

It is quiet and feather free at my front door
the robin parents are gone

From the Alberta pine I remove the abandoned nest
which is well made, a piece of natural art in my hands
I set the nest on my fireplace mantle
and remember the robins, Blackbird

For a second I want to shake a fist
at the Nest Watcher, but
my infuriation at the watcher’s impotence has mellowed,
crashed into the acquiescence of acceptance

I pour a cup of coffee
and sit in my favorite chair to consider the intricacies of
nest watching (and the food chain)

A familiar grackle pierces my ponderings
I look out the window
There is Blackbird
bending over nest with squirmy meal hanging out of beak

For the first time I wonder who it is who watches
Blackbird’s Nest

A Father's Love

2009-06-16T05:52:00.001-07:00

Father's Day is this Sunday.

This holiday is joyful for some; and can be difficult for others. On this day we mourn the fathers we have lost to death. We mourn the fathers some of us never had because of their physical absence or their absence due to alcoholism or workaholism. We celebrate the ways we were loved by dads who played catch with us, read us bedtime stories, wrestled with us on the carpet in our family rooms.

Whether you're celebrating or mourning this Sunday, receive the following letter as a gift of grace and truth:

Dearest One,

You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are mine. I call you by my name. I love you with an everlasting love.

I see you. I know you; and I care about even the tiniest details of your life. When times are tough, know that I know. Know that I am collecting your tears in a bottle.

When times are good, I rejoice and celebrate your successes along with the angels in heaven. You matter to me.

You are the reason I hung the stars in place, made halibut and hummingbirds, seals and sunsets, meadows and the moon.

I am vast and wondrous and wise. I am also close to you, watching each and every step you take, present to you morning, noon and night. Trust my love for you. Know that I am always near, as close as your breath as constant as your heartbeat.

Trust that I know what’s best for you and that I’ll work everything in your life together for good. I’m a master planner, just like a good quilter who knows just where to put each piece: the light and the dark, the rough and the smooth.

Most importantly, know that you are the apple of my eye, the joy of my heart. Nothing I desire compares with you.

I love you!

Your father,

God

Two Poems on a Sunday

2009-06-12T05:09:00.000-07:00

love
In church last Sunday our worship leader placed crayons and paper at the end of each row. He invited us to draw a picture or write a poem about forgiveness. The first poem came quickly like my second child. The next followed as if it were a tenacious twin. I'm not sure if the poems are related. But, I offer them - together - here.

Forgiveness

It takes longer than a day
Process: wheel turning on the
cracked, broken and bumpy
waylaid road of my soul

I give to him a gift of quenching
Freedom that washes away
control, rage that burned like
a forest fire in our family room

Quenching, slaking, washing away
the wild, circling, bitter helix of
familial sin

Releasing him and daily, surreptitiously
freeing
me

Oil

Gladness dripping down my
forehead like nectar of ripe
tangerine in summer:
sweet and sticky, fresh with
life and blessing
seal and expectation

In purse or pocket warmed
by body heat, waiting to
salve an open sore or
scarred wound with the ointment
of joy which comes

in the mourning

Lord, thank you for forgiving us. Be with all of who who daily offer the gift of forgiveness to those who have hurt us . . . to those we love. Bestow your healing, hope and help. Amen.

Write-to-Publish Conference

2009-06-07T16:39:00.000-07:00

LOVE
I'm just back from Write-to-Publish, a conference for writers held at Wheaton College in Illinois. There, I spoke on a panel titled The Writing Life; and taught two classes (poetry and co-authoring). CDs of these and numerous other informative and inspiring classes are available for purchase at http://www.writetopublish.com/.

After a year of fallow ground (writing & submitting poetry, revising old manuscripts, doodling in my journal, crafting new queries, mourning, waiting, hoping), Write-to-Publish has geared me up to start writing seriously - dare I say zealously - again. I returned to my Writing Room brimming with creative ideas, instilled with a renewed sense of commitment to my craft.

As I caught up on e-mail correspondence and a few of my favorite Writer's Almanacs, I stumbled upon a quote from Turkish author (winner of the Nobel prize in literature), Orhan Pamuk. He says, "For me, a good day is a day like any other, when I have written one page well. Except for the hours I spend writing, life seems to me to be flawed, deficient, and senseless."

The voracious writer in me resonates with this statement. But, the mom, friend, daughter, sister, and woman of prayer in me is almost repulsed by it. As I enter back into a disciplined writing regime, I want to take my season of fallow ground with me. I want to embrace sunsets and good glasses of wine and bedtime stories with my children. I long for the satisfaction of one page well written. More importantly, though, I want to honor God with a life well lived in service and love, in sacrifice and celebration.

A poem I wrote for one of my friends this summer comes to mind. A breeze rushed in through the window by my writing desk, refreshing my face as I re-read it this morning. Perhaps the poem was given for me, and all of my new aspiring writer friends from WTP:

Butterfly Wishes

Be free to fly and rest
like she does, unencumbered by agenda
and deadline or public opinion

Let the Wind blow you from
one sticky gold, crimson or
cornflower blue stamen to the next

Drink in Sweet as you do your long
curly proboscised work
with Grace and Intuition

Be yourself in full, colorful, feminine
creativity: embracing Process
and summer days, the Organic Way

Then, when your wings are tattered edged
unable to ride Wind as easily, readily
as on the day they dried

Flutter down to tree shaded ground
where it's cool and green
and safe

Sleep there
surrounded by the colors of
divine cross-pollination

Blessings on all of you who received prayer and information and good words at Write-to-Publish!

2009-05-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is someting infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.

-Rachel Carson, 1906-1964, American Biologist, Writer

Robin's Egg

2009-05-02T16:04:00.000-07:00

love
I watched her come
day after day
to the Alberta Pine
beside my front door

Building with dried grass
small twigs, pieces of
my son’s hair (he’d just
had an outdoor haircut)

And mud
I wondered how she
carried the mud

From a chair
by the picture window
I saw her smooth
and compress the crisscrossed
creation with her breast

When it was
perfect and padded
and remarkably round
she laid – at great effort –
the first egg

I saw it new
its indescribable blue
shell still covered with
small rips of white membrane
from The Passage
sun shone on the blue
adding a glimmering
spot of white

The next day there was
another egg
the day after that
another: a trinity of eggs
perfectly nesting in the nest

Then, surprise, a fourth
“Four eggs!” I told my daughter
“I’ve never seen four before!”

The foursome squished into
the round seemingly fighting
for position until a day later
when I found one of the eggs

Dislodged from the nest
cradled in greening branches
of our tiny pine

“What should I do?” I asked
my husband. “Put it back
in the nest?”
“Maybe she pushed it out,”
he said.

When the Robin left
to dig a wiggly meal
I retrieved the egg from
its cradle bow

In my hand
it was cold and heavy
with promises that would
never be trued

I felt like crying over the egg
and over all the indescribably
smooth, blue and beautiful
things that have fallen,
too soon, out of my own nest

2009-04-11T07:10:00.000-07:00

Christspring

Eternity’s harbinger roots and stems
In the turning tulips, sunny daffodillies
Forsythia, hyacinth, and vernal egg

Budding, bursting, bounding forth
Rising – born new – from earth’s tomb
Crowned with seed jacket, clothed in green and purple perfection:

Heavensprung Champion

Words about Word

2009-04-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

LOVE
The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.
- John 1:1 (The Message)

They can be like the sun, words. They can do for the heart what light can for a field.
- St. John of the Cross

A word is dead when it's been said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.
- Emily Dickinson

Most of my friends like words too well. They set them under the blinding light of the poem and try to extract every possible connotation from each of them, every temporary pun, every direct or indirect connection - as if a word could become an object by mere addition of consequences. Others pick up words from the streets, from their bars, from their offices and display them proudly in their poems as if they were shouting, "See what I have collected from the American language. Look at my butterflies, my stamps, my old shoes!" - Jack Spicer

I'm apt to get drunk on words. - Madeleine L'Engle

Her words were like tinfoil; they shone and they covered things up.
- Helen Cross

Step out form behind the words. When you're a writer you can imagine that the words speak for you and are you, but they're not. You are this living, breathing, bad hair day kind of person.
- Beth Kephart

Green Sprouts in Spring

2009-04-01T05:46:00.001-07:00

love
I've been reading Luci Shaw's latest book, a collection of her reflections on creativity and faith. It's titled BREATH FOR THE BONES: Art, Imagination and Spirit. Her words are baptising my mind, renewing my love for creating; and inviting me to return to my love of poetry, visual art, music . . .
love
Here are a couple of paragraphs that seem particularly apropos today as green shoots are sprouting in my yard, the park, and my soul:
love
I find it fascinating to note that as we allow the created universe and the Scripture to illuminate us with their primary and secondary revelations, what we deeply believe will push up through the fabric of our writing or painting like green sprouts in spring, bursting the earth's crust.
love
When the artist lives in the house of faith, her consciousness is suffused with and informed by Christian images, and when that imaginative intelligence is allowed freely to describe life experience, the images and words supplied and shaped by the artist will reflect Christian belief even when there is no overt effort or intention to do so.
love
And so I become more aware of a number of correlations between faith and poetry. These intersections, as I call them, are elements of trusting God and making art not only as parallel to each other but as forming a network of connections that touch and interrupt, interlace and reinforce each other like the fivers in a woven fabric. For me poetry and faith are interdependent. Each affects the other as they embrace and interpenetrate. Faith in forms art, and art enhances faith.

Happy Birthday, Cheri!

2009-03-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

Today is my dearest friend Cheri's birthday. As part of my celebration of her birth; I share the following poem which I penned for her this February.

Summit Self
a poem for Cheri winter ‘o9

She will climb a mountain
if you tell her which one

Or swim upstream
against tides of White Ruffians
if you take her to the River

She is transparent, bursting,
jammed with wisdom born from
years of surrender and wiping
Emergence is near

Like a mountaineer at the zenith
piercing flag into jagged peak
She’s ready to reclaim Herself
The stake: more about Call than Career
Moment than Momentum

For today, she seeks and asks and waits

You are silent.
Come on! Speak!
Aren’t you Word, anyway?!

She listens, blurring blue another day
Can’t you utter a solitary sound?
Or – at least – take her

Take her to the River
dunk her Summit Self down
deep and when she emerges

Smile a resonant Yes!
on her beauty and gifts and age

Happy Birthday, Cher!!!

A Poem Inspired by The Woman at the Well

2009-03-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

love

love

love
Wait Well
Based on John 4:1-38

Like her
Cry when its time to cry
Ride the rollercoaster of it all
Go to the well with empty jar:
expecting to be slaked

When you see The Stranger
and realize he knows all
your foibles, losses, Cracked Places
too well to be anything but a Diviner

Leave your jar
Go tell those you love
And when you return
the jar will be full of
laughing waters for you,
for him, and for all of his friends

Twilight

2009-03-11T15:03:00.000-07:00

love
If you're as obsessed by Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Series as I've been over the last few weeks (I'm in the middle of the last book and not wanting it to end); perhaps you'll enjoy the following poem, inspired by the saga.

Awake Again
Spring 2009

When the No is deep and hard and long –
filled with empty urgency of a broken,
never-hatched egg –
find a way to rest instead of sleep

Slumber knowing that God
(like a fictive Vegetarian Vampire)
never sleeps, but, sits
in a chair by your bed
watching, keeping you from harm
held in love

Making sure that all your
sleepy words turn into
dreams come true

He will not let your foot slip -- he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you -- the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm -- he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. Psalm 121:3-8

Butterfly Wishes

2009-03-02T08:52:00.000-08:00

Butterfly Wishes
For Kristen, March 1, 2009

Be free to fly and rest
lovelike she does, unencumbered by agenda
loveand deadline or public opinion

Let the Wind blow you from
loveone sticky gold, crimson or
lovecornflower blue stamen to the next

Drink in Sweet as you do your long
lovecurly proboscised work
lovewith Grace and Intuition

Be yourself in full, colorful, feminine
lovecreativity: embracing Process
loveand summer days, the Organic Way

Then, when your wings are tatter edged
loveunable to ride Wind as easily, readily
loveas on the day they dried

Flutter down to tree shaded ground
lovewhere it’s cool and green
loveand safe

Sleep there
lovesurrounded by the colors of
lovedivine cross-pollination

Opening

2009-02-05T10:02:00.000-08:00

LOVE
This Christmas I stuffed my own stocking with two books by Dorothy J. Gaiter & John Brecher, authors of the Wall Steet Journal's 'TASTINGS' column. The books: WINE FOR EVERY DAY AND EVERY OCCASION and LOVE BY THE GLASS were heavily dog-eared by the end of January, and I had effectively abandoned my feelings of wine-intimidation, as well as gained a new exuberance for enjoying wine.

Gaiter & Brecher (a husband/wife team) have an artful, brilliant, organic way of telling stories and describing wine experiences that draw the reader in and make the world of wine feel accessible and desirable. Check them out at: h ttp://online.wsj.com/article/tastings.html

Because of their writings, my New Year's resolution was to drink more wine, start a wine tasting group, and regularly follow their TASTINGS column. Because of their writings, I will never again take a vacation without packing a good bottle to uncork upon arriving at my destination. Because of their writings, each time I go to a wine store I 'channel' Dottie & John (trying to imagine their recommendations). And, because of their writings, I always feel as if they're somehow vicariously partaking of each new bottle I open.

By sharing one of their life's passions, they have enriched my life and inspired me to write the following poem (an homage to their OPEN THAT BOTTLE NIGHT - see their link for more on this):

Opening

Uncork that bottle you’ve been saving
the one with rose in full bloom on its label

Uncork, pour into good, long stemmed, large bowled glasses
the ones that have collected dust on their bottoms
(turned upside down on your shelf for months)

Uncork, letting the nose fill your kitchen with raisiny red
bouquet of pepper and lilac and wisdom

Swirl, letting legs adorn transparent stemware, walking more
spice and leather – chocolate now – into your breathing space

Let terroir take you to Italy or France or the Californian coast
Better, to the propinquities of your personal vintage

See the vines and winemaker, the sun and soil,
the labor, loss and love that fortifies grapes

Drink in delightful, yummy, cherrylike tastes
experience pillow-soft mouthfeel. Come to it

Drink structure, and landscape and soulful fruit
wait for the long, gentle, ethereal finish
(that strangely makes you feel more grounded)

Toast the open rose on the open bottle. Toast yourself:
who you’ve been, who you are and who you’re becoming

Tomorrow, remove the label. Paste it in a journal,
a reminder of the ways you’re opening with grace and time
(and of that damn good glass of wine)

If You Seek . . . song

2009-01-26T09:52:00.000-08:00

LOVE
Winter. The festivity and (sometimes) frenetic pace of Christmas has passed. Now, I wait for the More Waiting of Lent. Somehow, perhaps divinely, the season seems perfectly synchronized with my station in life: a still, quiet, cold - sometimes lonely and unfriendly - time of waiting. Waiting for kids to get off the bus, waiting for word from editors and agents, waiting for direction for the future. Waiting for new birth that comes in the sprouts of springtime's buds and chrysalises.

The silence and solitude of this winter sometimes gets to me. I have to fight against an overwhelming urge to clog this time and space by watching too much TV, even reading or sleeping too much. I know I need to stay in, honor my present limbo. All the while, I will listen carefully for Word, stay alert to motion; try to trust that somewhere 'Aslan is on the move.'

I have a deep sense that what my soul really needs is to sit in the stillness. I feel impatient, though. I hate waiting! I want to forge ahead, force things. No matter what I do, I can't change this frozen white-covered and motionless moment: my present solitude. So, I will try to embrace the stillness.

Thomas Merton, a Tappist monk and author of The Seven Storey Kingdom, helps me with his poem.

If You Seek . . . song

If you seek a heavenly light
I, Solitude, am your professor!

I go before you into emptiness,
Raise strange suns for your new mornings,
Opening the windows
Of your innermost apartment.

When I, loneliness, give my special signal
Follow my silence, follow where I beckon!
Fear not, little beast, little spirit
(Thou word and animal)
I, Solitude, am angel
And have prayed in your name.

Look at the empty, wealthy night
The pilgrim moon!
I am the appointed hour,
The "now" that cuts
Time like a blade.

I am the unexpected flash
Beyond "yes," beyond "no,"
The forerunner of the Word of God.

Follow my ways and I will lead you
To golden-haired suns,
Logos and music, blameless joys,
Innocent of questions
And beyond answers:
For I, Solitude, am thine own self:
I, Nothingness, am thy All.
I, Silence, am thy Amen!

The Universe is Made of Stories

2009-01-21T13:07:00.000-08:00

LOVE
Poet, Muriel Rukeyser writes, The universe is made of stories, not atoms. I couldn't agree more! Everyone loves a good story whether it's the latest Jodi Piccoult novel that we read this summer on the beach, or a piece of good children's fiction we read last night in a rocking chair with a child on our lap. Stories tell truth. They inspire. They let us know that we're not alone. They help us make sense out of a messy, painful world.

God is one of the world's best storytellers. The bible is a collection of God's most captivating stories. A few weeks ago - - inspired by one of my publishers, Terry Glaspey's new book, The One-Minute Bible Guide - - I wrote a Metanarrative which was read aloud at my church. A Metanarrative uses a theme to weave all of God's stories into one collective story. (I guess it is, to literature, what a medley is to music.)

The theme of a good Metanarrative could be anything from blood to love, from walking to the sun. It could be titled anything from God, Lover of Our Souls . . . to God, the Word Who Speaks . . . to God, the One Who Holds Every Story Together . . . My Metanarrative was titled God, The Author and Perfecter. It was an attempt to show that the same God who wrote Adam and Eve's story and the story of the Patriarchs is still writing our stories.

A Metanarrative Call to Worship
God, The Author and Perfecter

The Era of Creation & Early History (Genesis 1-11)

LEADER 1:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

LEADER 2:
In the beginning was the Word. John 1:1

LEADER 3:
He was the firstborn over all creation. Colossians 1:15

LEADER 1:
For by him all things were created. Colossians 1:15

LEADER 2:
He was before all things and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17

LEADER 3:
He was – and still is – the beginning so that in everything he might have supremacy. Colossians 1:18

LEADER 1:
Since the beginning God has set eternity in the hearts of his people; yet we cannot fathom what he has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11

ALL:
You, O God, are the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Hebrews 12:2 a Stronghold in times of trouble, Psalm 9:9 the Beginning and the End. Revelation 21:6 Our times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15

LEADER 1:
God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

LEADER 2:
The Lord God planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the people he had made. Genesis 2:8

LEADER 3:
In the garden the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Genesis 2:25

LEADER 1:
And the Lord God commanded, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:17

LEADER 3:
The woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye . . . she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband and he ate it. Genesis 3:6

LEADER 2:
God’s children heard the sound of their Father walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Genesis 3:8

LEADER 1:
God called to the man, “Where are you?”

LEADER 2:
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid. Genesis 3:9-10

ALL:
You, O God, are the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Hebrews 12:2 a Stronghold in times of trouble, Psalm 9:9 the Beginning and the End. Revelation 21:6 Our times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15

LEADER 2:
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time. Genesis 6:9

LEADER 1:
God saw how corrupt the earth had become. So he said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people. So make yourself an ark.” Genesis 6:12-14

LEADER 3:
The springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. Genesis 7:11

LEADER 1:
And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. Genesis 7:12 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out. Genesis 7:23

LEADER 2:
Only Noah was left and those with him in the ark. Genesis 7:23

LEADER 1:
God said to Noah and his family, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you, a covenant for all generations to come. I have set my rainbow in the clouds that never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.” Genesis 9:12-13

ALL:
You, O God, are the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Hebrews 12:2 a Stronghold in times of trouble, Psalm 9:9 the Beginning and the End. Revelation 21:6 Our times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15

The Era of the Patriarchs (Genesis 12-50)

LEADER 1:
The Lord said to Abraham, “Leave your country and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.” Genesis 12:1-2

LEADER 3:
But Abraham said, “O Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless?” Genesis 15:2

LEADER 1:
God took Abraham outside and said to him, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars. So shall be your offspring.” Genesis 15:5

LEADER 2:
At the very time God had promised, Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age. Genesis 21:2

LEADER 1:
Abraham gave the name Isaac – meaning laughter – to the son Sarah bore him. Genesis 21:3

LEADER 2:
Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me. Genesis 21:6

ALL:
You, O God, are the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Hebrews 12:2 a Stronghold in times of trouble, Psalm 9:9 the Beginning and the End. Revelation 21:6 Our times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15

LEADER 2:
Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, wrestled with God in the night. Genesis 32:24

LEADER 3:
When God saw that he could not overpower Jacob, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that the hip was wrenched as he wrestled. Genesis 32:25

LEADER 1:
God said to the maimed man, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
LEADER 3:
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

LEADER 1:
God asked him, “What is your name?”

LEADER 3:
“Jacob,” he answered.

LEADER 1:
Then God said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel because you have struggled with me and have overcome.” Genesis 32:26-28

LEADER 3:
Jacob, had twelve sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. Genesis 35:23-26

LEADER 2:
These sons became the twelve tribes of Israel who settled in Egypt to avoid famine, but eventually became slaves in the land. Exodus 1:1-7

ALL:
You, O God, are the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Hebrews 12:2 a Stronghold in times of trouble, Psalm 9:9 the Beginning and the End. Revelation 21:6 Our times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15

The Era of the Exodus & Wanderings (Exodus – Joshua)

LEADER 1:
Now Moses was tending his father-in-law’s flock. He led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Exodus 3:1

LEADER 2:
There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.
Exodus 3:2

LEADER 1:
God called to Moses from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

LEADER 2:
And Moses said, “Here I am.”

LEADER 1:
“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” Exodus 3:4-6

LEADER 2:
At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. Exodus 3:6

LEADER 1:
The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them into a good and spacious land . . . So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:7-10

LEADER 2:
The Israelites set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea, as the Lord had directed. For a long time they made their way around the hill country. Deuteronomy 2:1

LEADER 3:
For forty years they wandered, grumbled, lost their way and found manna.

LEADER 2:
Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab. There the Lord showed him the whole land – from Gilead to Dan . . . all the land of Judah as far as the western sea. Deuteronomy 32:1-3

LEADER 1:
The Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.’” Deuteronomy 32:4

ALL:
You, O God, are the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Hebrews 12:2 a Stronghold in times of trouble, Psalm 9:9 the Beginning and the End. Revelation 21:6 Our times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15

The Era of the Judges & The Era of the Kings (Judges & 1 Samuel – 2 Chronicles, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon)

LEADER 1:
God’s prophet Samuel served for many years. When he grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. 1 Samuel 8:1

LEADER 2:
But his sons did not walk in his ways. 1 Samuel 8:2

LEADER 3:
So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel. They said to him, “Appoint a king to lead us, such as all other nations have.” 1 Samuel 8:5

LEADER 1:
This displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him; “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king, as they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.” 1 Samuel 8:7-9

LEADER 3:
The Israelites went to Gilgal and there affirmed Saul as king in the presence of the Lord. Deuteronomy 11:15

LEADER 1:
“Now here is the king you have chosen,” said Samuel. “If both you and the king who reigns over you follow the Lord your God – good! But if you do not obey the Lord and keep his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.”

LEADER 2:
Saul walked with the Lord half-heartedly.

LEADER 1:
The word of the Lord came to Samuel, “I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” 1 Samuel 15:10

LEADER 3:
David was a son of Jesse of Bethlehem, a brave man and a warrior who spoke well and was a fine-looking man. When he was thirty years old, he became king of Israel and reigned forty years. 1 Samuel 16:18 and 2 Samuel 5:4-5

LEADER 2:
David followed after God with his whole heart.

LEADER 1:
When the time drew near for David to die, he gave a charge to Solomon his son. “Be strong, show yourself a man, and observe what the Lord your God requires: Walk in his ways so that you may prosper in all you do.” 1 Kings 2:2-3

ALL:
You, O God, are the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Hebrews 12:2 a Stronghold in times of trouble, Psalm 9:9 the Beginning and the End. Revelation 21:6 Our times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15

The Era of Exile/Babylonian Captivity and Return (Ezra - Nehemiah)

LEADER 3:
After King Solomon, many other kings ruled including Johoshaphat, Jehu, Joash, Jeroboam, Zechariah, and Manasseh. Under their leadership Israel split into two kingdoms and sank into idolatry and immorality.

LEADER 1:
The Lord, the God of their fathers sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people. But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused.
2 Chronicles 36:15-16

LEADER 2:
He brought up against them the king of Babylon, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and spared neither young woman, old man or aged. 2 Chronicles 36:17

LEADER 3:
God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezar. He carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, and all the treasures of the king. They set fire to God’s temple . . . they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there.
2 Chronicles 36:18-19

LEADER 1:
Everyone in Israel – whose heart God had moved – prepared to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. Ezra 1:5

LEADER 3:
They gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and having dust on their heads. Nehemiah 9:1

LEADER 2:
They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers. Nehemiah 9:2

LEADER 1:
They stood and read from the Book of the Law for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshipping the Lord their God. Nehemiah 9:3

LEADER 2:
When the builders laid the foundation of the temple, with praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord. Ezra 3:11

ALL:
You, O God, are the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Hebrews 12:2 a Stronghold in times of trouble, Psalm 9:9 the Beginning and the End. Revelation 21:6 Our times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15

The Era of Jesus Christ (Matthew - John)

LEADER 2:
After 400 years of silence, a New Day dawned in Jerusalem.

LEADER 1: In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. Hebrews 1:1-2

LEADER 2:
In the time of King Herod, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a
Virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. Luke 1:26

LEADER 3:
“Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.” Luke 1:30-33

LEADER 2:
Mary gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger. Luke 2:7

LEADER 1:
And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. Luke 2:40

LEADER 3:
News about him spread through the whole countryside. He taught in their synagogues, called twelve disciples, raised the dead, told parables, healed the sick, fed 5,000 and everyone praised him. Luke 3:14

LEADER 1:
It is written in the scriptures that this Jesus was crucified, that he was buried, and that he raised on the third day. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

LEADER 2:
He was the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy. Colossians 1:18

LEADER 3:
Through him God reconciled to himself all things. Colossians 1:20

LEADER 2:
And made peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Colossians 1:20

ALL:
You, O God, are the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Hebrews 12:2 a Stronghold in times of trouble, Psalm 9:9 the Beginning and the End. Revelation 21:6 Our times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15

The Era of the Early Church (Acts - Revelation)

LEADER 1:
In the last days, God said, “I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Acts 2:17

LEADER 2:
All the believers were together. Every day they continued to meet together.
Acts 2:44, 46

LEADER 3:
They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. Acts 2:46

LEADER 1:
And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. Acts 2:47

LEADER 2:
Then the end will come, when Jesus hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 1 Corinthians 15:24

LEADER 3:
This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. 2 Timothy 1:9

LEADER 1: And from the beginning God has set eternity in the hearts of his people; yet we cannot fathom what he has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11

LEADER 2:
God – who was and is and is to come – has made everything beautiful in its time. Revelation 1:8 and Ecclesiastes 3:11

LEADER 1:
In him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17

LEADERS 1, 2, and 3:
Therefore, trust in God at all times, O people! Psalm 62:8

ALL:
You, O God, are the Alpha and the Omega, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Hebrews 12:2 a Stronghold in times of trouble, Psalm 9:9 the Beginning and the End. Revelation 21:6 Our times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15

Book Ends

2009-01-21T12:59:00.000-08:00

Often, when I finish reading a book; I write a poem. This year, my sister-in-law convinced me to read Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. Here's the poem I wrote after that read:

Twin Poisonous Flowers
Written after reading
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Advent 2008

Two women, Taliban in their country
Endure private warring, a husband
Daily killing innocents caught in crossfire
Twin poisonous flowers: Hope and Love
Sprout in cracked kitchen floorboards of
Their war-torn land; uprooted by empty
Womb, lover lost, present torture, misogyny,
Thwarted attempts at escape, new life

Watered by memories shared, a baby girl and
Boy, mothers born (both of them), lost love found,
A shovel coming down hard and fast and mortally
With Herculean strength cracking cranium like
Farmer's soil furrowed to find meaning after death
And success, the sprout eternally green
From a friendship long ago rooted

A Couple Quotes about Community

2009-01-10T07:13:00.000-08:00

LOVE
What life have you if not life together?
There is no life that is not lived in community,
and no community not lived in praise of God.

-T. S. Eliot, Choruses from the Rock

Love the Lord your God with all your passion
and prayer and intelligence. This is the most
important, the first on any list. But there is a
second to set alongside it: Love others as well
as you love yourself. These two commands are
pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets
hangs from them.

Matthew 22:38-40

Waiting for Word

2008-12-30T09:30:00.000-08:00

LOVE
We all inherit something from our progenitors: insanely blue eyes like my husband's, a Romanesque nose (also like my husband's), a dashing smile, sanguine personality, hearty laugh, or broad shoulders. My brother, Rob, and I both inherited chocolate brown eyes, dark hair and prematurely degenerative lower backs.

This Advent, as I was waiting for Christmas, I was also waiting for Rob and his family to visit for the holidays. Despite a re-injury of his back - from putting his one-year-old into his crib - Rob made the long fight from LA to Chicago. On Christmas Eve he (who did not inherit the Drama Chromosome as I did) lay writhing in pain on the bed in my parent's room. The kids and I stopped the Natal Drama to go into the master, anoint Rob with olive oil and pray for a reprieve from pain that 'felt like a rusty nail stabbing his low back, hip and right leg.'

On Sunday I thought of my brother as I led worship from the piano and sang, Immanuel, Our God is with us. And if God is with us who can stand against us? Our God is with us, Immanuel. And as the congregation read the following adaptation of Eugene Peterson's translation of John 1, I thought about my friend Bev who is pregnant and four days past her due date. Both my brother and Bev: waiting for a word, waiting for deliverance from pain, waiting for a new life.

RESPONSIVE READING, DECEMBER 28th 2008

LEADER:
The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God in readiness for God from day one.

MEN:
Everything was created through him; nothing – not one thing! – came into being without him.

WOMEN:
What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.

ALL:
The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. Immanuel, God with us!

LEADER:
John the Baptist was sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.

WOMEN:
The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light.

MEN:
He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice he came to his own people, but they didn’t want him.

LEADER:
But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, he made to be their true selves.

ALL:
The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. Immanuel, God with us!

With the coming of Christmas, my Advent waiting has ended. The Life-Light has come into the darkness. Yet, with Rob and Bev, I continue to wait as they walk through Personal Advents. Rob and his family cut their trip to Chicago short, flying back to LA on Christmas Day. As I write he is undergoing what could be a five hour surgery to alleviate two 'massively herniated' discs. Bev is still awaiting the birth of her baby boy. I remain with both of them in hope and expectancy and with this poem:

Waiting for Word
for Rob on the day of his back surgery
December 2008

On a day filled with
thoughts of you,
I feel pregnant with
expectancy, waiting for Word

by phone or Internet
or Spirit Whisper that
you’re OK and resting
in the safety of darkness

beginning to break
like waters bringing forth
new life once secreted by womb
that – by yielding, going with the pain –

fades from deepest obscurity
to a bright pink and screaming dawn

An Advent Podcast

2008-12-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

This year my church, Blanchard Road Alliance in Wheaton, is offering a 5 minute Podcast for each day during the Advent Season. These Podcasts have given me Pause, Stillness, a few moments for Reflection during this often frenetic time of year. They've been a perfect Gift to me. I look forward to each new offering, enjoying recitations of scripture by four-year-olds, stories about forgiveness, hopeful expectation for Emmanuel - God with Us - to come.

Following is a transcript of my Podcast which is featured today at the following link: http://www.blanchardalliance.org/mediaServices/channel321.xml). If, by the way, you're interested in signing up for the free gift of the entire Podcast Compilation, you can do that at http://www.blanchardalliance.org/.

Everlasting Father
An Advent Offering about God as Playful

This morning as I got ready for the day I heard my dad’s voice calling out from our front room, “It’s time for your armpit sandwich, Ayden!” Next I heard the pitter-patter of a chase followed by a capture and shared laughter. Even from upstairs, I knew it wouldn’t be long until Grandpa and Ayden would be feverishly involved in a game of “Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?”, Flashlight Tag with Ben and Emily, or Ayden’s favorite, “I’m Thinking of Something.”

My dad is one of the most playful, ebullient, joyous, extroverted people I know. He’s one of those twinkly-eyed guys who smiles at babies in line at the mall. He embraces life, always has a good story to tell, an easy laugh, and sees the bright side of everything. Even in his sixties, my dad espouses the huge, uninhibited heart of a child.

His playful spirit has informed my image of God, our Everlasting Father. When I find myself falling into the clichéd trap of seeing God as stoic, unavailable, uuber-serious; I remember my dad. And, I realize that playfulness can be part of God’s character without diminishing his authority, divinity or holiness.

Seeing God this way – through the lens of my hilarious, playful dad – helps vivify the image of our Everlasting Father. So when I read in Psalm 104 that God ‘stretches out the heavens like a tent’ I immediately think of camping with my dad. And, imagine a god who invites us into wild adventurous kinds of connections. The kind of fresh-aired fun families experience under star-lit nights . . . by open fire.

Also, when I read of God incarnate, Jesus, inviting the children to be with Him; I see my dad tickling my son like he did earlier today. And, I imagine Christ yelling “Let the little children come,” as He takes off for an impromptu game of hide-n-go-seek that morphs into a game of leap frog and then a contest to see who can dig up the most worms from a nearby Jerusalem garden.

During Advent – a time of reflective waiting – let us trust that our Everlasting Father will come at Christmas with Joy and Lightness, Playfulness and Love . . . delighting in us and inviting us to be with Him, enjoy Him, enter into blithe and cheer-filled moments of connection with Him.

And, let us likewise invite Him:

Jesus Christ, Immanuel, Everlasting and Playful Father, in our changing world, help us trust your eternal protection and provision and guide others to You.

Expecting Emmanuel

2008-11-30T06:49:00.000-08:00

LOVE

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This Advent I’m expectant. Expectant for the birth of Christ; and expectant for the birth of a friend’s baby (a boy, due on Christmas Day). I’ve had the joy and honor of walking with this friend, a single-mom who goes to my church, through this: her first pregnancy.

As I’ve watched her middle become as round and beautiful as the earth, we’ve been talking a lot about Mary’s journey as a single-mom. We’ve debriefed what it must’ve been like for Mary to feel pregnant and alone. We’ve read her story in the gospels, imagined what it was like when her baby, Jesus, met leaping John the Baptist – through layers sin and flesh and uterus – for the first time.

We’ve talked about the surprising way Mary – an improbable teenage girl – wound up carrying God’s child . . . carrying God within herself . . . And how all of us carry divinity within us. CHRIST IN US THE HOPE OF GLORY.

The magic and mystery of God coming near in such an unlikely way has struck us organically as my friend (full and beautiful with child), nears her Christmas due date, prepares her nursery, and tries to survive these last few days where sharing a body with a big baby boy are becoming arduous and exhausting. As we wait and expect her looming day of deliverance, we’re awed at the ways Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God-with-us has come to be close to us.

A poem by Rowan Williams, titled Advent Calendar, helps us as we wait:

Advent Calendar

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-sowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

Grateful Heart

2008-11-29T08:23:00.000-08:00

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My family has just returned from a couple days away at a little cabin in the woods. We followed trail blazes on oak leaf covered paths, saw cedar waxwings, stepped on mushrooms and watched their spores ascend into the air like smoke. The kids collected sticks, rocks and feathers. I collected memories.

We performed balance beam routines on fallen pine trunks, warmed our hands and faces by Bry's fire, feasted on roasted turkey and buttered potatoes, slept under quilts; awoke to hot coffee and sunshine sneaking surreptitiously into our dwelling. Surrounded by fresh air and the love of family, I couldn't help but feel unquenchably grateful. In an endless circle, a voice deep within my spirit whispered, Thank you, God . . . Thank you, God . . . Thank you, God!

Were there no God we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts and no one to thank. - Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894

Sisters

2008-11-26T04:31:00.000-08:00

love
Shortly after my dear friend Margie's husband died from Cancer; I heard of a young mom at my church who had lost her sister to Cancer. Cathartically, I spent hours on her brother-in-law's gorgeously written website: http://forleslie.blogspot.com/ weeping and praying with my tears as I read stories of love and loss and unexpected leaving. So much of it reminded me of my arduous, beautiful, mercy-laden journey with Margie. So much of it made me feel connected to this young woman though I did not know her personally.

Every Sunday at church I prayed for her, wondered how she was doing - - knowing that she was in the thick grieving the loss of her sister and, at the same time, helping her brother-in-law care for his young motherless son. Every Sunday, I wondered how the woman's heart was doing, if it was empty with the aching gnaw of loss like mine. If she was exhausted or at peace or both . . . or neither. I wondered how losing a sister was different from what I experienced with Margie; and if there was anything I could do or say to lighten (or fill?) the loss. Last Sunday, in the middle of the service, a poem came. I'm not sure if I'll share it with the woman, or not. But, it follows.

Sisters

I don't have a sister.
You did.

In a picture the two of you
sit on a bench together.
You're both smiling,
looking so pretty,
mirrors of one another,
happy, sisterly: companioned.

What's it like to have a
sibling like yourself
yet different
knowing you intuitively
by shared propinquity
and life

to laugh at insider jokes,
remember the color of wallpaper
in childhood rooms and
the exact slope of backyard

the swing set there and sandbox
where you shared secrets and
fought over who'd be
Queen of the Sandcastle

to disagree and know that
blood and chromosomes link
you together inextricably like
stitches in a hand knit blanket?

Now she has left unexpectedly
and I wonder where she is.
In the ground? In the sky?
Both? Still companioning you?
Your countenance in church
says you miss her ineffably
but know exactly where she is.

I imagine her whispering the
location to you in a sunset or
falling leaf, in the simple symbol
of a dream, or shiver on the
back of your neck.

I don't have a sister.
You always will.

HOME

2008-11-20T07:58:00.000-08:00

love

"Gottcha!" That's what we we said to a twelve-month-fifteen-day-old beautiful, apple cheeked Chinese baby girl on the day we held her in our arms for the first time. The moment unfolded at a Chinese Welfare Institution in Nanchung. The room was small, unadorned, dimly lit and filled with anxious parents-to-be along with the hearty cries of our baby girl and eleven others who were united with their adoptive American mamas and daddies that day, November 20th, 2005.

love
I remember holding my pearl of a baby girl on my lap as we took a bumpy bus ride back to our hotel. As the bus maneuvered scarily through frenetic Chinese traffic, I felt an overwhelming, marrow-deep homesickness. A longing to smell the hair of our boys, to hug them hard and long, to play the piano in my front room, to look at the pond from our dining room table; and, simultaneously, a homesickness for a place I've never been, a Place where my Heart will truly find Rest and Peace and Completion . . . a place where True Forever Family lives. Along with all these existential emotional gymnastics, I also felt a sadness that Bryan and I were about to take this baby girl away from the first home she'd ever known.

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Hoping to bring a part of China back to the states with us, I leaned over my seat to ask our guide, "How do you say home in Chinese?"

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"Jia," she said and smiled as if she knew exactly what I was thinking.
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Jia, jia, jia, I repeated in my heart. Jia. Jia. I wanted to remember this word. I planned to say it to our child after we flew across the Big Pond, landed in the airplane, and drove via car down our driveway for the first time. Jia, I would whisper in my little girl's ear. Jia. This is your home, Sweetheart.

Today is the third anniversary of our GOTTCHA DAY (a term well-known and beloved by adoptive parents of internationally adopted children).

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Today, Emily and I will dress up for tea with hats, strings of pearls (from China), boas and sparkly plastic rings. We'll set a toddler sized table for four. Two of my grandmother's tea cups - most likely filled with apple cider - will be for us. Two others will be set out for Emily's birth parents who we call Ma Ma and Ba Ba (the Chinese names for Mom and Dad).

We will sing and talk, eat Goldfish crackers and bakery cookies. And we will sip our tea. When there is a pregnant pause in the festivities; we'll raise our cups, with extended pinkies of course, and toast to Ma Ma and Ba Ba in China. We will thank them for giving Emily life, for giving her her first home in China, for

letting her come to a new home in America.

Thoughts of China and pain bearing beauty, of Emily's birth family, of jia have been flooding my mind. I wonder if Emily is remembering, too. I wonder if this season brings up for her the memories: smells, sights, sounds, feelings of the day when her life changed and she found a new kind of home in my arms.

I wonder if she remembers that we were both wearing the exact shade of jade green when we first met. I wonder if she remembers the way the Aunties told us - using pantomimed body-language - that she could walk, that she was doing so well, that she had been deeply loved in China. I wonder if she notices the big and small synchronicities that come during this time of remembering. Synchronicities like the one last night as I read the last few pages of Madeleine L'Engle's Meet the Austins to all of my kids before bed.

On the last few pages, L'Engle artfully, specifically describes the Austin family activities upon returning home from a long vacation:

We piled out of the car and in through the garage and into the house, into the kitchen. It was home and I remembered it with every bit of me . . . We were all dashing all over the house to our special places. I ran up to Rob's and my room, and there was his little bed at the foot of my big one . . . and the catalpa tree outside the east window was still naked but I thought I could see the beginning of buds. I kept going from room to room, bumping into the others, and that's what we were all doing, feeling the feel of home again.

We all ran outdoors to the swing, to John's and Dave's tree house, John, of course, to the barn . . . We ran all the way around the house, looking at it from all four points of the compass, and then back into the house again, and Mother had a record on the phonograph, and the phone kept ringing, all the kids to ask us about our vacation, and the office phone, because Daddy's patients knew he was home again.

Rob grabbed my hand and pulled me back upstairs to our room and he said, "Oh, my bed, my own bed," and I knew his God Bless that night would go on for hours if someone didn't stop him from blessing every piece of furniture in the house and every tree outdoors.

Mother called us to help, and she was getting dinner and we realized that it was dinnertime and we were all starved, so we set the table and I mashed the potatoes and Suzy cut up the tomatoes for salad and Rob went around the table giving everyone three napkins. Then we were all around the table holding hands to say grace, and we said the kind of grace we always do on special occasions, each of us in turn saying his own . . .

Then everyone started to jabber all at once and to eat like pigs and it all seemed right and comfortable and home.

On the way to the bus stop this morning, I replayed this passage from Madeleine's book in my mind. I thought about the day we came home from China with Emily. I thought about the homes we go to each Thanksgiving and Christmas. And, I thought about a Home where I hope to live after these homes all pass away. As I thought, an acrostic for HOME popped into my head:

H - Happily ever after?
O - Ostensibly a
M - metaphor for the

E - eternal.

Once again, welcome home, Emily! This is your jia, your place of love and family and fights with siblings, mashed potatoes, loud conversations, piano music and growing trees. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We're so glad that you're here! Welcome home!

Thank You Durand Women

2008-11-19T14:30:00.001-08:00

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During this season of thanksgiving, I'd like to express gratitude to the girls of Durand United Methodist Women's Organization. Thank you for sharing your weekend of retreat with me. Your laughter and tears and the helpful suggestions you offered about my ensuing mammogram are ineffably appreciated! Thanks for inspiring me with your Babyless Shower, your 'We're Not Church Ladies Attitude,' and your open conversational honesty.

Now that I know you all a bit better, I can honestly say that I'm proud you've taken the moniker Girl Talk . . . God Talk for your group. May all of your talkings continue!

As I was driving home from Rockford, I was thinking about a comment a woman in your group made that one of my books was normal. In the moment, I was a bit taken back. But, as I processed in my car on the way home, I wondered if that may have been the most profound compliment anyone has ever given me about my writing; and proof that my mission of bringing the divine to the daily, the holy to the human - - meeting God in the ordinary - - is being accomplished. So, thanks for those sweet words.

My prayer for all of you is that you'll continue to grow in faith and friendship. And, as you do, that that you'll continue to reach out to your community and to the world. (Also, that you'll hang in there with Lewis' Four Loves.) That books is one of my favorites. My husband, Bryan, and I used the following quote from that masterpiece in our wedding program:
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Need-love says of a woman "I cannot live without her"; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection - - if possible, wealth; Appreciative-love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all. Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appreciative-love says: "We give thanks thee for thy great glory."
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So, here I am, blogging and sending a big dose of Appreciative-love your way. Thanks again! And Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and yours!

ColorGirl

2008-11-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

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ColorGirl
a poem about Kristin

Canary yellow it cascades
from branch, brushing
coat sleeve, jeans
taking rest in a bed
of sunshine colored comrades

I begin to gather more:
a golden bouquet

walking through the park
add orange, crimson, rusty
garments disrobed by fall

At home the collection
perfectly piles into
cardboard box addressed
to brother in LA where
leaves hold eternally verdant

The face of his wife
falls into mind I see
her before him on
hills peaking in
vibrant autumnal bursts
they glide in joy
and wind and smeary hues

I lift the box letting my
collection spill on dining
room table – he does not need
the ritual package anymore

She is the color in his life

Looking for God

2008-11-11T08:08:00.000-08:00

love

They watch for Christ

who have a sensitive, eager, apprehensive mind,

who are awake, alive, quick-sighted,

zealous in seeking and honoring Him,

who look out for HIm in all that happens, and

who would not be surprised,

who would not be over-agitated or overwhelmed,

if they found that He was coming at once . . .

love

This then is to watch;

to be detached from what is present, and

to live in what is unseen;

to live in the thought of Christ as He came once,

and as He will come again;

to desire His second coming, from our affectionate

and grateful remembrance of His first.

love

John Henry Newman

Admonition to Eyes

2008-11-09T12:53:00.000-08:00

LOVE
It is Sunday, and another poem has come. This one is written like a letter to my eyes, begging them to open, to see God's grandeur in nature, the struggle of a close friend, the newly born-handwriting of my elementary aged boys, the smile of my daughter . . .

The poem is my way of continuing the thoughts of one of my friends at the end of his sermon, ". . . let us ask that we be granted the eyes to see those things that are needful for us in our spiritual pilgrimage. Perhaps that idea can introduce the fear that we could go way overboard on seeing the unseen . . . and yet, at special times . . . of danger, of discouragement, God may open our eyes to see things that are not unreal, but simply not regularly visible. Simply knowing that that reality is there may serve to build our faith."

Admonition to Eyes

Open to see the sun whitening,
illuminating tufted tips
of tall grass that
wave in autumn wind

the downward slope of
eyebrows mid-sentence,
fall of countenance,
crinkle of brow begging
help with kids while
a loved one convalesces
close to Heaven

See sea glass vibrant and pastel,
Study microscopic and particulate
the vast and collective
blurry humming birds, stars, silvery
moons, smears of constellation,
rosebuds or full labyrinths of bloom

Notice each lighted moment
the wobble of new cursive, her
exact slant of smile, leaves of
particular crimson or ochre,
infinitely unique geometries of
snowflakes, each metaphor in life

Practice opening widely, precisely with
cunningly careful voraciousness
Look for the Image of the Invisible, the
Mystery of divinity, the fuzzy feathery
promise found in the fluttering tips
of seeable, unseen angel wings

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:15-17

The Labyrinth at St. James Cathedral

2008-10-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday my daughter, Emily, and I made pilgrimage into the city in search of the outdoor labyrinth at St. James Cathedral on Huron. The weather was sunny and cool. Emily and I both wore brown boots (good for kickin' up crap on the walk). Once we'd paid way too much for parking we walked three blocks to the site. The laybrynth was not too large, making the turns feel a bit tight; painted with purple paint on a concrete courtyard. Two sculptures greeted us. One, an angel with a bow and arrow at his feet, the other a bright, red, angular and modern piece. We were surround by the sounds of the city: car horns, people walking, talking, the occasional screech of wheels. Two pigeons joined us in the courtyard along with two janitors and the chapel provost. Afterward, the following poem was born.

1968 Cornerstone

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she walks a circuitous path
wondering if you see and know
the twists and turns

do the disappointments go
unnoticed, fleeting and faded as
days ripped off a calendar and
tossed in a metal basket

she goes to the labyrinth
at St. James in Chicago
surrounded by hundreds of
high rise details hidden
corporately, blurred behind
blinded beehive windows

two pigeons, one white and tan,
the other iridescent gray
along with her daughter
walk with her
circling, stepping unsure
there is cooing and racing
a song of sorts, laughter,
a gentle smile to
accompany the questions

with camera lifted validating
the moment, marking it Real
out of a corner of eye, corner of frame
appears the church’s cornerstone stamped
1968, the year of her birth and
she knows you number her days

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Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
Isaiah 46:3-4

LESSONS FROM THE LABYRINTH

2008-10-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

Slovitur ambulando . . . it is solved by walking. - Saint Augustine

THE LABYRINTH

The word labyrinth has always appealed to me as a woman and a writer. It is ripe with connotations of circuitous paths, journeys, a patterned purpose, beauty and mystery found along the way. When I think of labyrinths, I think less of English gardens, the pageantry of medieval times, centaurs, and mazes; and more about images of roundness, patterned purpose, a natural, organic, even mystic way of knowing the numinous. Before I started reading about labyrinths, taking sojourns to find them, walking them as prayer; in a deeply intuitive way, I knew they were places - like other Thin Spots - where heaven touches earth.

Until this spring I'd never walked a labyrinth. I'd just dreamt of them, seen them in books, imagined their round allure, felt drawn to their mysterious yet predictable patterns. In June after losing a friend to Cancer, a book to unexpected and radical publisher cuts, and having to reschedule a long awaited bash with my closest girlfriends in honor of my 40th birthday; a labyrinth in Canada found me. It soothed me during my time of loss, welcomed me to Middle Life, and began reigniting my creativity.

PATH TO THE LABYRINTH

My path to the labyrinth was casual, organically daily, delightfully unexpected. Early in May, I was chatting with one of my neighbors who had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Checking in to see how she was feeling, I stood at the end of her driveway.

"What'd ya do today?" I kicked a rock in the boulevard.

"I walked the labyrinth at Olcott," she said with a slightly detached nonchalance.

"Labyrinth?" I asked, my eyebrows raised, the word almost cartwheeling on my tongue. "What labyrinth? Where?"

My neighbor stooped down, weeded a Dandelion from her lawn. "The Labyrinth at Olcott. It's just a couple blocks from here." She threw the weed beside her mailbox.

For the next few days it was as if the labyrinth whispered to me. She felt alive and near, beckoning. Calling to me. Welcoming.

She asked me to come and slow down, to come and cry, to come and find answers to my questions. She whispered words of wonder and womb, of a prayer one could walk. Her siren songs were tantalizing. They promised, "Come, be redirected. Let me ignite new energy in you for living a full, creative life. Let me help you meet the challenges you are about to face and find ways of serving Christ with a fresh joy, peace and wisdom." At the time, I couldn't have put exact words to her beckonings. But, they were there - in my soul - deeply imprinted like the ancient black and white picture of my great great grandmother that hangs in my family room.

MY FIRST LABYRINTH WALK

On Friday, May 9th I dropped my three-year-old daughter, Emily, off at preschool. Typically I would head straight home and use the two precious kid-free hours to write. This particular day was glorious with blue sky, vernal green grass and a breeze that carried the voice of the labyrinth directly to my ear. Her words tempted me to forget about my deadline for one morning and go on an adventure.

I tried to remember exactly where my neighbor said the labyrinth was. East on Geneva, take left before you get to Main Street . . . Once I was in the general vicinity, I followed arrowed signs and turns on a one lane road until I came to a garden and acres of wide open space encircled by mature trees. In the distance I could see a covered sign, a bench, and what appeared to be the labyrinth. I inhaled deeply. My ankles got wet by dewy grass as I walked. The journey to the labyrinth is a pilgrimage in its own right, I thought.

At the top of a small hill, she sat furrowed and friendly. She was perfectly round, a series of seven twisting concentric circles made with pale red pavers nested amidst a bed of colorful polished stones. She wasn't exactly what I'd expected. I had hoped for a glorious eleven circuit medieval labyrinth, maybe gardenesque with perhaps a row or two of boxhedge and greenery. Instead, this one was small and humble, a seven circuit Cretan (I would later discover). Standing in the middle of the wide open space I felt a little self-conscious. Industrial sized lawn mowers buzzed by, bringing an everyday hum that calmed me. I read the sign:

A labyrinth is a complex and circuitous path that leads from a beginning point to a center. Labyrinth patterns are universal, being found as archaic petroglyphs, Amerindian basket-weaving designs, and paintings or drawings from all over the world . . . In the Christian Middle Ages, labyrinths were often formed with colored paving stones in the floors of cathedral naves. Later, labyrinths were sometimes constructed of turf, herbaceous borders, or hedges . . .

The labyrinth at Olcott is a meandering pattern of the seven-circuit Cretan type, with its path marked by circular stepping stones in a field of pebbles. You walk it by entering from the northwest . . . and following the path to the center, where you may wish to pause for a few moments. Then reverse your direction and retrace your path back out to the starting point.

As you enter the labyrinth, you may focus your thoughts on a question or concern. You may walk the labyrinth with a quiet mind, sensing without particularizing the wonder of the pattern . . . In the labyrinth, as in life, there is no single right way to follow the path.

I stood at the mouth of the labyrinth feeling tempted to count the pavers. That would be so Modern, I thought. Ignoring the shame of my fall from postmodernity, I honored the urge to count the labyrinth's stepping stones, figure out her pattern. As I stepped into the mouth of the circle and continued on the path I counted stepping stones, "One, two, three, four . . . It was difficult to count and balance and follow the twisting path. I almost fell off the stones a couple times and had to remind myself, "there is no single right way to follow the path."

On the thirty-ninth stone, I considered my age, my quickly approaching June birthday, the step I was about to take into Middle Life. Thank you Lord for my life. Thank you for my thirty-nine years and the ways you've guided my feet as I've walked them. I looked at the cloudless almost periwinkle sky. I noticed a couple of cardinals in a particularly tall pine. Then stepped to the fortieth stone. I know you will be with me as I walk this year.

A picture of my Aunt Patty's face popped into my mind as I counted the steps between thirty-nine and sixty-nine - the distance between us in years. I prayed for Patty, who was recently diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. As I stepped on the the sixty-ninth stone I paused and asked God to grant my aunt's wish to live to see her seventieth birthday. Lawnmowers buzzed a song into the breeze as I stepped onto the seventieth stone, expectant and hopeful.

As I traversed to the middle of the labyrinth on my virgin walk, I started thinking about writing about the experience. I pushed the thoughts away hoping to take in the sensate experience fully, purely: stones on my bare feet, a path to follow, a middle in which to rest, a rejuvenated way back into my daily life. As I wound my way out of the sacred circle I felt thankful at the new discovery and hungry to walk, learn, know, experience more.

INVITING OTHERS TO THE LABYRINTH

When I picked Emily up from preschool, I couldn't wait to bring her to my new place of play and prayer. "Wanna go to a special place before we go home?" I asked her.

"What special place?" she asked.

"A labyrinth," I said enjoying the sound of the word and the way it felt as it rolled off my tongue.

She looked out the window watching trees blur green and gold. Cocking her head to one side and eyeing me in the rear view mirror, "What's a labyrinth, Mama?"

"A labyrinth is a curly (though my daughter is quite verbal, I didn't think she was ready for circuitous) path that helps us find our way."

"Let's go!" she said without a moment's jerk of hesitation.

Emily ran the Labyrinth as Olcott with lithe, smooth, energetic steps. She raced it, really. I walked, smiling gently as our paths crossed and we occasionally bumped into each other. (Such a metaphor for trying to lead a contemplative life as the mother of young children. Interruptions always. How will I learn to embrace them? I wondered.) We ran back to the car, holding hands, refreshed, joyful. I think we may have even skipped.

Later that night on our way out to grab a pizza, Emily and I introduced the labyrinth to her brothers, Ben and Ayden, and to Bryan, my husband. We walked the circles as a family. The boys raced like Emily had earlier that afternoon. Bry slowed down for the first time in weeks. Again the contrast: parents needing repose, children needing to burn energy. We all breathed in fresh air, noticed sky and birds and the beating of our hearts: a family, together, praying with moving feet.

A SEARCH FOR MORE LABYRINTHS

Once I had walked my first labyrinth and introduced it to my family; I was hungry to find out more about this mysterious, sacred, seemingly lost spiritual helpmate. Serendipitously, I discovered the Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress' WALKING A SACRED PATH: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice. And, along with that, her organization, Veriditas, which (among other things) offers a World-Wide Labyrinth Locator. Check it out at http://www.veriditas.labyrinthsociety.org/.

On Father's Day, using the Labyrinth Locator, my family and I found an 11 circuit, Medieval Chartres replica at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital on Roosevelt Road in Wheaton.

When I look at a medieval eleven circuit labyrinth with its eleven concentric circles and six-petaled rose in the middle; the soil of my mind fills with virescent seedling images pushing up concepts that seem to be missing in the modern church. Images of the feminine side of God, a place of nurturing and grace, of healing and hope. A place where the people and problems of earth can swish around in divine amniotic fluid, in God's womb.

This year, the fortieth in my circuitous life-journey, I hope to make pilgrimage to local (and some out-of-state) labyrinths. I'll go to Minnesota and walk a labyrinth in an arboretum with Cheri, to Dallas and sojourn to a church labyrinth with Jules. I hope to visit San Francisco with my husband Bry, brother Rob, and his wife Kristin, where I imagine Kristin and I in gowns, Bry and Rob in tuxes walking the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral. Someday, perhaps on my fiftieth birthday, I'll make it to the oldest existing church labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in France. Please, come, walk with me. If you do, don't hesitate to write with stories of discovery as the labyrinth helps you rediscover the depths of your soul.

The labyrinth is an archetype of wholeness, a sacred place that helps us rediscover the depths of our souls so we can remember who we are.
- Lauren Artress, Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice.

Labyrinths can help us to redirect and ignite new energies for living full, creative lives. They can help us meet the challenge to find ways to be of service to something greater than ourselves. - Lauren Artress

Burning Bushes

2008-10-26T12:15:00.000-07:00

love
O.K. I admit it. I wrote the bulk of this poem during church this morning. Some of it has been brewing in me for a few months - really for a lifetime - and some of it emerged, unapolagetically, right between the sermon (sorry Jeff) and the postlude. Parts of the thing are autobiographical. Some are not; and I'll never tell which are which.

I know, on the surface, the piece may sound a bit sacrilegious. That's not the point at all, though. The poem is meant to be about standing at the burning bushes of our lives and becoming real, albeit bruised, human beings. And, subtopically, it's about Christ's willingness to put on skin, walk the earth, become an everyday humble hurting one of us.

Enough explaining . . . here's the piece.

Burning Bushes

I am the ancient gray-haired woman pushing
love one plastic bag of groceries in a Jewel cart
love with errant, shaky, stubborn-minded wheel
love down the cracked sidewalk

I am the grade school child
love duped by nasty neighborhood girls
love to stick a soft warm tongue on the
love swing set's metal bar in winter
love stuck in frozen trickery
love then ripping, blood dripping
love running up the hill to Mother

I am the middle-aged wife
love longing for a child as the moon
love cycles and blood smeared Kotex
love marks another month of cramps
love instead of kicks in a dark, empty
love God-forsaken womb

I am the sixteen-year-old
love smitten by a blond piano playing
love older man, starving for glances, calls,
love and affirmations, "Hey, You!"
love melting beneath the warmth and weight
love of his arm rounding slender shoulders
love believing, "This is the girl
love I'm going to marry," to his friends
love until I see him holding a red purse
love in the vacuous, vaulted, vibrating
love church lobby while he waits for her

I am the fifty-year-old writer
love butt in chair, hands on keyboard
love (Carpal Tunnel and achy back from
love birthing both babies and books)
love head stuck somewhere between
love fledgling family, years of writing,
love research, love-making, rejections and
love crashed book contracts listening for
love a literary lineage that, like the last note
love of a wordy opus, is fading into silence

love If anyone asks what my name is, tell them,
I AM

Exodus 3:1-15

Divine Acrostics

2008-09-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

love
Today was rainy day. A rainy Monday. Last night I returned home from a visit to see my dear friend, Cheri, in Minnesota; the rain perfectly accompanied my lonely, after-visit malaise. I don't know if it was the rain or the melancholy that precipitated a burst of creativity. Either way, I found myself playing around with poetry, ordering some Luci Shaw collections that I've longed for forever, pulling out my poetry journal and pen. By the fire I jotted down a couple clerihews. In the kitchen, while making my kids' lunches, I toyed around with a tongue twister. In a blurry-brained moment after an afternoon nap, I imagined a few acrostics using words like, YAWN, SECRET, SMILE and CANDLE.

In the shower an acrostic for GOD popped, unwelcome, into my mind:

Grandiose

Omnipotent

Damning

Ouch! I hated the creation. It felt like a thief in the night coming quickly, surreptitiously, rapaciously. It bummed me out to think that those were my first three word associations for God. I tried to erase them, replacing them with:

Gracious

Omnipresent

Delighting

love

Faithful

Achingly true

Troubling

Hope-espousing

Eternal god

Relentless

and

Munificent

Other-worldly, yet in the world

Trustworthy

Holy

Eminently beautiful

Radical

Still, the first three words (and some of the others) tormented me. As I walked to the bus stop, sharing an umbrella with my daughter, Emily; I wondered if my sadness today has less to do with missing my friend and more to do with the way I'm presently perceiving divinity.

I wondered if middle life - with all of its pains, disappointments, eye-opening and unavoidable troubles - I'm revisiting some of the destructive descriptors of God that I learned in CCD as a child. I wondered if now, as I'm redefining who I am as a woman, if it is going to involve redefining, re-imaging, meeting anew the god I thought I'd known for so long.

Lately I've been thinking about another divinely definitive piece of 'poetry' titled Footprints in the Sand. Many of us are familiar with its saccharine free verse using the metaphor of two sets of prints on a wet sandy shore: one set belongs to the Divine, the other to the reader. During difficult times on the walk of life, only one set of prints is visible because it is then that God carried the one in need.

Is this the way it really works? When times get rough does God carry us? It hasn't always felt that way to me. Even though I believe God is always with me, loving, caring, walking beside, before and behind; this carrying business seems a bit dubious. Its validity hangs in the balance when I view it in lite of the most painful times in my life and the most painful times in lives of others close to me. Today I found myself wondering if Christ felt carried as he died on the cross crying out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

The other day I was watching my new favorite movie, THEN SHE FOUND ME, which features a different explanation of how God works in the world. Somehow it rings truer to me than the footprints. Quoting from the end of the movie:

There is a Jewish story - - an ordinary Jewish joke. A father was teaching his little son to be less afraid, to have more courage.

"Jump," he said, "and I'll catch you."

And the little boy trusted him; and the little boy jumped. And when his father caught him he felt filled with love. And when he didn't, he was filled with something else, something . . . more: Life. Amen.

Maybe we receive more from God when he doesn't catch or carry us. Maybe he's not a coddling parent; but, one who challenges us into courage and a rich life. What do you believe? If you have time, take a moment to write an acrostic for GOD or DIVINITY, FATHER, JESUS or LORD. What are the first words that pop into your mind? Do they surprise, comfort, cajole, or bless you? How? Feel free to share what you've written; and - with your permission - I'll post your poem.

Faith-filled Friends

2008-09-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

Christ, who said to the disciples, 'Ye have not chosen me, but I have
chosen you,' can truly say to every group of Christian friends, 'You
have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.'

-C.S. Lewis

Life's Harvest

2008-09-17T09:18:00.000-07:00

When I stand before God at the end of my life
I would hope that I would have not a single bit
of talent left; and I could say, "I used everything
you gave me."

-Erma Bombeck

Resurrection Hopes

2008-09-05T08:08:00.000-07:00

The day before he died we ate ice cream for lunch and listened to Bach's Magnificat. He knew infinitely more about music, gourmet food and faith than I ever will. I wanted to learn from him; to know him better, journey with him as he raised two children with his wife, my friend, Margie. Metastasized brain cancer slaked my hopes.

A few days before, as I sat in my wide windowed writing room deliberating over the last lines in my most recent creative nonfiction manuscript, my editor called.

"Just typing the last few lines," I said, proud as a mother hen who has just heard chicks beginning to vigorously peck at translucent vernal shells. "How was your trip to New York?" I asked eagerly awaiting news of a cover design or editorial directives.

"Sally," his voice fell flat on the phone line. "We're not going to continue with your book."

In an instant a year's worth of intense research, disciplined writing, rewriting and dreams ripped out of my soul in slow motion, arched and flew across my desk. Along with my heart, it landed hard and mortally wounded like a crunched, crinkled, worthless first draft at the bottom of my recycling bin.

Cuts that affected hundreds of other writers killed my book. Cancer killed my friend's husband. For a year I had prayed for hope and healing and health. For nine months I had carried the weight of words hoping they'd come wailing into the world; but they were stilted, stillborn. I had thought June would be a month of celebration: a birthday cake with 40 candles on it for me, Cancer in remission, a book on its way to the press, a gathering of my closest girlfriends to celebrate. Instead, the girls came to Illinois for a funeral; and I cried through most of the summer.

After weeping about it all with one of my friends from church, he e-mailed:

I knew you and Bry had a great burden to bear with John's death, but I didn't know about the mortal blow to your book. Sometimes our dreams have to die so they can experience a resurrection and glory that we cannot imagine. I pray that for you.

Lately, I've been waiting, trying to rest, asking God for unlikely liveliness to spring from dark dead places, beauty to rise out of ashes, crinkly wet wings to come from the quiet chrysalis of waiting. I've been begging for resurrection in my life and my friend's. Some days I'm ready to give up, get back in bed; or I'm so pissed off that I blast unsuspecting innocents with pent up anger that I ought to share with God alone. Other days a gracious gift of gratitude washes over me like a lemonade rain falling in certain select grassy spots on a sunny day.

It is a rare gratitude that my personal death has happened to coincide with my friend's most devastating time of loss. A gratitude that my little piece of present pain somehow helps me see her a bit more clearly, love her with a gentler more organic kind of empathy; and prompts me to open arms wide and hold a sacred space where - together - we weep and know that emptiness is the best invitation anyone can give to God or each other.

Emptiness is the place where life and love can begin. Would it be too cliché to mention that the image of an empty tomb keeps coming to mind? Margie is opening herself up to the empty place of mourning in dozens of creative ways. In my own ways, I guess I'm joining her. As she mourns the loss of her man, I'm giving myself a break from writing and striving and trying to pound out a career path. Instead, I'm coloring and scribbling prayers in a sketchbook. It's funny how many circuitous paths, seeds, butterfly wings and tiny green leaves are popping up on the stark white watermarked pages.

The only thing I've been able to write since the deaths is the following Reader's Theater titled, Three New Lives. It's based on my obsession with resurrection these days and the lives of my son, Mary Magdalene and Jonah (three of my favorite people who know, first-hand, of life after death). My family read the piece for a hillside service at our church family camp in July. It makes me think of Margie's husband. It makes me think of my book. It makes me think of anyone who may be going through a season of goodbye, or dashed hope, or a path unexpectedly turned in on itself. I paste it here for you. And, I also offer it to any church that may want to use the reading, perhaps during Lent this year, as a piece of companionship for the lonley times of waiting.

May God be doing enlivening work in all of us as we wait and hope and cry and long with patience, buoyed by the memories of resurrections unearthed in own lives and in the lives of our friends.

THREE NEW LIVES

A Readers' Theatre telling Three Parallel Resurrection Stories

love

for

Two Adults, One Child and A Chorus of Two or More

The setting is a black backdrop or empty stage. The readers stand in a line wearing simple, everyday clothes such as jeans and T-shirts. The chorus may stand off to one side, but close to the main readers. The man may hold a walking stick or wear a large scarf suggesting a tunic. The woman may wear a shawl around her shoulders. The boy may have a bug box in his hand or on the ground beside his feet.

The time is kairos not chronos as the Man is an Old Testament character, the Woman is a New Testament character; and the Boy exists in modern times.

Props: a large scarf, a shawl, a bug box (These props are not quintessentially necessary.)

Multimedia: If multimedia is available, pictures of Christ’s resurrection, and the metamorphosis from caterpillar to chrysalis and then butterfly would perfectly compliment the text.

MAN, WOMAN, BOY (ALL) and CHORUS: ONCE UPON A TIME . . .

MAN: God asked me to go to Nineveh.

ALL and CHORUS: ONCE UPON A TIME . . .

WOMAN: God gave me the best friend I’ve ever had, an unlikely guy from Nazareth.

ALL and CHORUS: ONCE UPON A TIME . . .

BOY: I was playing at the pond when I saw a caterpillar. He had black, white and yellow stripes. He was sitting on a huge Milkweed. I picked the weed, stuck it between my bike’s handle bars and gave the little guy the ride of his life!

ALL and CHORUS: THE RIDE OF HIS LIFE!

MAN: I sat under my favorite tree and told God I was sick of my life . . . sick and tired of being a prophet. (Looking up toward Heaven) You say you’re giving me the ride of my life . . .

ALL and CHORUS: THE RIDE OF HIS LIFE! THE RIDE OF HIS LIFE!

MAN: But, this life is for the birds! Come to think of it . . . the birds have it better than me! Ever since I started doing your crazy work people have been treating me like a leper. Everybody in the village points at me. Sometimes I even hear them whispering things like, doomsday . . . repent . . . evil-doers . . . wickedness . . .helter-skelter . . . I’m sick of this, God! Everyone thinks I’m nuts. Even my closest friends don’t want anything to do with me.

WOMAN: My friend was the kind of guy who would stick by you . . . even when times were tough. Right before I met him I was going through a really hard season . . . probably the worst time in my life. It got so bad I literally thought I was losing my mind . . . going nuts! I was feeling divided, depressed, hearing voices . . . lots of voices . . . most days I didn’t even want to get out of bed.

BOY: Right by my bed. That was the perfect place for the caterpillar. When I got home, I stuck the guy in a huge jar . . . stuck the milkweed in there, too . . . and set it right by my bed. That way I could keep a good eye on Fred. Fred. That’s what I named him. Seems like a good name for a caterpillar. Don’t ya think? I wanted to be able to call him by name.

ALL and CHORUS: CALL HIM BY NAME. CALL HIM BY NAME.

WOMAN: I loved it when my friend called me by name. “Mary, come sit by me. Mary, let me tell you a story . . . Mary, wanna hear a joke? . . . Remember the time James and John were fishing and . . . Mary, I love you.”

MAN: Whenever God calls my name, I freak out. “Right at JO, I want to take off running. But, his voice is loud and strong – a commanding parental kind of voice sometimes. “JONAH!” he bellows. And, I have no choice but to listen (at least for a while).

THE BOY: From my bed I watch Fred. “Fred,” I whisper. “How are ya doing?” Yesterday Fred ate three leaves; so I decided to go back to the pond to get him more. The little guy – who isn’t so little any more – seems to be really hungry.

ALL and CHORUS: REALLY HUNGRY. REALLY HUNGRY!

WOMAN: I was really hungry one night during my difficult season. So, my friend built a big fire, smoked some fresh fish and offered it to me. I woofed it down. He sat next to me by the raging fire until the summer sky was laden with stars and the bonfire burnt to ashen embers. He listened to me, really listened. When my stories were done, I cried on his shoulder for over an hour . . . Then, he prayed for me. It wasn’t one of those rote, memorized prayers like you hear at synagogue. It was more like he was just talking to God.

ALL and CHORUS: TALKING TO GOD. TALKING TO GOD.

MAN: I’m sick and tired of talking to God telling him that I don’t want to go to Nineveh! I hate being the guy who curses and convicts . . . the guy who spouts off about wickedness and wrongdoing. I’d rather talk about grace and be the bearer of a little good news. (Looking up) Don’t ya think it’s about time that you have a little good news for your people?

ALL and CHORUS: A LITTLE GOOD NEWS. A LITTLE GOOD NEWS.

WOMAN: The good news was that after he prayed for me, I was O.K. For the first time in years, my steps felt a little lighter. Then the unexpected bad news came like a punch in the gut . . . taking my breath away and choking my good news . . .

BOY: The good news was that Fred ate the new leaves I brought him. The bad news is that he seems sick. Last night he stuck his tail to a branch of the Milkweed and hung upside down – in the shape of a J – for a whole hour. When I woke up the next morning, he hadn’t moved at all.

ALL & CHORUS: HADN’T MOVED AT ALL. HADN’T MOVED AT ALL.

MAN: God didn’t budge in his desire for me to go to Nineveh and tell them that The Almighty had seen their wickedness. So I ran. As fast as I could . . . I ran away. At the time it seemed like a reasonable notion that I’d be able to run away from God . . . at least until the storm came. You see, I had boarded a boat, paid for my ticket and fell asleep below deck . . .

WOMAN: I was sleeping when Peter told me the bad news. My friend had been arrested . . . under some bizarre, manipulative accusations. He was going to trial, and possibly to his death.

BOY: I stared at Fred. For a few days he looked like he was dead. Out-of-the-blue he started wiggling. He wiggled and wiggled and wiggled, kinda dancing ‘til his skin and head popped off and fell into the jar holding his Milkweed.

MAN: Suddenly, out-of-the-blue, the ship was being violently tossed by the furious storm. Nausea, dizziness and fear made me feel as if my outsides were in and my insides were out. Before I knew it, men from the deck were tossing me into a furious raging tsunami of waves.

WOMAN: I felt undone, as if I would vomit my entire soul. I was scared of what might happen to my friend.

ALL & CHORUS: WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN? WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN? WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN?

WOMAN: A group of women and I followed him from Galilee. We walked along the dusty path in the footprints made by his sandaled feet and told stories: how we’d seen him cast out demons, heal the blind, play with the children, comfort widows, fish like he had command of the sea.

CHORUS and ALL: COMMAND OF THE SEA. COMMAND OF THE SEA.

MAN: I knew God could command the sea. I also knew he was ticked at me, so I wasn’t sure if it was a good or a bad thing when a colossal fish swam toward me, opened his stinky mouth and swallowed me whole. Hours later, I was still inside, covered in seaweed and delusional. My prayers started morphing into poems:

I’m praying this prayer from
Inside of a fish,
And it really stinks in here.
So excuse me for breathing from only my mouth
My nose is filled with fear
Of catching a whiff of half digested clams
And snails and disgusting kelp

The best I can do from inside of this beast,
Is pray something simple like: HELP!

CHORUS and ALL: HELP! HELP! HELP US, LORD!

BOY: Help Fred, God! It looks like Fred is dead. His stripes are gone. His head is gone. He looks more like a leaf. I thought about tossing him into the trash. But, my mom said, “Wait three more days, Honey. I think Fred’s resting in there.”

WOMAN: My friend had been dead for three days . . . after they had crowned his head with a circlet of thorns, took him to the top of a hill, and laying him on a cross . . . pounded nails into his hands and feet. When I watched him take his last belabored breath, I bowed my head and tried to pray like he’d taught me. The only words that came to my heart were simply, “Father, help!”

MAN: Help me! Help me! I’m gonna die of seasickness or stench! When are ya gonna help me get me out of here?! It feels as if I’ve been in here for at least three days, God!

ALL and CHORUS: THREE DAYS. THREE DAYS. THREE DAYS.

WOMAN: On the third day, I went to my friend’s tomb with spices to embalm his body.

BOY: Three days later Fred started to turn dark purple. He didn’t look like himself at all. I started to worry that he was getting sicker!

WOMAN: I looked inside the tomb. My friend’s body wasn’t there.

MAN: Before I could get a grip what was happening to me, it felt like the great beast was breaching out of the water. We soared in the sky for over ten seconds. Just as the megalithic fish descended, I felt his stomach muscles contract around me (almost squishing me to death). The force of it all catapulted me like a human javelin down the fish’s trachea, out his gargantuan mouth and onto a sandy shore. The thing puked me up onto the beach.

I was vomited!

Sand stuck to my hands, my legs, my hair. I didn’t care. I kissed the sand. I noticed the way it stuck to my lips. I kinda liked it, but just as I rubbed it off a little, I caught a glimpse of the creature’s mast of a tail disappearing into the deep . . . . I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I felt as if I’d been given a brand new life, a second chance, and began crying at the sure joy of it all

ALL and CHOURS: BEGAN CRYING. BEGAN CRYING.

WOMAN: I began to cry.

BOY: I didn’t mean to, but I started crying. It looked like Fred was dying.

WOMAN: That’s when I heard a stranger call my name, “Mary, why are you crying?”
They have taken my friend away, I said. When I looked the stranger, I realized it was the one for whom I looked. I ran to hug him.

BOY: I couldn’t believe my eyes. Fred was changing! He was alive!!! And, suddenly, he had wings! Orange, black and white wings! At first they were wet and crinkly. After an hour or so, they were dried. Fred flew! He flew over and landed right on my shoulder!

WOMAN: My friend was no longer dead! I couldn’t believe it, just as he had given me a brand new start . . . now he had a brand new life! It was a miracle! Mere days before – with my very own eyes - I’d seen him die on a hill . . . now he lived and breathed! He called my name!
After seeing him by the grave, he met others on the road as they walked to Emmaus. And he met me by the sea . . . cooked my favorite meal of fresh fish over an open fire. I’ve never been happier than the night we sat together – by roaring flames – ate and thanked God on the beach.

MAN: On the beach, I heard God’s voice a second time. “Go to Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” I got up, brushed myself off and did as God asked. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at what the god – who made the Great Monster Fish vomit me up – did next. He had compassion on Nineveh! Instead of killing them all; he let them off the hook. He gave them a fresh start . . . just like he’d given me.

BOY: In some kind of crazy way, Fred seemed to have gotten a fresh start
. . . new wings! Slowly I walked toward the window with him on my shoulder. I opened the window wide and watched Fred fly into his brand new life!

ALL and CHORUS: BRAND NEW LIFE! BRAND NEW LIFE! BRAND NEW LIFE!

2008-07-01T05:49:00.000-07:00

JULY'S PRAYER
A Breath Prayer

My life has been carried, saved, sustained in so many ways by this breath prayer:

Jesus Christ

Lamb of God

Have Mercy on me

A Sinner

My friend, Cheri, taught me this beloved prayer, used by many over the years; and it has become in my life like a familiar concave of a worry rock, polished deep and smooth from use. In college, when Cher taught me the prayer, she told me to inhale as I mentally prayed the first line, exhale on the second, inhale on the third, and exhale on the last.

These days I use the breath prayer each morning as the first bit of fresh air hits my face when I let my dog out. I often breathe the prayer in the shower, in my car, at the doctor's office, in line at the grocery, in my bed as I fall asleep each night. I also pray it when I'm in a fight with Bry or if I'm feeling frustrated with my kids, if I'm struggling with physical pain or my general lot in life. The prayer has become a companion of sorts, a place to rest and feel sustained by God.

A few months ago during a day of silence and solitude (which is rare for me), I decided to write a personal Breath Prayer for this specific season of my life. I sat quietly imagining God's presence with me during the day. I tried to see his face, hear his voice, feel the touch of his hand on my shoulder.

Then, I imagined God looking directly into my eyes (my heart - even - though that may sound a little corny) asking, "Sally what do you really want right now? What is your heart's deepest desire?"

I waited and listened to the deepest quietest part in my soul. Then I wrote, "God, what I most want from you right now is to minister to women with my writing and spoken words. And, I want to feel a sense of your love and approval." I sat quietly and let the knee-shaking admission sink in.

Then, I chose one of my favorite images for God: One Who Builds Things. He had strong veined hands that gripped a huge hammer. He smelled of wood and wore denim. Sweat ran down his brow. (This mental image could be serious fodder for anyone into psychotherapy - a life Rorschach, if you will - as my husband is a carpenter!) Therapeutic sidebars aside, God turned toward me and said, "You are my daughter, chosen, marked by my love, delight of my life! I am building a ministry with you. It takes a little time. Let the ministry grow slowly, enjoy your kids and the rare moments of peaceful quiet that you have as you stay at home."

With my image of God and my heart's desire in mind, I wrote the following personal breath prayer:

Jesus Christ

Builder of Kingdoms

I receive your love

And lay down my life

Perhaps, in a still (or even mundane) moment, you may want to write your own breath prayer. If so, the following steps may help:

1. Sit quietly in God's presence

2. Imagine God addressing you personally, asking you what the desire of your heart is.

3. Chose your favorite image for God. (See him as Shepherd, Lover, Prince, Lord, Husband, Friend, Lion and Lamb, Water, Bread, Light . . . )

4. Take your heart's desire and meld it with your image of God.

5. Write a few phrases/combinations of words (there is no right or wrong way to do this).

6. Complete the prayer remembering that it should be four simple phrases (and about twelve syllables or so). You'll want it to flow freely, rhythmically so you can breathe as you pray each
phrase.

7. Pray your prayer anytime . . . all the time!

If you end up writing a personal Breath Prayer, feel free to share it in the comments here. If you do, and give me permission; I'll post it on Girl Talk . . . God Talk and it may become someone else's prayer, too.

2008-06-01T05:55:00.000-07:00

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June's Prayer

June is my birth month. So, the prayer I've selected to be June's benison is particularly personal. It's a prayer I've prayed in the deepest part of my soul ever since I was a child. When I first heard this familiar prayer set to music in John Michael Tebelak and Stephen Schwartz's musical, GODSPELL (which is based on the gospel of Matthew); it made my adolescent feet dance and seemed to sway me back and forth in melodic arms of simplicity and sweetness. Today, the prayer - set to song - is one I sing for Emily, my daughter, every night before she goes to sleep. As I sing the lullaby-prayer, I pray it for Emily. I pray it for myself. I pray it for all of my sisters who desire to walk close to Christ in an organic quotidian dance.
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St. Richard of Chinchester's Prayer

Day by day, dear Lord, of Thee

Three things I pray:

To see The more clearly,

To love Thee more dearly,

To follow Thee more nearly,

Day by day.
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As I sing each night, I realize anew what I love most about this prayer. In it, the supplicant does not try to will or gut out the seeing, loving, or following. Instead, she asks the Lord - of Thee I pray - for gifts of clear sight, dear love, near following.

The other day, I was praying for a friend who has been fighting Cancer for five years. It was a glorious time of supplication. She prayed in Korean. I prayed in tongues. The prayer was a litany of vowels, tones, mystery and intimacy. After we finished, my friend confessed that during this chronic illness her heart has been filled with doubt. With tears pooling in the corners of her deep dark almond eyes she said, "My heart is filled with doubt and fear . . . and I want that to change. Do you have unshakable faith, Sally? Or do you experience doubt and fear, too?"

"My heart is often filled with doubt and fear," I mutually confessed as I put my hand over hers. "Almost daily, I find myself saying, Lord, I believe, help me in my unbelief. It is only in times when God offers the gift of faith - which comes unexpectedly like a mother bird bringing a grub for nest-bound, wide-beaked, waiting chicklets - that I live fortified and steadfast in faith. It is somehow simultaneously freeing and frustrating to wait for this gift," I said. "Maybe, the more we wait, though, the better we'll get at it." She smiled at me and sighed. We hugged; and while I walked away from her toward my car, the melody of Day by Day found me.

This summer, as I walk with this friend, mourn the loss of another, and grieve the death of a long-awaited, hard-worked-for personal dream; I find myself asking God for the gifts of faith and insight, compassion that will compel me to love, strength and desire and humility to welcome divine intimacy. Please join me in praying that these gifts will come, day by day.

FRIENDS

2008-05-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

Friends -

They are kind to each other's hopes.
They cherish each other's dreams.

-Thoreau

Cancer and Cake

2008-05-05T05:02:00.000-07:00

God's creativity inspires me. He made everything ex nihilo. Into the empty void of Nothing, he poured quarks and quails, turtles and tourmalines, shooting stars and sharks. On a dark empty canvas, God painted color, light, life, movement, beauty. He does the same with babies, creating them within the dark hiddenness of the womb; and with ideas that unexpectedly arrive as gifts in cranial secrecy.

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Many times I feel lifeless, dark, empty. I'm void of creative energy for mothering, living a faith-filled life, loving my husband and friends, writing. My energy is low, my life blood surges slow; I feel tired. I need inspiration -- new ideas -- to bring a creative light to my life.

The other day I was standing in line at the Jewel after a particularly wearying grocery shopping experience. As I walked down the aisles grabbing Cheerios, bread, milk and olive oil my heart was heavy for my friend, Margie, who has - for the last year - been bravely, beautifully walking with her two young children and husband as he battles metastasized brain Cancer.

By the time I got to the check out line, I was inexorably sad. I felt my throat catch and tears behind my eyes. Silently, I prayed, Lord, help Margie. And help me help her. I need an idea, a plan, an inspiring creative way to bring hope and help and healing to this dark difficult place.

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At that precise moment, a little cookbook nestled beside the candy bar display caught my eye. "Celebrate with our best ideas ever: CAKES!" lauded the front of the little book picturing a green and white grasshopper cake dressed in chocolate mint candies and celadon colored whipped cream. I grabbed the book, flipped through its pages: a roller coaster cake, mud slide ice cream cake, spice cake with raspberry filling & cream cheese frosting, pirate's hidden treasure cupcakes, a carrot cake covered with dozens of tiny icing carrots, chocolate zucchini snack cake.

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Blood seemed to course a little bit faster through my veins. Neurons began to fire in my brain. The Holy Spirit seemed to whisper. Bake a cake every Monday with Charlotte (Margie's four-year-old daughter). This is something small you can do to help . . .

For the last few Mondays my kitchen has been blessed by egg shells on its counter, flour on its floor and Charlotte's laughter. With my daughter Emily, Charlotte and I have made the spice cake, the grasshopper, and a few others. Yesterday we made pirate cupcakes.

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Every Monday evening as I send Charlotte home with the cake we've mixed, baked and decorated together, I can't help but think of the simple way God dropped that idea into my mind in the Jewel line. A simple idea in a dark, hopeless place creating love, frivolity . . . slices of sweet life.

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May's Prayer

2008-05-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

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I've always been perplexed, intrigued, even enchanted by the promise found in Matthew 18:19-20. It reads, plain as day, "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

The promise, coupled with my feelings about prayer on a bad day, makes me wonder sometimes if the promise was made because Jesus didn't think two of us on earth would ever agree about anything, come together to ask, or ask in the God's name. Still, I believe that Jesus' words are faithful, true, non-manipulative. So, I'm counting on the presence of Christ when I get together with my girlfriends to pray; and I count on his promise to do what we ask in his name.

Perhaps Chrysostom had the same duality wrestling within his saintly heart when he wrote May's Prayer:

A Prayer of St. Chrysostom

Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.

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Thanks to the women from Appleton, Wisconsin's Evangelical Free Church for posing for the picture on this post; and for sharing in a glorious weekend of retreat with me! Grace and peace and more gatherings of hearts & minds to all of you!

2008-04-14T05:07:00.001-07:00

To help one another is
part of the religion of
our sisterhood.

-Louisa May Alcott, American Writer

2008-04-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

April's Prayers

This month my speaking calendar is plump and juicily awaits me like a big, round, red apple. It seems especially enticing after the last few months of being cloistered at my writing desk working on my latest project, God's Girls: 1o Women Who've Encountered Divine Love, How You Can, Too.

Research for the book has taken me on virtual tours second century Palestine, Medieval England, China, and Germany during WW II. As I've figuratively journeyed, I've met faith-filled women ranging from Harriet Tubman to Jullian of Norwich, Xiao Min to Gomer, The Woman of Bleeding to Joan of Arc and Pocahontas. As stimulating, sagacious, even miraculous as these women are; I can't wait too look into the eyes of some living women.
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With riant expectation, I anticipate sharing stories with these women, hearing their stories, praying, laughing, crying, connecting shoulder to shoulder, soul to soul! As I prepare messages, pack bags, kiss my kids goodbye for a couple rare and glorious weekends, I'm praying two prayers, April's Prayers, which I pray any time I'm called on to speak:
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THE SARUM PRIMER PRAYER

God be in my head,
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God be in my eyes,
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God be in my mouth,
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God be in my heart,
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God be at my end,
love And at my departing
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ANCIENT CELTIC PRAYER
(a paraphrase)

Set us free, O God, to cross barriers for you,
As You crossed barriers for us.
Spirit of God, make us open to others in listening,
Generous to others in giving,
And sensitive to others in praying.

We pray for our ministry; from today and always may we:
Look upon each person we meet with the eyes of Christ;
Speak to each person we meet with the words of Christ;
And go wherever we are led with the peace of Christ.
Amen

2008-03-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

COMMUNING WITH JOHN AND MARGIE

On Easter's Eve, my friend Beth and I gathered prayer books, our bibles, hymnals and voluminous copies of worship songs and headed to Edward's Hospital to visit our friend Margie's husband, John, who has been valiantly - tenaciously - fighting metastasized brain cancer for the last several months. A musician at heart, I eagerly anticipated the melodies and lyrics whisking John to God's Throne of Grace. He - a musical prodigy and titanically gifted worship leader - if anyone, would be able to appreciate our impromptu Easter Service delivered at hospital bedside. love
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As Beth drove me to the hospital, we prayed about our offering. I sight-read dozens of new hymns (ones not sung at my church) that Beth knew would hold specific Eastertide and personal meaning to our ailing friend. As we roamed hospital halls in search of John's room, I was nervous about singing in front of this musical master and hopeful that our meager offering would be a beneficent and beautiful blessing. Beth prayed that angels would accompany us, filling in thin spots with heavenly colors, timbres and overtones.

Our circuitous sojourn and time of supplication ended at John's hospital room door. With grace and kindness, he (who had, two days prior been lacking his typical verbosity and lucidity) greeted us by name and invited us into the tiny, sterile space. We were elated to find John's friend, Randy, there. It seemed an answer to our prayer that this man, who had written one of the songs Beth had chosen to be part of our organic service, was keeping vigil with John during our visit.

"Randy! Please sing with us," we invited.

After getting John comfortable in his bed; Randy obliged with his James Tayloresque tenor.

Glory!

Beth and I hit most of the notes. Randy greatly helped! John even sang a bit, raising a hand in worship of God the Father. Margie's father, who was there to keep the night watch, wept worshipful tears and said, "This music is more beautiful than that at this morning's Easter service."

Beth and I figured angels must have been accompanying us: filling in the gaps of our shaky soprano/alto inadequacies. The music was a gift to us, to nurses who stopped in John's doorway to listen, to God in whose name we always sing; and, we hope, to John.

For me, though, the most holy and worshipful moment of the evening occurred when I noticed John (whose motor skills have slowed a bit due to his illness) wrestling to eat dinner. As I watched his shaky hand, unsure of what the fork should do; a maternal urging overtook me. I knelt beside John - this man who I've admired for his faith in Christ and voluminous intellect - and instinctively began cutting up his tuna sandwich. Then, I waited in eager anticipation for him to scoop up a bit of sustenance and slide it into his mouth. He didn't move.

From a place of instinct and motherly love a question gently burst from my mouth into the room. "John, would you mind if I just fed this to you?"

Graciously, he opened his mouth, receiving the offering. Three bites into the meal, John looked around the room at his father-in-law, his friend Randy, Beth and me and said, "You are all so generous."

I felt my throat catch with sadness and the feeling that I was in a privileged moment. Randy smiled. Beth turned to another worship song. I offered John another bite of the sandwich and said, "This is just what friends do. You did the same for me when I was in the height of my back pain and you came over and prayed for me."

I scooped up another forkful of tuna. And, I couldn't help but feel, in the moment, that feeding John a quarter of that tuna sandwich (all he could manage) was the closest I'd ever come to breaking the Body of Christ with a friend; sharing the Cup of The New Covenant.

I will never be able to thank John or Margie for the ways they've let me walk intimately with them into the Valley of the Shadow. It is a gift and honor and joy ineffable.
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Yesterday afternoon, as I was shaking in my bed under the nefarious grip of strain B Influenza, Margie called.

"How's John?" I asked.

"He's feeling a little overwhelmed today," she said. "But, I'm not calling about John. I wanted to let you know that I got a belated Easter dinner together for my family. And when I heard you were sick, I made one for you guys, too."
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Last night as I scooped up a forkful of Margie's French twist on Shepherd's Pie and brought it to my mouth, all I could think was, "Do this in remembrance of me."

2008-03-27T08:40:00.001-07:00

THE DAILY DIVINE

The wonder of our Lord is that He is so accessible to us in the common things of our lives: the cup of water . . . breaking of the bread . . . welcoming children into our arms . . . fellowship over a meal . . . giving thanks. A simple attitude of caring, listening, and lovingly telling the truth.

-Nancie Carmichael, Contemporary American Writer

How is the divine present to you in your daily life? I invite you to share, Dear Reader.

2008-03-25T06:59:00.000-07:00

A FEW MORE FRIENDSHIP QUOTES, ETC.

My first post on this blog was a smattering of my favorite quotes about friendship. Here are a few more of my favs - shared today in honor of my friend Cheri's 40th birthday.
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BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS, DEAR FRIEND!

Thanks for years and years and years of walking in faith & friendship. Because of your wise, wondrous, often wacky spirit, I've tasted the rich, flavorful, satisfying feast of friendship! May we come to the table for many years to come!

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Dear Reader, if you have a treasured word about being a friend, feel free to join in the sharing! Grace and Peace and Joy to you as you journey through births and deaths with your friends!!! And, if you're in a season of loneliness or you need some rejuvenation in your friendships, check out FIVE WAYS TO CELEBRATE THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF FRIENDSHIP, a piece Cheri wrote for a website dedicated to young friends in the thick of mothering. (The piece follows the quotes.)

A friend is one of the nicest things you can have,

and one of the best things you can be.

-Douglas Pagels

I'll lean on you and you lean on me and we'll be okay."
-lyrics by The Dave Matthews Band

One's friends are that part of the human race

with which one can be human.

-George Santayana

Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.
-Sicilian Proverb

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

-Henry David Thoreau

Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things.
-Author Unknown

If a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by

asking if there is anything you can do.

Think up something appropriate and do it.

-Edgar Watson Howe

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
-Aristotle

A friend loveth at all times.

-Proverbs 17:17

Nothing but heaven itself is better than
a friend who is really a friend.
-Platus

A good friend is cheaper than therapy.

-Author Unknown

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead.
Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.
-Albert Camus

Hold a true friend with both your hands.

-Nigerian Proverb

The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that

they can grow separately without growing apart.

-Elisabeth Foley

And a friend will not say "never"
'cause the welcome will not end.
-Michael W. Smith & Amy Grant

One thing women do best is FRIENDSHIP! Gifted with a passion for relationship, 'us girls' gravitate toward kinships that honor our secrets, make us giggle, teach us to cry; and to girlfriends who'll admit (when invited) that our butt looks uncomfortably huge in those 'skinny' jeans.

Like the wings of a butterfly, there's something magical about friendship that can't be pinned down, dissected, or explained. A friend is one to whom you confess guilt that french fries are a staple on your family's grocery list; and she gladly 'one-ups' you with a reminder that her kids are on a first name basis with the drive-thru attend at Krispy Kreme. Some friends sit with you week after week while you endure another round of chemo, and listen tirelessly when your marriage comes undone. Others sign you up for the high-ropes courses or belly-dancing classes, inspiring laughter when it's needed most. They can be silly, soulful, compassionate, loyal, quirky, wild or wise. But whatever qualities they wear most comfortably, friends - each in their own way - offer glimpses of unconditional love.

So, why not celebrate friendship as a spiritual gift: one of the best gifts LOVE has to offer?!

FIVE WAYS TO CELEBRATE THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF FRIENDSHIP

1. Knit a Scarf. As you do, relive some favorite memories with your friend and realize that both the knitting and the warm reflections you have as you weave are a prayer - a prayer she can wear!

2. Light a Candle. Whenever you have a friend over for coffee, dinner, or even a play date, let a candle's gentle glow remind you that through her smiling face you can experience God's warm presence.

3. Start a Tradition. Collect matching candlesticks, pieces of jewelry, or pairs of teacups. Take one and give the other to a friend. The missing piece will remind you both that you're never alone.

4. Hand Write a Note. E-mails and phone calls are quick and easy; but writing by hand can be a spiritual exercise. Find a comfy chair, play some quiet music, and express the qualities you love about your friend with a few care-fully chosen words. Don't forget to drop the note in the mail!

5. Share a Story. Dig up some of your favorite childhood photos, and share them with a friend. Ask your friend to do the same. By trusting each other with some of the key memories and experiences that have shaped who you are today, your hearts will be sealed in a special way.

2008-03-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

Looking for Cardinals

Spring is peeking in green through thawing earth, sweetening air with birdsong and pollen perfume. So, I've begun searching for cardinals. It's an obsession that has been growing - dare I say nesting - in me ever since high school.

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For some reason seeing the red winged beauties, hearing their 'purdy, purdy, purdy' metallic cheep or their clear, slurred whistle phrases, 'what-cheer, what-cheer ... wheet, wheet, wheet, wheet'; gives me a sense of God's providential presence in my life. When a bright red aviary angel wings his way across my path it feels as if all will be well in the world, God's promises will be kept, Grace will continue to light on the branches of our hearts.

In our book, Walk with Me: Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey my friend Cheri and I share some hilarious bird poems and escapades that are worth checking out (pages 73-74).

I’ll share two of the poems here. The first is Cheri’s ode, written when a robin decided to make her nest in my front door wreath. Knowing that I’m inclined to have maternal feelings toward anything – including wildlife - she told me, “Sal, I would take that nest down now, before that bird lays her eggs in it. It’s either that or you’ll have to play midwife to a nestful of hatchlings. And just think how traumatized you’ll feel when those new birds start to fly and one of them splats, beak first, onto your porch. Then what will you do?”

I ignored my friend's wise advice and routed all household traffic through the garage for several weeks while my baby birds gestated. The ‘Bird by Bird’ reply following Cheri's threat is my responsorial poem, written in the voice of Mama Robin.

ODE TO A MISGUIDED BIRD

Oh misguided bird on Sal’s front door wreath,
With no leafy branches to rest beneath,
Your nest has been built without even an inkling,
About your dear neighbors and what they’ve been thinking.

Maybe they’ll see you as ‘Martha’ décor
Blue eggs to match with their lovely blue door.

Worse yet, they might have a peculiar taste,
For scrambled bird eggs in their ‘blue’-berry crepes!

You might get adopted – oh just wait and see,
I heard Ben wants a pet with a sweet melody.

Have my scare tactics worked?
Do you believe?
Pack up your bags and MATERNITY LEAVE!!

A “BIRD BY BIRD” REPLY TO THE WOMAN OF WORDS

Three eggs I’ve laid in front door wreath nest
With feathers and twigs, I’ve done my best

To make a home, a residence
That in my bird-brain makes perfect sense

Misguided, I’m not, though you may think it’s absurd
That I haven’t read What to Expect, When You’re an Expectant Bird

An emu, flamingo, penguin, or grouse
Might be stupid enough to forsake a full house

But, I’ll ‘maternity leave’ when baby robins take flight
Roosting’ll not end ‘til the moment is right

I know that your words about Martha, crepes, and pets
Are simply deluded, vain empty threats

So, please leave me alone, or Sally might stop
Bringing me pickles, worms, and ice cream with cherries on top

Since this poetic battle, Cheri and I have written a few more odes to the feathered harbingers of spring. The first is one Cheri wrote for me after I saw two male cardinals on one of my walks. They seemed, to me, to promise that two of my long-rejected manuscripts would find their way toward publication. The second is my poem, written after Cheri told me the story of a Bluejay who seemed to minister to her mother during her dad's battle with Cancer.

Two birds, flushed red, side by side fly

a promise given that your words too

will be bound, together -

showing others how to soar in the beauty

of a Son-filled sky,

dipped in the gift of

crimson-covered friendship.

The Birds

A lighting promise on a branch

that brings hope to the soul,

When fear and doubt have muted faith

a song of God's control.

The dove came back to Noah's ark

two cardinals wing the words,

of hope and bluejays wing of health:

ministry of the birds.

Feel free to share any bird/wildlife stories of your own. And, blessings to you as you look for the crimson promise of cardinals in your life.

One of my favorite wedding gifts:

a male and female cardinal painted by my dear friend Heather's mom, Carol, on a Longaberger picnic basket.

2008-03-11T10:24:00.000-07:00

WELCOME TO THE WORLD, DURHAM TYLER!

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At the beginning of March, I took our firstborn son, Ben, to California to meet my brother and his wife's, firstborn son, Durham Tyler. One of the ways we welcomed the little guy to the world was with a basket filled with our favorite children's books. Included were the likes of Shel Silverstein's Giving Tree, Sam McBratney's Guess How Much I Love You, All the Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan and a handful of silly Sandra Boynton board books.
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Along with my brother, Rob, and his wife, Kristin, we hope that little Durham will be a life-long learner. We long for him to find joy, adventure and truth in the books that are read to him and that - one day - he will read. We want him to get lost in Story and the Tangles of Love and Loss experienced by our favorite characters: Lucy and Edmund, Pooh and Tigger, Meg and Charles Wallace . . . Our prayer is that Durham will know and live the reality that truth is deeper, richer, and more life-changing that facts will ever be.

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WELCOME TO THE WORLD, BABY DURHAM!

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We wish you Giving Trees to climb, Wardrobes that lead to imaginary lands, Bridges, and Friends who love you enough to write about your radiance in their webs.

2008-03-08T11:41:00.000-08:00

HANDKNITS EQUAL LOVE

This may sound a little cliché. But, as God was knitting my nephew, Durham, together inside my sister-in-love’s womb; I was busy knitting an oat colored baby poncho to keep him warm during his debut into the world.

As I knit, I was reading a hilarious and heartwarming knitting memoir titled YARN HARLOT: The Secret Life of a Knitter by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. She writes:

Knitting is more than it seems. Knitting is a complex and joyful act of creation in my everyday life.

It really does seem so simple. Knitting is only two stitches, knit and purl, yet with those two ordinary acts we knitters can take a ball of yarn and a couple of pointy sticks and create something useful and beautiful. An average sweater takes God-only-knows-how-many stitches to make, each of them a simple act. Wrapping yarn around needles over and over and over again disconnects me from my cares. Knitting makes something from nothing, and it’s usually such an interesting something.

Even when it isn’t going well, knitting can be deeply spiritual. Knitting sets goals that you can meet. Sometimes when I work on something complicated or difficult – ripping out my work and starting over, poring over tomes of knitting expertise, screeching “I don’t get it!” while practically weeping with frustration – my husband looks at me and says, “I don’t know why you think you like knitting.” I just stare at him. I don’t like knitting. I love knitting. I don’t know what could possibly have led him to think that I’m not enjoying myself. The yelling? The crying? The fourteen sheets of shredded graph paper? Knitting is like a marriage (I tell him) and you don’t just trash the whole thing because there are bad moments.

I love knitting because it’s something that can be accomplished no matter how poorly it’s going at any given moment. It’s a triumph of dexterity over string. I can’t make my kids turn out the way I want; I have no control over my editor; world peace remains elusive despite my very best efforts; but– I can put a heel in a sock and it will go exactly the way I want it to go. Eventually, at least.

In general, I am a process, rather than a product knitter. I like the feel of the wool, the smell of the wool, the ritual of sorting through patterns, choosing the right needles, and casting on. I like the moment when the yarn tells you what it would like to be. I like getting past the first little bit of the knitting, to the point when I can see the pattern develop and start getting a sense of what I’m making. I like how much knitting is like a magic trick. You have string and sticks; you wave your hands about, and there you have it – a sweater, a sock, warm mittens, a blanket, a shawl. I admit that it can be slow magic. Sometimes you have to wave your hands around for a really, really long time.

Knitting is magic. Knitting is an act of creation and a simple transformation each and every time. Each knitted gift holds hours of my life. I know it looks just like a hat, but really, it’s four hours at the hospital, six hours on the bus, two hours alone at four in the morning when I couldn’t sleep because I tend to worry. It is all those hours when I chose to spend time warming another person. It’s giving them my time – time that I could have spent on anything, or anyone, else. Knitting is love, looped and warm.

My poncho for Durham is love, looped and warm. It's prayer and hope: a handcrafted welcome to the world! I can't wait for him to be wrapped in the wishes stitched into it.

It cracked me up, as I stitched the hood together, secured the pocket and wove in the loose ends when I came to a section at the end of YARN HARLOT titled PARENTS AND KNITTERS. I smiled as I read the pages, excited for all of the knitters and parents in the world . . . especially for my brother and his wife!

PARENTS AND KNITTERS

The top ten ways why being a parent is like being a knitters

1. You have to work on something for a really long time before you know if it's going to be okay.

2. They both involve an act of creation involving common materials, easily found around the home.

3. Both knitting and parenting are more pleasant if you have the occasional glass of wine, but go right down the drain if you start up with a lot of tequila or shooters.

4. With either one, you can start with all the right materials, use all the best reference books available, really apply yourself, and still get completely unexpected results.

5. No matter whether you decided to become a parent or a knitter, you are still going to end up with something you have to hand wash.

6. Parents and knitters both have to learn new things all the time, mostly so that they can give someone else something.

7. Both activities are about tension. In knitting, the knitter has control of the amount of tension on the object in progress. In parenting, the opposite is true.

8. No matter how much time you spend at knitting or parenting, you are still going to wish you could spend all your time at it. Which is odd, since both activities are occasionally frustrating enough that you want to gnaw your own arm off.

9. Knitting and parenting are both about endurance. Most of the time it's just mundane repetitive labor, until one day, you realize you're actually making something sort of neat.

10. One day, you will wake up and realize that you are spending hours and hours working at something that is costing you a fortune, won't ever pay the bills, creates laundry and clutters up your house, and won't ever really be finished . . . and the only thing you will thing about is that you can't wait to get home and do more.

love
This is the finished poncho, made with love, for Durham. Here's the link to the free pattern.
http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/70361AD.html?noImages=

2008-03-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

March's Prayer

The other night I was reading a A Child's Book of Prayers, illustrated by Michael Hague, with Emily before she went to sleep. The art is beautiful, all pictures of children playing in gardens & sand, fishing, following butterflies, sleeping, dreaming. One of the pics is of a little boy in red shoes with a sailor's hat. He's dangling a long stick with a string attached to its end into a pond. The string is hooked to a tiny red boat with an eensy weensy sail that the boy is pulling around in the water.

March's Prayer is for times when we feel like our life is a tiny boat on a big wavy body of greasy green waters:

PRAYER OF THE BRETON FISHERMEN

Dear God, be good to me,

The sea is so wide and my boat is so small.

2008-02-27T14:25:00.000-08:00

DOES GOD END?

love
love
A few springs ago I was driving on a stretch of Gary Avenue – right by Cosley Zoo. Buds were beginning to burst out of the branches and daffodils were sprouting sunshiny heads. As I drove by the petting zoo, I imagined the fluffy yellow chicks ready to break out of their vernal shells.

My five year old son, Ben, was enjoying the burst of air that blew in from his cracked window and the Kindermusic tunes on our car radio. In the middle of our springy day, and out of the blue, Ben asked, “Mama, does God end?”

I was tickled, delighted by his question. Kids come up with the most profound, insightful thoughts sometimes. Don’t they?

Does God end? I turned the question around in my mind several times, savoring its beauty and simplicity . . . not wanting to crack it; destroying its contemplative shell.

“Does God end?” Ben asked again, getting a bit impatient.

Instead of blurting out an emphatic “No . . .He goes on forever!” I began to think about the times in my life when I’d felt as if God had come to an end.

-During a seemingly endless string of lonely single years – when I longed for a husband but instead ate most of my meals alone, slept alone, and worried about my proverbially ticking biological clock.

-During a season in my early thirties when a degenerative disc caused so much pain in my lower back that I couldn’t sit, or lie down or even stand . . . but, had to pace in circles around my home in order to slightly remit the pain.

-AND, during the season of sadness that, due to the back degeneration, prohibited me from getting pregnant and adding a deeply longed-for third child to our family.

“MOHHHHM!” Ben interrupted my reminiscing, asking yet another persistent time, “Does God end?”

Through the car’s rearview mirror, I looked into my son’s inquisitive chocolate brown eyes, “Sometimes, when we go through tough times in our lives it can feel as if God has ended, Honey. Remember when snow was covering the ground and we were sledding down our favorite hill?”

“Yah,” he said.

“During the dead of winter, we couldn’t imagine that buds were hiding inside all the bare snow covered branches. Could we?!”

“Nope,” he agreed, shaking his head.

“But now that spring is here, we realize that Life goes on – just like God – even when things seem dead and frozen to us.”

Ben seemed satisfied with my answer and stuck his hand out the window to glide on some cool, fresh air.

As we drove I couldn’t help thinking about ways God had brought Life to my personal winters. He broke my winter of singleness through the gift of marriage to my hunk of a hubby, Bryan. Through physical therapy and mercies new each day, a Living God helps me manage chronic back pain. And, through the life giving gift of adoption; He has given me a precious, precocious, perfect daughter.

2000 years ago, I imagine that 12 stinky fishermen – Jesus’ best friends – were asking Ben’s question: DOES GOD END? On Easter, after three days of waiting, they got their answer. God does not end. Though He submitted to death; He lives on.

After Ben and I got home, in celebration, I wrote the following poem:

CHRISTSPRING

Eternity’s harbinger roots and stems
In the turning tulips, sunny daffodils
Forsythia, hyacinth, and vernal egg

Budding, bursting, bounding forth
He rises – born new from earth’s tomb
Crowned with seed jacked, clothed in green and purple perfection:
Heavensprung Champion

Sometimes we can feel as if we’re living in a frozen, cold winter. . . even then, we can keep our eyes on spring and a God who doesn't end!

2008-02-24T20:34:00.000-08:00

A POEM FOR THE SEASON
love

A few years ago, during Lent, I heard a sermon that wed Numbers 21 and John 3. I remember the ideas being that God redeems everything, even the most hateful, despicable, evil things. Perfect Love undoes death and disease, abuse and abandonment, poverty of body and soul.

In the Numbers passage, God commands Moses to create a bronze serpent and put it on a pole and display it in a public place. Thereafter if a real snake bit anyone, injecting its deadly venom; and the victim later looked at the bronze serpent, their life was spared.

God could've picked a daisy, a cross, or a dove to be bronzed and stuck on that pole. Instead, it was a snake: the very thing that wounded and killed. I don't particularly like snakes. But, in God's paradoxical parameters even slimy, slithering, striking snakes saves lives.

At the time I heard this sermon, I was also reading one of my favorite books, Madeleine L'Engle's GENESIS TRILOGY. Those of you who read Madeleine know that one of the through-lines in her writing is that God will not fail creation. God will redeem, restore, refresh by Love. And, all that He said was good will be . . . is . . . good.

During this season of waiting and self-examination, what is God redeeming/healing in your life by Love? And what's being bronzed and put on a salvific pole for you?

Lent

In the beginning, Word spoken
Begets moons, stars, planet earth, sun
Universe perfect, now broken

By evil snake, bringer of death
Bending truth in his native tongue
Fouling lovely and stealing breath

Moving among us on the earth
Twisting, revealing, destroying good
Healer provoked to redeem birth

A curse to women is proclaimed
Pain in labor to bring forth kin
Secretly a gift is sustained

Eden’s garden lush and fruitful
God’s breath giving new breath: a gift
Of all things green and beautiful

The curse is turned inside out and
It is good – It is ALL so good
Remains and God won’t fail this land

Even the snake high is lifted
Healing cast in bronze by Moses
Icon of the Love that’s gifted

Breath in circles and cross is lent
Twisting, turning, reeling, sealing
Grace reigns down healing deepest rent
love

2008-02-21T05:33:00.000-08:00

ON WRITING FOR A DEADLINE

I was elbow deep in marinara at 6:30 in the morning when I realized how absurd it was that I'd decided to make several pans of lasagna before getting the kids off to school. The insanity of it all got me thinking, Why am I chopping garlic while even the sun is still sacked out? Then, a maniacal, malevolent little voice whispered, “You’re procrastinating again!”

That’s when I started making a list, a list of all the ways I procrastinate when I'm writing for a deadline. We all have surreptitious distractions. I’d love it if you’d share yours with me. Make a list (it’s actually another great way to procrastinate if you’re writing for a deadline, too).

Here’s mine:

YOU KNOW YOU’RE WRITING FOR A DEADLINE WHEN

1. You decide to make pans of lasagna for the entire neighborhood; and actually like the smell of garlic that has infused all of the curtains in your house.

2. You write the thirty best poems you’ve ever written in your life (and you’re not working on a poetry compilation).

3. You visit every possible writing website in existence, print out articles, read them and try to convince yourself that you're in the process of 'feeding yourself a sustaining inspirational meal-of-words.'

4. You get excited when you hear the buzzer go off on the drier, coffee maker, or the stove . . . when the doorbell rings, the mail arrives, or your most obnoxious neighbor stops over for coffee.
(If any of my neighbors are reading this . . . I'm not talking about YOU!)

5. You talk to your friend on the phone for four hours, analyzing a dream she had about Steven King, an auburn horse and the End Times.

6. You blog, you respond to all of your old e-mails, you check your e-mail (again). You read your friends' blogs. You check your e-mail (again). You respond to new e-mails. You check your e-mail (again and again and again and again).

7. You find Oprah particularly sagacious in an interview she’s conducting with Jim Carrey. As you watch, you’re rapt and convince yourself that this show is part of your research/incubating/character blah, blah, blah and that the exact nugget you need for your plot will probably come from this consequential hour of TV.

8. You actually look forward to exercising. Cher and Richard Simmons tapes from the 80’s are inspiring you to lose the 10 pounds you gained while eating chocolate donuts and writing the first half of your book.

9. You are awakened by wolves howling in the night. When you fall asleep you dream that your editor has grown excessive amounts of facial hair and is howling at the moon, chasing you, growling and asking where your manuscript is.

10. You take up knitting, take a trip, take your time when you walk the dog.

11. You decide to organize every closet in your house, make plans for a kitchen remodel and order seeds for the garden you’ve always dreamed of planting.

12. You make a list called YOU KNOW YOU’RE WRITING FOR A DEADLINE WHEN . . . and submit it to your favorite writing magazine.

13. You break into an anxiety induced sweat, finally put your butt in a chair, and start writing. Keys start clicking, kinks in your cerebellum unwind, words begin to flow like faucet water. You’re actually enjoying yourself when . . . your three-year-old enters your office and asks you to play!

After I posted this morning, I took my daughter Emily to breakfast at our favorite spot, The Red Apple in Wheaton. As we ate, I was thinking, Life is what happens when we're procrastinating! Isn't it?! And, Thanks be to God for procrastinating, 'cause without it our days wouldn't be bursting with fun projects, conversations, ideas and off-the-beaten-path adventures; and we might not discover our hearts' true passions. Besides, without procrastination there wouldn't be a lot to write about!

2008-02-19T12:18:00.000-08:00

A WORD FROM JULIAN

I'm in the throes of researching and writing my latest book, a piece of creative nonfiction, titled GOD'S GIRLS: 11 Women Who Have Encountered Divine Love & How You Can, Too. As I near the end of this project and my 40th year of life, I feel as though the women in my book (the likes of Joan of Arc, The Woman of Bleeding, Harriet Tubman, Gomer, Xiao Min, Pocahontas, etc) are ushering me in to middle age, ushering me in to maturity and mystery, faith and the phantasmagoria of being a woman.

One of the chapters in GOD'S GIRLS tells the story of Julian of Norwich, Christian mystic and anchorite (a woman who lived in a cell attached to the church for her entire life, eee gads!). Today I need to hear, once again, some of Julian's words. Perhaps you need to hear them, too:

We are so preciously loved by God that we cannot even comprehend it. No created being can ever know how much and how sweetly and tenderly God loves them.

- Jullian of Norwich, 1342-1412, British Christian Mystic

Maybe, over the coming months, I'll try to share inspiring words from some of the other women featured in GOD'S GIRLS. What do you think?

2008-02-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

MY BOOK SHELF

I just discovered a new website, thanks to my sister-in-law:

http://www.shelfari.com/.

It's a site picturing shelf after shelf of virtual books. By joining one can place her books on a cyber-shelf so friends can peruse favorite titles in a cyber-library of sorts.

My shelves on that site are bare right now. Perhaps, after my June writing deadline for GOD'S GIRLS, I'll add some book selections. For now, here's a list of a few of my favorite reads:

A LIST OF SOME OF MY FAVORITE READS:

(By the way, if you're a librarian type, forgive me. The list is in no particular order and it's definitely not exhaustive. Fiction and nonfiction are scrambled like eggs; memoirs, creative nonfiction, novels are all stirred into one big literary soufflé .)

Compassion, Henri Nouwen
Range of Motion, Elizabeth Berg
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingslover
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See
The Lost Daughters of China, Karin Evans
A Thousand Pieces of Gold, Adeline Yen Mah
A Circle of Quiet, Madeleine L'Engle
The Genesis Trilogy, Madeleine L'Engle
Friends for the Journey, Madeleine L'Engle & Luci Shaw
The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
When the Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd
The Secret Life of the Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster
A Grace Disguised, Jerry Sittser
A New Kind of Christian, Brian McLaren
In Search of Grace, Kristin Hahn
The Bonesetter's Daughter, Amy Tan
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
If Grace Is True, Philip Gulley & James Mulholland
The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
Girl Meets God, Lauren F. Winner

Please feel free to share your list of favorite books, too! I'm always looking for a good read!

2008-02-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

PONY TAILS!!!

Joy sneaks up on us and surprises us like pollen or summer seeds that stick to our socks or a pair of cut-off jeans. It grabs a hold of us, goes along for the journey until it sprouts a smile that's soul-deep and ineffably warming.

After waiting a life-time: through an inexorably long season of singleness, two pregnancies that resulted in the birth of two bouncing beautiful baby boys, chronic back-pain, and a rigorous paper-pregnancy . . . I finally have a longed-for little girl. It is fun, frustrating and fabulous having another girl in the house. It's also immeasurably joyful. The joys of having a daughter come at unexpected times, in surprising ways.

My soul smiles when she wants to help me 'make dinner' in the kitchen each night as the boys race 'round the house or sit transfixed by video games. Joy comes when she sees me crying and pats me on the back in a distinctly feminine gesture of healing care. It also bursts into being when she wants to help me wash my hair as we're bathing together. Or when we're at the Jewel and Emily says, "Mom, can I wear your purse? Then I can be the mommy and you can be the gorgeous girl."

On Valentine's Day, it was Em's pony tails that did it. Ribboned in red and pink, bouncing sassily with her every step the pony tails got me. Intoxicated me. I couldn't take my eyes off of them. I photographed them 500 times, tried to memorize the way they caught the sun, accentuated Emily's perfectly round and distinctly animated face like two quotation marks. Joy! Pure joy!

How has joy stuck to you today? In a note from a friend? A new word on the lips of your two-year-old? A verse from the bible that spoke straight to your heart? A kiss from your man? An unexpected e-mail? Pony tails?

If you feel lead, please share some of your joy and enlarge our circle of faith & friendship!

JOY UPON JOY TO YOU AND YOURS!

love

2008-02-14T10:49:00.000-08:00

A STORY WITH NO END

This morning, I took my three littlest Valentines to Starbucks for hot chocolate and scones - a rare & extravagant treat - in celebration of this day honoring Love. They ate their pastries and savored the sweet, warm drinks in green-labeled designer cups as we drove to school; and I serenaded the trinity of kids with a bevy of songs holding the word LOVE in their lyrics. We started with a favorite, written by one of my college music professors, Dr. Funk. Yes, that was his real name, Dr. Funk. I love it!

The jazzy tune zips along with a playful, rhyming lyric:

Hey there, Sweetie lookin' so fine.
Won't you be my Valentine?
If you say no, what'll I do?
Find another 'sead of you!

One of the last tunes in car pool recital's repertoire was a folk tune that I sing almost every night before tucking Ben, Ayden and Emily into their beds. It's called THE RIDDLE SONG. It appeals to the kids because of the riddle. It appeals to me because it's simple, beautiful and sings of a story that has no end.

THE RIDDLE SONG

I gave my love a cherry that had no stone.
I gave my love a chicken that had no bone.
I gave my love a baby with no cryin' .
I gave my love a story that has no end.

How can there be a cherry that has no stone?
How can there be a chicken that has no bone?
How can there be a baby with no cryin'?
How can there be a story that has no end?

A cherry when it's bloomin' . . . it has no stone.
A chicken when it's pippin' . . . it has no bone.
A baby when he's sleepin' has no cryin'.
A story that, "I love you" . . . it has no end.

May you live The Story of I Love You today and forever! Happy Valentine's Day!

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
love love love love love love love love Ephesians 3:16-19

2008-02-12T17:19:00.000-08:00

A MAGICAL PRAYER

The other day I was leafing through pages of The Book of Common Prayer looking for just the prayer to pray for one of my dear friends. During this brief spiritual sojourn I discovered A Prayer of Self-Dedication that caught my heart and eye the way my husband does when he comes through the door smelling of freshly cut wood at the end of a long day.

What I love about the prayer is that it magically takes the mundane moments of my life and makes them meaningful. It gives the daily drudgery a dose of the divine. When I say the prayer, I, in all of my humanness, feel like I'm getting a holy hug.

I plan on memorizing the benison, making it a kind of breath prayer. Perhaps some of you will join me in this. Or, maybe, you'll want to share a prayer that has been meaningful, even magical, to you.

A Prayer of Self-Dedication
Almighty and eternal God, so draw my heart to you, so guide my mind, so fill my imagination, so control my will, that I may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you. And then use me, I pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the good of your people. Amen

2008-02-11T19:41:00.000-08:00

A Letter from God

The envelope was robin's egg blue. Inside was a letter from God:

Dearest Sally,

My precious daughter . . . I am so proud of you and the ways you've walked with me, especially throughout these young-mommy years. You have done much with the creative gifts I've given. What a wonderful choice I made in the beginning - entrusting you with the gift of word and Word. Seeds of truth and beauty sprinkle around the globe because of My faithfulness (and yours!). The fruit from your life is an orchard of sweet sustenance for so many.

I am writing to bless you, and to remind you that I never leave my work unfinished. I created you with a rich imagination and a poetic way with words. Your writing journey will not be aborted for two simple reasons: 1) I do not destroy that which I have created; 2) I cannot leave things incomplete.

I am a writer, too, and I know how difficult it can be to loose word in a sin-soaked world. But, I have promised that my Word will not return to me empty. Please trust that the garden of your life will bloom and grow through the cycling, weather-blessed seasons. The next writing project given will be the right one, winded and sown at the right time, so that lives will be seasoned and strengthened. The harvest is plenty, the workers few. You are being used, my faithful seed-sower.

I am water. I am wine. I am manna and miracle-maker. I call you to an even deeper place of peace and promise. Trust that what I have said is true. You bless and encourage me, dear one. Do not grow weary, but instead be strengthened by my perfect provisions.

Your vine and forever inspiration,

God

The words, written by my dear friend, stuck in the azure envelope and mailed to me, were the utterances of God for me. They landed in my mailbox during a week when I was worried, exhausted, bedraggled because it seemed that the fruit of my writing labor was shriveling on the branch.

The funny thing is that earlier that morning, I had taken my daughter, Emily, to the library for storytime. At the children's desk, I grabbed the February copy of CHICAGO PARENT MAGAZINE. (They chose one of my stories as the cover feature and I wanted to check out the layout and photographic treatment.) I stuck the magazine in my bag, enjoyed stories with Em, and once home tossed the magazine on my kitchen counter. As it landed, the magazine's robin's egg blue cover collided with - really kissed - the envelope that held my Letter from God.

Touching, the two papers of promise proved to be the exact same shade of blue. The serendipity was undeniable. It was as if God was in my kitchen saying, "I am giving you work. I am using your words. They hold all the promise of spring's bright blue vernal eggs."

Have you ever imagined what God might say to you in a letter? Use the letter beautifully penned by my friend. Replace your name and personal circumstances. Receive God's love and graces and Good Words for your life.

Or, perhaps, you have a friend in need like I was. Maybe, over the next few days, you'll find inspiration to scribble a Letter from God to her. If you do, and want to share, feel free to add your letter as a comment. I'm sure your words - on behalf of God - will be an encouragement to others who need a Good Word . . . a GOD WORD!

The Word was first,
lovethe Word present to God,
loveGod present to the Word.
The Word was God,
lovein readiness for God from day one.

The Word became flesh and blood,
loveand moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
lovethe one-of-a-kind glory,
lovethe one-of-a-kind glory,
lovelike Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
lovetrue from start to finish.

John 1:1 & 14 MSG

2008-02-10T20:00:00.000-08:00

GRANDPA'S WATCH

Last summer my mom and I embarked on the arduous journey of sorting through decades - really lifetimes - of photographs in an attempt to create a family portrait montage for my dining room wall. Each picture was pregnant with story, each story birthed another. We talked and snacked and organized until our sides and backs ached.

As Mom was pilfering through one of her boxes, she pulled out an old watch, battered by time and use. "This was Grandpa Norberg's. He was wearing it when he died." She turned the watch in her hand, obviously taken by memories of grief and the loss of time with her father because of his sudden and tragic death. "I probably should've gotten rid of this old thing long ago."

I reached for the watch. To her it was a reminder of tragedy. To me it was treasure. Mom looked up and me and put the old watch in the palm of my hand. Immediately, I stretched its gold band and wrapped it round my wrist. Despite my grandfather's demise, when I put the timepiece on, a force seemed to reach through the time-space continuum connecting me directly to Grandpa. "I'm glad you never got rid of this watch," I said. "If you don't want it, would it be O.K. if I kept it?"

"Sure," she said. We continued our sorting, grouping, storying. Me with the watch on my wrist; Mom with sadness on her sleeve.

Seconds after donning my grandfather's watch the phone rang. I checked the caller ID. It was the number of a huge publisher who I'd just sent a manuscript to the night before. Usually it takes months for editors with their paper-tower laden desks to get back to a writer. Why was he getting back to me so quickly? And why via phone & not just the typical e-mailed rejection letter?! I looked down at my wrist. A fleck of sun glinted off of my grandfather's watch. It was as if he were looking out for me; as if our new connectedness had connected me with this aloof, elusive, super-busy editor.

The machine picked up, I listened for a few seconds, "Sally, this is blah, blah, blah from blah, blah blah . . . I got your manuscript last night and wondered if you'd have a minute or two to talk with me about it . . . "

My heart racing, I picked up the phone and strange as it may sound, as I said, "Hi . . . this is Sally," I involuntarily dropped to my knees.

"Sally . . . thanks for sending your manuscript. I read it last night and sent it around the office for a few other editors to check out this morning. We all agree that you have a unique writing talent for creative nonfiction."

"Thanks," I said jumping up from the ground and then squeezing my lips into a lock-hold so I wouldn't start screaming into the guy's ear.

The conversation went on for a few more minutes. I mentioned that I had just put my daughter down for a nap; and that we'd adopted her from China. He shared that he, too, was an adoptive father. He asked about the sales of my last books. I did my best to give him figures. He mentioned that he'd been getting lots of creative nonfiction proposals lately, but that it seemed to be a difficult genre for writers to really master. I found that interesting and started dreaming about teaching a creative nonfiction course. He said that he'd get back to me soon. I floated back to the dining room and finished selecting pictures for the family picture wall.

I wore Grandpa's watch for a week straight after that. Then, set it on top of my jewelry box for several months. A couple days ago, on an impulse, I put the watch on again and wore it all day. After dinner I checked my e-mail. My heart dropped when I saw the name of one of my favorite editors - the publisher of a couple of my books, someone who has become to be a dear friend - in the subject heading of my first e-mail. The title of a recent book proposal in the subject heading. (If it was good news, a book deal, he would've called.) My heart dropped through my stomach, through the floor of my office, into our living room, then out the front door. In the coldest part of the night, my heart planted itself deeply beneath eight inches of snow that'd just stormed into our town.

Here's what I read.

Sally:

This is a difficult email for me to write because I REALLY like your latest book proposal. It feels like an important book and one that you should write…if not immediately, at least soon. But, I couldn’t generate a lot of enthusiasm for it with the team at ________. Everybody likes you and thinks you are a great writer, but they felt it was not a topic that ________ could sell easily. It is frustrating because our sales are down and that is causing even greater caution than usual, and less willingness to risk on a project simply because it is good.

The e-mail went on with friendly words that really meant a lot to me. As I walked down the stairs to our family room I was bummed that hopes for my next job had been dashed - or at least changed. Then, I felt Grandpa's watch gripping my wrist. That's strange, I thought. One of the last times I wore this heirloom I got the biggest book deal in my life. Today, I wrapped it round my wrist and got an unexpected literary rejection.

love
Believing that our lives are always ripe with messages, hidden truths, spiritual similes, metaphysical metaphors; I wondered what it might mean that I was wearing Grandpa's watch for both of these significant life events. When I put the watch on for the first time (and got the mind-blowing phone call) I remembered thinking that the sad memories of the watch had been redeemed by my new memory; and that somehow the trinket itself had been transformed.

Anyone looking at Grandpa's watch would agree that that old "T and C in jewels" is just as battered as the day Grandpa died wearing it, though. Nothing has changed about the scratches on the face, the patinaed gold plate, the worn winder, its tender and temperamental tick. It still stutters and needs to be tapped a few times to get ticking at proper time-keeping speed. My fortuitous life events haven't refurbished the watch inside or out.

Battered, unlucky and ordinary as the watch may be, it held on to Grandpa and me during treasured and tragic moments. It was with us counting, keeping track of our seconds, minutes, every single inexorable moment of our lives just like God does.

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My times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15

2008-02-07T04:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Chinese New Year!
Xīnnián kuàilè!
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Chinese New Year's Eve is known as Chúxì (除夕). Chu literally means "change" and xi means "Eve".

On this Eve of Change I'm reminiscing about one of the biggest changes our family has undergone in quite some time: when we adopted Ling Xu Ran (aka Emily Grace Ling Miller) on November 20, 2005.

It is hard to believe that Emily has been part of our brimming brood for just over two years now. She and her sister-cousins (the eleven other girls who came home from JiangXi Provence with Emily) have all assimilated, adjusted, and are growing, thriving with their forever families. Below is a picture of a few these girls - lost daughters of China - who have been found.

love love love love Our Emily is the third from the right love love love love l love love love love(in the pink on pink striped dress).

In honor of Chinese New Year, I'm posting two excerpts relating to Emily and the Lost Daughters of China from Girl Talk . . . God Talk: What Your Friends Can Teach You About Prayer (Harvest House Publishers).

AN EXCERPT ABOUT THE LOST DAUGHTERS OF CHINA FROM
GIRL TALK . . . GOD TALK

The other day, I heard God, loud and clear, after watching Oprah. Her show was about the ‘lost baby girls of China.’ It explained that thousands of infant girls are abandoned in railroad stations, grocery markets, and parks in China each year. It noted that this occurs partly because of China’s population regulations, and partly because of a cultural preference for sons. Thus, orphanages in China are overflowing with female babies.

I was riveted by Oprah’s coverage of this issue because my husband, Bryan, and I are in the process of adopting a little girl from China. (By the time this book is in your hands, our daughter will be in ours.) I cried all day, after seeing graphic footage of a little orphan named, Mei Ming, which actually means ‘No Name,’ who was left alone in an orphanage ‘dying room’ to pass away.

I pictured my little lacquer-haired girl needing me for a bottle or diaper change. I imagined snuggling her or feeding her a meal. I wept for my daughter, now alive in China, waiting for me. I also cried for the others who’ll be left behind when my baby comes home.

The morning after seeing the Oprah show, I felt God nudging me to spend some time reading His word. To be honest, I was a little ticked at Him, wondering what He planned on doing for all of the precious, abandoned babes of the world. So, I resisted His invitation. I got out of bed at 5:30 a.m., as I usually do. But, instead of accepting His welcome to read, I made coffee, did two loads of laundry, made some notes for this book, and lit a fire.

God’s still, soft voice kept nudging me, “Read, Sally. Just pick up my word, and start reading where you left off last.” Finally, I flopped open my Bible to Ezekiel 16. I didn’t think I had any tears left in me. Still they poured out warm and saline as I read:

“On the day you were born . . . you were not washed with water to make you clean, nor were you . . . wrapped in cloths. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.

I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there . . . I said to you, ‘Live!’ I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew up . . . and became the most beautiful of jewel . . . I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you . . . I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, and you became mine.”

Immediately, I realized that these were God’s sentiments toward my daughter. As I read I couldn't believe I found a word for her in Ezekiel of all places! Through this prophesy for Israel, God’s warm, friendly voice promised to take care of the China’s lost daughters, and all the abandoned babies of the World.

Though I don’t know how He’ll keep His covenant; I believe He will, in His time and ways. He’ll not fail His covenant of Love with any orphans, including me.

AN EXCERPT ABOUT CHINA'S BIRTH MOTHERS FROM

GIRL TALK . . . GOD TALK

And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep [her] memory green in our souls.
-Clement Clarke Moore

One of my dearest friends is a woman I’ve never met. I don’t know her name, the timbre of her voice, or her favorite foods. She may like spicy Sichuan; or perhaps she prefers Cantonese stir-fry. She may be boisterous and funny, or quiet and demure. She may be a farmer, a teacher, or a stay-at-home mom. She’s probably close to my age. But, she could be a few years older than I, or quite a bit younger.

All I definitely know about this woman is that she has lacquer hair, and almond eyes. She lives in China, and is about to give me one of the greatest gifts of my lifetime: a daughter. This faraway friend is the birthmother of a baby girl my husband and I are going to adopt from China this fall.

I’ve given my friend a name, Meiying, which means beautiful flower in Chinese. I use this name when I pray for her and the baby girl, Emily, that she carried. Lord, please carry Meiying as she carried Emily. Give her a healthy postpartum recovery, and a sweet, lasting connection to her daughter. Please be with Meiying during these tumultuous times for the family in China. Help her find grace and peace as she’s forced to make the difficult decision of placing her baby in a location where she’ll be found, placed in a welfare institution, and ultimately adopted – by us. Let Meiying know that when she cries, you cry; and that you care about her as much as she cares about Emily.

For about six months now, I’ve been preparing paperwork that was just mailed to the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) in Bejing. The collection of documents is called a dossier. It includes: a petition to adopt an orphan, our birth certificates, copies of passports, a home study, pictures of our family, etc. All of the documents are officially sealed by the Secretary of State, and the Chinese Consulate. I’d describe the process of preparing this package as a gestation of red tape: a paper pregnancy.

During my paper pregnancy, I was struck by a serendipitous occurrence. Almost every time I had to get my stack of growing papers signed, sealed, or notarized; it was usually a rainy, hazy, or misty day. Time and again, I remember cloaking the documents inside my jacket to prevent them from getting wet. Sheltering the bundle felt much like carrying a little baby. Often, I found myself tearing up as I cradled the valuable paperwork in my arms, under my heart. I imagined that Emily’s birthmother was probably crying a lot, too.

I thought about Meiying, and hoped she was receiving some comfort from her religion be it Confucianism or Buddhism. I tried to picture her in the temple praying and receiving grace. But, I didn’t know if Meiying even lived near a religious shrine, or of she participated in any kind of religious practice. I thought about my missionary friend who’s currently in China; and hoped, among the millions, that Meiying might’ve been one exposed to faith in Christ. No matter what her story, I found deep comfort in the image of God collecting Meiying’s tears in a bottle (Psalm 56:8).

Also, as I reflect on many rainy trips to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, and to my adoption agency, I realize that Meiying and I were not the only ones crying for Emily . . . for China. God was expressing His anguish, too. His tears over lost mothers and daughters of His beloved China symbolically fell in thunderstorms and showers, mists and heavy torrents of rain. The tears were numerous, and came throughout our entire adoption process.

In January our paperwork was complete. I put it all in a grand envelope. Noticing that the weather was a predictable grey, I put on my biggest, fluffiest winter parka. Like a mother bear, I was prepared to protect the documents that would ultimately link me to my daughter.

On my way to the adoption agency, the sky darkened. I thought about Meiying. I cried tears for her along with tears of personal joy, anticipation, and fear. By the time I pulled onto the long, tree lined drive leading to our social worker’s office; it wasn’t raining. It was snowing! Soft, large, white flakes floated from heaven, consecrating the moment as holy. Some of Jesus’ famous words came to mind.

Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
Luke 6:21

I parked my car, looked heavenward into flecks of freshly falling flakes. And, imagined the day I will meet Emily’s birth mother. I see her. She is as beautiful as an orchid, with long black hair, and a slender body. I bow to her. She bows in return. Jesus wipes tears from our eyes. Emily takes both of our hands, and we skip down a golden street, laughing.

2008-02-05T05:15:00.001-08:00

THANKS, UNCLE GUS!

Uncle Gus on the day he met Emily for the first time.

Kung hei fat choi!
(Congratulations & be prosperous!)

Yesterday, I pulled into our driveway and noticed a parcel on our front porch. I parked the car and picked up the package. It had made its way to my home from Hawaii where my Uncle Gus lives. Eagerly, Emily and I opened the package. Inside was a round deep chocolate brown cake topped sesame seeds wearing a red cellophane dress and a cherry hat. There was also a note:

Aloha Sal,

Every Chinese New Year we always looked forward to my mom's special dessert: Gau. Hope you and the family enjoy the treat.

Kung hei fat choi!

Love,
Uncle Gus, Auntie Caryn and Bogie (the Golden Retriever)

In honor of this special gift, family ties that are tie closer than blood lines, and the coming Chinese New Year, I'd like to share a piece I wrote about my Uncle Gus
from my most recent book:

THE BIBLE IS A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND

Growing up Asian in a mainly Caucasian community was
not a miserable and gloomy existence . . . It was this constant
whirling of East and West that spun the threads of my identity.
At the time, I felt these different threads twisted my life into knots.
Now I know that the fabric of my life is richer for them.
-Grace Lin, The Year of the Dog, p. 135-136

UNCLE GUS' RED ENVELOPES

One of my favorite people on the planet is Uncle Gus, the husband of my mom’s sister, Caryn. With dark, smooth hair, skin the lovely color of a latte and smiling almond eyes, he is at once handsome, welcoming, and jovial. His Chinese and Pilipino roots have mingled wonderfully. Seeing him induces me to breathe a soul deep, “Aloha!” which isn’t surprising as he and Caryn live on Kauai. I just hope he’ll forgive me for including him in the Her Word section of a book primarily for women!

Childhood memories of Uncle Gus are as bold and resonant as his laugh. I vividly remember him at family gatherings in Grandma’s rolling ranch of Minnesota. Each morning he’d be clad in a blue striped terry robe; inevitably eating leftover dinner rice for breakfast (often right out of the serving bowl). Though slim, his ability to eat large quantities of food earned him the nickname, “The Chunk.” As a young girl, I remember thinking the moniker inexorably funny!

Uncle Gus took pity on me – the only girl cousin in a brood of boys. He often defended me from the ‘Little Devils’ (Robby, Jimmy, and Jonny, my brother and two cousins, respectively); taking me on trips to the seminary where he worked or into town on errands. One summer, he taught me an entire repertoire of new songs which we performed, accompanied by his guitar, for the entire family. He even gave me a special T-shirt for the occasion. I felt so special, like a superstar. I’ll never forget that night and the energy he expended making me feel like an important part of a family in which I was normally a butterfly amidst a bunch of bullfrogs.

History has a way of repeating itself. Now, our sweet little adopted daughter from China finds herself trying to fit in to a family full of boys. She also finds herself trying to sort out Chinese roots after being grafted into a predominately Caucasian family tree. Uncle Gus is helping. With the same hands that cradled me, he cradles her. With the same voice that taught me to sing, he sings to her. With the same love, and grace, and honor he includes her, identifies with her from a deep Chinese-American root.

When Bry and I told Uncle Gus we were adopting, he sent us a beautiful Christmas card. It was adorned with cardinals dancing in snow covered pines, and read:

Aloha Sally and Bryan,

When my siblings and I were kids, we always looked forward to receiving our Chinese “Good Fortune” gift from my mom. Tradition required the gift to be wrapped in red paper with a special coin or bill as a token wish for health, long life, and great wealth.

Auntie Caryn and I are happy to continue the tradition with your family now that you are part of the old legacy of Chinese culture.

Merry Christmas!

Love and Hugs,
Uncle Gus

Tucked inside the card was a shiny red envelope which held a silver dollar. Once again, ‘The Chunk’ embraced, included, welcomed with Aloha-love! Because of him, our daughter feels more deeply linked to our family. And, once again, so do I. This time, our family circle has been enlarged more than I ever could’ve imagined, all because of Uncle Gus.

On a recent trip to Chinatown I was standing in line to purchase some Chinese soaps. A man behind me heard me using limited Chinese with the clerk and asked if I was Chinese. I thought of my Uncle, looked directly into the stranger’s eyes, and confidently said, “Yes!” Thanks to Uncle Gus, I’ve been grafted in to the Chinese community! And, in my heart, I’m Chinese.

An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet,
regardless of time, place, or circumstance
the thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break.
-Chinese Proverb

Jesus said, “. . . whoever welcomes a little child in my name welcomes me.”
Matthew 18:5

TIE A RED THREAD 'ROUND THE FAMILY TREE

Judaism and Christianity have something to do with each other. Judaism
and Christianity make a path. They make a path through the Bible, and through
history. -Lauren Winner, Girl Meets God, page 270

Just like Uncle Gus, the Bible is about making connections, enlarging family circles, inclusion. It has been said that there’s a red thread running through the Bible. This red thread is the blood of Christ – shed for those who need hope, a fresh start, a sense of belonging. It’s a thread linking Jews and Gentiles, Law and Grace, Old and New Testaments, History and Today. It connects, stitches together, broadens the cloth of God’s family.

It’s easy to read the Bible (especially the Old Testament), regard it as a Jewish book, and feel excluded. Scripture is written primarily by Jewish men. It’s filled with stories about Israel, promises for Israel, provisions for Israel, and laws for Israel’s people. After all, Israel is God’s chosen nation, a people beloved by God (Deuteronomy 10:15 and Exodus 19:6). And, tantamount to that, Jesus is Jewish.

The real ‘good news’ of the Bible, though, is that its red thread doesn’t end at the Red Sea. If we follow the thread, foretold by the prophets and foreshadowed in Old Testament narratives; we’ll see it weaving on the needle of a Divine Artist right through the New Testament. And, surprisingly, it continues beyond the pages of God’s book – through space and time – including anyone who desires to be tied in to the family of God. “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).

Just as Uncle Gus let me see my Chinese-heart; the Bible reveals that all of Christendom has Jewish roots. By God’s grace, he unites people, makes unpredictable family ties. His New Testament family is the quintessential blended family: an unlikely combination of Jews and Gentiles. “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 3:6).

Today, God continues to weave all of the children of the world together! I can’t wait to walk the streets of Heaven and see the diversity and surprising familial links woven together by the thread of God’s Love. Iranians and Pakistanis will embrace. Americans and Curds will hold hands. Wolves and lambs will live together (Isaiah 11:6). And, we’ll all be one shockingly happy, enormous, unexpected family!

It did not surprise me when I recently heard an ancient Chinese proverb about a connective red thread. The proverb tells that those destined to meet are bound by a red thread which stretches, but never breaks. I believe that God planted that proverb in the hearts of wise, ancient Chinese scholars; and that foretells the way all of God’s children are bound together in holy kinship.

Just as Uncle Gus has tied Emily and I more tightly into our family; the Bible makes it clear that Christ makes God’s people out of foreigners and aliens. He obliterates dividing walls, makes peace and, collects wandering strangers into an enormous family circle (Ephesians 2:11-22). It doesn’t matter if we’re Chinese or Caucasian, male or female, rich or poor. We can all be grafted in to God’s family tree, woven with His red thread of redemption.

APPLICATIONS

If the part of the dough offered as first fruits is holy
then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
Romans 11:16

1. What are your familial roots? How have they effected, enriched, deepened your faith?

2. When you imagine the family of God what do we look like? How have we grafted each other in? How can we be weavers of the red thread God began knitting with His word? Perhaps take up knitting and think about it as your needles click an inspiring rhythm.

3. When you have time to study, read the following passages as a way of tracing the red thread through scripture: Genesis 9:6, Exodus 12:13 and 24:8, Leviticus 17:11, Ephesians 1:7, Hebrews 9:22, Revelation 5:9. (You may also want to use your concordance to do a word study on: blood, red, crimson, scarlet. Journal about what you discover.)

In days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will
bud and blossom and fill all the world with fruit.
Isaiah 27:6

2008-02-03T20:22:00.000-08:00

SNOW DAY!

One of my favorite things about living in the Midwest is being able to experience the fullness of the four seasons: luminous indelible autumnal colors, winter's snows, shoots of green in spring, and the sprinkler days of summer. Since we're in the full blast of winter, I'm embracing all that comes with our coldest season: time by the fire, hot chocolates, walks in the snow, mornings sledding on a hill in the park by our house, reading lots and lots good books 'neath old quilts, getting an automated call from the school district at 5:30 a.m. with an announcement that we're having a SNOW DAY!!!!!!

This year, we had our first Snow Day on February 1st. The kids stayed in their PJs 'til noon, we took a friend sledding, and made Snow Ice Cream.
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SNOW ICE CREAM

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

Beat together until creamy.

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup milk (we use 1/2 and 1/2)
1 tablespoon vanilla

Add this to egg mixture and beat together.

Pour above combination mixture over 12 cups of fresh clean snow. Fold together and eat quickly! (If you're concerned about raw eggs; you can make the same recipe omitting the eggs.)

I think what I love the most about experiencing the seasons is that they're full with metaphor and symbol for the cycles of our lives. They speak so strongly, graphically, sensually of death, rebirth, love and loss, grace, and beauty that comes after pain. Shel Silverstein says it wondrously in his poem about a snowman who doesn't want to melt:

Chirped a robin, just arriving,

"Seasons come and seasons go,

And the greatest ice must crumble

When it's flowers' time to grow.

And as one thing is beginning

So another thing must die . . .

It isn't a coincidence that flowers come after the white frigid deep-freeze . . . that my second son was born the week my paternal grandmother died . . . that healing came in my family while I was suffering inexorable, incapacitating back pain . . . that "unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies . . . "

How do you feel about the seasons? Do you have a story to share about the way seasons have symbolized the life and death cycles in your own experience? Feel free to share a story, poem, song, or idea as a comment!

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Perhaps Silverstein's entire poem and the glorious illustration by my second-grade son, Ben, will inspire you.

SNOWMAN

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love love 'Twas the first day of the springtime,

And the snowman stood alone

As the winter snows were melting,

And the pine trees seemed to groan,

"Ah, you poor sad smiling snowman,

You'll be melting by and by."Said the snowman, "What a pity,

For I'd like to see July.

Yes, I'd like to see July, and please don't ask me why.
But I'd like to, yes I'd like to, oh I'd like to see July."

Chirped a robin, just arriving,
"Seasons come and seasons go,
And the greatest ice must crumble
When it's flowers' time to grow.
And as one thing is beginning
So another thing must die,

And there's never been a snowman

Who has ever seen July.

No, they never see July, no matter how they try.

No, they never ever, never ever, never see July."

But the snowman sniffed his carrot nose

And said, "At least I'll try,

And he bravely smiled his frosty smile

And blinked his cola-black eye.

And there he stood and faced the sun

A blazin' from the sky -

And I really cannot tell you

If he ever saw July.

Did he ever see July? You can guess as well as I

If he ever, if he never, if he ever saw July.

2008-02-01T07:15:00.000-08:00

February's Prayer

This month's prayer is one of my favorites. It is written by Saitn Francis of Assisi, A Roman Catholic Friar. The Patron Saint of animals, Saint Francis' likeness with bird liting on index finger, is readily and recognizable in gardens and other bucolic settings. Though the church calendar recognizes Saint Francis with a Feast Day in October; I thought his prayer, an homage to LOVE was fitting as February's Prayer!
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I remember singing a version of the Prayer of Saint Francis in mass as a little girl: inscence floating in St. Mary's of Lake Forest smelling almost as good as Jasmine in spring, guitar chords wafting and reverberating 'round vaulted sanctuary ceilings, Mrs. I-Forget-Her-Name's nasal soprano leading the congregation:

Today, as a writer and stay-at-home-mama, I find the prayer: a call, a summoning, a challenge! I'd be delighted if you'd join me in praying:

PRAYER OF SAINT FRANCIS

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
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O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

For more on Saint Francis' famous prayer, check out Wikipedia's entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_of_Saint_Francis