Dust you are and to dust you will return. 

Did you hear this on Wednesday? 

Are you aware that you are dust? Skin, bones, flesh began and will return to dust. 

Dust is holy. Life is holy. 

I thought about healing on Wednesday. I thought about all the medical staff who have endured with this pandemic. I have thought about the doctors and nurses who have saved others. 

I am watching a drama about a healer. ,She is a quick and precise with what she does.  She ignores her wounds and moves on to the next thing that needs to be done. (Doing it, of course, with great ease and skill.)

She never feels self-pity or questions the Almighty. She accepts all things with effortless grace. Her faith never wavers.

She represents all who do this kind of healing work.

She keeps coming back when I am alone. She sweeps into my thoughts. She keeps edging her way back into my imagination...my aspirations.

She has been pushed towards death door. She has lost loved ones, has seen rape and torture, and yet she works. Her edges are fraying. And maybe, just maybe, something truer and more lasting is struggling to emerge.

Healing--any healing--is slow work. 

Most healing is done in the dark. 

Hardly anyone else sees, so the applause is minimal. 

But it's the work of the One who has also felt ache and loss, wounding and rejection. 

He knows. And because He knows, He is not afraid to enter my undoing and reweave me, thread by thread.

Ash Wednesday has passed. This was a day to embrace my own finite-ness and receive his infinite fellowship in every shadow. Know that you are his.

 "Lenten light is the light that gets through                                                     what is torn, fractured, frayed, worn. 
 It brings its own kind of joy,                                                                       a stubborn gladness that comes from having learned--
 and learning still--what the Holy One can do with dust."
-Jan Richardson

 He heals the brokenhearted
 and binds up their wounds.
 He determines the number of the stars;
 he gives to all of them their names.
 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
 his understanding is beyond measure.
 The Lord lifts up the humble;
 He casts the wicked to the ground.
 Psalm 147: 3-6 ESV
​

​Lately I've been confronted with broken things. A broken door. A broken clock. A broken coffee mug that shattered on the trip from the dishwasher to the cabinet. 
 
The door stiill opens and closes, it only needs a new handle. The mug was a goner, but not an heirloom. But I can't quite escape the feeling that I'm in the vortex of some invisible wind that is swirling wildly around me. And breaking things apart...
 
"Things fall apart," Irish poet Yeats wrote, "the centre cannot hold." I feel his pain, but I challenge his conclusion. I believe the center can hold, and does. The center holds because The Beautiful Son is at the center of everything, holding all things together: "For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:16-17, NASB)
 
Circumstances at the edges are perilous, yes. Things are broken. They crash and fall and shatter. But the center is strong. The center holds. Or better, it is held.
 
The challenge is to celebrate the mending, not mourn the pieces. To be thankful for the repairs, and not lament (at least not for long) the breaking. The challenge is to believe--even before things are put right--that rightness is near and possible...that it will come. Broken things will be mended: one day even our own hearts' cracks and fault lines will be made flawlessly whole again , and stronger for it.
 
Because my God loves broken things. Even me. He redeems broken things! We are mosaics in Christ!
 
"And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach--" (Colossians 1:21-22, NASB)

Andi Cumbo-Floyd encouraged me to write a love letter to myself about writing.  I liked the idea so much that I have actually done it here in this space.

Dear Me,

There are a few things I want you to remember about writing.  I know this fills you more than anything else you do, so it is wise to take care of this writing life and this writing space.

First, writing is about rhythm.  Everyone has to find the right time and right place for when they write.  Yours is in the afternoon.  Mornings are for children, breakfast, housework, errands, and teaching.  Afternoons are for reading and writing.  Evenings are for meals, sharing, children, and more reading.  Your daily rhythm revolves around family, teaching, reading, writing.  And this cycle is your beautiful rhythm.

This rhythm gives you rest.  All of the other activities pour into you to create beautiful things when you sit down and write.  You are learning this autumn how to take a rest and not be busy all the time.  Follow the rhythm and your will keep the rest that you so desperately need.

Writing is about you but it's also about others.  The beauty comes out in the words.  It is not exhausting work.  Words create wonder.  They capture ideas and images that God has deemed good.  Even when describing problems, eventually we come to a place where the words we have expressed start to heal, start to bless.  

It's beautiful work.  Redemption, blessing, and wonder are in the words.  Keep going!  Keep writing!  

"May you put yourself where you can see the magic on the page.  May you trust it will be there even if you don't see it.  May you let yourself listen and may you let yourself dance."
- Andi Cumbo-Floyd in Love Letters to Writers

 #LoveLetters2Writers

"I don't have _______."  "You are wasting my _______."  "I'm just killing ____."  "How do you fill your ________?"  Spending, keeping, marking, making... What is your sense of time?  

First and foremost, time is a gift.  Time is a creation of God, right after the second creation of God — light, which marks time.  In the very first chapter of Genesis, God separates light and darkness, calls one day and one night, and there was evening and morning — the beginning of time, which is declared good(Genesis 1:1-5).  Time is one of creation’s “goods”.  As Thomas Merton explains: “Time for the Christian is then the sphere of his spontaneity, a sacramental gift in which he can allow his freedom to deploy itself in joy.”

Do we receive  time as a good gift from God, the matrix  in which we can allow freedom to “deploy itself in joy”? Do we experience time as one of the many aspects of creation that we are to enjoy and to steward, or do we experience time as a taskmaster? Do we manage time, or does time manage us?

From God’s point of view there is lots of time, an eternity of it.  It follows that there will be plenty of time for what God intends to accomplish.  Personally, I have come to believe that God will give me the time to accomplish what is God’s will for me, and that is time “enough” for me.

The second reflection is that the Bible pushes us to understand time as the matrix of the sacred.  The God of Israel, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, was not a God of place.  Unlike the deities of other Ancient Near Eastern peoples, gods associated with temples, sacred springs, or groves of trees, the God of Israel was the God of events, of happenings in time.  The fact that the Divinity is manifested in history means that time is holy.  “The higher goal of spiritual living is not amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments,” Abraham Heschel writes.  “Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.”

Living spiritually demands that we be “present tense” people.  The enormity of the concept of ‘God now” bears serious reflection for people who think their relationship with God is important.  Like Heschel, Paul Tillich believes: “There is no other way of judging time that to see it in the light of the eternal.” What is important about time, in short, is its “God content”.

The third aspect of time I want to discuss is that time is experienced differently in different situations.                   

According to John Donahue, “The quality of our experience always determines the actual rhythm of time.  When you are in pain, every moment slows down until it resembles a week.  When you are happy and really enjoying your life, time flies.”  Time spent with loved ones flies by.  Time spent on a deathbed drags almost unbearably for the loved ones gathered around it.  Three hours in the hospital waiting room during critical surgery is in “real time” much longer than the three hours spent on one’s favorite pastime.

The final reflection or aspect of time to ponder here is the fact that the only time we really have is the present moment, now. 

Now is a gift of God; that is why it is called the present.  The old cliché is true: the past is gone; the future is yet to be. 

If we don’t find God in this present moment, we are unlikely to encounter the Divine at all.  Paul deeply understood this truth and wrote to the Corinthians, “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” (2 Corinthians 6:2)

Time is more than chronology.  Time is opportunity.  The Hebrew prophets thought of history as a continuum of times, each filled with its content by God, and, therefore, each demanding a response from people.  The writers of the New Testament clearly thought of themselves as writing in the time of history.  And so we Christians have a particular reason to understand that time is a function of divine disclosure.  It is the arena of salvation.  It is “the means by which God makes use in order to reveal his gracious working.”  Time is valuable because God has entered time and brought eternity into it. 

From Ephesians, we must “make the most of the time” (5:16). What that will mean for each one of us is at the heart of the mystery of our individual and God-given vocation. 

I have been counting gifts for over two years now.  I started this on Christmas day two years ago after reading Ann Voskamp's '1000 Gifts'.  With my whole heart, I endorse both reading her book and counting your own gifts over the next year.  Let's celebrate life and all of its beauty together.

Highlights from this month's list of gifts have been very special.  I saw some birds sitting on a snow covered tree singing praises (similar to the picture above).  My sons smiling and laughing are always good to boost my spirit.  My husband's thoughtfulness of a hot water bottle on my aching back.  Playful 'talks' with the baby.  Good meals with family and friends.  

Have you noticed that these things are not big?  These gifts are small things that warmed my heart, caught my attention, and let me notice the beauty in the everyday things.  What richness!

This is not to say that life is always good.  Sometimes I am amazed and paralyzed by my inadequacies, weaknesses, and attitude.  But isn't this the point?  When I can only see myself, I need to look around me to see goodness, light, love, and God.

Christmas day is a yearly reminder that God is with us.  He was born in a barn filled with mud, muck, hay, pigs, and other animals.  He reaches down into our messy, mud-filled lives and does His best to get our attention.  

The beauty of this that I don't fully grasp is that He has chosen me.  Me?  My shame and inadequacies as a mother, wife, teacher, lover, friend, writer, cook, and occasionally, an artist, He knows me very well.  He changes me.  As I count gifts, as I become more and more grateful for life around me.  He transforms me.  He is filling me with love, light, patience, and grace.  He is with me.

Isn't that the point of Christmas? God is with us.

He is with me as I count gifts, struggle with students, interact with my kids, talk to my husband, bake muffins, take walks, and live life!  He is with me.  Just. Waiting. For.  Me.  To.  Notice. Him.  He is here.

He is.

To say that His birth was opposed is to touch the limits of mortal language.  The mighty one has been hated since the pride of the bright one led many away.  Your world war comes close, but even then, believe me, you have no idea.

We sang that night as we had never sung before.  Those shepherds believed they were the primary audience.  True, they were important — the Mighty One has always favored the lowly.  But there was much going on that night.  The other reason we sang in the fields was to hallow the ground where Rachel would weep over her sons.  There the graves would be dug, the graves for the little boys of Bethlehem. 

Herod’s rage soon stripped dozens of firstborns from the breasts of their mothers.  Those so fresh from heaven, so quickly silenced.  Slaughtered like animals.  So much blood.

The town had no room for Mary, and Herod’s heart had no room for another king.  He would not share his glory.

Although we do not exist in time, there are moments when the affairs of earth are hard to endure.  Even Angels desire vengeance. 

“Vengeance is Mine,” declared the Mighty One.  “Justice is coming.  I need you to sing.”

And so we sang. What the shepherds heard as an anthem the innocents would hear as a lullaby.  We sang as we had never sang before. A song to bring Him safely into the world, a song to guide them safely from it, and a song to help Mary endure it:

Glory to God in the heavenly heights,                             
Fly, fly to the breast of the Father,                                     
This wrong will be righted,     
Jesus is here,                      
Peace to all men and women on earth                               
who please Him.                   
Rest, rest in the arms of the Father,                                  
His fury remembers,                
His love holds you dear.   

Many do not sing of this horror at Christmas.  That is understandable; it was an unspeakable deed.  But I remind you that His birth was opposed.  You have no idea.

(This version of the Christmas Story has been adapted from Touching Wonder: Recapturing the Awe of Christmas by John Blasé)

Heaven.  I thought about it as I waited for students to come for their tutorial sessions this afternoon.  It was a combination of the students' faces and the rather large bird's nest nestled in some tree branches that made me think of it. 

I imagine my grandmother as one of the faces of heaven.  I can see her in my mind's eye.  Her bright eyes and lovely smile.  She is covered in light.  For some reason she is offering me something to eat ... her cookies or her famous chicken and rice.

Why don't we talk about heaven more often?  Maybe it's because we are too busy talking about the ills of this world.  The traffic, increasing costs of living, natural disasters, complaints about your job, concerns about family. We should talk about these things, but some time focused upwards, contemplating heaven, could make some of these burdens down here on earth easier to bear. 

Stay with me for a little while with this.  Feel the November wind, a little chilly.  And then let your soul find the warmer place ...

Heaven.

It came down last week.  Heaven touched earth.  I felt it.  The load I was carrying got lighter.  I felt a little stronger and the weight of life was gone.  I had energy.  I enjoyed interactions with students and colleagues.  I laughed a lot at home with my children.  I was able to love and be loved.  Life was a pleasure.

Then that ugly thing called sin crept in.  I didn't repent immediately.  In fact, I got angry.  I knew I was pushing God away but I did it anyway.

Heaven came down again and touched me.  The weight of sin lifted as I lifted my hands to heaven and expressed myself to God.  It's amazing how much God loves us and pursues us.

Heaven is for real.  I can almost feel its breath on my face as I write these words.  

Upstairs, in heaven, sin will be a memory.  Pain will be gone.  Envy won't exist.  Hurts and worries will be a thing of the past.  Our earthly hearts that have begged to be seen, loved, known will know that our souls have stretched towards toward our forever-inheritance.

I like to imagine putting my hand to the heart of Jesus and feeling the rhythm.  His breath on my back and shoulders.  

I imagine physical things as well.  Laying in a hammock.  Running barefoot in the snow feeling fully alive.  Spinning through fields of Queen Anne's lace.  Swimming in a river of warm, clear water.  Riding on the back of the Lion.  Feeding a giraffe.  Painting my house purple.  Not looking the door.  Walking on water, through sand, and no one complaining about dirty feet in the throne room.

Every good thing we want is fulfilled in an actual place where our souls' feet stand, in the presence of the King. 

Heaven.

Think about it.  Reach for it.  Know it is real.  Heaven.

It's been a while since I posted.  One of the reasons is that I can feel the Lord prompting me to write on beauty.  Not just physical beauty but internal beauty.  It's a huge topic, and this has been a challenge. To reflect on beauty and what it means from a Christian perspective, is to be faced with ugliness and sin.  I have been struggling with my own ugliness, my sin.

On beauty.  God doesn't leave us in our darkness, our failure, our ruins, our ugliness.  Confessions of needing Him as Lord and Savior changes us to something else.  Our darkness becomes light and we become a part of that light.  Our failures become something that is used for His success.  Our ruins become glorious as we call on Him.  Our ugliness becomes something beautiful.  

Physically beautiful people, beautiful things these are candy for the eyes.  These people and things have their place and they bring momentary pleasure.  Christ's beauty is not a momentary pleasure.

Christ's beauty is to face our own ugliness, our sin, and redeem it.  As we face our ugliness, Christ faces us with other uglies.  Injustice is all around us.  As we learn to face the ugliness of injustice, we learn to see as Christ sees.  We must look more deeply at something that by the world's standards is ugly and slowly discover that it is gem.  We see beauty as we learn service to others.  Beauty is found in the giving to others.

Christ teaches us sacrificial love.  He sacrificed himself for us. What defines beauty?  The nails on the cross defines beauty.  The broken ways of Christ define beauty.  

This verse is a passage that generates a lot of sermons and discussions around Easter.  Mary, distraught with grief over Christ’s death, is unable to recognize Him.  She sees Him, but doesn't recognize Him fully. 

First, she recognizes him as a servant.  Perhaps he was simply dressed, in a white tunic, scanty, old and worn.  The cloth may have been colored from the sweat of his body, tight fitting, short, as if it is a hand’s breath below the knee, looking thread-bare. He probably looked like a servant. There is something miraculous here to think about.  He had done the greatest labor and the hardest work there is.  

Secondly, she recognized him as the gardener.  He was the one who takes care of the garden, caring for fragile, new life in spring.  He digs and sweats, turning soil over and over.  He waters at the proper time.  He continues in his work, eventually making sweet streams to run, and fine plenteous fruit to grow.

 He was a servant in the garden on that day Mary saw him.  He was also a gardener.  By his labor—his passion, death, descent into Hades, resurrection and ascension—Christ reveals himself as the Master Gardener who gardens our humanity and returns us to health and newness of life.

“Mary!” Jesus said.  She turned to him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for “Teacher”).                       
-John 20:16                 

Christ was recognized as a servant and a gardener, and then he revealed himself to Mary.  Christ is the ultimate servant.  He placed himself on a cross as a living sacrifice to all who would call on his name.  His life, death, resurrection, and ascension show his unbounding love for a lost humanity, transplanting us to a new garden where health and new life is embraced.  He is the Master Gardener.

A strange, disturbing, and, ultimately mind blowing path to joy.  We have now entered into the Holy of Holies of God's plan, our salvation, the week in which Jesus Christ offered Himself up as the sacrifice for the sins of the world, instituting and giving us His Holy Supper, taking His place in a grave, to take the sting of death away from the grave in which we will one day be. If you haven't been thinking about those precious days, read now, see Him in Scripture, and receive the Gift.

Palm Sunday - Christ rides in on a donkey.  Palm branches are waved in front of him.  People recognize him, crown him.

Monday - Christ overturned tables in the temple.  He was angry.  He cursed a fig tree.

Tuesday - The disciples see the cursed fig tree on their way back to Jerusalem from Bethany.  Christ, unafraid, confronted Jewish leaders.  The plot to kill him begins.

Wednesday - Chief priests, elders, and scribes continue to plot and He continues to teach.  Satan enters Judas.  The darkness of story is about to unfold as Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread approaches.

Thursday - Christ reinterprets Passover. He breaks bread and shares wine with his disciples.  Communion.  A new ritual.

Friday - A death kiss from Judas early Friday morning.  Peter denied him three times.  Pain, hurt, anger, the weight of it almost unbearable, yet he bears it.  The crucifixion, the hanging of the impossible dead.

Saturday - Confusion, grief, and anger for those who loved Him.  He was laid in the tomb.  A guard was supposed to watch to make sure nobody took the dead body.

Sunday - Glorious Sunday.  Mary found an empty tomb.  Emotionally wrought she speaks to Him, thinking He was someone else.  "Rabbini!"  The shock of seeing the risen Lord.  She ran to tell others, she proclaimed, "He is alive!"

Something new was born that week.  Hope. Love. Peace. Mercy. Joy.  All intermingled, wrapped in sacrificial form.  A loving, sacrificial lamb, echoing a Jewish tradition of God saving you, passing over doors, overcame death.  He is a gift that overcame death.

He brings life at its fullest.  He is the Gift.  He is hope.  He is love.  He is peace.  He is mercy. He is joy.  He is.