Dale Lewis, A Tribute

My world is enclosed by people of whose love I am convinced. There are family members whom I often take for granted. Friends from high school and college, teachers and mentors. Daily friends from current life and keep-in-touch friends from seasons past. Regardless of the frequency of contact between us, I draw support from each person just because I know they exist, and I know they either love me or like me or both. It is as if I am surrounded by light, hope in the darkness of my self-criticsm. On June 11th, one of those lights went out. I didn't even realize how much I appreciated and relied on his encouragement until I learned of his death. Dale Lewis, from seasons past my yearbook advisor and mentor. A few years ago reconnected at a 10 year reunion/homecoming weekend. Most recently, a Facebook friend. Irregular contact, occasional posts and "likes" and annual birthday wishes. But despite the infrequency of our interaction, his encouragement and joy remained a constant in my life. I am my own worst critic, aware of every false thought and lazily missed opportunity. If left in a world of my creating, I would dwell in hopeless murk. But these lights that glow around me, like the haze of a big city at night, these people who refuse to allow me to just be my worst but stubbornly see, coax, enjoy any good that might be in me, any talent struggling to surface. I am so grateful for those lights! And I mourn this world's loss of a man who lived a joyful life. Choosing joy over bitterness in the face of disappointment and rejection. Always loving and accepting, despite differences and failings. He chose to see others as Jesus sees them--human beings created in God's image, weak and sinful but loved by a Redeeming Creator. I think he took to heart and lived out to his best ability I Corinthians 13:7 "love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." Not a perfect person but one who trusted the Perfect Person completely and submitted himself to His perfect plan.

I sift through old photographs, seeing once familiar faces, more and more of whom are now in the Great Cloud of Witnesses. I long to join them. But I see too, many faces who are still here, running the race or lost off course. God, help me to be a light for them. Always bearing. Always believing. Always hoping. Always enduring. Choosing joy. Just like Jesus. Just like Dale.

Not Saving Christmas

I've noticed a pattern in holiday movies, especially those marketed to the children. It's all about saving Christmas. The formula consists of a bunch of people not believing in Christmas or Santa Claus, a child who believes, and a Santa who's gone missing or lost the gift bag or his sled breaks down.  And that faithful child or group of children, or pets as the case may be, has to act heroically, in order to ensure that Christmas does in fact happen, that is, that everyone gets a gift to open on Christmas morning. It's bugged me for a while as I watched these programs with my own children and felt the hopelessness of a world that depends on the sincere belief of children against the big-bad world of hard-hearted adults. It's as if with maturity, one loses the ability to believe, and this belief--in whatever deity or saint or legend of your choosing--is what makes Christmas come.

Now I keep hearing the same phrase "saving Christmas" coming from the Christian sector. The very phrase "saving Christmas" grates on the nerves. Christmas, by its very nature, saves us. We cannot save Christmas. For all our good intentions, wishful thinking, or sincere believing, we are incapable of saving anything. Christmas is about God saving us. 

I think of a song on my Christmas playlist, sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter. It begins "no presents, no candy, no tree, no stockings hung by the fire. No parties, no family to greet, no angels' heavenly choirs. 

Bells are ringing all over the world, bells are ringing calling the light (emphasis mine)." Whatever we invent as the Christmas or Holiday season--gifts, family gatherings, trees or treats--these are just trimmings, all good things but if we let them eclipse the Light, they are empty, powerless distractions. If you are alone, barely keeping afloat in this difficult world, without gifts or family to present with gifts, I've got Good News for you--It's Still Christmas! If you live in a hostile country where your obvious celebration of such a religious holiday could mean death for you--It's still Christmas! 

In the barren, in the untouched womb, God conceived Christmas. Jesus, salvation. Immanuel, God with us. And He is with us still. Someone somewhere may succeed in preserving their perfect traditional holiday, but it isn't Christmas. Jesus is. Jesus the Light of the World born to seek and to save the lost. Born to set us free. Who "to our weakness is no stranger." Who is born Christ the Lord. Jesus saves us. He redeems us and He sets us free. Believe it or not, we easily become enamored of our captivity. Pretty paper on walls, pretty curtains at the bars. No amount of beautifying myself or my cell hides the lock on the door, the iron cuff on my ankle, and yet, I stayed. I saw Jesus, the light shining through the holes in His outstretched hands, welcoming me, promising peace and rest for my weary soul, freedom from this cage, hope against reason. I hesitated. Why? I don't know, perhaps the familiarity of our surroundings secures us against the unknown of that wide, open future. But eventually, one winter night, I reached out to touch that scarred hand, and He grasped hold of mine and has never let me go. This year, this Christmas, reach out to grasp the welcoming hand of the Christ-child, God-Man Jesus, and watch the prison disappear. Walk into that wide open, holding tightly to the Light of the World who promises to never leave you or forsake you. He is the faithful God who keeps His promises, crossed His heart and chose to die.

Don't exhaust yourself trying to "save Christmas" this year. "Behold your King! Before Him lowly bow" and you will be saved. 

Playlist

O Holy Night (Aliqua performs my favorite rendition) http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PcMCgUovd08

Go Tell It on the Mountain

It's True by Sara Groves http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h0LbaZ4PRZU

Reading list

Matthew 1:18-24

Romans 5:1-11

John 3:16-21

Hebrews 13:5,6

Acts 16:30,31

If you would like to venture into these Scriptures with someone, please let me know. I'd be honored to walk with you. 

Now Is The Time To Give Thanks

As a little girl, as a teenager, even as a young adult, I proclaimed Thanksgiving to be my favorite holiday. In the world of children, Christmas reigned as favorite since most could reasonably expect presents. In the world of religious adults, Christmas and Easter held equal sway as the appropriate favorite. But for me it has always been Thanksgiving. I'll just be honest--I think initially food, namely mashed potatoes and pie, relegated that Thursday in November to cherished day of the year in my calendar. I expect too that the relatively relaxed nature of the holiday in comparison to the chaotic Christmas celebrations appealed to my little introvert soul. We wore jeans (unheard of in that holiday dress pageantry world). We watched football. Sometimes we ate in the living room or wherever we could find an empty seat or patch of floor. As I aged, it remained my favorite for those same reasons. But these past few years, as I have grown, I find my reasons changed. As much as I dread the all-ready here and seemingly endless winter, I realized today that these months of November through March also contain my three favorite holiday "seasons:" Thanksgiving, Advent, and Lent.

Thanksgiving a dream combination word for the English-language lover. A word so simple in its make-up that we immediately memorize it and forget what it means. Thanks Giving. Giving Thanks. It's not a noun; it's a verb! An action verb at that! Give thanks! Just do it!
I look forward to this holiday every year, arranging my autumnal decorations in October, eeking my way through Halloween, all in anticipation of this one day where we gather, friends and family, to give thanks. I often feel alone in this anticipation. The day after October 31st, the Christmas candy replaced the Halloween candy on the grocery store shelves. Christmas lights appeared overnight. I passed decorated trees framed in house windows and found the "soft rock" radio station playing non-stop Christmas music, a full 55 days prior to that holiday! With all that has to be done for Christmas, teacher gifts and family gifts and and cleaning and planning (and pondering those dreaded new year's resolutions too), Thanksgiving becomes a deadline we must meet to ensure we're on track for the 25th of December. We rush through it, focusing on those traditional details of turkey and pie.
Or we're encouraged to view it as a conservative "take-it-back" holiday.  Remember the pilgrims and Indians. How they got a long and shared and how all people came to America for religious freedom? (nevermind the sarcasm, I'll get off my soapbox before I even start the lecture.).

The truth is that Thanksgiving is not a holiday of the past. It's a holiday of the present. Right now! This moment! This whole month and especially the 27th of November. Now is the time to Give Thanks! Reflect on these past months, days, hours, minutes. And rejoice. Gather together and give thanks. Share your joy, your gratitude with one another. Care for one another. Lift each other up with hope-filled words.

My challenge to you this November 27 is to Give Thanks. Get together with friends or family or both. Eat whatever you all like most to prepare and devour! Wear your comfortable clothes. And while you talk and laugh, give thanks.

This is the best way to prepare your heart and spirit for the coming seasons of Advent and Christmas. Taking time to remember all your blessings. I know there is pain and hurt and hunger in the world. And we can--we must--get and give help. But first, we have to stop and give thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Worst Kind

Although this post was written two years ago during our road trip out West to visit my father, I never published it. It's still true though. She's the best kind of girl.

July 2013

"I don't know how I got her" I often stay to friends and family about my girlie-girl daughter. Me, the self-forced tomboy, college feminist, outspoken woman, one time hater of the color pink. I gave birth to this female child who loves pink and purple, almost exclusively wears skirts & dresses, plays Barbies, and wants to be a mommy when she grows up. I find myself scorning her delicate choices and trying to push for non-stereotype options. 

But this same little girlie-girl is the bravest 6 year old I know, crying only twice during an elbow break, with surgery and recovery. Calming herself on the way to the ER by closing her eyes and thinking of what she'd be doing in school instead. She plays in the sand--which I won't touch. She tries new things and keeps up with her brothers. 

And on this camping trip, she has proven me to be the worst kind of woman.

In "When Harry Met Sally," Billy Crystal's character explains to Meg Ryan's character that there are only two kinds of women--"high maintenance and low maintenance." 

"What kind am I?" She inquires. 

"You're the worst kind." He responds. "High maintenance who thinks she's low maintenance." 

Yes, that's me. I'm often all talk but no action. 

Audrey gladly, even eagerly, uses the outhouse at campgrounds, treks around in tall grasses in jeans & DEET, sleeps on the cold, hard ground with no complaints. (This amazes me since as a baby she earned the nickname "Princess & the pea" because she refused to sleep anywhere but in our bed until we discovered a way to make her crib mattress softer.) She hikes up bluffs in pretty skirts and takes her baby dolls into the sand pits to play. She is sensitive to another's pain and brave enough to approach with comfort. 

Truly, she is the real woman I desire to be--one who embraces both her delicate feminine traits and her tough explorer interests. Soft and brave.

Badlands Musings

The following entries were written as my family and I drove west to visit my father and grandfather this summer. While our ultimate destination was mountainous Idaho, these musings are on what turned out to be my favorite terrain of the trip--the Badlands of North Dakota.



7-1-2013North Dakota rolls by revealing the surprise of hills and fields, blue skies and green grass.I didn't expect this. As a child and teenager, I despised the landscape of most prairie states, even the farming states closer to home, like Southern Illinois. Perhaps it is changed, I thought. Or perhaps it is me who has changed, not the landscape.

This consideration is confirmed in the complaints voiced by my own children--"nothing to look at, nothing to do" even while I try to memorize every mile that flies by. every rock pile dotted soybean field. every roaming heard of cattle. every duck delights as do the gulls and geese. cranes, and yes, even pelicans. The yellow, white and red grasses merge into bright green reeds in marshy waysides. Reservoirs overwhelm fence posts. And as you search the distant horizon, your chest expands to inhale this wide world. Here I can breathe. I can think. I can watch and examine. Well, as much as one can while speeding by at 75 mph.

7-2-2013

Just when I think I can't absorb anymore beauty, we pass another dream of scenery. North Dakota wild horses, wild hills, glorious wildflowers, white-clouded studded blue skies. I expand, the cavity in my soul filling up. I am full. I cry in amazement. And I rest as we enter Montana. I am full, I think. No more gasping in awe today. Then halfway through the state, after forests suddenly appeared on the sage hills, the mountains blaze across the horizon. Peaks and snow. shadows and light. The clouds around them seem separate from the skies above us, still in the plains. And tears well up again. I am overflowing. all this. all this is His doing. His. He is too great for me. It is a splendid overwhelming.

Every time you feel in God's creatures something pleasing and attractive, do not let your attention be arrested by them alone, but, passing them by, transfer your thoughts to God and say: O my God, if Thy creations are so full of beauty, delight and joy, how infinitely more full of beauty, delight and joy are Thou Thyself, creator of all! --Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

An Answer to A Friend Planning Life and Children

A friend thinking of starting a family frankly states, "but I like to do what I want to do." And then optimistically comments that she's sure that'll change once the child arrives.

I hear the sarcastic laugh in my head and the sigh-sob of my heart as I reply "umm, no."

I thought that too at 25, pregnant with my firstborn, working full-time as a technical writer, serving at church on different teams, reading novels late into the nights, sleeping in on Saturdays, eating out frequently, hanging out with my husband when and where we felt like it. I thought that the "mom-gene" would just supplant that "me-gene." I would hold that baby in my arms for the first time and suddenly overwhelmed with maternal affection, I would never think of myself again.

9 years, 3 children, months of postpartum depression later, and a new career title of Stay-at-Home-Mom, I loudly shout "SO NOT SO!!!"

It turns out selfishness is an instinct as great or even greater than the maternal instinct. That "save myself" urge is strong naturally and even stronger the longer if it's been fed and encouraged. Learning then, in the early days of motherhood, I thought I had to be a totally different person. There was the BC me and the AC me, and whenever the two met, chaos and discontent ensued.

Now, after years of praying and weeping and putting Me on a diet, it's more like sloughing off dead skin. You know, when you get a pedicure, the salon technician cleans your feet every time. And she sloughs off the dead skin every time. Because new skin is always growing and to see and feel the health of that new skin, you've got to scrape off the old. And it's like with my selfishness too. Every day, sometimes, every hour, I feel as though God is scraping off a little bit of that old me that always put myself first. Instead of being someone different though (like I tried in the beginning), this is just rubbing off the dead so that the True Life can shine through. And it's a constant changing, an on-going cleaning. When I don't take the time to be still and let God slough the ugly off, I get rough and tough. I don't hear my children's hearts only their noise. I don't see their smiles or tears only their mess. And they don't see Jesus in their Mama. They see a dictator, a tyrant, a crazy woman pulling her hair out trying to maintain control.

So Friend, if you're waiting for the selfishness to die a natural death, forget about it. It has to be premeditated murder by your own hand. Stop feeding self now, and then be prepared to be pumice-d a lot by motherhood. And even if you do not experience motherhood, Friends, you still have to do this. It's the call of Christ to every single one of his followers regardless of season or situation--Deny yourself and take up the Cross of Christ. It is not a denial of who you are, it is an acceptance of who you were meant to be.

Take some time today, and as many days as you can, and sit still for a soul-cure. Sure, it's a little gross and a little painful, but it's so worth it to be cleansed and purified and to shine with the Life of Christ.

Miss Me

Rides home in a cold van on a cold snowy, windy night make me want to move to Georgia. I visited Savannah once in December and loved it. Tonight, I sang "Georgia on my mind" as I drove and shouted to the kids "I am moving to Georgia!" C responds with "but winter is my favorite season" (the little Minnesotan at heart). And I reply, "I said 'I'm moving' not 'we're moving'." And they all shout "but we'll miss you!" And I wonder if their replies will be about missing me or about missing what I do. Is it wrong that I should want for them to be able to distinguish? I can't even distinguish. Tonight, when Tim asked the Jr. high group to think of one thing they were confident they could do well, the only thing I could think of--washing dishes. Sure enough their answers center around my cooking. Dad can cook, I argue. No, he only cooks frozen pizza not "warm" pizza like you make. And then comes the music "and he doesn't know how to cook rice and beans!" And whether they realize it or not, they've said they'll miss me. The reason we eat rice and beans so often that they've learned to like it and even ask for seconds and say they'll miss it....because of who God is growing me to be. I read Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis and as she described her humble home in Uganda, cooking rice and beans for 13 beautiful girls, living out her faith courageously, I looked around at all our stuff, all our space, and all our food. And thought of the first believers in Acts who gathered together and shared their food and belongings and money. Who sold what they had to give to those who did not. I want my children to understand the plight of our brothers and sisters around the world and not just to feel guilty about us having so much and they so little but to wonder "why?" We remind ourselves often around here "God has blessed us so we can be a blessing." We started with simplifying our meals--beans or lentils and rice for several nights a week. And at first they complained. But we kept at it. And now they'd miss me cooking rice & beans for dinner if I ran away to warmer places for the remainder of this winter. They'd miss me. I'm praying about the next step we take to simplify, share and bless. And in the meantime, I encourage you also to...

Keep going. Keep walking the path that God has for you. Make the hard choices. The seemingly ridiculous choices. Ask the hard questions. Ask why. Why you have so much. Why you were born in a free country. Why you can read. write. cook. sew. think. Whatever it is, ask why and then bless somebody else in your gratitude.