Why I Need to be at Laity Lodge's Writers Retreat

Running Our Boat on the Ocean. July 3, 2009.

A Top Ten List

A bunch of my good friends over at The High Calling are heading off to this amazing retreat next month. And they're giving away a seat at the event! I really, really, really want to attend. (And I need to: good writers use more interesting intensifiers than "really, really, really.") Today I'm listing the reasons I need to go. You can read all about this retreat--and sign up yourself--here.

10. I'm an ocean girl. And we all know that writers need to understand rivers. Think Mark Twain. Laity Lodge is on the Frio River.

9. I haven't attended a retreat since I was in college. That's a whole lotta years without a restorative, purposeful gathering. 

8. I'm in need of diversion at that time. September 30 is my grandson Cadence's birthday. He'll be five this year, and he and his family just moved an ocean away from me, so I won't be with him to celebrate. It's also the anniversary of my mother's death. Gathering with writers, by a river, would provide an excellent, constructive way to pass that challenging date.

7. So many of my Facebook friends will be there that I'll be lonely--oh, so lonely--without them.

6. I could bring blueberry muffins. Or brownies. Or focaccia. What's a retreat without some home-baked goodness?

5. I have more to learn than just about anyone else who might go. So the upside potential for ROI is huge.

4. Laity Lodge has lined up an amazing group of presenters.

3. I'm a good encourager. Every retreat needs its cheerleaders. 

2. Many dear friends are also entering this contest. And we all know how what happens when people who care about one another are competing for a single prize: the winner feels guilty. I'm willing to be the guilty one, sparing my friends that pain.
Yup, I'm a giver like that.

And the number one reason I need to be at the Laity Lodge Writers Retreat is....

1. Since February, 2009, I've been burdened with a call to write for God. We all know that once He calls, He equips. Also, these past months, I've felt a longing for time at Laity Lodge. I made a tiny donation to their giving campaign; later I received in the mail a lovely newsletter describing the lodge's history, telling its story. Since then, my heart's been desiring a visit there. Could it be that this retreat is part of his His plan to equip me to serve Him? My soul longs for the opportunity to gather, face-to-face, with talented writers who use their gifts to glorify our God. This weekend feels like a chance to grow, to stretch, to learn, to increase my service to Him--to fulfill that longing.

³ Trust in the LORD and do good;
Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
⁴ Delight yourself in the LORD;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
⁵ Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
Psalm 37:3-5 (NASB)

Like a Frog Out of Water

Far From His Creek. August, 2011.

On Sojourn

"Come look at this," my husband called from our front deck one evening.

Stepping out into the evening's cool air, I stood beside him and saw with him: A tiny frog, no bigger than a walnut, was making his way up the frame of our front door, nestled into the angle of doorjamb and siding about five feet up from our wooden deck. 

"I wonder if he came up from the creek," I said. Rich shrugged. 

We watched him for a moment, then returned to our living room. Later that evening, I heard the neighborhood army of frogs raising a chorus from the gully and imagined they were calling their misplaced soldier home.

I considered whether the frog felt out of place, resting there on our house, and reflected on my own sense of dislocation. Our home is comfortable and secure and I share it with loved ones. We want for nothing: the pantry is full, the bed is warm, garments hang in our closet, our neighborhood is peaceful. By all appearances, my home is a proper place for me.

But I don't belong here any more than that frog belongs on our wall. My heart knows this fact better than I do, and tugs at me.

This isn't the place, it whispers. You have another homeland. You're on sojourn here.

This beloved house and its comforts are illusory. Another place is home. Someday I'll return, though I don't know when. And while I enjoy the comforts and challenges of this life, I know that when my visa expires and I attain my eternal home, my heart will say:

This is the place. Relax. You're home now.

²⁰ For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; ²¹ who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
Philippians 3:20-21 (NASB)

Today I'm linking up with L.L. Barkat at Seedlings in Stone for In, On, and Around Mondays. I do hope you'll stop by.

Clear and Close or the Big Picture?

Oak Leaves and Ridge. Trabuco Canyon, California.

Where's my Focus?

Every picture has its focal point. In this image, the oak tree in the foreground is crisp: I can see the dusky green of its leaves, the gray twigs thickening into branches, three parchment eucalyptus leaves, hang gliders visiting from a neighboring tree.

But if I try to study the details of the hilltop in the background, I'll be challenged. I can make out patches of bare earth, swaths of native gray-green foliage, a craggy ridge gouging into a Tiffany sky--but that's all I can see. The photo doesn't yield enough detail to identify the plants on the hillside, or to determine if a footpath might lead me to its summit.

I could spend an afternoon studying the leaves in this photo, cataloging the endless greens, charting the angles where twig joins branch, scouting for a nest barricaded deep within the crown. And that exercise might lead me to some truth about the nature of oak trees.

I'd be studying those leaves because they're the focal point the photographer chose for me.


But....what if the most important element in this picture is relegated to the blurry background?

I live amid a ceaseless onslaught of stuff clamoring for my focus.

My neighbor wants to chat about another neighbor's failing marriage.
The television announcer reminds me that without a new car, my future is bleak.
Ads remind me that I could have a new life if I weighed less, looked younger, colored my graying hair.

Today I'm reclaiming the lens.

The photographer chose to show me the leaves.

But my heart reminds me to explore that ridge.

 ¹ I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
² My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
³ He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
Psalm 121:1-3 (NASB)

Seeking Refuge in my Office

 My Office. Sometimes, My Sanctuary.

When Work is Rest

One little phone call had ruptured our Saturday afternoon as surely as a needle sinks a bright red balloon, draining its helium like blood from a vein.

We'd abandoned our plans and raced eighty miles to San Diego, where my mother-in-law lay in a hospital bed, her beautiful face bruised and stitched, blood matting her hair. A helicopter had carried her to the trauma center following a car accident.

A hospital may be the best place in the world to remember that I'm not in charge. Doctors determined which medications she would receive. Nurses decided when we could join her in the ICU.

We prayed on our own schedule, however.

Knowing that she needed God's presence more than ours, we reluctantly headed for home on Sunday evening. I mined the refrigerator's stores of leftovers and we ate something--I couldn't say what. Finally we went upstairs and wrestled with sleep in the darkness.

Monday morning I drove to work. Amazingly, my office was just as I'd left it on Friday. Our world had shifted when those cars collided, yet this place remained the same. My stapler stood at the ready; pens lined up, primed for service. A vacation request lay in my in-basket, awaiting my approval.

I opened my file cabinet and admired the folders, neatly labeled, each one containing what it should.

I punched a few buttons and my computer screen glowed. I turned to my email. My boss needed a budget analysis. A coworker wanted clarification on a policy. The latest revisions to our marketing materials were ready for review.

I ordered the tasks set before me for efficient completion. I would line up the numbers in a spreadsheet, explain the policy, critique the booklet copy, approve the vacation request.

For the next eight hours, I knew what to do.

I took a deep breath, overcome by the sheer orderliness of it all.

On this Monday, after a weekend filled with anxiety, I saw my work in a new way. I could seek refuge here. The familiar rhythm of my job felt as comforting as liturgy; the shelter of my office was as soothing as a sanctuary.

Satisfying work blessed me. My day's labor had been a respite.

¹¹ He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.  ¹² I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; ¹³ moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God.
Ecclesiastes 3:11-13 (NASB)

Right out Loud

 Wireless. August, 2011.

Desperation and Wireless Communication

I was only five the day my mother and I encountered the raving man downtown. He ambled towards us, sneakers soft-shoeing along the sidewalk, howling in indignation.

He walked alone.

"Mommy," I piped, "Who's he talking to?"

Mom shushed me.

He continued along towards us. Suddenly one alert index finger jabbed upward. Then his voice dropped to a mutteringly quiet monotone.

"Mommy, why is he poking holes in the sky?"

Mom grabbed my arm  and hustled me into a jewelry store,  where we pretended to admire some glittering thing twinkling at us from black velvet in the thick glass case.

He'd wandered another block down the street before my mother loosened her grip on my arm and we returned to the sidewalk. 

I forgot about the man, his angry voice, the poking and calming, for a long, long time.

Then came that night, nearly five years ago. When the phone summoned me from sleep I thought of my daughter, four days past due with my first grandchild, and leapt to wide-awake. But it was Rich, who later would marry me, on the phone.

"Sean's been in an accident. I'm driving to Loma Linda."

"What kind of accident?"

"He crashed his motorcycle."

I pushed aside my eager thoughts of a new grandbaby arriving and considered his firstborn son, twenty-five, about to conclude eight years of service as a U.S. Marine. I'd met him once.

Crashed? Hurt? I blinked.

"I need to focus on my driving," Rich said. "I'll call when I know more."

Two hours later he called me back. "It's bad," he told me. "He's in surgery."

After we hung up I pulled open the sliding glass door that led to my deck. It was late on a moonless Sunday, darkness ushering cool after a hot summer day.

I realized, after a few minutes, that I was pacing in circles, praying out loud. I'd skipped the praise, the thanksgiving, and gone straight to intercession. I walked and I prayed, begging loud and hearty.

I felt God with me. And when Rich called me again, in the newborn hours of Monday morning, to sob out the news that his son had died, I returned to my deck and I prayed out loud some more, anguish ripping from a place I didn't even know was in me.

And then I thought of that long-ago sidewalk encounter. I wondered what within that man had driven him to a place like the one I now found myself in, walking in circles and lifting my cry.

I jabbed a finger into the air as I prayed.

It poked a little hole in the sky and peace poured down.

¹⁸ Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.
For the LORD is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him.  ¹⁹ O people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you.
Isaiah 30:18-19 (NASB)

The Museum of Mom

 My Jewelry Box and Its Little Boxes


In Loving Memory of my Mother, Marilyn Lee Downs Seiler. 

August 20, 1936 - September 30, 2008.

The Search of a Lifetime

The message from my father came as we were preparing to leave for vacation:

Hi,
I have given much thought to how to give your mom's wedding rings and I finally made a decision. When it is convenient it would be good for us to get together so I can pass along the one I have selected for you.

There is a second item I want to give you but I can't find it at the moment. Maybe, when you are here, you could look for it.

Love,

Pop 

The weekend after we returned, my husband and I drove over the mountains to my father's house. On the way I thought about the three wedding rings Mom had accumulated during their fifty-three year marriage. Three children, three rings: that perfect correspondence certainly simplifies heirloom distribution, I thought to myself.

The door to Dad's safe stood open in his office when we arrived. He led me down the hall, extracted a small velvet box, and presented me with the diamond wedding band he'd bought my mother for their silver wedding anniversary. I slipped it onto my finger. Thanks and hugs flowed between us. We returned to the living room and sat.

"Do you remember," he asked me, "The pin I made for your mom when I took that jewelry-making class? I want you to have it, but I can't find it. I've seen it in this house, so I know it wasn't lost in the move. It might be in one of those little boxes on the dresser. Can you look for it?"

"Sure, Dad." I said.

I followed the long L-shaped hallway to my parents' bedroom, then reminded myself that this bedroom was Dad's, not theirs. He'd moved to this house just a few months after Mom had died.

But it looked like their bedroom had always looked. Mom's cedar chest rested at the foot of the bed. They'd bought this suite of furniture when I was in third grade: her jewelry box sat on the triple dresser, just as it had for over forty years. And all around the jewelry box sat small keepsake boxes, like footmen surrounding a carriage, porcelain and wood and mosaic-topped metal.

I stood for a moment, awed by this Mom Museum. I pictured my father unpacking my mother's little treasure boxes, placing them where they'd always belonged, on a dresser next to a bed that she'd never again share with him.

Shaking my head to free myself of that image, I began my search.

I found tickets to Disneyland--leftover A and B tickets, not the grand E tickets one needed to ride the Matterhorn back in the days before wristbands. I found single earrings. One little box held the hang tags from clothing, each with its sale price next to the original price. I came across a cache of wallet-size photos, credit cards, a small pack of cello-wrapped Kleenex. Here were my father's dog tags, nestled alongside a clumsy papier-mâché bracelet and a stray bullet. Here huddled a single dried rose, a military-issue can opener, smaller than a book of matches, and six rusting paper clips.

And here, alongside an ancient rubber band and a big gold jingle bell strung on a red satin cord, was the pin my father had made for my mother.

I sat on the floor and held it for a moment, admiring my dad's careful work. My eyes drifted up to the dresser, tugging my thoughts along with them.

I remembered those family trips to Disneyland when I was small, when I rode the Matterhorn tucked in front of my mother, my dad and big sister sharing the rear seat. I closed my eyes and Mom and I were standing at the sale rack in Macy's, searching for that red blazer she needed "if the sale was good enough." I remembered a Mother's Day from my Brownie troop days, when that molded chartreuse bracelet had been my love offering to her.

I didn't learn until years later that Mom didn't like roller coasters. Mom would pay full price for a sweater for me, but never for a blazer for herself. She wore that ugly bracelet time and time again.

These artifacts of her life could have been curated by an expert, because as I studied them, I saw new dimensions of my mother's life. They illuminated, like any well-edited collection does.

I let a wave of pure sorrow flood my heart, missing her.

I stood up, wrapping my fingers around the pin I'd come looking for. I closed the door to their bedroom behind me, not looking back, as I made my way to the living room.

"Look, Daddy. I found it!"

 The Pin.

²⁸ Her children rise up and bless her;
Her husband also, and he praises her, saying:
²⁹ “Many daughters have done nobly,
But you excel them all.”
Proverbs 31:28-29 (NASB)

A Picture of Grace

Helicopter. MCAS Miramar. October, 2009.

Troop Movements 

Saturday we were choosing ice cream in the grocery store, enjoying the cool from the freezer, when my husband's cell phone rang. 

I watched him answer, heard his voice grow thick and dark. "Where did they take her?" I tried to fill in the other end of the conversation, but my imagination was quiet. 

I watched him blink and swallow, tears filling, but not spilling from, his eyelids.

"Okay."

"See you soon."

Rich snapped his phone shut and turned to me. "That was Susan. Mom's been in an accident. She's heading down to San Diego. She wants me to call the rest of my siblings."

"Shall we ask the clerk to put our groceries back on the shelves?" I asked, jettisoning the day's agenda.  

"No, we're almost done here. I need to go outside to call everyone."

"I'll finish up and meet you at the car," I offered, taking command of the shopping cart. 

I squeezed him. We prayed, right there in the freezer section. Then he went outside, phone in hand, preparing to shatter his sisters' and brother's Saturday afternoon.

Thirty minutes later, groceries stowed and overnight bag stuffed, we locked the front door of our home.

"Do you want me to drive?" I thought about another phone call, another accident, another long drive to a hospital.

"No, I'll drive." He handed me his cell phone. As we made our way to the freeway, he thought of more people for me to call. I kept both our phones busy, calling cousins, texting my dad. 

Traffic was heavy. It accordioned along the freeway, squeezing bumper to bumper, then teasing us with a moment of cruising speed.  Ahead of us, cars from Arizona, Colorado, Alberta, Florida clogged our path to the hospital.

Rich wasn't drumming the steering wheel impatiently. He didn't snap at the driver of the Lexus who wedged in ahead of us.

He just drove.

As we passed through Camp Pendleton, traffic stopped. To our right, on a strip of land between the freeway and the ocean, a Marine helicopter hovered. "We could use one of those right now," he ventured, as traffic once again came to a stop.

I pictured a giant grappling hook snagging our Toyota, hoisting us aloft like a mouse in a hawk's talons, whisking us through the sky as another helicopter had carried his mother, just a short while earlier, to the emergency room.

"This traffic is making me crazy," I muttered.

Rich glanced at me. "It is what it is," he reminded me.

His voice was calm and steady, his hand light on the wheel. I realized how right his judgment had been when he declined my offer to drive. I was better suited to offering recaps to worried family, tapping out messages on a tiny keyboard. He was focused on a single goal.

We had someplace important to be. And he, by God, was going to get us there.

¹ Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NASB)

Sensible Flowers

Spring Bulbs

A Tidbit of Peace

I work in the investment profession, so when craziness infects the financial markets, I know I'm in for a challenging day. So on August 8, I caffeinated thoroughly before going to the office. The markets were in freefall and I knew my day would bring extra challenges.

The day's hecticity exceeded my expectations. The phone lines sang in chorus. My inbox listed, threatening to capsize under the weight of urgent messages. Staff members marched through the halls, their steps a quicktime cadence. The engine driving office pleasantries sputtered and died, starved for air.

I pulled my prayer beads from my purse and hung them from the corner of my monitor.

"Be with me today," I prayed. "Be with all of us."

It was late in the day before I turned my attention to the incoming mail waiting on my desk. I was tired. My brain ached like an overused muscle. Nothing in the day, so far, had made sense.

I opened an envelope from a client. She'd mailed a payment for our services, wrapping her check in a sheet of notepaper before tucking it into the return envelope we'd sent her.

I studied the paper. The woman's name was neatly printed across its top. Across the bottom a pretty row of grape hyacinth, red tulips, and daffodils graced the page. I permitted myself a moment to admire the flowers, whose rendering reminded me of a botanical illustration.

I realized the flowers were all spring bulbs. No random mixing of sunflowers and irises here: these flowers, if planted together, would bloom together. They belonged together.

The flowers made sense.

I plucked my prayer beads from the monitor, felt the smooth stones, fingered the cross that hangs from them.

And I offered up thanks that God is in control, even when Wall Street is spinning like a kamikaze.

¹³ Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And Your dominion endures throughout all generations.
 ¹⁴ The LORD sustains all who fall
And raises up all who are bowed down.
¹⁵ The eyes of all look to You,
And You give them their food in due time.
¹⁶ You open Your hand
And satisfy the desire of every living thing.
Psalm 145:13-16 (NASB)

Minor Misery, Major Joy

 A Lovely Cast. Art by Tanya Yorks. Spring, 2008.

True Confessions

If we meet on the street and you ask say, "How are you?" I'm likely to say, "Just fine, thanks. How are you?" And I'll smile as I listen as you answer. 

And odds are good that I'm lying. Sort of.

For seven months I've had a strange form of hives. They're caused by pressure against my skin, so they pop up when I remove my shoes. Or comb my hair. Or sit on a hard surface. After 20 minutes of burning, the pain disappears, but the welt on my skin remains for an hour or so. You can see an example here.

They're ephemeral and persistent all at once. And they bring a bit of misery. Benign, itchy, misery.

As I march through midlife, the arthritis that developed in my 30s has progressed. I've had surgery on both thumbs to remove bones rusted beyond use. Blouses that button are an indulgence reserved for "good days." Over the past few years, the base of my spine has been collecting corrosion between its vertebra, too.

The "good days" don't visit me as often as they once did.

I was reared in a family that didn't favor whining and wallowing. Years of training contribute to my response of "fine" when you ask how I am. And I remind myself that the conditions I live with don't threaten my longevity. I have a friend who's just learned that her cancer has returned.  Another friend stages garage sales and sells t-shirts to help fund cancer treatment for her five-year-old granddaughter. Stacked beside serious illnesses like those, who am I to gripe about the gnawing in my back, or fingers that stiffen and refuse to slip buttons through holes?

So in terms of my physical state, I'm bending the truth--or snapping it in two--if I tell you I'm fine.

But there's more to the story.

Two thousand years ago, God came to earth as a Man. He walked among us, taught us about love, then showed us love as He marched up a hill, was nailed to a cross, and died. Because He paid that price, sacrificing Himself for my sins, my future glows.

One day, in 35 years or the day after tomorrow, He'll call me home to take my place in His kingdom. There's no cancer in heaven, no hives, no arthritis. Instead, I will spend eternity worshiping Him in a place of perfection.

When I consider heaven I realize that my entire life on earth is ephemeral, like these pesky hives. It will pass away, and something better awaits me.

The hope of eternity fills me with great joy. So while my body hurts, it is well with my soul.

And because of that promise, when I tell you I'm fine, it's God's truth. 

³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, ⁴ and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:3-4 (NASB)

My Soul's Dirty Underwear

Today's post is in honor of my friend Nancy Owens Franson, who turns fifty tomorrow, and is looking forward to becoming officially eccentric.

Dirty Sky. Mojave Desert. February, 2007.

Mom's Notorious Advice

Apparently, somewhere along the way, someone's mother counseled:

Always wear clean underwear. Because you never know when you might be in an accident and you wouldn't want the doctors to see you in dirty underwear.

That's the story, anyway. But I don't believe it, for three reasons.

First, I don't recall my mother ever offering me this advice. In my own informal poll, everyone I asked recognized this bit of Classical Mom Wisdom---but nobody's mom had actually said it to her.

Second, in all the realistic television medical dramas I've watched--and I was an  ER devotee, back in the day--I never heard the doctor say: "Treat this one first. He's wearing clean underwear."

Finally, as a mom, I didn't tell my daughter to wear clean underwear. By the time she was old enough to dress herself, she'd absorbed the concept of wearing clean clothes right alongside understanding that seams belong on the inside, buttons need buttoning, and socks go on feet.


Maybe I should ask snopes.com to investigate. Or Mythbusters. Is there any compelling evidence that a real mother ever told her children to wear clean underwear for the sake of hypothetical emergency room staff?


So why does this apocryphal tale of maternal advice endure?


I think the story lives because it's an allegory for the state of our souls.


Things I think are hidden from public view--like my underwear, and my soul--could suddenly, when I least expect it, be exposed.


So if I don't want to get caught dirty, I'd better keep things clean. Just in case.


The problem is, my soul was born in dirty underwear, as it were. And all my scrubbing and soaking and bleaching and striving won't render them clean.


I can't clean up the dirt.

But Christ did. His love, His sacrifice, His blood washes away even the most persistent stain.


And all I had to do was ask.


So tell me: Did your mother ever warn you to always wear clean underwear? Have you asked for a clean pair for your soul?

⁶ If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; ⁷ but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
1 John 1:6-10 (NASB)

My Stowaway Heart

The Party Wagon. Mission Bay, San Diego. July 30, 2011.

Parachuting to Praise

Yesterday my daughter Elaine, her husband Rob, and two our our grandchildren, Cadence and Sawyer, boarded a jet and flew off to begin their new life in Hawaii. With the luxury of foreknowledge, we've enjoyed extra time together over these past months, when only 90 miles of interstate lay between us.

We vacationed together in July, touring an engineering marvel, commissioning memories in clay, soaking in the quiet of mornings blessed with coffee and a little boy.

Last weekend, a beach party sendoff drew five generations of our families and scores of friends. We grilled burgers, wore leis, and snapped photos. I sniffled as I watched Cadence run back to give his little cousin Carly one more hug as his bigger cousin Ayden, lip aquiver, called out bravely: "Have a good time in Hawaii, Cadence!" 

 

Photo Ops and Fellowship at the Beach.

Tuesday, Rich and I made a rare midweek trip to San Diego to attend a dinner party at the home of longtime friends. We expected this evening to be our last time together before the kids left town. Feeding Sawyer a bottle undid me, as I smelled him, caressed his baby skin, with not a callus anywhere yet, and realized he might be weaned to a cup the next time I held him. 

 Feeding Sawyer.

But Saturday brought one more opportunity. We drove to San Diego for one last gathering, sharing pizza and a bit more time as Elaine and Rob packed their bags. We posed for pictures. I fed Sawyer another bottle. 

The Bonus Gathering.

Then we said goodbye, again, and left. One small sob escaped as I hugged my daughter. "I'll call you when we get there," she said.

And I knew she would.

Cadence Hugging Papa Rich.

Yesterday morning, I carried a burden into the sanctuary as Rich and I arrived at church. My precious family was taxiing down a runway as our pastor called us to worship. My heart wasn't in God's house; it was stowed away on a Hawaiian Airlines flight.

As the offering was collected we sang Be Still, My Soul.  My husband squeezed my hand as we sang:

Leave to thy God to order and provide;

In every change, He faithful will remain.

I felt my heart slip out of its secret place on the airplane and edge toward an emergency exit.

When our pastor asked for prayer requests, I asked the congregation to pray for traveling mercies for our kids and a smooth adjustment to their new home in Hawaii.

Then my friend, who sat in the pew behind us, asked us all to pray for her sister-in-law, who, during the previous week, had been savagely attacked and stabbed in her home.

Another woman asked us to pray for a friend whose daughter had been killed in a motorcycle accident. I thought about that grieving mother. I thought about my husband, who has indulged me this week, wiping my tears, accompanying me to San Diego even when it meant only a few hours of sleep for him before his work began the next day. I realized he's been patient with me through this parting because he loves them dearly too. And because he has experience with goodbyes that are much, much harder than this one.  

A young man we're fond of rose next to ask for prayer. His car had been stolen and ransacked. Thieves had taken his laptop computer, with all his work towards his master's degree. They'd taken the keys to the home he and his wife share with a treasured grandfather. They'd taken his cellphone. They'd taken his Glock. He offered praise to God for His goodness and protection.

A man I'd never seen before stood. Sobbing, he told us that he'd been married in our church two years earlier. Now his wife had left him. He's seeking recovery from the alcoholism that pickled his marriage. He's asking God to refresh his relationship, to bring his wife back to him. 

Another woman asked us to pray for her daughter, who will be married in the church next Sunday. And she asked us to pray for a job for her, as she's just learned that her current position will end in a few weeks. She hasn't told her daughter yet, because she doesn't want to cast a shadow over her wedding.

I could barely comprehend the list of critical needs the members of our tiny congregation spilled out, cataloging grief and suffering and violence and loss and fears. 

And  my heart parachuted out of that Boeing making its way across the ocean and settled back where it belongs: within me, worshipping a Sovereign King Who knows every need, every hurt, every longing. 

After the service, our pastor's son, Paul, jogged up to me. "Where's your grandson?"

I smiled big and true. "He's on a jet to Hawaii," I told the child. "He's moving there. He's going to have wonderful adventures to tell us next time we see him."

²⁵ Like cold water to a weary soul,
So is good news from a distant land.  

Proverbs 25:25 (NASB)

Like the Back of His Hand

 The Backs of Our Hands. Lake Forest, CA. September, 2007.

 Knowing Well

Five days a week, I point my truck towards town and roll in to my office. It's an easy commute, dramatic as the oak arcades of Live Oak Canyon Road yield to banks, barber shops and bars, crammed side-by-side like diners at the counter waiting for the lunch special.

I've learned the details of the route: during the school year, I avoid the right lane as I approach Toledo. SUVs will clog it, waiting to deposit their adolescent payloads at El Toro High School. Nearing Bridger, I must watch for drivers dive-bombing towards the freeway onramp on the right. If it's raining, I expect to ford a puddle at the underpass.

I know the way like the back of my hand.

Driving from a knowing place smooths the drive.

My husband knows me like I know my way to work. He knows that I despise dirty dishes in the sink. He knows how much milk to add to my coffee, recognizing the precise shade of opaque perfection when he sees it. He knows where the itch on my back lives.

He knows every bruise of my secondhand heart, and touches them gently when he must touch them at all.

Loving from a knowing place smooths our marriage.

God knows me even better than my husband knows me. Humility shrinks me as I remember that the Creator of the universe created me, too. He numbered the graying hairs on my head. He reserved for me the days of my life and knew how I'd spend and squander them.

And still He loves me.

His love, from His all-knowing place, eases my soul.

¹³ For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
¹⁶ Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.
Psalm 139:13-16 (NASB)

A Singletrack Point of View

Flat Tire. July, 2011.

Keep Your Eyes on The Trail
 
Our canyons are a popular destination for bicyclists. Nearly every morning I pass a pack of road bikers riding into our canyon as I'm driving out. They race along the narrow winding road, jerseys flashing, all determination as they lean into the hills. Almost every evening, a fellowship of mountain bikers congregate in the parking lot at Cook's Corner, swapping stories and swigging water as they load their dusty suspension bikes into truck beds and onto roof racks.

I rode my bicycle for sanity while I was writing my dissertation, so I appreciate their devotion to their sport. When my thinking stalled, a bracing ride through Los Angeles traffic from Westwood to Hermosa Beach always knocked my brain out of neutral. Dodging car doors and distracted drivers as I pedaled down San Vicente Boulevard, anticipating the ocean air that would wash over me at the beach, occupied my mind so fully that any academic spasms were chased out.

As a matter of survival, I adopted a rule of the mountain cyclist on my urban tours: Keep your eye on your path, not on your bike. As one author puts it:

Look at where you want to ride instead of what you don't want to hit. You automatically ride toward whatever you look at. Look for a good line through the rocks and ruts and you will follow this line. But if you look at a rock or rut that you don't want to hit you will hit it for sure! With practice, you will be able to quickly spot a good line, and will be able to relax and ride down it accurately.
--Mountain Biking Northern California: A Guide to Low Impact Riding on Singletrack Trails

These days, I adopt this rule in my walk with Christ. Focusing on obstacles leads me to trip over them. But when I fix my attention on my King, and refuse to look at the temptations that rut the path, my steps draw me closer to Him. I dare to imagine the unimaginable: an eternity worshiping in His presence. Fixing my eyes on this promise eases the worldly spasms that grip my heart.

¹ Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NASB)

Power Tools, Joy and Image Bearing

 

Rich, His SoniCrafter, the Log. July, 2011.

Because He Did, We Can 

I came home from work one evening to find my husband immersed in a project. He'd commandeered the table on our deck and was busily sanding at a chunk of oak, using the Rockwell SoniCrafter I'd given him last Christmas. Apparently he'd been at work for a while, as small drifts of sawdust gathered on the table and deck.

We're rich in oak around here since one of our giant trees uprooted last December. We're offering it free to good homes, but no takers have emerged.  Rich has told me that he hopes to find a woodcarver, a miller, a furniture-maker, to use the wood, rather than see it all go up, branch by branch, in smoke.

So I wasn't surprised to find him sanding down a log, after he'd stripped away its rugged bark, exposing the naked wood.

"Whatcha making?" I asked him, as I poured myself a ginger ale.

"I dunno," he told me, setting down his sander. "At first I thought maybe a seat for a bench, but...." his voice drifted. "Did you know that a cubic foot of this wood weighs 69 pounds? I looked it up." 

And so, for the next several evenings, the music of Rich's sander greeted my ear as I arrived home each evening. "Feel this," he'd say, guiding my hand to the smoothening wood. I could hear his pleasure as the late day sun set his face, the wood, the sander aglow on our deck.

My pragmatic heart would prod me again to ask, "Any idea what you'll do with it?"

And he would smile, and shake his head, and return to his sanding. 

I finally recognized my husband's engagement with the log. 

He's creating for the joy of creating. Satisfaction flows from looking back on a created thing and seeing that it is good.

I struggle with the concept that I bear God's image. How can that be? How can broken, petty, prideful, sinful me reflect my King? It's easier to see it in other people. 

I see His image in my husband, subduing that log, making it smooth and beautiful, because he can. We are but an adumbration, but the image is there.

It is very good.

 ²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸ God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” ²⁹ Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; ³⁰ and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. ³¹ God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 1:26-31 (NASB)

I'm linking with Laura Boggess at The Wellspring for Playdates with God. Won't you hop over to her site and have a look?