in between us

I heard the words and I wanted to hold them but they fell onto the table in between us and then I couldn’t make sense of them anymore. I stared at the table hoping to look contemplative but really praying that the words would magically rearrange themselves into a response.

the world keeps spinning

Some of us live with outrage. Some of us live to seek harmony. Some of us live with such great indifference. And the world keeps spinning.                                                                                                   

Great deeds are done. Deep wounds are inflicted. And the world keeps spinning.

God will not pause the globe nor hold the sun in the sky or allow us a longer night of clear skies and twinkling stars. The world keeps spinning as we laugh and weep.

 But God longs to be invited in – to give vision to our outrage, give courage to those fighting worthy battles and trouble the waters of complacency.

 We must lift our eyes from the minutia to see the whole picture. Listen for the tune under the chaos. Feel the warm flesh of an outstretched hand.

 We must be more wiling to be outraged. More courageous to act. More willing to step into the troubled waters.

 Lord, we ask for your prompting, your nudge, your shove into action and justice and compassion and reconciliation.

memory of breath

Some memories live in us as if they are present realities. The memory of a lover’s embrace, the all-will-be-well of kindred souls together, edited memories of slower days and less complicated lives, memories sweetened with time. But breath… we can’t live on the memory of breath. We need it in the present moment, now… now… and now. We need the inhale and the exhale, life in and poison out.

The fish on dry land will flop and twist, floundering for the water that will wash oxygen across its gills. Those climbing at high altitudes will feel breath become labored and shallow until it’s easier to simply sleep, an eternal sleep. Diving to the bottom of the pool one challenges the capacity of lungs stretching and burning until the swift kick and thrash to the surface bring the gulp of saving air. Sprinting to the finish breath comes in quick bursts until we can cross the finish line and inhale deeply.

But atop a mountain, underwater, playing or working, the memory of breath will never be enough. The memory of breath might only be torture, a mocking of the one thing that could save and yet alludes us.

We can remember light in the darkness. Remember health in the midst of sickness. Remember love in isolation. Remember comfort in despair. And these memories can revive, invigorate and sustain us until the memories become reality again.

But the memory of breath will not provide life. Will not propel the next step. Or save us from suffocating realities. We must breathe every moment.

So when you can’t breathe, do all you can in your floundering to get to lower altitudes or thrash to the surface or forfeit the race that may not be yours to run. Keep oxygen in the house and take hits of it standing alone on the back porch at sunrise or drink deeply of the life-giving bubbles in a glass of wine as the evening fades. Call a doctor or collapse next to the closest person who can resuscitate you.

Because you can’t live on the memory of breath.

And I can’t live with only the memory of you.

make your Word my home

Give me the grace to make your Word my home, that I know you more clearly and serve you more faithfully ever more. Amen.  — A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God, Reuben Job
I long to make the Word my home.  To wander through each room, appreciating the details, remembering each person who has entered and the memories they have left there.  I long to reach for Bible verses as easily as I reach for plates and cups in the cupboard.  I want to see God revealed as clearly as the sun breaking through when I pull back the curtains each morning.  And to rest quietly in scripture, enjoying the same stillness and peace of a house at night with children dreaming in their beds and my husband by my side.
I hope for the day that the Word of God is my refuge and strength in the same way that my home is the place I start from and the place to which I always return.
Amen.

rhythms

Jeff and I have found that marriage can be lonely, even despite the proximity and the daily intimacies. We have so perfected the skills of delegation and scheduling that we can spend entire weeks in productivity without actually sharing life together.

I read this morning in reference to being a pastor that “Every gospel truth was maintained intact, and all the human energy was wholly admirable, but the rhythms were off.” (The Pastor: A Memoir by Eugene Peterson) That is what we have found in the past year. We strive to be faithful to prayer, we hope that we remain in line with God’s will. Our intentions and endeavors are respectable, maybe even admirable. But the rhythms are off.

When we came to Malawi, we truly believed (and still do) that we were following a call, a chance to use our gifts, experience and education in new ways and in service of the gospel that we had not done before.

But the calling to a new ministry was also a chance to live abroad as we had hoped to do at some point. It was the right time for Jeff to leave the high-stress, crazy hour profession. I jumped at the opportunity to work full-time again and offer Jeff more time with the kids.

Now I realize that my desire for work was not as altruistic as I would have liked to believe. Alongside my abiding conviction that Jeff has amazing gifts for parenting and that our family would benefit from his more regular presence at home, was a lurking tit-for-tat desire to be working and unavailable for PTO meetings and room mom sign-ups. But the move and new careers and swapping of roles did not change our rhythm much and the tempo may have only increased.

This has only become clear to us in recent weeks as we hit a wall of uber-produtivity and corresponding loneliness. We married because we love each other, because we make each other laugh, because we compliment each other, because there is calling to be fulfilled together that we cannot fulfill alone. And in this time and place we have the unique opportunity to work, quite literally, for the same purpose and even same institution.

So we want to take advantage of this time, to create a rhythm of life together that honors all that we love about one another, the family we have, the calling we have heard. Not to divide and conquer, but to embark on tasks together. When he holds me accountable for working too much, I have to let go of the pouty mindset that says, “But you did it for years. It’s my turn.” When I offer to help he should have the freedom to name how I can be helpful.

A march has a rhythm; it’s well-choreographed, precise – and individual. But now we’re looking for a more fluid rhythm, one that requires a partner.

We can sing as we take the kids to school together. Dance in the kitchen while the chicken bakes. Take time for instruments after dinner. The rhythm is ours to create – together.

It will change as our kids grow, our jobs change, as we move and encounter unforeseeable circumstances. But for now, we want to make time to dance together. To match our lives to a holy and healthy rhythm of the Spirit that called us together and calls us forward.

published in Our Journey: called to Malawi.

photos by Lanecia Rouse

 

desire to live in the light

today I learned that my aunt has cancer, that another friend has a clear scan 100 days after his bone marrow transplant. today my heart aches for my exhausted daughter, my heart soars for a friend with a vision.

the sun is shining and place myself in the light, and lift all those I love in the light too.

It takes so little to distract me from the good life, that which satisfies, food that is good. A simple text, a mind wandering, a bad mood, a cloudy day. These simple things can make me imagine another day, another way, another path.

My head, my heart, know what I truly desire. What nourishes me. What calls me. But yet something in my depths pulls, beckons to leave these behind. If only for a moment, only in my dreams.

I become preoccupied, disconnected. But what I notice is there is also a melancholy, a sadness, a pall that accompanies such distractions. A desolation rather than consolation.

Why can sadness and despair feel so alluring? The draw of sleep under heavy covers, silence in a dark room, an ending or pause is alluring.

Yet I acknowledge my joy, my consolation comes in the light, the activity, the flesh and blood touch rather than imaginings. My Spirit is lighter in my present reality than some distant past or vague future.

But yet the tug to the darkness and the stall and denial continues to beckon some days. Can feel as real as dreams.

But it’s the difference between a tanning bed and the warmth of the sun. I long not for a limited edge of light and heat, the small halo of the bulb. I long for a light and warmth that extends beyond me, that invites movement and freedom. Not a cloistered, individual artificial lamp. My desire is to live in the land of natural light and expansive rays of the sun.

Resting in God

The image from Psalm 131 of a weaned child has been my comfort this week. I keep imagining resting in the embrace of God, as a child who no longer grasps or cries. But simply rests, weaned and loved.

I remember those weeks and months after my own children stopped nursing. When I could hold them and read a story or sing and chat knowing that they would not be reaching into my shirt or distracted by the proximity of the next snack. It was relaxing and refreshing to have a child crawl into my arms knowing that they came solely to be loved and held.

And I long for that same rest in God’s arms. When I’m not crying for something or pretending to enjoy God’s presence while really just waiting for my next blessing. I’m learning to sit and be loved. To grow and be weaned and come into God’s presence for the sole purpose of being there.

published in Our Journey: called to Malawi

have your own experience

My tendency is to think my way through a problem rather than living it and feeling the depths of it. But I’ve discovered that analyzing experiences does not set me loose from the residual feelings. And suppressing them in favor of thoughtful justification is not fair to those with whom I am in relationship.

These steps were shared with me by a wise counselor (origin unknown) to “approach anything deeply”,
1.  Show up

2.  Pay attention (inside and out)

3.  Have your experience (not anyone else’s, and not your thoughts…)

4.  Stay open (especially to #3)

5.  Use your voice (especially re: #3)

6.  Use your vision (Intention + Intuition)

7.  Surrender *control* over the outcome to God

My struggle is to have my own experience. Slowly I hope to make progress past step 3.

I meticulously file each life experience in well-labeled folders and drawers of my mind. While proud of my borderline OCD, there was also well-meaning intention, a desire to be available to serve others.

Filing away all my experiences – skimmed, highlighted and edited – clearing space in heart, soul and home for others to spread their emotions and questions on my floor or post them on the walls. I encourage people to scatter their scraps of paper, sticky notes and scribbles all around in the safe and tidy place I have created, content that my file cabinet stands unobtrusive and immaculate in the corner. A silent testimony to what is possible with some academic rigor and self-control and spiritual discipline.

Until that day my filing cabinet over-flowed. Until the day there was no more room. Until the day I pulled out a drawer and it spilled all over the floor, destroying my illusion of order and control.
Only then did I see the error of filing even the most minute thought and every napkin scribble instead of throwing them away or burning them. When I could have taken the time to shred or trash – to cry, grieve or scream – I agonizingly color-coded and promptly filed each experience away. And the joy, success, pain, uncertainty and loneliness, remained inside me.

Had I but known that I didn’t have to catalog each emotional artifact in the dark archives but to actually experience it in the light of day. Then the paper may have faded in the light or burned in the heat or blown away like chaff in the wind. And my cabinet would not have exploded as it did.

transformed and transforming still

My journals are full and collecting on shelves. They have different colored sticky notes poking out to call me back to sermon ideas, scrawled poems and fiction fragments. I have additional writing, edited and not, typed into Evernote, recorded quickly on the notes of my phone while in line at the store, and carefully collected in Scrivener in hopes of forming a collection.

I hope on this blog to see themes in the writing, to find my story and to share my love of words and fascination with life and abiding faith in God.

The first three offerings (poem, preaching and prose) reveal my growing identity as a writer. How I was transformed somewhere along the way from one who writes to a poet who loves to shepherd these myriad words and rest in the meadow with them.