The Loving Spoon (An Original Poem)

The Loving Spoon

This morning I poured honey into my favorite spoon,

the thick, heavy silver one with words engraved in the bowl.

The honey filled up the space, covering the words like a tiny

ocean or a miniature great lake washing up on shore

and covering words someone has written in the sand.

“You are loved.”

That’s what the spoon says, and my imaginary shore.

I don’t even remember who gave us the spoon, though

I have tried to narrow it down so I can send a note

of thanks. I know that it came with a meal, which came

in the middle of my ongoing cancer battle. That must

have been a hard part of the fight, though I don’t recall

because they all feel hard. But any time people start sending

food, I know I must be in an extra exhausted season.

Someone sent us a meal from a company that makes

meals for people who can’t easily make them

for themselves, and whoever ordered it also ordered

the spoon. And whoever they are, I am deeply thankful

because every time I pull the spoon from the drawer

I am confronted with an inconvertible truth, that nothing,

not even months of debilitating illness that makes me

so road-weary I could sit down and weep, can change.

“You are loved.”

I have heard of loving cups, those two-handled cups

of old that got passed around banqueting halls for

people to share the drink inside, a sort of echo

of what happens weekly at the communion rail.

But I have never owned a loving spoon,

a shining silver spoon that helps preach the gospel

daily to my heart, as does the honey I drip down

into the spoon’s curved bowl, reminding me in every

golden drop how sweet are the words of the Lord,

sweeter than the drippings of the honeycomb.

So in case you need to hear them too, I lift my spoon

that drips with honey in your direction, before I

direct the spoon towards my cup of hot tea (which,

like an enchanted ocean, sends waves over the words

but reveals them again, still intact) and then

direct the words of this poem in the hopes

that whoever reads it will throw open the windows

of their heart and hear the sweet, sweet words:

“You are loved.”

(EMP, 5/7/17)

Marching Orders for the People of God

As part of my morning reading today, I was meditating on Deuteronomy 10:12-22 in Eugene Peterson's paraphrase The Message. I needed to hear these words afresh. And what I found and pulled out, mostly using the exact words of the paraphrase, but pushing them together a bit, is what I am thinking of as "marching orders for the people of God."

They needed them then.

We still need them today.

And here they are....

********

Live in God’s presence in holy reverence

Follow the road he sets out for you

Love Him

Serve Him

Serve Him, your God, with everything you have in you

Obey the commandments

Live a good life

Look around you – everything you see is God’s – the heavens and beyond, the earth and everything on it

Remember that God fell in love with you and chose you

Cut away the thick calluses from around your heart

Stop being willfully hardhearted

Remember who God is – powerful, awesome, immense

Remember where you’ve been and what he’s brought you through

You’ve seen this with your own eyes! Praise him!

Treat others with the same lovingkindness that God treats you

Remember, again, who you were and yet who you have become. He did this. All of it.

He Did Not Weaken in Faith When He Considered...

I love Abraham. The Scriptures tell us that he believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

I think we have a tendency -- at least I do -- to think of our heroes and saints in the faith as people to whom believing must have come naturally, or at least more easily than it comes for us. So I love that Romans chapter 4 tells us more of Abraham's believing story.

 ¹⁸ In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” ¹⁹ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. ²⁰ No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹ fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²² That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

He believed in God and God's promise, in spite of all the evidence that would seem to pull him away from belief. It wasn't that he didn't realize how dire his situation was, how impossible. He considered his own body, which was as good as dead -- I love how Paul doesn't mince words here. He considered  the fact that Sarah was barren. Put those two facts together, and it must have felt nigh unto impossible to believe that the two of them could ever conceive a baby, let alone become the patriarch and matriarch of a people more numerous than the stars in the sky. 

It wasn't that unbelief was not an option. It was. Unbelief must have been in the very air he breathed, a very real temptation. Strong evidence he could see with his eyes and consider with his mind pointed him to the impossibility of God being able to keep his promise. Unbelief was there. But it did not make him waver. And look at what Paul tells us next: he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 

He grew strong in his faith AS HE GAVE GLORY TO GOD. As he praised God for who he was and what he had done, his faith grew stronger. It grew stronger despite the depressing facts that seemed to surround him and his good as dead body (and yes, I am drawn to that line more than I ever have been, in the wake of my cancer diagnosis). He gave glory to God because he knew who God was. Look back at verses 16 and 17:

16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring -- not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations" -- in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

Abraham intimately knew God, and he knew that God could do amazing things. He knew that God had the power to give life to the dead (so his as good as dead body was no obstacle) and that he calls into existence the things that do not exist (so his wife's barrenness was no obstacle). How precisely Abraham knew all these things about God we don't know....God must have revealed them to him. 

We know these same things because God has revealed them to us in the Scriptures. We see God act in creation to call things into existence that never existed before. We see also how he gives life to the dead (or those as good as dead!), from his rescue of Isaac with the ram in the thicket to the raising of the widow's son through Elijah, through Jonah being rescued from the belly of the whale on through Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones taking on flesh. We see it in Jesus' raising of Jairus' daughter, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus of Bethany, and ultimately God's power manifested in a whole new way with the resurrection of Jesus himself. 

Whatever pictures and words God used to share who he was with Abraham, it was enough and more than enough, because Abraham knew God. He knew him and he believed him, and through faith, he was able to hold onto the promise that otherwise seemed impossible. He gave God glory; God strengthened his faith, and ultimately, the promise came true.

And -- oh beautiful beyond imagining -- but Abraham's faith can be ours, because Abraham's God is ours.  Jump ahead to verses 23-25:

23 But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

As Abraham's descendants, we are children of faith, people of the promise. We can believe in God and God's promises even as we consider the facts around us, which sometimes seem to do nothing but point us to despair and unbelief. We can consider the facts and acknowledge that unbelief is there, a tempting option sometimes because it feels so easy to fall into. 

But unbelief does not need to make us waver. The remedy for unbelief is to give God glory and to allow him to strengthen our faith. He will help us hold on, and he will do it through our praise and thanksgiving for who he is and what he has done. 

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

Despite the unusually warm temperatures outside, it's definitely mid-December. I know this because the advent wreath is on the dining room table, the Christmas tree is up and decorated, the box of Christmas books and videos/DVDs has made its appearance in the living room, and the cookie recipes are scattered in the kitchen. I also know it because yesterday was Christmas pageant rehearsal number two (one more to go before performance on 4th Advent), and on Saturday, Santa rode into our little town at the back of the Christmas parade. S' Christmas cactus is blooming wildly on the windowsill, brightly advent pink (joy!), and the poinsettia she rescued a couple of years back is also blooming again. I love her green thumb.

Then there's the fact that I spent a few minutes this morning hunting down the elusive notebook with my advent poem jottings. Yet another year that I am feeling almost certain that a poem won't get written, but I've managed it for twenty-three years running, even in really dry and difficult years, and somehow or other, it will happen in year twenty-four.

Dry and difficult aren't quite the words I would use for this particular advent season, but there have been lots of struggles this year. My stress levels have been an almost all-time high in the past week or so, and the stress is manifesting itself in physical ways -- I am struggling with back and hip pain of the kind I only get when my body has just maxed out stress-wise. S' anxiety levels have been enormous of late, which is affecting all of us, especially as she struggles with sleep. (Though blessedly, last night was better. Thank you, Abba!)  I also know a lot my own stress is due to being deep down tired:  I've had health issues while needing to keep an incredible work pace this year, and it's not over yet. Some of it is our financial stress -- we've had a rotten fourth quarter, and the personal Christmas miracle I am praying for right now is the ability to keep our electricity on through the holidays (not an exaggeration). Some of it is also weariness in the face of difficult news of suffering from around the world, which sometimes seems more (not less) acute when we look at it with advent eyes.

In and through all of this, it can sometimes be difficult to hear the gospel sing, but sing it does, and that too is another reason I know it's mid-December. Because Jesus has come and still comes and will come again, and that means light in dark places and tender care for all aches and hope where reason tells us there's no reason to hope. So deeply thankful that it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas again.

The Great Circle of the Saints

Yesterday was All Saints day. It turned out to be a difficult one for me (for reasons which don't need to get written about this morning) but all day long, even in the midst of stress and tiredness, I found myself remembering deep down how grateful and glad I am to be a part of the company of saints.

During opening worship service yesterday, I found myself dwelling again on the image of that great company all connected. When it was time to go downstairs with the children for Sunday School, I couldn't help but want to share that with them.

So I had our little crew hold hands in a circle. We thought about how we were there that morning to worship Jesus together. Then I asked them to think about how big the circle would be if we expanded it to include all the grown-ups still in the service upstairs.

And if we included all our fellow Christians in town -- other people at other churches who had gathered to pray and worship in Jesus' name that morning.

And if we included all the other saints on out into the city.

And if we included all the other followers of Jesus in our country.

And all the other followers of Jesus in our world today.

And all the other followers of Jesus who have ever lived, present and past, since the beginning.

I asked them to imagine how big that circle would get. (One of the kids suggested bigger than Jupiter, which made me smile.)

I asked them to throw into the picture the bright company of angels.

I asked them to imagine all of us standing around God's throne forever, worshiping and loving God forever.

So very, very grateful to be part of this family!!

End of Another Year

Well, we've done it! Today was homeschool evaluation day, which for me always feels like the official end of our school-year, even if we finish actual schooling earlier. This year the sweet girl has had dribs and drabs of things to finish, mostly in math, so she's actually been doing a bit of "summer school" (about an hour a day) but even that is almost over now. With the official sign-off from our terrific evaluator, who loved seeing how much S. has "grown and matured," 7th grade is DONE! Thanks be to God!

Everything We Have Comes From Him

I'm in the midst of a several day slog through a lot of work deadlines, which in actuality is part of a longer series of months where I've been pushing at a pace I know I can't keep up much longer.

My mind is tired. I am running out of creative ideas (both teaching and writing). I am running out of energy and hours.

My heart is tired. We have friends going through the unfathomable sadness of accompanying one of their children through terrible illness that looks as though it will end soon in death.  I have turned twice to news reports in recent days about the persecution and killing of Christian brothers and sisters in other parts of the world.

My mind and heart are also bursting with love and gospel goodness, which in the midst of all the heartbreak and heartache feels ever more precious each day. We have been loving our nearly teenage daughter through a ton of very hard questions about God, life, Jesus, the Bible, and the world -- incredible questions that come faster than we can possibly answer (her mind works at such an amazing pace sometimes). I spent part of the morning trying my best to answer questions from a seven year old who told me he really wants to see God.

Tonight I was glad to come across these words from the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 1 in The Message:

"Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”

What a rich treasure God has given us -- all of us who weren't much when we were called, but who by God's grace have been given everything we need, including a clean slate and fresh start.

 

Teach Us to Number Our Days: A Few Thoughts on Aging

“Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

This advent season I’m thinking about aging. It’s not just because my middle-aged body and mind are both tired these days (I find myself getting really excited about sleep, in ways I never used to!) but because we recently visited our parents.

My husband’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s this year, a diagnosis we’re still not entirely sure about, though one thing is clear: her memory and physical strength have both plummeted alarmingly in the past year and a half. Although she is a little stronger now than she was in late summer, before the family had her current care situation in place, it is still very difficult to see her so frail and easily confused.

My own mother, five years older than my mother-in-law but always constitutionally more vigorous, fell two days before Thanksgiving and broke her hip. We spent our time there mostly in hospital, as she was recovering from surgery. She’s spent the weeks since in a rehab facility, learning to walk and carefully handle stairs with her new hip, and Lord willing, she’ll be home in just a couple more days. She’s worked hard, determined to get back on her feet, but she’s battled anxiety, depression, and loneliness too. This has been the longest time my folks, married for 60 years, have been separated from each other for many years. Probably the last time they spent this much time apart was over 50 years ago, when they made a move from Tennessee to Virginia with two little ones in tow, and my father had to move ahead of the rest of the family to find a place for them to live and to start his job. He’s visiting her every day, of course, but they still miss each other a lot.

Observing all three of these people (so dear to me) handle huge challenges has been encouraging, worrying, thought-provoking – and more besides. I am amazed by their courage. I don’t use that word lightly. Just getting into your 70s and 80s with the will to get up each morning, to keep moving in spite of pain and discomfort, to keep a sense of humor in the midst of growing daily frustrations, takes a tremendous amount of courage.

I love these people. They have so much wisdom and experience, and they’ve poured so much of their lives into ours. And right now, they all face so many daily challenges. Physical faculties have begun to fail them. Mom doesn’t hear as well as she used to, Dad’s eyesight is challenging him (night driving has become a real anxiety, reading more of a chore) and my mother-in-law’s vocal strength is failing her, so it’s almost impossible for her to be heard. Both moms struggle with balance issues. My dad has to monitor his pace or his blood-pressure drops significantly (he has congestive heart failure, from which he has recovered wonderfully, but still). They have more aches and pains and their bodies need more rest.

The friends and loved ones of their youth have begun to die, and there are fewer people left who share their memories and can connect with them on deep levels of heart and soul. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget my mom flourishing a newspaper open to the obituary section (while she lay in her hospital bed) and saying with total snark: “Every once in a while we like to check in to make sure we haven’t died yet.” Then my dad, a few minutes later, in a much more sober frame of mind, telling me that “some days when I read the obituaries, everyone listed there is younger than I am.”

I’m sure there are times when they feel overlooked or dismissed because they can’t “keep up the pace.” They’re slower on their feet. New technology passes them by. Popular cultural trends seem more inane and faddish and lightweight to them (I already get that, and I’m only 46). Yet they’re still susceptible to the fear and anxiety pumped regularly through the media, just like everyone else.

I appreciate seeing the ways they handle their growing infirmities and frustrations: sometimes with panache, sometimes with humor, sometimes with anger and defiance. I’ve begun to realize that no two people handle the arduous hills of aging quite the same way. And I’ve begun to see that there are certain things I not only hope and pray I have in place if I ever attain to eight or nine decades of living, but certain things I want to actively work to have in place if and when I get there. Not that I’m banking on these attitudes or attributes necessarily and always making things easier – unexpected challenges will arise, and the likelihood of D & I ever having the level of care our parents are experiencing is slim.

Still, here are a few things I want to begin to put into place for myself now as I think about those years to come. They are good life skills and attitudes to have in the here and now, not just investments for old age.

·        I want to cultivate an attitude of gratitude, the kind of gratitude I see in my dad when he tells me that every day he still enjoys is a gift.

·        I want to keep my mind as active as possible for as long as possible: with reading (including slow, thoughtful reading of material that challenges me), with prayer, music, creativity, and even occasionally tackling new skills. I want to try to be open to the new as well as the old for as long as I can.

·        I want to remember that “activity” does not equal value. A ministry of presence – even if it means, in the end, simply being kind and loving to caregivers (who may or may not always be kind themselves) is still of value. A ministry of prayer matters. There may even be times when I feel I have nothing left to give at all, but I pray that I will still somehow know, deep down inside, that I am always a beloved daughter of God. That starts with me remembering it now, and treating others with the respect and dignity and care with which I hope to be treated one day.

·        I don’t want to be afraid to ask for help or to show I don’t have it all together. I want to stay open to receive. To me, this is huge. My parents have been givers, do-ers, caregivers, their whole lives. It has sometimes been very hard for them to be on the receiving end of care. I think this is a tough one for all of us actually. We all like to be the strong ones who give. But it’s been dawning on me lately that as Christians, our whole (healed, whole, saved!) lives are due to having received grace upon grace we couldn’t have ever earned or scraped up or managed on our own, and that needs to mark our inner disposition in other ways. We need to be open to receive what we can’t possibly do for ourselves, and to see it not as a sign of weakness, but a blessed part of God’s economy and the communion of the saints.

·        I want to view even the really, really hard stuff in life as part of the adventure God has me on, remembering that I am in his hands and in his care.

·        I want to savor simple gifts. And laugh more.  

·        I want to get to and maintain a healthy weight, as well as maintain better exercise routines and healthier eating habits. I’d like to stay as flexible and limber as possible for as long I can!

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:4