Dance of the Wounded

I have many blessings. My work is fulfilling, and my husband and I are close friends as well as partners. We live in our own home. Our church community feels like a family. But as I indicated yesterday, beneath my confident and productive exterior, I bear many scars from the past. Among my personal scars are the after-effects of emotional abuse, the lingering sorrow of having had two friends murdered, and of course, the remnants of grief over being childless.

For the most part, the pain from these old wounds is a thing of the past. It no longer intrudes on my daily life as it once did. But the fact remains that these old scars are indelibly a part of me and always will be. They have shaped the woman I am now.

I know I'm not alone in this wounded state. We have all been hurt, many far more grievously than I have. None of us makes it through life without scars. Those marks of past suffering may be deeply buried, but I believe that everyone has them.

God once gave me an image of his kingdom that has greatly comforted me over the years. I think it's the closest I've ever come to having a mystical vision. The image was of a vast, golden hall with God seated on a throne at the center. I didn't see specifically what he looked like; he was simply an awe-inspiring being of light and power.

All around the throne was a vast throng composed of every person who has ever loved God. Some of them were blind. Some were deaf. Some bore terrible deformities. Some were missing limbs. Some had mental or emotional afflictions. People wore casts, braces, eye patches, bandages. Some leaned on crutches. No one had been whole or perfect in their earthly life, and all bore the marks of their past suffering. Yet the earthly pain and sorrow were gone; we had been healed. And every single person was transfixed by joy to be in the presence of Love, so they danced in cosmic celebration before Him.

Recently, as I was contemplating this vision again, I saw a new aspect of it, something that I had never realized before. One of the dancers was Jesus—Jesus with his wounded hands and feet, his pierced side, and his thorn-scratched forehead. He was leading the dancers in an intricate pattern that wove back and forth, in an out, and around in a gigantic circle. It was like a joyous wedding dance, and the wrappings that had been Jesus' grave clothes trailed behind him like ribbons for the other dancers to hold aloft.

In the Levitical code of the Old Testament, scars and deformities made a person unclean and unfit to take part in temple worship. In our Christian faith, scars do not make us unworthy. They simply make us human, a state that our God chose to share.

I'm looking forward to that dance.

Come Sit with Me

RUTH at age 14 months

If you were to ask me what my greatest disappointment in life is, I wouldn't even have to think about it. My greatest sorrow is—and probably always will be—not having children.

I grew up in a family with its share of emotional problems, and I wanted to make things better for any children I might have. During my twenties, I went through therapy and worked on my emotional health to try to keep from passing on my family's destructive patterns. Yet, deep in the most secret corner of my heart, I feared that I could never be a mother because inevitably I would turn into the person I feared most.

So you can imagine how I felt when I finally had to accept the reality that my husband and I weren't going to have children. God was not going to heal our physical problems and provide a miraculous baby. My deepest fears had come true. In my heart of hearts, I was convinced that we weren't allowed to have a baby because I would have been a bad mother.

The people I shared my fear with told me I was wrong. My rector even said, "You might as well blame yourself for a cloudy day." My intellect agreed with them, but my heart still doubted. So I spent a great deal of energy and several years trying to figure out God's purpose for allowing this to happen. For a long time I told myself that it was because human beings are limited. I couldn't be everything I wanted to be: a loving wife, good mother, competent editor, and fiction writer, so God had to choose which role to deny me.

It still didn't feel good.

Then one day, our associate priest preached a sermon that hit home in a way nothing else had. She talked about the problem of pain and the problem of suffering. Because she herself is a cancer survivor, I could trust that she really believed what she was saying; it wasn't just some glib formula she learned in seminary. She said that people often try to explain away suffering by saying one of three things: 1) God is punishing us; 2) God is teaching us a lesson; or 3) God is putting us through this in service of some master plan. However, she doesn't believe any of those things. Obviously, we live in a world in which bad things happen, but God doesn't inflict them on us.

What God does do, Kate said, is offer to be with us in our pain. He wants to sit with us and love us when we're hurting.

That sermon broke my heart, but in a good way. I already believed that much of the pain and suffering in the world was due to human free will, and the rest comes from the fact that we live in a broken world. Kate's sermon gave me a much-needed reminder that bad things can happen without it being our fault. It freed me from the self-flagellation of trying to figure out what I had done or not done to cause our childlessness. It allowed me to say simply, "God, this hurts. Come sit with me while I weep."

This is one of the reasons why it means so much to me to have a God who chose to become human. He knows how it feels to be hungry, tired, ill, lonely, misunderstood, rejected, and abused, because he chose to experience all those things himself. And he even knows what it is like to be a human who will never have children.

I'm not sure the pain of being childless will ever completely leave me. At every new life stage, there are reminders. Whenever I see a niece get married or a nephew playing with his first child, I feel happiness tinged with pain. But at least I know I'm not alone. When it gets too bad, I only have to invite Jesus to come sit with me again.

Of Lilacs and Passion

When I was a little girl, we had two lilac bushes planted in the corner of our back yard, a white one and a traditional light purple one. They were close enough to meet at the top but far enough apart for me to have a secret space between them at the bottom. I use to play there beneath the arching branches feeling hidden from the world.

Perhaps that's one reason I adore the scent of lilacs—but I also love it because it is beautiful and evocative. It is so dense that it almost has weight. When I bury my nose in the flowers and inhale, I discern the tiniest hint of sharp spice and a cleanness like soap, but mostly, the smell is pure sweetness—a sweetness that lingers heavily like the taste of honey on the tongue. It is a rich purple smell, and not just because of the color of the flowers.

I've read that lilac is a nearly impossible scent to capture in a perfume. The bloom period for lilacs is very short, and the flowers themselves are small. So it is extremely difficult to obtain a sufficient quantity of the essential oils for manufacturing perfume. Many perfume makers create artificial lilac scent by blending other oils to create an approximation of the smell. Because of that, I've never purchased lilac perfume because I'm afraid that I would be disappointed. Instead, I let the scent of lilacs continue to be a seasonal pleasure.

Sometimes I think we humans try to hard to hold onto our intense pleasures instead of realizing that things come in seasons. The few times I have been tempted by interest in another man, the reason wasn't that I was disappointed in my husband. It was that I missed the heady pleasure of falling desperately in love—the longing and the seemingly infinite possibilities. I've wondered at times if our culture does us a disservice to have so many songs and stories and films about falling in love. It gives the impression that we should be experiencing that initial, consuming intoxication all the time, instead of realizing that it is just the springtime of a relationship and that the growth of mature intimacy brings a different, deeper set of pleasures.

I have also known people who grow angry and resentful about hitting this stage in their walk as Christians. They come to God in a flush of fervor and faith. For a while, they are excited about starting fresh, and sometimes it even seems as though every prayer they utter is answered. But that first infatuation with God seldom lasts. Before long, they come face to face with the need to build a relationship. As with human partners, learning to trust and communicate with God is difficult. Some people turn away at that point, feeling that they were given a false set of expectations. Others turn to emotionalism, trying to manufacture the same excited passion they felt from the first. And others buckle down to see what the next stage of faith is all about.

My journey with God is like my marriage to my husband. It's a relationship that is long-standing but still and forever in process. At times, it's hard work. There have been plenty of mistakes and misunderstandings and disappointments. But no one else knows and loves me so deeply, not even my spouse. And sometimes, when I'm not even looking for it, the passion and the excitement of falling in love with Jesus fills me all over again. I think it must be a seasonal thing, like my lilacs.

Memento Mori

Across the road from our subdivision is a cemetery where I sometimes walk our dog. One of the first times I went there, I noticed this tombstone. I find it rather mysterious. It stands alone, very close to a large tree, apart from the rows of other graves. As you can see, it is engraved with a single name and no dates. For obvious reasons, a chill ran down my spine the first time I saw it. I felt like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol watching in horror as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come pointed to my own, lonely grave.

In a way, this tombstone is like a memento mori. Have you ever noticed that some European still life paintings from the 1600s contain skulls? These paintings are called memento mori, which is a Latin phrase that means roughly "Remember you are mortal" or "Remember that you must die." The pictures are intended to remind the viewer that life is fleeting and that we will someday face God's judgment. Other symbols used in memento mori painting are hourglasses, snuffed candles, and rotting or worm-eaten fruit.

I think a lot of people have a memento mori view of religion. An acquaintance once told me that she couldn't stand the Catholic Church because it was so morbid, so hung up on death. Many others think the main reason to do what's right is that we will be judged by God someday. Certainly, there are churches that give that impression. That's one of the problems I have with weekly "altar calls." They constantly emphasize the message that you have to make yourself right with God because you never know when you will die.

I think that even if I didn't have the promise of eternal life, I would still want to follow Jesus. The more I learn about him, the more I love him. He is the image of God made visible for us. One of my favorite contemporary Christian songs is "I Want to Walk As a Child of the Light" by Kathleen Thomerson. The second verse relates to what I'm trying to say about Christ:

I want to see the Brightness of God
I want to look at Jesus
Clear Son of righteousness shine on my path
And show me the way to the Father.

There is so much need in the world, and I am still finding ways that I can act as God's hands and work to serve others. On a more selfish level, my relationship with God has given me comfort and healing for my past woundedness. By spending time with God, I open myself up to his leading. Under his guidance, I am constantly seeing areas where I must grow and change, places of pain where I need more healing, and opportunities to serve him. My daily life would be so much poorer without that relationship.

So the idea of memento mori doesn't have a very strong place in my faith. However, I've grown to have a fondness for the mysterious little tombstone with my name on it. Whenever I see it now, I feel a strange kinship with that long-deceased person who shared my name. It does remind me that someday I too will die and go to meet my maker. That prospect feels more like a homecoming to me than a day of retribution because I will finally see the God I love face to face.

And maybe I'll even meet that other Ruth and get to hear her story. Wouldn't that be something?

P.S. My thanks to Jeannelle, whose cemetery photos inspired this post.

Fatal Impacts

WARNING: If you lost someone in 9/11, please do not read this post. It contains a poem with a descriptive stanza abut the Twin Towers. I do not want to hurt you. RHC

Yesterday I read a post by Grandmère Mimi about the high suicide rate among Iraq veterans. The statistics are sobering and caused me to rethink the post I had written for today and to publish something else instead.

Three years ago, my brother spent about eight months in Iraq as a civilian truck driver. His time there and my own feelings about the war inspired me to write this poem.

FATAL IMPACTS

I. The Fireman

He never knows what wakes him—
the click of the furnace,
the dull scrape of a snowplow in the street,
his wife’s soft sigh—
but once awakened, he hears explosions,
the loud percussive impact of a body hitting street,
bursting in a wet and heavy instant
like a monstrous water balloon
or a dropped melon.

Like a repeating loop of newsreel,
he sees them jump from the towering pyre
and try to keep on running,
arms pumping, legs striding through the smoky sky
as they plummet to eternity.

And he who could not save them,
nor the comrades lost in the Twin Towers’ fall,
keeps faith by living with the burden of memory—
the smell of burning flesh and fuel
the acrid taste of powdered concrete—
and waits for it to crush him
so he can join the others.


II. The Trucker

The snores are loud in a tent of 40 men,
shaking him from sleep
just as the roar of jet engines
must have vibrated the tower windows
right before the impact.

Eighteen hours he drove that day,
hauling steak, detergent, and stacks of mail
to an army base near Fallujah.
As he returned,
a barefoot boy in dirty clothes,
scrambled over the gravel shoulder
and onto the single-lane highway.
The boy held out his hands before him
in the universal gesture for “Stop”
and squeezed shut his eyes.
Following orders,
the convoy neither slowed nor turned
but drove straight forward to avoid ambush.

His was the truck that hit the slender body,
the initial thud of impact
followed by a bump as he ran over a yielding mass,
each set of wheels encountering less and less of a barrier.
Now he lies on his cot, trying not to shudder,
and tells himself the boy would have grown to be a terrorist,
so that killing him was like squashing a baby scorpion.

Above the snores of his tent mates,
comes the high-pitched hum of an overworked heater.
And hearing its whine, he imagines
that somewhere in the desert,
a brother or uncle or cousin
wails over a broken body
and vows jihad.

Copyright Ruth Hull Chatlien, 2005

Roses for Memorial Day

Officially, Memorial Day is a holiday to honor the men and women of the armed forces who have died serving their country. But when I was growing up—and in many places still—the day was also a time when families decorate the graves of their departed loved ones. Wreaths, bouquets, and logs of flowers were placed at the grave site in memory of those we have lost.

This custom is more difficult to observe in the modern world because people move so much, and few remain near their family’s hometown anymore. So I offer this cyberspace floral tribute:

For the innocent who died on 9-11, in Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 tsunami, in the China earthquake and the Myanmar cyclone, and in all other disasters, I offer a white rose.

For our ancestors, the immigrants who came to this land looking for freedom and opportunity, the African Americans who have given so much to this country in spite of the horrors of slavery, and the American Indians who fought to save their culture from annihilation, I offer a pink rose.

For the generations who endured global wars and the Great Depression and still had the courage to imagine a future for their children, I offer a peach rose.

For the suffragists, the civil rights workers, and all others who fought to extend freedom and equality throughout this land, I offer a yellow rose.

For all those martyrs throughout the world who have died for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and political freedom, I offer a red rose.

For those who have died while serving in the Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, and Coast Guard to defend their country, I offer a purple rose.

To all who have gone before, we would not be who we are without your sacrifice, your courage, your vision, and your generosity. Thank you.

A Meme

Mompriest of Seeking Authentic Voice tagged me for this meme...

Rules: The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about himself or herself. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Ten years ago: Ten years ago, my husband and I went back to the place where we'd spent our honeymoon. (No special anniversary. It was our 8th.) The inn had changed owners and gone downhill, but the place (Amelia Island, FL) was still great. At work, I was an editor on a high school geography book. I was a few months away from my 40th birthday and beginning to reluctantly let it sink in that we weren't going to have children. On our vacation, I started my 2nd novel--about a textbook editor who rips apart her life out of fury that she and her husband are infertile. Hmmm. I wonder what gave me that idea. The book is still unpublished.

Five things on today's "to do" list: Garden, visit blogs, call my mother in law, walk the dog, make my special ground turkey tacos for supper. (The recipe is here if anyone is interested.)

Things I'd do if I was a billionaire: Provide the financing for my husband to make the films of his best screenplays. Self-publish my novels and hire someone to market the heck out of them. Pay off all my church's debts. Take an extended trip to Paris. Give money to UNICEF, Habitat for Humanity, Compassion International, Episcopal Relief and Development Fund, the Art Institute of Chicago, WTTW, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, and both of our colleges. Move my mother to a MUCH better nursing home. Buy vacation homes in Door County, Wisconsin and in Florida. Buy a second car.

Three bad habits:
1. Turning my recreational activities into work. For example, a couple of different years I knitted 24 Christmas gifts. (The really insane part was doing it twice.)
2. Letting my dog have his way too much. I'm not a good alpha.
3. Falling asleep on the couch at nine and then when I actually go to bed, I can't sleep.

Five places I've lived: Kankakee, IL; Wheaton, IL; Chicago, IL; Evanston, IL; Zion, IL Notice a pattern here? I'm a prairie-state girl to the core. The other odd thing is that three of those communities (Wheaton, Evanston, Zion) continued to be dry long after Prohibition ended, while Kankakee and Chicago both had associations with Al Capone. None of that has anything to do with me, except that I do usually drink a beer with dinner.

Five jobs I've had: tax preparer, 9th grade English teacher, expediter for a gasket manufacturer, personnel assistant, textbook editor, and now freelance writer. (That's six, but being a freelancer doesn't feel like a job job.)

Five People I'm Tagging:

nikkipolani

Trish

Barbara

Grandmere Mimi

Sis

Taken to the Cleaners

I'm musing on a dream I had a week or so ago. In it, I went to our dry cleaners to pick up some clothes. When I walked in the door, no one was there except another customer. The lights in the building were off. No one was in the back room working on clothes. The racks that are normally crammed with plastic-bagged garments were half empty.

Finally, the owner came through the door behind us. She was wearing a rain slicker with the hood pulled up so far that we couldn't see her face. She seemed flustered, and she didn't speak to us. The dream ended with my knowing somehow that the cleaners were in financial trouble and about to close their store.

I think the dream relates to my professional life. I have much less need for dry cleaning now that I work at home and don't need "career clothes." Things have been changing lately at the publisher for whom I've done the most work, and they aren't hiring as many freelancers for the time being. Perhaps the dream simply reflects my sense that I need to expland my client base instead of hoping that my biggest client will always have work for me. Or it might mean that I need to move into new kinds of writing. Or perhaps it means one stage of my life is closing, and I will need a different "wardrobe" for the next. Whatever the message, I'm certain that if my subconscious really wants me to understand it, I'll be having more dreams. Dreams have always played an important role in my life.

Do you get messages in your dreams? If so, I'd love to hear about them.

Does God Have Superdelegates?

l   SUPER DUPER! l

All during this primary season, people have been talking about the superdelegates of the Democratic Party. A superdelegate is a party leader or elected official who will attend the Democratic National Convention on the basis of his or her status, rather than because of being selected by voters. These superdelegates are not bound by the results of primaries and caucuses but instead may vote for any candidate they choose. Because of the closeness of the Democratic race, many people have expressed concerns about this system because it could be possible for the institutionalized party establishment to choose the candidate they want instead of being accountable to the voters' wishes.

So I've been wondering whether we have anything comparable to superdelegates in our faith. Certainly, we have leaders in the established churches of every denomination. And we have people whom God has blessed with extraordinary talents and opportunities, so that they become more influential than the average Christian.

But I don't think God intends to have "superdelegates" in the Christian church because I think he expects us all to be accountable to one another. Our leaders are meant to guide us and correct us, and this is right, especially when they have the education and the spiritual gifts to equip them for the task. Does that mean we should follow them blindly? Should we let ordained leadership make all the decisions for our churches and have the final say over every aspect of our lives?

No, such an abdication of responsibility can be disastrous. Think of the Texas compound of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints, where church leaders who were regarded as prophets were allowed to abuse young women to satisfy their lusts. Think about Jim Jones leading more than 900 people into mass suicide in 1978.

These are extreme examples, but cases like these don't begin with the leader announcing that he must have 60 wives or that his followers must kill themselves. Abuses of power begin gradually, and as people acquiesce, the leader's violations of his or her position grow.

Even more insidious than leaders who think they are above the law are denominations and sects that think they alone belong to the inner circle. They teach that only they have God's truth and have the right to pontificate on the fate of all outsiders. I'm thinking of the hateful actions of Westboro Baptist (the church that pickets funerals of slain soldiers in order to protest homosexuality), . . . but I'm also thinking of the many, many churches who blatantly or subtly promote an "us versus them" mentality. When I was growing up, I was taught in church that Catholics weren't Christians unless they had gone through a "born again" experience like the one my church prescribed. And my husband heard the opposite, that non-Catholics were going to hell. (He heard this not from his family but from others.) Yet when we started dating, we found that God had been leading us on similar paths and teaching us the same lessons. Our compatible spirituality was the common meeting ground that proved the exclusionary definitions invalid.

So this is what I believe. God doesn't have superdelegates, and neither should Christians. No individual leader should be above accountability, and no group should be touted as being the inner circle of spirituality. Each of us needs to refuse to "drink the KoolAid," but instead test what we are taught against what we know from the Bible, tradition, and the leading of the Spirit and our individual consciences. And each of us needs to be vigilant against judgmental attitudes that serve only to puff up our identities with false assurances of superiority.

As for the Democratic National Party, well, I don't think it should have superdelegates either. But that's the topic for an entirely different discussion.

Driving Beyond the Headlights

I once heard the safe driving tip, “Don’t drive beyond your headlights.” Obviously, no car can outpace a beam of light, but that’s not what the tip means. Instead, it cautions that if you drive too fast, you won’t be able to stop in time or make the correct adjustment if a hazard appears in your headlight beam.

Last year, I received a similar warning from the Lord. In 2006, I became a freelance writer after 19 years of corporate life. Since my husband is a freelance writer too, that meant giving up the luxury of having at least one steady paycheck and employer-provided benefits. During my first year as a freelancer, financial uncertainty didn’t play too large a role in our lives because we had several big assignments. But our clients warned us that 2007 was going to be a slow year, and as the new year began, I felt a lot of anxiety.

One day as I was praying, the Lord gave me an image of sitting by a campfire with Jesus. He said, “Don’t strain to see into the darkness. You don’t need to see beyond the distance illuminated by the fire.” Instantly, I knew he was telling me to focus on the immediate present, the part of my life that was visible to me, and not waste my energy imagining the problems we'd face in the future. In other words, I shouldn't worry in January about whether we'd have jobs in September. Instead, I needed to trust him.

Obeying that admonition was difficult, and many times I caught myself worrying. But the year’s events reminded me again that God is faithful. We always had just enough work to keep our income flowing, and we even gained new clients.

This year is my third as a freelance writer, and it's been even more difficult than last year in terms of available work. However, whenever I pray about the situation, I keep receiving the reassurance that we will be all right. We're learning to live a lot more simply than before, but we're getting by. I don't sense that I should move back into the so-called security of the corporate life. Rather, I think God wants me to expand my freelance business and try to write for other markets than just educational publishers. So I'm experimenting with new types of writing, without any idea of where success will come. I still have to keep reminding myself not to strain to see too far ahead. This is all part of the process of  learning not to “drive beyond my headlights.” I'll move forward just as far as I have illumination and see where the road takes me.

"Pillar" of the Church

Monday, a friend at church asked me if I could do a bit of last-minute writing for our parish. I do a lot of editing for my church, and usually I'm able to turn things around within a couple of hours because, as a writer, I'm always working at my computer. But Monday, I had to say no. My current freelance assignment is taking longer than I expected, and I just didn't feel that I had a couple of hours to spare.

Of course, I felt guilty afterwards. I started thinking that maybe I could do the article she wanted if I could just get a one-day extension on the deadline. I checked back with my friend later that evening, and she'd already found someone else to do it. So there was no need for me to feel guilty. I'm not indispensable after all.

I'm reminded of a passage from a book I read about 20 years ago: Letters from the Desert by Carlo Carretto. So I'll share it with you:

For many years I had thought I was "somebody" in the Church. I had even imagined this sacred living structure of the Church as a temple sustained by many columns, large and small, each one with the shoulder of a Christian under it.

My own shoulder too I thought of as supporting a column, however small. . . . With this mentality I was no longer capable [of] taking a holiday; . . . there was never enough time to get everything done. One raced continually from one project to another, from one meeting to another, from one city to another. Prayer was hurried, conversations frenzied, and one's heart in turmoil.

Then God called Carretto to give up all his activity and go into the desert. He went to North Africa and joined the Little Brothers. He explained,

Now I was here, kneeling on the sand of the cave, which had taken on the dimensions of the Church itself; on my shoulders I could feel the small column of the activist. Perhaps this was the moment of truth.

I drew back suddenly as though to free myself from this weight. What had happened? Everything remained in its place, motionless. Not a movement, not a sound. After twenty-five years I had realized that nothing was burdening my shoulders and that the column was my own creation—sham, unreal, the product of my imagination and my vanity.

I had walked, run, spoken, organized, worked, in the belief that I was supporting something; and in reality I had been holding up absolutely nothing.

The weight of the world was all on Christ.

Sometimes what we need is to be shaken out of our complacency and to become more of an activist. And sometimes what we need is to say no.

The Dark Uglies

I grew up in a church and a family that used guilt as though it were a choke collar. Even though I was a child who never strayed very much, I still endured frequent, sharp applications of the noose of guilt intended to jerk me back in line.

The most lasting effect of this upbringing was for me to believe that at my core, I was completely, irredeemably unacceptable and unlovable. My emotions were bad, my needs were bad, and my normal desires for independence and self-expression were bad. So I grew up believing not in the bogeyman, but in the dark uglies. These monsters lived not in the closet or under my bed, but deep within myself. The dark uglies were so horrible that if anyone else saw them, I would be rejected instantly and forever. So I locked away the dark uglies without examining them too closely.

Even now, I cannot give you a list of what was so terrible about myself. I can't say that it was my temper, judgmentalism, lust, whatever. You see, the flaw went much deeper than just personality traits. What was unacceptable was me, my very self.

This belief made it difficult to trust in God's salvation or to fully accept his grace. I never felt secure, and yet I struggled on in my relationship with God trying to make it better. After college, I left the fundamentalist church in which I had been raised and started a long journey of denominational exploration. I went through bouts of therapy. Slowly, and with great fear and trembling, I slowly revealed bits of myself to my counselors and to the fellowship group I was part of. I began to claim my own path in life, moving to the city, pursuing a vocation as a writer, even though these were not the future that my family had envisioned for me.

Still, the dark uglies haunted me. I would go through times of feeling so lonely that I thought it would drown me. I was certain that no one would ever truly love me because they didn't know what was locked within my core. Foolishly, I hoped that I had hidden this terrible secret shadow even from God.

Then in my late twenties, we had a set of special meetings at church. I no longer remember what the meetings were about. They might have been a series on healing, or they might have been something else entirely. It no longer matters. What's important is what happened to me internally, not externally. During one of our times of worship, God gave me a vision. In my mind, I saw a closed door, and I knew that behind it was locked everything that I thought made me unacceptable. I imagined ogres and fiends and horrifying creatures of unimaginable darkness.

Then God commanded me to open the door.

I was petrified. The door itself seemed to be pulsing with the energy of what was behind it, clamoring to get escape. I knew that once they were free, there would be no putting them back again. I wouldn't have the strength.

And God said to open the door.

With the fear that I was about to encounter something that would completely shatter me, I obeyed. As soon as I opened the portal, out flew . . . a flock of butterflies. They hovered for an instant in a brightly colored cloud of flapping wings and then they dispersed.

The butterfly has long been an image of transformation, and I believe that's why God used them in my vision. I think now that the horrible things I had locked in my closet were misplaced fear and false shame and a wrong understanding of God. Through his mercy, he transformed them into freedom and beauty.

Since then, life has had its ups and downs, and I still have my periods of depression. But I've never again felt the power of the dark uglies. They have flown to the winds.

Is there something that you have locked away from God? Perhaps it's finally time to consider opening the door.

Crisis of Conscience (a Sunday dilemma)

Why do you think God created the mouse?

Surely it wasn't to invade my house!

We had a startling start to the week,

when a rodent ran by and I cried, "Eek!"

I felt like a stupid stereotype;

then the next half hour was given to hype.

We searched the house both high and low,

trying to spy where that mouse did go.

Smokey was clueless, no hunter was he.

I told him a cat would more useful be.

We set out a trap and off to church went.

My conscience accused me of lethal intent.

When we got to our pew, I knelt down to pray,

but my uneasy spirit knew not what to say.

I wanted to go home and find the mouse dead,

but didn't want murder to be on my head.

I thought of the Jains, who honor all life.

I knew they would frown on my human-mouse strife.

I protest the war, and I'm anti-handgun,

so my conscience was tempted to let the mouse run.

My savior has taught me to relinquish all hate,

but my revulsion to rodents is simply too great.

When we got home from church, no corpse was found.

The mouse had successfully run to ground.

Tonight we will set out the trap once again,

and I'll pray that the mouse dies without too much pain.

I praise God for oceans, I praise him for trees.

I praise him for flowers and robins and bees.

I even would praise him for making the mouse, . . .

if only it would stay out of my little grey house.

Serious Request

One of the blogs I have visited lately is written by Presbyterian Gal. In her entries for the last week, she's written about the fight against a drug gang in her neighborhood. Because of it, she and her son are in danger.

I don't have the kind of courage she has. My heart was very heavy for her and her son during church this morning. Please take a moment to pray for them and their neighborhood.

My Sunday Inspiration post is below.

Sunday Inspiration: Spring Blossoms

An Angelique tulip--I planted a bunch years ago, and only one has survived and bloomed year after year.

My crab apple tree is just starting to open.

So is my lilac.

The bleeding heart is in full bloom.

And the bluebells are nearing the end.

Facets of the Image of Christ

On Tuesday, I wrote about my belief in how we are transformed into the image of Christ through our encounters with God. If we are all on a journey to become like Christ, are we then doomed to a life of conformity? Are we all going to end up being interchangeably the same, like a lot of pious Stepford wives?

I don't think so. I think that the more we become like Christ, the more we become our true individual selves. We will become more like him in character, but our interests and our talents will still remain our own.

Many years ago, God reminded me that he is an infinite being. He is like a diamond with an infinite number of facets. In contrast, we humans are limited. Each of us has a unique set of spiritual gifts that equip us to do God's work. But my set of gifts is a very small proportion of the total range of gifts available to the church. To go back to my diamond analogy, each of us is one small facet needed to make up the brilliant wholeness of Christ. As I grow more like Christ, I might increase in wisdom and faith. Another person might increase in mercy and service. Someone else might grow in leadership and teaching. But it takes all of us together to represent the whole of Christ here on earth.

Or as the apostle Paul put it, we are individual members of a body:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

I Corinthians 12:4-12

I pray that we learn not to be afraid of our differences. We all need each other too much.

Psalm 131: Safe in God's Arms

My dog Smokey is too emotionally attached to me . . . as I am to him. Whenever I hear advice from dog trainers like Cesar Milan, I feel guilty because I don't play the strong alpha with Smokey. My excuse is that I have no children, and he is my baby substitute. He fills the hunger of my arms for the child I never had. And he definitely views me as "Mom." He grows sulky if he doesn't get some daily snuggle time, and when he's upset, my lap is the only place he wants to be.

The photograph above was taken after the one and only time we left him for the weekend. I thought he'd be content because his babysitter was the breeder we bought him from. Even though he was separated from us, he spent the weekend with his biological/canine mom, dad, aunt, and grandma, and with his first human family. But as you can see, when we picked him up, he wanted nothing so much as to feel safe and secure in Mom's arms again.

My Bible readings for yesterday included Psalm 131, which is one of my favorites. Now whenever I read it, I think of my Smokey. And I wish that I were as peaceful and secure resting in God's arms as Smokey is in mine.

PSALM 131

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.

The Scarf Project

No long-winded philosophizing today. Instead, I'm going to report on one of my New Year's resolutions. (It's May 15. Do you know where your resolutions are?)

Last fall, I began to have the sense that I should be doing another service-oriented ministry, but I was having trouble figuring out what exactly to do. My schedule already felt full with work and church activities. As it was, I was having trouble finding enough time to write fiction (which I believe is part of my vocation). So I began to pray about the issue.

One day in the middle of a church service, the solution came to me. I do a lot of knitting for myself and my family, and as a result, I have a great number of leftover balls and skeins of yarn. I decided that my project for 2008 would be to knit or crochet at least a dozen scarves to donate to the homeless in December. That means, I need to make on average a scarf a month. It's the kind of project I can do in my spare time or during meetings, and so far, I've been able to keep up the pace.

My tendency is usually to stop knitting during the summer months when the weather is warm and holding yarn in my lap is less appealing. But I'm hoping that if I go public with my goal, it will help motivate me to keep on track. Here are the first five scarves. The most fun thing about this project is getting to decide what pattern I want to make with each batch of yarn.  :-)

Outreach Vs. Hugging the Personal Life

Dr. Zhivago is one of my husband's favorite films, so we watch it frequently. Whenever we do, what impresses me most is not Zhivago's doomed love for Lara or the stunning scenes of winter. What makes a lasting impact on me is the film's portrayal of contrasting views of how to lead a meaningful life. Zhivago wants to practice medicine with individual patients, rather than do research, and he writes poems that capture the world as he sees it. For these pursuits, especially the poetry, the Bolsheviks scorn him. He is dismissed as a "dubious poet hugging his personal life." He is also told, "The private life is dead in Russia for a man of any manhood." In contrast, the Bolsheviks want to remake the institutions of society and force individuals to conform to their party ideology. Individualism is a threat.

As destructive as the Bolsheviks were, I think they were right to hate the economic and social inequities of Russia. I abhor their methods and despise their willingness to ride roughshod over individuals. Yet, I empathize with their desire for a more equal society. Indeed, I see a similar desire for change in many of the people around me. My pastor and some of my friends have a passion for fighting institutional injustice (without resorting to abusive tactics). And when I visit other blogs, I see many people who want to change the church or our economic structures or our political system. I respect such crusades and the people who lead them, . . . but they are not my vocation.

I am not a political animal. Oh, I vote in elections and even send emails to my elected officials, but I don't have much passion for bringing about institutional change. Instead, like Zhivago, my calling is to a more personal arena: the one-on-one conversation, the encouraging word, the action to make one life better if I can. Those are the areas in which my personality functions best.

However, that doesn't let me off the hook. The needs and the injustices in this world can seem insurmountable, and sometimes it is tempting to shut my eyes and say there is nothing I can do. But if I do that, then I feel that I am surrendering to the Bolsheviks.

You see, one of the great ironies of the movie is that at the beginning, Zhivago is leading a balanced and productive life. He is serving his community as a compassionate doctor, even as he expresses his individuality through his poetry. It is only after he is suspected of being a counter-revolutionary that he retreats to the country and wallows exclusively in his private life. Because the Bolsheviks have such a narrow view of humanity, they drive him into being the very thing they hate.

So even though I am by nature a quiet homebody, I do not want to retreat from the world's great needs. I may not be marching in protests or organizing letter-writing campaigns or suing companies who dump toxic waste in neighborhoods, but I try to reach out of my personal cocoon and make small efforts to improve this world. Let me give an example. When I was in my mid-twenties, I was considering taking a Caribbean vacation. But the thought of the huge income gap between rich and poor that exists in that part of the world troubled me. In the end, I decided I didn't want to feed the big corporations who ran the hotels and put together vacation packages, Instead, I realized that I'd rather feed a child. So I sponsored a child through Compassion International. They assigned me a boy in Haiti, and I sponsored him for 14 years until he reached adulthood. My actions did little to correct the economic injustices in that country, and yet . . . because of them, one person who might otherwise be still trapped in poverty received an education. He now works as a professional musician.

I think the reason that these thoughts have been on my mind is the number of horrible disasters in the news this past week. The amount of human suffering has been mind-numbing. It is tempting to shut down and think that we can't do anything.

And it's true. We can't rescue all the victims in either China or Myanmar. But if each of us decided to take on one task and do it faithfully year after year—whether it be sponsoring a child overseas, working with Habitat for Humanity, serving in a soup kitchen, or teaching children to read—think of what a difference we collectively could make.

With Unveiled Faces . . .

I've heard it said that Christians should reflect Christ's glory—that we are like the moon to his sun, and in that way, we help bring his light to a darkened world.

I don't agree. Instead, I think that we are called to do something much more powerful; we are called to become his glory.

One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is II Corinthians 3. In it, the apostle Paul reviews the story of how whenever Moses used to meet with God, his face would shine with God's glory. Moses would wear a veil over his face because the people of Israel were afraid to look upon his radiance (see Exodus 34). In II Corinthians 3, Paul goes on to say that the radiance of Moses' face would gradually fade away. Then he adds that as Christians, we have access to a glory that does not fade, the glory of Christ:

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. II Corinthians 3:18

As we see the glory of the Lord, we will be transformed into an image of it. That is such a stupendous promise that this passage has become fundamental to my understanding of the Christian life.

Jesus' saving work and God's forgiveness of sins are the foundation of my faith, of course, but what then? In the church I grew up in, salvation was emphasized almost to the exclusion of everything else. Every week, the service ended with an altar call. If we were already "saved," we were exhorted to examine our lives to see if we'd fallen away—and if we had, we were to rededicate ourselves. And the standard by which we determined whether we'd fallen away was a long and detailed list of rules. It was a discouraging experience, week after week, to be taken back to the starting point of my Christian life. I needed something more hopeful.

I found the hope I needed in this passage and others like it. Now I believe in a God of growth, a God of transformation. Every time we encounter him—in the Bible, in worship, in the Eucharist, in meditation and prayer—that encounter is an opportunity for transformation. If we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit during those encounters, he will help us work through the process of becoming the image of Christ. He does not change us against our will, but if we allow him, he will work in us. It is in this context that I understand these very mysterious verses from Romans 8:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Being transformed into the image and glory of Christ is the journey of a lifetime, and often all we can take are the tiniest of steps. Sometimes we even backtrack. But our God is a patient God. Why else would he give us such a powerful and loving helper?

In this first week after Pentecost Sunday, I give thanks to God for the role of the Holy Spirit in transforming our lives and giving us hope.

The Solar Lantern

In a corner of my garden, I've created a special place I call the Refuge. Simply, it is a bench positioned in a secluded spot next to a bed of lilies. When I sit there, I have a perfect view of my roses and a statue of Joan of Arc as a young girl, her hands folded in prayer. I sit there sometimes to meditate and pray.

One spring, I added a decorative accent lantern that hangs from a stake pushed in among the lilies. The lantern, which has a small light powered by a solar battery, turns on automatically at dusk as long as the operating knob is switched to the on position. When I first installed the lantern, I had to wait to see how it would look because the battery needed to be charged; the instructions recommended exposing the solar panel at the top of the lantern to twelve hours of full sun before turning the lantern on.

Two days of overcast weather followed, and I grew impatient for results. Finally, after a day of constant sunshine, I ran outside and switched the lantern on. Dusk fell, but nothing happened. Disappointed, I told myself that maybe the battery needed to charge one more day. I turned the lantern off to conserve whatever energy it had stored and waited twenty-four hours.

The next evening at twilight, I went outside again and switched on the lantern. No light shone. Feeling discouraged, I went back in the house and told my husband, "I don't know what to do. I guess I'll give it one more day. If it still doesn't work, I'll have to call the manufacturer."

Daylight faded even more, and my husband closed the draperies on the windows overlooking the garden. He asked if I wanted to watch a video, and with a sigh I agreed. But I felt restless. Fifteen minutes later, I pulled one of the draperies aside and gazed wistfully out at the Refuge. After a moment, I realized I was seeing a small white light, with much of the silvery quality of moonlight. My lantern was finally working.

A couple of days later, as I sat in the Refuge having my morning prayers, my gaze fell upon the copper light fixture a few feet away from me, and I suddenly understood how much we Christians are like a solar-powered lantern. We can do nothing on our own. We are energized by a greater source of power, one that outshines the sun far more intensely than the sun outshines my feeble lantern.

The apostle John promises that everyone who hopes in Christ will be purified, just as Christ himself is pure. Jesus' radiant love and beauty is itself enough to transform us, if we have the courage to look at him steadily. "We shall be like him for we shall see him just as he is."

Sunday Inspiration: Other Bloggers

Sometimes wisdom consists of knowing that someone else is more insightful than you are. I have been sampling a lot of different blogs lately, and I've discovered some wonderfully thoughtful people out here in the blogosphere.

Here are a few posts from the week that stayed with me. (There are many others I loved, but I don't want to make this list too long.)

Jan at Yearning for God has an interesting post about prayer and about not telling God what to do.

MikeF at the Mercy Blog also writes of prayer, specifically the prayer of the heart.

Ellie at Does Not Wisdom Call quotes an insightful passage about giving up illusions.

Jan at A Church for Starving Artists writes of the need to expect the best in people.

Grandmère Mimi at Wounded Bird wrote a delightful homage to Julian of Norwich, whose feast day was last week.

Diane at Coexist posted a wonderful Skywatch Friday photo with corresponding poem.

I hope you enjoy their insights as much as I have.

And happy Pentecost to all.

The True American Idol

Lately, nearly every time I log onto the Internet, I see the same annoying ad. It shows the face of an older woman, marked by the sags and wrinkles that are the natural progression of time. Then a line passes horizontally across the image, and hey presto, all the signs of aging are gone. If I remember correctly, the slogan reads, "Better than Botox!" The assumption that the advertiser expects us all to share is that looking our age is repugnant and that wanting to restore the false appearance of youth is a given.

On the surface, the message of this ad seems simple: "Our product is better than theirs." In fact, the message is far more insidious. This ad and most of the others on the radio, Internet, and television are saying over and over again, "You are not good enough."

Studies have shown that advertisers intentionally attack our self-esteem so we will be vulnerable to the message that their product can fix our problems. But what is the real problem? The problem belongs to the advertisers who must sell us things we don't really need, and so they have to create an emotional need inside us. Therefore, day after day, hour after hour, we are bombarded with the messages that our hair is too grey, our clothes are out of style, our cars are too slow, and the laminate counters in our kitchens are far inferior to granite.

I remember when I was growing up that toothpaste manufacturers used to run ads proclaiming, "Look, Ma, no cavities." They promoted themselves as improving our health. Now the ads are all about who can make my teeth the whitest. Health has given away to the true American idol of appearance.

I was talking to the man who cuts my hair yesterday, and I mentioned one of the TV commercials I find most ridiculous. A man talks about having received a treatment to cure his baldness and claims: "It is the best decision I've ever made."

Does anyone else find that as pathetic as I do? The most important decision of his life involves not his career or his family or his relationship with God but the restoration of the thatch covering his skull. His appearance mattered more to him than anything. When I laughed about this to my stylist, he told me about a man he knows who spent $13,000 on hair restoration.

I am as susceptible to the false messages of advertising as anyone. My husband and I watch a lot of football, and a few years ago, I noticed that I was becoming depressed and critical of myself every weekend. I finally realized that all the beer ads showing voluptuous young women were causing me to feel dowdy and unworthy by comparison. Once I realized how unrealistic the images were, they lost much of their power over me.

That's why I think it helps to remind ourselves of God's perspective on all of this. A few days ago, the readings for the daily office included one of my favorite stories of the Old Testament. Saul, king of Israel, had offended God, and so the Lord sent the prophet Samuel to anoint a new king. He directed Samuel to the family of Jesse, a man with many sons. When Samuel saw the oldest, he thought that such a strong and handsome man would be a good king. And God told him no, for what matters is not outer appearance but the quality of the person within. God knows what each person's inner spirit is like, and that is how he judges us.

So I leave you with my favorite verse from that story and ask you to think on it for just a moment. Perhaps the next time you start to feel discouraged when you look in your mirror, this passage will bring you comfort:

“The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, 

but the Lord looks on the heart.” I Samuel 16:7b

Pegasus, the Winged Horse

The image on the right is a photograph of a poster that I have hanging in my office. The drawing, by Odilon Redon, is of Pegasus, with a nude woman leaning against him.

Long ago, when I was in my early twenties, I was afraid of my vocation as a writer. I feared I would never be good enough to make the effort worthwhile. And I felt oodles of Christian guilt. I thought I ought to be doing something more service oriented than just sitting in my room writing stories and poetry.

As I struggled with this issue, I kept getting the same mental image when I prayed: I kept seeing Pegasus. And I heard the Spirit of God saying to me, "Don't worry about what you should be. Focus on what you could be. Horses aren't supposed to fly, but Pegasus did."

So I looked into the myth of Pegasus. The hero Perseus went to kill Medusa, who was a Gorgon. Anyone who looked on her face was turned to stone. To attack her without suffering that fate, Perseus looked into his shield to see her reflection and thus managed to cut off her head. When her blood dripped on the ground, Pegasus sprang forth. He became the messenger of the Muses, the nine goddess of arts and learning, and also the servant of poets.

After reading that myth, I knew why God prompted me to consider Pegasus. When I spent too much time staring into my fears, I became paralyzed . . . turned to stone. But when I conquered my fears, I could take wing and fly like a winged horse. I could grow into what I could be, not be limited by what I should be. A writer would take flight.

Not long afterward, a friend heard my story and gave me an extra copy of this poster, which she happened to have. And so Pegasus watches over my workspace.

How about you? Is there some calling, some adventure that you're afraid to attempt?

The Names of Jesus Prayer

A few years ago, one of my priests introduced me to Anglican prayer beads, also called the Anglican rosary. Each set contains a cross and thirty-three beads, which symbolize the years of Jesus' life. There are five large beads and twenty-eight small beads, divided into four "weeks" of seven. Four of the large beads are used to separate the weeks. These are called cruciforms because they can be seen as standing for the four arms of the cross. The other large bead is next to the cross. It is called the invitatory.

Many prayers have been written for Anglican prayer beads. Shortly after I started using mine, I began to wish I had a prayer that would help me focus on everything that Jesus is to me. I had two different publications of prayers designed for Anglican beads, but none of the prayers satisfied my longing. So I wrote my own. I offer it to anyone who would like to use it, whether they own Anglican prayer beads or not.

The Cross
Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen (Rev. 7:12)

The Invitatory
Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

The Cruciforms
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me,
bless God’s Holy Name. (Ps. 103:1)

The Weeks
(Pray each paired phrase on a separate bead)
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of God, Lead us to the Father.
Lord Jesus Christ, Firstborn of all Creation, Create in us a clean heart.
Lord Jesus Christ, Holy One, Lead us into righteousness.
Lord Jesus Christ, Light of the World. Illumine our hearts.
Lord Jesus Christ, Righteous One, Make your people holy.
Lord Jesus Christ, Image of the Invisible God, Show us the Father.
Lord Jesus Christ, Mystery of God, Give us the conviction of things not seen.


Lord Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, Have mercy on us.
Lord Jesus Christ, Man of Sorrows, Ease our suffering.
Lord Jesus Christ, Suffering Servant, Redeem us from sin.
Lord Jesus Christ, Incarnate God, Deliver us from temptation.
Lord Jesus Christ, Word of Life, Lead us into all truth.
Lord Jesus Christ, Bread of Life, Feed your people.
Lord Jesus Christ, Living Water, Deliver us from thirst.


Lord Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Lead us on the right path.
Lord Jesus Christ, Chief Cornerstone, Build up your church.
Lord Jesus Christ, Head of the Body, Guide your people.
Lord Jesus Christ, Author and Perfector of Faith, Help our unbelief.
Lord Jesus Christ, Good Shepherd, Seek out the lost sheep.
Lord Jesus Christ, True Vine, Make your branches fruitful.
Lord Jesus Christ, Wonderful Counselor, Give us your wisdom.


Lord Jesus Christ, High Priest, Intercede for us.
Lord Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace, End conflict in the world.
Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Come into your kingdom.
Lord Jesus Christ, Lord of Lords, Be sovereign over all.
Lord Jesus Christ, Resurrection and Life, Raise us up on the last day.
Lord Jesus Christ, Alpha and Omega, Let us see your glory.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of Man, Receive our praise.

One Book to Rule Them All . . .

Diane at Faith in Community tagged me with this meme last night.

Books are scarce in the world. They are illegal in some provinces. They are not easily replaced, if not impossible to replace if lost in many if not most circumstances. If you can replace a book or buy one, it is usually through the black market at astronomical costs that you cannot afford. Yet you have been able to maintain one of the best collections in the world. If your entire library was about to burn up (think of the firefighters in Fahrenheit 451 invading your home) and you could only have one* book to take with you other than the Bible, what would that be and why?

Simple Rules: Answer the question. Offer one quote that resonates with you. Tag five people whose response is of genuine interest to you and inform him or her that they have been tagged. Cheers!

*And it cannot be an entire series of something, that’s cheating.

I'm afraid my answer to this will not be very profound or unique, but it will be heartfelt.

I would choose my one-volume edition of The Lord of the Rings, illustrated by Alan Lee. My husband bought it for me the first year it was published because he knew it was my favorite book—and because I'd worn out something like three sets of paperbacks.

My second oldest brother first gave me the trilogy when I was twelve. One of my most vivid memories is of sitting on our front steps reading about how Frodo and his companions were being chased by the black riders. Talk about ice cold terror. I'll never forget that feeling.

Since then, I've read the trilogy at least 18 times in English (probably more) and once in French. (I was brushing up for a trip to Paris.) Oddly, I don't read other fantasies, or at least I didn't until Harry Potter came along. I enjoy LOTR for all the typical reasons: the mythology, the variety of beings and cultures, the vivid depictions of landscape, the soul-stirring battle between good and evil. Yet, none of those qualities explain why I choose this book. I choose it because at some elemental level, I am Frodo. 

It's not necessary for me to go into all the gory details, but in my family, I was what is known as a parental child. I felt a tremendous burden to do the right thing and to try to hold everything together. As a 12-year-old, when I read about Frodo accepting the burden to carry the ring to Mordor and destroy it for the sake of those he loved, I bonded with him. Of course, I didn't understand the psychological dynamic at the time—I didn't figure that out until my mid-twenties. I knew only that I wanted to read the book again and again and again.

I no longer read it every year, but I'd feel like I lost my twin if I didn't have that book with me. It isn't the only book I strongly identify with. I feel horrible abandoning Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Eyre, and Julie of Up a Road Slowly to the fire, but those are the rules of the meme.

Oh, and I'm supposed to give you a quote.

No one answered. The noon-bell rang. Still no one spoke. Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the Council sat with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought. A great dread fell on him, as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long forseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. An overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo's side in Rivendell filled all his heart. At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice.

'I will take the Ring,' he said, 'though I do not know the way.'

Ok, I'm tagging Ginni of The View from My Garden; Jeannelle of Midlife by Farmlight; Anne of Get Out of Jail Free; Bonnie of Bon's Time Out; and Sis of Rain Down on Me, God.

Note: I'm deliberately trying to tag different people than I did last week. If anyone else wants to play, post your favorite book and then let me know in the comments so I can see what you chose.

Stolen Sabbath

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. We went out for breakfast, and then instead of working, I impulsively took the day off (you can do that sometimes when you're a freelance writer). Usually, I'm really bad at giving myself days of pure relaxation, even though I know I need them.

The weather was glorious, so we took the dog to a nearby forest preserve that has a trail through a wetlands restoration next to the DesPlaines River. Our hike was a very restorative time. I hope you can take a minute or two to share it with me.

I loved this tree. The scars from the sawn-off limbs look like a startled face saying, "Who is in my woods?"


This doe looked startled too, but I managed to get a couple of shots before she turned tail and ran away.

We didn't disturb the geese much or the red-winged blackbirds. We saw plenty of evidence of beavers, but no beavers themselves. And leftover pods from fall.









We also saw mallards, swallows, and a hawk flying high. Taking a hike like this makes me feel renewed, so I'm glad I gave myself a break. I could get all theological and say that I think God wants us to have times of rest, but if I really believed that, then I would do it more often. I was also going to say that because of taking a break, I'll work more efficiently tomorrow, but that reduces the hike only to its functional, economic value.

Instead, let me conclude by saying I' m glad I took the time because it helped me enjoyed God's creation. Really, I don't think I need any more of an excuse than that. Do you?

A Tale of Unanswered Prayer . . .

Why doesn't she get my message?

How much more clearly can I ask her?

Sometimes, little one, it's just not the right time.

Sunday Inspiration: Carrion Comfort

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to
be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me 
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against
me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and
fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to
avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and
clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, 
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy,
would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling
flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one?
That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my
God!) my God.

I'd like to explain a little bit what this very dense poem means to me. This is my personal interpretation, rather than a scholarly one, but it is the meaning that has pulled me through many a dark day.

NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me

I love the strength of the opening declaration: I won't give in to despair because that would be like feeding on carrion; I may feel that I'm unraveling, but I won't untwist those remaining strands.

ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

Nor will I give up and say I can't do anything. I can always do something, if only it is to hope for daylight after my darkness or to decide to keep on going--"not choose not to be."

But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Sometimes to my human perspective, God seems so terrible. He seems to be pushing me around just for the hell of it. When I try to escape him, he batters me more.

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.

Is God doing this just to purge me of my sin, my chaff?

Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.

In the years since I submitted my life to God, I have gained strength and joy. I have cheered him.

Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one?

But whom am I cheering? The God who has allowed me to go through so many trials, or myself for fighting him? Is there a difference? Are we separate?

That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

I look back on this time of pain—this "now done darkness"—and remember that in the process of fighting him, just as Jacob wrestled with the angel, I experienced both my own wretchedness and his strength gripping me And again I acknowledge that my god, this is my God.