yeti speak...

floating - (writing from the stream)*

We floated down the Missouri River yesterday on inner-tubes.  Using our hands as paddles we navigated the slow, steady currents and tried to keep our bodies out of the chilly water and baking in the clear sun.  The strong breeze pushed us downriver fast. 

Everything in Montana, Idaho, and Washington state is aflame in green for us.  Evergreen trees, grasslands, bumper crops--we are in awe of such color carpeting mountains and skirting the water's edge.  Train cars lie dormant nearby envying the river's progress.

I want to take a bite of the scenery as if it were a fresh vegetable sprouting up after a long drought.

Our friends live in East Helena.  They have a porch that gets good sunlight in the morning; rocking chairs, and hanging plants with pink flowers.  I drink fresh brewed coffee, rock back and forth, and wonder what it might be like to speak Tibetan while drilling myself mentally on Chinese words I should remember.  None of this makes sense to me; the world is incongruent at times.  In geometric terms, obtuse. 

I think of a Tibetan friend, a disillusioned monk, and rehearse conversations I would like to have with him way out in the future--on that undiscovered continent of fluency I'd love to someday set foot on.  We all have a little Christopher Columbus in us, don't we?  Dreaming those impossible dreams of new worlds and boatloads of gold.

The kids bounce in the backyard--half-pint pioneers of the trampoline.  My thoughts bounce around, too.  There was that falcon's nest on the telephone pole outside of Lewiston.  A wrong turn lead us there and I know those birds of prey will remain perched in my memory for weeks to come.  There were big fish bouncing around in Lake Hauser and Moses Lake--visually appealing, but good for "nothing but fertilizer" I was told by a friendly fisherman.  A startled doe that darted back into the trees when we slowed our Ford to watch her.  The feeling of walking on water like Jesus--sort of--some like to call it wakeboarding, but for me it felt like a small miracle.  Sparrows darting batlike, consuming their weight in gnats and mosquitoes, below the pier in the blueberry dusk...

Is God in this?  Does he find us on the river, in the random memory, cached away in rural China sipping yak butter tea?  I don't know.  Facebook hasn't helped with my searches for Him.  I've heard a lot of sad stories the last few weeks.  Stories that make me bleed inside.  Stories that feel like the world might really be crumbling.  Stories that plead with us to shut the book.  I'm glad that these tragic tales aren't the only ones written or read.  I'm glad my daughter writes spontaneous worship songs.  (It's true; it's glorious.)  I'm glad that my wife and I still like holding hands.  I'm glad there are rivers that can still be floated.

I'm glad to float...

* - I wrote this post while listening to Jon Foreman's "The House of God Forever".  I recommend reading it to the same song if possible...

behind a face

"I realize there is nothing more astonishing than a human face...It has something to do with incarnation...Any human face is a claim on you, because you can't but understand the singularity of it, the courage and the loneliness of it."

--from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

And for more photos by Jeremy Leffel, click here...

the christian brat

A few days ago a friend of mine sent me this fascinating Seattle Times article entitled “Are We Grown Up Brats?” The article (read it!) talks about how the current generation (Generation Y or the “iGeneration”) is being defined as increasingly narcissistic, easily dissatisfied due to growing customer expectation, impatient, easily offended, and with an unrealistic sense of entitlement. While I am a generationX-er by birth, I think many of these unpleasant characteristics happen to also fit me (and/or my generational set) like a glove.

It’s not something I’m proud to claim. Who wants to be portrayed as a 30-something brat kicking his feet in the air and pounding his fists into the dirt whenever he doesn’t get his way? It’s embarrassing. It’s ugly. 

What’s uglier to me though is that I believe I carry over these cultural and generational calling cards into my Christian experience as well. In my own defense, it’s often difficult to discover these blind spots in one’s character in order to deal with them effectively. That’s the problem with narcissism; you spend so much time looking at your ugly mug in the mirror that your myopia distorts the true image and you can’t see what is painfully obvious to those around you. It’s the pole-eye affect that Jesus warns us about.

But let me be more specific. Hypothetically speaking, of course, a pilgrim might leave behind everything in order to follow Jesus. She might give up her job; say goodbye to close friends and family; sell all her worldly goods; lose her culture, find herself without familiar things, a certain delicious brand of breakfast cereal might be unavailable, etc. In order to follow Him this pilgrim might be stripped of many “essential” things: identity, status, occupation, language, security, customs/traditions, future prospects, community, talents, IRA, 401K, MTV, you name it! There is just no end to what might NEED be sacrificed in order to follow a wily Fisherman God. But that’s all OK, right? We “count all things loss” in light of knowing and following Him. Right? Right… 

But that’s where it gets sticky. That’s when a pilgrim’s cultural baggage might get dropped in a lump on their toe sometimes. Because when this (completely hypothetical mind you) “sacrificial” pilgrim is stripped down to his/her skivvies, that’s when the real hidden expectations are visible for the eye to see. The patched and ratty long-johns that he forgot he was wearing are suddenly on display.

Turns out, no matter how pure this pilgrim’s motives appear on the surface, there is something below the surface that often drives him/her towards success, satisfaction, and entitlement. He asks: Am I content? Am I content enough? Is this the expected outcome that all of my sacrificing was supposed to produce? Aren’t I entitled to something? Aren’t I special? Isn’t this about me…just a little bit? 

It’s sadly funny, in a way, because we are talking about spiritual pursuits and the Ultimate God-man relational dynamic and yet it’s so easy to boil these EPIC-beauty-mystery things down to a somewhat trivial consumer-in-the-marketplace dynamic.

If I had the guts to voice the internal question it would be: am I satisfied/content with how I’ve invested my life? Was trusting God a good investment? Or an uglier question I could ask is: “Am I NOT entitled to a little less suffering because of my SUPER faithfulness?”  (Did I get a laugh there?)

The Apostle Peter would say emphatically, “NO!” He would say I’ve got it all backwards...and then he would say most lovingly, “Stop being such a brat!” 

In his numero uno letter to the early church Peter seems almost excited to share the low-down with the Diaspora believers that their suffering is actually a good thing. He tells them that it is bringing them closer to understanding and being transformed to Christlikeness. He says it in many different ways in this short letter AND he seems to always put it in the outward context of others—the larger community we are a part of. Peter reminds them/us that they/we have “brothers all over the world” who are experiencing the same kind of suffering (and worse!) for Christ. It’s that FOR CHRIST bit that makes all the difference. Our satisfaction and willingness to suffer comes from and because of HIM and not from any other motivation.

I guess in my own meandering way I am saying that I think there is an element of the Christian faith that will always run counter-culture because ALL cultures are broken in some way. It has been a great challenge for me over the past year (or 3) to really dislodge some of these cultural and generational barriers to my faith.  I’ve had to realize and come to grips with the fact that my “happiness” and “job-satisfaction” (even in spiritual pursuits) is not the end-goal that God has in mind for me. Not at all; because He is more concerned about being known by me—the relationship thing—than He is in making me feel like a valued, well-compensated member of His Company. My sanctification—which involves real suffering because that is exactly what Christ emulated—is much more important to God than meeting my misguided sense of entitlement. If we believe the Gospel then we know that we are entitled to nothing, but because of Christ we have been GIVEN everything, gratis. It’s the fact that we don’t deserve IT that makes it so amazing… 

So, I think, moment-by-moment gratitude is the ONLY appropriate response to Him; not temper tantrums. The Kingdom is so much infinitely broader than ME (the individual) anyway. It is about US by proxy, but in totality it’s really just about HIM.

And, thankfully, he’s no brat.

Not saying she's a BRAT!  This is just the epitome of entitlement...

spelunking your faith

A friend and I were having a discussion recently about what it's like to take this journey of faith.  We were sharing our personal struggles in finding God's guidance in light of our circumstances in this fallen world.  My friend, who lives in a different part of China from where I live, was saying that he used to think this journey of faith was like hiking a mountain. 

You set out from the base with your eyes on the peaks in front of you, you put one foot in front of the other, you follow tiring trails and windy switchbacks, you get lost, you persevere, you rest, you meander for a while, you scout ahead, and ultimately, at the end of the day, you summit somewhere, you make camp--you visualize where you've come from, what you've accomplished, and where you're headed tomorrow.   Upward and onwards...

This is the analogy (with a little artistic license) that my friend used to describe this walk of faith that we are on.  But his metaphor had begun to change in his mind as he was being confronted with a new culture and way of life.  Instead of a mountain, he told me, he now was wondering if the walk of faith wasn't more like spelunking.  OK, he didn't use that word, spelunking (i.e. to explore a cave); at least I don't think he said that.  What he said was that he was beginning to feel as if the journey of faith is more like walking around in a dark cave.

You can't see where you're headed.  After a few minutes of movement, you can't really determine where you've been.  If you're careful, and you've left some markers, you can remember the path you've taken; but that doesn't always make the way ahead of you any clearer.  It's dark in a cave.  It's wet, cold, and drafty.  If you don't have your REI headlamp with you, the range of visibility is pretty dismal.  Stalagmites and stalactites are waiting to bump head and toe.  (Or is it toe and head?)  In a cave, your own insecurity tends to grow and lengthen with the echoes of your own footsteps.  You must intuit, more times than not and many more times than you're comfortable with, that you are indeed moving in the right direction.  You must have faith that the cave leads somewhere you are meant to go.  You must cling to hope and fight off despair.

My friend didn't take the analogy quite as far as I did.  I make it sound a bit more drastic and ominous than he intended I am sure, but I resonated with his insight.  I think part of his point was this: as we are journeying towards God, we have unrealistic expectations that the way ahead will be made clear to us.  We hope to see and experience a sense of progress, achievement, and accomplishment.  We know God is with us, so of course He's the one telling us our exact coordinates as He gazes at his divine GPS tracker (??)

But In fact, the opposite may often be more true, or at the very least, more in line with reality.  We may not have any clear idea what lies just ahead of us.  Detours, delays, and dead ends abound.  God may know our exact location, but His two-way seems to be broadcasting on a slightly different frequency.  Static fills the airwaves when you're miles below the earth...

So we're off spelunking.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing.  Yetis like caves after all.  Just feels like one those head-slapping revelations you make along the way.  It's not all caverns either, I know.  We're not canaries in a coalmine or anything like that.  But sometimes, when the claustrophobia sets in or you feel the furry tip of a bat's wing against your earlobe, you long for flashlights, starlight, or the blurry reflection of fresh snowfall on a distant mysterious peak.

Post-script disclaimer:  This post may seem directly related to our current forward-looking explorations in terms of life and work.  It actually IS NOT directly related to that.  These thoughts have been bouncing around in my head for many months now.  And another colleague reminded me recently that: "God does want us to have some sense of clarity...eventually."  Yeah, eventually.  So keep those headlamps burning!

seeing, in the new year

I was born in 1974 with a perfectly good set of eyes.  They were (and still are) brown like my mother and father's.  I have never had to wear contacts, glasses, or even a Planter's Peanut style monocle in order to see things near or far.  So far, and I take nothing for granted in this regard, I have been one of the fortunate few in this world with 20/20 vision.  I consider myself blessed.

But as I have been reading Annie Dillard's Pulitzer Prize winning book Pilgrim At Tinker Creek (which was first published the same year I was born) I am beginning to wonder if I have really seen anything at all with my two good eyes fully open.  Maybe that statement sounds a bit drastic.  It is; but some books (sadly only a precious few) have that kind of effect on you.  Scales fall away in a flutter and you think to yourself, "Wow, can the world really look like this to someone?  To me even?"

This is not a book review.  Sorry if I have mislead you.  I have only just finished reading a few chapters of Tinker Creek myself which I have had to wade through carefully--donning galoshes and sloshing my way through the wondrous minutia of Dillard's creek which seems chock-full of beauty, wonder, and spiritual insight.  But some of her initial discoveries that she writes about in the first few chapters have caused a stir in me, a faint longing, a slight itch which has me wanting to pack my sleeping bag and toothbrush to set off on the pilgrim trail once again. 

I have to admit it's been a while since I have felt this way; I have been a bit road-weary.  You see, the nomadic life of the Spirit often sounds more glamorous before you set out, when you are nestled into houserobe and slippers, than it does when you are trying to trick your mind into thinking that the rock behind your head feels something like a soft pillow.  The dirt, sweat, and tears have no place in our pre-trip fantasies.  We want the spiritual rewards without the blisters or the blind alleys.  At least that's how I have been feeling this year.  I've been desiring the T-shirt without taking the trip, cause the trip itself is a hard one.   But despite the realization that I've just wanted to coast a few miles, in a sense I have tried to keep the donkey moving in the right direction at least; I've tried to stay alert; keep my eyes on the road, stay awake--but I might have been dozing off...

And then Annie Dillard comes along, tapping me on the shoulder, and gently saying, "Open your eyes.  WAKE UP!!!!"

Like that.  Gentle, then loud, not proselytizing, but inviting me to see, really see and notice, this intricate, shocking, living world lying all around me that I bump around in every day with barely a glance of awe or even recognition.  (It's weird and I know I sound like some fruitcake who collects carrots that look like celebrities from 70s sitcoms right now.  Oooh, Eric Estrada.  And I do apologize if you do that; I'm not saying you are a fruitcake.)

But the reason all of this is important (yes, there is a point) is because I am coming up with a New Year's Resolution that I am actually excited about and here is what I have so far:

In 2008, I resolve to really see things. 

Pretty profound, eh.  Ha! 

I have good eyes, good vision at least, but have I been seeing the right things?  Am I laying hold of the things that are really there and really true?  I want to see this beauty that pervades our world.  I want to learn to look much deeper and dig for those small treasures that beauty often hides in because, as Dillard would say, it is only there--in the broadening scope of seeing--that I will be touching on the "hem" of the Divine.  But I'll finally let her words speak for themselves.  Some quotes:

It could be that God has not absconded but spread, as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way that we can only feel blindly of its hem.

***

Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain.  But if we describe a world to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and light, the canary on the skull.  Unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous.

***

We don't know what's going on here. If these tremendous events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what is in us, hammered out of those same typewriters, that they ignite?  We don't know.  Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf.  We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here.  Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling hand of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.

***

It is still the first week in January, and I've got great plans.  I've been thinking about seeing.  There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises.  The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.  But--and this is the point--who gets excited by a mere penny?  If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremendous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat kit paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way?  It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny.  But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.  It is that simple.  What you see is what you get.

So, I'm keeping my eye out for pennies in '08.  They're out there waiting to be snatched up.  Hope you see some, too.  (More Dillard quotes in the weeks to come, I'm sure.)

another loss, heaven's gain

My grandma (my last living grandparent) who I knew affectionately as Mamaw is now with Jesus.  She passed away yesterday.  I was her favorite (only) grandson and I always knew that if I ever needed sanctuary from anything or anyone in the world, I could find it at Mamaw's.  My heart is heavy.  I will be flying from Xining to Beijing tomorrow.  Then on from Beijing to Louisville, Kentucky so I can make her funeral on Thursday.  I am traveling alone and will be leaving my family back here in Jianzha for 11 days.  Please pray for them while I am gone.  Pray that Christa will have strength to look after the girls without the help of family way out here.  It's very strange to be leaving one's family in a foreign country like this, but I felt it was very important to say goodbye to Mamaw and to mourn her loss with my family in the States.  I am thankful that Mamaw is now with Jesus and that she has been reunited with her husband Archie, my aunt Robin, and her other daughter Peggy. I will miss her greatly.

god is a whopper!

"The lovers of God delight in hyperbole, because we need hyperbole to talk about God.  Poets can't describe Him; scientists can't quantify Him; the sages state flat out that from the disadvantage points of language and logic, God is a Whopper--yet from the vantage point of love they say this Whopper can be known."

David James Duncan
The River Why

I'm pretty good with a bow staff

Last night while I was waiting for my coal to get to the desired temperature I practiced my Jedi light-saber techniques under chilly starlight.   As I swung the walking stick to and fro, twirling it around my arm, dispelling hypothetical Sith Lords and Orcs with each lethal blow, I had a wave of swash-buckling nostalgia.  Going back in time to my childhood, it felt good to just let loose a little bit under cover of night (where no one could see me and break into fits of spastic laughter)--Ah, to join in an invisible battle once more.

As you might have already guessed, I've been reading John Eldredge again.

Yeah, I know.  How can a sensitive, literary, suburbanite like myself be into the adrenalin-fueled, bare-back riding, wilderness machismo of John Eldredge?  It is a deep mystery.  I admit that when I first read Wild At Heart I did want to run naked through the forest smudged in Indian-warpaint screaming Navajo battle cries.  But this sensation faded as reality set in.  I just don't like the idea of sky diving, bungee jumping, or getting into the ring with a four-foot tall Thai kickboxer. Maybe that's because I never went through the proper rights of passage into manhood?  Or maybe it's just because I like simpler things, e.g. like being alive and uninjured?  In truth, my heart "comes alive" most on overcast days, sipping the java, digging into a good book, and humming along to Miles Davis as my body conforms to the shape of a very comfortable chair.  It's a bit boring for some, but it does it for me.

So why am I dipping back into the Braveheart-for-breakfast diet of Mr. Eldredge you might ask?  Because of the interesting title of his book, Waking the Dead.  I've owned the book for a few years now, but I abandoned it after only a few chapters on my first attempt.  The first time I read it I thought Eldredge was just trying to work all of his favorite movies, novels, and children's stories into his take on theology and Christian living.  Let's face it, the guy is a notorious over-quoter.  At the time I also felt like it was just Wild At Heart remixed.  So I shelved it.

But this time around, I picked up the book mainly because I was feeling a bit under-animated, inorganic, stale, or in laymen's speech, dead.  I'm glad I gave it a second chance because this time around it fit better into my life and experience.  Where it hadn't two or three years back, now it suddenly seemed applicable.

As many of you know (or may have inferred) over the last six months I've been going through a bit of a third-life crises (i.e. I plan to live to be 99--so you can do the math).  I've lost loved ones, questioned my occupation, fretted over unrealized creative potential, and been angry about injustices in my little world and the broader one.  In the midst of it all, I've also had a long stretch of wondering, "Where's God?!? And what am I doing wrong here?"  Without going into a lot of detail about the nitty-gritty of it, you're informed readers I'm sure, let's just just say it's been like walking a tightrope of faith, with combat boots on my feet, and a walrus on my shoulders.  I've been holding my breath for what seems like a very long time (in part because the walrus has nasty fish breath, but mostly because I've been a little fearful of my sense of balance).

And then one day, out of the blue, I had a strange thought.  "Wonder if any of this could be spiritual?" I asked myself in my best Church Lady voice.

Yeah, I'm a pretty sharp ladle in the silverware drawer of spiritual insight.  Watch yourself, sonny, or you could be fatally...scooped...to death?!?  Anyway, after 2 years of Christian college, 6 months in  YWAM, and nearly three years..ahem, doing what I do...you'd think I'd have jumped to this conclusion a mite bit sooner.  But, no.  The elephant was reclined on the LazyBoy and I somehow missed him as I reached past his trunk for the remote control...

After this eureka moment, I actually started to look at my state-of-mind and emotional-spiritual state from a more unseen "spiritual" perspective.  Perhaps my depression, my sense of despair, my nagging doubts and frustration was not totally self-induced after all.  So that's how I started to pray about things.  "Lord, if this is a battle we are in, help me fight back!  Better yet, fight for me!" 

And it was amazing how the "cloud" around my heart and mind just lifted.  A blog post can't do it justice.  The term 'like night and day' would be an accurate way to describe it.

But that gets me back to Waking the Dead.  After coming out of the "spell" I was under, I felt like I needed a bit of new life breathed back into me.  Who wouldn't want to be awoken from the dead?  So I skimmed Eldredge's book again. 

His first premise: we are in a battle and things are not what they seem to be.  The second premise: the battle we were thrown into by being born is a battle for our hearts.  Third premise: our Enemy would like to destroy our heart and put us in bondage to him but because of Christ our hearts are now good and they matter to God.  Finally: we must live from our hearts and fight the battle to help others live the free, full lives that Jesus promises to those who follow Him.  It is a story about myth, healing, and restoration.  It was exactly what I needed.  I know this is a simplistic summary of the book, but essentially this is what spoke to me, especially the part about our hearts being transformed into good.  It's so easy to forget what sanctification looks like because of Christ' work.  Much easier to make agreements with the Enemy and believe all kinds of horrible things about our inner self and life.  Putting this framework of thought (battle analogy) around my recent dilemmas, concerns, and questions really helped me find meaning and purpose again (as strange as that may sound.)

So even though I'm not ready to try my hand at ice-cave spelunking and can find areas where I'll disagree with him, it seems I am back on the John Eldredge bandwagon.  And I'm ready to pick some fights--the good kind of course--like I'll need to.

This post seems a bit disjointed.  I've gotten out of practice with these confessional type posts I guess.  Makes them feel awkward.  But I needed to offload this information so my writing brain can begin functioning again.  In the meantime, there are a few backyard dirt dragons yet to be slain... 

Bonzai!

pick me up around sunset - a memorial

When I told Anna that my aunt Robin was probably going to die, her brow furrowed darkening her face for a moment.   

"When..." she asked me a bit alarmed, "...right now?"

"We don't know, Anna.  It will probably be soon."

How do you explain terms like cancer, chemo, and terminal illness to a five year old?  Is it even appropriate to do so?  I find these types of real-life questions challenging.  Christa and I have decided that we want to provide a real picture of the world to our children without causing them undue stress and emotional trauma.  In some ways raising children is about applying and gradually removing the appropriate filters on reality so that by the time they are grown they can engage with it in healthy ways.

But death is an undeniable, unavoidable part of life. 

So we discuss it with Anna.  But in my short 33 years I have not had a lot of firsthand experience with it.   I moved to China in 2005.  Since then, my grandmother and now my aunt have found their way back to the Father.  Putting it that way (i.e returning to Jesus) makes it sound like a euphemism, but it isn't.  I see it as a beautiful reality--one that far surpasses this one we slouch around in.  The things that she sees now we can only dream about, but even when it is the right thing and time, when the suffering is too much for us or them to bear, when they have lived the good (sometimes long) life, we find we still miss them profoundly--the hole that they leave in their wake aches within us.  And that's where grief's tension lies--we know it's for their best, but it feels so much like our loss.

I recently heard a Chinese believer sharing warmly about her believing grandfather.  When talking about how he passed away, she used the term jiēzǒu (接走).  In Chinese, jiēzǒu means "to pick up" as in "I picked up my friend at the airport."  She said lovingly that God had [dropped in and] picked up her grandfather.  I really like this way of expressing it.  There is an intimate familiarity in this term that shows our Father's gentle love and care for us.  When it's finally time to go home, it's always nice to have Dad swing by and get us.

So when I finally got the nerve to tell Anna that my aunt Robin had been picked up by her Savior, I was glad that there was good news along with the bad.  In the midst of processing what death's loss really is, Anna remembered where Aunt Robin really is right now.  And her face just lit up like Christmas. 

"She is with Jesus now.  She knows what He looks like.  She can walk with Him.  She's not sad anymore.  She's in heaven..."  And as she said these statements (some in repetition) and as the joy welled innocently all over her demeanor, I thought to myself:  "Who's parenting who here?"

Anna's got it right.  She gets it.  She understands.  In the complexity of death and loss and sadness and grief, everything pales in comparison to Christ.  The glory of who He is should astound and delight us to the point of pushing everything else to the margins.  My aunt is experiencing that right now.  And while most of us are not quite ready to stick up our own thumbs for that quick lift Home, it's so assuring to know when our loved ones are in His good nail-scarred Hands.

***
Robin, I hope you can read this from where you are.  Our grief is fresh, but thankfully so is our gratitude and wonder--knowing where you are now and, more importantly, Who you are with.  From here, looking out there somewhere, I can imagine you, with a big smile on your face, sitting on the front porch of your Indiana farmhouse.  (It's a little souped up from the old version though...hope you don't mind.)  You're sipping a cool ice-tea (the cigarettes don't do it for you anymore,)  the weather is warm but not hot, and you are staring out at an incredible pink sunset.  As your family and friends look on from the front yard (maybe we all just pulled up in a big van,) you get a mischievous look in your eye and yell, "I beat ya, I beat ya.  Where y'all been?  I've been waitin' here for hours."  But you don't really look too impatient and we hold no guilt over our tardiness.  Instead you look pleased, content, and at peace.  More so than we've ever seen you look.  And we're just glad to see you again after such a seemingly long and hard separation-- as the world around us hums in the chirp of cicadas and daylight blushes into dusk-- from pink to purple.

holey-ness and rule #2

If you've been paying attention over the past 6 months or so, you've probably noticed that my reflective posts have not been in the vein of My Utmost For His Highest too much lately.  In fact I would lump most of these spiritual-leaning type posts in the "why-oh-god-why" category. 

What can I say; we live in a fallen world.  I don't like to freak people out too much with my honesty, but in my opinion it is one of the things I appreciate most about good writing: transparent honesty and authenticity.  Today I sat down and composed a few honest emails to some trusted mentors asking for their advice and input.  I liken it to firing off an emotional flare gun when you feel like you're stranded in the desert.  I have to admit I've been grappling with God lately.  I want to know the answers to the WHY and the HOW and the WHAT-THE-HECK-ARE-YOU-DOING type questions I am facing in my own journey.   Just when you feel like you know a God...

There's no need for alarm, people.  Really, there isn't.  I think this is part of what we do as tour guides and pilgrims.  We grope, we get frustrated, we question, we doubt, we whine, we lean into God even when it feels like He is just a pocket of insubstantial air to us.  In saying this, I'm not trying to paint a happy, oh-I'm-coping-marvelously face on it.  It is a struggle.  Having faith is not a given.  Depression can tap on your shoulder even on a sunshiny day. 

I guess today I find myself on a quest to be real.  I want to be like Anne Lamott.  I think she's a genius as a writer and a spiritual being.  I am finding solace in her honesty, her struggle, and her take on what it means to be a broken, holy, unapologetic creature.  I'll leave this discussion, for now, with two quotes of hers that have acted as a salve to my soul today:

"Holiness has most often been revealed to me in the exquisite pun of the first syllable, in holes--in not enough help, in brokenness, mess.  High holy places, with ethereal sounds and stained glass, can massage my illusion of holiness, but in holes and lostness I can pick up the light of small ordinary progress, newly made moments flecked like pepper into the slog and disruptions.

When we did art with the kids [in Sunday school], the demons would lie down."

And here's another one:

"At times like these, I believe, Jesus rolls up his sleeves, smiles roguishly, and thinks, 'This is good.'  He lets me get nice and crazy, until I can't take my own thinking and solutions for one more moment.  The next morning, I got on my knees and prayed, 'Please, please help me.  Please let me feel You while I adjust to not getting what I was hoping for." And then I remembered Rule 1: When all else fails, follow instructions.  And Rule 2: Don't be an asshole."