Category Archives: Uncategorized

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If you could just know…

I am in the midst of an amazing splurge. I am waking each morning this week in Vancouver, British Columbia and marching down the street to attend classes at Regent College.

Fourteen years have passed since I completed one of my Master’s degrees here. All I have left of the second degree is a pesky thesis. Fourteen years is a long time. The awareness of how long it has been settled on me the first day; that sense of familiarity and yet awkwardness of not really belonging here in this season. 

Still. This place, the grounds and the Chapel and the sounds, they are iconic to me: they help me see God with an awakened mind. I simply think better here because I have been trained to do so. I am ready to hear, ready to listen.

Most of my time this week has been spent listening to Dr. J.I. Packer expound the book of Colossians. Walking us through the insights and truths and wisdom of Paul.
 
The refrain I keep hearing? 

“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

Walk, without anxiety and fear and uncertainty, but abounding in thanksgiving. Abounding in thanksgiving. 

I don’t abound in thanksgiving very often, and yet on these splurge weeks in a beautiful place pulsing with lively thought, it is much easier. 

These days in general, though, it can be difficult to be filled with thanksgiving… abounding in thanksgiving. Much easier to be overwhelmed with news intended to stir fear and anger and anxiety. But things have shifted when we place ourselves in Christ. Paul tells us in Colossians, “and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” 

When peace, shalom, rules in our hearts it is much easier to be thankful. In the midst of a world stirred by fear, in the midst of daily lives marked by stress, in the midst of families weighed down by sorrow….allow our peace to bring hope and grace to our world.

Last night the steady analysis of Colossians was interrupted as I attended a lecture by Malcolm Guite. He opened up for us a poem by Seamus Heaney, “The Rainstick.”

When Regent Audio has these evening lectures available, please go listen. I am only going to touch on one aspect, and the lecture is immensely worth your time.

From this poem about a Rainstick and the music it makes, Guite encouraged us to think of the upendings God accomplish in our lives, of the music around us and the imagery God has given us eveywhere to expand our thinking of Him.
The refrain I keep hearing this morning?

And now here comes


A sprinkle of drops out of the freshened leaves,


Then subtle little wets off grass and daisies;
Then glitter-drizzle, almost-breaths of air.


Upend the stick again. What happens next


Is undiminished for having happened once.”
I have thought of that all morning as I walked.

  

Another thought, another refrain, was touched on, and this one is becoming like a mantra already. Guite drew our attention to the story of the woman at the well, and this phrase of Jesus:


“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you…”


If you knew.


If you knew, really knew, all that Jesus is offering you…me…oh, would our thanksgiving abound. If it really settled in our souls that nothing is diminished when His grace comes to us again and again, if we could hear the music the Spirit can make by upending our dry and ugly moments…that shalom peace would settle about us.

  

If you just knew..the wonder this Creator God has placed all around you. The images and the sounds, the smells and the tastes, all ready to enliven you. All there to give you language to worship, to express…to know.

  

  
  

If you just knew …the strength you possess in this moment as the Spirit of the Living God waits to quicken you, to fill you, to equip you. 

  
 

If you just knew…the dignity of each person you encounter.  See them not as an enemy, not as an annoyance, not as an inconvenience or a problem, but instead see them clothed in the delight of God with the dignity of an Image Bearer of the Creator.
Sometimes we have to step back. A week in Vancouver is not always, very rarely, a possibility. A walk with our heart attuned to God’s creation is often available. A moment taken to listen afresh, to try to really grasp, to really know the gift God is offering in this moment, and to really grasp who it is that offers this gift. 

 We need to find those iconic places or items which spark our thinking and inspire. Whether it is a graduate school, a park, a chapel, a kitchen sink with a window overlooking a yard full of children. Or an upended Rainstick reminding us of unexpected music and teaching us to abound in thanksgiving. 

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1400 Miles. Each Way.

1400 miles. Every year.

 

We load up the truck, taking care to bring only the bare essentials. We plan the route even though we already know it by heart. We plan whether we will drive without stopping, or if this year we will stop and spend the night somewhere. We plan surprises and pack them in little paper sacks.

 

We plan music and movies and audiobooks.

 

We plan and we anticipate, and wait for that moment when we will pull down the long driveway to one of our favorite places in the world.

 

My folks’ place in Colorado. The place is filled with memories for me and now I watch my kids marching around breathing this air and walking this ground that is so much a part of who I am.

 

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This year I hung my eldest’s hammock under an ancient apple tree and caught a few minutes of reading time. Mostly the hammock was used by the younger kids to swing and giggle. When we were all here, which was for at least three of the days, there were about twenty of us clamoring around the house and the yard.

 

There were lots of giggles. And volleyball matches. And conversations over coffee and meals.

 

 

This house has always had two of the best porches. One porch overlooks a pasture and long view to mountains and amazing sunsets. This is the place to sit for long conversations into the evening, for watching deer or the ducks on the pond.

 

The front porch is the place to sit to watch all the activity. The kids riding bikes and kicking soccer balls, chasing dogs and each other. Snacks are brought and again, long conversations begin.

 

And I am finding that this is where we learn more of who we are. We find out our differences, and we find that our love is constant in the midst of those differences. We find out our shared stories, and the parts of the stories we had forgotten.

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We remind ourselves of our shared history and we carry the current burdens together a little more lightly in the midst of the joy of fellowship.

 

We take the time to find out who we are once again.

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This year I pushed for a picture I have wanted for a few years: a picture of the Little Miss out in the field by the house with all the men on my side of the family. Her three big brothers, her six male cousins, her four uncles, her Dad and her Grandfather. I am so glad I pushed and they were so patient as we tried to fit it in with everyone’s plans. I love the final picture:

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This is my girl, and this place is part of who she is. It is a mirror of how this place was the foundation for who I am. I stomped these same grounds with strong men standing behind me. I played in the mud here and didn’t want to stop to take a bath at the end of the day either.

 

I didn’t want to leave.

 

She doesn’t either.

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Nor do my boys. Every year. They want to stay. This place is part of who they are, and we never quite sure what the next year will hold. The one who put her mark on all of this place is here and yet not here. She has laughed some this trip and has been present with us, but she has been greatly missed.

 

And yet, her mark is everywhere. Not just in the decorations, but in the strength of the family. In the fact that every year we continue to come back. We continue to want to be together. We continue to load up the truck and drive 1400 miles (one way) to be together.

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We have to take the time, to pause and to know our history. To know more than the cursory glance. When we have the chance, to stomp the ground our parents have walked and to sit on the porch with all our cousins and talk…really talk… and share stories and hear our history, we have to take those moments. They are so much more than just stories.

 

So thankful for this past week, yet again, and for this magical place. Thankful for pictures and for moments. For stories and for history. And for quotes which sum it all up so much better than I can….

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.” – Frederick Buechner

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Sixty Years

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Sixty years. Today is my parents’ anniversary. Sixty years of marriage.

I love the picture below of them; I love the joy in my mom’s expression. What a lifetime lay before them: five children, countless adventures. Probably a hundred Chesapeake Retriever dogs. Elk hunting trips, parties. Mom as President of the Symphony. Dad establishing a legacy as a builder. Mom leading Bible Study Fellowship as a lecturer.

 

So much laughter, so many tears…so many stories cover those 60 years.

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I wish Mom could remember them all. I wish she knew in this moment what a wonderful life she has led. I wish she knew how loved she has been, and how many care about her.

 

I hope that there is some awareness,  I hope she knows in some way that she is loved. I think there is some awareness of the tenderness around her. Some comfort in being surrounded by laughter still, and by stories.

 

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This is not what my Dad imagined for his future. This is what it is though, and he has continued to love my Mom well. He has continued to give us an example of love that doesn’t stop when things are difficult. He has continued to see God in the midst of this life, and we are the richer for that. There is a bonding that happens in suffering that cannot happen in blessing.

 

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I’m thankful for the memories we hold as a family. Maybe that is why I keep opening this blog and recording these thoughts; holding these memories in place so they are here if I begin to forget.

 

We snap our pictures and have our life lived out on social media, creating a journal of sorts. Registering our thoughts and our events and the things that are important…and yet, there is need for more reflection. For more than the quick thought and the perfect image. We need room for the things that take the rug out from under us. Room for those things to settle and for our hearts and emotions to meet with our mind, for us to find where God is working in the midst of it all. We need to take the time away from the celebratory social media postings to hear and see what God is doing.

 

That gives us the foundation for what might come.

 

I know that life may not play out as I imagine. I know there are things ahead which will be wonderful, and things ahead which will be difficult. There is great comfort in knowing that I walk this life with those who love well. There is great comfort in knowing that I walk this life in the care of a God who is Sovereign. One who sees beyond the moment we are caught in, and knows how it will all fit together.

 

Trust to God to weave  your little thread into the great web, though the pattern shows it not yet.  – George MacDonald

Sixty years. Worth celebrating and worth recognizing. Even when it is difficult and not exactly what was hoped for. Still an amazing life together.

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Don’t Blink.

The season is done. We have travelled together from Nashville to Chicago, Notre Dame University, and Atlanta. We have washed piles of sweaty clothes and gear. Cheered until we were hoarse and poured over video of the games.

 

Hockey season is long. We start to feel it a little by the fifth month in, and yet after the last game we are always sorry the season is done. This year was one of our best, even though we didn’t win every game. Even though it was tough. Especially this last weekend.

 

We played three teams a division above us, and they beat us three games in a row. Then Sunday morning at the consolation game, it came together and we walked away from the last game of the season with a win.

 

What is the point of all of this? What is the point of the cheering and the raised blood pressure as we watch these kids skate like mad, take and give some major hits, shoot every chance they get and make some amazing saves? At the end of the day, what is the point beyond some bragging rights?

 

Oh, there are so many points. Especially as a homeschool family, there is so much value in sports, or arts, or drama, or music. We get to sit in the stands and watch our kids go out and give their all for something they love. Whatever that something is. For us, right now, it is hockey for the eldest. We get to watch as he takes instruction from someone else, as he learns things we cannot teach him. We get to watch as he bonds with a team and recognizes the responsibilities of being part of something beyond just himself.

 

We get to cheer him on.

We get to sit and watch our kids do something they love, and we get to stop the busyness of life and just watch. Just focus and watch our kids. Look at them and realize how incredibly wonderful it is to be a parent. The kids are working and sweating and learning lessons like responsibility and discipline and perseverance. The coach is taking over the moment for us and teaching and guiding.

 

We get to just watch. There are not enough moments where we get to do this. Our kids notice. It is important.

 

Even when they are losing.

We lost a lot this weekend. Three of the four games. And here is a second point to the worth of these activities. We need to learn how to lose and not have the world fall apart. We need to learn how to lose and get back up the next morning and try again. Our kids need to learn this. Three times the boys showed up, played hard…and lost. Then Sunday morning they showed up…and won.

 

I know. It’s just a game. Just a play. Just an art piece. Just a performance.

 

Nah. It’s life. I’m thankful for coaches who guide our kids, who make them work hard and yell at them when they are slacking or encourage them when they are trying. I’m thankful for groups of parents who come together and cheer and encourage and delight in our kids.

 

That’s what it comes down to. Zach isn’t going to make a career of hockey. This is a moment. We’ll blink and these days will be over.

 

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