Category Archives: Uncategorized

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The Strength of Beauty

Oh my soul, FaceBook, as if my headaches have not worn me out enough the last few weeks!! I began to wonder if I needed to take a break from FaceBook.

I watched the Inauguration, and then I watched my FB feed explode. Some with great excitement, some with tentative hope, some with great anger and some with outright hatred. All friends. All people I know in real life and care about. 

Over the last twenty four hours I have listened. I have witnessed such a spread of opinion not just on the news, but in the heart of my friends. I wonder how we will bridge this gap. I wonder how the conversations will develop.

I watched as friends began to post pictures as they marched in the Women’s parade, holding their posters and beaming with pride. These are friends I respect and love. Not women I shrug off and easily disrespect. Then I saw others posting articles with pictures of women dressed as vaginas, wearing shirts with vulgarity. 

Shouting profanity. 

Then the protests against the president with businesses destroyed and property damaged. 

I thought more about shutting down Facebook. 

Then…I saw pictures of a friend who had just suffered a heart attack, and I prayed. I saw pictures of another friend with their baby granddaughter just born, and I rejoiced. I saw pictures of friends celebrating and I remembered why I love Facebook.

Sunday morning I went to church and saw friends who were frustrated by the women’s march and friends who had marched. We all worshipped together and I got to hug them all and talk with them all. We all want our girls to be strong women and pray for the same things, hope for the same things for the country and our neighbors. 

So, as I sit here Monday morning my thoughts are still not clear. I could not march in the Women’s march because it was so clearly tied to Planned Parenthood, but also because I was frustrated by how it seemed to meet Trump’s vulgarity with a vulgarity of its own. Women wearing ‘pussy’ hats and calling themselves ‘Nasty Women’ simply does not resonate with me. I understand the need to demonstrate, and I even understand my friends who marched and wore the hats, and I value the freedom they have to do so. Most of my friends walked with different signs.

I want my daughter to be strong, and I want her never to know what it is to have a man take advantage of her…a man feel that he can do as he wants with her. I have had men push me beyond where I was comfortable, and that is a feeling you can never erase. I want my girl to never experience that and to have the strength to never need the approval of a man who would act that way. So how do we get there…marching dressed as vaginas?  
Maybe.

Maybe that is part of it. Maybe we need to shock ourselves into a conversation about all of this. About women’s health care and about rape culture and dating culture, about our incredibly loose sexuality in advertising and movies and culture. About ‘locker room’ talk and our young men learning to treat women with dignity. Maybe we need some shock…

But maybe we need something on the other side as well, and this is a bit more where I fall. I want my girl to be strong. I seriously want her to take Karate and know how to defend herself. I want her to know her rights and speak up for herself..but I want her to know beauty and wonder and love. I want her to know she is made by a Creator who loves her and created her in beauty. I want her to know that at her core she is loved by a Savior who came to redeem her because she is loved that well, and if that is true, she does not need to settle for a love that would abuse her. I want her strength to come from an identity rooted in love. 

And…her brothers need to know this as well. We need our boys to be raised knowing that they are to love well. They are to love with a tenderness and a protectiveness and an honor. They are not to talk about women as commodities and . They are to love with love that honors beauty and does not ravage it. To be strong  means that we create beauty and sanctuary and peace.

 To create vulgarity and chaos is easy. To create peace and beauty is difficult, and that requires true strength.

I do not mind the march. I do not mind my friends who marched. The vulgarity bothered me, but I guess that was part of the point…it forced me to think. I do not consider any of my friends nasty women, though. I consider them women who carry beauty with them, and who carry the ability to create wonder and peace all around them. Where others are creating vulgarity…let’s bring true strength.  

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An Adjustment in Vision 

There is something refreshing about a shiny, bright new year. Even though the situation is the same as a few days ago, there is a spark of hope and a spark of energy present this morning. Even on this very grey, rainy morning.


Christmas and New Year’s were dominated by migraines for me, so the presence of merely a minor headache this morning has also helped the enthusiasm. Still, there is something about turning to a new calendar, a new journal, a new … year. Resolutions, Revolutions, Hopes, Imaginations. And sometimes…

Desperations. 

We all have those thoughts on the changing of the year. The things we would like to be different in the coming months. The exercise routines and the diets, the reading plans and the shunning of social media. I have posted years on end how I would step away from online activity to focus on real life activity. Only to be drawn back continually. 

Then to feel frustrated with lack of discipline and lack of persistence. Then to meet the next new year with a sense of desperation that the list of resolutions remains the same as last year. Still unfulfilled. 

Not this year. This year is different.

Sitting here in one of my favorite coffee shops organizing my shiny new bullet journal,

I realized that this year I do not want new resolutions. This year, I want instead to be at ease with who I am.

That is not to say that there is not room for improvement. There is always, always room for improvement. 

I realized this morning, however, that some of the frustration I face is trying to force a system on myself and the kids that simply doesn’t work that well. Instead, I need to find a way to make what is good and unique about us blossom and flourish.

Yes, I know. That was obvious.

And yet, not so much.

When we began home school one friend who had done this for years challenged me not to simply bring school home. We had before us this great freedom to do things differently, and the challenge is to find the way to flourish in that freedom. I’m not sure we have hit our stride yet. There is still this sense of knocking out the work so they can get to the fun stuff…and my heart wants the kids to see the learning as the fun stuff. 

I know it cannot completely be fun all the time, but the learning can make us come alive. When we find the way to learn that speaks to us. This translates to the work, to the resolutions as well. The resolutions do not make me come alive, and they surely are not fun after the second week. So how do we approach this year differently so the resolutions are not so much a drudgery but a way of understanding ourselves better? A way of giving ourselves the freedom to operate in a way that nourishes our souls?

I’m honestly not completely sure how this works out yet…but I think the key is to be looking. What makes me feel alive? Music. Books. Really great movies. Discussions with people I love. The giggles of little ones. 

What makes me pull inside myself and become depressed? Not meeting unrealistic goals. Feeling constantly behind and unprepared. Failing to complete things. 

What about you? What speaks life to you? Make room for that this year. What makes you step with energy and with enthusiasm? Make sure that is present in your life. 

We still have to make our beds. We still have to wash the dishes and put away the laundry. We still have to do the work, but maybe our resolution can be to find a way to do the work and nourish our souls at the same time.  Or nourish our souls so we have the energy and strength to do the work. 

That is my resolution on this January 3rd: Find a way to nourish my soul and make the ‘work’ of keeping the house and educating the children become something that speaks life. Rather than forcing a structure that builds frustration, building a freedom which encourages learning and work to be done with enthusiasm. Naive and impossible? I’m not sure, but I think it is worth the effort. I think it is worth the adjustment in vision rather than a list of resolutions.  Let’s see what we can do with 2017.

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Advent failure? Meet the Relentless God.

I posted this two years ago, but the title struck me this morning. We are in a similar situation in 2016, and yet God continues to be relentless. Relentless in loving us, in calling us, and in meeting us right where we are.
So forgive the reposting….but the truth remains.

 

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The theme for my Advent Season 2014?

 

Um. Mostly failure.

 

We have not read the Advent books, we have not faithfully made our way through our Advent Calendar. We have not opened the book of creative ideas for inspiring the children through this Advent season.

 

The kids have played too much X-Box and computer. I have lingered on FaceBook longer than I should.

 

The laundry basket just seems to stay full of clothes that need to be put away. Presents are just beginning to appear under the tree.  Not sure everyone is even in what they are receiving.

 

Tamales made that turned out so-so rather than really great. Frustrating.

 

These are the things that run through my mind…little failures where I can see what could be. I can see more wonder and hope and joy and peace and love. I can see more order and more patience, rather than haphazardly bumping my way through the season.

 

More than that though: frustration, anger, impatience, arrogance. Sin. Throughout the season. The reality of my fallenness. The reality of my lack. The reality of the brokenness we sit with as we try to take in the wonder.

 

The reality of a Mom who slips farther from reality.

 

The reality of friends truly struggling simply to have the basics, let alone the luxury of Christmas gifts overflowing.

 

The reality of others struggling with life-consuming illness. Fear. Uncertainty.

 

The realities that sometimes cloud our hope and faith and love and peace and joy.

 

I can slip into a deep awareness of my lack, and be overcome by it. My fears and failures demand attention….and then I realize that God is more relentless than my fear or my laziness, or my uncertainty.

 

God simply will not be overshadowed.

 

Every year, every where we go, God is proclaimed. Maybe it is covered over with too much fluff, and He is made too safe. Maybe the Gospel is a bit softened by the Ho, Ho, Ho’s. Maybe it is a little confusing…and yet, it is still relentless.

 

Beginning in November the stores start proclaiming: Christmas is coming. Maybe they are not aware, but they are also proclaiming: Christ has come.

 

The songs start playing the decorations go up, all around us. The parties start being planned, the gifts being wished for and listed, the food starts being prepared. The performances being. The familiar choruses begin being sung on Sunday mornings.

 

Relentless reminders:  Emmanuel. God has come.

 

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.  Luke 2:6-7

 

Every year, no matter the failures or the frustrations, no matter the fears or the angers, no matter the weaknesses on my part…God reminds me He came. I may not make it through the whole Advent season with focused intent and awareness, I may not even make it through with a clean house and presents bought on time. Doesn’t matter.

 

God came.

 

Grace.

 

Wonder.

Hope.

 

Peace.

 

Joy.

 

Love.

 

No matter how your Advent season has progressed,  the reminders are all around us. We can soften them with our trivialities, or be overwhelmed by the demands of the season…but the reminders still stand. Relentless. God keeps reminding us He is near.  Underlying all the decorations and Ho, Ho, Ho’s…the reality that the God of the Universe came. That is staggering, and even though we may be so familiar we shrug off the reality…He keeps tapping us on the shoulder each Christmas season. There is a deep truth that underlies all the decorations, and it is amazing.

 

I am so thankful He is relentless.

 

Buechner sums it up this way, from Whistling in the Dark:

 

Christmas itself is by grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depredations otherwise. It could never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try to tame it. We have tried to make it habitable. We have roofed it in and furnished it. We have reduced it to an occasion we feel at home with, at best a touching and beautiful occasion, at worst a trite and cloying one. But if the Christmas event in itself is indeed—as a matter of cold, hard fact—all it’s cracked up to be, then even at best our efforts are misleading.

The Word become flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not touching. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light. Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space/time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God . . . who for us and for our salvation,” as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.”

Came down. Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see. It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms. It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast.

 

 

From Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God, Jill Phillips singing Labor of Love:

 

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Oh Lord, Widen My Imagination This Monday Morning…

Distracted. 

The weekend has worn me out, along with the three-day-old headache. Mondays following a travel hockey weekend always feel distracted. The need to get my footing back in line with the normal routine.

December is not normal, though.

December is laced with wonder, alongside the stress of holiday preparations. They seem to compete through the month. It is difficult to maintain imagination and wonder when you are stressing about holiday events, food planning and parties. These things which should add to our wonder sometimes, well, wear us out.

So. Advent.

Yep, again, the season of Advent tries to quietly draw us in to something different. Something more centered in peace and allowing the space to as fully as possible grasp the reality that God is with us.

The holiday season of culture is filled with noise. There is delight and fun, but oh my soul is it noisy.

Looking outside the sky is grey today and there is a stillness that is trying to get my attention. Trying to get through the distractions and settle my soul in to listen.

Advent does not yell and force our attention. We have to be quiet enough to listen and pay attention.

That is difficult on Monday mornings with pounding headaches  and dirty dishes, running out the door to the next appointment. Still, even there…there is space for quiet. For imagination. For Advent.

Stretch a little today. Stop the noise and turn your attention to the need we have for a savior. The need we have for redemption and rescue. Turn your heart toward what Mary might have been thinking and experiencing. Turn your heart toward the wonder of Advent.

“A Widening of the Imagination

“It came to me, recently, that faith is “a certain widening of the imagination.” When Mary asked the Angel, “How shall these things be?” she was asking God to widen her imagination.

All my life I have been requesting the same thing-a baptized imagination that has a wide enough faith to see the numinous in the ordinary. Without discarding reason, or analysis, I seek from my Muse, the Holy Spirit, images that will open up reality and pull me in to its center.

This is the benison of the sacramental view of life.”

Luci Shaw