All posts by Rod White

The hush: Tasers and John Doe Graves

The Mission, , , , , , ,

I’m glad I am not the only worried one. The national media wandered into a couple of territories with which I am familiar recently: Citizen’s Bank Park and Imperial Valley, CA. They told some disturbing, important truths about where our country is headed.

Tasers at the Phillies

Jacob and I were at the Phillies game when the teenager got tasered by the Philadelphia policeman. A hush fell over the crowd where I was, followed by boos. I don’t think any of us knew quite what to think as we saw the kid fall on the ground. Although Gov Rendell thinks it should not have happened, the polls seem to be going in favor of tasering trespassers. People seem to just be happy the authorities are tasering instead of shooting bullets!

It makes more sense than ever why my youngest friends are so hesitant to speak up about being a Christian among their friends and workmates. The last ten years have seen a steady erosion in the respect for people who express a “suspicious” mentality. Running around on a baseball field is hardly defense-worthy self-expression, but watching someone getting tasered for doing so sends a message: the powers that be can stop you and stop you hard. I kind of wish all the seventeen-year-olds in the stands had rushed the field and run around in protest. But, as it is, I think people digested the message that the police are prepared to do what it takes to keep us in line. We are all terrorists until proven innocent. If you suddenly bring up a picture of Jesus being questioned by Pilate in your mind, I think that might be appropriate.

Immigrants buried in the desert

Another story someone mentioned to me makes me understand a bit more about how hard-hearted our government is prepared to be. Something has been happening along the southern border of my old home state, California. Had I found a way to do it, I really wanted to get involved in calling for justice and love at the center of the immigration debate in neighboring Arizona by trekking with some people at the end of May along the “migrant trail.”   Out in the desert, desperate people too often die trying to get to some work in the U.S. CBS had a segment on 60 Minutes about drownings in the All American Canal which was even more appalling to view than the tasering.

After about 16 years of the government burying victims in Imperial County, CBS said something about it.  The fence the government put up in the urbanized areas nearer San Diego works. It sends people out into the desert to cross the border, where they meet up with the All American Canal – a swift-moving aqueduct bringing Colorado River water to San Diego. It is like a moat for California. The canal has no escape devices for people who fall in or dive in.  Scores have died. The Imperial County officials seem to think that if you are doing this illegal thing, you should die. There is a growing collection of graves for unknown drowning victims. It is horrifying how willing the populace is to accept the deaths of foolish and desperate people in the All American Canal, and the whole Sonora desert.

The incident at the ball park and the militarization of the border are both examples of how we are all being tempted to accept our government’s commitment to violence as the best way to solve problems. I don’t want to be silently complicit as the culture develops in that direction.

We, as the members of the Lord’s body, as the light of the world, are the alternative to the evils of the world. We should not be so threatened that we make our cell meetings a secret we fearfully hide lest someone make us illegal. The new humanity is built by obedient followers of Jesus who don’t care if telling the truth about evil puts them at odds with the same fearmongers who killed Jesus in the name of national security,

Meeting Fatigue: Change your mind and change your schedule

A life in the Spirit, Leadership, ,

One of my friends told me, last night (at the public meeting), that he wasn’t at a meeting we had mutually agreed to attend because he’d “had enough Circle of Hope meetings” that week. I thought his decision seemed pretty realistic. But it was also true that he had also counted a birthday party, a personal conversation with someone with whom he was working out conflict and dinner with friends one night as “meetings,” as well.

It can be pretty discouraging when your life turns into a series of meetings! When a toddler’s birthday party turns into a “church meeting” and puts you over your meeting ration for the week, I think a new conception might be in order.

The syndrome called “meeting fatigue”

Perhaps we need a new psychological term for this syndrome (maybe there is one — yep, found a lot a few years later): meeting fatigue. The symptoms might be:

  1. the inability to say no to a social event,
  2. the inability to talk to your loved ones about why it is you are not going to attend the first-birthday party or the game night,
  3. the inability to find one’s date book and strategize the use of one’s time.

I think I know quite a few people with meeting fatigue among Circle of Hope. If it weren’t for being part of the church, they would not feel obligated to spend so much time in marginally useful or satisfying meetings. The basic meeting structure of our church is pretty simple: 1) connect and worship on Sunday, 2) be part of a more intimate cell. That’s it. The rest is purely voluntary. But once people get connected, they can be included in many other social and missional enterprises. Incrementally, they can end up attending brunch every weekend, countless birthday parties, baby showers, weddings, move-ins, protests, team meetings, concerts,  and who knows what else? One’s function in the body can seem like it is happening in an endless series of meetings.

There is a way out: change your mind

Like many psychological issues, change can happen when one’s mind changes. I am not a picture of mental health, but I don’t feel obligated to attend my life as if it were a meeting. For instance, I am going to see the Phillies whup the Cardinals tonight with Jacob. It is not a meeting. I was actually at the public meeting in Camden last night, but I saw it more as an opportunity to connect and serve, not as a mere meeting I was obligated to attend, lest I get into trouble (I suppose there would have been some kind of trouble if I’d stayed home to watch my Netflix and didn’t offer the speech I’d prepared, but you get my meaning).

I often want to say to someone (and sometimes I do say to someone) who feels burned out on meetings, “Get over yourself. The world is not revolving around you. You are not being spread too thin or stretched in a million directions, like you are a finite piece of wonder everyone wants a piece of.” But that sounds kind of mean, doesn’t it? And I don’t always have the right to be so blunt. More often I say, “If you are that worn out, I give you personal permission to not come to any meeting I’ve organized. You’ll probably just be a drain on it anyway because you’ll feel rebellious about sharing our love the whole time we are giving it to you.” But that’s kind of angry sounding and I don’t always feel it will be heard in the right spirit. So I have most often said, “Let’s go over your schedule together and see what can be adjusted. It looks like you have too much to do.” That isn’t always so well-received, either, but it might be the most useful help I can offer.

I think we rarely have a time issue as much as we have a strategy issue. We don’t know why we are doing what we are doing. And if we do know why, our issue might be a lack of courage to organize ourselves and do what we’ve decided. It is a lot easier to be mad at someone else for making us do something we don’t feel good about than doing what we think we ought to do and letting the results be what they are. It is worth considering: What toddler needs you at their party if you are contributing your “obligation” to them? Spare them.

Suggestions for what to do about your apparent  fatigue

When I am done being angry and reactive to people who are in meetings with me with their love hidden under their resentment and their passion muted by their rebellion, I can have more sympathy for the psychological state they are in. They need a new conception. If one sees their life as 50-60 hours of work with night classes tagged on, getting kids to school, being at their mother’s birthday party and then “going to” church, it can begin to feel like an unmanageable mess, like I must have “meeting fatigue.” When does one mow the lawn? Much more, when does one sit down to plan the schedule? My father used to call it a “rat race.”

I have one small suggestion for anyone with meeting fatigue. Forget all the other meetings until you get the most important one set. Have a daily meeting with God at the beginning of the day. Get up as early as it takes to do this, even you are tired for the rest of the day, until you get used to having this “meeting.” Learn how the Lord sees your day ahead. Take your planner with you and let Him start sorting it out with you. I think God can offer a conception for what is happening that will work for you. Plus, I think He’ll build up the strength you need to do what makes sense rather than being pushed around by nonsense. Most of all, I think he’ll deepen your love so, no matter what is going on, you’ll be bringing something from Him to it.

Brokenness: Does peace precede or follow rebellion?

A life in the Spirit, , , ,
Sometimes I feel like a Buick on a broken road

I have been pondering a quote from Gene Edwards in Celtic Daily Prayer for the last few days. It is about being broken. I took the word “broken” to mean being “useless,” like being broken down at the side of the road, or being broken off from the vine, like Jesus warns us not to be.

Is it possible to know if there is true brokenness in a man? [sic – sorry women] I think so.
Such a man is not in rebellion toward anything:
1) nothing in his circumstances,
2) nothing that has to do with what other people inflict upon him,
3) and certainly not anything that God chooses to lay within his life.
He is at peace in all three circumstances.

Not rebellious?

Edwards says that the broken man is not rebellious. He is at peace with his circumstances, not rebelling against what other people do to him and certainly not rebelling against what God has brought to him.

As a result of pondering this, I have been feeling more rebellious.

  • I recognize that I have felt constrained by those who have adapted to my appalling circumstances to be as quiet as they are about what is appalling: gun proliferation, casinos, unbridled greed, the unjust justice system, horrible school leadership, rampant immorality, weak Christian leaders, my own laziness and lack of humble service, the list goes on.
  • I have been pondering what I have not dared to rebel against in what other people are teaching me through what they do or don’t do as my friend or comrade in covenant — when the price of their love is faithlessness, I need to rebel.
  • I also realized that I really need to listen to what God is asking of me. I don’t think I am really listening unless something in me needs to change, which inevitably causes me to rebel, at least initially. I have been reminded of James 4:4 – “Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”

If something in us is not rebelling against the oppression of sin and death in the world, in our relationships, between us and God, we must be broken. If we are alive and operating, we are inevitably struggling against something.

Or needing brokenness?

At least that is how I was reading Edwards quote until I went back to revisit it again. I think I actually may have read it the opposite way from what was intended!

Is it possible to know if there is true brokenness in a man? [sic – sorry women] I think so.
Such a man is not in rebellion toward anything:
1) nothing in his circumstances,
2) nothing that has to do with what other people inflict upon him,
3) and certainly not anything that God chooses to lay within his life.
He is at peace in all three circumstances.

I think I have never really understood seeking “brokenness.” I suppose I understand the feeling of brokenness so innately that I don’t relate to being rebellious against God and needing to be broken. This may be a spiritual disadvantage, since it seems that so many people are having a perpetual negotiation with God about whether they want to be saved! One of our teams often offers a song during worship about “longing” for brokenness because they need it. Or maybe I don’t know this brokenness as well as I think I do, and I am hanging on to a lot of rebellion I need to get rid of!

What Edwards was really trying to say is that a person who has accepted his or her life from God and has chosen to trust the Lord in every circumstance no longer needs to fight what is going on as if they need to conquer it and control it. For a broken person, rebellion against the circumstances has lost its importance. Such rebellion no longer creates an identity or demonstrates value. Rebellion no longer means survival or shows power. A former rebel has inner peace, even if the world is raging in rebellion around her.

Or is it both?

As it turns out I think my original and my more accurate interpretations are “right.” In my case, I think the truth Edwards really meant to convey is the place to start. The love of Christ has broken our resistance. Resistance is futile. A life of trust is the only true option. To a large degree, I think I am experiencing the brokenness he prescribes; that’s where I met Jesus. But I hardly think a person can stay in a perpetual aspiration for brokenness.

If followers live in such peace with God, it means they will become well-known rebels in the world. Jesus has peace in his circumstances — he is peace; but everyone knows he is a rebel. He was killed as one. Jesus is at peace in any social setting, but when he shows up in one, his peace upends them. Even when Jesus is absorbing what people inflict on him, it is to the end of utter transformation. And though he ultimately does whatever his Father asks, it is not without exasperation and struggle. The peace that comes with our brokenness is, by its nature, a rebellion against what is broken.

It is always a little shocking to find out you saw something completely different than what was intended. But then, maybe not.

Partnership

The Mission

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now…Philippians 1:3-5

When I first parachuted into Philadelphia, my conviction was that I was sent to catalyze a group of partners who were already in town and build the next generation of the church for the next generation of the megalopolis. I found them. To be honest, it was a little shocking to see my conviction come to fruit. I don’t mind tilting at windmills, and thought I’d keep doing just that. Instead, I saw God make Circle of Hope like the wind of the Spirit was blowing away the detritus and revealing something that had always been there, waiting to be realized.

Do it again, Lord

Lately, the leaders of Circle of Hope have discovered we are a whole new church. What we need to do is do it again. To express heart all that Circle of Hope has become: 50-plus cells, almost four congregations, mission teams large and small, we need to find the partners the Lord is touching. Those people are the next people can see the possibilities inherent in  who God has made us and take hold of the vision of what He would like to do. We need to welcome them in and catalyze the next 600.

I’ve always liked the word “partner” to describe the relationship I have with people who have been plucked from nowhere with me by the story of Jesus. What we end up doing together is so much like being dance partners: moving together to the music of God. How we end up moving so often begins like the Jr. High dances I remember so well: full of anticipation, fear, awkwardness and thrill. Coming together and moving together for a common good given by God is being truly alive.

Make more koinonia

The word “partnership” in the NIV translation of  Philippians, above, could have been translated “dance moves,” I suppose. It is trying to make sense of the rich Greek word “koinonia.”

A few years ago, it became popular to just use the word koinonia without translating it at all. That might be the best idea, since the idea of it is often too rich to sum up in English. In the various translations of these few sentences of Paul’s letter to the dancers in Philippi, the translation leans two appropriate ways.

  • On the one hand, some translators lean toward the “being” side of koinonia — like when Jesus says “good trees bear good fruit,” they lean it toward being good trees. Thus Paul is thankful for who they are together, their partnership, fellowship, communion, and sharing in the gospel.
  • Others lean the translation toward the “doing” side, the bearing of good fruit. So Paul is grateful for what they do do together, their participation, sympathetic cooperation, help, contribution and collaboration in the gospel.

I have always been interested in this interplay between being and doing. The monastic discipline organized the day around contemplation and action from the earliest times to get a handle on it. It is like a dance.

A broken creation that is spirit and flesh needs to keep practicing that dance. Circle of Hope (a good tree) and its mission (to bear good fruit) is a way to work out that ancient discipline in the Philadelphia region. I am amazed at how we are doing it! At this point, we have made room for many more partners and we have been given a vision that requires them. If we resemble a Jr. High dance when we get all those people to move together, that’s OK.

Pray and Not Faint…again

A life in the Spirit, , , ,

This morning, I woke up to one of those dreams with a cast of thousands. Gwen and I were going to some show at some stadium and I had a part in it. But I had forgotten my script in the room, so I went dashing back to get it. Halfway to the room I realized I had no keys and no time to get back to Gwen and no cell phone to call her and no idea where I was and no one would help me for various reasons, etc. It was a good, frustrating dream about anxieties and inabilities trying to find a way to the surface to be redeemed. It was a good post-Lent dream about facing the possibilities that were uncovered during the long season of turning toward death and leaning into life.

Pray with abandon

As I meditated on the dream, I remembered a blog post I wrote last September about being reminded to “Pray and not faint” (Luke 18:1 KJV). I translated the word of the Lord to me as, “If you come up against the impossible, my friends, pray with abandon.”

Generally, I have been pretty successful at listening to that word and doing it since then. I not only did not faint, I think I got better at praying. The most immediate results were that I grew up some more, I faced some more fears, I reconciled more relationships, I withstood some major meltdowns among my intimates and God built some new capacity in me and the church.

Now, as my dream seems to indicate, it is back to square one – time to face the next big things and the big societal things (that did not pray with me) and not faint…again. It is time to take a few more little chunks out of the hide of the monsters that we are all facing. Joshua and I were talking about a few of them yesterday when we met, and they are still much like what I was noting last year…

Faced with fainting again

“Some days I feel surrounded by a spirit of disengagement. It’ s not that everyone is possessed by it, of course, but so many of us seem to be trying to survive by keeping away from threatening or even challenging people, by hiding from the overwhelming facts of gigantic governments and corporations fighting for power, by avoiding enormous info machines dominating communication, incomprehensible food production and invasive medical care turning us into things we can’t imagine. In my neighborhood, people try to turn a blind eye to the constant threat that the thousands of guns littering the zip code will be used when the thin fabric of community finally tears.”

Post Lent, it is always tempting to keep eating chocolate, to return to the bad habits we gave up for Jesus (or at least for Lent), to let our spiritual belts out a few notches and to re-insulate ourselves with the fat of the false promises which dissipation offers us as a substitute for being truly safe and happy. It is tempting to go back into some numbing habit that puts us into a stupor of avoidance rather than pray.

I feel blessed today that my interpretation of my dream is like an alarm bell – a stupor alert. Jesus ended his word to his disciples with,

“Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:7-8)

Rather than sinking into the frustrations of my inabilities churning around in my unconscious or cowering in the face of the monstrosities of my time, I need to pray with abandon. I need to trust the Lord and be found trustworthy. I need to pray and not faint…again.

Being a WE as the BIC

Doing Theology, The Mission, ,

Saturday, Scot McKnight spoke to the Atlantic Conference of the Brethren in Christ. It was a good, engaging couple of speeches based on The Jesus Creed. I was glad to meet one of my FB friends face to face.

Here’s the “Jesus creed” from Mark 12:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of  all  the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: `Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ` Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Love God, love others. Simple. Scot had a good word. I was happy to be there. But he should not have spoken at our Regional Conference. The conference should have been about the voices of the conferees.

We need our own voice

First, I’ve got a feeling that the bishop might have been able to buy us all a copy of the Jesus Creed for the cost of the speeches. I did not check to see what Scot costs. But on Amazon, the book costs about $10 — I guess about 200 of us were there – that’s about $2000. I found Scott engaging, humorous, inspiring; but couldn’t we have received that without losing our regional conference time? — he has DVDs, study guides, the whole thing. Warren Hoffman is not as famous, but his speech was much more relevant and much more worthy of my trip from Philadelphia. Even more, I was happy to hear from the three or so people who had the temerity to squeeze themselves into the brief time allowed for any dialogue our conference might need to have.

There may be more strategy behind the meeting than I understand. I just have a small point: the conference should be about conferring. It seems to me that when I go to a conference of my fellow churches, or when the local church has a meeting to discern and approve our mission, the people I need to hear from are my leaders and they need to hear from me. If we do not have any business to conduct or if the wisdom of the delegates is too irrelevant to consider, we don’t need to have the meeting at all. At the meeting of the Atlantic Conference on Saturday, we ceremoniously seated our Moderator as a member (though not his wife). We did not seat Scot McKnight and he took up all the time! I wonder.

There was no WE in the speech

Perhaps my problems stem from the general interpretative place Scott was coming from as he taught us. He had a good Baptist viewpoint, it seems to me. It was all about how God and I relate and then how I relate to others. The problem is that the speech was happening in a conference of a people (among a “brethren”) who are a WE, not merely an aggregate of “I’s.” I’m sure Scott could have extrapolated the point, but the point about how WE love the Lord and others wasn’t the point because WE has become a non-point.

One of the geniuses of the Brethren in Christ is to be such a WE that we keep “brethren” in our name. In a day when virtuality keeps teenagers holed up in their rooms and violence keeps kids in my neighborhood locked in their houses, in which young soldiers are taught to kill people in Afghanistan by operating drones thousands of miles away, we can offer the radical alternative of being a real-time community. I speak up because I think we are allowing one of the most important things we, as the BIC, are given to offer to be eroded and conformed to the godless practices that are diminishing the impact of Christ on this generation. The regional conference is a symbol of our community, a discipline of dialogue, a practice of mutual respect and togetherness. At best it helps form what Owen Alderfer called the “brethren mindset.” If we can nurture that WE-ness it can help us bring the gospel to our time.

Tonight, we of the Circle of Hope, will be listening to Jesus teach his creed in the Temple as he enters his last week. He will be doing it in the midst of the disciples he has gathered, as a WE. And he will be doing it with US, who have become part of the community of disciples he continues to form. We’ll be having a meeting with him, and elemental to what we do will be speaking the truth in love so we can be it and others can see it happen in us.

Prayer for Recognition

Poetry,

The atmosphere pulses with your glory.
We praise you for the moments,
the moments we awake and breathe in newness.

The whole world feels spring rushing up.
We praise you for the daffodils,
the flowers that bloom with snowless joy.

Our winter was too long.
The snow was too deep.
We were not sure it would melt.
The despair had caught us.

And the atmosphere groans with your hidden glory.
We praise you for the moments,
the moments we can bear to enter it.

Very few feel the suffering behind the bloom.
We praise you for your humility,
the food that feeds the flower, the fire that melts.

Your winter is long.
The snow is still so deep.
So many lives frozen in the drifts –
the despair is caught in your throat.

May your tears wake me up
as they water the earth.
May I not turn away
from the cost of a daffodil,
and not hollow out joy
by refusing to suffer love.

Devising Ways for Reconciliation

Building community, , ,

Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die.
But God does not take away life;
instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.
2 Samuel 14

I was happy to speak to a great “audience” on Sunday at the Madison Street Church. One of their great gifts to the world is to accept someone as they are and envelope them  in their long love for each other. I was happy to have been there at the beginning of that love and to still be included, though living far from the wind-swept skies of California.

Pains and losses of long loves

I had a great weekend. The weather was spectacular; the celebration was moving; the time for renewed friendship was precious. But lurking in the background of the joy and love was the pain and losses of long lives, long loves and long mission. The same background was threaded through the scripture I used for my Sunday message. I am still pondering the reality.

I am especially interested in how hard it was for David to let go of his losses and let Absalom return to the kingdom. He lost the integrity of his family when his son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar. He lost his son Amnon to murder. He lost his son Absalom to banishment. He would not let go of his losses and let Absalom return, even though his holding on to them created new loss, as he continually mourned the absence of his son.

Do you unconsciously hold on to your loss, sometimes, like I do? It is like we feel it would be unjust of us to not hold on to the losses we carry – the lost virginity, the lost integrity, the lost love, the lost health, the lost opportunity, the lost years. We own our losses them like they form our identity. Our lives can be so threaded with what we’ve lost, the feelings twine around our hearts and strangle us.

Lost friendships

I am especially thinking about the lost friendships that weigh on us. I was in my home town this weekend and I couldn’t help but feel sorry about the dear friends of our youth that we couldn’t even locate anymore. And I couldn’t help but hear about the losses incurred among families and between parents and children. The scripture above implies that such feelings are inevitable, since we are like spilled water on the ground. What has happened has happened. Our life is moving to death, so every day has some death in it.

But since we have God on our side we have life to hold on to. I have often experienced him breaking the hold of loss on me that I am holding on to. We know so well that in Jesus God brings us eternal life. Grasping that in the middle of our dying is the secret to our joy in Christ, isn’t it? Especially when it comes to the losses we experience in our relationships, we really need to go with God’s eternal strategy and devise ways for loves that can be renewed to be renewed. If the banished can return, we need to help with the process, not just mourn. God has gone to great lengths to reverse my self-banishment. I need to follow his example. Whether I have been so hurt I banished someone, or I hurt someone so badly they banished themselves, or whether we were both just stupid and we got unwittingly banished, I need to devise a way to reconciliation. What’s more, for all the people who are self-banished from God, I need to work with Jesus on God’s great plan for reconciliation.

It is a season of reconciliation among the Circle of Hope. I have been glad to see hearts softening and banishments ended. I doubt we will get it all done during Lent. Some people have been driven far away from us and from God. Some devices will be hard to invent and harder to implement. It could take years. But if we are close to the heart of God, I don’t see how own hearts would become adept at much that is better than strategizing for reconciliation.

A Chance to Submit to the Past

Psychological growth,

  And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
      “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
      Then the angel of the LORD told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.”… Genesis 16:8ff

I am moved to take Circle of Hope’s reading for this day of Lent another direction. I am tempted to run away from my “mistress.” Maybe you are too.

My “mistress” this week is the past. I am going to California at the end of the week to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Riverside Brethren/Madison Street Church. The Sierra St. Household planted it, and I was the pastor. It is not that I don’t want to go, don’t want to see people, or don’t think it will be a lot of fun. It’s just that I am sort of a “right now” person and I am faced with the need to look into the past. Like Hagar, I am getting asked “Where have you come from?”

Today, it is like that question has finally caught up with me, and I don’t have a much better answer than Hagar: “Well, I guess I am running away.” Hagar actually had a pretty good reason to take off. My reasons for moving on were more developmental than because someone was abusing me. I felt a call to move into what I needed to do next. I’m generally better with the question, “And where are you going?”

But pondering the past has merit, if for no other reason than because the Lord has used it as a field in which to plant the present. Generally, my memories of my 20’s and 30’s in Riverside come mostly in golden tones. I learned a lot and did a lot with people who loved me and loved God. That’s enough. But taking a good look again, as I am doing today as I prepare to go, also digs up the seeds that never sprouted, causes me to run into the stumps that weren’t removed and threatens me with a couple of leftover land mines, too.

Go back to your mistress and submit to her.

Right now, I am hearing God’s command and promise to Hagar as something relevant for me, too.

“Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The past doesn’t own me, but running away from it gives whatever might be harmful in it even more power. It will do me good to submit to it. Even the parts I might like to get away from, I can fearlessly look at with Jesus by my side. How about you?

I think the promise is true for me, too: “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.” I don’t think that means literal grandchildren for me – I have enough to keep up with, as it is! But I do think it means I have some fruitfulness that will come from being submissive to my past, in the sense that I need to listen to what it teaches me, and celebrate what God has grown from it. Is the angel moving you that way too?

Expecting Daffodils

Poetry,

Gwen and I often share “psalms” with one another. She appreciated my little, Lenten, snow-day meditation, so I thought you might be able to use it, too.

When trouble comes, I will persist
in looking for a sprouting crocus.
I will stubbornly listen
for a bird singing in the cold.

And yes, I will feel a bit guilty.
I will stand before the sadness tribunal
and be judged out of order.
I will be questioned by the magistrate of misery
and have no answer for my happiness.
The logic of the law of the land will cry out
and I will again feel a bit crazy.

But You have the words of eternal life.
And though tempted by death at times,
you provide a ram.
Though slipping from my tight rope,
you catch me in your net.
Though today seems impossible,
you will come again.

I am surprised that trouble surprises me
as I am watching for daffodils.
I am absurdly unprepared
for anything but salvation.