18. Two new pairs of jeans, my size, my length. Free.
19. A sermon that only capped the mountain of my current weaknesses. It is working its way more deeply in.
20. A car. A 1999 Honda Civic, standard, grey.
21. A friend who drove me to get it, to register it; who listens to me ramble, about nothing.
22. Another friend who test drove it and put a deposit on it in my absence.
23. Companionable silence and conversation happening in our living room currently.
24. Reaching near the end of the root vegetables in our lower cabinet, which can only mean one thing: that winter is almost over and spring is almost here (or that we are a household of poor girls).
25. A new Bible that doesn't feel like mine yet, but will. But will.
26. Roommates who chip away at vision, putting one foot in front of the other toward the deep things inside.
27. An afghan in progress, named Sunshine on a Rainy Day, and aptly so.
28. When we're all being creative in our living room.
29. Meeting people who surprise me with their niceness and bless me with their candidness.
30. Realizing that this year will mark ten years since a lot of really hard things.
31. Being okay with that.
32. Inexplicable love for some people, even when I still won't share their chapstick.
33. The decision to infuse our office with faith, starting tomorrow. We will write it in black magic marker on the walls if necessary. We will post-it note on our foreheads. We will make it our desktop wallpaper. We will remind one another. We are going to be Nazi-like with our faith.

I wish I had enough money to:

Buy a house for them.
Settle all her debts.
Get him to a doctor who can tell him what's wrong with his insides.
Finance his home ministry.
Fix her car.
Pay her credit card.
Give them a couple hundred, just to get them through the next month.

I am thinking, constantly these days, of ways I can cut back. Cheat my budget of all inessentials: cell phone, eating out, even coffee on occasion, new clothes. What else? What else can I do without because I want to know the sacrifice of giving to other people, instead of just giving to a broken down car or 400 unused cell phone minutes a month or a closet full of clothes that I might like, but don't need.

An unusual post, to be sure, but what I am saying today nonetheless.

I drove home in tears, sobs that shook my shoulders and the black abundance of my heart in my mouth.

Paul asks, "Who will bring a charge against my Elect?" and it is me. I charged Him with not providing, with not giving, with taking away, with leaving my heart out in the cold and not meeting my expectations. I pulled the car over, thinking only of John 14, "If you cannot believe in me, believe on the evidence of me." If you can't believe in a God, believe on the miracles, believe in what you can see, believe on the tangible. And so I pray for a miracle. I, who pride myself on belief in an unseen God, on an invisible Savior--I asked for bread and expected bread, I asked for fish and expected fish. I needed it.

A few years ago I taught a class on Miriam and the things we say, how the deep recesses of our hearts are revealed by the tongue. And the revelations of my heart this week have sickened me; all the charges against God that have been sitting in the murky depths of my heart. On the surface my heart is consistent and congenial, but one upset of that still water plunges into depths of ungratefulness, fear, doubt, and resentment.

There are multiple reasons the past few weeks for me to shake my fist at God, to kick my tires and sneer at the Goodness of God. And I won't deny that I've taken advantage of the pummeling to do my share of sneering. This is Your provision? This is your reward? This?

In that class I taught I recommended the blog of someone I admire, Ann Voskamp, someone who takes the weight of life off her shoulders, gives it to an invisible God in the form of gratefulness. Someone who releases fear by the admission of thanksgiving. Someone who might very well struggle with belief in an unseen God at times, but who gathers the miracles and numbers them weekly, sometimes daily, reaching into the thousands with her nuggets of evidence.

A friend says to me on the phone the other night, "I wish I knew who the best Christian in the world was. I wish I knew so I could just go sit at their feet, watch them, learn from them." Ann springs to my mind--because I think the best Christian in the world might just be the best child in the world, and a good child is one who expects goodness from her parent and lines her blessings up like the treasures they are. So today I am lining, a small pile of goodness because I am not the best Christian in the world and I need the proof, the evidence sometimes. I need a provider.

Things I'm grateful for:

1. This song.
2. A friend who stood by me in church on Sunday, who cradled a baby with one arm, had a two year by her side and a weeping me into her shoulder.
3. My co-worker and best friend, who's lent me her car more times in the past two weeks than, well, even a best friend should do.
4. My roommates and our cozy, winter home, with tea every night and coffee every morning, and piles of books and conversation.
5. The possibility of a new car--and being finished with car shopping with the hopes that I will never have to do this again. (Allow me some naivety, please.)
6. Two brothers who are serving in the military--while I hate the thought of war and guns and violence, I'm proud of my soldiers who are willing to serve.
7. The Potsdam site that our church is starting in August.
8. A February that is just like every February with lingering snow, cold temperatures, early nights, hope for what's around the corner.
9. A February that gave me four (4!) brothers over the past 31 years. Yeah, 31. Can I possibly have a brother that old?
10. RSS feeds that show the whole post.
10b. And for that matter, blogs that have many, many posts on their page instead of having to click "older posts" a million times.
11. Ideas for making Christmas presents already (got to get started).
12. The fact that in March it will start to warm up, and that means we get to start using our awesome, huge upstairs room!
13. Tea with friends, snuggled under blankets, watching a good movie last night.
14. An awesome family--regardless of divorce, death, hurt, distance--my family is great and I love them.
15. My almost-sister-in-law teaching me how to crochet.
15b. Crocheting anything I can get my hands on, making up stitches and patterns. Loving it.
16. A friend who lets me cry in her van, be honest about faith and doubt, and who yells at me because I need it.
17. Her boys. Who are my favorite boys in the world. The world.

I was coming to the coffee shop to blog about hope and faith too. I was coming to get the weight of words off my heart and put some order to them. I was coming to straighten out the floating ideas. In the same way about a month ago I was driving home from Florida and ended up spending the night in a 24 hour McDonalds, courtesy of a state trooper and an insistent father and a supposed blown head-gasket. I have plans and they are changed. Like today. Suffice it to say that the adventure of a few minutes ago includes a tire falling off, an airbag deployed, and a passerby who kindly informed me that my car probably wasn't worth getting fixed anyway.

Thank you.

Thank you, I know that I have an 18 year old car, that kids in drivers-ed are younger than my car. Thank you, I know that my car has cost me far more than it's been worth since I bought it three years ago. Thank you, I know that the events of the past few months concerning said car should probably have given me the slightest clue that regardless of a mere 130,000 miles on a Honda that will run for another 100,000 based on the engine alone, I should probably have given up on her six months ago. Regardless of all her sage green goodness that everyone thinks suits me well--some books may be judged by the cover, but this is not usually recommended when it comes to vehicles.

Thank you. I know that I pride myself on just getting by and thrift stores and making do with scraps and leftovers because it makes me feel creative and useful. Thank you, I know that Christ came to give us life abundant, but I'll stay as far from indulgent as possible. Thank you, I'll take the the employment that pays peanuts for the trade-off environment. Thank you, I'm very happy with hand me downs and give aways and cheap cars with good gas mileage and endless cups of coffee and repurposing and things that are cool like that. No really, kindly passerby, don't judge my worth on the worth of my car.

That's only for me to do, thank you very much.

Because I'll tell you, dear reader, when you grow so accustomed to just making do that you always come up short and one day you find yourself with a fat lip from an airbag and a tow truck guy who tells you that "Probly bend your fender when we pull it on the flatbed, just so you know, you'll have to get that fixed too...if they don't total it already..." Dear reader, you begin to wonder if bad things happen to good people because you're worth as much as the bad things that happen.

And, I know, I know, that that isn't true. That there isn't even an ounce of truth in that statement--but the wondering doesn't stop. It doesn't. And it doesn't stop because there's just life and life hits hard sometimes. For some more than others.

A friend once exclaimed to me, "Lor, you're always in the middle of scrapes and situations!" Which is ironic, because I love peace and loathe drama so much. But for some reason, it's true. I don't know how to end this on a happy note and if only you knew, dear reader, how my drafts folder is just piling up recently with things that don't end on a happy note and so I deem unworthy of posting here on this page. But I'm posting it anyway--not for pity, but for prayer. If you have time and inclination. I could use the prayer.

So could my car.

I practice my Spanish grammar, rolling words over my tongue, la nieve se fundirá, la nieve se funde, la nieve se has fundido: the snow will melt, the snow is melting, the snow has melted because I wish for it to be so.

It still sprawls over hills and low slung valleys, but we who are looking see last Summer's leftovers ringing around tree bottoms and lining the roads. We see cupfuls of salt left in the streets, brought to the floor by its melting adversary. We see it because we are looking for it, and because we are discontent with leftovers of last year, because we are looking for the real thing. We don't want to get caught calling our Lord a mere gardener.

"Why are you weeping and Whom do you seek?"

Mary is me and I am she. Both of us looking desperately for some sign of life, some evidence of a promise spoken, both blinded by our expectations and what we do see. It's hard to see past the sprawling snow and the weak blades of brown grass right now. It's hard to feel Spring in the air and to not check the status of frozen, regressing river water. It's hard to see past the ratted clothes of a grounds-keeper and see the One we're looking for.

Because sometimes promises feel void, because three days feel like an eternity, and because stone tombs and winter blues feel like impossibilities.

But it doesn't change the promise--and that is what we cling to. We wait, like Mary, to hear our names with exclamation points at the end. We wait, like Mary, to hear His words and not just His voice. Because His voice feels crowded sometimes, pedestrian and plain. His voice sounds hollow sometimes, rhetorical and placating. But His words, speaking our names, this is how we know.

"Mary!"
"Rabboni!"

And we answer, in spite of it all. Because we who are looking see past.

Reposted from March 2008.

Some of the stickiness that I'm experiencing isn't all bad, just so you know. Right now I'm so stuck in Jeremiah that my bible falls open there of its own accord. Last night I'm rereading chapter 15. I'm stuck on this recently:

If you return, then I will restore you--
Before Me you will stand;
and if you extract the precious from the worthless,
you will become My spokesman.
They for their part may turn to you,
but as for you, you must not turn to them

I'm stuck there for purely selfish reasons, I'll admit. I'm trying to look at what seems (feels, is, might be) worthless and extract particles of precious. I'm wrote a poem a few years ago, The Alchemy of Happiness, a few lines pulse through me all today:

Wrought in the bowels of earth,
life veins surprised by progeny,
puddles of metal spooled into gold,
deeply in, heavily crowned

I'm wringing out the bowels of earth these days, picking my face up from the grindstone, making a conscious decision when it would be easier (faster, less painful, lazier) to just passively let earth pass me by. I'm looking for a surprise here, I'm waiting for a surprise, around the next corner if you please. Or not, if you don't.

There are a few notable Ifs in that verse above and I'm mindful of them, I am. I promise. I know the teetering edge on which I stand. Here's the If/Then, and here's another one, and then here's the outcome once you get your silly head out of the worthless and into the precious: you still have to extract, you still have to stand, you still have to not buckle. In other words, the pressure never ends. The alchemist never stops--we're always mixing and matching and trying and failing and never, never, never stopping until we get gold.

I think I have this concept that God gets easier, like college algebra and learning to read--the more we do, the easier it is. But I think I need a new concept, God is not easier, like nothing else I can even compare. He's just a deeper cave to mine.

Yesterday I got an email from a friend across the world; he asked for a blog post filled with excitement, life and a hope for the future. I'm asking for the same thing, though I'm hoping it manifests in my life before I put it in a blog post. But he's right for asking and I appreciate that. Today, from the stirrings of the morning until now, sitting on a friend of a friend's couch while they shop for dinner, I try to plan what this year could look like. Without my fettering, without my strings, without my school-debt, without my lease, without my fear: What does two-thousand-ten look like?

I voice it to my friend tonight, over coffee at The Fields. We're both near to tears and tears are near to us recently. I'm grateful for a friend who cries with those who cry. She says even my weeping brings her peace. For me, peace just comes from the partnership of sorrow. We're sharing this, this expectation, this fear, this hope, this life. We're doing it together and for that I'm grateful.

Someone said today that they are learning that it's not so much about doing, it's about grace and receiving and I agree with him, I do. But my sin is the sin of getting and never giving, receiving and never putting out. I stumble in fear. I read about the trees clapping their hands and hills breaking forth and I am reminded of the -ingness of the gospel. That ever moving, ever present, ever blowing spiritual wind. It's moving, it's breaking, it's clapping because it is its nature to do so. Stagnancy is not the sign of the redeemed.

I read over the email again, he's afraid of offending me with his challenges and forthrightness. But the only offense here is what I'm doing to the gospel by denying that it has the power to change 2009 The Year of Questions into 2010 The Year of Answers (Or At The Very Least Hope). I write back to him about the glimmer of Couldness, the flame of Possibility, it feels dim to me right now and it feels in question, but it is seen. To see is to hope. And to hope is to know. God help me know.

Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.

But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit."

The world is round at night, every crest beginning the long road back to where we are right now. When I was young I used to imagine digging a hole through the earth, I would finger the cardboard globe, estimating that I'd stick my head up through the dirt somewhere in Turkey and yell "Surprise!" Now I think less of digging through the world and just about traveling over it, which everyone knows will just lead you right back to where you started.

It's hard to not feel stuck these days. I say to her today that I'm afraid of opening my slip of paper on Sunday morning at our annual New Year service at church. I'm afraid to read what I wrote a year ago because I'm afraid not much has changed. I'm sure I prayed for vision, for a plan, to not feel so aimless, and for hope and a future. I'm sure that what I write on 2010's slip will read much the same. I'm a predictable sort. Too predictable.

It's no secret that I've been trying to make theology real in the past few months. Nebulous thoughts and things I previously ascribed to, I'm now really just trying to work out. I want what I believe to be realized and worked out in every fiber of me--not just a thesis I hand to whomever asks. It's changing the way I see people and it's changing the way I see Jesus, but it's not yet changing the way I see me. I'm confident that it will, but it seems that the more I see of Jesus and the more I see of people, the more I want to be a part of what He's doing in them and in the world. It's hard to feel like I'm doing that from here.

I'm not saying it's not happening. I'm just saying that staying right here, doing all of this, feels like being stuck. Feels like ending up where I started every single day.

So 2010, everyone's talking about a new decade, a new start. I'm not asking much except this: please show me a different side of the world? Please unstick me from here, if even for a week, a month. Please show me more of God, more of people. Please give me something different to write on my card for 2011. And I know that this is asking a lot, but please don't disappoint me.

Bullet Point Biography:

• I am moving, again, to the first place that's felt like home since 345 6th St.
• I am leaving tomorrow with a bunch of brothers and an almost sister-in-law to spend Christmas at my mum's in Florida.
• It's a 23 hour drive.
• We are packing our house tonight so that we can move upon arrival at home on the 28th.
• I have been fighting a sore throat for a week and today it's turning into a full blown cold.
• I am guzzling emergency-C and ginger tea with lemon and honey.
• Because it's a 23 hour drive.
• I sorted through two floor to ceiling bookcases tonight and am getting rid of four big bags of books.
• I should be heartbroken, but all I can think of is, "How can I get rid of more?"
• One of my best friends has been in town for a few weeks and is only here for a bit more and I feel like I haven't seen her at all.
• I take all the blame.
• Another friend and I are dreaming of a roadtrip next year (which is almost here, can you believe it?).
• I need to air my head out.
• And my heart.
• The conversation happening around me is about locker room showers.
  
• The entire upstairs of our new house is one room with dormers and wood floors and space, wide open space.
• We're dubbing it the Common Room and filling it with soft things, throw rugs, and spaces for art and the Holy Spirit.
  
• We making it a place for homework, artwork, worship, and prayer. Come one, come all.
• We need futons and a papazan and other flexible furniture for it: do you have some?
• I'm in love. I confess.
• My heart is completely besotted with two boys.
• I don't care who knows.
• No, you cannot have my awesome orange leather chair that I got for free.
  
• Because I said so.

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking
How we need to hear from God
You've been promised, we've been waiting
Welcome Holy Child
Welcome Holy Child

Hope that you don't mind our manger
How I wish we would have known
But long-awaited Holy Stranger
Make Yourself at home
Please make Yourself at home

Bring Your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven's silence
Welcome to our world
Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy
Perfect Son of God
Perfect Son of God

chris rice--welcome to our world

She's making banners these days. Flying them from mantels and window frames. Little paper cutaways embellished with color and love. They are filled with Christmas cheer, the regulars, you know, joy, hope, peace. She says it's therapizing [sic]. I won't argue with her--we find rest in the mundane and the strange, we take it where we can get it.

She asked me what mine should say and there was an easy answer: peace, it should say peace. My illusive friend, my favorite fruit of the spirit and my middle name if I could have chosen myself. Sometimes when superlatives are the topic of the conversation, peace is what they say about me. But I think perhaps I try too hard, it covers my person, but doesn't infiltrate my soul. It comes out of my mouth, but doesn't plummet my heart.

There are questions, to be sure, questions without answers. There are deep searches happening around here. Spelunking the cave of my heart and of His Word--staring hard enough at the evidence that I'm sure that answers will appear and I will pack and go. I am not a fool, though, and I know well enough that at the end of every day and every question and every feeble failure, what we are left with is often just Jesus and not peripheral answers or palpable principles or peace. No alliteration intended. But further in, further on, in that chapter of roadmaps and wherefores and Whos and whens, there's a blip about peace, the sort the world can't give. And I'm hungry for that.

I know I find my peace in my circumstances, my homes, my colors and my books. I know that should I need a moment, I can shut the door on the world and the rain and the demands. But in the end, peace leaves before I do.

Because peace isn't meant to be found--it's meant to be given.

And may peace rain down from Heaven
Like little pieces of the sky
Little keepers of the promise
Falling on these souls
This drought has dried
In His Blood and in His Body
In the Bread and in this wine
Peace to you
Peace of Christ to you
Rich Mullins: Peace

We sat at a table past closing time the other night, three of us, same age, different pages. We have to do something! she exclaimed, the gregarious one. I smiled back, because I know she's right, but there's a bigger knowing in me that says she's wrong. Why not? he asked. And I couldn't answer that one. I don't know why not: because it's too hard? Because it's not redeeming the time? Because it seems impulsive and I'm not? Because I'm afraid of too much Me in any equation?

Tonight I leaned on the counter and told her the preposterous idea. She chopped broccoli and her eyes lit up. Do it! she said, and I tucked my chin and raised my eyebrows. But why would I expect another response from her? She's been the boot that's kicked me into most of my adventures. None of which I regret. Well, not entirely.

I say back to her that every time I raise the possibility of another adventure of some sort a Puddleglum assures me that I have contentment issues and to stuff it, buckle down, and conjure up joy. (I am my own worst Puddleglum. Just saying is all.) But the truth is I do have joy and I AM doing it. I'm not dragging my heels to work and church and events and I'm opening my door to joy and people and change and whatever else the boot kicks around. It's just that I look at deep desires in my heart and pages of prophetic words and say contentment isn't sitting still, it's actively taking hold of what's available and doing something with it.

The tyranny of fear is the worst of all. I think. Fear of man is my worst enemy, fear of you my second. Fear that I'll make the wrong step. Fear that I heard wrong, or someone else did. The fear is not that I'll end up penniless and alone, but that my sole company will be someone standing there shaking their finger at me, "I told you so" their only words. The fear is that I'll disappoint people and the fear is that I'll disappoint you. That you'll shrug your shoulders and say, what is she thinking?

So I'm not there yet, for what it's worth, I'm not making any huge decisions for adventures. I'm not making promises. I'm digging down deep, trying to figure out what the great desire of my heart is and then deciding that no matter how scary that desire is, or how many fingers point in my face, or how much faith I'm going to need to explore it, that I'm going to do something.

I've got to do something!

I'll admit, this was a long, lonely week in the office for me. I didn't have my buddy staring at me from across the desk and had to suffice with sending her pitiful emails containing one liners that I would have said had she been there. It's okay though, she was trudging through feets of snow in Calgary with her other bestie. I'm okay with sharing her, especially if she leaves the snow there when she comes home. Which she did.

I kept a steady flow of tunes swirling to take the edge off of the quiet though. New favorites and old favorites, anything goes. One day was a full day of Over The Rhine and one song in particular on repeat. It's resonating in me recently because I might be fickle, but I'm not altogether unpredictable. I might be indecisive, but I'm not indulgent or impulsive. These might seem mutually exclusive, but they're not.

My soul has been fully sad and fully happy in recent weeks, months. There have been moments of tears driving to Potsdam, talking on red chairs in the back of the sanctuary, and being with friends around a Thanksgiving woodstove--the tears are joy and the tears are fear. The tears are fullness and the tears are deep heartache, big unanswered questions, and great hopes.

The idea that we are born one thing and we remain unchanged at our core is a concept that I dislike more and more--if this, this deep pulsing thing in the core of me is all I am, what hope is there for any of us? If I am captive to the idea that my personality will always bend to one direction and the joke's on anyone who assumes otherwise, well, the joke's really on me. This concept is liberating for me recently. I have lived for long enough to realize that deep sorrow is not without its inklings of joy and every joy has peripheral pain---we are not fully there, you see. We are not fully realized. To be one thing only is to be cold to the workings of the Holy Spirit, to nudges that send our personality running and surprise us with bravado.

Someone asks me recently how I am and I purge. I ramble for an hour, probably more. I spend all my questions and caveat it all by the promise that I'm OKAY. I'm really OKAY. I'm good, but these are just things I am thinking and wondering and feeling and not really saying. She says it would be okay if I didn't feel okay, that it would be understandable and I'm grateful for that, her understanding. But even more, I'm grateful that men like David existed, that depths and heights are not exclusive from one another and that trust and unbelief coexist because what is there to be convinced of if we first do not doubt?

This is rambling, I know. This is probably a little ambiguous and maybe a little confusing and I'm okay with that. I guess. For tonight I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that because I'm finding a peace I didn't know existed, it's a peace that's built from the knowledge that Jesus was a man too. Fully God. Fully man. A careful and brave juxtaposition, no better example of the imago dei. I love that. I need that. My fickle, tearful, fearful, hopeful heart needs that.

Things I am loving:

Really tight hugs from people who knew me back when I wore huge, blue glasses* and was in ninth grade.
A promised journal, black leather bound, graph paper innards, now in my possession.
Staying up way too late with two girls.
Wedding dresses that cost 10 dollars.
Talking about weddings with one of those girls.
Surprising my little brothers at my Gram's house.
Playing wii and seeing our reflections in the tv screen.
Evidence that he is a head taller than me.
Cuddling with my golden friend.
Looking up directions to Germantown on google maps.
Caring less about Germantown and more about people who live there!
Being surrounded by evidence of a nurturer: green potted plants, a turtle named Will Robinson, a grapefruit tree started from a grapefruit seed.
Knowing that the rest of the world is going hog wild at retail stores tomorrow, but my golden friend and I will be thrifting at favorite places.
Using less than a tank of gas to make a six hour trip.
Gas prices that kept dropping the further south I got.
Ginger snaps.
Bucks County.
Driving on roads that I grew up driving on and finding small memories I've tucked in the recesses of my mind.
Did I mention Bucks County? And stone houses?
Fall in eastern Pennsylvania.
Thanksgiving. I am loving Thanksgiving.

*someone kindly just reminded me that I still wear huge, blue glasses. thank you very much. the current ones are more chic. i promise.

He called me the other night, driving somewhere in western Pennsylvania, asking me a question about theology and people. But the real questions come out later in the conversation: we are fleshing out faith, like Jesus did coming to earth in swaddling clothes and calloused carpenter hands. We are putting theology in action, asking what it means first, but living it then, on purpose.

Today the heaviness wrings out, it is time to live the truths we talk about, to survive the things we say.

We are asking a collective question: where are you? Because though our theology is just Christ cloaked, mostly we need Christ alone, the body, the flesh. Him alone.

It is easy to stand on this side of the resurrection and know with certainty that the good guys win and us with them. How did the disciples not doubt? I think of Thomas today. I think one who doubts at all must be one of deep loyalty; what is there to doubt if there is nothing to be sure of? It is easy to stand on this side of certainty and know that all our doubts are silenced, that we stick our hands in the side of Christ, that we have moments of realization, of how could we be so foolish? of deep joy, knowing that it wasn't in vain, it wasn't for nothing and it won't be either.

But today, on the front side of pain, it is hard.

We are buried beneath fleece blankets and our day, piles of warmth and war. She asks if I'm going to write and I say no. You never write anymore, she says and I protest. Never is a more definite term than how little I write. It's hard to write, I say to her, when the things I'm thinking about are so current, so raw. It's easy to tell the story of my life, it's not my story after all, it doesn't belong to me. It's more difficult, even impossible, to write the story of others lives.

This season is an others season. I feel like every war, every tear, and every worn down sigh is born of a battle not my own. This is not my war, I am not built for this, I remind myself. My job is not the Redeemer, I merely point to Heaven and pray He comes through and quick.

It's more difficult to point to heaven, though, when the roadsigns around point everywhere but. I confuse even myself.

I say to him tonight that I confuse my rights and lefts, but I still somehow have a good sense of direction. I don't know which way I'm heading, but I know I'm heading there. And aren't we all? Thomas, my favorite disciple, said "We don't know where You're going, how will we know the way?" And Jesus, ever the consummate quip, answers that He IS the way. He is looking straight at His Father for the next step and they are checking for roadmaps in the folds of his robes. Isn't that just like us?

We are convinced that there must be some other way to make all things work together for good. Some other savior, some dues ex machina, a surprise ending, a troubadour with a song and a trick, a chart even, a list. And when we find that the answer is Jesus, just Jesus, well, that makes things a little disappointing, a little anticlimactic. There is nothing to check off at the end of a day when your to-do list is Living and Active.

And so, like Isaiah wrote, we trust that we heard the voice behind us saying, "This, this is the way. Walk in this way. Whether you go to the right or the left." Because Heaven is a destination, but it's also written on our hearts already. We've heard the voice behind us and we stand at every crossroad trusting He knows His rights and lefts better than we ever will.

There were tears to be had this morning. Suffering is close and our hearts wrap around it, welcome it, the answer is to comfort; the answer is to condition; the answer is to confront. We all answer accordingly.

I feel the judgment yesterday, I hear it in his words, coarse, sarcastic. I hear it in her comment, it sears across my mind and I don't know what to do with it. Forgiveness is easy, it's figuring how that looks that's hard. There are totem poles of history, priorities of piety and preciousness: these are the things we hold dear and the gospel does not top the carved teller when we want our story to be heard so badly.

My heart is grieved--the gospel does not top my list. I concern myself with things of this world, pleasure and recourse, provision and appearances. I am obsessed with the front that's shown. I cry this morning, across from her (with her there is no front, there is only a face and a bared heart). I weep because we, ourselves, I, me, we meet felt needs thinking that the gospel will eventually come through, crossing our fingers for salvation, a wing and a prayer. But shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't the gospel be first as we give cups of cold water, rides to and from, and our testimony?

Shouldn't the gospel be first?

We are listening to this song twice, "Your fingers reach around the bone, you set the break and set the tone." Isn't to set the tone to show how it's done, gospel first, all else second? Coming so small, so holy, so discarded, and waiting 30 years and His lifetime to do the first of so few miracles. Meeting needs is only a comfort, a condition and a confrontation of all that's wrong in the world. But He didn't set the break and set the tone to show us how to right what's wrong with the world, He reached around and did it a different way--He righted it for us.

We talked long last night and I drove home with one constant thought: Thank you God. For doing it for us. For me. I have climbed to the top of the totem pole, set myself atop ideals, easy fixes, and misplaced priorities, and still been further from Heaven than before.

The answer is the gospel.

I am no theologian, but I am a sinner and I suppose this makes it okay for me to write about things like this. Theology is just the way we see Jesus and, God Knows, I need to see Jesus.

I am captured by one recycled thought, a repeating theology that is changing me. A present theology. There are things, I am learning, that have the power to change us at once. I am calling them 180 Theologies--these things have the power to turn us from one direction to the other in immediacy. We are changed. We who were dead are now alive. These things are remarkable and astounding, miraculous to anyone who asks.

But there are what I'm calling Present Theologies in my mind these days. The gerunds of the Christian grammar: being, ongoing, growing, being, being, being! The things that are happening. The things we understand at once to be finished, but we understand again that they are never fully finished. These things are miraculous too, I'm finding. Taking captive thoughts. Unveiling Christ to ourselves and others. Being built to be a dwelling place for the Spirit.

The cross is finished, has finished it for us, all of us.
But we aren't finished yet.

I love that. I love that!

It is so easy to catch ourselves in where things went wrong, which iota of the gospel we didn't understand, which theology failed, which principle led us down the wrong path. Instead, if we choose to meditate on the -ing of the gospel message, we are set up for a hope and a future. Rome wasn't built in a day, neither was Paul, and Praise God, neither am I!

This is the sound of the redeemed
Rising up to praise the King
Our hope is in You
This is the sound of the redeemed
Rising up to praise the King
We The Redeemed--Jill McCloghry

I am exhausted recently. I've been taking my vitamins and getting a full eight hours of sleep every night and taking time in the car to breathe and pray, but still, I'm exhausted. It's not the burnt out exhausted, though, it's the spiritual ebb and flow that's making my limbs feel heavy and my eyelids too.

Someone asked me tonight "How are you?" and the truth was easy, it came easy and it was true: I'm Good. I am full of joy, contentment, brimming with vision, excited to be finding community everywhere I look (even if the quota of close friends isn't on the rise), I'm good. If these things throw me into the gamut of goodness, then it is good through and through.

A few years ago, before I was about to embark on an extended international adventure a friend prayed these words over me, and I've never forgotten: He is your source, but you've got to walk to the source, you've got to draw from the source, you have to choose to drink from the source. When you can't find Him, when you can't see Him, when you don't want to choose Him, He's still your source.

I'm remembering that a lot recently, because to be honest, the only reason I'm good these days is because He's good eternally.

I read these words tonight, standing in worship:

I have set the LORD continually before me;
Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will dwell securely.
Psalm 16.8,9

I dwell most securely when I set Him most continually before me. On purpose.

Things I am loving:

Barbara Kingsolver: A few months ago I ate dinner at the home of one of my favorite families in the world. As usual we swapped stories, sermons, and good conversation. And, as usual, we swapped books too. The father of the house gave me a Wendell Berry and a Barbara Kingsolver. I lingered over the Berry, shoving the Kingsolver off like the low man on the totem pole. Turns out this totem pole got turned upside down! The Bean Trees was my first fiction by her a few months ago and since then I've bought every copy of her books I can find at the local used-bookstore haunts. I am hooked! Not only are her stories delightful, they are real. The characters are so real, so present. The writing is so clever, so insightful. I had only read her non-fiction before this (and I only have good things to say about that as well), but her novels are some of the few modern lit that I find worth reading. No really!

Repurposing projects: A while ago I realized that I have a panache for sewing and an inability to find affordable fabric that I really like. Until I discovered repurposing! Now nearly every piece of anything that comes out stitched from the machine was previously stitched by some other creative soul before me. I love this! I love searching racks of cheap or free clothing looking for prints, feels, and sizes that will fit nearly anything I can dream up in my head. My latest projects are made of men's wool suitcoats, old button up dress shirts, and a few scarves whose yarn I liked but style I didn't (Did you know that anything can be taken apart? Well it can!).

Philippians: My pastor is doing a series on Philippians right now and every morsel is oh so good. It's nice because I've been hanging around those Philippians too, you see, scrounging up gratefulness in every situation I find myself. Mark Driscoll also has a great series from Philippians that I've been working my way through as well. I get wallowed down pretty easily, see, distracted by circumstances that aren't changing and frustrated with my inability to change them. I'm beginning to see in a big way that circumstances aren't really all that important anyway. Our effectiveness isn't determined by our circumstances, it's determined by our ability to get Jesus in the midst of them. I like that.

Burgundy Apples: A few weeks ago, when my golden friend was here, we searched all over for apple pickings and found quite a few, but it seems that apple picking is quite the fall festivity and not for the frugal minded. At $20 a bushel, well, that just didn't make sense. We finally found an orchard who did the picking for us and sold them for $8 a bushel and so buy we did! We peeled and froze bags and bags of them, but left some for eating. Just tonight I looked in the big fruit bowl that sits on our table and realized that there are three left. Three sad little apples that will surely be gone tomorrow, eaten by the three inhabitants of this home. And that makes me a little sad. Because the end of apples means the end of fresh fruit for the winter. Sigh.

Being All Here: I alluded to this in the bit about Philippians, but let me say it more plainly: I'm am not in a rush to figure anything out, change anything, go anywhere, or be something different. That's not to say that figuring things out, changing things, going places or being something aren't on my list of things to do. The difference is that I'm not in a rush. Up until the past few months I've been consuumed with getting things done quickly. The Kingdom of God is at hand, look busy! was my mantra. But these days I am so, so, so entirely confident of His timing and His ways and His sovereignty that I can't help but just bask in a glad rest.

His Kingdom is at hand! Look at how He's accomplishing it!

We catch ourselves in motion, stopped by the light, or by the lack of it. Strange how catastrophes unite. Strange how they divide as soon are we realize there are sides to take and be taken by. This small thing, this power outage in our small town is no catastrophe but it might as well be. I'm grateful for my simple lifestyle suddenly, by the presence of candles that smell of apple cider, cranberries, or a cheap waxy substance. Our home is lit with an orange glow. I wish it could be like this all the time. Surely candles are cheaper than electric bills?

'We're all socialists already' I read in an article recently. Someone spouting off about how if we can dial 911 and share a water main with our neighbor than in some way we're already biting off the socialist sandwich and why not bite more? I haven't thought that one through yet, I'd rather not because I like having water and the knowledge that should I need it, emergency care is three numbers away. But mostly I haven't thought through it because I tend toward all or nothing in my convictions and there are only so many fine lines I can walk these days.

This is My body, take eat. Sip of this, you who will doubt Me, you who will deny Me in three sentences, you who are denying Me already with your silver coins rattling against your robe. You think Me a fool? You think that you all walk away from this experience unchanged by one another and Me? You think that that these years are compartmentalized into tidy chapters and smooth transitions? I'm here to tell you that if you Take Eat that you share in My sufferings every day from here on out. There is no shoulder you brush against in a crowd who will not be touched by Me by some degree, no person whose calamity you will not take on, no cup of cold water that will not be offered in My name. We're all socialists now. So take eat. This is My body. This is My blood.

When I think of that Jesus, the one who said in this life you will have sorrows, things like power outages and starving children and brothers sent off to war and friends who cry often, these things that unite us, only unite us because He drank the cup first. We, all of us, we're just poseurs. Thinking that our suffering unites us, thinking that our agony victimizes us, sure that our poverty deems us worthy of recompense. We're all catastrophes and this is what unites us. A conglomeration of sinners, socialists because we think there is no other way than to depend on one another for our bread and supply.

And He still says: Take Eat, this is My body. Take in my sufferings and because I'm the Only One who can deliver you from yours.

The good thing about theology is that it's more than heady intellectualism or pragmatic principles. The best thing about it is that unless you don't really believe it, you can be assured that it's going to weasel its way into the deepest nooks of your personhood. It changes you. It has to change you. It has to change everything about you and how you do everything and how you see everything and how you believe and practice and have faith and hope.

It has to.

Otherwise it's just pretense. And we know from Philippians chapter one that pretense can tell the truth too, that the gospel can come through, but wouldn't we rather every display of the gospel be deeply rooted in just truth?

Full disclosure: over the past few years I've panicked too many times, afraid that my faith is a sham and my future a gamble. I've called friends, sobbing into the phone: is this it? Is this what it feels like to be a fraud? And they console me, ask me hard questions, demand that I grab hold of the certain things, even if that is only One. And so I do. And every time my theology goes deeper in, more sure, more certain. Is this it? Is this what if feels like to have faith?

I say to a friend a few days ago that there are things I've never questioned, partly because the most healthy Christians I knew practiced them and so why wouldn't I parrot their faith? Why wouldn't I follow the trail they've marked? It works, right? These are things I've never questioned because questioning is not cool; certainty is cool and certainty is what moves you forward.

But these days I am less certain and more confident, if such a thing is possible. The more I say to Theology that it is just a cloak over a Christ who cannot be explained by five points and a good concordance, the more positive I am that the gospel is built of faith in Jesus alone and hope for everything else: healing, life, restoration, understanding, redemption, sanctification, heaven.

Faith in Jesus changes you, every particle of you, if you let it.

We are packaging fall like a gift--wrapped in sliced apples, topped with fall bouquets of brown and orange, handled with care and spiced candles. We are living fall over crisp frosted grass in the morning and hung breath in the evening. The harvest skies at night are dark and light, stars at their brightest against the blackest set. Fresh fruit wanes at the co-op with an influx of sweet potatoes, carrots, and their other root relatives. I am suddenly hungry for peaches and fresh berries and we've hardly just bid adieu.

Is it really this time of the year already?

I have to remind myself to breathe sometimes because I'm so prone to grasping at the remnants of everything I deem good: summer and fall included. I have to remind myself to enjoy today because tomorrow will be cold and snowy. I have to mentally grasp how a day that's so short between dawn and dusk can seem so very, very long. I have to hibernate and still be fully alive.

How can we fill a life so teetering on the edge of everything? I think about that a lot recently. How can I be most fully the reflection of Him, most fully the image of Him, bring heaven to here--live it fully, intentionally? How can we be anxious for nothing and in everything give thanks, knowing that it's the will of Him and at the very same time know: no, it's not!

It wasn't designed to be like this, this shadow of turning, this variation on death and dying, this waning and waxing of life and hope and redemption. It was meant to be eternal fresh fruit, peaches and berries with no seasonal lack. An overabundance of good and all the time. How can the will of Him be brokenness and thanksgiving in one rushed breath?

I believe, help my unbelief.
Already/Not yet.
I must decrease, He must increase.

We understand life, like Kierkegaard said, we live it forward, but understand it backward. It is a paradox, this juxtaposition of terms: Christianity is a game and we all win when it seems that we all lose. Spring comes again, but only because we lived fully through winter, breathed out and in during fall and gathered in the summer abundance. We understand it backwards--see the pieces and fit together mentally what once came naturally.

I don't know how this conundrum works, but I know this: He is the great Redeemer. He takes all the seasons and fits them together into one seamless string of 365 days, into 24 hour segments, into moments and seconds, into sunrises and full moons, root vegetables and fruit trees, hibernation and procreation. He takes the foolish things and confounds the wise.

He reconciles the opposing, resolves the division, and redeems the time (and everything else) in between.

I read an article the other day that said that the northeast fall would be one of the most spectacular of recent years. If the Big Picture is any indication of the local beauty of this season, I deem the article right on. We walked home tonight, our fingers warmed in the pockets of autumn jackets and our noses buried in turtlenecks and scarves. We begin to hunker down, prepare for the cover of winter. I am grateful for seasons--time to prepare for what's next.

I sat in his office last week and said a lot of things and he said one principle thing back to me: every season of life we enter into, we take the residue of the previous season with us.

We are storing up treasures for heaven, yes, but we are storing up todays for tomorrows too. Tonight we talk briefly of the Kingdom, the Already, the Not Yet; the On Earth as it is in Heaven; the eternity that starts now. We wrestle with abstract ideas about the Kingdom and how they work on earth, today. And the truth is that I don't know and I can't define. But I know this: the rainy summer gives us a spectacular fall, but it also forecasts a snowy winter, but in turn this means an early spring. I don't understand how the Kingdom of Heaven eeks its way into the Stuff of Earth, but I know it does and I know the residue gets on everything.

We are the residue and He is too. The Church is the residue and the Bridegroom still. Heaven leaves a residue and still has more to spare. Eden left a residue and so too the fall. We can't explain it and sometimes can't assure it, but it's there, as vibrant and visible as the colors of a northeast autumn.

You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us,
written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God,
not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

II Corinthians 3:2,3

I am built of clay and dirt. I am an earthen vessel, useful for water and little else. I eat the Word, like Old Testament scrolls down the mouth of a jar. I hold treasure that I cannot explain, verbalize, or digest at times. I am made of the things of the earth and the mudslides of life.

I play a song on repeat the past few days. In the past its words have comforted a sad or discouraged me, but these days they are speaking to a thankful soul. There have been seasons of life where I stare at the muddled mess around me, where I play pick-up sticks with the pieces, careful to not upset more places. There have been seasons where the discouragement is in abundance, where the slightest hope that there is more somewhere and soon is too much to hope. But there have rarely been seasons of complete trust that today is marked by Thus Fars and thankfulness.

The strange thing is that the circumstances remain the same, the current affairs are still present and the world still spins madly on. Nothing has changed much, but I am hopeful. I am filled with hope not because I have a five year plan or even a five month plan--but because Thus Far it is enough. Up until this point, today, He has redeemed. He is redeeming and will continue to redeem, but today has been redeemed. We have set the day's tools aside and lit candles and said it is enough for today. We are made of earth and dirt, and to dirt we should return. Every night over again.

There is not much more to say than that.

I am learning that my soul has been redeemed from the pit of emptiness and there is no other appropriate response than a deep, welling sigh and a restful heart. His promises worked yesterday and they will not cease tomorrow.

You have redeemed my soul from the pit of emptiness
You have redeemed my soul from death
I was a hungry child, A dried up river
I was a burned out forest, And no one could do anything for me
But you put food in my body, Water in my dry bed
And to my blackened branches you brought the springtime green of new life
And nothing is impossible for you
Job 33--Waterdeep

I suppose it is the trajectory of every child of God. We follow salvation's road like the disciples, asking questions, sometimes doubting or denying. I am stuck these days in Galations, those foolish Galations who thought that being saved by grace meant working for it for the rest of their lives. I know this foolishness. I am this foolishness.

For two years, I feel, God has been awakening me to the heart of grace. I understand the concept of it, I understand how it works, its place in our lives and how it is gifted to us, unmerited. But I have not understood the heart of it, the core of grace, and let it permeate the deepest corners of me. Grace is why we Sabbath. Grace is why we Jubilee. Grace is why we Celebrate. Grace is why we do not follow the letter of the law, but grasp the heart behind it. Grace is why we Redeem. Grace is why we Work. Grace is why we Learn. Grace is why we Commune.

This is no silly plan, some four step grasp of the Gospel--this is the method of our madness and the mercy of our God. This is His favor. His good favor toward us, even in the depth our foolishness.

So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith—this is no new doctrine! And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: "Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law." The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: "The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that's the real life." Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: "The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them." Galations 3.9-12

He sat in my lap watching me cast-off and do the first row. My turn now, he said, my hands covering his while he knit his first few stitches. He's a fast learner though, and within an hour his nine year old hands had two inches of something and a pile of pride in my heart. You can keep those needles if you want, I said. Really? He asked. Yeah. I'd give you anything, I thought.

I fixed the heater for you, he said. Com'ere I'll show you. I confess, even though he's a head taller than me sometimes I still see a seven year old instead of a manchild who's more than twice that. And sure enough, he'd fixed the heater and he took me through the steps necessary to turn it on, keep it on, and sometimes turn it off. I think what I did learn about the heater wasn't much, a rudimentary knowledge at best. But I did see him a bit differently through the rest of the night.

I'm the judge! I have a solo! This is my part! How do you pronounce this word: p-e-r-j-u-r-y? Listen to this part, I'm not going to give away the ending. I promise. And you know, I wouldn't have minded a bit if he had. Somewhere for each of us, the acting bug has bitten, usually around middle school. And I'm pretty sure none of us are ever headed for Broadway or Hollywood, I think it's really just about confidence and friendships and doing something new. I sure hope it is for him too.

We Skype when the time difference isn't too much. He used to be a story person but now he's grown to be a thought person and we swap thoughts. Funny how the sibling spats of yesterday have turned into the close friendship of today. I wouldn't have pegged that one. But I trust him, see? Because he's sort of like me. He thinks and thinks and thinks and then acts and what looks surprising to everyone else isn't really surprising at all. He heads into basic training this winter, brother number two in the military. I'm proud of you, I say before we say goodbye. I'm proud of you he says too.

We text message because he doesn't see his his barracks until late and by that time I'm already dozing off. Short, spurts of life in less than 100 characters. I caught a glimpse of his new life last March at his basic training graduation, but nothing prepares me for the life he's about to embark on. I suddenly have no stomach for war movies and global news just became very personal. He ships out on his birthday. I asked if he was excited. No, he said. Would you be?

He just got married. I saw the pictures on Facebook--his face forever etched in my mind as the fourteen year old best friend of my dead brother. It occurs to me that Andrew would have been at this juncture as well. Early twenties, his life stretched before him, the awkward teens behind him. I suppose there will always be reminders, right? Best friends grown up, friends who haven't forgotten every April 19, an empty hole when I write about each of my brothers. I suppose there will always be things to be remembered.

I'm not sure if falling in love does it or if it's a conglomeration of a million things, but for some reason, there's a new joy in his step. It could be that he's gone all local-organic, ride your bike everywhere and do good works. But I think that a blond headed beaut might have something to do with it. They're planning a wedding, talking about dates. I run into them at used book sales, the food co-op, the street, the farmer's market. They fit, like two halves of an asian pear. They're happy, like people in love should be.

These are my brothers. These are my boys. And I love them.

Seventy and a few feet from my front door is a river over which a stone bridge used to carry commuters from the small town to the big town. Now the stone bridge carries construction men in hard hats and florescent orange shirts while they complete a two year and 11 million dollar historical restoration. We in the small town are not amused, though the workers seem very willing to get the job done and fast.

The other morning my coworker received a text message reading "Pine Street is closed for renovations until October 18th. Tell Lore." This means that the detour we have to take because the bridge is closed is now even more of a detour for the next few weeks.

Tonight I walked down the hill from my front door and could see the skyline lit up from the lights in the big town--the smokey grey-green horizon fading into a solid black. It felt so close I could touch it. It felt only eight miles away instead of the seventeen it now takes us to get there.

I feel like that about a lot of things currently--things so close I know that if I reached across, bird's eye view, I could touch everything I see. But instead I take detours, the scenic route every which way I look. I used to be in a hurry to get things done; now there's no hurry, roads close whether I hurry or not, bridges need renovation whether I live eight miles from them or seventy and some feet.

A friend sent me an email today and said this, "God's still redeeming, whether you're busy or not." I like that.

I like that because I've been in a hurry to figure things out for the past chunk of my life, busy making sure that I was busy, hurried making sure that I was certain. But I'm just now realizing that regardless of my detours, renovations, Sabbaths and scenic routes, He's still getting things done. He's still paving paths and restoring ruins. He's not twiddling his thumbs waiting for a return on His promise--He's working out His promise in every image bearer of Christ (that's you!) and He's working it out regardless of how long it takes me to get from Madrid to Potsdam.

: Something about the fall makes everything feel like home. The streets feel like home. My sweaters feel like home. My wool shoes feel like home. Our home even felt like home today. We lit a candle on our little yellow coffee table, cleaned our little home, did a little laundry and hunkered down with books and blankets and good conversation.

: Last weekend during one of my recent excursions I went on an impromptu contra dancing escapade. I am old hat at contra dancing, I like it, I love it and I want some more of it. It happens every Friday locally, but I've never gone since living up here. I mean to rectify that. However, the point of me telling you that I did go last weekend was to explain perhaps why I've been hobbling about for the past week. I fell during one rollicking good spin and landed squarely on my knee, spraining it unbeknownst to me. It was swollen so badly that I just assumed it was a bad bruise and carried on the following day to Niagara Falls with two favorites, lots of sour patch kids and good conversation. Swelling is a pleasant thing, let me tell you. It keeps you from feeling all the instant pain you could be feeling and just prolongs the pain you will be feeling. I am quite a good hobbler these days.

: Despite hobbling I get around quite well with intermittent ice packs, ace bandages and conveniently placed chairs. Yesterday I hobbled through a five hour workshop in silkscreen printing at one of the local universities here. And let me tell you, hobbling was worth every bit. To learn the process of silkscreen printing (which is something I've always been interested in and never done) was fascinating enough, but to actually end the day with ten or so prints of my very own design and execution was more than I could have asked for! As though I wasn't already completely enamored with the art, now I'm bordering on obsessed. I'm determined to figure out how to beg, borrow, or steal access to any of the materials and start my own silkscreen studio!

: Last night I sat in a living room with two people I love and who love me dearly, though I can't figure out why. They distilled every word I said and put them into palatable thoughts and plans, things I can work with, things I can grasp, things I can think through and process without all the additives I like to have in my life. I know I complicate things by thinking through them and trying to figure everything out, but somehow it helps to know that there are people who will work with these floating ideas and point my compass north again.

: Someone recently encouraged me to write out my tenets of faith, or my creedo, to put into words all the soapboxes I stand on, all the grin and bear its I harbor, and all the things I can't live without understanding. To state unequivocally what I believe about certain things and to leave well enough alone about other things. I am no fan of tradition, or of doing things the way we've always done them just because. But the idea of crafting a thesis of Who He Is and Who He Is To Me sits well with me. It is all fine and well and good to figure out what you believe, but sometimes I camp out on the "I'm figuring out all this stuff" and never arrive at the "I believe this with certainty."

: This is my everydaying.

We are sober these days, drunk on the cares of this world and little else. We are carefully wrought dreams and hastily assembled firewood: living on a hope and a sacrifice, or more. We are staring at one another over monitors, feet touching under our antique table-desk, we are putting songs on repeat and we are pausing for many words in between.

This is the stuff life is made of, monotony, a continual, perpetual plod toward heaven. This is the stuff life is made of, hushed discussions fortifying hidden hearts. This is the stuff life is made of, brokenness and ruins, clean fill for a certain foundation. We are making life up as we go.Aren't we all?

We know the end, of course, we all do. The Good Guy wins and we with Him, we're certain of that. But these days we're also certain that along the way there are battles which must be won every day. We are in the middle of every day. Redemption is our buzzword. The Gospel is our proof.

The chorus of one song "Let the churchbells, let them ring, because everything can be redeemed, it can be redeemed," this is the puddle we stand in, this is the rain we're running from, this is the hurt we are encompassed with, this is the life we are grateful for. And this too can be redeemed, it can be redeemed.

I am seeing things in a new way, a fresh coat of paint, a thin veneer taking old things and bringing life again. I am studying deeply, thinking deeply, praying deeply. I am hording all of it, for now, saying only one thing: This Too Can Be Redeemed. This Too Is Being Redeemed.

And What?
And How?

The past three weekends have taken me on short jaunts to local places. We have traversed on foreign soil, neighboring states, mountains, valleys and magnificent waterfalls. We have packed Nalgenes, dried fruit and good conversation into hours of driving. These are snapshots of a long story and I'm telling you a little of mine now.

We are walking on redemption's road, the highways and byways of heaven and the gospel. We are putting first things first and considering all the parts as a whole--life may be summed in single words, but it cannot be lived so. We are living it so.

I am saying to my roommate tonight that things are too tender to write about right now--that living it is one thing, but telling it is another. I have learned from hindsight and embarrassment that to tell a thing too soon is to touch a fragile thing with a harsh hand: the world is not ready for our trembled telling. So we talk about it on roadtrips, in late night driving with tears and touch, around small tables in small Greek restaurants, and in hushed tones in hallways.

It is the processing that does the work in us, but it is the telling that does the work for us. We tell in actions and we tell in conversations and we tell in time. To rush the process is a shame, but to rush the saying is a sadness. Perhaps, like Rilke said, we are here just to say, but perhaps we ought to wait a bit more to do what we're here for. There's no harm in that.

I am talking to a few these days, writing less, but thinking more than ever. I am planting a garden with deep roots and sturdy theology, I am tending it with the gospel, and I am harvesting redemption. Full bodied, lush redemption.

Post this at all the intersections, dear friends:
Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue,
and let anger straggle along in the rear.
God's righteousness doesn't grow from human anger.
So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage.
In simple humility, let our gardener, God,
landscape you with the Word,
making a salvation-garden of your life.

James 1:19-21