There's been a song on repeat in our office and ipods for a few days. I think we both nearly had breakdowns this past week, paperwork piling, phone calls dreading, and meetings galore. I sat one morning and let tears falls down my face, confessing that I'm finding this hard. I couldn't communicate what exactly this was, but I knew it was hard. I knew it wasn't the workload, or the inflection filled questions from people, the changing leaves outside ushering in cold and winter, the upcoming weekend, or anything really, that I could identify. It was just this. THIS.

So the song. It's not much really. Just a lot of the chorus over and over again. And for the first few days we listened to it, I kept thinking, I'm just so glad I'm saved. I'm just so glad that I know Jesus. I'm just so glad that I'm not lost and that I have a hope and salvation.

But today I listened to it. Really listened to it.

It's about after. After salvation, after being lost and found, after death, and after resurrection; it's about after this. It's about heaven.

My soul is tired and hungry. My spirit is finding though.

The glory of it all
is that He came here
for the rescue of us all
that we may live
for the glory of it all

And maybe it's simple, but maybe simplicity is what we need most when heaven gets lost in the shuffle of life. And maybe repetition is for those who didn't get it the first time, but maybe repetition is the best way to remind us that this isn't the end. This isn't all there is.

So today in church, surrounded by the people I love most in the world, surrounded by the people who show me Jesus in every way every day, surrounded by worship, surrounded by people who get overwhelmed with all of this too--my heart wanted heaven more than anything else in the world.

My heart wanted heaven more than anything that this world could offer, take away, lend, or show me.

After night
comes a light
Dawn is here
Dawn is here
It's a new day
It's a new day
Everything will change
Things will never be the same

We will never be the same
We will never be the same
We will never be the same

The raspberry bushes throw their leaves up in surrender to the breeze, silver backs against their stubborn green counterparts. The wind isn't continuous, he ebbs and flows, sounding like the ocean in my ear. I mentally glance at the maple tree on my way home every day, one small branch of red bleeds into the whole. I wear a cardigan on the back porch, my toes perched on the edge of a ceramic pot. The pot holds a plant that will soon enough be housed in my bedroom again. The world around here shouts of autumn.

It's been a wet summer. The old folks say the wettest since 1926. I don't know. I'm just happy for all the green that still is. It's hard for me not to feel claustrophobic this time of the year. Soon fall will settle in and I will love her rich colors, spiced coffees and fodder for creative writing. But today, in the middle of August, the thought of rich colors fading to months of white makes me want to hold my breath, hold that thought, hold it all on pause: love today and not think about tomorrow.

But I wasn't built like that. For all my talk about today's portion, I know my nemesis when I see it. I know my propensity to borrow tomorrow before the sun sets tonight. I know that the quietness of my spirit looks like patience but is really fear. I know that when I enjoy today it is because I am afraid of tomorrow.

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you;
not as the world gives do I give to you.
Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
John 14.27

I don't know what that peace feels like. I know how to sort things out, process them, understand them, grasp them. I know how to make lists, pros and cons and ups and downs. I know how to mentally make decisions, enjoy today, not fear today. But I do not know how to let my heart be untroubled concerning tomorrow. I fear years of tomorrows, years of decisions, years of boredom, years of work, and years of winter.

Because I am looking for a peace that the world offers.

This summer fades slowly into autumn, given over to times and seasons. I find peace in today because today's world feels safe. I am feasting on the bread of this world, on false peace, on the certainty of thousands of predictable seasons past and thousands more to come. But His peace isn't like that. I don't think. I don't know. But I can't help but really think that His comparison of His peace to the world's isn't an accident. It's supposed to be different, to feel different, and to perhaps come cloaked in something different than predictability and safety.

He directs the seasons, but He is not a seasonal God, to be loved today and feared tomorrow.

So, Lord, if you're leaving and you're giving, I'm accepting. I want that sort of peace. Regardless of which way the wind is blowing.

While on the subject of questions and answers, the Doubting Disciple confuses himself with direct objects and directions. He can't be faulted, who of us hasn't looked more closely at a map than at the X marking the spot. We are wanderers, vagabonds, pilgrims, we all; trekking is the point, not the destination.

Thomas wanted to know The Way. That's all. Not where he was going, he'd grown used to disappointment; doubters do. He just wanted the roadmap, the path, the breadcrumbs dropped behind a Lord marking the way for His followers. A GPS set for Heaven.

Jesus didn't make things so simple: He said that He alone was The Way.

So I am a doubter I find. I stand with the best of them, begging the question, asking the question, disbelieving the answer--and why shouldn't I? The answer won't print out nicely with roadsigns and mileage markers. The answer is a Man. Or rather, think of it this way: a gate.

"No one comes to the Father, but through me."

So this week I am opening the gate, realizing that the roadmap has failed, the breadcrumbs have been eaten by blackbirds and the GPS has gone haywire. I need Him and Him alone. Not some secret password or society, and not faulty methodologies of repentance and renewal--I need Him.

I need to trust that I'll know how to get there, wherever there is, and that I'll know what there is when I get there. He's the way, the truth, and the life. And when He is my Way, my Truth, and the culmination of my Life is Him, I have a feeling I'll be surprised to finally have found myself There.

I am Oliver Twist and porridge, Paris Hilton and Gucci, Judas and 29 silver coins. I am Philip, the disciple who pleaded that just one more would be enough.

"Lord, just show us the Father and it will be enough for us."

He speaks for all of the disciples, all of us. We who are not satisfied with a God in Heaven, and less satisfied with His embodiment on earth. Our void is bigger than a God-shaped hole and less satiated than more than enough.

But what is more surprising (Because who are we kidding? Wouldn't we have asked the same? Don't we every day?) is the Rabbi's response. Not because it isn't true, but because it is ludicrous. They're the words of a madman, ridden with multiple personalities and narcissism:

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in Me?"

Whatever you ask, if it's in His name, He'll do it, He says.

So Lord, in Your name, I'm asking: just show me the Father. It will be enough. I won't waste the evidence of all that you've done, the testimonies and miracles. I won't feast on the manna, provision for today. I won't lay in my tears and my doubts, and I won't ask again, I promise.

Just one more thing will be enough.

Jesus gave credence to Philip's question, to Thomas's doubts, to Peter's wavering faith, though, He continued the dialogue. He answered ludicrous questions with ludicrous answers--so that they would keep asking. So that faith would still exercise. So that doubts would be quelled, but never fully satisfied. So that we would always need more. So that we would appreciate mystery and awe.

Oliver got his porridge and Hilton will die with her designers. Judas found that 30 pieces wasn't enough to keep his life and lost it too. I am finding that I cannot be satisfied, but that I can trust that He is Who He says He is.

"here is a mystery
a person." denise levertov

I grasp for the tenor of my heart, fingering the flesh and the feeling, the Spirit and the Living. I find nothing. I take measured breaths, an intermittent gauge, a test. The scales are leveled; nothing weighs nothing.

I mean and I purpose and I try and all I find at the day's end is a lot of nothing. I hold my breath, maybe good things come to those who wait. Maybe they don't, but what if they do?

I know to spit out the What Ifs of yesterday; they left sourness in my mouth, coldness in my heart, but I took comfort in the What Ifs of tomorrow. I used to think that disappointment was the cause of my melancholy, hopes that never saw fruition, dreams that never woke up. But today, while I take the pulse of my life, I find that Hope Deferred is Hope Suspended, Prolonged, Delayed, and this is why the sickness of my heart.

Gathering too much manna for today, I horde tomorrow's supply, stretching my hope too thin: it can't sustain. It isn't meant to. Today's portion for today. Hope Suspended, held taunt between today's unbending reality and tomorrow's nebulous future, makes the heart grow sick.

John 14 is my dwelling place this week. Learning to ask and not fear, abide and not run, helped by the Holy Spirit, not thinking I must be Its helper. He says that if we ask anything in His name, He will do it. He doesn't give timetables, we are human, bound by time and circumstance; He is God, free of constraints and tomorrows. He gives grace to the doubting, though: Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.

This comforts.

And so I find evidence around me. I pick up clues from my world. I catch myself believing in the evidence because the hope that there's more is too grand, too big, too overwhelming for today. I pick up white flakes that sustain my hunger, abase my desire. The taste is secondary to the provision. He provides, that is enough.

Holy Spirit, Helper, help me now to believe. To place the evidence on the scales of my heart--to weigh them heavily against the nothing of their counterpart. To know that You are present. You are here. You are speaking. You are providing.

And that You have, too: given evidence for today.
And that You will, too: give bright hope for tomorrow.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

I tarry summer. A floating timeline, I notch days, perpendicular lines pointing to significance, days I won't remember next summer, but will remember every day until then. I prolong each day from here until winter settles.

We wake and walk in morning, the humid fog resting on fields. We eat blueberry pie for breakfast, playing scrabble over coffee and cream. I cram cucumbers into quart jars and pour brine over their white middles turning gold in tumeric tinted vinegar. She pulls weeds from the garden spread. I sweep the side porch and wipe wet summer dust from white rockers. I finger my potted plants: they've come a long way from baby days in Tennessee. He's mowing the lawn, raking the leftovers, polka dots of grass littering our lawn. We grill dinner. I cut pound cake. I drive through wet streets with the sun pouring through breaking clouds. I am pensive.

A few have asked "Why the silence?" and my answer is formulated, I've practiced it; I've lied it because I don't even know the truth.

The real answer is because Silence is the portion of this season. Partly because I haven't asked. Partly because I haven't heard. Partly because I don't know what to ask. Partly because He's not speaking.

Mostly because I don't know what to say.

Tonight I sat in a meeting and watched a girl talk about Spending Her Life. She and her team wore shirts that read Young, Single, Available. It's not a dating advertisement, it's a lifestyle. She and more than a hundred others are spending their lives sharing the gospel with their peers in a country that doesn't take kindly to gospel sharing. She cried some.

My heart hurt listening to her. I saw myself three, four, five years ago. Passion being my drive and radical living my aim. I was ready to be stoned to death for my faith and easily committed to cutting off the arm, plucking out the eye, tossing out the CD and abstaining from anything possibly sin related. I was radical. I was sold out. I wasn't letting anything hold me back from the very best that the Lord had for me.

Now I want a coffee-maker, a couch, and a backyard.

And instead of any traces of the radical or any hope of the coffee-maker and couch, I inhabit half of a bedroom and tell myself that being faithful with the small things is being radical too.

But it doesn't feel like it.

In a three weeks I'll be driving down to Tennessee for the wedding of two more of The Makeshift Family. Sara and Steve this time. Arguably two people I can't imagine my life without. Arguably two people who shouldn't live their lives without one another. My bridesmaid dress arrived in the mail today and it seemed real. Over Thanksgiving weekend two more will tie the knot in North Carolina, Cara and Amos. I'll put on my trekking shoes once again and witness beautiful covenant take place, still thankful that all of our relationships don't require formal ceremony to solidify.

Just life. Lived together. I like that.