Easter... still emerging...

It's Thursday, and Easter has just begun! The season of Lent, of preparation is over, but with the resurrection comes the spring of Christian life. Now is the opportunity to renew and refresh our joy. Sometimes, however, circumstances make that difficult.

Photo by Dave Morlock

I said earlier that Easter "emerges." In my neck of the woods the weather has been echoing that notion. On Easter Sunday we had a gloriously sunny day, not hot, but actual sunshine. Monday, too, thank God (thanks, God)! These two days of sun were like pure gold, because we have been on a long and disheartening journey toward spring. To wit: yesterday, yes, April 27, it snowed, and not just a bitty flurry. 

But I am noticing that as miserable as the weather has been (basically seven months of winter) spring is still coming. The snow melts right away. Plants are pushing up. The rain/snow has turned the grass green. Buds on the trees are swelling, albeit slooooowly. There is a power at work and it will prevail, despite the apparent obstacles.

I will just have to keep an eye on the signs of spring, and watch its progress with hope. (I trust the spiritual parallel is obvious.)

Easter Emerges

I love the resurrection narrative in the gospel of Matthew, where there is a mighty earthquake, the soldiers collapse and the stone is rolled away from the tomb. It has all the drama one would expect for someone rising from the dead. But there's just one problem: Jesus isn't in this story. He does not come bursting out of the tomb, "Ta-da, here I am!" He is long gone, out quietly walking in the garden, waiting for the moment when he would speak to Mary.

We associate Easter Sunday with trumpets and choirs and exclamations of "He is risen! Truly he is risen!" This is right and good - these are expressions of our profound joy, and the angels and saints in heaven join in the triumphant chorus!

It occurred to me, however, that Jesus' resurrection actually comes in well under the radar. Jesus appears and disappears. Even his disciples do not always recognize him when they encounter him. They begin to believe and understand what he said about rising from the dead, but they need his help to fully comprehend it. And it is still a few more weeks - at Pentecost - before they are confident enough to talk about it publicly.

Thus there is an emergent quality to the Easter story that is meaningful to me personally. My ongoing experiences of resurrection (along with those daily experiences of dying) tend not to be jubilant "ta-das" but more like glimpses of the Lord, brief, life-altering encounters with Jesus, glimmers of hope and a growing confidence in the truth of his life and words. 

The Easter season has come to me this year with a great gladness of heart! It has been a struggle to articulate my thoughts in this blog during Lent, but the effect has been to spend a lot more time in joyful contemplation of my faith. I thank those of you who have bothered to read my attempts, and hope you will continue to visit once in a while, as I intend to keep writing. The fasting of Lent is done, but the season of Easter has just begun!

Silent Saturday

Today is a welcome day of silence. The contrast with Good Friday is startling. 


Last night we went to a Tenebrae service (Latin for shadows or darkness). Through the liturgy we were able to imagine what it was like when the light of the world was quenched by the darkness. We came home with our hands scented by the oils of anointing and the sound of the earthquake (caused by everyone pounding on the pews) still echoing in our ears.


Good Friday is loud. It has shouting, whipping, hammering. Weeping and wailing. Crowds. Earthquake, curtain ripping, thunder. Even Jesus breathed his last with a loud cry (Mark 15:37).


What is it about Good Friday that makes all this noise? Well... it's the dying. 


Every day that I choose to follow Christ, I must take up my cross and die with him. But dying is difficult, traumatic. It is a struggle for me to die to my innate selfishness and self-centeredness. Lent helps! Even so, that process of my dying to self rarely happens without some drama and tumult, sometimes even, I must confess, a bit of shouting.


But after I have been shaken and tossed about comes a time of quiet, even some grief. But resting in the silence is good. And after each death I have hope that a new day, a new life will dawn.

Vexilla Regis (The Banners of the King)

The banners of the king go forth,

the mystery of the Cross shines out,

by which life suffered death

and by death produced life.

Fulfilled are those things which

David sang in his prophetic song,

saying to the nations:

God reigned from a tree.

Venantius Fortunatus (530-609)

What's So Good About It?

I imagine that people of other faiths, and even some Christians, wonder “what’s so good about Good Friday?” Certainly, Jesus' disciples did not call it good on that day, when they nearly all fled the scene and even Peter publicly denied him. Our Christian theology, however, explains that it is good because today Jesus made a perfect sacrifice of love on behalf of the whole world.

We call this day good now because we know that his death is not end of the story...resurrection was just a short time away. And we can call this day good because it gives us hope; because we have confidence, through this sacrifice of Jesus, that all our personal stories also will end with life, not death; with joy, not sorrow.

But...we still have to live through the sorrow, even as we have hope in the future. We still suffer, we still experience pain and loss and grief. The great paradox of our faith is that there is great joy even in the midst of suffering, pain, loss and grief. Time folds in on itself and we experience Good Friday and Easter Sunday all at once.

Two years ago I was thinking deeply about these things in regard to my sister Debbie and her brain injury. I thought I would share some of those thoughts again today.

"We rejoice with gratitude toward God at each sign of progress, at each little step toward full recovery. We want to go to the “happy place”, where Debbie is back to her old self, full of life and fun and energy. And I see no reason to think that won’t happen...

"Yet I also realize that it can be tempting to jump to the end of the journey, and forget about what it will cost Debbie to get there. All I have to do, however, is ask myself if there is any one of us who would be willing to trade places with Debbie or Manolo right now. Not me - I don’t want my world turned upside down, interrupted. I don’t want to lay helpless in a hospital bed, facing pain and people messing with me all the time and countless hours of work just to be able to take care of myself again. But this is Debbie’s path - and Manolo’s grief, too, bereft of his beloved for a while and watching her suffer. 

"And I know that many of you reading this have also been (and may be going) through suffering, of many various kinds: physical, emotional, spiritual. 

"That’s where the hope of Good Friday comes in: it tells us that our suffering, like Christ’s, is not in vain. It is not the end of the story. Neither is it simply a detour or something to be gotten over and forgotten. It changes us and those around us, and when we join it to Jesus’ suffering and let him use it for good it can even bring us a deep kind of unexplainable joy."

May God bless you all today as you experience the mystery of the Cross.

Beautiful Feet

I didn’t mean to get distracted (although I am all too easily distracted). But we ended up kneeling in the front row, and there they were, pair after pair.  Large, small. Shiny, scuffed. Narrow, wide. Costly, cheap. Cool and ... not so much. The shoes of the faithful, filing by on their way to receive communion.

The Holy Thursday liturgy is “Part One” of the three-part liturgy that concludes with the Easter Vigil on Saturday night. On the Thursday just before he was turned over to the authorities, the Lord Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and then gave them bread and wine, calling these his body and blood. He told them they should wash one another’s feet, and he instructed them to commemorate his body and blood in the same way he had just done.  Holy Thursday, therefore, celebrates the institution of Holy Communion and Holy Orders, and includes the washing of feet.

It seems odd, somehow, to have feet and communion commemorated in the same liturgy: the one (or two) so humble and lowly and the other so lofty, so exalted. It is exactly the contrast, however, that provides the meaning. 

Of all the parts of the body, feet are probably the least lovely. A few people have attractive feet, but mostly they are just... peculiar looking. Feet get used! They get rough, cracked, dirty, especially if we are wearing sandals. (And here’s a funny thought: we will shake hands with anyone, but we hardly let anyone touch our feet. Maybe because they can be dirty and smelly... somehow it just feels more personal.) 

Yet Scripture says that feet are beautiful!  “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!" (Isaiah 52:7).

On this Thursday night Jesus, Lord of the Universe, takes on the role of a servant and gets on his knees, humbly washing his disciples’ grubby feet. He knows what is coming (we heard him praying in the Garden). He knows that his disciples will all run away, right when he needs them most. Judas has already been paid for betraying him. Even Peter, despite claiming absolute fidelity, will pretend he doesn’t know him. Yet still Jesus loves them.

When Jesus is done, he tells his disciples that this is the example he wants them to follow: “If I therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow...” (Jn 13:14-15). 

Jesus used this night to demonstrate what he wanted and then to give his disciples their marching orders: follow my example, be a servant to each other, and always remember my body and blood! 

Through these actions Jesus has made his disciples the means of bringing the good news of salvation to the world. Jesus has given them beautiful feet.

Take the Slow Road to Easter

It’s almost embarrassing to share this, but I gave up a really great parking space yesterday. I drove into the ramp, which is always packed, and there it was, right on Level 2. It was kind of in a corner, though, and I had never parked there before. I pulled in, and then debated. Is this really a space? Why is it open? What if it’s not a legit spot? Will I get towed? In the end, I pulled out. In my rear view mirror I could see another car quickly take the spot I had vacated – gleefully, I imagine. I, on the other hand, had to drive up three more levels to find another spot. Oh, well, guess I made their day.

My husband never does this: the second-guessing, the worrying – at least not over parking spots. He approaches such things with a more easy gratitude, I suppose. I, on the other hand, am likely to be suspicious of anything that seems too good to be true. Or to think I do not deserve such good fortune.

I wonder sometimes if God gets frustrated with us for turning down his good gifts: grace, love, faith. They are abundant and free – and so we get a little wary. Perhaps we think: can this really be true? What’s the catch? I think in many ways we all need to learn to practice an easy, calm gratitude toward God, knowing that he is a loving father who wants to give us every good thing.

Yet the opposite can be true, too. How often do we simply take for granted that God will be generous and patient with us?  How often do we rush to resurrection, unwilling to experience death (to self)?

In this Lenten journey I have been slowed down, challenged, made aware of how frail I am. It has increased my understanding of God's great gift of salvation and deepened my awareness that I do not deserve it. I am unworthy; Christ gives his life for me anyway. What is my response to that?

Comprehending the nature of the gift, learning to fathom the price that Jesus paid, leads me to profound humility and gratitude. His road to the cross was not quick or easy. If  I rush to get to the celebration of Easter I might easily ignore or worse, take for granted the pain that preceded it - everything that made it possible for me to have joy.

There are three more days to Lent. Tomorrow is Holy Thursday, the day we celebrate Christ's institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Then Good Friday, a day of prayer and fasting as we join our sorrow and grief to Jesus' suffering, and honor the cross. And Saturday, the great silent pause where we imagine a world bereft of Christ's presence.

I highly recommend that everyone use these next few days to contemplate the passion of Christ and imagine what the world - and your world - would be like without him. It's not too late to take the slow road to Easter.

Jesus Had Options

I was talking with a friend the other day about how seldom it is that I ever have to do something I really don’t want to do. Call it one of the perks of being a grown-up. Even work – while maybe not always the first thing I would choose to do if I did not need the money – is still something I enjoy (mostly).

Not having to do something I don’t want to do is not the same as always doing what I want. As I said…I have to earn a living, even if I think it would be more fun to travel or even stay home and read books

For me, an unpleasant task might be hard physical labor –something in the yard that is just plain difficult and will get me all sweaty and dirty, but has to be done. Sometimes it is a work task – in that environment “unpleasant” generally means for me something truly tedious, such that I think my brain is going to implode. Or something that requires making a lot of phone calls, which I abhor.

Occasionally I can find a work-around: a labor-saver, or a labor “savior” (aka “husband”). Sometimes I calculate the cost of not doing the thing I really don’t want to do – will I get in trouble? Does it really matter? If I stall long enough, will the task go away?

But now and then something comes along that I really, truly must do and that I really, truly do not want to do. When this occurs I can feel my sense of futility and frustration build. Why do I have to do this? What good is it? Why can’t someone else do it? To be able to accept the task willingly and graciously and not make everyone else’s life miserable in consequence is a real challenge (and a test of whether I really am a grown-up).

To me, then, Jesus’ gracious willingness to accept the will of God and endure death by crucifixion is astonishing (“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done,” Luke 22:42). He only had to do it if God’s saving plan was to be fulfilled; the other option was to let us all die. (Do you ever wonder if he considered that option?)

I can imagine his internal debate: why do I have to do this? What good is it? Is there anyone else? And I’m not talking about dividing daylilies. Jesus went, full of love for us, to the most tortuous death invented by us. Personally, I cannot imagine it.

Holy Roller Coaster

Palm Sunday: the beginning of Holy Week. 

During this season two years ago our family was rocked by the news that my sister had a brain aneurysm and would need emergency surgery. She came through the surgery great, but then suffered bleeding in the brain and a secondary, stroke-like brain injury, which disabled her left side and left her speechless.

That was a really, really tough time. I started a CaringBridge journal so that friends and family could follow Debbie’s journey and pray with us. Recently I was thinking back to those entries and thought it would be appropriate to share the Palm Sunday entry today.

“I was thinking this morning that I have been trying to be fairly circumspect in this journal, so as not to send all of you on the roller coaster ride that we have been experiencing this last week: she's better, she’s worse, better, worse.... 

“But then it occurred to me that Holy Week itself is the ultimate roller coaster ride. One day Jesus is riding into Jerusalem to the praises of the people, the next he's throwing people out of the temple. The people are listening to him with delight while the authorities are trying to figure out how to get rid of him. A woman anoints his head with expensive perfume out of sheer love, and Judas leaves, offended, to betray him. 

“Up, down, up down. All parts of the journey are important to understand, important to experience.

“So I decided not to worry about smoothing out the ride for you all, but to just share what we know each day, our sorrow and worry one day, our joy the next; new fears and concerns, new hope and excitement - all as it comes. We trust you to weep with us when we weep, and to rejoice with us when we rejoice. And we all thank you, very much.”

Today my sister, after a long rehab, is walking, talking, and working full time. She has had an amazing recovery! She is a quieter version of her old self, but still the same Debbie I have known and loved my whole life.

I know a lot of people who are on a roller coaster ride right now: the bittersweet celebration of a loved one's life at a funeral; a cancer diagnosis and hope for treatment; the excitement of a new baby and the shock of his birth injuries. It is a season of mixed joy and grief for many. Sometimes the best thing we can do is just be there and go along for the ride. Weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice... often the same people.

It’s Holy Week. Hang on: it might get bumpy!

How to Be Hungry

Now for a little reflection on the title of my blog.

It is easy to generate physical hunger: all we have to do is not eat. But spiritual hunger seems different somehow. If we avoid all spiritual involvement, we do not become so much hungry as numb – and that’s not the same thing. Maybe we seek numbing because we are afraid to be hungry, so we satiate our innate longings with “junk food” replacements for real spiritual food. We keep our brains busy with TV, movies, Facebook, electronic games. We fill our lives up with activity (even worthwhile activity). We avoid silence. These things do not create in us a spiritual hunger. Rather, they do not allow that hunger to develop. But they do not satisfy, either – like the way an ice cream sundae takes away our appetite but does not satisfy our body’s nutritional needs.

Maybe there is a deep parallel between physical and spiritual hunger. Just as we have basic nutritional requirements that can be bypassed by lousy eating habits (thus we don’t experience hunger but our cells starve anyway), so also we have essential spiritual “nutritional” requirements that can be circumvented by mental and even physical distractions.

Earlier I talked about the value of a healthy hunger for food – of not being afraid of getting hungry, and to let the hunger itself work a greater good in us: unselfishness, patience. Does that apply to spiritual hunger as well?

I think it might. But what should I deny myself in order to experience this spiritual hunger? Surely not worship, or prayer. The most obvious answer is to give up the distractions: turn off the TV. But that alone cannot generate spiritual hunger; there must be something more.

When I got accustomed to eating whole grains, fresh fruits and greens, and reduced my reliance on sweet and salty non-nutritive foods, my taste buds changed. The things that once were appealing became less so, sometimes even disgusting. Perhaps there is a parallel here with deep, symbolically rich and nourishing forms of prayer and worship, such as the Liturgy of the Hours and the Mass. My experience with these has definitely made me less satisfied with superficial distractions. It is undoubtedly a good thing to increase our participation in both structured and unstructured forms of prayer and worship.

Ultimately I think the thing that increases our hunger the most, the thing that helps us to be hungry, is to spend time with Christ. Jesus is the wholesome, natural food that alone can nourish us. We must encounter him intimately at Mass, in the Word and in the Eucharist. We also need to meet Jesus in our own Scripture reading and walk with him in daily prayer. We need to see him in the people we come across every day. We need to hear and to read about him and how he has worked in the lives of others. We need to contemplate his life, his teachings and his Passion. We need to follow him by ministering to and advocating for the weak, the disenfranchised. We need to embrace the unfathomable mysteries of his life, death and resurrection.

Our search for Christ, the true bread of heaven, increases our desire. As he draws us closer we become more like him and at the same time recognize how unlike him we really are. It makes us hungry for more. It works in us virtues like humility and kindness. We want to be like him, to serve God and people, to realize the kingdom of heaven on earth.

So be hungry!

The Rule of the Positive

It is not unusual to get an email or run across a blog entry that is alarmist, negative, or even positively spiteful. I don't really have to point out that there is a strong current in American discourse - if it can even be called discourse - of "my way or the highway." And to me the most grievous kind of polarization is among Christians. Instead of "brothers and sisters in Christ" we call each other "liberals," "modernists," "conservatives" and even "heretics."

So one of the rules I have for this blog (and not even just because it is Lent) is to write as much as possible from a positive (and I don't mean optimistic) point of view. To say what things are, rather than what they are not. To be "for," not against. The result of my rule is that as I have edited each blog before posting, I have had to delete many statements that explain what it is I am not, what I am against, or what I do not believe.

The discipline of the positive has proved instructive for me; it definitely is much easier to critique than to explain. Normally, if I want to share an idea, I look for a way to contrast it with something else. Sometimes the idea comes because I hear or read something that I react to and I want to explore my thinking about it. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that. But sometimes I just want to blow other ways of thinking or doing things apart.

Sometimes, of course, the negative contrast is essential – from a conceptual point of view – for making a clear argument. But so much of what is on the Internet is the ranting of people against other points of view that I decided there was not much benefit in adding to that chorus.

This approach has led me often to ask myself, what am I for? What do I love, what is good and true and worthy of contemplation? Think on these things. Write about these things. That is what I am trying to do.

Endurance

Where am I?

That was my first thought upon waking this morning. It was not so much because I was still half asleep but because for the past three weeks I have not spent more than two nights in a row in my own bed. My normal weekly schedule already includes a couple of nights away from home, but add a couple of weekend (overnight) classes and a women’s weekend retreat and suddenly I’m not sure where I went to sleep.

So next week is Holy Week – already! Just about the time that Lent seems like old news, we switch into high gear. It gives me the impetus to get through to Easter.

I have had days recently when I struggled to remember exactly what my Lenten resolves were (did I give up sugar? Or was that last year? Wait – I never eat sugar anymore, that’s right). I caught the interest of people at work when they learned I gave up paper napkins and paper towels (the environmental angle was a new one for them), but then I declined the napkin and took the cupcake – oh, well.

My schedule probably has something to do with my general confusion. Since I am not sure which town I am sleeping in and whether right now I should be writing a thesis statement, preparing meeting handouts, or making a sympathy card, I probably shouldn’t be so surprised that I can’t quite remember which are my normal disciplines and which are temporary (although I plan to continue using cloth napkins at home – that’s been great).

The initial enthusiasm with which I embraced Lent has quieted down to more of an exercise in endurance… but that’s as it should be. I have a head cold starting too, which puts me in an even more subdued mood. But just a few more days and it will be Palm Sunday. Then we really can start to anticipate the light at the end of the tunnel: Easter! I’ll be so ready.

A Lesson in Living and Dying

Today a friend of mine died. We met because I am a hospice volunteer and she needed someone to help her with a photo-memory project. I spent quite a few hours by her side at the computer, helping to upload photos and enter text. She had originally wanted to make a family history video, but we soon discovered that it is not that easy. After family members proved to be challenging to record (her elderly father would only stare at the ceiling when he talked), and the video software crashed the computer multiple times, we switched to a photo project.

It has been lingering in the back of my mind that any day now I might get the phone call I just did. I learned about ten days ago that she was getting close to death. I did not see her nor did I expect to: she has a loving family and I knew they would surround her with their presence and their care during her final days.

My friend was a kind and brave lady, who faced her coming death with great strength. When her health started to fail several years ago she and her husband decided to go ahead and do many of the things they had always planned to do. They traveled, went to plays, visited craft fairs. Sometimes it was hard to schedule a visit because they were on the go a lot, even though every excursion exhausted her. She laughed easily and was very generous and thoughtful – even her photo project was a gift to her children and grandchildren, to record the unique circumstances of her life and help them to know their own history. She was 67.

She and I had a number of conversations about faith. We went to different churches but shared the same love for God and devotion to Christ. I did not get to share this Lenten blog with her, although I think she would have enjoyed reading it. But there is nothing I could have taught her about suffering or patience or trust in God. She was and always will be an example to me of how to live and die with grace.

Going the Distance...Together

I am from a good-sized family: three older sisters and two younger brothers. One brother is about a year younger, the other about six years (I like to call him my “baby brudder,” especially to his kids, which of course doesn't make much sense to them since we both are "old").

Being close in age, my first brother and I played together quite a bit. We used to wrestle and argue a lot, too. Sometimes we would fight just because we were bored. And – back then – it was more fun to fight than to talk it out. (About the time he reached puberty and suddenly got stronger than me I  decided it was safer to negotiate.)

My other, youngest brother has three sons. Two of them are close in age, and they fight a lot. I know my nephews love each other, because they also play together all the time. But it also was not unusual to come into the house and hear their raised voices (and at an ear-piercing pitch, since their voices haven't changed yet). If they are really going at it, one of them will eventually get frustrated and then the other gets hurt.

The other day it was calm and quiet my sister-in-law told me that the boys had given up fighting for Lent. How awesome is that? I think it’s pretty good evidence of their growing maturity. One of things I love about their choice for a sacrifice is that it is so clearly relational and positive. It also requires them to practice self-control.

Paul (the youngest boy) will be making his First Communion in May this year, and I have learned that he has been asking some great questions and thinking some deep thoughts. In a quiet moment that evening I told him how impressed I was that they chose to give up fighting for Lent, and then asked him how it was going. “Not so good,” he said. But even that is cool – he is able to reflect on his own actions and make a determination of progress. I said I was really proud of them for taking it on. It actually deepened my own resolve to keep my Lenten commitments.

We are on this Lenten journey together, adults and children, as family and as community. That means we can inspire, support and encourage each other to go the distance.

At the Hands of Others

I love the crucifix, the visible reminder of all that Christ suffered on our behalf. Artists have rendered this image in many different ways, from the very abstract to the terribly realistic. It is the awful, ugly image of the truest, most beautiful love.

Crucifix by Janis Joplin

Contemplating Christ on the crucifix this morning I thought about all he suffered on the cross, and how that is different from what he suffered in the wilderness – the 40 days of fasting and prayer. Fasting, prayers, works of charity create a kind of suffering: self-imposed disciplines that humble us, help us realize our physical weakness and turn our attention toward God. But the cross is all about suffering at the hands of others.

We have all suffered at the hands of others, although it is a stretch to call some of it suffering. People inconvenience us, annoy us, are rude to us, cut us off in traffic! The daily indignities of our encounters with others provide lots of little opportunities for grace, both the grace that God gives to navigate the human landscape (so we do not get annoyed or upset) and the grace we give to others when they trip us up (so we do not react in kind).

But some people have truly suffered through the actions of other people: they are abused, threatened, neglected, wounded, starved, killed. What do we do with that? What do we do when we are the ones at the receiving end of cruelty, arrogance, brutality, or spite? What do we say to people we know who have been through physical or sexual abuse?

I do not have the perfect answers for those questions. But I think that the crucifix gives us some clues. The crucifix reminds us that Jesus knows. Jesus knows not only what it is like to experience pain (and hunger and sorrow), but to have that pain come at the hands of others. He knows the shame of being at the mercy of someone else’s actions, of having his body mistreated, his wishes ignored, his dignity annihilated.

Jesus does not run from us when we become victims of someone else’s actions, as sometimes others do. Jesus is fully present with us no matter what our life experiences are, and fully aware of what those experiences cost us in terms of joy and freedom.

But there’s more! God takes Christ’s willingness to accept death at the hands of sinful humanity and uses that to save the world. Resurrection follows death.

Since Jesus redefines the meaning of suffering, through his death and with his loving, living presence our painful experiences also can be transformed. Any suffering we have been through can become a precious gift we bring to God, which he can use to save the world.

It is a profound mystery to me that God can look on the ugliness of human actions and transform not the action but the effect into something meaningful, beautiful, and useful. That, to me, is the paradox and promise of the cross.

Breathe...

We have just begun the fourth week of Lent – halfway through, basically. This is the time to take a deep breath, and remember what this is all about: taking a journey with Christ, becoming more transformed into his likeness, emptying myself and being filled with his Word, his presence, his people. Loving better. Being hungry.

I had a very busy weekend, gone most of the time. I need quiet alone time and reflection to renew and refresh myself, and I did not get much of that. On Saturday I also became discouraged, mostly because I got tired. And then this morning I had to walk four blocks in the wind and cold snow/sleet/rain from my car to the office (I don't mind the walk, it was the weather that was hard to take). 

But the GOOD news is that I did not take any of my tiredness or discouragement out on loving hubby (I even made oatmeal-raisin cookies for him at 9 p.m. last night and threw in the dark chocolate-covered ginger bits I bought at the coffee shop – all of them!). And I didn’t vent my frustration on anyone at work. So I may not have made anyone’s day brighter today, but at least I don’t think I made it any gloomier. 

I call that progress!

Loving Clare

In these long weeks of Lent (and beyond), sometimes loving better is just about loving who is in right front of you. 

Most of my days I am surrounded by adults, but I love being around children. Lately I have been enjoying a growing closeness with my 5-year old niece Clare. When I visit her home Clare presumes that I have come to visit her exclusively. We read books, play games, color. "Tell me a story," she will demand, "a scary story!" I don't like scary stories. "Tell me a funny one!" I'm not sure I can think of a funny one (note to self: go to the library and learn some funny stories). "Okay, any story," she'll finally concede. After a few exchanges like this she now says, "Tell me a story, it doesn't have to be scary." 

 

Some children are naturally affectionate and demonstrative, generous with their attentions, but Clare is not one of those. Her physical displays of affection come at surprising moments and can never be demanded. However, she does have one weakness that tends to work in my favor: she gets jealous.

 

It has happened on occasion that friends of the family will be visiting my brother, and I will (as I tend to do) strike up a friendship with a wee one, who ends up on my lap. And at those times I enjoy an unusual level of attention from Clare. This jealousy is especially acute when the competitor is another little girl, as it was just this last week.

 

Sarah, a friendly four-year old, attached herself to me. She instructed me to scratch her back. (Does it itch? I asked. "Yes, I'm sensitive" she said. Her mom translated: she is sensitve to certain foods and it makes her skin itch.) We sat quite content together on the couch for a while, until Clare discovered it and tried to climb between us (my lap belongs to her, thank-you-very-much). My brother rescued us and cuddled Clare for a while until it was time for Sarah and her mom to go home. Then I crooked my little finger at Clare and she actually left her daddy's lap to snuggle with auntie. Oh, my heart!

 

After a few minutes of a back scratch, she decided she wanted a foot massage (how do five-year olds know about foot massages?). So she pulled off her socks and put her stinky, grubby feet in my lap - and I massaged them. It was not the most pleasant thing I have ever done, but it was my pleasure all the same - to be commanded and to obey, all for love.